Wedding of the Century update

Mary Jane had a dresser. Not a piece of furniture, but a man who put together what she wore. Who researched color combinations, trends, materials, fabrics—who solicited the latest fashions from the hottest designers and saw to it that everything, whether a dress, a T-shirt, or a bra, was designed to Mary Jane’s exact measurements and then further modified to flatter her. Whether it was a bikini top a little too small to make her breasts look enormous or jeans that were boot-cut to avoid showing a bit of weight she hadn’t worked off yet.

That man was, in a real way, the Gospel of what Mary Jane Watson liked to wear.

It was freeing, really. Her own taste in clothes was private, secret. And if she only got to wear them when she was inside a hotel room or in one of her houses… Well, that was the point of a fantasy, wasn’t it? It wasn’t real. But Mary Jane got to have her fantasy go on longer than any daydream in the world.

It still felt weird to be doing it to Peter. He was being so gracious, so understanding—so funny with how he complained, which softened the blow of how much he complained—but sometimes he just… looked like Paul. With the turquoise Egyptian cotton shirt and the Vince DM01 jeans and the belt that he didn’t need to hold up his pants but it was Prada.

There was still something at the core of him that Mary Jane admired; it felt like a lie to tell Peter, even by her actions alone, that he had to look a certain way to appeal to her. He was so handsome… had she ever said that to him?

“Ten minutes,” Peter said, uncomfortably trying to roll up his sleeves to place he was comfortable with. “You promised.”

She had promised. Ten minutes to put together an outfit, fix his hair, and just enough make-up for a glow. Don’t thread his eyebrows or anything, she’d told Magenta, who’d insisted he could really use threaded eyebrows.

Peter chanced a look at himself in the reflection of the darkened TV set. “This has got to be the best I’ve ever looked without wearing a tie.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Mary Jane said, dipping into her purse and presenting him with a foulard tie from Turnbull & Asser. “Happy zeroth anniversary, tiger.”

Peter took it from her. “I didn’t get you anything,” he said laconically.

“That’s alright, I got me this.” A Chopard necklace emerged from her purse next. She pressed it into Peter’s hand. “Now give it to me.”

Peter was momentarily distracted by a camera flash going off—fodder for future anniversary posts—then he examined the necklace. “This one costs a little more than the ones at the mall, doesn’t it?”

“Only about five thousand. It’s a first date after all.”

Peter boggled. Suddenly paler than he already was. “That’s more than the deposit on this apartment!”

“Then you’d better give it back to me, hadn’t you?”

Peter handed it over. The camera flash went off, capturing Mary Jane’s elation at the gift. It wasn’t the toughest act, but it was an act. Hard to be too happy when Peter seemed subtly miserable. She was the most desirable woman on Earth; so where was the desire?

“And?” Mary Jane said, passing it back to him, before she turned around and shifted her hair out of the way to bare her neck.

Peter chuckled, but obediently put the necklace on her, hooking the catch at the nape of her neck. “Used to getting what you want, aren’t you?”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want me to get you?”

Peter wound the tie around his neck, starting to put it on, when he sniffed the kobe being fixed in his kitchenette. “Does that little girl in Indiana dream of cooking dinner for her boyfriend?”

“It’s a delicate balance,” Mary Jane admitted. “I have to be able to cook, but it can’t be my responsibility or anything.”

“Do you have a König brand apron you want to wear for the internet?”

“Peter, don’t be silly. Dolce & Gabbana pays much more than them.” She snapped her fingers. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have tattoos we’ll have to clear with Legal, do you?”

“No. No tattoos. Although if Quibi makes a comeback, I suppose we could get matching ones and make it an exclusive.”

“Don’t tease me,” MJ purred. “I’d like to save that for the third date.”

“Oh, that’s what we’re saving for the third date,” Peter purred right back, straightening his disassembled tie so the two halves hung symmetrically down his chest.

Mary Jane playfully adjusted them further. “We should get a few shots of us cooking. I’ll poke the meat with a fork—”

“So we’re not saving that for the third date?”

“You mince some onions.”

“Good idea. I can look emotionally open with the crying. And we can follow it up with a nice romantic movie, like Alien.”

“That’s a legal gray area, I’m afraid,” Mary Jane said as they decamped to the kitchenette.

Mary Jane thanked her personal chef for getting the kobe started, then took over for the photo op. Peter went at an onion with a knife. It did feel like he was getting something out of his system.

“Did you sign away your right to watch Alien movies?” Peter asked. “Because I didn’t know that was an option. And after Alien 3, it should’ve been.”

“I did a movie for Disney, which now owns Fox, and there’s a little dispute there. I want to be paid and they don’t want to pay me, so now our lawyers are talking to each other.”

“What do you mean, they’re not paying you?”

“It’s complicated. They decided to stream the movie instead of giving it a theatrical release, but one of my bonuses was based on how many theaters the movie opened in, so that’s a breach of contract and now we’re like divorced parents. Only talking to each other when it comes to Rowan’s Raid, which I’m also starring in for them.”

“But they didn’t pay you for the streaming movie?”

“Oh, they will. It’s all legal stuff. I think we have to give entertainment lawyers something to do every couple months or else they start looking for orphanages to close down. I know, I know, who am I to ask for more money—”

“No, I mean, if they signed a contract, they can’t just change it around. It’s your money, they owe it to you. And it’s not like they’re going to give it all to charity if you drop the suit.”

