Your Princess is in Another Castle
Read Your Princess is in Another Castle Online
Authors: Richard Fore
Your Princess is in Another Castle
By Richard Fore
Your Princess is in Another Castle
By Richard Fore
Text Copyright © 2013 Richard Fore
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Beginning of a Fantastic Story
Chapter 2: Of Wolverines, Nightcrawlers, and Dazzlers
Chapter 6: The Reason for Photo Booths
Chapter 7:
An Incident Regarding the Improper Wearing of a Bat-shirt
Chapter 9: In the Pale Moonlite
Chapter 10: An Opportunity for a Langella Monologue?
Chapter 11: Mirror Universe Makeover
Chapter 12: Winners Don’t Use Drugs
Chapter 13: The World’s Finest
: The Beginning of a Fantastic Story
Take her picture or say goodbye, and Jessica will always flash the peace sign. It is her trademark move, not unlike a robot master striking a pose before a battle with Mega Man. Bomb Man (of the original six masters before the standardized eight) casually tosses a bomb into the air, leaving no doubt as to the means of your imminent destruction. Quick Man, the first of the egoists, wearing a cocky smirk in his portrait as opposed to his scowling comrades stands on bent knee ready to give you chase, his message clear: there is no escape.
Jessica
forms a V-shape with her fingers and smiles. But do not be fooled by her innocuous appearance. She is no starter boss like Magnet Man or Toad Man. Her psyche scarred from her involvement with a troglodytic clod who is far beneath her, a fact Jessica realizes only during one of their recurring breakups and forgets immediately after their inevitable getting back together firmly establishes Jessica as a challenge akin to Shadow Man.
Another egoist,
Shadow Man grins at the thought that you would dare face him. And the Blue Bomber likely will fall to Shadow Man unless you’ve already won the top spin attack from Top Man. Only a truly advanced player has a chance armed with only the mega buster and its puny damage. Skill or experience is needed to handle Shadow Man, the same prerequisite required to make Jessica yours.
A
dating veteran could manage Jessica’s many unfounded insecurities and emanate so strong an aura of animal magnetism that she’d actually be attracted to you as opposed to viewing you somewhere in between a gay best friend and an older brother. But lacking any innate charm or seductive prowess of the caliber needed for mega buster only battle and but a single disastrous quasi-relationship under my belt, an experience that certainly does not equal the might of the top spin, I’m doomed forever to gaze at Jessica longingly from across Just Friends Chasm.
But r
ecently I’ve attempted to accept my fate by focusing on other theoretically more attainable women. I even have a date tonight. Although Sonya, the girl I am meeting, is way out of my league. And I don’t mean that in the lacking self-confidence, just need to think positive way. I mean she’s way out of my league. Gorgeous enough to make a homecoming king take a deep breath followed by a shot of the hard liquor of his choice before approaching her, I can only feel a sense of disbelief at her apparent interest in me. With our rendezvous scheduled for tonight at 8:00pm, I now have a little over three hours in which to avoid spontaneously combusting.
Jessica sits across from me
, having been summoned to help calm my nerves. She sips from her straw without putting her hands on her glass, a trait I find adorable.
“Right on!
” Jessica exclaims, extending her palm for a high-five after hearing of the impending date.
“I just hop
e she actually shows up,” I say after we slap our hands together. Jessica’s hands are small, as is her entire body. I could easily carry her in my arms. She could jump onto my back so I could give her a piggyback ride in public, laughing as everyone else rolls their eyes at us. Jessica would be that kind of girlfriend.
“She’ll show up,
” says Jessica.
“I don’t know.
I’ve been stood up before. I think maybe Godot has a better chance of showing up than one of my dates.”
“Who’s Godot?”
“It depends on who you ask.”
Jessica glares at me without blinking. “So what’s her name?”
“Sonya.”
“If her name is Sonya she must be pretty hot,” says Jessica only half-jokingly.
“S
he is. She sent me a photo. But that’s one thing that worries me. She’s much too hot to be interested in someone like me.”
