shawna v

2016

 Metropolitan Community Church of Las Vegas

 Las Vegas, Nevada

 -1-

Luce Grace in a 3-piece suit should be illegal.

Haley laughs at the first thought that comes to him as he walks towards his very much soon-to-be husband.

He listens as the reverend goes through the ceremony, sensing Nova already growing impatient and twisting in his seat in the front pew next to Haley's sister.  He hears a persistent soft cry to his left and is shocked to catch a glimpse of Sara Grace bawling into Jean’s shoulder. 

Haley recalls what Sara said about being told her son was incapable of love. And now he was crying. After several failed attempts at sucking his tears own back up, Minnow teeters up from her seat, seemingly from out of nowhere, to give him a tissue.

The reverend recites the traditional vows and Haley says “I do.” He holds out his finger for the gold wedding band that Luce carefully slips on. The bigness of it all  hits him in a daze.

He’s broken out of his sudden realization by the sound of Luce's gravelly voice.

Haley refocuses, hoping he hadn’t missed his cue.  But Luce isn’t holding out his hand for his ring. He’s talking.

To him.

“Lex, I know we said we weren’t going to write vows,” Luce says. “But I’ve been thinking all night and I’d like to do this.”

Haley nods, totally in shock. That sentence alone was probably more words than he'd ever heard Luce speak in a crowd. Luce turns slightly to the audience of their friends and family and his voice comes out shaky.

“As you all kn-kn-know...this wedding was supposed to happen yesterday but I…I was um, having a bad day. And... within an hour Lex had it all moved to today. I feel shitty about that but Alex just...went with it. That’s the kind of person he is.”

Haley wanted to clarify that having a bad day meant Luce was in so much pain he’d maxed out on painkillers by the afternoon and couldn't get out of bed.

His freshly blown out hair always looked better the second day anyway.

“I’m not good at being emotional  but today…Alex. I want to make sure you know how much I love you. You are…such a beautiful soul. Life hasn’t always been fair for you and you’ve somehow come out the other side with the biggest heart…You stood by my side and showed me more love than I deserve.  You make me so happy. I love you so much. You’re my first and only. And also my forever

I promise to have and hold…to love and cherish you. Nova...I love you. I promise to  be the best father I can be. To keep you both close to my heart forever.”

Haley slips Luce’s father's wedding band on his finger..

“With the power vested in me I know pronounce you husband and husband. You may now kiss your groom.”

 

***

-2-

“Dad, take that off you’re so embarrassing!” Nova grumbles under his breath when they step into the sleepy Las Vegas municipal courthouse the next morning.

“No way,” Haley grins. “As long as I have this on you have to treat me like a bride.”

Haley adjusts the tiara he’d had on his head since their wedding reception at the MBC Casino's ballroom the night before. The tiara didn’t match his jeans and t-shirt but he’d be damned if he took it off after only one night.

Their wedding reception had ended around midnight, he drank more then he'd planned and may have danced on a table but he'd still woken Luce and Nova up at 6AM  sharp so they could be at the courthouse the moment it opened.

“There it is!” Haley exclaims, leading them to the dilapidated metal Court Document Drop Box.

“Okay, you two stand in front of it and I’ll take the  photo. Then we can get breakfast.”

He takes out his phone and  is met with more whining.

“Lex—”

“—Daaaad”

“This is important to me. Just do it—"

“Oh, are you two getting married today ? I can take the picture of all of you if you’d like.”

Haley turns to see a friendly looking older woman in soft pink suit staring at them.

“Oh no, we actually got married yesterday,” Haley laughs. “Um, my partner--I mean husband, that's still weird--- is adopting my son and  I thought it’d be cute for us to drop of the paperwork together and take a picture.”

She nods in understanding.

“Oh, you two remind me off my son and son-in-law,” she smiles. “I’m assuming there is no birth mother on the birth certificate ?”

Haley nods.

