The Wedding Night I Spent With Everyone Except Him
My name is Marina, and I’m going to tell you something I’ve never confessed to anyone. I got married on October 11th at an estate outside Murcia, under a clear sky with two hundred guests smiling. Adrián, my husband, is a good man. He loves me, he makes good money, he’s never raised his voice at me. But we’d been together six years, and if I’m honest, it had been a long time since I’d climaxed with him. I tried. I closed my eyes and thought of other men while he moved slowly on top of me, convinced he was making me happy.
For months I organized every detail of that wedding. The catering, the flowers, the playlist. And while I did, somewhere in the back of my head I was also organizing something else that didn’t appear on any plan Adrián could see.
The night before the ceremony I locked myself away in the hotel suite. I didn’t go down to the welcome dinner. I said I had a migraine, that I needed to rest, that I wanted to be perfect for the next day. What I really did was lie down on that huge bed and pleasure myself for nearly an hour, imagining in every detail what I planned to let happen. When I finished, I put the white lace underwear back in the drawer, still damp, like someone leaving a clue only she would understand.
The next day I dressed as a bride wearing that same lingerie. No bra under the fitted corset, the fabric brushing my skin with every breath. I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t see a woman about to vow fidelity. I saw someone who had already decided to break the promise before speaking it.
At the ceremony, when I said “I do,” my voice came out steady. Adrián had tears in his eyes. I, beneath the dress, felt my heart pounding in places it shouldn’t have been. Out of the corner of my eye I looked toward the front rows. There were Adrián’s friends, a group of men he’d grown up with and who had looked at me more than once at every birthday, every barbecue, every match. There was Hugo, his older brother. There was Tomás, my brother-in-law, married to Adrián’s sister. And, without anyone knowing it, they were all already part of a plan only I knew in full.
***
The banquet was long and hot. I danced with half the world. With Hugo, he pressed me so close during a slow song that I felt his whole body against mine.
—You look incredible, sister-in-law —he whispered in my ear, his voice a little hoarse—. That dress is begging for someone to take it off you.
I didn’t pull away. I held his gaze a second too long, and in that second we both understood the same thing.
Later, during dessert, Tomás sat down beside me. Under the tablecloth, his hand found my knee and slowly, centimeter by centimeter, climbed higher, to where no one could see. Adrián was three chairs away, laughing with his parents at some childhood anecdote. I pressed my lips together, dug my nails into the napkin, and let Tomás keep going. I came in silence, with a perfect bride’s smile on my face, while they toasted my happiness.
Near midnight, Adrián was done in. Too much wine, too many emotions, too many hours on his feet.
—Go up to the suite —I said, caressing his face—. I’ll stay and say goodbye to the rest and come up right away.
He believed me. Of course he believed me. He went upstairs staggering, blew me a kiss from the elevator, and disappeared.
I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I went to another room, a huge suite on the other side of the hotel that the group had reserved “in case the party went long.” When I got there, they were already inside. Nine men. Adrián’s friends and my brother-in-law Tomás. Waiting for me.
***
I locked the door and, before I could say a word, hands were already everywhere. Someone pulled down the zipper of my dress. The fabric dropped to the floor and I left it there, like a skin that no longer served me. I was left in only the garter belt, stockings, and heels, and the whole room fell silent for a moment, staring at me.
—Fuck —murmured Hugo, coming closer—. I’ve been imagining this since the day my brother introduced us.
He kissed my neck, then my collarbone, then kept going lower. Tomás positioned himself behind me and held me by the waist. I felt his breath on the back of my neck and, lower down, the proof of how long he had been waiting for that moment.
What came after that I don’t remember in order. I remember it in waves. I remember kneeling in the middle of the room, surrounded, and giving myself to them all at once without holding anything back. I remember hands tangling in my newly styled bridal hair, undoing it. I remember the taste, the heat, the weight of nine men who had spent years imagining exactly this and now had it.
They took me to the bed. Hugo was the first to lay me down and spread my legs, and the difference from Adrián was so brutal that a cry escaped me and I had to smother it against Tomás’s shoulder. At last someone was fucking me the way I needed to be fucked: without fear, without asking permission, without treating me like I was made of glass.
They changed my position again and again. On all fours, with one behind and two in front. Sitting astride one while another grabbed my hair. On my side, one leg lifted, three men taking turns without giving me any relief. Against the back wall, in the air, held up by arms that wouldn’t let me fall. I lost count of how many times I came. Each orgasm left me emptier and more awake at the same time.
—Say you’re ours —someone ordered me, and I said it.
—The bride belongs to everyone tonight —said another, and I didn’t deny it.
I screamed names that weren’t my husband’s. I screamed things I had never dared to say out loud in six years of marriage. In that room I stopped being the perfect wife in the white dress and became, for a few hours, exactly what I had always wanted to be without permission.
***
It was close to seven in the morning when I came out of there. The hotel corridor was silent, with that gray light before dawn coming in through the windows. I walked barefoot, my heels in my hand and my wedding dress bundled under my arm. I smelled of sweat, of spent perfume, of everything I had done.
I went into the bridal suite without making a sound. Adrián was still asleep, on his back, breathing calmly like someone who believes his world is intact. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water wash the entire night away. I looked at the marks on my skin, my swollen lips, my tired eyes, and for a moment I felt something like guilt. Just for a moment.
I got out, dried off, and climbed naked into bed beside my husband. I stroked his back until he stirred and opened his eyes.
—Good morning, Mrs. —he murmured with a smile, still half asleep—. Did you have a good time last night?
—The best day of my life —I answered.
And I wasn’t entirely lying. I climbed on top of him slowly, kissed him the way a woman in love kisses, and let him make love to me the way he always did: tenderly, calmly, suspecting nothing. I closed my eyes and, as so many other times, thought of other men. Only this time I didn’t have to imagine them. This time I knew exactly how they sounded, how they smelled, how they felt.
I came thinking of them, moaning their name, his name, the right one. Adrián held me afterward and told me I was the most sincere woman he knew. I rested my head on his chest and looked at the ceiling, knowing this wasn’t going to end in a single night. That I could never be satisfied with less ever again. That this, really, had only just begun.