“Don’t say that. You
’re a good looking guy. No Brad Pitt, but attractive.”
“Thanks. But I still feel like
I’m going to drive by and see her waiting for me and just panic and head straight to Barnes and Noble and start compulsively reading the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook.”
Jessica
laughs. “Well, just make sure you get there before she does then. Be waiting for her. When and where are you meeting?”
“Applebee’s at eight.”
“Okay, good. Get there at seven-forty or so. Go inside and sit down in the waiting area. That way you’re sure to get there before she does, so you won’t run away from her when you spot her. Find a cute little hostess to stare at while you wait so you won’t be so anxious. But make sure you get a male server if you can, because you don’t want to be eyeing your hot waitress all night right in front of Sonya. Got it?”
“Sounds like a plan.” It doesn
’t seem so complicated the way she describes it.
“So what’s Sonya look like?
Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess. She’s a thirty-six double D-cup and they’re impossibly perky, and real of course. She carries them on a tall frame; say five-seven or five-eight, tall enough for shorties like me to be envious but not so tall that the boys ever teased her. Sonya’s a dark haired girl with long and flowing locks that are not quite straight but not curly either. Her eyes are green like the Emerald City.
“
She’s so hot she transcends any individual look and she can rock it in a cowboy hat and cutoffs in a country western bar or in a corporate boardroom with a pricey blouse and skirt. She has two piercings in addition to her ears, most likely her nose and navel, perhaps tongue. She has a great tan, but it’s all natural, since she jogs in the park daily to stay fit. And she wears glasses, black rimmed ones, but they only make her hotter than she already is. When I see this bitch I’m going to want to strangle her on sight. Now, does that just about sum up your new girlfriend?” Jessica asks, having rattled off a bevy of qualities as if she were a prospective mother in Gattaca.
“She has dark hair, and you
’re right about the nose ring. I only saw one photo and it was really only her face, so I don’t know about the rest. No glasses in the picture, but yeah, she’s hot.”
“I’m sure I’m right. Jasmine,
Lacey, Sonya, those are like absolutely guaranteed to be a hottie names right there.”
“Don’t forget
Jessica.”
“Yeah, right.
I’ve seen teenaged Asian girls that have a bigger bounce when they walk than I do. Thanks, though.”
Jessica brushes off the compliment as she always does. I’ve learned not to take it
personally, though. She really doesn’t realize how beautiful she is. Her baby face and small chest that she needlessly obsesses over along with her height of just five feet gives her the appearance of being several years younger than she really is. She has hazel eyes she alternately wishes were blue or green, and brown hair she alternately wishes was blonde or black. But she’s always smiling anyway, which is more than enough to win any guy over. Had I known her during my days of reading comic books in clubhouses with signs on the outside warning
No Girls Allowed!
I’d have gladly broken the taboo to play with her, crushing on her when boys insisted they never had nor ever would have a crush on a girl.
“
So how’d you meet her?” Jessica suddenly asks, reminding me of the existence of Sonya.
“On
AOL.”
“Your profile still just vague enough that
it gives your name, location, and college you attend and nothing else?”
“Well, if I were completely honest, it’d probably put most women off. Being vague gives me an air of mysteriousness.
She sent me an IM and we started talking. We go to the same school and she just started this fall and doesn’t know too many people. I’m a boy, and she’s a girl, one who’s not completely averse to meeting me, and at this point that’s all I really look for.”
“You gotta start somewhere.
What’s her major?”
“Hospitality.”
“So you’re looking to receive some of her hospitality, huh? Do you have a condom in your wallet in case things go better than expected?”
“No, I don’t
,” I say laughing. Me carrying a condom would be like Patrick Stewart carrying a comb. He just isn’t going to need it.
“Well, you should. No glove, no love.”
“I’ve hated gloves ever since the Power Glove.”
“What’s that?”
“Something that was a good idea in principle, but that just wasn’t ready to do what it was supposed to do, kind of like me and sex. It might be a good thing but I just don’t think I’ve reached the point where I’m ready for it yet. Sonya would be lying on the bed, and I’d just shrug with only the vaguest sense of how to proceed. Like the hero from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. He never understood what was going on around him, so all he could do was just shrug in bewilderment. That’s me. I’m a sexual shrugger.”
