The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

© 2007, le Duc de Kavaliere

Midsummer Knight’s Dream

Part 12

Act Three, Scene One

It was the first Friday in August. The Faire was going well, but it had been difficult to find a wedding date that worked for everyone. Zelasha had left four messages for her father with Eugenia, but hadn’t heard back in a month—until she got a panicked and repentant call from him last week. Apparently, his wife had never delivered him the messages. He’d heard about the wedding when Amanda had called offering congratulations.

In exasperation, we finally set a tentative date a month away. We’d driven to the courthouse in Carmel that morning to pick up our wedding license. We’d caught a showing of Star Wars Episode III that afternoon, and were now headed back to the Faire.

Zelasha sighed. “Eugenia keeps throwing roadblocks in the way of every date I suggest,” she said. “And my dad is covering for her, that’s what makes me sick. She’s was busy at church in June, she said she had to work every weekend in July, and this month she’s busy polishing her bellybutton ring.”

I put an arm around her, and my fiancee rested her head on my shoulder. “I know what you mean,” I said. “I talked to my sister-in-law, and apparently my brother’s booked throughout the whole summer.”

“What about your dad?”

I snorted. “You kidding? He hasn’t spoken to me since he stopped by to do his Puritan audition, and frankly, I don’t mind if he doesn’t show—I don’t need the stress. We’ll send him an invitation, but don’t expect too much.”

“I won’t,” Zelasha told me, and paused. “Hey, Nick?”

“Mmm?” I turned the corner into the campground’s parking lot.

“What happened to your mother?”

“Oh.” I pulled into a parking spot. “She died when I was a baby. I don’t remember her.”

My fiancee stared at me. “That’s awful!”

I got out of the car and opened her door for her. She took my hand with a sympathetic smile. “Don’t you miss her?”

“Not really,” I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, believe it or not.” We started walking towards the campground, holding hands. “You can’t miss something that you never experienced. Ideally, I’d like to have a better relationship with the parent I DO have. But what I really want is to for my father to get off his pompous ass and start putting his money where his mouth is. I’ve read the gospels, and I seem to recall his God saying that he wanted his followers to love their neighbors—not bash them over the head with the Bible.”

“You know,” Zelasha said, “we’re never going to find a date when all our relatives can show up.”

I nodded glumly.

“So why not have it here?” she said, a sparkle in her green eyes.

I opened my mouth, but no words came. We’d decided a winery would be too hot in the middle of the summer, so we’d been thinking of a shotgun ceremony in a courthouse. But here? With the costumes and the laughter, the Songbirds and the crew, the mead and the ale?

“That’s a really good idea,” I said slowly.

Zelasha grinned crookedly. “Great, let’s go celebrate.” She turned to face me, playfully twirling a lock of wavy red hair in her right hand.

“Is that your solution to everything?” I asked, looking her up and down.

“You have a problem with this?”

“Of course not.” I pulled her to me and kissed her soundly—and we ran back to our tent, holding hands.

* * *

“My father doesn’t want us to elope,” Zelasha sighed when she got off the phone a few hours later. “He wants us to wait another six months, then have it in a church in Rapid City. He wants to invite everyone he knows—hundreds of guests we’ve never met.”

I remembered a detail about a bride’s parents. “Will they pay for it?”

She pondered that. “I didn’t ask,” she admitted. “I think that he would—but that would mean Eugenia would veto everything we wanted, just because we wanted it. Then we’d be back to the same old tug of war to see who he loved more. I’m not playing that game any more, Nick.”

I put an arm around her. She leaned her head on my shoulder for a moment.

“It drives me nuts,” she said eventually. “I hate that in order to love my father I have to put up with Eugenia.” She looked at me. “Nick, promise me that’ll never happen if we have kids.”

Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. Kids. We were having kids?

Well, we are getting married, and a lot of married people have kids.

“I promise,” I said. It wouldn’t be hard to keep. I’d never subject a child of my own to someone like Zelasha’s stepmother.

