THOU SHALT NOT BEARD
I took one look at him and let out a piercing shriek that would surely cause the Channel Island feral pigs to stampede, even though they lived oh, twenty miles across the freaking Pacific Ocean from us.
After being away for more than two weeks, I’d just stepped foot into our beach house south of Santa Barbara laden with suitcases and bags of presents, excited and happy to return to Ryan but also feeling nostalgic about my trip.
I’d been traveling with Marie, my best friend, on an extended quasi-bachelorette party to New York. We saw Times Square, three Broadway shows, MOMA, the Guggenheim, and all the flagship stores. At night, we hit the town or stayed in, ordered room service, and talked or watched movies until we fell asleep. In sum, best girl trip ever. Since this trip was the last time we’d be together with both of us single, Ryan had splurged, buying Marie and me first class plane tickets and a suite at the Plaza hotel, our home base for some final shopping before the wedding.
Our wedding. The wedding we weren’t going to have in five days because I couldn’t stand the sight of him.
I took a deep breath and prayed for serenity. Gathering myself, I asked in a slightly calmer voice, “What on Earth did you do to yourself?”
By “slightly calmer,” I mean my decibel level would make seagulls take flight, but it wouldn’t scare the feral pigs. That deep breath hadn’t really done anything to help me find my inner Dalai Lama.
I glared at him.
My surfer boy, shirtless as usual, with ladder-like abs and golden curls I loved to touch, had been lounging on a couch watching television. He’d heard me come in, so he stood up, loping over with a broad grin and arms wide. “Amelia,” he said in his raspy voice, ready to give me a welcome-home hug.
His blue plaid board shorts hung down below the divots in his hips, and as usual, I got distracted by the happy trail headed down his lean torso.
But once I’d caught sight of his face, I didn’t see the abs or curls. I just saw red, like stop sign red. Fighting mad red. Bullfighter red. Like no, absolutely not, this is not happening red.
My beloved fiancé had grown a fucking beard right before our wedding.
Goddamn him. If I didn’t love him so much, I’d hate him. As it was, I was so pissed I couldn’t form sentences, and instead, resorted to shrieking like that haunted shack in Harry Potter.
His response?
A smile. One that cracked his face wide open and revealed his even, white teeth and glorious full lips. But that smile was surrounded by patchy blond hair that wasn’t there two weeks ago.
Stubble, I could handle and actively liked.
But this?
No.
I stared at him, violet eyes wide, finger pointing at the hair on his chin, not sure what to do next.
Ryan chuckled and rubbed his beard like all hairy men do, whether their beard was just-grown-in or antediluvian. Thoughtful stroking must be part of Beard Ownership 101. That and being utterly fascinated with how it grows in.
But because his blond hair was so light, Ryan’s monstrosity grew in unevenly, like it had been mowed by a particularly bored goat who couldn’t be bothered to actually eat all the grass available. I’d heard Joel McHale make fun of Spencer’s “creepy flesh-colored beard” on The Hills. Pretty much Ryan’s fate.
It was scruffy.
This. Was. Not. Okay.
Our wedding did not allow scruffy. Our wedding was going to be elegant. I hadn’t hired a wedding planner because I loved party planning. I liked pretty things. Our wedding had table settings that I had spent at least three solid weeks designing. I was just waiting for the shipments of imported napkins and vases any day now. I’d even choreographed our wedding so that it took place on the beach at sunset, during the magic hour when the wind was down and the waves were smooth. Our wedding was going to be perfect.
No beards allowed!
“I take it you’re not a fan of the facial growth,” he said, again doing the beard-stroke thing. Apparently me standing mute, pointing, and gawking gave him the hint.
I shook my dark hair. “No. I’m not. It doesn’t . . . how could you . . . Ryan! It’s our wedding! Why did you do this?”
“I always wanted to grow a beard.”
“Are you going to shave it off?”
“Nope.” He grinned annoyingly. “I like it.” He leaned in for a kiss, unrepentant, but I took a step back, not ready.
“But couldn’t you wait to do it until after we take pictures that we are going to look at for the rest of our lives?”
