Saturday, October 14, 2006

Bizarre mating rituals

I’ve been to two weddings recently.

The first was rather unusual because there wasn’t a bride (well, not in the accepted sense) and the only thing white was the faces of some of the shocked passing Brighton shoppers as we posed for photographs on the pavement.

The second, however, was far more bizarre with strange rituals, weird clothing and a night of lustful and drunken celebration.

You’ve guessed it. The first was a cool and civilised gay getting together and the second was a family affair in East Grinstead.

The guys were a couple that my friends Dolce & Gabbana knew well (probably in the biblical sense too if I know my boys). They’d been sharing a flat for years and decided to formalise things – and why not I suppose?

Well I could list some reasons but I’d probably cause Blogger to crash.

My marriage was a dream. By which I mean a series of uncoordinated events and surreal happenings that might have been imagined by Hieronymus Bosch. So I’m a bit jaded about the overall cost of a diamond ring.

Mention of rings gets us back to the chap’s ceremony – well I can never resist an obvious joke. It was just like Elton and David’s, except we had the reception in someone’s flat and there were no talented millionaire celebrities attending. Although I had one woman pointed out to me whom I was told had been an extra in Eastenders.

The registrar managed to keep a straight face throughout. Which I suppose was impressive when you think of the sexual inclinations of the majority of the wedding guests. But to be serious for a second, it was all rather touching and I’m sure I detected a tear in Ms Hasting’s eye.

Right, a second’s passed.

The couple looked blissfully happy. They wore similar Oswald Boateng suits with little differently coloured carnations in their buttonholes – some gay code I imagine but sadly I forgot to ask.

At the reception we drank pink champagne and tucked into mini versions of junk food – little hamburgers and tiny fish and chips in teeny newspaper cones. All a bit twee I suppose but then this was a gay wedding. The guests, mostly happy homos and laughing lezzies behaved impeccably, we chatted and networked and finally left quietly into the Brighton night.

All in all totally different from my other event – which was a decidedly queer wedding.

For a start it was a family affair, and, as you might imagine, being a foul-mouthed, tartily dressed, pervy, enthusiastic lover of lady’s bits means I’m somewhat estranged from my church-going, Conservative voting relatives.

I invited Ms Hasting’s with some trepidation. She may have seen some terrifying things like the inside of a BDSM club, girl’s night at the Revenge club and my fanny – but nothing would prepare her for my family enjoying themselves en-mass.

A cousin of mine was getting hitched to some bloke. I watched his face steadily falling as my uncles and aunts filed into the church looking like they were attending a casting session for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3.

I really get on well with my cousin. She was in virginal white which was sweet and faintly ironic because, I’m pleased to say, she has had a few intimate casting sessions herself before selecting her leading man. The dress was, in the great tradition of these things, totally hilarious. It billowed so she looked like a Victorian shepherdess caught in a hurricane. I asked her what was old, new, borrowed and blue. She proudly admitted that she’s combined three of these in one, by wearing an old blue thong that she’s borrowed from her sister.

The ceremony was old and ritualistic. The priest intoned, we called out in response and I was amazed we all didn’t dance in a circle around the sacrificial victims.

I stood at the back trying to be inconspicuous. However one or two of the women present would occasionally look in my direction and whisper something like “that’s her’ to their companion who’d then give me the once over. They seemed disappointed that I’d forgotten to bring my thigh boots and whip.

But, bizarrely, later at the reception in some big country hotel Ms Hastings and I were the best behaved. The married couple had left for their honeymoon and everyone else had left their senses. We’d sat through a heavy dinner and even more stodgy speeches that the gallons of warm white Chardonnay had failed to lighten.

But all this juice has certainly lightened the inhibitions of the guests. Old uncles danced too closely to young bridesmaids and lots of boozy blokes tried to prove they were the best man with the smashed female smashers.

Ms Hastings and I sat, like staid Brighton matrons, watching this bacchanalia. And then I thought, WHAT THE FUCK! I’m letting myself and my reputation down here.

I’d have preferred to have stripped her there and then and ravished her over the dining table but I didn’t want tiramisu stains on my Prada pants. So I grabbed my comely companion and led her to one of the many rooms off the ‘ballroom’.

She was the tastiest thing I’d enjoyed all night. I was really hoping an aunt would peer in and see me on the sofa with my arse in the air and my face between Ms Hastings thighs – but then I’m kinky that way.

When we left my cousin’s parents sniffily bid us goodbye. He gave me a peck on the cheek as if he’d catch something and she pointedly shook my hand. They always liked my ex-husband and, possibly correctly, blamed me for screwing it up. In that moment, they really made me feel a twat.

But I had the last laugh as our hands parted because I bet she never guessed where my fingers had just been.


Love and kisses from sticky Sadie xxxxx

6 comments:

Don said...

Reading you is a total pleasure. You need PLEASE to do it more! I can thoroughly relate to bits and pieces of this story, though for mostly oblique reasons. You ask how I've been and to keep it short, I'll just say I've been to the two Chinas a couple times each, happily undermining American industrial competitiveness in return for a paycheck funded by lowered manufacturing costs. What can I say? Every man, woman and decline-to-state for theyse'f.

Sadie Dark said...

Hi Don,

Dear Don

Thank you for the encouragement - it really matters to me.

Also I'm really glad you're back, a sane and humourous American voice is important over here where. I'm afraid)your country (thanks to your President) isn't too popular at the moment.

Love (and what the fuck are the two Chinas?) Sadie xxxxx

Simon John Parkin said...

I agree with Don. Great writing Sadie! Yours is the only blog that makes me laugh out loud. And now I've got a great mental image of you with your arse in the air! ;)
Keep it up!
x

Sadie Dark said...

What my arse?

Seriously thank you for your nice compliments. I hope people think the same about my book (when I really, absolutely, finally finish it)

Love Sadie xxxx

Al Sensu said...

It's fun to put the people uptight. My ex-wife and her partner had their commitment ceremony a week before my 2nd wife and I married. We went to each others' ceremonies and parties and the folks were perplxed to say the least.

Sadie Dark said...

Hi Al,

Thanks for the comment. Life is stranger than fiction and much sexier.

Love&kisses Sadie