Your Princess is in Another Castle (28 page)

“They’re
beautiful because they’re yours,” I say, placing my hands on Jessica’s breasts and gently pushing her down on the bed.  I kiss her forehead, lips, neck, breasts, and navel.  I see no hesitation in Jessica, no last-minute reconsideration of her offer.   

Out of places to kiss I undo her blue jeans and pull
them off.  I take a deep breath and manage to guide my shaking hands to Jessica’s underwear.  They’re purple, too. 

“Do you want me to?” she asks, sensing my hesitation.

“No.  I… I want to.”  I slide Jessica’s underwear down her legs and lay it atop her bra.  With great effort I manage to look at her vagina for several consecutive moments, a task made more manageable by the wonderful feeling of running my hands up and down her legs.

“Your turn now,” she says as she unbuttons
my pants.  She readies to take off my boxer shorts when I stop her.

“Under the covers,” I say.  “Could you do it under
the covers?”  Jessica nods and descends under my sheets.  She removes my last piece of clothing and for the first time, I am completely naked with a girl.

“It’s
dark under there,” says Jessica as she emerges from the bedded abyss.  She lies on top of me and kisses me.  “So my name is Jessica and I’ll be your sex partner for the evening.  Can I interest you in any appetizers or do you already know what you want for your main course?”

“I’d like it if… I want you to be the one on top,” I say.

“An excellent choice, sir.”  Jessica sits up and takes my hands.  “All right, are you ready to officially make the transition to friends with benefits?”

No, I’m not. 
“Jessica… that’s not what this is to me.  It can’t just be that.  It can’t.  The number of times I’ve thought about getting to kiss you goodnight and wake up to you the next morning, I can’t count them.  And when I see you keep on getting hurt over and over again by that miserable excuse for a fiancé you have when he should be treating you like a princess, it just tears me up inside.  I could make you happy, Jessica.  I know I could.

“
Every complaint you’ve ever voiced about Scott, you’d never make those about me.  I’d always remember your birthday.  I’d have the perfect present picked out for you a month in advance and I’d count down the days until I could see you smile when you open it.  I’d be grateful every day of the year that I had you for my valentine.  Whenever I see a happy couple I think that that could be us.  Because I love you, Jessica.” 

The ever
-present smile on Jessica’s beautiful face disappears as if it is never to return.  It is replaced by a look of immense sadness, for she knows that there is nothing she can say or do that will make this easier on either of us.  Jessica forgoes trying to talk me down and instead gives me a tremendous hug.  Finally she yields and sits on the edge of the bed where she slowly dresses.       

“I kno
w,” says Jessica looking away from me, “…I know this is going to be very hard for you.  But I want you to know that our friendship doesn’t have to end because of this.  As soon as you’re ready, we can go back to how it was before.  I can.  You can.  We can.  Like this never happened.  You’re the sweetest guy I’ve ever met and it’d crush me to never see you again.” 

Jessica
still doesn’t turn to face me but remains seated, willing to listen if I have anything to say.  I believe what she said about being able to remain friends.  And it’s precisely because I believe that that I want to tell Jessica how much I hate her for the fact that all she could ever do is fuck me.  I want to make her cry the way Scott makes her cry.  I want to call her a whore and hurt her so deeply that she’ll never speak to me again so I can keep on hurting even after the pain of tonight goes away.      

But I don’t.  I
nstead I say nothing at all, and I hope that Jessica realizes that means I agree we can still be friends or that we can at some point.  And she seems to understand, for while she doesn’t look back she offers me her hand and I take it.  Jessica squeezes my hand tightly and gets off the bed, grabs her bag, and walks out of the room.  It’s a long time before I get out of bed.

I decided upon taking a walk to clear my head in lieu of reading or gaming.  It’s late enough in the evening that thus far I’ve been able to avoid passing any deeply in love, handholding couples.  I did walk by a pretty boy flanked on either side by two women with their arms linked around his in a manner that would establish him as the coolest guy on the beach in a fifties beach party movie, although I attributed his being with the women as simply two more conquests for him as opposed to him holding any sort of genuine affection for either girl.

Frustrated as I am with the female gender I still f
eel compelled to seek out their company, although with The Vault being closed that eliminates my only other female acquaintance aside from Jessica.  I hoped against hope that I might find myself sharing an elevator with my crush from the 4
th
floor on her way to a late night study session, but I rode down to the lobby alone.  I could always call Chris and Seth for company but I didn’t after the Sonya debacle and I’m not going to now.               

