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Next day, Richard travelled to the City and grimaced when handing over a cheque for Ester’s wedding dress. But that was only the beginning of his pain, for he maxed out his credit card to pay for the designer shoes waiting with Ester’s dress and stripped his wallet of its crisp notes to buy a bridal bouquet.
Once home, Richard presented the bridal outfit for Ester to view through the keyhole. The door lock clicked, and the door opened. Ester shot out, snatched the dress, shoes and bouquet and bolted past him and disappeared into the bedroom.
At noon the next day, Richard and Ester sat outside the Registry Office—she wearing her bridal gown and he squeezed into a suit he hadn’t worn in twenty years. The waiting room was full and hot. Dozens of brides fanned themselves, and dozens of grooms fiddled with starchy collars. Richard looked about as he waited for his number to be called. All the men were of a similar age to him. And all the brides were young and beautiful and Chinese. As he busied himself by flicking through a bridal magazine, he heard the groom seated opposite him tell of his recent good fortune in purchasing a gigantic chocolate egg online. Richard looked at Ester sitting next to him. She beamed a smile back at him.
At 4.55 pm and with the waiting room empty except for Richard and Ester, a celebrant called their names and escorted them into a small office. In the corner sat an old, old man called Chris. He was portly and crimson-suited and big-blonde-bearded and black-booted and red-faced and reeked of whisky.
‘Your witness,’ the celebrant said.
‘Ho-ho-ho,’ Chris said.
‘Get on with it,’ Richard said.
Richard and Ester were man and wife by 5 pm, home by 7 pm and hanky-pankying at 7.05 pm.
***
Dawn’s light trickled into the bedroom when Richard stirred the next morning. At first, he thought last night had been a wonderful dream, but then he sensed the warmth of a body next to him, and a woman’s exotic perfume lingered in his nostrils.
‘Good morning, most honourable husband. You want hanky-panky?’
Remembrance of last night’s love-making with Ester, before collapsing exhausted and sleeping, stirred an urge in Richard’s loins, and he rolled over and went to embrace his new bride. His hand found her leg. He caressed it with gentle strokes, but then stopped. Something was wrong. Ester’s skin did not feel smooth and hairless like last night. Indeed, it was rough and furry. What the hell? He sat and reached over and turned on his bedside lamp.
‘Holy shit!’ he said as his heart leapt, for there next to him sat a rabbit! He jumped from the bed, covered his manhood, rushed to the bathroom and locked himself in.
‘Holy bloody hell!’ he said. He sat himself on the toilet seat and shook.
Padded footsteps neared the other side of the door and stopped. He reached over, checked the lock, removed the key and held his breath.
A gentle knock tapped on the door.
‘Honourable husband not want hanky-panky?’ Ester said through the keyhole.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he said.
‘I honourable wife.’
‘But you’re a rabbit.’
‘No. Not rabbit. I bunny.’
‘What have you done with Ester?’
‘That me. I Ester. I E-ster bunny. Always happen after hanky-panky on wedding night.’
‘What? You’ve been married before?’
‘Oh, yes. Many times. Many honourable. But you special. You most honourable.’
‘Are you married to anyone else now?’
‘Oh, no. I married you. You only honourable husband. You want hanky-panky?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I not Ester bunny all time. Just during day. At night, I honourable wife.’
‘You’re a freak.’
‘No. Me multi-tasker. Honourable husband come out now? Have hanky-panky?’
‘Not likely, you monster.’
All day, Richard kept himself locked in the bathroom. All day, Ester entreated him to unlock the door. Every time her whispers through the keyhole ceased, Richard crept over to the locked door and peered through the keyhole and spied two pearly buck teeth, two white fluffy ears, two ruby glistening eyes and a pink pert nose whiskered with long white hairs. And he shuddered and retreated back to the toilet seat.
By nightfall, he heard neither breathing nor entreaties from Ester through the keyhole, nor could he see a bunny when he peeped through the hole.
Richard called out, ‘Ester? Are you still there?’
Silence answered his query.
‘Ester?’
More silence.
He placed the key in the lock and unlocked the door. He opened the door and peeked outside.
No one.
‘Ester?’
He leant forward and looked up and down the hallway.
No one.
He opened the door and tip-toed to his dark bedroom. He flicked the bedroom light switch. And jumped!
‘Honourable husband. You want hanky-panky?’
On the bed lay a naked, concupiscent Ester—not the buck-toothed, doe-eyed, furry bunny Ester but, rather, the beautiful human Ester. And Richard forgot about Ester’s cunicular alter ego and rushed to the bed and into the arms of his bride.