Mary Jane clutched at her heart theatrically. “Dear Diary: Today Peter Parker said I should get to have more money in the big vault where I swim around like Scoorge McDuck. What follows is a list of names for our firstborn son.”

“Oh, you’re giving me a son first time at bat? You do believe in the hard sell.”

“America is over girl dads. Now I want you to teach our Nathan to bow-hunt and change engine oil.”

“We’re not naming him Peter Jr.?”

“How many months do you want to be pregnant with him?”

“Miss Mary Jane,” her chef called, from just outside view of the cameras. “Please be so good as to flip the kobe over now.”

Mary Jane turned the beef over in the skillet. She looked at Peter. “Hey, those are some pretty good chopped onions. You could work at Five Guys.”

“Then they’d be Six Guys. They’d have to order new signs.”

Mary Jane laughed. The camera flash went off. The moment was stung, leaving a mark where others simply slipped away.

***

They sat down to eat, in the new chairs, at the new tables, on the new dishes. Peter sawed his half of kobe into morsels. Mary Jane did the same with hers. Just a few feet away, a camera recorded them for upvoted posterity. Peter tried to ignore it.

“This is the moment,” he said. “The moment my aunt always said would come. When the global population judges me for my table manners.”

“Here. Trade you.” Mary Jane pulled the still untied tie away from him and offered him a napkin instead.

Peter tucked it into his collar. It was a simple quilted napkin. “No linen? Nothing shaped like a swan?”

Mary Jane slung the tie over her shoulder. “We wouldn’t make you look too pretentious.”

“Joke’s on you: I’m growing a pencil moustache for the third date.”

“You’re setting that up to be quite the event.”

“Well, given everything else your crew has done, I can’t imagine what they managed for the condoms I keep in my nightstand.”

“Oh, I’m a simple girl, I don’t ask much. As long as it’s ribbed for my pleasure…”

Peter smiled and got another camera flash going off in his face. He winced. “Can we just laugh like idiots for the next sixty seconds and then send these guys home?”

“It’s called B-roll. There’s also a guy in the neighboring building who is filming us through the window—”

Peter started. “We’re being… we’re being stalked right now?”

“Stalked!” Mary Jane exclaimed. “It’s a paparazzo. We tell them where I am, they get their shots, then they leave me alone. It’s an arrangement.”

“So act natural, huh?”

“Try not to look down my dress.”

“Okay, not that natural.” Peter poked at his kobe. “What are we supposed to do, here, besides chew with our mouths closed?”

“Anything. Say anything. It’s not like they can hear us.”

“Finally, a win for privacy. You must be the one person who goes to a website and says you’ll accept all the cookies.”

“Who doesn’t like cookies?” MJ quipped. “Look, privacy was last century. These days, everyone knows everything about everybody. The only question is whether they ignore you or not.”

Peter massaged his temples a moment before stopping himself. “Sorry. That’ll probably get you on the cover of the National Enquirer, with a headline about how you’re sharing your Holocaust conspiracy theories with me.”

Mary Jane reached across the table to take his hand. “Guys, I think that’s a big enough Pinterest board. Meet me in the lobby?”

Her boys shuffled away. It sounded like a rock band leaving the stage.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I wanted to show you a good time, but I’m being a bit of a pill, aren’t I?”

“It’s not an easy transition to make, starting your fifteen minutes of fame. But it’ll be over before you know it. Once everyone knows you’re a solid, dependable guy, they’ll lose interest and see if they can find a pop star who does cocaine.”

“That what this is? We wait them out until…”

Mary Jane pinched her lips together. “It’s short-term but… if the short-term keeps going, I guess it’s long-term.”

“You don’t have to make any decisions tonight. I won’t even hold you to Nathan Parker.”

“Neither do you. If you only want to be pregnant for one month…”

“Little disappointed, though. I wanted to do something for you and I ended up doing something for your Twitter followers.”

“Ruin your fantasy?”

“Fantasy,” Peter scoffed, looking away.

“What? I’m hot, I’m famous—you must have a fantasy about me. You don’t have to tell me about it, but I bet it didn’t include pomade.” Mary Jane teasingly wiggled the necktie still hung over her shoulder.

“My fantasy is getting to know you. But you’ve got a million people who want that too, and so many ways to keep all of them out. It’s not easy being Mr. One Million And One.”

“Is that you understanding me or you judging me?”

“I’m not in any position to judge you.”

“You’re in the perfect position to judge me: I want to go on another date with you and you can say yes or no.”

“Yes,” Peter said immediately. “But not here, not with any involvement from Web 3.0, and right now.”

“Right now?” Mary Jane repeated.

Peter stood, swiping his tie from Mary Jane’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here. Second date. Right now. Just us. Out the fire escape. We’ll hit the subway while the paparazzi is still waiting for the elevator.”

“I’m wearing high heels.”

“Want to borrow my flip-flops?”

Mary Jane blinked. “You’re serious.”

“Absolutely. We need to get those flip-flops out of sight before one of your entourage replaces them with penny loafers.”

“You’re crazy!”

“See, I like that better than ‘serious’. Does a better job of capturing my je ne sais quois.”

She grinned. “Okay. So long as watching Alien is off the table…”

“It’s more of a second date movie anyway.”

“Aliens for a third date? You really plan a packed evening, Mr. Parker.”