Your Princess is in Another Castle

by Richard Fore

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I say.

  “But Balkan did die,” says Seth. “And although Skeletor may have lived he still lost to He-Man, so I’m not so sure the Langella Monologue ensures any kind of lasting victory on the speaker’s part.”

  “Balkan and Skeletor were both bad guys,” I say. “I’m a good guy. My cause is righteous. Theirs was sinister. Tonight I shall make Jessica mine and in the aftermath a Langella Monologue will be performed. Then we’ll live happily ever after. Let it be so.”

  Jessica has her arms outstretched as soon as I open the door. She’s been crying, probably on and off since it happened. Jessica’s never really gotten used to the breakups, is always in the maximum amount of pain each time, as if each one was entirely unexpected. But now she wants a hug and I give her one. While it is not worth having to see her in such a weepy state, a breakup hug always lasts longer than a goodbye hug, and Jessica is never the one to pull away from a breakup hug. And I value them not for bringing her body to mine but for the fact that I know I’m genuinely being some comfort to her.

  “Hi,” I say, finally letting go of Jessica.

  “Hi,” she says. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Thanks for wanting to see me.”

  “You know that you’re my best bud and I can always count on you to make me smile, right?”

  “I love to see you smile. Don’t read too much into it, though. My mom just listened to a lot of Randy Newman when she was pregnant with me.”

  Jessica laughs. “See? Told ya.”

  “So what’s on the books for tonight?”

  “I dunno. Lie in bed together, watch some TV, bash our exes?”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  My dorm room is sparsely furnished like the cell of a monk. It contains only a bed and two matching dressers, desks, and uncomfortable wooden chairs, the default pieces of furniture that came with the room. There being two of everything but the bed serves as a reminder that the room once housed two students, although I live alone and the only person who’s ever slept here concurrently with me has been Jessica. In part because there is no furniture for lounging she doesn’t mind sharing my bed with me when she’s over. Jessica’s also willing to spend the night so long as we sleep head to toe, eliminating any possibility that I could find myself with my arms around her when I wake up in the morning.

  Jessica sets her gym bag on my desk, suggesting she may have brought some sleepover items with her. I cross my fingers in hope that she’s brought her cloud pajamas, but the first items she removes are two books.

  “Before I forget, I brought these for you,” says Jessica. “These are the Twilight series books I was telling you about. I finished the second one. Now I can’t wait for the third. I’m thinking about going to the midnight release party when it comes out.” Jessica takes the books and carefully places them atop my copy of Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, officially making them next on my reading list.

  “Yeah, I forgot you’re the twilight princess,” I say.

  “Don’t make fun. Like I said, you might pick up some valuable tips on how to behave with women from Edward Cullen.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I’ll give them a look sometime.” They can’t be much worse than Dwayne’s rape story.

  Jessica sits on my bed and kicks off her shoes. She’s wearing her pink frog socks tonight. They are her favorite pair of socks for Jessica loves anything having to do with frogs. If I were Jessica’s boyfriend, for her first birthday that we were together I would buy her a birthday card with a frog on it. While I could do such a thing just being her friend, it is something I have reserved only for when I am more than that. “I see you’re wearing your frog socks tonight,” I say.

  “Of course, I love my froggy socks.”

  She never says frog, only froggy, one of the many recurring priceless Jessica moments.

  Jessica and I have spent the last two hours watching The Game Show Network, viewing reruns of old game shows that ended their original broadcast run several years before either of us were born. During each commercial break we mock ourselves for having nothing better to do. But there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing right now than being with Jessica.

  “So every time there’s a commercial break advertising modern products I’m reminded we’re not actually living in the late seventies,” says Jessica.

  “I would have liked the seventies, I think. I could’ve seen Star Wars on the big screen without having to see Greedo shoot first and play Pong minus the beer.”

  “What, you don’t like beer pong?”

