Your Princess is in Another Castle (20 page)

“Jerry Reeves,” says Seth.

“The Blitz. 
He’s a shock jock,” says Chris, presumably for the benefit of Jimmy, but also for myself.

“What’s he doing here?” asks Jimmy.

“He probably just came to make fun of us,” I say.

“Not his style,” says Seth.  “Whatever it is, it’s more than that.” 

Support and security personne
l make their presence known as the Blitz makes a big show of checking his watch.  “Well, well, well,” he says, “it looks like in just a little under twelve short hours, you’ll all be able to start pissing your pants in excitement as a most auspicious day in the history of your sad little lives will begin!” 

Making his way over to us the Blitz
spots the Optimus Prime play tent and pushes the handle of his sunglasses down his nose, exposing his eyes.  He’s greatly enjoying himself. 

“
Ah, the first fellows in line,” says The Blitz.  “And just how long have you been sitting out here on your ass for?” he asks, putting a microphone to my mouth.

“Since eight o’clock
this morning, sir!” I exclaim in my most over the top nerd voice.  My friends all chuckle and I hear laughter from the rest of the crowd. 

The Blitz actually seems pleased knowing he’ll
have to work harder to shake up the crowd.  “Okay, you can bet that’s going to be a sound bite,” he says.  “You’re certainly excited for the… what was it again?  The Sega Dreamcast?”  He walks back to the van.  “But seriously guys, I’m not here to make fun.  In fact, I’m here to help you out.  I’m going to make you all an offer you damn well shouldn’t refuse!  No, no, that’s not entirely accurate.  She’s about to make you an offer you shouldn’t refuse!”

A woman emerges from the van.  Tall, perhap
s six feet, with jet-black hair extending to her lower back, she bears a wicked smile that makes her look like she sprang to life from the pages of The Book of Vile Darkness. Pale as a vampire, she wears a cleavage-bearing leather outfit complete with boots and is heavily tattooed. 

“Direct to you from her stint at the Moonlite Bu
nny Ranch, a fully licensed and legal Nevada brothel, pornstar Delilah Summons!” declares the Blitz.

“
That’s right,” says Delilah.  “The Moonlite Bunny Ranch.  Fully licensed.  Fully legal.  You want me, you can have me.  No rules.  No limits.  Want another girl?  Want me and another girl?  Have a fantasy you’ve never fulfilled?  Whatever you want, you’ll have it.  All you can handle.  Completely free.  All you have to do is walk away from this line.  Walk away right now and you get a free trip to the Bunny Ranch and a complimentary party with the girl or girls of your choice.”    

The four of us look at each other.  Everyone in ev
ery group looks at each other.  The few women in line glare at Delilah and the Blitz with disgust.  The Blitz grins, a monkey thrown firmly in the wrench.  And once again, the party crashers signal us out first, with the temptress herself walking directly toward us.  Delilah says nothing at all, instead grabbing Jimmy’s crotch and pawing at his face to get her message across.  He smiles at her like a disinterested waiter would at a flirty customer, silently removing her hand from his face with his own.  She squeezes his groin hard before relenting.   

“Looks like the first guy is going to
refuse!” says the Blitz.  “That means I won the bet.  I forget Delilah, does that mean you spank me or I spank you?”  Delilah doesn’t look back but gives Blitz the finger.

As successful so far as the Devil in the desert, D
elilah grabs my head and shoves it into her cleavage.  She lets up and pushes my head away hard before ignoring Chris and Seth completely and heading over to the Gaia Guys.  Jimmy looks at me and I look at him, and we each take a step back from Chris and Seth.  A faction has been formed.                

“Without any
anthropomorphic effort on Delilah’s part you may as well be a eunuch, Jimmy,” says Chris.

“And her boobs weren’t big e
nough to suffocate you to death, Justin,” says Seth.  “Plus, you’re just plain not right in the head.”

“Delilah
could have had a kitsune quality,” says Jimmy, “and I still would have said no.  They’re offering us a single session of meaningless sex in exchange for sacrificing our place in line.  I get enough no balls of string attached sex on my own without their help.”  