“Those are the easy ones. Tell you what, I’m Judge Orville’s assistant. I bet I can get his clerk to review it and get the judge into a courtroom for a few seconds so you can be there when he signs it. It shouldn’t take too long. Lord knows that man owes me. Would you like that ?”

“No” Luce says at the same time Haley grins and says, “Yes.”

After running back to the car to change into something more court appropriate from his honeymoon luggage, Haley happily follows the woman through security and into the annals of the court building

“Well, you better be lucky we’re going to see a judge for this and not because you’re shoplifting—"

“It was one time! Are you always going to bring that up ?”

“This is your last chance on the first name thing,” Haley reminds him. “We can change it while we’re doing the last name.”

Nova shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Okay. It’s up to you.”

There are more grumbles and sighs but later they walk out the judge's chamber with adoption paperwork, a picture of the judge signing it and Nova’s last name changed to Haley-Grace. All before 8AM.

He makes a quick stop at a drive thru for breakfast before driving to Nova’s school and parking the van in a handicap space.

“Look at that, you only missed homeroom,” Haley beams looking at the time. “Luce, I need to sign him in and update his records. It should only take a few minutes. Will you be okay in the car ?”

He nods.

“Then we can finally start honeymooning!” Haley sings to him. Luce laughs and Haley knows he only has a short window before Luce stops finding him amusing.

Nova rolls his eyes and slumps back in his seat. Haley snaps his fingers at him.“Let’s go, Nova. Get out of the car.”

“If you’re not going to work for a whole week why do I have to go to school—"

“Because it's the law. Also you didn’t get married—"

“But it’s not even a real honeymoon. You’re not leaving the city.”

“As far as you’re concerned we're in another country. Besides you always have fun with the Washington's...You'll get to ride in Eloise's new Fiat. ”

 Haley had arranged for Nova to stay with the Washingtons, who were now officially his in-laws, while they were on their honeymoon. Sara had left with Twyla to visit New York.

“But I’ll still have to do my homework and sit through eight hours of school while you get to sit by a pool. It’s not fair.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Haley said with very little sympathy. They'd had this conversation countless times and Haley was ready to start his honeymoon.

 

 ***

-3-

Haley wakes up  on the third day of his honeymoon at the MGM Resort with one wrist cuffed to  headboard. He’s still dressed in the white peekabo teddy with matching thong and garter he’d fallen asleep in earlier that morning.

The white leather collar pressed firmly around his neck, however, was new.

His husband lay next to him in a faded black undershirt and gray trackpants, shuffling a deck of cards while listening to the static-y talk radio drone about a trendy vegetable.

“Can I get out now ?” Haley sighs. He twists around in the cuff suggestively for good measure.

That had been Haley’s second nap of the day and Luce still hadn’t uncuffed him from the bed.

“No.”

He rolls his eyes dramatically and gets a small slap on the hip in return. Haley could easily break out of the padded cuff if he wanted to but where was the fun in that ?

Luce produces a Styrofoam cup from his side of the bed and holds the straw to Haley’s lips. Haley hoped the cup contained  one of the frozen margaritas from the MGM's bar. But it’s just a banana smoothie. The icy coldness feels good against his newly pierced tongue.

“I’ll be good,” Haley promises. “I just want to go in the pool and float.”

“No,” Luce decides, his tone is finite and stern in way that usually turned Haley on. But he was too bored with how today was going.

But the collar was still around his neck so he’d submit.

For now.

Luce runs the back of his hand over the light bruising on Haley’s arms and upper thigh. “We’re going to slow down today. Just stay in the room.”

It was hard to look forward to a night in the hotel room after the the first two nights of their honeymoon. 

But Luce had a point. 

On their first night they’d gone to the MGM’s pool party before visiting an upscale BDSM club where Haley was tied to a St. Andrew's cross and whipped by a professional Domme. Taking a whip was something he’d always wanted to try but it had been more painful than he’d imagined and didn’t bring him the pleasure he wanted. He'd cut the scene short but the fact that he'd tried made people notice him and he'd spent the rest of the night enjoying free drinks and flirting with strangers.

