Your Princess is in Another Castle (17 page)

“She’s got a quite a belly to go along with that rack,” says Seth.  “This
particular Venus is definitely a BBW.”

“Yeah,” says Chris.  “She’s all natural for sure.
I don’t think her sculptor had oversized implants in mind when he carved her.”

“How could he possibly have had the vision to f
oresee breast implants?” I ask. “The wheel would have been condemned as sorcery back in this guy’s time.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not buying it,” says Chris.
“I’ve played enough Metal Gear Solid to know there’s more to us than our genes.  I think psychological factors can explain both of your fetishes.  Many psychoses can be traced back to traumatic childhood experiences.  Jimmy, perhaps like Romulus and Remus before you, you were abandoned in the wilderness as a babe and nursed for awhile by a wolf or something.  You were adopted, right?  We really don’t know what you may have gone through before your adoption.  Maybe that’s why you’re so fixated on furry animals, because you nursed at the teat of a wolf.”

“That’s vaguely in
sulting,” says Jimmy.  “But the brothers went on to found Rome, so they were nothing if not high achievers.”

“I didn’t say it didn’t work out well for them,
” says Chris.  He looks at me.  “Childhood nursing difficulties can also explain your boob thing.  You must have almost starved to death as an infant.  For whatever reason, there was a considerable period of time you weren’t able to suckle at your mother’s breast or even be given the areola simulacra that is the bottle.  Being deprived for so long caused you to not see breasts merely as a means of sustenance but rather as the very sustainers of life. 

“
That’s why you crave them so unnaturally large now.  Because you have this deeply rooted fear in your subconscious of being totally deprived of a resource as necessary to you as water or oxygen you fixate on huge breasts as a form of milk hoarding.  Might I add that when we’ve gotten breakfast at the dining hall I’ve noticed you’re unusually generous when it comes to dispersing milk into your cereal bowl.”

“Chris, you’re like Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one sleuthi
ng psychologist,” I say.  “But I’m sticking with the genetic base.”

“I have a sane theory to explain the boob fe
tish,” says Seth.  “Your breast obsession is simply a natural response to your fear of the vagina.”

“I don’t have a fear of that,” I say.

“You couldn’t even say the word,” says Seth.  “You fear the vagina and its role in sexual intercourse therefore you fixate on the second most sexualized aspect of the female anatomy.”  He looks at me poignantly before turning to Chris.  “And I’d guess you developed your foot fetish by happenstance.  You basically became sexually self aware at the moment you were encircled by girls giving each other pedicures and focused on their feet because that’s what was there.  Had you gone downstairs when the girls happened to be practicing their kissing skills on one another you’d have come to be fixated with girl-on-girl action.”

“No,” says Chris, his voice defiant. 
“Because the beauty of the foot is there for everyone to see, it’s just that so few look.  The breast thing and the furry thing, those are fetishes because Letha Weapons and Felicia are both unnatural.  Women have two feet and ten toes.  That’s normal.  The fact that most people don’t see them as sexual objects does not mean that they shouldn’t be seen that way.  So really there’s no such thing as a foot fetish, just enlightened men and unenlightened men. 

“
Every guy in the world needs to clear his head of all the bullshit he’s been taught since birth about how you have to either be a breast, butt, or leg man and stop and realize that there’s a fourth option out there.  That if they just sucked on a woman’s toes with an open mind and allowed themselves the opportunity to enjoy it, they’d find out that they would and they’d have a whole new avenue of foreplay opened up to them.  I mean why is it considered so ill-erotic?  Show me one passage in the Bible, Torah, Koran, or Vedas that forbids toe sucking or even frowns on it!”

“I can’t really embrace it because the claws on Fe
licia’s paws would probably cut my lips,” says Jimmy.

“And I’m content with the breast option,” I say.