He came up in front of me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close to him. Ordinarily, I loved this, loved the way he smelled, and loved the feel of his muscles.
But right now all I felt was revulsion. I mean, he looked ridiculous.
How could I even give him a kiss? I’d need a machete to find his lips.
He’d changed something, and it was not acceptable. There was no possible way the whole entire universe, whether in our solar system, or in some distant galaxy, that this was acceptable.
“Does it really look that bad?”
I nodded.
Instead of agreeing that yes, Amelia, he was going to march his tight ass down to the bathroom and shave, he stretched up his arms, popping his goddamn abs (those abs), looked at me, and said, “Let’s see if you change your opinion when you feel this beard between your legs.”
A shudder rippled through my body involuntarily. Damn body. Traitor.
I started to say something that sounded like, “Guh,” when he reached down, took my hand, and said, “I missed you.” And he leaned down and kissed me, my first ever beard-kiss.
As he met my lips, the hair on his face scraped my pale skin. But because this beard-kiss came from Ryan, I soon forgot about the scratchiness and lost myself in his taste and his feel and his tongue, the love I felt for him and the love I knew he felt for me.
In short, swoon.
When we broke apart, under that facial hair I caught a glimpse of the face that I loved more than anything on this Earth. A face that had healed me. One that I loved to wake up to and was my favorite thing to see before I fell asleep. One that never failed to give me a visceral reaction of how handsome he was.
Before I could get another word in, he reached under my knees and lifted me up, carrying me like a bride. But instead of going to our bedroom, he headed directly to the couch he’d just got up from, and deposited me gently, kneeling right next to me. Leaning over me, radiant, muscly, shirtless, he whispered, “Give the beard a chance.”
I went to shake my head no, but I mean, come on. It was Ryan.
That beardy eyesore didn’t hide his striking green eyes.
“Give the beard a chance,” he’d said. But I didn’t stand a chance.
Cocking his head to the side, he started to kiss down my neck, and yes, it scratched, but more, it was warm lips and soft tongue, and in the time it took to make the jump to hyperspeed, I was willing to see what it felt like when cunnilingus became beard-a-lingus, and I told him so.
He grinned, and I got fascinated by the way the facial hair moved on his cheeks and chin, in a scientific way only, of course. Now his face moved differently, the way long grass moves on a hill in the wind.
But then I remembered I didn’t like a beard on him.
He didn’t let me get worked up again about his hairy abnormality on his otherwise perfect self, since he went straight to getting me worked up. He pulled, and off went my sandals. With flicks of his long, clever fingers, my khaki shorts came off my long legs. Peach peasant blouse off. Bra off, letting the ample girls loose. And he hooked his thumbs in the elastic of my pale peach cheeky panties and pulled them down my curvy hips.
Apparently I could go from zero to naked in six seconds these days on Ryan’s couch.
He held my feet firmly, spread them apart, and started licking and sucking his way up my legs while I squirmed on the couch.
God, I’d missed him while I’d been gone. I missed the way he took care of me, always. My needs first.
Except this beard thing.
Was this the first sign that once we got married things were going to be different?
I went to open my mouth to have a discussion with him, but his cheeks brushed against my inner thigh—yes, I could feel that bristly fur—and then his long, delicious tongue found my pussy and went to work. With two fingers, he spread me open and gently rolled his tongue around my clit, then widened it and pressed along the side.
Oh God.
Beard? What beard?
I only felt tongue on my sex. No beard. No scratchy. No different.
The part of my brain that worried about things and tried to make everything just so turned off, and instead my thoughts went into this vacant room filled with light and, fuck, give me more now, please.
“I missed you. I missed your arms. I missed your hair. I missed your curves. I missed the fucking sexy smell of your pussy,” he muttered as he ran his nose up and down the entire length of me. He put a finger inside me, curled up, and started pressing on the sensitive part—the rougher part with all the nerve endings—as he continued to go down, giving all of his attention to the bundle of nerves that he knew only he could affect.
Brain wiped. Not pissed about beard any more. Only processing tingling between my legs and blood rushing to my toes—heating them up—my hands scratching at the couch to the side of my hips, my body wiggling as he held me still by one hand on my hipbone.