They’d made it back to the hotel at 4 AM. At some point  Haley’s tongue had been pierced but he had no memory of it. He'd spent the daylight hours sleeping off a hangover and only waking long enough for sex.

When night fell on the second day Luce took him back to the Britney Spears show, which he'd loved. They followed it with a raunchy show a male strip club and then a female strip club where Haley taught a middle aged bachelor party from Kansas how to perform cunnilingus while Luce enjoyed a private lap dance. They’d ended the night  at a 35 + dance club where Luce watched him do shots and dance all night.

Now that he thought about it, Haley didn’t remember how they even got back from the dance club last night. He remembered fooling around in the cab and a vague recollection of vomiting into a toilet, showering and changing into the lingerie but then nothing. Judging by the state of his lingerie, Luce hadn't touched him after that.

“Bad husband. You didn't fuck me last night.”

“You were passed the fuck out.”

“I though that's how you liked me.” Luce had recently discovered the only thing he liked better than having a tied up submissive was a passed out submissive. Haley was surprised how much he liked waking up to Luce sliding into him.

“You looked like you needed your sleep. You still do...Just because people were buying us shots, didn't mean you had to drink them.”

Haley rolls his eyes. “You won the jackpot, Mr. Grace. You didn't marry your favorite porn star just to look at him all day.”

Luce smirks. “I think porn star is pushing it.”

“You know, if you got a real ass phone with a camera I could star in all  kinds of videos that would put your  little magazines and websites to shame,” he teases

Luce scoots closer to him in the bed, takes his face gently in his hand and  kisses him. Haley flinches from the sharp pain of Luce’s tongue sliding against the healing flesh on his pierced tongue.

“Why did you let me pierce my tongue ?,” Haley groans.

“I didn’t let you,” Luce growls. He eases down his tracksuit pants and makes quick work shoving up the lingerie, accidentally ripping Haley’s thong in his haste. “We were just supposed to just get our nipples pierced.  I couldn't go back with you and  you came out with that.You don't remember ?”

Haley runs his hand underneath Luce’s undershirt and crawls his fingers up his swollen pecs to feel the double piercings going through both his nipples.

“Huh.”

Luce’s hands dig into  Haley’s wild, loose hair. He  kisses  his neck and chest as their bodies grind against each other. Haley moans against the quickly building pressure.

“Am I allowed to come ?”

“No,” Luce moans against his mouth, grabbing just himself and stroking until he finishes on Haley’s bared stomach. “You look beautiful when you’re desperate.”

“I bet I’d look better with your come leaking out of my ass”

Luce’s eyes widen slightly. “You have such a fucking dirty mouth for something so pretty.”

“I'm serious. You’re still taking PReP, right ?”

He nods and Haley raises a suggestive eyebrow.

“Maybe later,” Luce says carefully.  “Today, I just want  you in bed all day. Looking just like that.”

“And what do you want to do to me ?”

“Look at you. Take care of you.”

“And people think I’m the soft one,” Haley sighs.

After an hour of nothing but the radio, Luce let's him log into his YouTube account on the television so he can show Luce his favorite videos. They’re watching a nail polish swatch video and he’s absently stroking Luce to another orgasm when a shrill sounds blares in his ear.

“What the fuck is that—”  Haley startles.

“It’s the hotel phone—"

“I hope we won a prize,” Haley scoffs, picking up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” Charlotte whispers on the other end of the line. “I am so,so,so,so,so sorry to interrupt but I need to talk to Luce. Some of the Fallwater sites are having  issues and the piss fetish guy is super pissed. And not in the way he likes. He found my number somewhere and won’t stop calling my office. I’m not supposed to be doing Fallwater work during work hours—”

Haley silently hands the phone to Luce who listens intently.

“Call the freelancer.” Luce says sharply into the receiver and frowns as Charlotte continues talking. “Is it just his site ? Did you call Ma ? She can--Why not ?”