  “I’ve never played it. Never really been in a situation where it was being played anywhere near me.”

  “You know, I just so happen to be a beer pong champ. Maybe I could teach you sometime.”

  “You’re a beer pong champ?”

  “Yep. But I’ve always had really good aim when it comes to throwing balls into cups. When I was a little girl I went to a taping of the Bozo the Clown show and I got picked to play the Grand Prize Game where you try and throw a ball into six cups that are further and further away, but if you missed once you were out. I never missed and won the grand prize. So I guess it’s just in my blood. My mom still has the tape at my house. It was the highlight of my summer that year. So you want me to give you some lessons sometime?”

  “I don’t know. Me being with a hot girl at a beer pong tournament in some sorority house or something, well, that might just make a tear in the space-time continuum.”

  Jessica laughs. “Oh look,” she says, “a commercial for Bally’s. I can’t wait for the new year to start so I can break my resolution of getting fit. I keep telling myself that since I have no chest I may as well get a nicely toned ass, but I never follow through.”

  The commercial for Bally’s shows a bunch of athletic men and women working out on various machines to a pop rock song that was popular back in the mid nineties. I instantly recognize the song and band, a fact which if Seth were to learn would likely earn me a punch in the face. “Nothing like an instrumental version of The Sign to get your blood pumping for a good workout,” I say.

  Jessica laughs again. “Oh my god! I can’t believe you know the name of that song!”

  “Well, it was Ace of Base’s best song. I could sing it for you if you wanted.”

  “I dare you to!”

  “I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes and I am happy now living without you, I’m letting you go,” I sing as best I can.

  Jessica buries her hysterical face in my pillow. “Oh my god!” she says coming up for air. “That was awesome. You really have an awful singing voice, you know that?”

  “I only know that song because the two women from Ace of Base were really hot.” That and I liked the album. “I used to fantasize about a threesome with them both,” I say, again relying on my go-to justification for guilty pleasures involving two women. Jessica playfully hits me with the pillow.

  Another half-hour of game show watching passes and we switch off the TV and begin chatting about this and that. Jessica tells me how her law firm internship is going (she’s vaguely insulted that none of the lawyers she works for has come on to her). I tell her about a loosely autobiographical story I’ve started writing for my fiction workshop class that features a character based on her and that I’m considering turning it into a novel. Jessica makes me promise that she can read it after I’m done. I do promise, but tell her I haven’t figured out how it ends yet.

  “So what’s the name of this character based on me?” asks Jessica.

  “Jessie.”

  “I don’t like that name. Change it. Or else I don’t grant you permission to write me into your story. And you can’t change it to Zoe or Chloe, either. I hate those names, too.”

  “What do you want your name to be?”

  Jessica looks up at the ceiling. “Rebecca. Change it to Rebecca. Oh, and what’s her last name?”

  “I don’t think I’ve given her one, yet.”

  “Well,
she has to have a last name. Any ideas?”

  “How about Chambers? Rebecca Chambers.”

  Jessica looks at me suspiciously, convinced I must already know of a Rebecca Chambers. “Are you sure that’s not the name of some porn star or something?”

  “I’m sure. But if you don’t like that, then how about Rebecca Monroe? Same number of letters as your name.”

  “Hmm. So Jessica Martin becomes Rebecca Monroe. Okay, that sounds good.” Jessica shivers. “It’s cold in here. And my toes are cold. Feel my toes,” she says suddenly as she places both feet on my lap. “Don’t worry, they’re clean.”

  I wrap my hand around the toes of her left foot. They are indeed cold.

  “You know, the one part of my body I don’t mind at all is my feet,” says Jessica. “I actually kinda like them. But no matter how much I’d complain to Scott about them hurting he’d never go near them.”

  Eager to do what Scott would not, I take Jessica’s middle toe in between two of my fingers and gently massage it. “This will warm your toes up. And I like your feet, too. But there isn’t any part of you that isn’t beautiful, Jessica.” I look at her feet as I say this, hesitant to look at her face and see her reaction. She makes a noise that sounds like an aw but may just be a pleasurable moan stemming from her massage.

