Once Upon A Dyke Part 9

G.o.d, she was beautiful. No longer an untouched innocent, nor beautifully coiffed... she was sweaty and trembling, flushed and covered in s.e.x juices... and positively edible, but for different reasons.

And increasingly beautiful still when she gazed at me with her luminous eyes and said the one word I ached to hear. "More." Her soft girl's voice had found the a.s.sured timbre of a woman's confidence.

For the first time in my life, I truly felt like a prince.

I had to make her come a few more times before I'd let her sleep. And I was gonna make her keep on coming, enough for a lifetime maybe.

And I just knew she'd let me go on for a Toblerone plus. With just my tongue and a single finger.

After all, this was for a lifetime.

Chapter 6.

Apparently, I had done all I needed to do with Rapunzel, 'cause seemed that I was like that time-tripped dude in that TV show: I would move on when everything was done and right.

You remember the show, right? (The first star got killed on set, and the replacement is now on some Star Trek spin-off. As if that doesn't describe a lot of actors.) Anyway, this time I woke up in a gutter, just as a Mercedes pulled up and splashed me.

"Huh?" I asked, quite succinctly while trying to wipe the water from my eyes. My eyes were level with an exquisite pair of ankles, which suddenly pulled away from me.

"How did this... creature... get here? Please remove the rabble!" a uniformed man said, waving his arms maniacally. It was almost as if I had X-ray eyes, 'cause I could almost see the stick shoved up his a.s.s.

I looked up at a beautiful woman with short blonde hair. She regarded my filthy figure with caring and understanding. I glanced at the Mercedes, complete with a driver holding the back door open for his pa.s.sengers.

This wasn't some forested glade. The last I knew I had been in a tower with Rapunzel, giving her more than her dreams. Now I was a gutter-snipe at the well-heeled toes of an elegant lady who was...

Familiar.

"Don't get in that car," I said, standing. G.o.d, I was wet. I really had been lying in a gutter. I knew I smelled foul. But I didn't know how long I had here, so I looked her in the eye.

"Is there something I might help you with?" she asked with a regal British accent. Maybe she had once been a mere kindergarten teacher, but I had just stepped into a modern-day fairy tale whose unhappy ending I could change. Not a fairy-tale princess, a real one, a tragic one unless I could save her.

"Don't get into that car. Your driver has been drinking."

"Go get yourself a cuppa or whatever else you might need," her escort said, trying to give me money. I pushed his hand away. I only appeared at turning points. This had to be the night.

"Please don't get into that Mercedes."

"Do you require help?" she asked.

Just then two men in uniform charged me. I tried to duck their blows, but then I was. .h.i.t. My head hit the curb and everything went... black.

Chapter 7.

I awoke lying flat on my face and breathing dirt, which I quickly determined, due to my acute senses and keen mind, was because I was lying on a dirt road. There were corn fields to my right and left, stretching into the distance in the wan moonlight. I pulled myself to my feet and looked down the road. Nothing.

Thank G.o.d. I was worried that I was about to be surrounded by maniacal children intent on killing all adults in a b.l.o.o.d.y harvest ritual. I stood, grateful that again, apparently, I had awakened clean. I'd hate to smell like that sewer, and failure. I had to take my mind off it. My failure. And my nose liked being away from the gutter.

The moon was full, but shadows fell beneath the tall trees over the road in that direction. The leaves rattled maliciously in the darkness, whispering secrets to the ghosts and demons that surely lived nearby.

I decided that really wasn't a good direction to go in.

I turned around to see if the other option was any more inviting, and was nearly bowled over by a really big, dumb-looking guy.

What the f.u.c.k was this? Where were the damsels in distress? I needed some damselling to get that black Mercedes out of my mind!

I looked around his formidable form and there was nothing. Just more of the same dirt road. Not even a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned haunted forest. "Yo, dude, watch where you're going," I said, looking up at this farmer's son. "Would you happen to know where I can find the damsel, or damsels, I'm supposed to help?"

All I could figure right now was that the damsels must be in the woods. So when he didn't immediately reply, I turned toward the thick trees and started walking, with behemoth, the walking lunkhead, following behind me.

Once among the foreboding groves, which I had thought were a mere hundred or so feet long, I realized it was a full-fledged spooky, miles-deep forest.

"I do not understand what you speak about," the doofus said, again coming up behind me. "But I can tell you that when I was young, my mother used to tell my brother and me the story of Brier Rose, a beautiful, modest, sweet damsel. That is the only damsel of which I know."

