Your Princess is in Another Castle (2 page)

“What?”

“Give my butt a squeeze and I’ll give you some pointers for when you’re grabbing Sonya tonight.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dude, I’m so serious.  I want you to wow this chick tonight!  And you need a little practice.”

“I can’t do that.  Scott
’s going to be here any minute.  I don’t think he’d like pulling in and seeing this.”  I don’t care about Scott, but the thought of him issuing a jealous decree to Jessica that she can’t hang out with me anymore, and her obeying, is a frightening notion.

“
Oh, he’s always late for everything.  Besides, this is for educational purposes only.  It doesn’t mean anything.” 
It doesn’t mean anything
.  Vile words, and yet so casually uttered.           

Imp
atient, Jessica turns away from me and bends over.  “I’m waiting,” she says, as if she were a mother not about to start the car until her kids buckled up.

I
run my hand across my chin and hesitantly stare at Jessica’s ass like Indiana Jones gazing at the golden idol.  A meaningless action to her, serving only to improve my skill set for the sake of someone else.  But she does want it.  She wants me to touch her.  “Turn back around.  I’ll be able to get a better grip.”

“Now we’re talking!”  Jessica
does as asked.

I place my hands on her
behind and squeeze once, then again.  But it is a hollow action.  It is not a gateway grope to more, and I release her quickly. 

“
Wow, you didn’t need a practice run after all.  You do it better than anyone else.  Sonya’s going to be having some fun tonight.”

“Maybe you just have a really great butt.”

“No.  It’s huge, huge, huge.”

“You’re crazy, do you
know that?” I ask, giving her another hug. 

I
half expect Scott to pull up, having clairvoyantly sensed the event that just took place.  Clad in a white suit and fedora with a black rim, he’ll slap Jessica’s ass and wrap his arms around her, amused instead of jealous.  “It would seem there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away,” he’d say.

Taking Jessica’s advice, I head into my dorm lobby’s bathroom.  It’s approaching 6:00pm.  The machine I’m standing before has surely long been a trusted friend to many a college student.  No doubt this purveyor of prophylactic penis protectors has abetted lost virginities, one-night stands, and a host of other sexual scenarios since it first accepted two quarters in exchange for a lab-tested latex condom. 

Truthfully, I don’t want to
reach such a point tonight.  I’m carrying around too much anxiety regarding the date itself to even think of actually being called upon for a sexual command performance.  Coming up with an acceptable explanation as to why it has taken this long for me to make it to my first time is a formidable task in and of itself.  But to Jessica, to Sonya, to the rest of the world, sex is a normal thing, a part of life.  If carrying a condom will help assimilate me into such a state of sexual normalcy, fifty cents is an adequate price to pay.         

After double-
checking to make sure I am alone, I place my two quarters into the machine and turn the handle.  No sounds to indicate gears are in motion readying for dispersion follow.  No condom appears.  It’s as if the condom machine had attained self-awareness and using the cold, emotionless computations only possessed by a computerized mind had simply calculated that the possibility of me having sex was so remote, if not altogether non-existent, that it was simply illogical for me to be given a condom. 

That its reserve supply had best be saved for those truly in need, say an experienced, mightily endowed male who runs down to the lobby in a desperate bid to save the threesome he’s facilitated since to his horror he’s discovered that his own persona
l supply of magnums has run out.  He would turn to the machine solely as a last resort, having previously been burned when the machine’s condom had been torn asunder by his mammoth girth, breaking it as if a young child had used it as a makeshift water balloon and hurled it at full force at a school chum.  All that is missing to confirm the machine’s sentience is for a circular red light to glow and a monotone yet sinister voice to deny my request with a declaration of
I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that
.  But sentient or not, I’m taking this as a bad sign.

Condom-less, I decide to seek sanctuary in the form of the local comic book store. I’ve got an hour or so to kill if I’m to head to Applebee’s twenty minutes early.  Only recently did this locale revert back to being allied territory, as a couple of months ago I foolishly turned myself into the pariah of The Vault by asking out its cute, genuinely nerdy and recently single store clerk Molly.  After her rejection, I outright avoided going into the store at all for the first month or so, even in the company of friends.  Only able to deflect their requests to go so many times, they finally confronted me and I had little choice but to explain that I had set ablaze the Bridge of Casual Friendship forged between Molly and me by asking her out.  Refuting the assertion that I was overreacting, I finally relented to returning to the store after learning that Molly had returned to school and was now only working weekends.

Positive it is
neither Saturday nor Sunday, I enter the store.  Sabrina, the girl now covering Molly’s old shifts, greets me with a friendly hello.  One to learn from his past mistakes, I give Sabrina a greeting in return, and a brief wave carefully executed to be done while I’m not actually looking at her.  In my eagerness to avoid creating uneasiness with Sabrina as I did with Molly, I realized that the best way to deal with her would be to interact with her as little possible, avoiding any unnecessary conversation while always being civil.  To be openly hostile could result in her complaining to the owner about a creepy customer which could result in him banning me from the store entirely, a wholly unacceptable situation. 

I immediately head to the very back of the store, complimenting myself on the tactic, as it prevents Sabrina from ask
ing me if I need help with anything or, perish the thought, attempting to begin an actual conversation about comics and such.  Had the owner simply hired a male, it would all be so much simpler.   
 

Flanked by the many more than six-s
ided die and the back issues stretching back to the Golden Age, I’m able to relax a little.  Browsing the store will not only eat up some time I likely would have spent pacing back and forth in my dorm room, it serves a function regarding tonight.  I can take solace that my girl problems are rather trivial compared to what’s been endured by the likes of characters such as Scott Summers, Peter Parker, Kyle Rayner, and the two tortured souls who share the first name Bruce.   

