Your Princess is in Another Castle (11 page)

“I appreciate that, Chris.
”

The e
mcee is wearing a more formal than necessary red dress and is attractive enough that surely many of the guys here for the auction will be disappointed she’s not up for bidding.  “All right bachelors, are you ready to start bidding?” the emcee shouts into her microphone. 

I was expecting a fast-talking auctioneer
type, but she speaks at a regular pace, and there is no hint of disdain in her voice at being surrounded by so many dateless wonders.  The rest of the guys in the audience applaud and cheer, although I only applaud.          

“Great!
” says the emcee.  “We’ll be getting started in just a moment, but before we begin, I’d like to thank all of you for coming tonight on behalf of all the sisters of Sigma Pi Kappa and remind you all that you’ll be supporting a very worthy cause with your dollars tonight.  Last year as many as two-hundred thousand women in the United States were diagnosed with breast cancer, and it took the lives of nearly forty-thousand. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and tonight’s event is the culmination of our month long awareness campaign and we are very close to reaching our financial goal of two-thousand dollars, so bid high and bid often!”

“That’s a good cause,” says Chris.  “
Definitely something you can feel good about supporting.  Personally, I’d want to be supporting an organization dedicated to exposing the evils of foot-binding, but I think they stopped doing that awhile ago.  Still, it’s important that it never comes back.  All those Dark Lords from Sauron on up, well maybe they wouldn’t have come so close to returning if we’d been a little more proactive in preventing their resurrection in the first place.” 

“Yeah,” I say. 
I enjoy the fact that there’s yet to be a topic Chris has been unable to link to his foot fetish in some way.

“Now, I’m Lauren
Jacobi and I’ll be your master of ceremonies tonight,” says the emcee.  “Unfortunately, I already have a boyfriend even though he’s a real jerk sometimes, so I won’t be on the market.  However, bachelorette number one Samantha Anderson is certainly single, so come on out here Samantha!”

“Good, looks like they’re going alphabetical,” I say. 

“They should, because without order there’s chaos,” says Chris.

“I’m just glad I’ll be able to
see quickly whether I can get her or not.”

Samantha appears on
stage wearing a blue dress.  Her hair is dark and matches her photograph.  She appears somewhat reluctant to be participating in the auction, alternating between looking at the crowd and the floor.  This endears her to me.  I want to win her.

“So Samantha, why don’t you tell the guys a little bit about yourself,
” says Lauren. 

“Well, I’m an
English major who plans to go into teaching-”

“No, no, sweety,” says Lauren.  “
Don’t just tell the boys what they already know. Give them something they can use.  How about you tell them your idea of the perfect date?”

“I like going someplace quiet where we can talk and
get to know each other first,” says Samantha.  “Then follow that up with something fun, like tennis, racquetball, or bowling, something sporty like that.  I like a guy who doesn’t care if I can beat him.”

Something sporty, she says.
  Clearly there’s no future with Samantha, although bowling would be fun enough for just one date.  While Samantha says she likes a guy who doesn’t mind losing to her, there’s a difference between an occasional loss and being totally obliterated every time. 

“
And what do you look for in a guy?” asks Lauren, jerking the microphone very close to Samantha’s mouth, almost hitting her.

“I like a guy who can make me laugh, but isn’t ove
rly obnoxious.  I’m an English dork, so he’d have to be able to put up with me name dropping dead authors sometimes.  I like a guy who wants to share his life with me and takes an interest in mine.  And I’d prefer a creative guy, so someone who writes, paints, or plays an instrument would be nice.  Or a guy that can sing.”

“Okay,
” says Lauren, “although you might want to be cautious about getting involved with musicians, believe me.  Now Samantha, why don’t you go ahead and do a little three-sixty for the guys.  We picked out this dress for you because it shows off your butt and we need to get as high a bid for you as we can.  So come on now, do a little spin.”     

Samantha lightheartedly glares at Lauren which gets some laughs from
the audience.  But she obeys and twirls for our benefit.  Lauren’s appraisal of the dress was accurate.

“That’s a good girl,” says Lauren.  “So finally,
why would you say you’re still single?  After all, as we’ve all just seen you’re quite the little dish.”