“To be honest,” says Seth, “I think the level of
depravity goes foot, furry, and boob, at least in accordance to how likely a girl’s going to be willing to accommodate them.  A typical girl might be willing to let her toes be sucked on occasion.  Comic-Cons aside, she might even be up for an occasional costume wearing during sex.  But you’re just screwed with the boob thing.  If you were dating someone like Sabrina and she caught you looking at Letha Weapons porn she’d start crying hysterically because she’d feel like she could never possibly measure up to Letha and then she’d break up with you.  Chris and Jimmy might be able to get a girl to accommodate them long-term.  You, you’re just screwed in that regard.”

“It’s just a harmless fantasy for me,” I say.  “I’d lo
ve to be with Jessica, and she reminds herself of her flatness every thirty seconds.  But I don’t care.”

“So what’s your quirk, Seth?” asks Chris.
  “You’ve given us all the Freud treatment, so let’s have yours.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Liar!” shouts Chris.

“So Chris,
” I say, “Jimmy’s found more than a couple of women who’ve accommodated him, albeit without fully realizing the scale of his condition.  You ever been with anyone who let you indulge in your interest?”

“No,”
says Chris.  “See, that’s the reason I hid it for so long.  It’s not that I’m ashamed of it.  It’s that most women aren’t going to understand it.  Take my last girlfriend.  First time we ever started fooling around I go for her feet and start to massage them.  She immediately asks me if I’m a toe sucker.  A question totally unprovoked, mind you.  She just asks.  So I ask her why she’s asking.  She said because when her last boyfriend started giving her a foot massage, it ended up with him sucking on her toes.

“
So I test the water.  I ask her if it was something she was into and if she wants me to do it.  She said it didn’t do anything for her, but that I can go on ahead and do it if I want to.  I say no thanks and that I was just giving her a foot rub because it’s a good way to get a girl relaxed and want to transition to sex.  She laughed.  I had to turn it into a joke.  I couldn’t go through with it even though I wanted to.  Because it’s not enough that the girl allow me to do it, she must enjoy it!  Want it!  Straight out of 1984, man!”

“
1984?” I ask.

“You know
, like when they’re torturing Winston Smith with the lights.  They keep showing him four lights, but they want him to tell them that there are only three.  But not only does he need to say three, he must also believe there are three.”

“That’s from
Star Trek: The Next Generation,” says Jimmy.  “The Cardassians are torturing Captain Picard like that.”

“Yeah, but that scene was inspired by
1984,” I say.  “Only in the book they were doing it with fingers, not lights.”

“Whatever,” says Chris.  “It was the same kind
of torture I went through.  Now that girl just happened to have had a previous boyfriend with a foot fetish, so she had some experience with it.  With girls that don’t, that’s where the ‘don’t be Icarus’ rule comes in.  See, most women are going to enjoy having their feet massaged.  But it’s also not an inherently sexual act to them.  You’re just giving them some relaxing pleasure by doing it even though there’s a certain level of intimacy involved. 

“
And say you’ve got a girl who enjoys having her feet massaged so much that she wants you to rub them for her every night.  That would seem like a perfect situation.  But it’s not.  Because sooner or later just getting to touch them every night isn’t gonna be enough.  I’m going to want to kiss her soles.  Suck on her toes.  And the very second I make that transition I’m putting it all on the line, because I’ve got three possible outcomes. 

“
Best case scenario is she’s actually into it.  Rare.  Exceedingly rare.  Kiss one sole and she offers you the other.  But you’ve got a better chance of going to a garage sale and finding a near-mint copy of Flash Comics #1 than having that happen.

“Second possibility
is it’ll be like I said before, with the girl reluctantly letting you do it because she knows you’re into it even though it doesn’t do anything for her.  Realistically, that’s the best option you could hope for. But I don’t want to have to be sucking on her toes knowing every time I do she’s just thinking about when it’s gonna end so she can move on to some foreplay she’ll actually enjoy.  

“Finally, and this is probably the most likely situation to happen,
is she’s gonna react with some form of hostility.  Kiss one sole and she pulls away the other one.  Suck on a toe and she kicks you in the head.  For as I said our culture tells us that feet aren’t meant to be sexual, and most women obey that mandate. 

