you'll need a man (bill smith x reader)

las vegas wedding

"Miss, you're on in five," my hairdresser says, flatly.

I look back at her and raise my eyebrows and suck in my lips the way one would after seeing a terribly done arts-and-crafts project made by a child. I was in awe at the way my dress effortlessly swishes from side to side. The skirt - it was made of silk and layers of tulle - reminded me of those dresses the painted ladies in Renaissance artworks wore while chatting over tea or swinging over their flower beds complete with roses and tulips.

I could smell a faint aroma of lemon-scented aerosol. It hit my nose the way the smell of an office room does, only this was the dressing station for my wedding - my dream - my marriage to Bill Smith. The hairdresser was a tad too silent for my liking; every time she said something to me, her voice came out nonchalantly and we - she - would only talk - tell me - about whether or not I needed to lift my chin back up again. My makeup artist, however, put on this face of pride in her work. She started off with a base and we talked about her mother's dead pet poodle. While she was painting my eyelids, I offered her a conversation about vaccinations and the ever-rising opioid epidemic.

She sighed and went back to tweezing my brows that time.

As she was applying my false lashes, she asked me about how nervous I truly felt and I replied, "Not really."

"How can you be so certain? You're sweating your perfume off," she said.

I opened my lips ever so slightly, similar to the way one would before shutting someone's impudent statement down but deciding not to out of fear of backlash.

Horrible backlash.

That's what I felt when I told my family all about Bill.

What do you not like about him? I frantically asked my mother at the dinner table.

I can't have you dating a complete and utter failure! This man hasn't even graduated high school nor gotten his GED, she whisper-yelled.

She was always quiet like that - my mother.

A church mouse in public, and a mannequin in private. But, she had the resilience of a church mouse and the painted face of a mannequin.

A lot of people told me that she freaked them out.

What a bitch.

I said family when only referring to my mother because she is the only family I actually can see. All of my cousins either live elsewhere or are dead. Two of them died in their mid-20s. Casual little, pretty little overdoses.

Pills and needles make me anxious. I told my wedding guests to leave those messes at home.

Ironic how I am hosting a wedding in Las-damn-Vegas.

"It's the Honeymoon performance I have to put all that energy into."

And, for the first time, this lady laughs. She snorts loud enough for the rest of the women in the room to turn their heads and silently judge her. They all had a look on their faces like the one you would make upon hearing someone just casually talk about their life problems.

Trauma-dumping, they called it. I tended to lay off such behavior whenever I was around Bill.

"Why are you even marrying him again?" One of my bridesmaids asks me.

She's still wearing the puffy gold dress I forced all of them to wear for this special event, which, I suppose, proves her loyalty to the bride herself.

"He's different," I smile.

Another snorter. This dressing room has turned into a pig pen full of county fair pigs and I am the one awarded with the ribbon and an adoption by a little girl with frustrated, yet calm, parents.

He doesn't even know how to cook macaroni and cheese, how the hell do you expect him to raise a family and take care of you? My mother manages to push out.

I'll teach him, I finished the rest of my meal.

Did I mention we both were arguing this over tea and next to my garden patch of lilies? Well, we were.

You can't teach a dunce and expect him to listen, was all I got out of my mother.

Maybe she was right. Maybe marrying the man I found off a train station in Oregon was not the brightest idea.

But it damn sure was the sexiest idea I have ever considered in a while.

The time has finally come for me to make my grand appearance. I am helped off my vanity seat out of the back door of the sweet, little chapel and to the front where all the run-down cars in dire need of paint jobs and interior cleaning sit. My veil twinkles in the flashy starlight and my cream suede kitten heels click on the uneven pavement. On one side, a bridesmaid is holding my dress train and on the other, another bridesmaid is holding the length of my veil. The hairdresser and makeup artist have changed into their formal attire and are now entering the chapel before me, like a mother hen leaving behind the duckling that somehow managed to get roped into the fresh batch of spring chickens.

All eyes were on me; I at least hope they were. Certainly enough, there waiting for me at the end of the aisle was the man of my dreams - Bill.

From where I was standing, I could barely see the homeless man, Fred, that Bill and I picked off the streets during a bender in Las Vegas over five years ago. He has stayed with us since.

I've always liked the name Fred. To me, it sounds very foreign - French - it rolls off the tongue like the icing on an eclair.

"Yes! That's my best friend right there, everyone! She's finally a fucking bride! Thank you, God!" I hear my friend, Melyssa, yell from across the chapel.

She is immediately shushed by our friend, Lee, sitting right beside her. Melyssa always had a large mouth; it's a shame she's not the one getting down on her knees tonight in the Little Vegas hotel room Bill rented out for the night.

We did not have a ring bearer. Or a flower girl.

Fred, thankfully, has showered before this course of actions. It would bring shame and dishonor to my family name had he left himself covered in the stains of dry semen from a night in Chicago two months ago.

The priest stood tall and gulped before beginning the ceremony. Unlike a rockstar - he was dressed like Elvis - his face had seen better days, sporting quite a gaunt appearance. I remember this tidbit because of the name of the chapel - The Little Vegas Chapel.

That, and the fact we were literally in the city Lana Del Rey always writes her songs about.

Did Bill remember the cocaine?

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and woman in a rather Western-style matrimony."

The priest pursed his lips into a thin line, the tips curving upwards. His mouth reminded me of the thin lengths of Play-Doh one would roll to make snakes as a child.

"Bill, do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

Not surprising. Not one bit. I say this with confidence because Bill was and is the only man I have ever received plentiful and bountiful orgasms from, so to the deepest pit of my heart he goes.

My stomach grumbles.

The priest starts up again, "Katelyn, do you take this man to be your husband, to live together in matrimony, to love him, to honor him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

The priest goes on with the statement about the rings (rather lack thereof) and then tells Bill to kiss me. One thing I never got about weddings is why the man is told to kiss his wife, and not the other way around. We were both now married to each other; he was mine just as much as I am his.

Eat of me as you would a platter.

My stomach grumbles again.

It is finally time for the reception, which will be hosted in the Boston Pizza restaurant a street or so over.