Your Princess is in Another Castle (18 page)

“Yeah, if Optimus Prime’s a rockin,’ don’t com
e a knockin,’” I say.  Everyone laughs, including Lance, who seems to be the only one who detected my sarcasm.

“Although Seth wouldn’t use the play tent,” says Chris.  “He’d just screw right in front of us,
like Conan having his way with Belit.” 

“Seth
’s our purple-haired friend,” I say.

“We also
have a Seth,” says Will.  “He’s in the tent finishing up a chess game with our other friend Eric.”

“Cool,” says Chris.  “
Wait.  So you’ve got a Will, Lance, Seth, and Eric.  That’s unbelievable!  Four friends with the exact same names as the kids from Illusion of Gaia!”

“
Looks like we’re in the right line,” says Lance.  

“Amazing how fast you picked up on that,” says Will.

“So do you two have girlfriends named Kara and Lily?” I ask.

Will and Lance look at each other
sadly.  “No,” they both say.

“Is Seth the nerd
of your group?” asks Chris.

“Well he’s in this line,
so we’re sorta all nerds,” says Lance.  “But yeah, he’s in the tent right now playing chess with Eric.” 

“Is Eric a redhead?” I ask.

“No,” says Will.

“Do you have a cousin named Neal?” asks Chris.

“Nope,” says Will.

“Still, what a coincidence,” says Chris. 

“Might I assume the four of you are all keeping your systems and not selling them on eBay?” I ask.

“Of course,” says Will. 

“Just because Metal Gear Solid 4 isn’t a launch title doesn’t mean you should just hock away your system for some quick cash,” says Lance.  “So is it the same for you guys?”

“Yeah,” says Chris.  “I didn’t pitch my tent at seven-thirty
this morning so I could make money off an auction.  Because I hate posers, be they G4 hostesses, Ring Girls, bat-fan frauds, or console auctioneers.”

“Don’t ask,” I say.  “About any of those things.”

“Checkmate!” shouts a triumphant voice from inside the other tent.

“All right, they’re don
e,” says Lance.  “We can order pizza now.”

“Who won?” I ask.  “Seth?”

“Yeah,” says Will.  “He always wins at chess.” 

“
All right, nice meeting you guys,” says Lance.  “We’ll probably catch you later on.  It’s going to be a late night, as you know.” 

We
say goodbye to the Gaia Guys and they retreat into their tent.  “What a coincidence,” Chris says again.

Seth and Jimmy return to the tent a few minutes later.
  Jimmy excitedly pulls out a Crossfire box from a plastic bag.

“Awesome,” says Chris.  “Let’s play!”

“Hey, you guys aren’t going to believe this,” I say, “but the four guys in the tent next to us are named Will, Seth, Lance, and Eric.”

“W
ow,” says Seth.  “So what?”

“So what?  Those a
re the names of the four kids from Illusion of Gaia,” says Chris.

Seth stares at us blankly.

“It was a SNES game,” I say.

“Well, not one I’ve played
,” says Seth.  “Now if their names had been Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and Setzer, and they had two girls named Celes and Terra with them that might have gotten me a little excited.” 

“
Illusion of Gaia is no A Link to the Past,” says Jimmy.

“Actually, wasn’t
Illusion of Gaia just some second-rate Zelda clone?” asks Seth.

“Set up
the Crossfire board, Jimmy,” says Chris.  “It’s you and me, Seth, right now.”

“Bring it,” says Seth.

It’s 5:05pm and our
Crossfire tournament of champions is now over.  In the end it came down to a match between Jimmy and Chris.  Jimmy won, and though the game has ended that hasn’t stopped them from engaging in an epic stare down for the past thirty seconds. 

“Looks like you got caught up… in the cross
fire,” says Jimmy, breaking the silence. 

Chris grabs the board and throws it across the tent, s
cattering ball bearings everywhere.  “The board wasn’t level!” he shouts.  “It’s never level.  That’s the whole damn problem with this game.  With every board game.  It’s either you win by pure luck through a roll of the die or there’s a critical flaw in the game’s design that makes fair play impossible.  Like this one!” 

