LuRe Reverse Big Bang Fic--Starship Engager
Epilogue
Stardate June 12, 1992
Human bonding rituals often involve a great deal of talking and dancing and crying.
--Worf
I write this from a room at the top of the historic Hotel Oregon in McMinville, Oregon. I look out the window and see the gentle rolling hills to the south, deep green, some braided purple and brown with grape vines. Oregon wine country. In the streets below, people in alien costumes are dancing and laughing, drinking wine, eating hamburgers and ice cream. The late spring skies are soft violet, washed in clouds. Music floats up, rising like incense, and happy voices sing along.
Next to me, the bed is piled with pillows-Reid’s collection, his fortress. On the nightstand, two half-empty glasses of sparkling cider sit next to our tickets to the UFO Festival. Our official video contest entry number is a bookmark wedged in the middle of Reid’s “The Brain: The Whole Enchilada” book. An electric typewriter sits at the desk across the room, a sheaf of paper in the roller-white and clean, waiting for my words to strike.
I hear the shower water running and look over to the bathroom door--slightly ajar-an edge of soft yellow light. I touch my finger to Reid’s glass and then look down at my hand, the silver ring on my finger-an infinity symbol etched with “I love you”---and I smile. I hear the words being said soft to my ear in the drift of sleep, and I hear them crackling over the speakers of a walkie talkie, spoken in a shy, teenage voice from years ago, and I hear them clear and strong from yesterday’s ceremony-strong, certain words: “I love you” woven into the vows spoken in the vineyard with the warm, sweet wind blowing through, our hands clasped, our eyes never leaving one another.
You are too beautiful to ignore.
Each kiss is as the first
.
We quoted Star Trek and wore our Star Trek uniforms. Noah was best man, also in uniform, his hair oiled to a deep shine, his back straight, his face serious, but gentle-proud. My mother was there, and Damian-my dad. They stood side-by-side, hand-in-hand, smiling softly. Angus stood quietly in his mustard-gold tuxedo and ruffled shirt, his hands clasped respectfully at his waist. He blinked rapidly as Reid and I walked up the grassy aisle, arm-in-arm, to stand at the gazebo overlooking the vineyards. When we exchanged rings, I could see Angus duck his head down and wipe quickly at his eyes, smiling with trembling lips.
Grandmother Lucinda flew in from Florida. She wore a flowing floral dress and large sunglasses, and carried a cigarette stem holder between her fingers. She drank half a bottle of wine and went around hugging and kissing everyone within sight.
Before the ceremony, she had pulled me aside and whispered in my ear her secret of how she had brought Reid back to me those years ago. “It was you?” I laughed in surprise.
“And Damian, darling. We worked as a team. What? Don’t look so shocked, darling. We trailer trash women are tough. We have our means, let me assure you. The details are mere trifles. All that matters is that you are together, and in love, and everything glorious and splendid and just as it was meant to be. Yes it is, my darling.” She kissed me on both cheeks and shook her body in a victory dance, and then grabbed a wine glass off of a passing tray, lifting the glass to the sky with a smile before swallowing it down. “Congratulations, darling.”
When the ceremony came to a close-“I now pronounce you husbands to each other”---
we kissed softly and embraced as dozens of silver balloons were released in the sky. We sliced our Star Trek Enterprise wedding cake, licked the frosting off our fingers, made toasts with sparkling cider, and danced close and warm underneath a canopy of white lights. We made love in our soft hotel bed until the sky was pink with dawn, and our lips and cheeks were pink with the rush of our unending passion.
I know there is no place in this country that will recognise our union as legal or official. But that does not matter to me, because I will not place too much value in a system that chooses to selectively recognise expressions of love and devotion-sanctioning it only for the human population deemed to be “normal.” I will place value in the people who have made this official for us-the people who love us and respect us---who allow us our humanity and uphold it with dignity in the face of prejudice. That is the system I believe in, the one held together and guided by love.
The shower water stops, and I hear the shower curtain rings sliding noisily across the metal bar. I stand up and walk to the bathroom, peering in, calling Reid’s name softly. He looks over, a white towel wrapped around his waist, his skin and hair dripping, his eyelashes soaked dark brown. When he sees me, he reaches for my hand and pulls me inside the steam-warm bathroom. He kisses me long and sensuously. “Husband,” he whispers, and his towel drops quietly to the ground.
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Click to viewA poem I found on the inside of one of the many life-saving dark chocolate bars I ate whilst writing this story.......
Love (III)
by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked any thing.
"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my treat."
So I did sit and eat.
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