Luce flails his hand at Haley and gestures to the safe. Haley pulls his wrist out of the handcuff and takes his iPhone out of the hotel safe. Luce had locked it in as his first rule of their honeymoon.

Luce curses and hangs up the hotel phone.

“I packed the laptop if you need to work,” Haley offers as Luce taps  the internet browser on Haley’s phone.

“Fuck, this has to be a hardware issue.” There is an annoyed edge in his voice. “A fuse must have burst or the air conditioning unit could have malfunctioned. I need to go look at it the sever room. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours.”

“I’ll go with you. I can get the nipple clamps I forgot and you can take your newly deflowered wife to work day.”

Luce nods unamused.

Haley quickly changes—although he was sure if there was any city where it was acceptable to wear lingerie in public at noon it was Las Vegas.

He ties a knot into an oversized tourist-y Las Vegas  muscle shirt  and pairs it with a bodycon black leather mini skirt, red Converses and his tiara. He makes a point of shaking his barely covered ass in Luce’s face but his husband looks right through him like he always did when he would when he was focusing on a problem.

They walk into  the elevator with a group of young men in suits wearing the convention badges Haley had noticed all over the city the night before. One of the men stares at Haley and then subtly elbows his co-worker to also look at Haley. They laugh.

Haley's face grows warm and Luce snatches his hands possessively. He was used to the occasional asshole but he hated when it happened in front of Luce.

“What the fuck is that ?,” one of the men whispers to another and they do a terrible job of hiding their laughs.

Haley ignores it, he knew he’d invited it by trying to get attention for being newlywed.

“Hey, how much did you pay for it ?,” one of the men throws out when the doors opens int he lobby. He snickers to himself as he and his buddies speed walk out the elevator.

“Let’s just wait for them to leave,” Haley says quietly when he realizes the men are going towards the same cab stand they’d intended to use.

“No,” is all Luce says as he rolls towards the cab stand. Luce calls out to the men. “I need you to apologize to my husband for what you said--”

“Excuse me ?” one of them frowns.

“I need you,” Luce repeats, casually adjusting his tracksuit  jacket to reveal the gun strapped to his hip. Haley’s heart stops. “To apologize to my husband.”

“You got the wrong idea dude, chill.”

“That’s not a fucking apology. I heard what you said. I don't know you, so your life means shit to me. Do we need to settle this ?”

“My bad. Sorry, man.”

When a cab pulls up to the stand, the men step back to let Haley and Luce take it first.

“I think you look pretty,” Luce tells him as the cab takes off. “And  my opinion is the only one that matters” 

“Luce, you can’t do that. Especially…with the…,” he looks over at their cab driver and mouths the word gun. “You can’t bring that thing back to the hotel. Do you even still have your permit ?”

“I never had one. I like carrying a firearm, I might need it—"

“You will not need it, you need to get rid of it.”

 

***

 -4-

Haley almost has to eat his words when they arrive at the condo. The Fallwater servers were housed in the bottom units of the condo building and the usually locked door was now ajar.

“Shit,” Luce curses once he’s out of the cab and Haley pays the driver.

“Maybe an animal got in ?”

“You think the rats can use a digital lock ? I know I fucking locked it before we left.”

The Graces had an unspoken agreement with the transient and homeless residents who wandered this part of the city; they left them and their property alone and the Graces looked the other way if someone spent a night in the first floor storage unit.

Luce takes the glock out of the hip holster and rolls into the server room, Haley follows behind quietly with his phone clutched in his hand. Luce bangs the server room door open all the way with the wheel of his chair. A loud shrill scream rings out. 

It sounds young.

 Haley rushes in to find  Nova huddled in the corner with his arms around Lindsey Grergory—who was still screaming. Haley moves on instinct and puts himself between Luce’s gun and the kids.

“Put the gun away,” he hisses before turning his sights on Nova and Lindsey, who should be in their 5th period class. “Out.”

