I was photographing the wedding when a tall guy in cowboy boots, a western hat, and a sports jacket with elbow patches asked me which woman in the wedding party was my wife. I pointed her out, trying to be friendly, when he smiled and said that "was the one" he intended to fuck before the day was over.
I wasn't sure I heard right and asked what he had said. "You heard me right," he said with a broad grin. "That's the filly I intend to ride in a bit," he said. "So she's from your stable."
"Yes, she's my wife, but she doesn't fuck around with strange cowboys," I told him with a frown.
"Oh, she will," he said confidently. "She absolutely will," he added. I looked back into the viewfinder, but he didn't leave.
"You have a time you want her back?" he said with more than a bit of arrogance. "Not that we will be finished by then, but just to give you the courtesy of asking," he said with a smirk. Ignoring him, I focused on the bride, but he stayed there. "She really is striking. Does she like to fuck standing up or laying down?"
"Look," I said, "Whatever your name is, you aren't going to have sex with my wife and that is that. She has no reason to hang around with phony cowboys with oversized ego and imitation snakeskin boots."
"Charles," he said. "It's Charles, and they're not imitation, they're python, and she will after we meet and I charm her out of her drawers, or panties, whichever she prefers to call them."
"Look, Buster... " I began.
"It's Charles, and you should leave it up to her, or don't you do that out here in California? Not secure enough in your manhood to leave it up to your wife who she has sex with?" he said disdainfully.
"Out here we don't target other guy's wives," I said. "We have too much class for that," I said, stepping away from the camera, clenching my fists. He calmly smiled, told me he was sorry I could not let my wife decide for herself, tipped his cowboy hat and walked toward where Claire was talking to a group of people. I looked back in the viewfinder but could not focus my eye on what the camera was pointed at. I was angry enough to bite a nail in half, and the man's words kept coming back to me.
I looked over the camera and saw he was talking to Claire, and she was smiling and chatting him up. I watched them for a while and the fact that she was smiling and laughing was irritating the hell out of me. A few minutes later she came to me and I said something about that fucking cowboy in the snakeskin boots. "Oh that's just Charley. He means no harm. He really is a very nice man," she said looking back at him.
"Nice man? He just told me he was going to fuck you tonight," I said.
"You must have heard him wrong," she said. "I am sure he would not use that kind of language. You probably heard him say something else and misunderstood him," she said. "He is very polite. Really very shy. He probably said something and you thought he said what you heard. Charley is really a very nice man. He has done business with my boss, Mr. Fletcher. He is from Texas, you know."
I told her I knew he was from Texas and that I didn't misunderstand. "I know what he said and he made himself very clear. This was not me hearing him wrong," I said. "It was him telling me he was going to have sex with you. He said I should let you choose for yourself."
"Well, that's true. You don't need to choose for me, right?" she said.
"So are you choosing that? You choosing to have sex with him?" I asked. The wedding was starting and I needed to be in place. "Can we talk about it later?" I asked. She was pissed at me and that was clear. I had to go, but I knew things were not resolved. While I was taking pictures a young man handed me a note and I read it as I focused the lens. It said: "Charley has invited me to go dancing with him and I am deciding for myself to go. I will see you after the wedding. Charley will bring me home. Claire." There was no "Love, Claire," which usually writes, so it is clear she is still pissed and I have the wedding to do.
When the wedding was over I put my equipment in my car and drove home. At home I fixed myself a TV dinner and went in to watch a game. At midnight I looked at the clock, went out to the driveway, and stood a while looking down the street hoping to see a car pulling up in front. Nothing.