“
And when this last possibility happens you’ve just lost your enjoyment of giving any future foot massages because as soon as she realizes you’ve had a foot fetish this whole time, she’s not going to look at getting a foot massage the same way again.  If she continues to let you do it at all, she’ll still know it’s sexual for you and it won’t be the same.  So whenever you’re rubbing them you’re constantly asking yourself if this is going to be enough, but remember that by asking for more you’re flying dangerously close to the sun.”

“You’re not like into footjobs or anything like that are you?” asks Seth.
   

“No,” says Chris.  “
That doesn’t appeal to me at all.  In fact, I actually find that kind of disgusting.  But handjobs don’t really appeal to me either, so that might be why.”

It’s 3:15pm and we’ve just finished up a marathon of Tekken Tag Tournament, one of the launch games for the PlayStation 2.  To my surprise, Jimmy never once played as King.  Instead he stuck to a rotation of Bryan Fury, Michelle Chang, and Yoshimitsu.  Seth clung primarily to Paul Phoenix and Hwoarang, while Chris rarely deviated from the Williams sisters.  Not a kinky player by any means, I stuck to the story-centric Mishima family.                

“All right
, boyos, I gotta get out of this tent for awhile,” says Seth.  “I’m going to walk around Target for a bit.  Who’s with me?”

“I’ll go,” responds Jimmy.
  “We can check out the toys and see if Milton Bradley still makes Crossfire.” 

“I don’t wanna do any shopping, but I wouldn’t mind getting some air,” I say.

“Guys, I don’t think leaving is a good idea,” says Chris.  “If you leave the line, you lose your place in the line.  That’s a rule.  At least check with the others outside to see if they mind.”

“Uh-huh,” says Seth.  “And what’s the first rule? 
Do not talk about the line?  We were here first.  So we get to make the rules.  Someone needs to take a break for awhile, I don’t care.  Come on, Jimmy.”

“I’ll get some air, too,” says Chris.

It’s cold outside the tent.  Bad flip-flop weather, Chris would say.  A line has indeed formed behind us.  According to Chris and Jimmy, Target is going to have twenty units on sale tomorrow, though I see more people than units available.  Some must be here in support of friends.  There are a couple of other tents and many more lawn chairs and coolers on the sidewalk.  Sitting outside the tent next to ours are two guys who appear to be our age, each playing a Gameboy Advance.  They press pause and look up at us simultaneously. 

“Hey,” says the one closest t
o us.  “So you’re the other two members of the first party to arrive.  I tried to get my crew here first thing in the morning but they insisted it wasn’t necessary.”

“It wasn’t,” says the other.  “We’re still second.  It’
s not like we’d be the first in the world to play a PS3 if we had gotten here first.  Japan’s been playing it for a week now.”

“I happen to agree with you,” Chris says to the closer
guy.  “It don’t matter if it’s a forum post or a spot in line, first is still first.”        

“Agreed,” the closer guy says. 
“I’m Will.  This is my friend Lance.”

“I’
m Chris.  This is Justin.” 

“Hi,” I say, glaring at Chris. 

“Hey,” says Lance.

“Our other two party members are Seth and Jimmy,” says Chris.
  “You’ll have to forgive them.  They went into Target of their own accord.  I told them not to leave or to at least get permission from the others in line before they left.”               

“So they went into Target.  Who cares?” asks Lance.

“A line like this needs rules and order,” says Will.  “But I’m okay with them just going into Target, it’s not like they’re totally abandoning the area or anything.  And so long as they don’t bring back anyone new so they can cut in line.”

“They won’t,” says Chris.

“So what’s with the Optimus Prime play tent?” asks Lance.

“It’
s a contingency in case one of us scores with a girl and needs some privacy,” says Chris.  He sounds frustrated, like Megatron having to explain his master plan to Starscream a second time.