“I guess I just
need to find a spoon worthy of running away with,” says Samantha. Her joke sounded spontaneous, adding to her appeal.

“You heard her guys,
” says Lauren, “so how about you prove your worth with some bidding? Shall we make the opening bid say, twenty dollars?”

I ready my
auction paddle when Lauren declares that the first bid has already been made.  For the first time I realize my paddle has a number on it.  I’m bidder number 42. 

“Twenty-five
now,” says Lauren.  “Do I have thirty?”

I raise my paddle.

“Thirty.  How about forty?  Do I see forty?  I do!  Now how about fifty?  Fifty dollars for a date with the lovely Samantha Anderson!  Samantha, you’re an English major, so what’s your favorite book?” 

“I’m a big fan of th
e Harry Potter series,” says Samantha.  “And my favorite one is the Prisoner of Azkaban.” 

Half a dozen paddles go up at the mentioning of the boy wizard.

“Okay, looks like that’s gonna keep things going,” says Lauren.  “How bout sixty?  Sixty!  How bout seventy?”

“She’s lying,” says Chris.  “She doesn’t read Potter.
She just said that to drive up the bids.”

“It worked,” I say.

“That’s why she said it.  But she’s no Potter fan.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s a big fan of Watchmen, and Watchmen fans can’t be Potter fans. At least anyone who actually understands Watchmen can’t be.  They’re mutually exclusive.”

I raise my paddle.  The bidding
is now at eighty-five dollars.  “Watchmen the comic?  How do you know she’s a fan of that?  And why can’t you like Watchmen and Harry Potter?”

“I’ve seen Samantha
on campus and on her book bag she has one of those smiley face buttons with blood dripping down it.  Seriously.  And you can’t like both because one’s brilliant and the other is terrible.  She’s just saying Harry Potter instead of Watchmen because Potter can raise enough money to save some boobs while Watchmen can’t because it isn’t well known enough in the mainstream crowd that worships things like Potter.”

I raise my paddle
again.  The bidding is up to ninety-five and I’m approaching my limit.  “I have to win Samantha now, I gotta know if you’re right about her being a fan of Watchmen to the extent that she wears the button.  Spot me some cash in case the bidding goes over a hundred?”

“Sure.  I brought another hundred just in case.”

“Thanks.  So why didn’t you mention Watchmen before?”

“Because I didn’t realize Samantha was the same g
irl with the button until I saw her.  That black and white picture in the paper isn’t the best shot of her.”

I raise my paddle
.  The bidding is now up to one-hundred twenty. 

“All right g
uys, one last bit of motivation,” says Lauren.  “Samantha might seem like this nice little quiet librarian type, but she’s a little wild, believe me.  Sometimes she’s lazy with her laundry and I have to pull her clothes out of the dryer.  Now leopard, zebra, tiger, you name an animal print, she’s got a thong for it!”

Samantha glares at Lauren.  Her
blushing is almost as cute as Sabrina’s.

“Animal print underwear,” I say, continuing to bi
d.  “Would that do it for Jimmy the furry?”

“No,” says Chris.  “He’s tried it before and it doesn’t
work.  Paws, ears, tail, gotta be something like that to go with it.”

I finally
manage to win Samantha for one-hundred sixty dollars.  “Congratulations bidder number forty-two!” says Lauren.  “Come backstage to meet your date.  Please have your payment ready.”

“If Samantha
wears a Watchmen button, how come you haven’t ever talked to her yourself?” I ask Chris.

“Well, now that I know she used to do
ballet, it wouldn’t matter if she painted me blue and let me do her while she was wearing a Silk Specter costume.  And to be honest, I don’t think I owe you any kind of explanation as to why I’m not going to ask out a girl.”

Standing backstage, I’m the only guy in a room filled with women.  The remaining bachelorettes all mill about preparing to be put onto market, while another girl mans a table and I give her my money.  I’m glad I don’t have to stand around for change and walk up to Samantha, who smiles and gives me a little wave.

“Hi, I’m bidder
number forty-two,” I say.

“
Ah, I like a guy who has the answer to everything,” says Samantha.

“Everything except predicting how
well first dates will go, unfortunately.”

Samantha
laughs.  “I’m bachelorette one of twelve.  But you can call me Sam.”