He looked up, his mouth on me still, finger curled inside, and smiled with his verdant eyes.
Rubbing an extra good place with his fingers, because it had been two weeks since I’d seen him, I launched into orgasm, my brain lost and found again, my body shaking involuntarily. All the tension and nonsense in my brain vaporized and I entered a Zen-like state of nothingness. He kept going through my pulsing, the waves of the climax hitting again and again, and it was all I could do to not scream out in pleasure. All I could do to just let my body surrender to what it naturally did.
I felt better.
After I came to, I looked at him. “My God, Ryan, the things you get me to do.”
He smiled. While my legs were jelly and my brain, mush, he’d pushed his board shorts down to his knees and pushed himself over me, hovering. Positioning his cock—his hard, veiny, lovely cock—right at my entrance, he waited, his arms on either side of my head, gazing down at me.
I could smell myself on him and see the lust in his eyes. “What is it?”
“I missed you so goddamn much, Amelia. I don’t like going two weeks without you.”
“I missed you too.” I wrapped my arms around his ass and pressed him into me, and with a slow movement, he edged in inch by inch, until he fit all the way.
Finally.
“This is where you belong,” I murmured.
“Yeah.” He kissed me, and again, it was a beardy-kiss and smelled like me, but as he had started to move, started to thrust into me—gently, methodically, with a little tick up—I’d lost the ability to give a fuck about beards or anything else. I just wanted him to fuck me, and I wanted it now. I wanted the connection. I wanted to feel whole, the way I always felt whole with him.
As I wrapped my legs around him, he increased the pace and changed the angle. He grabbed a couch pillow and shoved it under my ass so that my back was arched, my head down, and my pelvis concave. As he fucked me, a blond curl dropped over his forehead and his eyes locked on mine.
Thrust, thrust, thrust.
I found myself tightening around him, and he reached down and rubbed my clit to finish. I came again, gasping, moaning, eyes on him. He watched me, satisfied, and it was beautiful in the way that anything pure is beautiful, anything sincere, anything loving.
When I settled down, he thrust five more times. With the sexiest groan, he threw his head back and came. He collapsed down onto me, and I grabbed him low on his waist, holding him close, never letting him go.
After a moment, snuggling his nose into the curve of my neck, he said, “Welcome home.”
And I was home. Breathing against his warm body in the afternoon sunlight, with the waves breaking outside, I was home. I nodded into him and held him tighter.
That night, curled onto his bare chest in our big bed clad with white linens, listening to the sound of the ocean, I played with his curly locks, while he kept an arm around me. He’d just taken a shower after surfing, and he smelled clean, but still like the salty ocean.
Trying to deal with what he’d done, I tentatively ran my fingers through his attempt at a beard. My first lesson in Beard Ownership 101: stroking.
It felt funny. I was used to his smooth, tanned skin, with just a little stubble in the mornings. I’d memorized his freckles and the curves of his face.
Now they were obscured, and I didn’t know what I thought about it anymore. I still didn’t think I liked it. I pressed my nose against his nipple. He scooted against the pillows and tucked me in against him, kissing the top of my head.
Tired, jetlagged, I fell asleep on his broad chest as he combed my dark hair with his fingers.
When I woke up the next morning, my Sun God was on his back, arm thrown back, making a quiet, whiffling snore. In the morning sunlight, I got a good look at his beard.
Yep. Beard. Check. Still there. On his pretty face.
I still didn’t like it. I wanted his face to go back to the way it was. Glancing over at the bathroom, I was tempted to creep in, get his kit, and shave it myself. Just lather my boy up with shaving cream and start while he was sleeping, so he’d have to finish or look ridiculous.
But that wasn’t right.
If I changed my hair, I wouldn’t want him cutting it while I was asleep.
Harrumph.
I looked over him out the window to the Pacific Ocean and watched the blue-green water shine in the morning, still calm. Guess the time difference made me get up extra early.
I padded downstairs, made a cup of coffee—sacrilege since Ryan made the best coffee—and settled on an arm chair looking out at the beach. A group of surfers gathered nearby, sitting on their boards. Ryan had left a stack of mail for me to look at, and I opened cards congratulating us on our nuptials.