Heading back to my building I
overhear a conversation going on between a girl and several of her female friends as they all sit beneath a tree.  The speaker is ponytailed and in a sweatshirt and pajama pants adorned with our campus initials.  Wearing her sleepwear but speaking in a serious tone gives me the impression the girl has called an emergency meeting of grave importance.  

“So I told him not tonight
,” says the girl, “because I had a big test in the morning and I just wanted to go to sleep.  So he just says ‘fine’ and rolls over to the other side of the bed and won’t even look at me.” 

The girl’s
friends all give her looks of contempt for the guy.  Surely they’re all thinking they themselves wouldn’t put up with such a jerk, although I know that they would and likely do. 

The girl sobs. 
“And I got really upset, that just because I’m not in the mood he won’t even lay with me.  But I’m afraid to stand up for myself, because I don’t want to lose him.”

It’s the moment the girl finishes that last sentence that I realize I’ve
been making the wrong moves all along, like a doomed protagonist in a Saw film.  The revelatory theme music of the horror franchise begins playing in my head as I look upon my past experiences in a bold new light.  In the eighth grade Suzie Newton said it was very sweet of me to ask her out but that she only liked me as a friend.  And earlier tonight Jessica told me I was the sweetest guy she’d ever met. 

I’ve been called sweet many times by many di
fferent women, all of whom declined to date me, passing me over like the plague of the firstborn relenting from a door marked with lamb’s blood.  Without a doubt any derivation of
you’re so sweet
is the single biggest anti-aphrodisiacal utterance a woman could ever speak about you. 

Women don’t want sweet.  They want sour.  Jessi
ca told me as much. 
You’re too Jacob
, she said.  Too best-friendish.  Jessica didn’t take her Twilight books with her when she left.  I need to read them.  Further my understanding of this startling new revelation.

As I pass by the sobbing girl
I give her the most thankful smile possible, sad that I cannot offer her more for opening my eyes.  It’s all so clear now.

One evening while relaxing/brooding (they are one in the same for him) in his study, Bruce Wayne was contemplating that criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot just as a bat flew into an open window.  Wayne took this to be an omen and it inspired him to become Batman, the dark knight who uses theatrically to strike terror into the hearts of those who prey on the innocent. 

And if criminals are a su
perstitious, cowardly lot, then women are a foolish, masochistic lot.  A woman will complain to her friends about the lack of available nice guys to date during a last minute mirror check of her low-rise jeans to make sure her soon to be taken Facebook group photo of all the girls bent over can capture her whale tail.  When the she-wolves reach their frat party destination they’ll begin making out with one another in a desperate bid to win the approval of inebriated Neanderthals the girls will eventually be afraid to stand up to when they realize they’ve become nothing but sex toys. 

But
with the night still young and the party not yet over, the girls will be held upside down so they can better drink from a beer bong dipped into a kiddy pool turned giant mug of ale, gulping down the alcohol until they’re forced to make a mad dash for the toilet.  Of course, Whale Tail will be too drunk to drive herself home or even walk properly, so she’ll hitch a ride with whichever oaf has a muscular enough arm to manage slinging her over his shoulder with and the ephemeral couple will enjoy a nice one nighter together with Whale Tail’s only stress coming the next morning when she wonders if she swallowed her morning-after pill in time.

Recovering from her hang
over, Whale Tail will then have coffee with a Poor Platonic friend not unlike me, who’ll stupidly put up with Whale Tail’s resumed lamentations that there are no nice guys left in the world.  Poor Platonic shall make another doomed bid for Whale Tail’s hand but will be rebuffed by her surely with a variation of
you’re so sweet
, but the love Whale Tail has for Poor Platonic is the love of a sister for her big brother, or the love of Bella Swan for Jacob Black.

After my revelatory encounter with the pajama-cl
ad girl who feared objecting to her state of concubinage, I entered my dorm room and began to devour the tome that is Twilight.  I immediately understood why the tale had so enraptured Jessica. 

Protagonist
Bella Swan is an anti-character if there ever was one.  She’s a girl with no desire or interest to be anything other than the property of her boyfriend.  To be without a man for Bella is to enter a perpetual state of lifeless limbo, experiencing the existential angst unique to women who cannot function without an Edward or Scott in their life.  And despite having as much personality as a blank RPG character sheet Bella nevertheless instantly enchants every single guy attending her new high school her first day there. 