“Sam it is, then.  But only because
you weren’t seven of nine, if you had been I’d have insisted on calling you that.” 

Samantha laughs
again, although I’m not quite sure she understood the joke.  And perhaps it’s time to place my Ben alias in reserve.  “My name’s Justin.  Justin Bailey. Now I’m not much of a charmer, but from what I understand you’re obligated to go out with me even if I screw up the first impression, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.  But you’re doing okay so far.
  But I’m surprised I fetched the price I did.  I wasn’t expecting to be valued beyond seventy-five dollars.”

“I was willing to p
ay up to two-hundred, but if it went that high we’d have to be going someplace free like the library on our date.” 

Samantha laughs again. 
There’s a warm glow to her, as if at any moment she may start laughing at something you’d said months ago, and by the way she was smiling you’d know just what it was.  “I like to meet at a quiet place, but not that quiet.”

“Have you ever been to the Hallowed Ground coffee shop?”   

“Yes, I do a lot of studying there.” 

“How abo
ut we meet there tomorrow at six and go from there?”      

“That sounds good.”
             

A quick exchange of numbers follows.
  “All right, I’ll see you there tomorrow at six,” I say. 

I am not nervous.  There is
nothing at stake here.  Samantha’s a dating tutorial, a remedial course to prepare for the real thing.  But I do wonder if she really has a Watchmen button on her book bag.

It’s hard for me to lie to Jessica, although she readily accepts my lies.  I attribute this to her on/off relationship with Scott.  During their initial period of togetherness he lied about being faithful.  When Jessica discovered the truth she was devastated.  That resulted in a breakup, the first of many.  After Jessica took Scott back, he promised her he wouldn’t cheat again, and she believed him. 

Not long after that
, Jessica’s friend Angie told her that she had seen Scott out with another woman.  Jessica accused Angie of lying, attributing it to jealousy of her and Scott’s relationship.  For the next two months Jessica stopped talking to Angie, unwilling to believe Scott was cheating again.  Jessica chose to believe his lies in order to continue their relationship.  But when Scott broke up with Jessica to be with someone else, her friendship with Angie resumed.  Jessica has since believed so many of Scott’s lies that it’s no challenge for me to lie to her now.  It is hard simply because I don’t like having anything in common with Scott.

Jessica deserves to h
ave an honest man in her life, but lying has served a higher purpose.  She needs to see that I’m more than the spokesman for the unlaid, a perpetually stood-up nerd to be pitied.  If no other girl ever expresses interest in me, then why should Jessica?  But the charade has gone on long enough, before long Jessica will want to meet my new girlfriend Sonya.  But if Sonya were to dump me, problem solved.

“She went back to her old boyfriend,” I say.  A
name would add validity to the fib, but what name denotes such vile he’s-a-creep connotations as Scott?  How about Troy?  Yes.  Perfect.  “A guy named Troy.  He’s promised to change.”  I took the name from The Goonies.

“Women can be so stupid sometimes,” says Jessica.
  She has no trouble saying this with a straight face, but shifts uncomfortably in her seat and takes a hurried sip of her coffee, subconsciously aware she’s done the exact same thing.

“Some can, yes. 
But we only went out a few times.  I’m not hung up on her.  I’ll learn to love again.”

“So did ya?” Jessica
gives me a wink, eagerly awaits an answer.

The question is a conundrum.  I must respond qu
ickly enough to make the answer sound truthful, but at the same time want it to sound realistic.  My supposed first date with Sonya was a little over two weeks ago.  Early on, couples likely go out once a week on average, perhaps more frequently if there’s an immediate connection.  But I have no idea how much time it normally takes for a couple to reach the stage of sexual intimacy. 

Realistically
, it would take me longer than average, but saying that we had had sex would be indicative that Sonya possessed a level of physical attraction to me and could ignite such passion in Jessica, jealously making her realize what she’s been missing out on.  But if Jessica and I ever became intimate and she was under the impression that I had prior experience, it could lead to her attributing my sub-par performance to a lack of any natural ability on my part.  Jessica raises her eyebrows as she sips her coffee.  No. It’s safer to say no.   