Then I realized that I hadn’t seen the shipments of the vases and napkins for our table settings.
Climbing out of my comfy chair cocoon, I went to the garage, with coffee cup in hand. No boxes. I started walking through all the rooms of the house, looking to see where he might have put them.
Nothing. Nowhere. Didn’t see them.
I went to my computer, logged on, and found the confirmation email with the tracking number. But when I clicked on the link, I found out that my beautiful linens and decorations were back ordered.
Delayed.
For three weeks.
No.
NO.
They wouldn’t come in time for our wedding.
I burst into tears. Ugly, heaving, wet, sobbing tears, way before six in the morning.
My wedding was ruined. Not only did my fiancé grow a wonky beard, but also the only thing I cared about—table settings—were not going to come.
Massive guilt washed over me for feeling this way. Here I was in a beach house, with the man of my dreams, crying because I didn’t get imported vases and napkins. Seriously first world problems.
And the shame of how badly I was acting made me feel even worse.
As I sobbed, I became aware of a presence watching me.
Ryan leaned in the doorway wearing black boxer briefs, holding two cups of coffee. He padded over, barefoot, set a cup down next to me, and crouched down next to my chair, concerned.
“Hey,” he said gently. “What’s going on?”
Wiping the snot away, I didn’t even want to look at him because I was being ridiculous and he had that stupid beard.
“Nothing.”
“Babe. You don’t cry like that for nothing. What is it?”
Holding my hands over my face, I muttered into my palms, “It looks like we’re not going to get the table settings in. Our wedding is ruined.”
Silence.
When I moved my hands and looked up, his facial expression registered utter amusement—eyebrow raised, eyes disbelieving, and that damn beard obscuring a twitch in his mouth.
“The table settings? Our wedding is going to be ruined because we don’t have table settings?”
I nodded and sniffled.
“I know you love them, but is this really about table settings, Movie Star?”
I nodded and then thought better of it, so I shook my head. My voice wasn’t louder than a whisper. “My last marriage was an utter failure. I want to get it right this time.”
He set his hands on my knees. “No matter what the tables look like, no matter what you or I wear, no matter who attends, no matter what, it’s going to be alright because I’m marrying you.”
I wanted to believe him, but he was wrong.
Women like weddings. We do weddings. We want them to be pretty and romantic. I wanted it to be pretty and romantic. It’s a special day. And if we have our heart set on something, then goddammit we have our heart set on something, and we’d better get it. That’s it.
It’s not being a bridezilla. It’s about making the day you dreamed about the day you dreamed about.
Ryan called me Movie Star because I looked like Elizabeth Taylor. But decorating was my release from being an attorney. I loved to come home and thumb through glossy magazines. My hobby was to arrange things just so. It soothed me to arrange flowers, find the right china, and use my grandmother’s tablecloths for a lunch with friends.
I started to shake my head, to argue with him, but he kept talking. “We’ll make something fun for the tables. We can go gather seashells and get candles.”
“The shells around here are small and gray and dirty and ugly.”
“They’ll mean more than anything you can buy.”
“But they’re not pretty!” I looked at the beard on his face again and burst into tears. I just wanted to crawl back into bed.
He ran his finger down my nose. “What is this, Amelia? Does it really look that bad? Or is it something else?”
“Nothing is going right. Everything is ruined. I wish you’d shave.”
He tilted his head to the side. “It’s just hair, babe. No big deal.”
I still didn’t like it.
Later that evening, I called Marie and told her about The Wedding Crises.
Instead of agreeing that yes, I was absolutely right to be upset, she laughed. “Dude, beards are hot. I wish Will would grow one. I don’t know what your problem is.” Marie, a therapist, lived about an hour away on a ranch with a cowboy, and I could hear him whistling to call his dog in the background.
“Ryan changed. He changed without telling me. Secretly. While we were gone.” My voice sounded like a whine.
“It’s no big deal, Amelia.”
“But it is.”
“You’re seriously telling me that your wedding is threatened by a beard?”
I kicked at the ground. “Well, if you put it that way, it sounds stupid.”