***
Richard and Ester settled into married life, separated and out of each other’s sight all day, and together and conjugal all night. His discovery that Ester did not have a sweet tooth came as a pleasant surprise to him; indeed, she ate very little apart from carrots and celery. But what money Richard saved in groceries, he lost, and more, with her love of online shopping. All day long, she sat at his computer in his study and trawled shopping sites and punched out his credit card number on the keyboard and clicked the purchase button and released a gleeful laugh when Purchase Successful displayed on the screen. And several times a day the doorbell chimed, and a courier delivered an assortment of boxes and packages. After a week, Richard tried to discuss Ester’s excessive expenditure with her. When she tried to justify her addiction with a ‘But-it-was-reduced’ defence, he threatened to remove access to his computer. She stomped to the bathroom, locked herself in and bought her own computer using Richard’s phone.
Yet despite all his threats and his rants and his entreaties and Ester’s frequent sojourns behind a locked bathroom door, once night came and Ester lay naked and alluring in the marital bed, Richard forgot the spending binges and the house filling with useless junk and the mounting debt on his credit card and surrendered himself to his bride.
***
On the night of the anniversary of their first month of wedded bliss, Richard paused while nibbling the nape of Ester’s neck, for he heard his bride weeping.
He turned on his bedside lamp and sat.
‘What’s wrong, Ester?’ he said.
Ester buried her face in a tissue and sobbed and sobbed, then blew her nose.
‘Oh, honourable husband. I miss honourable family.’
‘Your family?’
‘Yes. In China.’
‘Do you want to phone them?’
‘No. Want see.’
‘Do you want to visit them?’
‘No. I want them come stay here.’
‘Here?’
‘So not let come?’
‘God, no!’
Ester got up and put her slippers on.
‘Where are you going?’ Richard said.
‘Bathroom. Lock in. No family, no hanky-panky.’
***
A week later, Richard stood outside the Arrivals gate with an excited Ester at his side.
‘Honourable husband,’ Ester said. ‘Me Wery Happy. You get lots hanky-panky.’
As soon as the Arrivals door swooshed open, Richard recognised Ester’s parents. Both had long, grey ears, buck teeth and hopped with an unsteady gait.
Ester squealed, waved and called, ‘Honourable Mother! Honourable Father!’ She rushed over to her parents and embraced her mother and rubbed noses with her. She hugged her father in a manner a little too amorous and a bit too hands-on for Richard’s liking.
Ester carried her mother’s bag and escorted her parents over to where Richard stood.
‘Honourable husband, this honourable mother.’
Richard extended a hand towards his mother-in-law, but she ignored it and wrapped her arms around him. She rubbed noses with him, placed her mouth over his gape and tongue-kissed him. Richard tasted carrots.
‘Honourable husband, this honourable father.’
Richard’s father-in-law embraced him in a bunny hug and nibbled his earlobe. He squeezed his son-in-law’s right buttock, winked at him and said, ‘Later, Dick.’
As Richard went to head off towards the baggage reclaim area, Ester said, ‘Honourable husband, this honourable grandmother.’ A little rabbit who rose to his chest height looked up at him, wiggled her grey bunny tail and smiled with a mouth more gum and gap than teeth. Richard took a courteous but swift step back and nodded a hello.
‘Right, then,’ Richard said, ‘if we’re going to beat the peak-hour rush, we best get a move on.’
‘Most honourable husband, this most honourable great-grandmother.’
Richard looked down at an old, snow-white rabbit who barely reached his waist. She had drooped, wrinkled ears and a sparse, blue-rinsed bunny tail. She looked up at Richard and smiled a gaping grin devoid of teeth and platonic intention.
Two hours later, Richard sat stuck in a taxi in peak-hour traffic, wedged between two jacked, broad-shouldered bucks. After most honourable great-grandmother had lip-locked him, the rest of Ester’s family had poked, prodded, pinched or pecked him. First, there had been honourable sister, with a bulging belly about to pop, and honourable brother-in-law. Then there had been honourable aunts, honourable uncles, honourable first cousins and honourable second cousins. And last there had been the two burly, broad-shouldered bucks—honourable ex-husband No.1 and honourable ex-husband No.2.
It took an hour to get them to reassemble at the baggage carousel and collect their luggage, and another half-hour to convince 11 taxis to form a convoy—all paid by Ester using Richard’s credit card—to transport the extended family, all thirty-three of them, back to Richard’s house.
That night, amidst crashing and banging and grunting and groaning from all areas of the house, Richard sought solace in the arms of a grateful wife.
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