Deeper Illusions (3 page)

Chapter
Three

It was the day of our wedding. The backyard was decorated with twinkly lights and Chinese lanterns. I picked out the decorations myself, and Ryan and I worked together to put them up. We had rented some white chairs from a party plann
ing company. The gazebo, which was where we actually would be married, also was decorated in pretty lights, and these lights were in the shape of little butterflies.

I prayed that it wouldn't rain.

I chose a simple white sheath dress. No buttons, no bows, no lace, no bustle, no train, and no veil. I did, however, bother to put my hair up, with little tendrils framing my face, and I put a thin diamond headband in my hair. I felt thin and beautiful in my dress, glad that I had not gained back the weight that I lost during my coma. I had started eating again and working out again, so I wasn’t as skinny as before, but I knew that I still looked good.

Ryan chose a suit in light grey, a silk lavender dress shirt underneath, and no tie
. His collar was open.

He never looked more handsome.

As I walked down the aisle, strains of Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata
filled the air. Ryan stared at me, his penetrating green eyes showing a vast reservoir of love for me. I took an enormous breath, but I didn’t feel nervous. I only felt extreme happiness and peace.

Nick and Nate stood up for him, Debbie and my sister for me. One of my favorite judges performed the ceremony.

Ryan said to me “Iris, I felt like I was struck by lightning from the moment I met you. It wasn’t just that you were quirky and dynamic, although those were definitely two words that I could use to describe you. It’s just that I recognized that you were my soul mate. My missing puzzle piece. You have brought me back to life, and I never want to be without you. So, I will love you, cherish you and protect you all the rest of my days. When you are sick, I will nurse you back to health. When you need me, I will be there. You are an inseparable part of me now. I really mean it when I say ‘til death do us part.”

I looked at my hands, which were holding his, and I saw that I was shaking. With a tremulous voice, trying to tamp down the tears and emotions that were threatening to overwhelm me, I began. “Before I met you, I didn’t know what love really was. Now, since I have met you, I realize that love is unconditional and free. Love is something that is there when you are at your lowest point. You saved my life, in more ways than you will ever know. I know that there will always be challenges ahead, but I vow to you that we will face them together. I love you, Ryan Gallagher, and I will be with you until death do us part.”

Then we kissed for a long time, while everybody cheered.

Afterwards, we partied at the house. Ryan catered in pan-fried chicken from Stroud's, whi
ch was a rather famous local restaurant, known for its pan fried chicken, amazing mashed potatoes and gravy, and fried cinnamon rolls. The spread had a little of everything, and we served wine from his winery.

All in all, it was perfect
.

As we made love that night, I thought that I couldn't be happier. That nobody could be happier.

Thinking back now, I think about the saying that every story has a happy ending. It just depends on when you end the story.

And if the story ended here, this story would have a very happy ending
.

If only the story ended there.

Chapter
Four

“Mmmmm…Mrs. Gallagher, you are such a naughty girl,” my new husband told me as I slowly and gently went down on him in his private plane.
We were heading to Italy for our honeymoon. I had never been overseas, and to say that I was looking forward to this trip would be the understatement of the year.

“Don’t stop, beautiful, please don’t stop,” he said, as I gently teased him, my tongue running up and down his enormous shaft, my fingers lightly massaging the opening of his sphincter. Then Ryan was suddenly begging me to stop
- “stop, stop, stop, I’m too close. I want so badly to be inside of you.” Then he pulled me up on the couch, unbuttoned my pants and said “are you ready to join the mile high club?”

I could do
nothing but nod eagerly. He pulled on my hair, kissed me all over my face, lips, and neck, nibbled my ear, then plunged deeply into me as the plane ascended in altitude. It felt amazing, like it never had before. I now knew why the mile-high club was so popular. I couldn’t imagine doing this in an airplane bathroom, mind you, but doing it here in luxury, and in private – there were no words. I orgasmed almost immediately as he filled me up, slipping in and out of me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

There was something about this scenario that made Ryan even friskier than usual, because he brought out a pair of handcuffs and a blindfold. “Lay down on the floor,” he said, “on your belly.” I obeyed. Then he handcuffed and blindfolded me, and got on top of me, kissing my back and neck. I felt the familiar shivers of anticipation. I could feel him rubbing something on my back. Something warm. Then he spent several minutes licking it off. Then he flipped me around so that I was on my back, and I felt the same warm liquid being spread on my stomach and my breasts, and he did the same thing. I could feel his hardness on my body as he slowly explored every inch of me, putting this substance on little patches and slowly licking them off.

I started to giggle a little, trying to guess what it was he was putting on me. It smelled like raspberries and chocolate. “What is that?” I asked.

“What is your favorite sundae?” he asked.

“The hot fudge and raspberry sundae at Sheridan’s,” I said. Sheridan’s ice cream was a well-known place in Kansas City that didn’t have any indoor seating, yet was constantly packed on every hot summer night. Their sundaes were the best I ever had.

