by Nikki Bella
She didn’t answer. She shifted on the couch, trying to dive into a book. Her eyes weren’t moving across the page. She looked a million miles away.
I sat beside her, wishing I could comfort her somehow. To tell her everything was going to be all right. I placed my large hand on her slim thigh, feeling the softness of the skin. She twitched slightly, like a rabbit, but didn’t force me to move my hand away.
“Do you want to go somewhere?” I asked. The words surprised me. “You know. Somewhere we can talk?”
“Where would we go?” Her words were soft.
“To dinner, maybe?” I realized my stomach was completely empty, feeling like a gaping hole in my body. I skipped lunch.
“With Gigi?” she asked.
“Just the two of us,” I returned. “So we can talk about tomorrow. Or not talk about tomorrow, for the first time all day. Whatever you want.”
She smirked slightly, glancing at Gigi in the corner. “I’m the only babysitter she has.”
“I know a few people.” I dialed my private driver’s twenty-something year old daughter, who had babysat for me often before Margot had been around. She agreed to the job, saying she could be there in forty-five minutes. With a shrug, I stood and said, “It’s taken care of. Get dressed. We’re going somewhere fancy.”
Margot gave no indication that she was excited, that she wanted to be out with me. Dressed in a stunning red dress, one that brought out the new tan she’d gotten from a long day spent at the palace gardens with Gigi, she walked beside me, clinging to her purse. I spoke grandly, filling the space between us and hoping that, eventually, she’d find the words to join me.
“I assume you’ll like the caterer,” I was saying. “He’s this remarkable guy, grew up in Italy before going to New York. As you know, everyone ends up in New York at some point. He said he learned all he could there before coming to Paris and unlearning almost all of it. He said that Parisian kitchens are a strange mix of heaven and hell. He can’t see his way out of it. How could it be better? How could it be worse?”
She laughed lightly, giving me her first smile of the day. I turned her left, down a small alleyway, and bounded us directly into the new restaurant. The maître d’ recognized me right away, bowing his head and taking my hand.
“Monsieur,” he said, his voice soft and lilting. “I will clear a table for you and yours immediately.”
Margot turned her head, hating to see “lesser” people knocked from their table for us. I’d grown accustomed to it, forcing myself not to give it too much thought. But Margot bit her lip, wishing it would stop. I was sure, in this moment, she would call the whole wedding thing off.
“Right this way.”
We followed the maître d’ back into the depths of the restaurant, to a single, circular table, lit with a candle. We sat across from each other, not speaking, while the maître d’ poured us two glasses of wine, recommending various dishes on the menu. Never one to be impolite, Margot thanked him for everything—in French. “Merci pour tout,” she whispered.
“You’re really coming into your French,” I told her, feeling suddenly anxious. How could I make things right between us? “And Gigi, I mean, she’s almost natural at this point.”
She brightened at the mention of Gigi. “I’d do anything to be a kid, living in Paris,” she said. “She lives the most magical life.”
“You can live it with her. After the wedding, if you want, you can hire another nanny to help out. You can take classes in French, art, whatever you want. You can dig into this city, too,” I said, promising her the world.
“I think I’d miss the long days with Gigi,” Margot said.
My heart hammered. Had anyone ever been so thoughtful?
The cheese platter came, with five variations: blue, goat, soft and hard, along with another we couldn’t quite place. A strange mix between soft and hard, which became gooey and delightful in your mouth.
“When I was growing up, all we cared to eat was string cheese,” she laughed, layering a bit of cheese over some bread. “I’ve really forgotten my roots.”
“Did you tell your parents about the wedding?” I asked her.
“They’ll see it in the tabloids, I guess,” she said, after a pause. “I don’t need them there. As far as I’m concerned, they’re a million lifetimes away from me. Although I do sometimes miss them. Miss my old self. I gave up on her so quickly.”
She trailed off, blinking her wide, brown eyes. Feeling endeared, I brought my hand across the table and held onto her small wrist. She didn’t move away.