“No, we didn’t.”
  I consider saying that Sonya was on her period, but that sounds too fake.  Too convenient.  Not sure how long those last, either.  But I also don’t need to sound pathetic.  “Just some foreplay.”  That was good.  Suggests some acts of eroticism and vaguely enough so to encompass a wide variety of techniques across the sexual spectrum.  Jessica appears disappointed.  She would be more pleased at the loss of my virginity than I would, like a mother exaggerating the importance of her child’s place on the honor roll.   

“W
ell, at least you got something,” says Jessica.  “Now about Sonya’s boobs.  Was I right about them being huge?”  Jessica asks this eagerly, as Chris might inquire about the niceness of a girl’s toes, but with an underlying hint of jealousy.     

Knowing
where Jessica’s going with this and thinking about the last breasts I did touch, I attempt to placate her.  “They were big.  But they were fake.  I could tell.  They looked and felt very unnatural.”                 

“Good.  I’m glad Sonya
’s not packing all-natural cantaloupes and going around wasting them on jerky ex-boyfriends and shafting nice guys like you and meanwhile I gotta suffer with my little grape titties.”

I don’t understand Jessica’s
need to compare herself to every other girl in the world and her total lack of self-confidence.  Having the boyfriend that she has certainly doesn’t help, though.  I doubt Scott has ever complimented her with even a modicum of sincerity. 

“Do you know why you’re the perfect girl?” I ask.

“Why am I the perfect girl?”  Jessica smiles, ready to hear the compliment, but is also ready to dismiss it as obligatory praise she might get from a grandparent she hasn’t seen in ages.

“You’re perfect,” I say, “because you really don’t
realize how wonderful you are. You think far too little of yourself and that results in the total absence of conceitedness in your personality.  You would give anyone a chance (except me).  So many guys out there would wonder how they managed to snag this sweet little angel they would never have thought they could get. 

“
You’re the reason they make those photo booths in the mall.  If a guy went into one with you, the first photo you’d take would be of you doing what you always do, flashing the peace sign and smiling your adorable smile.  Then you’d make a bunch of funny faces.  Then you’d pose all snuggled up next to your guy.  The last photo taken would be of you and him sharing a kiss.  All of the pictures would be perfect.  Whoever came up with the idea of the photo booth did so because they wanted there to be lots of photographs of girls like you in the world.”  

Jessica does not immediately answer.  I wonder i
f I have gone too far, have now made it clear that I will always want more out of our relationship than she does.  My grabbing her ass may mean nothing to her, but saying the wrong words could be fatal. Jessica may view cutting herself off from me as an act of mercy. 

“Thank you for your kind words.  I won’t start sp
outing off a list of flaws that prove you wrong, but I certainly could.”  Jessica’s voice is calm.  She seems to have genuinely brushed off my words.  “I think I know what your problem is, though.  You’re too Jacob.”

“Too Jacob?”

“Yeah, you’re too much like Jacob Black.  He’s a character in this book I’m reading.  It’s called New Moon.  It’s actually the sequel to another book called Twilight. It’s this series about a girl named Bella Swan who falls in love with a classmate, Edward Cullen, who’s really a vampire.  Bella and Edward get together in the first book, but in New Moon
Edward leaves Bella and she’s completely heartbroken.  It’s very sad. 

“
Then Bella forms a friendship with Jacob Black, who’s a werewolf.  He’s helping Bella try to get over the breakup, but he’s also falling in love with Bella himself. I haven’t finished it yet so I don’t know what happens, but I don’t see Bella choosing to be with Jacob.  He’s a real nice guy and all, but he’s more like a best friend big brother type, you know?  Edward is more relationship material.  I think you should read the books.  They might convince you that you should be more like Edward than Jacob.  Have you heard of them? They’re very popular.”

“No, I haven’t heard of them.  What’s so special about Edward?”

“He’s the perfect guy.  I think you should read the books so I don’t want to give too much away, but one of his best qualities is that he is very protective of Bella.  He fights to keep her safe.  And he writes music for her.  He plays the piano and composes a piece just for her.”

I imagine Jessica jumping into bed with Seth m
inutes after she meets him.  He plays the piano.  He would be better for her than Scott.  He might actually be good for her.  But he is not me.  “Yeah, women are suckers for musicians.”

“It’s mo
re than just that.  I’ll lend them to you if you want to read them.”

