Your Princess is in Another Castle (4 page)

“Anyway, say Sabrina’s your serious girlfriend and she’s up for a threesome.  Don’t do
it.  Don’t be Icarus.  That’s rule number 1.  Don’t be Icarus.  Because it might sound great, bringing in a second girl into your bed for a night.  Problem is, you’re never gonna get her back out.  Just like Hayden in Jedi.  One of two scenarios will happen.  Either your girlfriend is going to decide afterwards that she likes the other girl better than you and that since they can have their fun together limitlessly via an apparatus that by design goes beyond your own endurance they may as well drop you from the equation altogether.  I don’t care if you’re Captain America and you just got a fresh dose of the super-soldier serum, a girl armed with a strap-on is going to be able to outlast you.  

“Or, your girlfriend is going to decide that
you
liked the other girl better and she’ll start raving about how she only agreed to do this in the first place to make you happy and she couldn’t stand seeing you with another woman but didn’t object at the time because she wanted to make you happy.  But now she’s seething with jealousy and eventually the relationship dissolves.  Either way, you attempted to make an already good thing even better and wound up destroying it in the process.  Now Lucas has been doing this for years, but you can avoid even starting it.  So don’t be Icarus.  Don’t be Lucas.  Don’t put Hayden in Jedi.”

“What if you’re not actually in a relationship with either of them?  What if it’s only sexual to begin with?” asks Seth.

“Well, that’s entirely different.  If you got two chicks together in a Sith lord/apprentice relationship and most of the time they’re happy using their artificial red lightsaber, but every once in a while they call on you to wield your flesh and blood blue or green lightsaber for a little taste of the light side, awesome.  There’s no relationship to poison.  No ramifications.  That’s fine then.  You know this is all old stuff though.  Hemingway wrote a book about a threesome that ruined his relationship.  A Moveable Feast, I think it was.  It’s also why he killed himself.”

“That’s not why Hemingway killed himself, nor is that what
Feast is about,” I say.

“I’m gonna have to back him up on that,” says Seth.

“How would you know?” asks Chris.

“I know enough about Hemingway to know you’re wrong,” says Seth.

“He was a depressed alcoholic,” I say.

“And what makes you a depressed
alcoholic?” asks Chris.  “When your wife leaves you for the woman you had a threesome with.  That’s why his marriage with Martha Gellhorn ended.”

“Look, whatever,” says Seth.
  “At least we can agree that he needs to work on getting with Sabrina and that it’d be best to discourage bisexual exploration in the process, right?”

“Oh, agree
d.  He needs to move in on Sabrina for sure,” says Chris.

The music ceases and the dancer on the main stage heads into the back.  The semi-comprehensible words of a fast talking DJ blare into
my ears.  “All right gentlemen, that was Madison!  Now we’re calling Starry Nights to the main stage for the first of a three-song set.  And remember, all of our lovely ladies are available for private dances.”

“Starry Nights?” I ask.

“Must be a Van Gogh fan,” says Seth.

Chris and Seth are nearing the end of their beers.  I
’m only halfway done with my Coke.  Reluctant to finish it and order another, I’m wary of the price given its small size, even if someone else is paying. 

“So you going to do it
, man?” asks Chris.  “Are you going to ask Sabrina out?”

Sabrina.  Employee of
The Vault.  The owner’s daughter.  A genuine fangirl.  Very cute.  Presumably single, if she’s asking about the relationship status of others.  And she was friendly to me.  But so was Molly at one point and I brought an end to that.  If Sabrina does indeed like me, it must be for something she thinks is there but really isn’t.  If we started something it wouldn’t last, and the aftermath of returning visits to the store would be even more awkward than just getting rejected by Molly.  And she could just be being friendly anyway.  Situation can mean a lot of things.  She could have just wanted to know my major. 

I passed Sabrina’s query about my name on to Chris to avoid the question and that was a mistake.  I should have told her myself.  Told her and just kept things friendly.  Now Chris and Seth know about her.  I don’t need their constant vocalizing about what they think I should do.