“That’s what I’m rubbing on your body. Are you jealous?” he asked, then gave me a taste of the concoction.

“Oh my god, that’s so amazing,” I said, as I ate the hot fudge and raspberry, while he continued to explore my body with his tongue. He smeared some on my lips, then slowly licked it off. Then his tongue was inside my mouth, exploring inside gently. He was, once again, inside me, thrusting hard and deep. Then, just as I was about to cum, he withdrew himself from me. “Here,” he said. “Have some Ben and Jerry’s.” At that, he put some ice cream on a spoon, and fed me some Chunky Monkey.

“Stop teasing me!” I said.

“Ok, then,” he said, as he plunged into me again. I exploded at this point. “Mmmmm, what do you say we do this the entire way to Italy?”

“It’s an 11 hour flight,” I said.

“My point exactly. I think that we can make love the entire time. What do you say, Mrs. Gallagher?”

The thought of it made me titillated. “Oh, god, yes,” I said
.

So, for the duration of the flight, we explored each other’s bodies, teased each other, and made love. This was the best flight I ever had, and, yet, I knew that the best was yet to come.

We finally touched down at the Malpensa airport in Milan at around 10 o’clock their time. By then, I was driven crazy with lust. Somehow, I wasn’t sated, even though we had just completed the sex marathon to end all sex marathons. We had always been known to make love for hours, but doing it for 11 hours non-stop was a feat, even for us.

“Whew,” I said, feeling slightly dazed. “That was amazing.”

“Oh, yes,” Ryan said. “I can’t wait to get you to the Nick’s villa, so that I can ravish you all over again.”

I was so excited
to see the place. But first, we had to go and get our rental car.

We arrived at the
rental car place, which was open all night. Ryan spoke in fluent Italian to the clerk, who nodded his head, and spoke Italian back. I had no idea what Ryan and this man were saying. I only knew that Ryan was smiling at me devilishly.

The man came back with the keys in his hand, and Ryan called to him in Italian, waving his hand. I only recognized the word “Ciao.”

Oh, how I wished that I prepared more for this trip, language-wise.

“By the way,” I said, “how do you still know your Italian so well?”

“Beautiful, I lived in Europe for several years, and I spent summers here in Italy. It’s not that big of a deal.”

I smiled. I didn’t know any other languages at all, and I was impressed with Ryan’s fluency here.

I followed him out to the parking lot, then blinked my eyes in astonishment when I saw to which car Ryan was headed. It was a black Lamborghini.

Ryan raised his eyebrows, motioning to the car. “Get in, my lady,” he said, as the doors opened up in their trademark upward trajectory.

I cocked my head. “Really? This the car we’re going to be seeing Italy in?”

“We’re in Italy, beautiful, we have to do as the Italians do.” At that, he turned the ignition and I had never heard such a roar in my life.

Man, this was a car.

“We’re d
oing as the wealthy Italians do,” I said, with a hint of condescension. “I don’t know about Italians, in general. I’m pretty sure that most Italians can’t afford to cruise around in a car like this.” I was somewhat put off that Ryan was being so pretentious with the car.

But then I realized that he was just trying to impress me, which made me love him all the more.

Ryan just smiled, and tousled my hair a little. “I have to take you on the Audubon sometime in this car. Then you can see what it can really do.”

We got to Nick’s house on Lake Como just after midnight. I have to say that I was exhausted by this time. The trip was catching up to me.

The house was gorgeous. It was behind a gate, and we had to travel up a long drive to get to it. It was situated on the shore of the lake, and it was an enormous Mediterranean-style home. The façade was a salmon-colored stucco, and the house was all porticos, turrets, arches and huge windows. The living room was impeccable – 20-foot ceilings, walls of windows, and a marble fireplace on one end of the room. The floor was marble as well. There was a large tree in a pot that looked like some kind of palm tree. The furniture was Italian leather, and the coffee table in front of the sofa was glass-topped with a marble pedestal.

I walked around the home, marveling at everything I saw
. Above the fireplace was a Warhol original, and in the dining room were several Ansel Adams originals.

The entire house was like this. Cool, modern, impeccably appointed. There was an Olympic-sized swimming pool out back, framed by palm trees and African violets. A hot tub was attached to the pool, and the pool had a bar in the middle of it that one could swim to. There were waterfalls out back, as well.

I felt like I was in an episode of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
with Robin Leach. This was especially true as I knew that Lake Como was the haven for wealthy celebrities. I went out on the balcony and looked at the stars in the sky, and smelled the night air. It was a beautiful early fall evening, and I was with the most mesmerizing and magnetic man on the planet.

Life was at its pinnacle.

Ryan soon joined me out on the balcony, two glasses of wine in his hands. He gave me a glass, and we clinked it. “To a long and healthy life together,” he said, then kissed me. “Mmmm, you taste like wine,” he said playfully.

“I wonder why?”

He kissed me again, longer and more passionate this time. “You ready to go again?”

“Always,” I said.