“Maybe.  Maybe if Bella
chooses this Jacob guy.  He sounds sympathetic.”

“Maybe so, but women want a lover, not a big brother.
  I’ll be done with New Moon soon and then I’ll lend them both to you.  And you have to read both, because Jacob isn’t really in the first book all that much.”

So Scot
t’s not a creep, he’s a lover.  I look at my watch.  Another fifteen minutes to talk with Jessica until Scott picks her up.  Then thirty minutes to kill until Samantha Anderson arrives to fulfill her obligation to me.  I consider telling Jessica about Samantha and decide against it.  We will only have a single date.  In a sense it’s even less of a date than what I was supposed to have with Sonya.  She never showed but at least I wasn’t billed in advance for it.                 

Fifteen minutes until 6:00.  Scott was his usual tardy self in picking Jessica up. He didn’t come inside, just waited in front of the window for Jessica to come out.  Beyond our initial introduction he’s never really made any attempt to converse with me, not that I want him to.  And I suspect that our first meeting was solely for the purpose of threat assessment, to establish that I posed no danger of ever taking Jessica away from him.  He must have been duly satisfied, for since then we’ve said no more than five words to each other. 

Thus far
, I’ve managed to avoid hanging out with Jessica and Scott as a couple. The one time it’s come up was when Jessica and I had already made plans for the evening and she called me and asked if it’d be okay if Scott came along with us for the night because his dart league had been abruptly cancelled.  Trapped since we’d already made our plans, I said it’d be okay.  I waited until twenty minutes before we were supposed to meet and then sent Jessica a text saying something had come up and I had to cancel. Then I turned off my phone.  I would have much preferred Jessica simply canceling on me because Scott had nothing else to do that night than asking me after the fact if he could tag along with us.   

After Jessica left Hallowed Ground
with Scott, I watched the two of them argue about something on the street for several minutes before they finally left.  Nothing too serious, Scott never appeared ready to strike Jessica nor did it look like he was yelling, but they were having some kind of disagreement.  It couldn’t have been about me, Scott may as well be a Borg drone that ignores me completely since he doesn’t view me as a threat.  Perhaps I should not care so much what they were fighting about. 

B
ut since Jessica left angry, she did not turn back around and flash me the peace sign.  She just walked away with Scott, ready to resume being mistreated, ignored, and cheated upon.  And after insisting every sincere compliment I’d given her amounted to nothing more than empty platonic praise, the likes of which come only from the Jacob Blacks of the world, guys who beam big brother-ness and merit at most a kiss on the cheek. 

Ten minutes until Sam
antha arrives, and I’ve yet to receive a cancellation call from her.  But I know she’s coming.  I’m entitled to one date with her, for I’ve already paid the ferryman.  But she seemed reluctant to be at the auction at all.  So how does she feel about meeting me? Is indifference the best I can hope for?  I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  Samantha’s going to be here because she has to be and at the end of the night she’ll say she enjoyed meeting me and insincerely say that maybe she’ll bump into me again sometime on campus.  There’s nothing to be gained from this.  Nothing I can learn.   

I need to leave
Hallowed Ground now and save Samantha the trouble of enduring spending time with me.  But if I call her to cancel she’ll probably want to reschedule.  I just need to leave this place and turn off my phone.  She’ll figure things out for herself. She may be frustrated at first, but I’m doing her a favor, she just won’t realize it.  Waiting around fifteen or twenty minutes for a date that doesn’t show is surely preferable to an hour or two of utter boredom being with a guy who’s desperate enough that he has to pay for you.

And w
hatever Chris claims to the contrary, I know that Samantha doesn’t really wear a Watchmen button.  Perhaps she does have a smiley face button on her book bag. But if she does, it is not stained with blood.  If she has one at all it’s a regular, happy, plain old yellow smiley face.  Samantha does not mourn the death of the Comedian.

Before leaving
, I take one last look around Hallowed Ground.  If Samantha comes here regularly to study then I’ll have to start avoiding the place in order to prevent an embarrassing scene.  Fortunately with Jessica back together with Scott she’ll be spending her time with him instead of me, and there won’t be much call to come here.  I will miss Hallowed Ground’s root beer.  But it’s better for Samantha this way.