In fact, s
olidarity with Mr. Wayne seems like a good idea, and having recently read The Long Halloween, I decide to pick up its sequel, Dark Victory.  A backup plan, I’ll have something to do in the likely event that things go south with Sonya.  Not being an absolute pessimist however, I’ll place it in my trunk lest Sonya spot it if she should get into my car for any after-dinner sojourn we may embark upon.

After some browsing of the discount bins,
I make my way up to the counter and Sabrina.  She is cute, slightly shorter than Jessica and with a shade darker hair.  If she were to cosplay, she’d make a great Kitty Pryde.  But our relationship needs to be all business, so I’m aiming to make this brief.                    

“
Hello, again I guess, since I greeted you when you came in,” says Sabrina.  “Did you find what you were looking for?  You looked like you headed to the back with something specific in mind.”  She doesn’t immediately begin to scan my book. 

I remember the day I asked out Molly, and how I’d had to wait so long for some
sweaty kid to decide whether he or not he was going to buy a poster of Hermione Granger that I’d actually started skimming a trade paperback of Aquaman
just so I could be alone with her.  (Never having really given Aquaman a chance before, I was pleasantly surprised to find out he’s not as lame as he’s made out to be, that he could even become a character to read occasionally.)  Perhaps that will be Sonya’s appraisal of me:
Yeah, I went out with him.  He’s really not as lame as you’d think once you give him a chance
.  But what I wouldn’t give for that sweaty kid to be behind me right now, anxiously waiting to purchase his latest Hermione paraphernalia so Sabrina would let me be. 

“Yeah, I wanted to pick up
Dark Victory,” I say, picking up the book and turning it over to display its bar code.

“I totally have this book.  Have you read
The Long Halloween?” she asks, taking it from my hands and flipping through it.

“Yeah, I just finished it.  That’s why I’m picking this up.”

“That’s cool.  He’s my favorite superhero,” Sabrina says, tapping on the cover image of Batman.  “Who’s your fav?”  She looks at me expectantly, as if she will judge me by my answer. 

“I don’
t know.” 
Be civil
.  “I mean, I used to be really into Marvel with Spider-Man and X-Men.  I haven’t really read anything new from Marvel in a long time, though.  Disillusioned, I guess.  Still read a lot of classic stuff.  But lately I’ve been reading Batman because of Batman Begins.  I’m just a poser because of the movie.  I was never really that big into DC in my younger glory days.”

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of newbies in here because of the movie over the past year.  But that’s a good thing.  More bat-fans, right?  But you’re not really a newbie, just a defector.  Did yo
u watch the nineties animated series?”

“Of course.”

“Then I can forgive you, Marvel-Boy.”

“That’s good.  I’d hate
to think that we have to be like the Capulets and Montagues.” 

“Well, I won’t tell
if you won’t.  And it was a great movie, much better than anything Marvel’s churned out.  I’m not surprised it has won so many of you over.”

“Yeah, my friend
Chris who’s always been a bat-fan, he treats his DVD like he’s Moses carrying the Ten Commandments.”

“He smashed those though, didn’t he?” 

“He did.  But Chris will probably find something so wrong with the sequel that he’ll wind up smashing Begins for ever having liked it in the first place.”

Sabrina laughs.  “I know fans l
ike that.  Actually, I know who you’re talking about because I remember seeing you in here with him before.  He comes in a lot to play Magic with the guys.  Always plays an all black deck and brags about it.”  She places both hands on the counter and tilts her head.  “I’m Sabrina, by the way.”

“I know.  It’s on your big button
.”  Sabrina has a button with her name written in crayon pinned to her Green Lantern t-shirt.

“
Oh, do you like that?  I’m supposed to get an actual nametag soon, but I’m starting to like this.  I wrote my name myself.”      

“I like that you stylized the
S like Superman’s emblem.  And it’s good you wrote it in such big letters.  Every guy who comes in here is going to want to know your name.”

“Aw, you’re going to make me
blush.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m blushing.”     

“I think I would
.”

She
looks away then smiles.  Finally she scans my book.  “That’ll be sixteen seventy-eight.  And you, sweet sir, are?” she asks, bagging my purchase. 

Enveloped
in the conversation, it now occurs to me that I wasn’t supposed to be having a conversation with her to begin with.  A more gullible fellow might confuse her friendliness with flirting.  While she didn’t specifically mention a boyfriend, fiancé, husband, or impending arranged marriage, she could have easily lied by omission and kept such a thing to herself.  Surely there must be some male presence acting the part of her significant other.  But regardless, I believe only things related to the comic industry were discussed, keeping it all professional.  I’d be more comfortable if our conversation had been featured on Nightline and I could order a transcript of it for study later, but I’m stuck with my own memory.  Luckily, I’m a reliable narrator.   

S
abrina’s still waiting to hear my name.  Giving it to her puts us on the yellow brick road to friendship, but the wizard at the end was just a crock, just as my eventual conviction that Sabrina’s flirting with me will be if we keep on chatting, and I need this place too much to create another disaster like what happened with Molly. 

“If you want t
o know you’ll have to ask Chris,” I say.  “Then I’ll be able to know if you’re asking about me.”

“
All right, I enjoy a challenge.  That’s why I play Ninja Gaiden.  So till next week, same bat-time, same bat-store.”

Sabrina definitely isn’t just a girl.  But it is time to get out of here.  A
cold wind is blowing and the time is nigh for the climatic meeting between XX and XY.               

It is 7:45 when I pull into the Applebee’s parking lot.  Jessica had suggested getting here at 7:40, but then again she also suggested I get a condom.  Actually, I’ve spent the past few minutes driving in circles, not wanting to wait an entire twenty minutes inside waiting for Sonya.  Fifteen minutes is more manageable.