“And I just want a PS3,” I say.  “We’ve been c
amped out here for twelve hours waiting for this.  I’m not just going to walk away to have sex with some prostitute!”

“Don’t think of them as prostitutes,” says
Seth.  “Think of them as sexual philanthropists.  And we’re not talking about local hot chicks you can meet anywhere.  I’ve heard of the Bunny Ranch.  It’s filled with gorgeous women, a lot of them pornstars.  Professional women that’ll cater to our every desire.  Anything we want them to do.  No inhibitions.  All of our fantasies come true!”

“
Each and every one of my litter of twenty-seven Felicias was my fantasy come true,” says Jimmy.

“And none of my fantasies involve a bunch
of other guys in a waiting room waiting for their number to be called,” I say.

“Silence, vestal virgin!” says Chris.  “What do yo
u think you’re going to do with that PS3, huh?  There might be a price drop by the time Metal Gear Solid 4 finally rolls around.  Do you really think that Genji: Days of the Blade
is going to make you happy?  That it’ll give you what you need?  Cuz it won’t!”

“Who are you to refuse Delilah
Summons?” asks Seth.  “Her threesome scene with Ava Devine is the stuff of legend!”

“I’d like to hear from the Gaia Guys,” I say, desperate to add to my side.

“Hey Gaia Guys!” shouts
Chris.  “What have you decided?”

Will emerges from his huddled conversation
with Lance, Eric, and Seth and approaches us.  “Our Seth is a definite no,” he says.  “The rest of us, we’re undecided.  How about you?”

“Split down the middle,” says Chris.     
 

“Your Seth is an idiot!” says o
ur Seth.

“There is some concern in our camp that this is a sinister prank,” says Will.  “Tha
t once we depart the line the Blitz will renege on the offer and we’ll be left with neither PS3 nor girl.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” says Seth.  “He’s a
prick on his show, but he’s not dishonest.  It’s a legit offer.”

“Look at that,” says Chris.  Down
the line Delilah is playing with the hair of a female line member.  The girl pushes Delilah away who retaliates by slapping the girl on the butt before moving on to the next group.  “Looks like the offer applies to the boys and the girls.” 

Our S
eth smiles at the display of girl/girl action.  Jimmy remains distant, as if in his mind he were already playing his first PS3 game. 

“What are you leaning towards?” I ask Will.

“Well, to be honest,” he says, “I could use a good fling.  But I got my PS2 on launch day, and it’s lasted a lot longer and given me much more pleasure than any relationship I’ve ever had with a woman.  I gotta plan for the long haul, so I think I’m going to decline.” 

“Frankly,” says Chris, “I expected better f
rom a guy named after one of my favorite underrated SNES protagonists.”

“Take a hike, you second-rate Link wannabe,” says Seth.

Will appears distraught.  “I’m with you, Will,” I say.

“As am I,” says Jimmy.
  Will nods and returns to his group to perhaps face a similar assault from Lance and Eric.   

“Look
, guys,” says Chris, “this should be my decision.  I’m the reason we’re here.  If I hadn’t attacked that bat-poser Kevin the three of us would be sitting inside Minus World right now and Jimmy wouldn’t even be here!  When you read as much fantasy as I do, you come to believe in destiny.  Can’t you see this is fate?  Don’t you get that we were meant to be here tonight to receive this offer?  So I say let’s blow this popsicle stand and go get a free lay!”

Jimmy’s expression changes immediately to the same one worn by Ar
chimedes the moment before he shouted eureka.  “Chris has a point,” he says.  “In The Hobbit, when Bilbo and the dwarves reach Lake-town, Thorin then informs the Men there of his intent to defeat the dragon Smaug and reclaim his rightful place as King under the Mountain.

“
It is said that the Men of Lake-town sang songs of prophecy that the dwarves would one day return, and when they did, gold would flow in the rivers.  Some years after the defeat of Smaug, Gandalf and Balin visit Bilbo and tell him the new Master of Lake town has made the town prosperous and peaceful with the dwarves and elves.  The Men speak that the rivers now run with gold. 