“
Mystic Quest? Is that like a Dungeons and Dragons thing?”
“Close enough.”
Jessica gives me another look of bafflement as I imagine encountering a redheaded environmentalist or blonde archer and hitting it off, a sadly unlikely event on both counts.
“Well, all you need is a teacher. Let Sonya be your sex professor. And you can’t show up to class with
out the right school supplies. Dude, you don’t want her to be tearing off your pants only to find out you aren’t packing protection! So get one, okay?”
“All right, I’ll pick one up.”
“Awesome
. Also, I want to hear all the details, so call me as soon as the date’s over. Or just give me a quick text to let me know you’re lying in bed with her.”
“
I’ll text you right after I toss away the used condom.”
“Right on!”
Jessica exclaims, her declaration followed by another high-five.
“So how’s it going between you and Scott?” I ask,
enunciating Scott’s name with reflexive malevolence.
“Good,” Jessica beams. “
We’re taking it slow for now.”
Slow
she says. She claimed she was going to take it slow with him the first time they got back together, after he had walked out on her on her birthday. Six days after reuniting she called me to say they were engaged. When they broke up the second time, she returned the ring. She’s not wearing it now, which is good, but her claim of taking it slow is dubious at best. Jessica is likely as hungry to have her engagement ring back on her finger as Gollum was with the One Ring.
“We don’t wan
t to rush into anything this time, so right now it’s mostly about the sex,” Jessica says laughing. “We had sex like five times yesterday. And I’m having orgasms, again.” That I’m able to control my gag reflex should be commended. Not at the thought of Jessica’s orgasmic glee, but rather the thought of her thuggish deliverer sharing in the moment.
“You asked,” she says, sensing my disgust.
“I suppose I did.” Make no mistake. My contempt for Scott is not simply because he is Jessica’s boyfriend. A rival suitor who won her hand, if he be worthy, could be a respected foe. In a different reality, I could call such a man friend. But not Scott, who squanders his relationship with Jessica by treating her less than he should, continually breaking her heart. I hate him for that, and if hatred can ever be justified, this instance is it.
“I’ll be right back,
” I say.
“Did that repulse
you that much?”
“Just
gotta hit the restroom and splash some water in my face. I think I’m having a panic attack about tonight.”
I
emerge in as soothed a state as I’ll reach. Jessica waits for me facing my direction, but doesn’t see me. She tilts her head slowly to the left and right in tune with the music on the café speakers. It is a subtle movement, calling no attention to itself, noticeable only if she had otherwise already drawn your attention. I observe Jessica in this moment, awakening my inner struggle over whether or not what we have now is enough. I then silently sit down and smile at her, which she is all too happy to return with one of her own. She probably thinks I’m thinking about Sonya. But I’m not.
We embrace in a goodbye hug in the parking lot. Etiquette likely suggests that I should remain with Jessica until her ride arrives. But etiquette can be damned, because her ride is Scott. And if it would be seen as a sweet gesture to any other girl, given Jessica’s adherence to the Bizzarro world’s laws of attraction, then she is almost certainly turned on by the fact that I am not waiting around to see her off.
“Remember, you gotta
text me tonight! I’ll be waiting!” says Jessica, more confident than I am. She disengages the hug and strikes her pose. I want to kiss her in this moment, but to get to her I must cross a mile of disappearing/reappearing blocks and I’m all out of Rush jet.
“I will, I pr
omise. See you next time.”
“Hey, wait a second,”
she says. “How long has it been since you’ve had any action?”
To respond with anything less than a full calendar year would instantly be detected as a lie. To be completely honest would elicit only the most pathetic of sympathies. I try to think of an
acceptable middle ground and begin to formulate an escapade about making out with a reporter from the university paper when Jessica grows tired of waiting. “All right, obviously it’s been awhile,” she says. “So, go ahead and grab my ass real quick. And I’ll critique your technique.”