The preteens scuttle out of the server room with their heads down and Luce rolls into the server room and picks up what Haley can only surmise as a big ass plug. Luce shakes out the plug. “This shouldn’t be unplugged. It’s wet--What the fuck ? Fuck!” 

He leans down to pick up an iced coffee cup that had been knocked over during the surprise. A sugary sweet coffee drink dripped down onto the server floor. “Fucking hell.  Now I’m going to have half a dozen people bitching at me because their sites are down.”

“You deal with this, I’ll go deal with the kids,” Haley offers as Luce starts hitting buttons. The lights on the server boxes flicker and Luce smacks it until the lights stay on.

Haley walks out the server room to find Lindsey staring out at the street, pink faced and in tears. She looks like she wants to run but  Nova is talking to her quietly. Haley almost feels bad for what he has to do next.

“Lindsey, honey. I’m sorry but I have to call your mom—”

Nova blows out a short laugh and then does a poor job of covering it up. Haley glares at him and crosses his arms. “Do you want to tell me what is so funny, Nova ?”

“Nothing,” Nova snickers. “Why are you talking like that?”

Haley purses his lips and feels around the healing tongue ring that had given him a slight lisp.

“Listen—”

It wasn’t the best word choice when hiding a tongue piercing.

“Did you get your tongue pierced!”

“Shut up, Nova. You don’t get to talk right now—"

“I was just asking a question. God, you’re so fucking immature—”

“That’s how you want to speak to me right now ? Watch your mouth.”

Haley takes out his phone and lets Ms. Gregory know in the gentlest of words that her daughter has skipped school and where to pick her up.

Mrs. Gregory arrives almost immediately and she is seeing so much  red she doesn’t seem to register Haley’s wearing a mini skirt or tiara.  She  just thanks him and stiffly congratulates him on the wedding, before snapping at her sobbing daughter to get in the minivan.

Once she’s gone, Haley walks Nova upstairs and sits across from him at the kitchen table. Nova folds his arms and looks sullen. Haley considers asking Mrs. Gregory for tips on instilling fear in preteens.

“I don’t appreciate you showing off like that. You better get rid of the attitude now that your girlfriend is gone.”

“Oh my god, she’s not my girlfriend—”

“It’s fine if you have a girlfriend. But  you can’t skip school to be with her. What if something happened ? Nobody would have  known where you two were. And while we're talking, you are not ready to have sex--”

“Dad, oh my god, no one is talking about that—”

“Well, I guess we’re talking about it now. We've never had the talk and—”

“We don't have to. I learned all that stuff in health class last year. I got it—”

“That’s heterosexual sex, you’re bi so—”

“You never listen. I’m not bi. I’m panse--”

“Well still. You need to know about HIV, hygiene, protect--”

“Hello ? Did you not hear me!,” Nova shouts.  “I’m not doing that and I have the internet so I know all about that. You don’t know everything and I bet I could teach you about some things—"

Haley was partially glad Nova still believed the half truth that he’d just been a model for men’s magazines in the 90s.

Luce bangs opens the condo door and tosses Nova’s iPad on the kitchen table. The screen was covered in notifications from Kik. Haley notices his son’s bad attitude vanish into guilt.

“I found this in the server room,” Luce says, his tone cutting and angry. “I take it a lot of people aren’t happy with your most recent post.”

Nova reaches for the iPad but Haley takes it first. He opens the Kik app to see the post the notifications were coming from.

On the Kik page for Merryhill 7^th Graders Nova had posted:

Dear Merryhill Junior Football Team,

Guess what dummys ? I've read your entire fucking groupchat. Next time you assholes want to make fun of me behind my back just remember  that no matter what your girlfriends will always choose me.

Here and Queer,

Nova.

Beneath the message is a video of Nova and Lindsey in the server room. They are sharing the drink from the coffee shop and laughing before they start kissing. Nova show the camera his middle finger  but Lindsey didn’t seem to be aware the iPad was filming them.