“All right gentlemen, make some noise for Starry Nights!” bellows the DJ.  Starry enters onto the main stage to
Poison by Alice Cooper.  She’s a leggy redhead in platform heels and a bizarre silver outfit that calls to mind what a sleazy woman from the future might wear in a B-movie.  We all look at her, but I also see in my friends that an answer is expected of me.       

“No. 
I’m not,” I say.

Seth doesn’t respond, looks across the room an
d gestures to Stephanie that he needs a refill.  He lights another cigarette, looks at Starry.  She’s a good dancer.

“Why not?” asks Chris.  He adjusts his chair in order to look at Starry and me simultaneously. 

“Because I’m the guy who always had to be Dazzler,” I say.

“Dazzler?”
asks Chris.

“Yeah, Dazzler.”

“As in the X-Men character?” asks Seth.

“If you can call her that,” I say.
  “Remember the X-Men arcade game from the early nineties?  There were three versions.  One was two-player, one was four-player, but for the full experience there was the six-player version, with your choice of six selectable X-Men characters.  Now first you had Wolverine.  Everybody wanted to be Wolverine.  It didn’t matter who else they may have put in the game, Wolverine’s your star character.  The movies centered around him.  He’s in all the animation, every videogame.  You’re not gonna have any X-Men media without Wolverine.  More so than even Professor X, Wolverine’s your perennial character.  Of course, you’d probably think that since everyone wanted to be Wolverine, everyone fought over who got to be Wolverine.  But no, no one did.  Because everyone understood that the alpha male of the group would get to play as Wolverine.  The alpha male would be the first to approach the arcade cabinet, first to put in his quarters.  He’d have the honor of getting to be Wolverine without fight or fuss.

“The other fiv
e players would then have to divvy up the rest of the roster.  Now on the male side you had Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops.  They may not be Wolverine but nobody’s really going to complain that they have to be the big strong guy, the demonic looking guy, or the guy who’s been with the team since issue one.  Now as far as the women go you had Storm and Dazzler.  Now when you have a group of six kids all of whom are boys, you’re going to have all six of them wanting to be one of the guys. 

“
You could argue that they included female playable characters in the game to appeal to female X-Men fans.  Look through any comic book from that era and you’re going to see a lot of ads for videogames, board games, pen & paper RPGs, and CCGs.  Pretty much all of those ads are going to have a group of boys playing the item being advertised, but there will be one girl smiling and playing along with them.  But that’s an outright lie.  It didn’t happen that way back when we were kids, and it doesn’t happen that way now.  Maybe there were all of a dozen girls back then who wanted to play the X-Men arcade game with you, but there certainly wasn’t a need for two female characters.

“However, if you happened to be the boy who had to play as an X-woman, there was no shame in being Storm.  Weather powers, part of the second generation of X-Men who really brought the book into the
spotlight; there was no shame in being Storm.  But for God’s sake why’d they go and put Dazzler in the game?  A character born from an early eighties marketing concept to create some kind of disco singer mutant with the power to convert sound vibrations into light energy that serves to enhance her stage shows, and you’re seriously putting her into the arcade game? 

“Now m
ost people don’t dislike Dazzler.  Because most people don’t even know who the hell she is.  Are you telling me that Jean Grey, who’s also been with the team since issue one couldn’t have been in the game?  She could have telekinetically hurled enemies around as her special move.  They screwed with everyone’s powers anyway.  Wolverine and Colossus both had energy based attacks for their special moves.  Or what about Psylocke?  Rogue, maybe?  Or Jubilee, even.  Why Dazzler?” 

Stephanie returns bearing drinks, providing an intermission to
my speech.  Again she hands my friends their beers first, then me my Coke, which I hadn’t realized had been ordered.  She takes away their bottles but leaves my almost empty glass for me to finish off.  The monetary transaction between her and Seth is silent this time.  Perhaps she’s overwhelmed, the place does look fuller.  Perhaps she realizes I’m explaining something important.