She adopted her professional tone of voice. “You’re not stupid. You’re getting married and scared, so you’re looking for a reason to freak out.”
“I am?” I stared at my feet on the floor.
“You are.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s just that I don’t like beards.”
She sighed. “Hipster hater.”
That got a little laugh out of me—the mirthless kind of laugh.
“And I want my goddamn table settings.”
“I’ll be down tomorrow. Hang in there until then.”
The rest of the day, I moped around. I researched online. I avoided Ryan.
By the end of the day, I headed for the cabinet with the tequila. I poured a shot, downed it without lime or salt, and burst into tears.
Ryan came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “What on Earth is going on? You never cry like this.”
“I don’t know,” I sobbed.
“Is this really about the beard?”
I nodded. “You changed it without asking me.”
“I don’t think this is about the beard. I think you’re scared of getting married, and I think you’re scared of change.”
I turned to him, my jaw dropping.
“You’re scared of commitment,” he continued.
My stomach sank into my shoes. No. That wasn’t it. I loved Ryan. I wanted him more than anything. I wasn’t scared. This was the right decision. Why would he think that? “I’m not.”
He tilted his head and looked at me. “Our relationship is gonna change, Movie Star. It’s not always going to be like this. Right now it’s all new and exciting. Like anything brand new, you want to keep it new forever. But it’s not always gonna be like that. We have to grow up, and I want to do it together. I want to do it with you. I want to go through life with you, my beautiful, smart, kind-hearted Amelia.”
I stared at him. And I thought.
I did want everything to be like it was, with me crossing off rules and him making me experience new things. But at some point, we crossed everything off the list. We’d been back to places together, instead of experiencing them together for the first time. Things were becoming routine.
I liked the routine. I didn’t want the scary changes and rule breaking again. Too risky. What if I changed or he changed and we didn’t like each other, let alone love each other? Could I admit those awful truths?
What were we going to do in the middle of our lives? This was the beginning, but I was worried about what came next.
“I’m scared about the wedding,” I whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back. “We’re taking a risk. But I want to do it with you.”
“I’m scared about the future.”
He lifted up my chin. “We’re going to change. It’s okay.”
“I’m going to commit to you forever and ever, and right before we do that, you change?”
“I did. But this is no big deal, Amelia.”
I asked the scariest question of them all. “What if you change more? What if after we make a legal binding contract to care for each other, we want out of it later because it wasn’t what we thought?”
“I’m definitely going to change. So are you. No getting around it.”
“But we might change in different ways, and we might not get along.”
He gave me a hug. “That’s really what you’re scared of.”
I nodded. “We’re taking a risk.”
“I think that’s what marriage is. Taking a chance on someone, knowing that they are going to change. You’re a real human being. We’re not going to stay the same forever.”
“So you think me not liking the beard means that I don’t want you to change?”
He shrugged and stroked his beard. Beard Ownership 102, now. “Yeah, that’s what I think. If it freaks you out that much, I’ll shave it off. You matter more.”
I looked at him, let out a breath, and took a deep one. I loved Ryan. I would take the plunge with him no matter what. Even with nasty facial hair. “No. Leave it.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
I nodded. “Really. It’s kind of growing on me.” I reached around to hug him, and he snuggled his nose into the top of my hair.
“It’s growing on me,” he said with a wink.
I leaned back and groaned. Still, as usual, my surfer calmed me.
While I was in his arms, however, something came to me. I had to ask, but I was scared to death of the answer. Neuroses don’t go away in a day. “Do you still want to marry me?”
“More than anything.” He smiled his Sun God smile, and I felt bathed in his warmth again.
“I feel so insecure sometimes.”
“Babe. We’re both scared. I know I’ve wanted you my whole life. Ever since I saw you in high school. But does that mean I’m not scared? No. What if something happens to you? This is a chance we are both taking together. But you have to take chances. You don’t live otherwise.”
I nodded. He was right.
With a grin on his face, hidden by that beard, he got down on one knee before me. Solemnly. In board shorts and a Walden surf t-shirt. Barefoot. “Amelia. Will you marry me? Be my wife. Love me forever.”