“I remember feeling I lost myself, too,” I told her. “Right after becoming famous, I fell into the party life. I started dating famous people. I had people following me around with cameras.”
“Did you ever get your old self back?” she asked.
Nobody had ever asked me this before. I turned my eyes skyward, tracing the past fifteen years of my life. Although I still had friends from “before,” they’d grown up with me—with Marcus equaling my arrogance, and my money-flow.
“I don’t really know,” I answered honestly.
Just as she had at the bar, Margot seemed to pulsate with fear. She drank quickly, probably forcing herself to feel comfortable. Within the hour, she was giggling at my jokes again, although she ate sparingly. She complained of an upset stomach. Of not feeling like herself.
After dinner, she turned toward the house. I gestured to the river, saying, “Why not take a night walk? We have the babysitter for another hour or two.”
Margot hesitated, trying to read my face. She strung her arm through mine, nodding slowly. “All right. If you really think…”
When we reached the river, we were perfectly in stride, working as one. With a jolt of my heart, I told myself that I couldn’t have picked a better life partner. Even if we weren’t in love. Even if love was besides the point.
Notre Dame was brightly lit, reflecting into the water below. Lovers sat outside it, their legs extended over the water and their laughter echoing against the high stone walls above the Seine. We sat with them, our shoes wavering over the top just the same. We allowed silence to fall. I took her hand, fearful, for a brief moment, that she would fall in. I didn’t know why.
“I just always imagined my wedding to be something special,” she finally said, her voice far away.
I didn’t speak for a long time. Clenching her hand, I gave her a long nod. “What did you imagine it to be?”
“I wanted love,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to marry anyone unless I loved them. Unless he was my first. Of course, the dress, the cake, the guests—that was all involved, as well. Although I’m sure I imagined it in some backyard in Michigan, somewhere.”
In the moonlight, Margot was one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen. Her brown hair hung in curls around her thin face. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight. They ached with their desire for love.
Why couldn’t I give it to her?
I so wanted to. In that moment, I wanted to give her the world. After a long pause, I pushed forward and caught her lower lip. I kissed her, long and slow and deep. I felt the pleasure of it murmuring in my stomach, my groin. My cock pressed up against my pant leg, growing insistent. Reminding me that, all along, I’d wanted to take Margot home with me. I’d wanted to take her so that she forgot her own name, and forget about
the complications.
She responded. She kissed me with unquestioned joy. Her eyes were closed. Her tongue traced mine, raced over my teeth. She wanted to swallow me whole, I could feel it. Wrapping my arms around her, I brought her closer to me, inhaling the flowery scent of her hair, moving my lips past her cheeks, her ear, down her neck and toward the soft skin of her upper chest. She moaned, telling me that this was right. This was what she wanted. How could she refuse me?
Minutes ticked on. We were just kids, making out in front of the cathedral—wanting the other more than we could say out loud. Stopping for a brief moment, gasping for
air, I gazed into her eyes, wanting nothing more than to strip her down, to see her for the first time. To touch her in spots nobody else had touched. I stood, helping her up with me, and hailed the first cab I could. We didn’t speak. Our bodies were purposeful, gearing up for our night together.
In the back of the cab, she held onto me, kissing my cheek, my neck, inhaling me. She was no longer virginal in my eyes. We’d been through too much.
Upstairs, in the apartment, I paid the babysitter. Gigi’s bedroom door was closed, the light was off. She was sound asleep. I turned to Margot, my heart ramming in my chest, and brought my hands to her dress. I undid the zipper at the back purposefully, easing all the way down to her thighs. The dress fell open, revealing her gleaming skin below. Her belly was flat, with a bit of muscle tone. Her breasts were round and milky and smooth beneath a lace bra. She blushed as I looked over her, taking her in. Then, she shrugged the dress to the ground and stood in just her underwear, waiting.
She was giving herself to me.
