Marriage Made in Hell

MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL

They walk in, both of them atheists, ready to take their vows.

The church is full of the initiated, the conspirators who have agreed
to separate me from him. I stand alone, away from everyone.

So: this is the result. This is the result of his words to me . . . how
long ago . . . three weeks? If that long. 'I'm going to go straight.'
I'm going to go straight. How am I supposed to believe that? He's as
bent as a hook, always was, always will be. What else would he be doing
here if he wasn't? He's crooked, bent, not straight.

I look at them. There together, up in front of the altar. I suppose one
day they will expect to have children. He there, his hair combed so
perfectly the way that I love so much, as if just for me, not her,
standing beside him, watching, waiting for the priest to begin the
commencement of their vows. What vows? What vows can their be for them?
And, no doubt, if they have a child they will have it Christened by
this same priest in the very same church, and therefore bring it into
sin through their lies nine months previously, or if not sin, then at
least a mercenary consecration to those lies.

Damn them. Damn them. Damn him. Dressed in his suit, standing there
like the shell of a man, his heart, his soul, residing somewhere else
entirely, if not with me, then certainly not with her either, whom he
has come here to marry under false guises.

Before the vows commence the priest asks what I had been waiting for
all along: for anyone who objects to their marriage to "speak now, or
forever hold their peace." But I find that I do not speak, and do not
even feel close to it. The atmosphere here is different than what I had
expected, you see. I had expected something upsetting, something
threatening, something that would frighten me into declaring all that
had happened, not this hollow ritual that I feel so removed from that
its procedures and dogmas, its proscriptive severity, no longer
distress me. So I say nothing.

The last time we were together was a hotel room. It was suited to the
event: it started off tacky, and it ended tacky. And now when I look up
at the altar and see the soon to be man and wife there, and his bold
strong hands visible beyond the cuffs of his neatly pressed, spotlessly
white shirt, I remember how those same hands, now presenting themselves
as the earnest hands of a devoted husband, those same strong hands had
clasped my body and held me tight, moulding my flesh at the same time
as his cock entered me, his body shivering with sin, experiencing a
delight that knows no repentance, not then, nor now.

He had been very informal about it, afterwards, when he finally broke
it to me. 'I'm going straight. This has to end. We'll be found out.
She's too important to me for that.' I knew then why he hadn't said 'I
love you' this time; but I became only more sure that he would be mine,
to think that all that time he had intended this to be the parting, but
still he would go ahead with it; a man like that can never break from
his addictions. Well what about me? What about what's important to me?
And so he needn't think, just because I hold my peace, that this is the
end of it.

I am sure he thought I wouldn't come today, even though I was on the
list of invites from the start. I notice that he is studiously avoiding
eye contact with the guests. I suspect he would do this even if he was
assured that I would not be here. He would be too afraid that they
would see the lie in his eyes, the hole in his heart, where all his
love should be, but flowing through it only selfishness and deceit. And
if he saw me, perhaps, his whole act would collapse, just like that,
because he would not be able to stand up to me, me that has seen
through him.

The priest is now getting them to take their vows, in sickness and in
health, for richer and poorer, and in the service of God. They keep on
saying 'I do'. Muttering like parrots these empty words of convenience
to an empty authority in which neither they nor most of their wretched
witnesses here believe with even an ounce of conviction. What can they
expect to come of this, a love so doused in lies? And how can he
possibly hope to make reparations for the past through this irrelevant
gesture? He must know, even now, even at this very moment when that
angel hand of his reaches to hers and slips on the ring, even now he
must be cold inside, he must know that this is all a lie, a damn lie.
When they kiss they do so with the poisonous tongues of serpents.

A woman near me, watching it all, is wiping her eye. So one person has
been fooled. I feel tempted to lean across to her, put my mouth up to
her ear and whisper the truth to her monkey brain, 'Don't waste your
tears, love. It's a mockery, it's a farce. He was in my arms before,
and he will be again.' Only it will likely cause a scene, so I hold my
peace. After all, there is no point in doing something which could
backfire. Better just wait; if I wait, before long, he will come
looking for me. I know it. I understand how he works. Then I will have
both the satisfaction of revenge and his love back. His body will not
be able to stay away from mine, and that is the simple fact. His moans,
his writhing limbs, will ring out with more sincerity and passion in
that instant than these eternal, immutable vows ever could.

Shortly afterwards, as they walk arm in arm down the aisle, pronounced
man and wife, he accidentally, as if driven by the most impulsive urge
to err, meets my gaze. Probably nobody but me sees the little twitch at
the side of his mouth, the brief tensing up of his features. I do not
even smile. I can almost smell the fear off him.

An avowed liar, his vows add to only one thing: my certainty. Like a
devil I will tear this marriage in half.