  I love having a part of Jessica to touch, any part. But looking at a girl’s feet, even those of an angel like Jessica just leaves me puzzled as to Chris’ fascination with them. If Jessica requested that I suck on her toes I’d be willing to oblige her, finding it neither abhorrent nor erotic. I’m of the True Neutral alignment on the matter. I think about relaying to Chris what I’m doing now and smile at my imagining his jealous reaction.

  “That feels so good,” says Jessica. “Hey, what are you smirking at?” she asks, giving me a playful nudge with her foot.

  “I was just thinking about a friend of mine. He has a foot fetish, so he’d be very jealous of me right now.”

  “Yeah? Well, that’s a little odd, but it’d actually be a bit of a relief for me. It’d be nice to have a guy who just didn’t care about the size of my breasts.” Jessica glances down at her chest in disgust, a maneuver she’s likely performed with such repetition over the years it may now be done unconsciously.

  “I don’t care. You’ve got too nice of an ass for me to care about that.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jessica turns over and lies on her stomach. “You wanna give it another feel?”

  “Do you want me to give it another feel?”

  “Come on, do you need me to order you to do it?”

  “I just like having permission. Something I have common with vampires.”

  “Well then, your highness commands you to grab her ass. So obey your queen, knave.”

  I give Jessica a slap on her ass that’s a little harder than I intended.

  “You don’t even know the difference between a grab and a slap,” she says. “And that was a pretty weak slap at that.”

  I slap her ass again a little harder.

  “Better,” says Jessica. “So what do vampires need permission to do?”

  “In some stories you have to directly invite them into your home or they can’t enter it.” I place both my hands on Jessica’s ass and squeeze.

  “Whoa, now that was nicely done! That’s the kinda grab I remember from the last time.”

  I release my grip after receiving Jessica’s positive feedback, not wanting to press my luck any further.

  “But that permission to enter thingy you just said isn’t how it works in the Twilight books,” says Jessica. “But Twilight is a pretty different take on vampires. Like sunlight doesn’t kill them in Twilight. Instead it makes their skin sparkle. But it’s very noticeable when it happens so they still have to be careful about going out into the sun in public.”

  “Twilight vampires sparkle in the sunlight? You’re lucky you have such a nice ass, Jessica.”

  She laughs. “Well, they are romance books.” Jessica switches to lying on her back, drapes her legs over my lap. “But you know what? I think you’re too good at ass grabbing to not be doing it on a regular basis. So tell me the truth. You’ve got a girlfriend on every floor of this building, don’t you?”

  “I do have a little thing going with a cute girl who lives on the fourth floor. I smile at her whenever I see her. She usually smiles back.”

  “Have you tried actually talking to her?”

  “I can’t. I only ever see her when she’s exiting the building and I’m entering, or I’m exiting and she’s entering. It’s like she’s here just to torment me.”

  “So how do you know she lives on the fourth floor, then?”

  “We shared an elevator once and that’s where she got off.”

  “Did you talk to her in the elevator?”

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh. I thought so.”

  “Maybe I’m happy enough just getting the occasional ass grab and giving you foot rubs. Maybe I don’t need anything else.” I begin to massage Jessica’s feet again.

  “Oh my gosh that feels good. Would this really be enough for you, though?”

  “As long as it was your body I was touching, sure.”

  Jessica laughs. “Seriously though, don’t you ever think about having sex?”

  “No. So how ticklish are you?” I tickle her sole.

  Jessica screams and kicks me in the stomach. “Don’t do that again. I mean it. I’m not a Tickle Me Jessica. And don’t change the subject. You have to think about sex sometimes.”