“Explain this,” Haley says quietly.        

“It’s not my fault—”

“Explain this—” Haley repeats louder.

“I was playing on Brix’s phone one day and I saw the football group chat that he's in. They were making fun of him for being friends with me. They were saying like really bad stuff about me. Especially Tag and I knew his girlfriend liked me so I asked her to come over and she did. I just wanted to show him---I-I didn’t make her do anything, she's the one who cheated on him—”

“Did she know you were going to film and post this ?”

He shrugs and looks down. “All we did was kiss a little, I didn't put what we talked about or anything—”

“Delete this shit now. Fuck, now I have to call Lindsey’s mom--”

“No you don’t! Why are you such a narc--”

“Look at these comments!,” Haley screams. “Do you see how they think it’s funny what you did but she’d being called a slut on a public app ? Did you think what that might do to her to see this ? Those football players were being dicks and sometimes you have to ignore them. But when you do dumb shit like this it always comes back on the girls. You don’t ever use girls like this. I’m so disappointed in you, Nova.”

Haley calls Mrs. Gregory, explaining the situation in the lightest terms possible so she can prepare Lindsey and then has Nova apologize to her before sending him downstairs to mop the server room.

“He’s dating now ?” Luce frowns. “He’s a fucking kid--”

“They start young now but…he won’t be allowed to date as long as he lives in this house. He clearly cannot handle it--”

“He’s going to do it anyway...Did you talk to him about sex ?”

“I was in the middle of it when you came in. Arrogant little shit thinks he knows everything.”

“We need to get him under control before there’s a god damn baby in this fucking condo”

Haley shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“Excuse me ?”

“I mean not like that but…I don’t know. I could see it. A baby. Us.”

“We might be newlyweds, Lex but we're still middle aged.”

 “I did a rotation in L&D last year,” Haley shrugs and then switches to baby talk.  “I almost stole one.”

“Can you imagine dealing with shit like this when were both old as fuck ?”

He shrugs.

 “I don’t plan to get old as fuck. My grandmother lived to be 100 and she spent most of her life eating expired government food. Your mom has great genes. Just yesterday we were partying and fucking  like 21-year-olds,” he pouts remembering the last three days. “I can not believe he ruined our honeymoon.”

“Fuck that. I'll get Ma to work on the Fallwater stuff from New York and we can still drop him off with my brother.”

Haley shakes his head. “He needs to face consequences and that's my job—our job. I’m going to surprise him at school tomorrow and personally escort him to every single class.”

“And you seriously want another one ?”

“Don’t you want the glorious experience of coming into a cup in a clinical setting while looking at porn made for straight men ?”

“We can’t use my fucked up sperm for our baby.”

“Your sperm isn’t fucked up.”

“You know what I mean. If we had a kid...I don't want it to be like me—”

“There's no proof any of that is genetic, And we'll love it no matter what.”

After cancelling the rest of their stay at the MGM, Haley calls a cab to go back to the resort to get their luggage, leaving Luce in charge.

Luce opens his laptop to respond to the angry e-mails coming into his inbox from site owners. He takes one look at the 81 unread e-mails --50 of which are from the same client--and calls his mother. She should have arrived in New York by train yesterday.

After she doesn’t pick up her prepaid cell phone he calls his sister.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon? Are you both staying hydrated ?,” Twyla teases.

“Honeymoon ended early. Don't ask. I need to talk to Ma,” he says. “She’s not picking up her phone.”

Twyla says nothing.

“Twyla ?”

“Um…hm—"

“Twyla ?”

“Have you…talked to Jean or anyone ?”

“No this just happened. Nova was fooling around with some girl in the server room and they fucked up half our websites—”

“WHAT—”

“I need to get this fixed quick so I can salvage this day for Lex. Can you put Ma on the phone ?”

“Um. Okay, I…We were supposed to wait until after your honeymoon to tell you.”

“Tell me what ?”

“Mother is... in federal prison.”

>>> Chapter 20 continued>>>