Most taken with Bella is vampire Edward
Cullen, who quickly becomes the paddle to Bella’s ball.  Edward is not so much a character as he is an allegorical amalgam of every item on the
Am I Being Abused?
questionnaire on the website of the National Domestic Violence Hotline.  Abusive behaviors Bella misinterprets as acts of love include Edward’s nightly habit of sneaking into her bedroom to watch her as she sleeps, following her every move so she doesn’t do something stupid and die as a result, and frequently reminding her that she’s weak and helpless without him to protect her.

He’s physically perfect of course, and the lengthy boo
k would be at least a full third shorter if Bella weren’t so preoccupied with describing Edward’s beauty which is so overpowering that despite being a man he would still earn the vengeful ire of Aphrodite.  Wish fulfillment is a major theme of Twilight in that its message is even the plainest of girls can score the hottest of guys so long as they’re willing to completely surrender their will to him.

Twilight ends with Edward and Bella
dancing together but there’s room left for a sequel for while the couple is happy there had yet to be a Poor Platonic having his soul completely crushed forever.  Enter the sequel New Moon.  Early on Edward abandons Bella due to his reluctance to transform her into a vampire like himself.  Bella goes insane over her loss and begins deliberately putting herself into life-threatening situations in order to hallucinate having Edward lecture her over her frailty and stupidity. 

After what a
ny competent psychiatrist would classify as a suicide attempt but Bella justifies as a means of inducing an Edward hallucination, Bella is rescued by her friend Jacob Black.  He’s a boy who more so embodies the position of Poor Platonic than even I could ever hope to.  Crushing on Bella throughout the first book yet thwarted by his own boy next door niceness, Jacob and Bella grow to become best friends as Jacob cares for her as much as one can care for a hollow shell discarded by an abusive hermit crab. 

In the end Jacob
, declares his love for Bella but is rejected by her (while simultaneously telling him that he’s very sweet) so that she can seek out and be reunited with Edward.  And so, Jacob Black joined the same club of crestfallen Poor Platonics that I have, swapping sob stories of futile wooing efforts on women like Bella, Jessica, and she who is afraid to stand up for herself because she doesn’t want to lose her relationship.  From the likes of them I can see that women perpetually make poor relationship choices. 

This is not a recent trend
propagated by declining moral values and encouraged by reality shows celebrating the lifestyles of the whores of Babylon.  Such patterns of ignorant female behavior can be traced back thousands of years all the way to the ancient Greeks. 
Don’t hate the player, hate the game
was the personal philosophy of Hera, queen of the gods and wife of Zeus.  No matter how many affairs her philandering husband had, no matter how many bastard children he spawned, Hera never punished or even considered leaving Zeus, instead incurring her wrath on the innocent children and mistresses who were often outright raped by Zeus. 

Hera attempted to prevent Alcmene who had b
een impregnated by Zeus when he disguised himself as her husband from giving birth by tying her legs into knots.  But foiled at preventing the birth of Heracles she then attempted to kill him by sending two serpents into his crib, which Heracles easily strangled.  Still believing Zeus to be innocent and Heracles guilty, Hera would later cast a spell of madness on Heracles during which he slew his own children, forcing him to perform his twelve labors.  If asked why she chose to remain with a man who constantly cheated on her and treated her so badly Hera would likely only reply with
because I love him
like so many tearful Maury Povich guests.

I
can no longer blame women for their ill-conceived relationship decisions.  Such choices are clearly mandatory when one possesses the XX chromosomes.  And who am I to argue with thousands of years of evolutionary irrationality?  So instead of lamenting my situation and becoming so sorrowful that even Werther himself would tell me to lighten up, I shall simply adapt.  I will transform into the embodiment of everything I hate.  I shall become the bad boy. 

Walking o
utside, I see that it’s dark again.  A glance at my watch tells me it’s 6pm.  Jessica left late last night and after my walk I read Twilight and New Moon in their entirety, falling asleep just before dawn.  I slept through the entire day and missed my classes.  But no matter, there’s still time enough to do what is necessary.  And I know where I need to go, for as it happens the store is adjacent to The Minus World.

I step out of Sports Authority and menacingly glare right to left like the Terminator stepping out of the bar in his stolen biker gear in Terminator 2.  And I’ve just gotten some new threads of my own.  I’m wearing a black Chicago White Sox jersey, basketball sneakers, a swanky gold chain, and have some cool shades (not a replica of Neo’s) that I place into my pocket.  I’m now properly attired.  It’s time to go hunting.   

The Predator
s seek out warm climates such as the South American jungle or downtown Los Angeles during a heat wave when they travel to Earth in search of human game.  But unlike the Predators I am an inexperienced hunter.  I have no favored game preserve to curry a tactical advantage with so I simply head to familiar territory: the local video store.  Even the hardest partying sorority girls must occasionally enjoy relaxing on the couch while watching a movie.  And there’s always the chance a girl might be there looking for the film version of Wuthering Heights after she decided to skip actually reading the book. 