I brought my hands to her shoulders and kissed her slowly while she gave into my touch. Her back arched. I unhooked the bra, letting it fall and feeling her nipples thrust out against me. In response, she began to unbutton my shirt. She had no skill, had clearly never undressed another man before. She fumbled, but I let her do it—slowly, learning, finding her way. She revealed my muscled chest below, the dark curly hair, and brought her hands over it hungrily. She looked like she wanted to memorize my every line. After a pause, she stripped the shirt from my shoulders. We stood one foot apart, our torsos completely naked, our groins crying out for one another. I thought, for a moment, that I should ask her. Was this what she really wanted? Was this okay? But I held my tongue, wanting to let our bodies do the talking.
Lifting her, I brought her tenderly onto the counter. Above, a light rain had begun to patter on the slanted roof windows, bringing music to our lovemaking. As I kissed her neck, then her chest, then her torso, I brought her underwear down her thighs, tossing it to the ground. I looked at her, really looked at her, and spread her legs wide to see her perfect, peach lips between. They glistened as she grew wet. Her eyes were round, orb-like, inhaling me. She wasn’t sure what I was going to do next.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered.
I brought my hand between her legs, rubbing at the top, finding the nub of her clit. It was wet, soft and swollen, and I swept my fingers up and down it, finding a rhythm. She closed her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and her lips grew lax and parted.
She was completely at my mercy now.
She wasn’t sure what to do with me, in response. She shoved my boxers down from my cock, revealing it in its total, immense girth. It was thick and veiny, with a bit of cum already lining the tip. She gaped at it, then reached up, touching it. Following some kind of instinct, she began to give me a hand job, easing up and down with a tender motion. It was so sweet, so smooth, so slow, it nearly drove me wild.
“A bit faster,” I told her, whispering into her ear. “Mmm. Yes.”
She followed my lead, gliding up and down my cock and feeling at the balls beneath with her other hand. I continued to trace her clit and the wet darkness between. I inhaled her breasts, kissing the nipples and striding over them with my tongue.
I wasn’t sure she could handle me. She was so small and frightened. But she gazed up at me and nodded, exactly once, telling me what she needed. With a small thrust, I pushed my cock against the wet slit between her thighs. Slowly, inch by inch, I pushed inside her, gliding my cock against the softness within. My brain went absolutely wild. And she, unable to compare this feeling to anything else, let out a cry of pleasure and of pain.
Holding onto her perfect ass, I fucked her on top of the counter, starting slow and easy and then pushing her hard. She clung to my shoulders, kissing the muscles and crying out in shock and alarm. She didn’t want me to stop. She told me not to stop. Hell, I don’t think she could have let me stop if she wanted to. With our bodies thrusting into one another, we were one unit, exhausted and sweating and gasping. My brain had taken on a life of its own, doing anything my cock wanted. I bent her over further, allowing me to penetrate deeper. She could hardly handle it.
After a while, I lifted her into my arms. Keeping my cock inside her perfect slit, I carried her into my bedroom and lay beside her on the bed. As I fucked her slower, easing in and out, I lifted myself up higher and placed my finger against her clit and focused on bringing her to orgasm. She began to moan. Her fingernails dug into my flesh, and then I could feel her muscles pulsing deep within her, against my cock. And soon, I was thrust into an orgasm as well—cumming deep against the softness of her G-spot, falling into wave after wave of pleasure.
We lay, gasping, in one another’s arms in the minutes after. She blinked at me, confused, as if she’d never seen me before in her life. I knew I’d taken her virginity. I didn’t want to spoil this hour with talk. So we cuddled close beneath the sheets, unable to read each other’s thoughts. And soon, I found myself falling into a deep, wonderful sleep.
Margot
I couldn’t sleep. Not after that. Not after he’d all-but destroyed me, fucking me empty on the countertop and then making me cum wonderfully in bed, like falling from a cloud and then into a flowery field below. As he fell into deep slumber I lay, wide awake, thinking. I’d just given Jack Garrington my virginity, but what did it mean? Did it mean that we would be in love, when we married each other the next day? Did it mean that we would do this kind of stuff all the time? Would he be faithful to me, despite our “sham” marriage?
