Married at Eighteen

Part 1

A/N:

This story apparently has "parts" not "chapters". I don't know why, but I'm just gonna roll with what's on my doc. It also has em dashes beside it for some reason which I'm unaware of. Just roll with it. 

————— Part 1 —————

Taylor Madison sighed as he sat in the bridal suite minutes before he was to make as grand entrance as the bride and walk down the aisle to wed the person he was supposed to spend his lifetime with.

His family's tradition of 'Marriage at 18' was seriously overrated. But, he couldn't go against his 'poor, aging' grandparents' wishes and not get married at 18. His grandparents weren't poor or aging. They were the founders of a multinational company and only in their mid-sixties with a perfect bill of health. They wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Being multibillionaires helped, too.

And, yes, he was going to be the bride. He was sitting in the bridal suite. Not the groom and not in the suite reserved for said groom.

He was, after all, disguised as a girl.

His family had a strange but very-well-upheld tradition of everyone getting married at 18 since his great great grandparents' generation. Thankfully (in a kind of twisted way), his grandparents only had one child — his father, so they couldn't force their tradition on anyone else. Then, his parents only had one child, too, which was him.

When he was born, he was clearly male. Privates and all. Then, as he grew up, Taylor started liking some feminine things — well, things that his grandparents wouldn't consider masculine, anyway. Things like really long hair and jewelry and makeup. He didn't like skirts or dresses and wasn't transgender, but he just liked having long hair and wearing jewelry and putting on makeup. His beloved parents were fine with it but his often-detestable grandparents were not.

They believed in the traditional, old teachings of what made a man — buff build, no crying, that kind of stuff. It was a miracle that they had let Taylor's mother work after his parents got married.

She worked in the same company as her husband, their son. Thankfully, she liked the job.

A few months ago — four months before his 18th birthday and wedding date, actually, which was today, Wednesday, June 30th — his grandparents had suddenly been amazingly comfortable with his 'feminine tendencies', as they called it, and had even encouraged him with his long hair and jewelry and accessories.

Little did he know that they were preparing him to wed a man without the man knowing his true gender.

His grandparents had done extensive research and picked out five candidates whom they would be satisfied with if he married one of them. Four out of five were girls, all either 17 or 18 years old and from rich families. Taylor guessed that they had hoped that he would just pick one of them and not be in a homosexual relationship. The fifth candidate was a guy who had turned 18 just that past January with the name Emerson Fitzpatrick. Taylor recognized his name and when he saw the photo, he was even more convinced that this Emerson was the same Emerson from his super fancy-smancy private school.

When he met with Emerson, he had dressed as a girl. Yes, he and Emerson went to the same school and, yes, Taylor was from a rich family, but Emerson didn't know he was marrying his schoolmate and Taylor did know.

When Taylor was born, his parents had made sure that his face and personal details would stay out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, his name had been leaked sometime over the course of his 18 years of life, but his face and gender hadn't, and having a gender-neutral name helped with that. That was the one time time he had been glad to have a name that meant 'cutter of cloth'. No offence to other Taylors out there.