“Now, now,” says Seth.  “There’s no reason to get
cross.”

“What about chess?
That’s pure skill, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Tell that to Hans Berliner,” says Jimmy.

“Yeah, that’s right Jimmy,” says Chris.  “You and your chess Nazis know all the advantages, don’t you?  Make sure you play white and you’d kick the ass of the Gaia crew’s Seth before he even took a pawn, right?”  Chris storms out of the tent, narrowly avoiding tripping over the scattered ball bearings. 

“Does white really have an advantage in chess?” I ask.

“There are those like Berliner who make that claim,” says Jimmy.  “But I disagree.  The white advantage is nothing but a myth stemming from a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Because you think moving first gives you an advantage, you play as if it does.  Same goes for the opponent.  If he perceives playing as black as putting him at a disadvantage, he’ll play that way.  Personally, I prefer playing as black.  I like being able to react to my opponents.”   

“Being with a black woman is one of my top unfulfilled fantasies,” says Seth.

“Being with a woman is one of mine,” I say.

“Only yourself to blame for that,” says Seth.

“One of my Felicias was black,” says Jimmy.

“Black Felicia, that sounds hot.  How was she?” asks Seth.

“The race of the girl is irrelevant for me as long as the costume is well-made and accurate.  But she was good.”

Chris reenters the tent. 
“Sorry about that, guys.  Sometimes I lose my temper.”  He insists on picking up every individual ball bearing by himself.  “So what were you talking about?” Chris asks merrily. 

“I was telling them about the first move advantage myth in chess,” says Jimmy.

“And I was sharing the fact that I’d like to have sex with a black girl but haven’t had the opportunity to yet,” says Seth. 

“That’s no myth,” says Chris.  “
White has a definite advantage.  You can tell a lot about someone by their color pick in chess.  If they insist on always being white, watch out, because that means they have no sense of fair play.  They’ll eek out any advantage they can get in any situation.  So I don’t trust a man who always has to be white.”

“The advantage is all psychological,” says Jimm
y.  “In fact black is superior, because it allows for me to better plan a strategy.”

“You don’t care about being black when we play,” says Chris.

“That’s because you’re a Chaotic Neutral player. You have no rhyme or reason to your moves, so it’s impossible to plan against you.  Color doesn’t matter in your case.”

“Any sufficiently advanced strategy would
appear random to a lesser mind incapable of comprehending its complexity,” says Chris.  “And Seth, my first girlfriend in college was black.  In fact, I lost my virginity to her.”    

“What was she like?” asks Seth.

“I’ll tell you all about her.  But first you have to reveal your sexual fetish to us.”  Chris finishes collecting the ball bearings and places the contents of the game back into the box so meticulously it looks like it has never been opened.  He taps his fingers on the box expectantly. 

“I told you, I’m normal to the poin
t of banality.  I don’t have a fetish,” says Seth.

“Yes
, you do!  Yes, you do!” shouts Chris.  “You’re like Dr. McCoy in Star Trek V.  What you’ve got buried deep down inside you is causing you more pain than all of us put together.  Now spill it!”

“Mine doesn’t cause me any pain,” I say.

“Like Seth said, just wait until your girlfriend finds out what kind of porn you’re watching and then it will,” says Chris.

“Maybe Seth
really doesn’t have any fetishes,” says Jimmy.  

“I’m really into threesomes,
” says Seth.             

“We know that,” says Chris.  “
And what guy doesn’t fantasize about that to some extent?  Come on, I know there’s something else.  What is it?  Are you a necrophile?”

“Jesus, Chris,” I say.

“There is one thing,” says Seth.

“Aha! What is it?” demands Chris
.

“Blondes,” says Seth. 
“Ever since I was about five years old I’ve always had a thing for blondes.  My first cartoon crush I had back when I was little, it was on a blonde.”  