With my territory claimed and the relatively low possibility of
encountering direct competition I need now only home in on my prey.  Predators have the benefit of their thermal vision for zeroing in on targets, but my game is easier to spot.  I need only look for some tell-tale body art and find it in the form of two lower-back tattoos.  One is of a Japanese character adorning the flesh of a brunette with
pink
written on the ass of her pants.  The other tattoo is of the “tribal” style and it adorns a blonde wearing a tank-top that says
hottie
.  It’s such a perfect setup that if I were actually hunting to kill I’d suspect a trap.  I shadow the women from an aisle back, disappointed I can’t playback their dialogue Predator-style.  

“How about Requiem for a Dream?” asks Pink.  “It’s supposed to be good.”

“No.  I don’t like Shakespeare,” says Hottie.  The old nice guy me would have cringed at such a declaration.  I’m reminded of the time I came in here in the mood for a black comedy and asked the cute clerk if she could recommend any.  After she suggested Friday with Ice Cube and Chris Tucker, I explained to her that black comedies depict dark subject matter and do not necessarily star black actors.  She then recommended Van Wilder, citing it as her favorite comedy.  But the new me is not disgusted with such ignorance.  I now see it as opportunity.     

“How about The Cou
nt of Monte Cristo?” asks Pink.

“No
.  Vampires scare me,” says Hottie.  “And I want to watch something funny.”

That’s it. 
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.  I must act now.  I hear Pink explain to Hottie that The Count of Monte Cristo is not about vampires as I join them at the employee picks display.

“What are you in the mood for?”
I try, liking the double entendre.  At first contact the girls can see I view them only as disposable sex toys, so most likely they’re instinctually turned on while in their minds they’re formulating plans to change me into a guy more like their best friend who they’ve already rejected a dozen times because he’s too nice.

Pink and Hottie both
turn to face me.  Pink smiles, but I can see Hottie immediately suspects a sheep in wolf’s clothing.  She studies me curiously, as if she were trying to think of a way to trick me into dropping a geek reference.  While I’m on my guard I still hope she has no geek knowledge to draw on, although it’s always possible she knows Dick Grayson became Nightwing after abandoning the Robin identity due to a geeky younger brother. 

“
I want a drama, but Briley wants a comedy,” says Pink.  She’s actually more attractive than Hottie and appears more interested, so I should recommend a comedy.  My disinterest in what Pink wants will cause her to wonder what she could do to capture my interest rather than drive her off.  And National Lampoon Presents Van Wilder starring Ryan Reynolds seems like the obvious choice for recommendation, but Hottie can likely quote it line by line already. But what would she like? What wouldn’t give me away?  I suddenly wish Dwayne’s rape story had a film adaptation.

(“The Flash would never have a chance on film,
” said Chris.  “Because he’d be played by someone like Ryan Reynolds.  Like the asshole didn’t suck enough already in Blade: Trinity.  Hannibal King got raped almost as bad Bane did in Batman and Robin what with Reynolds’ pissing all over the Tomb of Dracula legacy with his Van Wilder shtick.”

“But the Wally West Flash actually has a similar personality to Ryan Reynolds,
said Seth.  “And I thought he was pretty funny in Waiting.”)

“Have you seen Waiting?” I ask.  “It’s pretty funny.”

“No,” says Pink.  “What’s it about?”

“Who’s in it?” asks Hottie.

“It stars Ryan Reynolds.  It’s a lot like Van Wilder except it’s set in the restaurant business.”  I think I’m right about that, although I can’t imagine being wrong.  

“He’s
so hot,” says Hottie.  “I’ll see if they have that.  Thanks.”  Hottie gives me the evil eye before walking away.  I don’t fool her.  She sees it all.  The midnight attendance of Episodes I, II, and III (I kept naively thinking they had to get better).  My misunderstanding of the nature of beer pong.  Perhaps some women can simply intuit who’s an over twenty virgin.  But then why is Hottie leaving and not warning Pink of my true nature?  Perhaps the two are roommates and Hottie simply desires to personally witness what she believes is my inevitable downfall.

“You don’t really like Ryan Reynolds movies,” says Pink.

My first instinct is take up that defensive stance Q went into when he unexpectedly encountered Guinan in Ten Forward.  Pink could go hostile any moment.  But I manage to play it cool.  “I don’t?”