“I think the arcade game was actually based on that animated
pilot Pryde of the X-Men that predated the Fox animated series,” says Chris.  “Maybe Dazzler was part of the roster in that.  I can’t remember.”

“I think he’s right,” says Seth.

“So what if Dazzler was in it?” I ask.  “Why didn’t they have Jean Grey in the pilot then?  And it was called Pryde of the X-Men because it had Kitty Pryde in it.  Why not make her a character in the arcade game?  Surely she has more fans than Dazzler.”

“I dunno.  She might have been too similar to Nightcrawler what with her phasing and his teleporting,” says Chris.

“What the hell does any of this have to do with our own little Kitty Pryde, Sabrina?” asks Seth.

“I was
getting to that,” I say.  “Like I said, I was always the kid stuck with being Dazzler.  It’s like the developers knew that there was bound to be some poor loser in every group that would have to be the character nobody else wanted to be and that they stuck Dazzler in there as some sort of sick life lesson about getting used to disappointment in life. 

“
Sabrina isn’t just a geeky girl.  She actually works in a comic book store.  Who knows what else she’s into?  She’s also quite cute.  She’s like the geeky equivalent of getting the prom queen.  And the guy who got to be Wolverine in the heyday of the X-Men arcade game is the guy who’s going to be Sabrina’s boyfriend today, not the kid who was stuck being Dazzler.  It’s Occam’s Razor.  The simplest explanation is probably the correct one.  Sabrina’s just out of my league.”

“You wouldn’t know Occam’s Razor if someone too
k it and slit your wrists with it,” says Seth.

“Nice bit of nostalgia there,” says Chris.  “And maybe in a different context, I might even agree with you.  It isn’t easy getting a girl who’s surrounded by admirers day in, day out.  But Sabrina actually likes you.  I know because I was the one she talked to about you.  Now if you won’t act on that, then you deserve a lifetime of self-inflicted orgasms.  Seth, try and talk some sense into him.  I have a few ones I need to give to Starry Nights.” 

Chris gets up and approaches the stage but comes back.  “Oh, and I preferred to play as Nightcrawler.”  Watching him reach Starry, I see she’s now nude except for her heels.  She’s moved on to a rap song that appears out of synch with her and her dancing.  Classic rock suits her much better.

Seth puts out his cigarette.  “I always got to be Wolverine, actually.  I hated the fact that they never ported the game from the arcades to the consoles.  It would have been killer on the SNES.” 

“So you do see my point then, Wolverine?”

“No, I don’t see your point at all.  But you’re like Hannibal Lecter behind the glass.  You’ll either do something or you won’t.  There’s no persuading you.  I’m not even going to try.  Just like with whatever noose is around your neck right now, you’re not going to tell me about it.  Now I don’t take that personally.  Because I know you want to confide in someone.  But you also don’t think you deserve to ease your
burden, so you’ll carry it around all alone and deliberately make yourself as miserable as you can.  If they were readily available you’d buy a hairshirt.  But like Chris said before, you did come out with us tonight.  All I really expect of you is to blow some money on a stripper.  And that’s all.  But if you wanted to share, I’d listen.  But you don’t and you won’t.  So let’s just try to enjoy the evening, shall we?”

Seth turns his attention to the main stage, watching Starry Nights drape bo
th of her long legs over Chris’ shoulders.  Two other men are at the main stage with him, but she is focused on Chris for the moment; the price has been paid in one dollar bills.  In one gulp I finish off my second Coke, trying to come up with a way to articulate how Seth is wrong.  There’s no reason to explain to him about Sonya, the event has come and gone, and what could he say anyway?  Supposing they are right about Sabrina, there’s no reason for her not to just ask me out if she likes me.  If that’s what she wants, and since she instigated our first conversation anyway, let her ask me.  No rejection that way.  No misinterpretation of intentions. 

“Sabrina can ask me out
, right?” I ask.  “Isn’t the notion of boy asks girl, boy decides what to do, boy pays, boy initiates sex for the first time, boy proposes marriage just a little old-fashioned?  If she’s into me as much as you say, I’ll let her start things up.”