I had so many questions. But I didn’t have any time to answer them.
I watched his face as he slept. I’d never seen him so relaxed, so completely at ease. His dark lips were separated slightly, and the moonlight glinted off his perfect teeth. The way he smelled—of sex, of cologne, of me—made my heart beat wildly in my chest.
Finally, at around five-thirty in the morning, I drifted off to sleep. In what felt like a moment, my eyes were open again. I heard clatter in the main apartment. The space beside me, where Jack had been sleeping, was void and empty, the sheets stripped back. Glancing at the clock, I realized it was already ten in the morning, on my wedding day.
There was so much to do.
Gliding from bed, I walked naked to the closet, donning a t-shirt and a pair of Jack’s exercise shorts. I could hear Jack laughing with someone, both of them creating deep belly laughs. I couldn’t place who it was. Probably another celebrity. Another billionaire, I thought.
Despite feeling such love for Jack only hours before, I now felt strange and dirty. As I crept into the living room, finding him beside a man who reeked of Wall Street and expensive suits and New York money, I felt my heart sink. Had I really given him my virginity, the night before my wedding?
“There she is,” the other man said. He clapped his hands and approached me, shaking mine and then kissing me on the cheek. “We’ve been waiting for the bride to wake up. I’m Marcus. I’m the best man.”
“Marcus. Hi,” I said, shivering. I gestured at my clothes. “Sorry I’m in such a state of disarray. All the stress from the wedding…”
“Sure,” he said. “You guys are really pulling something off here. Impressive.”
“Yeah.” I trailed off, glancing toward Gigi’s bedroom. She probably hadn’t been fed. I walked to the cabinet, pouring her a bowl of cereal and adding just the right amount of milk. “I better check on Gigi. Excuse me…”
They watched me go, and I heard them whispering after me.
Gigi was sitting upright in bed, playing with her dolls. Her face was bright, with rosy cheeks, making her look like a magazine ad. I placed the cereal on her side table and clicked the door shut, relieved to be away from the men.
“Who’s outside? Is it Marcus?” she asked.
“It sure is.”
“When are they leaving?”
“I don’t know.” I leaned toward her, kis
sing the top of her head. In these moments of panic, I needed some kind of relief. Even if it was from Gigi. “You know me and your daddy are getting married, right?”
“Sure,” she said. She dropped her dolls to her side, clinging to them. She counted them as her children, keeping them close.
“But really, Gigi, you’re my number one girl. I want you to promise me, while we live together, that we’ll keep an eye out for each other. That we’ll always be there for each other. No matter what,” I said.
“Okay,” Gigi answered, her voice child-like and far away. “But what do you mean?”
The rap on the door came fast and quick. Jack called in. “Girls. The wedding’s at six tonight, and the guests are already arriving. I think the two of you should head over to the main church by two or three? I have a driver delivering your dresses.”
The machine was running, fast and quick. Jack was at the wheel. “Sounds good!” I cried, my voice sounding false.
“This is going to be the longest day ever,” Gigi sighed, crashing back into her sheets.
I had to agree.
As more wedding guests arrived, Gigi and I escaped the apartment, walking by the Seine and grabbing a quick bite at a café. She inhaled her croissant and jam, speaking in a beautiful mix of French and English and expecting me to keep up. But I was lost in a maze of my own thoughts. Occasionally, I had a stab of memory from the night before. How he’d looked at me. How he’d bit my lip hungrily. How he’d pushed his cock inside the darkness between my thighs, gazing into my eyes.
God. It was almost too much to think about. Sex. I’d had sex for the first time in my life.
Would it ever happen for me again?
We reached the church, deep inside the chaotic and beautiful Marais district, at three. A woman who spoke lilting, incomprehensible French led Gigi and I into a back room. My dress—all diamonds and glitter—was draped in the corner, while a smaller dress, in similar fashion, was hung beside it. Gigi touched it tentatively, as if it were a piece of jewelry. She giggled at my massive dress. “Are you really supposed to wear that?”