“He wants me to put up with Eugenia, and still be his little girl,” Zelasha sighed.

I kissed her, sliding my hands down her sides.

“You’re not a little girl anymore,” I said.

* * *

When Zelasha was off rehearsing with the other Songbirds, I reserved the Wedding Grove for our use on the last day of the Faire. I set everything up with the officiant, and booked the caterers.

I also took a moment to call my brother. He was glad I’d finally set a date, and promised to join us if he could.

On Sunday morning, Miss Scarlett asked me to help her set up for her show. As usual, the hypnotist was glamorous. She wore a black leather vest over a maroon Victorian shirt; her skirt was a red-and-black checkerboard pattern of silk and velvet. Her black hair shone like polished obsidian; she’d twisted it into twin rolls that glided over her ears, then connected it on the back of her head with a butterfly clip.

I fired up the system, then turned the microphone on. “Your hair looks lovely,” I said into it with a grin.

“Thanks,” Scarlett called back to me, smiling. “Emily did it. I think we’re ready to go.”

I took the opportunity to look after one detail.

“Zelasha and I are getting married three weeks from today,” I said. “Would you and Emily like to come?”

A grin spread across the Southerner’s face. “We’d be honored,” she said. “And congratulations!”

“Thank you.” I didn’t know what it was exactly—her words hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary—but somehow, Miss Scarlett’s easy charisma made me feel warm inside.

The Southern hypnotist frowned pensively. “I suppose that means Zelasha will be having a bachelorette party?”

“I’m sure she is,” I admitted, wondering what I was getting us into. “You’ll have to ask her about the details, though.”

Scarlett nodded. “I will. I might even volunteer something.” She winked, and her smile was full of mischief.

* * *

“We are the Gypsy Songbirds,” Kaitlin told the audience that afternoon, “and one of our own is getting married! Congratulations, Zelasha!” My fiancee nodded, beaming, and after a little more good-natured bickering, the singers commenced “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”

* * *

That night after dinner, Zelasha flopped onto our makeshift bed and rested her chin on her hands. “I have half a mind to tell him not to bother bringing Eugenia,” she said. “That woman has been driving me nuts since the first time I saw her.” She frowned, and her face tightened into resolve. “You know,” she added, “that’s what I’m gonna do.”

I sat down next to her and put an arm around her. “Believe me, I have no wish at all to meet your stepmother,” I told her. “But we do want your dad to come—and, frankly, if someone invited me to a wedding and told me not to bring you, I wouldn’t go.”

Zelasha harrumphed and rolled over onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “It’s my fucking wedding,” she snorted. “If I don’t want to invite someone who hates me, I don’t have to!”

She paused. “Ackkkk but I want my dad to come!” she cried. “What did I ever do to that bitch to deserve this? Why do I have to put up with HER in order to spend time with my dad? He’s supposed to protect me, not force me to deal with someone who hates me! Why does he put me through this? Why won’t he see that by shoving her down my throat, he’s losing me?”

“Zelasha,” I said softly, “you don’t need him to protect you any more.”

She nodded. “You’re right. You’re right. This is my life. I get to choose what I wanna do.” She looked up at me. “What do you think we should do?”

I thought for a moment. “We can invite your dad without inviting Eugenia,” I said, “but we don’t have to tell him she can’t come. If she does come, this is the last time you’ll ever have to deal with her.”

“How are we gonna invite him without her?”

“Instead of addressing the invitation ‘Clark and Eugenia Harrison,’” I suggested, “address it ‘Clark Harrison and Guest.’ That’ll leave the final decision up to your father, and still let him know we don’t approve of the way she’s treated you.”

“Clever,” she said. “He’ll probably still bring her, though.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not. If Eugenia hates you so much, why would she even want to come to a party thrown in your honor?”

“To make me miserable, of course,” Zelasha said wryly. “But I won’t let her. I’m going to marry the man who treats me right, and no selfish bitch can spoil that.”