“Bilbo then remarks
that the prophecies came true in a fashion.  Gandalf tells him of course they did, that Bilbo should not disbelieve in the prophecies simply because he had a hand in bringing them about.  Gandalf says that while he is very fond of Bilbo, he is just one little hobbit, and that his adventures and escapades did not occur solely for his own benefit, but that fate was guiding him in completing a purpose that was greater than himself.  That must be what is happening now.  Chris in his anger saw to it that the four of us would be brought together here tonight.  We were meant to be here and have this choice be given to us.  All of us.  Whose idea was it to come to this particular store?”

“Mine,” I admit. 
  

“You see?” asks Jimmy.  “After being banned from
Minus World, of all the stores you could have picked you chose this one, where Delilah Summons would come to wreck the best laid plans.  I’ve never been in a brothel, never interacted with a lady of the evening.  And most certainly you haven’t, either. 

“
But Bilbo Baggins was not a burglar when Gandalf first came knocking on his door, and yet it was he who stole back the Arkenstone from Smaug.  Frodo Baggins never wished to bear the One Ring, but destiny gave him that role.  He was meant to carry it.  Just as we are now meant to sacrifice our place in line and go to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.  Perhaps the women there shall help us.  Perhaps we shall help them.  Regardless, fate requires our presence there.”

“No,” I say.  “As John Connor told Kyle Reese to
tell Sarah Connor, the future’s not set.  There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.  I don’t believe in destiny.”

“If you go by
Terminator 3 then there is such a thing as destiny,” says Chris.  “Even the machines felt that way.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not going by
three,” I say.

“Oh, so you’re saying T
hree sucked, then?” asks Chris.

“I’m not saying
Three sucked,” I say.  “I’m just saying I don’t believe in destiny or fate and that I can decide for myself whether or not to walk away from this line and go to some whorehouse instead.  And I’m choosing not to,” I say.

“What do you think, Seth?” asks Chris.

“About what?  If Terminator 3 sucked, or if something akin to a mystical energy field controls our destinies and is guiding us to the Ranch?”

“Destiny,
” says Chris.

“Well, I think that there is such a thing as fate, but
it only takes you so far.  Then it’s up to you to make it happen.”

“What the hell, man?
” asks Chris.  “Isn’t that what Jenna Elfman said in that dumbass Jennifer Love Hewitt movie?”

“Yeah, it was
Can’t Hardly Wait,” says Seth.  “But to speak of it with such bile you sure thought of it pretty quickly.  Or did you see that back in the same period of your life when you saw She’s All That in the theater and cried at the end when Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachel Leigh Cook kiss, and you told the male friend you went with who was also misty-eyed that the two of you could never speak of that night again?”

“You son of a bitch!” shouts Chris. 
“I was drunk and vulnerable when I told you that and you promised you would never tell anyone!”

“You son of a bitch!” shouts Jimmy.  “
You
said you were never going to tell anyone about that!” 

I look at Chris like he’s just been denounced as the
killer at the end of a mystery novel.  His eyes dart back and forth between Jimmy and I while he wonders who to address first.  “You’ve got to understand,” Chris says settling on me, “it was simply the fact that ever since I first saw her I’ve always seen that special sparkle of talent within Rachel Leigh Cook that lead me to see She’s All That.  Surely, you too see the sparkle within her, right? 

“
I mean, you’ve always been a Tifa Lockheart man.  You have to be, what with her being a busty babe in a tank-top.  No whiny flower-power Aeris Gainsbourough for you, right?  I mean Aeris has the most overrated death scene in the history of videogames!  And surely you as an appreciator of Tifa’s bounciness can see that only one such as the gem that is Rachel Leigh Cook could have done justice voicing her in Final Fantasy Advent Children!”  

“She did okay, I guess,” I say.

“You’re not fooling anyone with your anti-Aeris spiel, Chris,” says Jimmy.  “You wept when Sephiroth slew her and you know it.  And you want to know something else?  Aside from Kristanna Loken having a really nice ass, Terminator 3 completely blew.”