The One Ring

He is the first to awaken to the scene of depravity. The doing is always fun, but the cleaning up is never any. He looks at the now dried cum stuck to the thighs of snoring beauty. And then the absolute mess of sex smells that now make up his bedding.

He rises, sneaks a shower, and then re-robes. He looks at his cellphone clock and it's only 6:30PM, if she wakes up and showers, she'll make it back in time for this to be salvageable, short-term. Long-term, there's only one answer that's at all palatable to her, her family, and to a lesser extent himself.

He grabs the half-eaten macaron she sampled what now seems eons ago, and finishes it. She wasn't far off, but needs more creme if he wants to serve these at a restaurant level. He re-boxes her gift, and re-ribbons the macarons for hasty travel.

He checks all the boxes, including fishing her panties from under the bed, before shuffling over to the jewelry table. He's not much of a ring man. But one choice piece stands out for it's facsimile to an actual band and the joke it will service in smoothing over the fact it will be a bit before he's not debt-riddled enough to actually afford something worthy of her.

He delays a moment, partially to marvel at how a woman so beautiful could be such a total mouthbreather, but also to maximize her sleep and calm his nerves. Soon, he works up the courage and plants a wet kiss to her forehead. Which causes her to stir. "It's 6:56, babe. You need to wake up, shower and come-up with some reason you were over my house for 8 hours."

She opens her eyes in panic that can only come from exiting quality REM. She groans as the ache rushes through her body. "10-more minutes!" she cries, "Nah, gotta be now." he says, his heart flutters in a way no man is ever comfortable with and he drags her up and into his arms. She flops into his chest, but hugs him deeply "Mhhhmmm, that soap is divine!"

He gives her a soft kiss on the lips before telling her it's in the shower waiting for her. She yawns and stretches, exposing the heavenly contours of her rib-cage at maximum extension. "I see how it is, pop my cherry and boot me out the door like I'm a cheap whore." she yawns again "Do I get Uber money, at least?" He knows she's joking, he knows it won't matter soon, but it stings nonetheless. "You live four houses over?" he manages to **** out and she calls back over her shoulder "To the confessional. I have much to be atone for."

She's in there for a while, and her wonder what the etiquette is for the christian shower after? Seems like a giant loophole, he's snapped back to reality as she comes in wrapped in nothing but a towel, she makes a show of dropping it for you and bending over to pull on her panties. Pulling them nice and tight letting the elastic snap again.

She looks back and gives you a little shake, and it tickles that itch only a good booty can. Then she's off like a rocket, bottoms top and shoes slip and and she's grabbing her boxes and running for the door.

He's blindsided as she disappears away. "Wait!" he cries out after her darting out the door but she's half-way down the stairs he runs after her not catching her until she's almost in the cross walk. She looks back at him running after her dumbfounded, "Did I put on the wrong panties?" But he stops her dead, "I know this is a little out of order. But..." with this he drops to one knee in the middle of the street. In eye-shot of her house, and he looks up at her, "Alice May, Anne, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, Fairbourn; love of my life, keeper of the sacred elephant cock, will you accept this, actually decent, replica of the one ring of Sauron; in place of a real expensive ring to be named later. So that I may, rule you, find you, and cast you back upon my darkness, where I can bind you to covenant marriage, forever and ever."

In this moment he had not considered that he was siting in the middle of the street on an average day, as some of his well-to-do neighbors look on. And this realization crashes over him like the wave crashed over that old couple in Deep Impact. He's made a tactical blunder that even Napoleon couldn't imagine. Fear isn't even the right word for it, and he can't even bring his eyes up to her any longer.

The moments go on like searing agony. Before he can finally summon the courage to look up. Her face an absolute mess of snot and tears. His life flashes before her eyes, it feels like someone kicked him in the stomach hard enough to make him turn into one of those creepy Korean floating-head guts monster-things.

Just as his legs are about to give out he feels her grab his hand. He watches her slide the ring onto her finger like she'd been waiting for it her whole life. Wordlessly collapsing into his arms. "Yes." she gargles out. She hugs him like there's no tomorrow. Probably because this public proposal is going to mean a lot of explaining. Outcomes that could really mean no tomorrow, but in that moment, neither care...

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7 months later...

He's finishing up semester #2 reclining on the man-made pop-up beach on the bank of the canal on the Seine. The pleasant buzz of his text alert ruining his nap. He opens it to drink in the beauty of his soon-to-be wife. it comes with the message: Any tips on how to get this out of me?

He smiles, before chuckling out a reply to only himself. "Nope!" Closing his phone he goes back to his nap.