“Get naked with me, and let’s get in the pool.”

At that, we both stripped off our clothes and ran into the heated pool. I was glad that the pool was heated, because the night air was just a bit chilly. I certainly didn’t want to be a baby about it, though.

Ryan picked me up and carried me around the pool, humming sweetly to me. “La, la, la, la, you’re my beautiful wife,” he sang. “God, that sounds amazing. Wife. You’re my wife. You’re no longer my girlfriend, but my wife.”

I giggled, then he kissed me.
“God, I want you,” he said. “But I can’t take you here in the pool. No lubrication.” At that, he pulled me up and carried me over to the lounge chair that was by the pool, and entered me right there. Waves of orgasms floated through me. I felt like I was in heaven, like nothing could ever touch us. Nothing bad had ever happened to us, and nothing bad could ever happen to us. We were invincible, laying here on the chaise, under the stars, entertwined.

We were like this for the rest of the night, going into the house and making love in the enormous four poster bed. Nick’s bedroom was just as gorgeous as the rest of the house, and it had a balcony attached. The arched windows opened up into the balcony, and the curtains billowed in the breeze. The zep
hyr felt amazing on my skin, because I was getting so warm with every single touch.

We couldn’t get enough of each other for the rest of the night, so we slept in the next day, exhausted and happy.

We woke up the next day around noon, rented some bikes, and headed to Ryan’s winery. The bikes wouldn’t fit on the Lamborghini, of course, so we drove Nick’s Jeep.

Ryan’s winery
was in the Lombardy region, which was close to Nick’s home. We traveled some twenty miles to get there, through dusty streets. The building that housed the actual winery was built upon arches and porticos, and it had a more stylish look to it than many of the other wineries I encountered in the region. I walked in and saw enormous barrels lining the walls, and people milling about tasting the wine.

Ryan was greeted by the workers there, bantering back and forth with them in Italian. They were slapping his back, obviously thrilled to see him.

He brought me over to meet the manager of the place, Giuseppe. “Giuseppe, this is my new wife, Iris. Iris, Giuseppe.”

“Ciao, bella,” he said. Then, in broken English, he said “Congratulations to you both. Welcome to Italy.”
Then he laughed as he gave me an enormous bear hug.

Then Ryan turned to me and said “Let me take you on a tour, then you can get a glass of whatever wine you choose. I hope you don’t mind sipping some wine while I talk to the people here. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, so we need to catch up.”

“No, no, of course not,” I said. “Here, just pour me a glass, and I’ll sit right over there,” I said, motioning to a small table and chairs that was just over to the side of the bar. “We’ll take our tour later.”

I sipped my wine and watched them interestedly. Ryan fit right in, speaking rapid-fire Italian
, and gesturing with his hands. The conversation seemed to be light and non-serious – there was plenty of laughter and back-slapping. A few times, I saw Ryan look at me with an enormous smile on his face, gesturing while he spoke Italian, and I wished I had some kind of clue as to what they were saying.

It seemed that Ryan’s Italian was perfect, accent and all. It was if he was a native speaker.

He came over to me with a wide grin on his face. “Everything’s great, beautiful. It seems that the people running my place have it all under control. Let’s take our tour.”

He held my hand as we walked through the production room, then to the warehouse, and outside in the actual vineyard. It was beautiful and peaceful here, and remarkably busy. There were people everywhere, touring the vineyards, drinking the wine, chatting in a multitude of different languages. I hadn’t heard so many different tongues spoken since I vacationed in San Francisco several years ago.

“You’ve done well here,” I said. “Your place certainly seems to be a hot spot.”

“Yeah. All the credit for that has to go to Giuseppe and his team. I own the place, but I really am not active in the day-to-day operations anymore. So, the success of the place is directly attributable to them.”

After we toured Ryan’s place, we got the bikes off the back of the Jeep, and pedaled through the Lombardy region. We stopped along the way at various wineries, sipping different varietals. Ryan explained to me the differences in the grapes, how they were grown, and how the different varietals were made. It was all very interesting to me, and he was a wealth of knowledge on the subject. I was starting to feel slightly drunk, and was a little nervous about pedaling while impaired, but went along, anyhow.

We got back to the Jeep around dusk, after biking around fifty miles through some of the most beautiful country I had ever seen. “I’m proud of you,” Ryan said. “I don’t think that we have biked this far together before.”

I just smiled, feeling exhausted and a little drunk. “Let’s head home, huh?”

We got home, and made love, but only once. After we made love, we were both zonked. We didn’t even eat dinner.

That entire week was like that one day. Every day was an adventure. One day we took the rented Lamborghini to Milan to see
The Last Supper
in the Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is a church and Dominican convent. Ryan had booked this particular tour a month in advance, knowing that this was a popular site. After we saw this most important painting, we drove to Venice to take a gondola tour through some of the Venetian canals. I laughed, telling Ryan that the closest I had come to such a tour was when I went to the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Now, I was doing the real thing.