I burst into tears again and nodded. “I will.” He gave me that beard-kiss. I could deal with it better this time.
And that night the beard-kiss felt even better between my legs.
The next day, Marie arrived with suitcases of clothes and a whole lot of bossiness and attitude. She was moving in to get me ready for the wedding.
The three of us walked up and down the beach, picking up sand dollars, starfish, and sea shells, which we soaked in bleach and water to get the sand off, scrubbed, and let dry. I ordered plain white linens from a local party supply store, and got tons of candles and hurricane glass holders.
Simplicity.
With the tent coming and the caterers, we would have a pared-down, but still elegant wedding, with beard and without fancy table settings.
Speaking of beards, Marie made me go online to look at a Tumblr site of beautiful men with scruffy beards. We sat next to each other at the desk and looked at the laptop, sipping margaritas.
I begrudgingly admitted that they looked okay. (Some of them more than okay.)
“Honestly, Amelia. Ryan is so hot, what does it matter?”
I still felt the need to defend my position. I was right, right? “I just like him better without it.”
Of course she wouldn’t let me get away with that. As she licked the salt off the rim of the glass, she said rather forcefully, “And what does his physicality matter? He’s your soulmate, and you know it.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right.”
Satisfied, she giggled and took a sip of her drink. “Are you willing to take his beard to be your lawfully wedded beard?”
Clinking glasses with her, it was now a no-brainer. “I am.”
“Good.” She stood up and kissed the top of my head.
Our wedding day arrived, and I woke up ready to marry my beard. I mean, my best friend.
A white tent arrived, with tables for our guests—just close friends and family—and we decorated with piles of sea treasures, candles in glasses to protect from the wind, and simple linens and dishes.
It worked for the beach.
And that evening, I took my first step on the sand, barefoot. Still warm from the day, but not too warm, it felt just right. My knee-length, strapless white lace dress looked straight out of the 1950s, but it fit my curves.
My dad offered me his arm and said, “You ready, Princess?”
I beamed at him. I was.
I walked slowly with my dad toward the ocean, following Marie to the rows of chairs set up near the water’s edge. Besides my family and Ryan’s sister, I saw my friends, Jake and Lucy. Jessica and Mikey. Hugo and Neveah. Will. Everyone had gone barefoot, a pile of shoes in a basket at the edge of the sand.
I took a step toward the aisle, and everyone stood.
Ryan’s back had been turned away from me while he talked to the judge quietly. I could see his broad shoulders in his classic black tuxedo. He too was barefoot, with his pant legs rolled up, his hair glinting in the early evening sun.
Then he turned around, caught my eyes, and smiled.
And I felt like I did when I first saw him in the coffee shop. Like time stood still and nothing else existed except me and him. No noise. No waves. No other people.
Just his Sun God smile. His golden glow. Those green eyes that did me in the first time I saw him.
And all of a sudden, I was completely certain that I was doing the right thing. Ryan Fielding was meant for me and no other.
I made it down the aisle, pulled to his presence inevitably, like there was no place else I could go. No place else I wanted to go.
When I got to him, my dad, with tears in his eyes, placed my hand in Ryan’s, and we turned toward the judge. I looked up to Ryan and never felt more whole in my entire life.
We promised each other before the judge and everyone with us to love each other and care for each other as long as we both shall live.
And I knew that I loved him more than I’d ever loved another person and that I would continue to love him, regardless of change. Regardless of what he looked like or what happened to us. I knew that we were meant for each other, despite knowing that things would change. We’d change together or apart, but we would be witnesses to each other’s lives, and we would honor and respect each other.
I couldn’t wait to start the middle part of our journey together.
Once we’d exchanged rings and the judge pronounced us married, Ryan Fielding, my new husband, leaned in to kiss me, and I realized.
He’d shaved.
I’d married him without noticing his facial hair at all. It didn’t matter anymore. I saw him like I always had seen him—his soul, his passion, his sensuality, his love. Not his facial hair.
But he’d shaved it off for me.
“God, I love you,” I whispered.
He smiled. “I love you, too. Forever and ever.”
You can read The Sun and the Moon here!