“That’s no fetish
.  It’s a preference,” says Chris.

“Not necessarily
,” says Jimmy.  “It depends how extreme a desire it is. If blonde is the only color he’ll tolerate, if it truly is all-consuming, that would count as a fetish.  Although his desire to be with a black woman would seem to eliminate that possibility, it could be argued that he desires to experience the perverse thrill of enjoying the polar opposite of his fetish.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Chris.  “Like if you got Salma Hayek grabbing at
your crotch whispering ‘take me’ and you’re all like ‘sorry honey but you’re a Latina’ and even a dyed blonde wouldn’t do it either because you’re borderline embracing the belief of Nordic purity, well then yeah, that’d be an acceptable fetish.”

“If it were
based on racial philosophy it wouldn’t be a sex fetish,” I say.  “Then it’d be more of a genealogical thing.”

“
It’s not that extreme,” says Seth.  “I just prefer blondes is all.”

“Who was your first cartoon crush?” asks Jimmy.

“Lillibit from the The Littl’ Bits,” says Seth.  “It was this show about these tiny Smurf-sized people and Lillibit was this cute blonde in a red dress and pointed hat.  She was adorable.  Had a huge crush on her.”

“I remember that show,” I say.  “She was cute.”

“I don’t think I ever saw it,” says Jimmy.  “As far as cartoon crushes go, aside from Maid Marian, I also liked Catra from She-Ra.”

“That makes sense,” says Seth.
  “Other blonde cartoon crushes of note include Penny from Inspector Gadget and the Disney version of Alice, of course.  I even watched Captain Planet when it was a Dr. Blight episode.  And Rapunzel was my favorite fairy tale, so I was disappointed Disney never did an animated film version.” 

“Cinderella was
always my favorite of the Disney fairy tales when I was little,” says Chris.

I glance at Jimmy quickly, who nods approving
ly.  “Pre-Awakening evidence of your foot fetish,” I say.

“How so?”
asks Chris.

“Oh, please,” says Jimmy.
  “A man and a woman come together when he places a perfectly fitting slipper on her foot after rejecting so many other imperfect feet and you fail to see the significance?”    

“You’re reaching,” says Seth.  “That’s such a small part of the film.”

“But it’s the most important,” I say.

“And I wasn’t obsessed with it,” says Chris.  “I just liked Disney movies.”

“Uh-huh,” says Jimmy.  “Well, while we’re on the subject of Disney, I almost had Ariel once at the Magic Kingdom.  I was there on a family vacation.  I took my little sister to see Ariel in her grotto and naturally I started chatting her up.  She was gorgeous.  The red hair.  The fin. 

“
But that’s the eternal paradox with mermaids, one worthy of Xeno himself.  For as hot as a genuine mermaid would be, there’s just no practical way you’d be able to do it with one.  A girl in a costume sure, all I’d have to do would be take out my Swiss army knife and cut a slit into the crotch of the fin.  And that’s what happened with Ariel.  I worked my magic and she was willing. 

“
We snuck back into her changing room and began making out.  But at the very moment I was gonna make her part of my world, Snow White walked in on us.  She wanted to grab some lunch with Ariel.  And Snow White freaked out.  Now I’m not sure if Snow White noticed Ariel’s fin with the slit and was disgusted by the thought of anthropomorphic sex or if it was just general outrage that I was going to defile a Disney princess, but she starts going off on me.  Bad.  Snow White’s cursing me and hitting me while all Ariel can do is put her top back on. 

“
So I just had to get the hell out of there.  Join back up with the family at the It’s a Small World ride and pretend like nothing happened.  I can only hope that Ariel and Snow White worked things out and that Ariel didn’t get fired.  Now I’m not usually the kind of guy who keeps trophies, but I came home from that vacation very disappointed that I didn’t have Ariel’s clam bra as a souvenir.”

“Wow,” says Seth.  “Was that your only non-Felicia experience so far?”