Like most girls, I've always dreamed of a fairytale wedding. A beautiful white dress, a handsome groom, and of course, the blissful wedding night when I would lose my virginity. Unlike most other girls, however, I never had to wonder if my dream would come true. I've always known the date of my perfect wedding. It's the same date as my eighteenth birthday.
You see, I belong to a special community--a secret one actually. The Family of Faith in the Five, a small group of believers who have preserved our ancient doctrines for centuries even as we dwindled in numbers, and are now down to only a few clusters of the faithful scattered here and there around the world. We disguise ourselves as Christians, but in fact we are polytheists who worship the Five Holy Ones, and my father, Wendell Sizemore, is the High Priest of all Indiana FFF members, or "Fivers". My father became High Priest when he married my mother, and they pledged that their firstborn daughter would be given in marriage to the firstborn son of Jim Peterson, the High Priest of Illinois. The Five blessed both priests, because Jim's son Lance was born soon after, and my mother gave birth to me a couple of years later.
I had a very strict, conservative upbringing. I didn't even know what a television was until I saw one on a shopping trip when I was eight. My mother taught me and all the other Fiver kids at our home, so that the world wouldn't corrupt us. I grew up wearing very modest clothing, and never, ever talking about sex except to make sure I knew not to have any. As I entered my teen years, my mother noticed the way the boys started to look at me, and eventually she pulled me aside for a serious lecture. Of course, I already knew that young people had to remain chaste until married, but my mother impressed upon me that I had even more reason to remain pure than the others. I was already betrothed, and my marriage to Lance would seal the bond between two congregations. She made sure my clothing was even more concealing and shapeless than usual.
Still, boys looked. By the age of fifteen, I was a budding beauty, with sunset-red hair and milky skin perpetually blushed with a faint rose pink, like a petal blooming in each cheek. I was short but slender enough that I still looked willowy, and my breasts were already filling out my floral-patterned dresses. That was about the time when my mother taught me to shave my body, leaving no hair behind on my legs, under my arms, or even my pubic region. She said it was part of my maiden's initiation, and that I was to keep myself shaved at all times as a symbol of my devotion to the Five.
At sixteen, I met Lance for the first time, when his family came to affirm the betrothal. Our congregation prepared a feast for them, and I wore the prettiest dress my mother had ever let me wear, long and blue with--can you believe it?--straps instead of sleeves! Oh, I was nervous! Would I like him? Would he like me? What would I say?
My nerves melted away as soon as I laid eyes on him. He was tall and well-built, with eyes as blue as the sky and tousled golden hair. Like a prince out of an old fairytale. He was smiling at me, and I smiled dizzily back at him, and had absolutely no idea what to say. It didn't matter, though. He coaxed me into conversation, something light and gentlemanly, and I made a few replies, but mostly I was enthralled by his voice. And his eyes. And the way he stood so close to me, just out of reach, his hands clasped politely behind his back where there would be no chance of us accidentally brushing fingers.
I barely talked while he was there, and when he left I could talk of nothing else. My parents laughed at me, but they were pleased. Some of the men of the congregation murmured things to my father, and he grinned and nodded as though they were telling naughty jokes. Of course, I wasn't allowed to hear any naughty jokes, because I was the pure, perfect princess of this fairytale.
Once I turned seventeen, preparations really took off, but I didn't have much to do with them besides holding still for dress fittings. A month or two before the date, my mother started me on birth control pills, because she said that Lance and I ought not to have children right away. I thought it would be marvelous to have Lance's babies, but I deferred to her wisdom. The night before the wedding, I had my bath and shaved myself as usual, and then my mother did my hair.
"Wendy, you know there are some things about marriage that we haven't talked about," she began. She was pulling the brush slowly through my hair, giving me a lovely relaxing feeling. Still, I blushed.
"Yes, mother." She'd told me about the birds and the bees when I was younger, but had never gone into any detail. Sheltered as I was, the mere suggestion of anything sexual filled me with embarrassment. Yet, I knew that Lance and I would be having sex the next night, and the idea excited me.
"My dear Wendy, you aren't like the other young ladies."
"Oh, mother, I know. Our marriage is special, because we were pledged to each other, and to the Five, before we were born."