  “No. Not unless it gets brought up by someone else first, like when you told me to seek out a condom that one time. Or if I’m fantasizing about someone and I know there’s no chance I’m actually going to be with her, like my hot professor or someone else like that.”

  Jessica lays her head on my shoulder. “Why are you afraid of making it real? Do you have a fear of the vag?”

  I cringe involuntarily and hope that the shockwave isn’t great enough for her to notice. The shorthand form of the word was particularly disturbing. “No,” I say. “I don’t have a fear of that.”

  “So why’d you just cringe in horror when I said it, then?”

  I consider saying I just felt the presence of another immortal, but doubt Jessica would either believe or understand that. “I watch porn. So how could I have a fear of that?”

  “Well, I don’t watch all that much porn, but I imagine most of the time there’s a dick penetrating the vagina and obscuring its view, right? And I bet you mostly just watch soft stuff anyway, like women playing with their big boobs and pouring oil on them and stuff”

  Yeah. “No,” I say. “I like my porn pretty hardcore.”

  Jessica laughs and takes my hand. “Why are you so afraid of sex?” She looks at me with compassion, like it wouldn’t matter what I could say right now, that she would understand no matter what. I can’t help but stare at her face, completely bereft of her usual carefree smile and replaced by a look of pure thoughtfulness.

  “I just don’t care about sex,” I say at last. I raise our joined hands into the air. “Because it’s not what I want. This is what I want. To have someone to hold hands with. To have someone who’ll lay in bed with me. That’s all I want.”

  Jessica places her head against my chest and nudges me down onto the bed so she lies on top of me. “I think we ought to fuck,” she says.

  “What?”

  “I said we should fuck. You need it. Bad. You need to see what you’ve been missing. You need to see that it’s worth having. And you need someone you’ll be comfortable with to guide you through your first time. Like me. And I need it to. I dunno if I’ve ever told you this before, but whenever things end between me and Scott, I go out and have a one-nighter. That’s not the smartest thing in the world to do I know, but neither is continually getting back together with Scott, either.

  “And I know you’re clean and safe, so that makes you a better candidate than anyone I could find out bar-hopping. S
o let’s fuck. Just this once. And it’s not a mercy lay. I need it as much as you do. What do you say?” Jessica kisses me and presses her forehead against mine. “Actually, I don’t really care what you have to say regarding the matter. Just shut up and do me.”

  “Okay,” I say. I know that I should be honest with Jessica, and it would be wrong to spring the truth on her afterwards. But part of me is wondering if perhaps I should just stay silent and enjoy this one night with her. Maybe the memory of this night, meaningless as it is to Jessica, would be enough to get me through my lifetime. And she’s right about my needing a mentor, and certainly there is no one who could be more understanding than she is. Perhaps the best way to move on from Jessica would be by sleeping with her this one time.

  Jessica looks at me like she expects me to do something, so I hesitantly reach for her shirt like an overly cautious pickpocket. I fumble my attempt at undoing her buttons which makes her smile and undo them herself. Jessica wears a solid purple bra, colorful but simple. There’s no lace or pattern designed to amplify her sexual attractiveness, surely Jessica chose this bra deliberately because it lacked such a quality, believing herself unworthy to wear a more sexually explicit support undergarment.

  “Condoms,” she says suddenly. “Do you have any?”

  Jessica doesn’t burst into laughter after asking the question, which suggests she was seriously asking and expects a reply. “No,” I say, “but they have a machine downstairs.” The machine downstairs. I remember the last time I tried to use that machine. Surely now it would be more agreeable, but I should take no chances. “In the ladies room there’s one, I mean. At least I think so.”

  “It’s okay, I know you’re safe. And I’m on the pill, so you don’t have to use one, but actually I think I may have one in my purse if you want to use it.”

  I imagine the herculean effort it’d take for me to put on a condom successfully and the likelihood of it snapping against me. “It’s alright. Those things don’t do anything but kill the mood anyway,” I say with a labored tone of authority.