"Okay, so tell." He began walking again, and I had to all but run to keep up with him.

"Tell what?"

"Brier Rose. What's the sitch?"

He stopped and looked at me. "You speak queerly. I do not quite understand most of which you say."

"Tell me about Brier Rose."

"I only know that which my mother told me."

"And what was that?" I was being patient, trying to pull his story out, word by word. And if he hadn't been built like a stone wall, I'd have already jumped him and beaten the c.r.a.p out of him, just to make him talk to me.

"Turn right at the next town, and you'll find it."

"What's it?"

"A huge brier hedge, full of thorns and p.r.i.c.kles. One large enough to cover a castle." He turned to me, earnest. "It is all but a legend. But the damsel within all that is the only one of which I've ever heard, before I met you."

His mother told him a fairy tale, and he believed it.

"I have always been tempted to try to help that maiden myself, but I was afraid of the briers and dragons and other things between myself and her."

I contemplated following him. After all, maybe he needed my help as well. But when I considered the seriously hot damsel who needed me even more, he left my thoughts entirely.

After all, what was a poor, simple butch to do?

Chapter 8.

At least this time I didn't have to wake up in a sewer, or with a mouthful of dirt. All I had to do was walk. And walk. And walk even more.

Left turn at the town, my a.s.s. Yeah, that was the right direction, but he didn't tell me how far it'd be. Or if there were any other turns or such along the way. All I knew is that my stroll in the woods had turned into a vision quest. I walked even more.

Fine, I'll admit that I occasionally wandered off the path when I saw a likely looking bunch of thorns. I kept hoping to find the brier patch. And also hoping that Peter Rabbit wouldn't hop out of any of them.

I wanted to rescue another hot chick, not some flopsy or mopsy creature. It was wicked weird that my dream left me so far out. Okay, so maybe there was something I was supposed to learn here. It would be nice if the powers that be were a little more clear on what they wanted! I started to get that resentful feeling that useful information was being withheld from me. You know, like when your soon-to-be-ex says something like, "If I have to tell you what's wrong, there's no point."

I needed something to drink. I even found myself licking dew off gra.s.s. I was parched. Thankfully, most of the distance had been flat, but this new hill was killing me.

I was thirsty and hungry and my legs were killing me. Now, I was in reasonably good shape, but... this ... was this what folks in olden times went through? Was this what you had to do back then to survive? To be a hero? To rescue others?

Frankly, this was pretty boring. And tiring. And trying. And really hard on my knees!

I got to the top of the hill and dropped to a squat, breathing harshly through my parched throat. My kingdom for water.

I was on my knees, gasping, when I realized I was looking at a big b.l.o.o.d.y rose bush, thorns and all. Big enough to cover, say, a castle.

I was an English major in college. In spite of the teasing I'd gotten, I'd read all the fairy tale versions I could. Considering the dream I was having, I would get the last laugh on that decision.

I'd learned things that are utterly useless in the day-to-day world. But this was no ordinary place. I looked at this overgrown, under-tended rose garden gone wild and was able, once I got over the whole "Let's stay away from that unless my entire body was Armour Guarded" idea, to remember how idiot boy, whose parents were obviously at least first cousins, referred to Brier Rose, et cetera.

Brier Rose had another name, a Disney name, brought forth out of the three-page Grimm fairy tale. And, since I really, really need to invest my next paycheck in a brain, I didn't remember this until I saw this huge thorn patch.

Brier Rose was Princess Aurora, a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty.

I knew what I had to do. I stared at the Cody-maul patch, and realized that I was wicked glad I had never seen the Disney version of the story. Lord only knows what this would be if I had.

I really didn't dig facing dragons, beasties, or other evil s.h.i.+t without a good weapon. Or several. Well, actually, without an a.r.s.enal. A nice rocket launcher or a fast-acting herbicide would have been handy as well.

Alas, I didn't have anything but, well, me, right now. Me and my clothes.

Ah well, damsel and all... Butch in scuffed leather ...

I started down the hill. Slowly, 'cause I knew going down a hill too quickly could be h.e.l.l on the knees. G.o.d I was getting old. And I didn't want to pull a Jack and Jill.

I walked, keeping my pace, down the steep hill, toward the brier-covered castle, thankful that I had on my leather. It could afford some protection.

As I neared I kept my eyes open, and that was the only reason I saw...

Him.

s.h.i.+ning armor and all. Silver, or some nice s.h.i.+ny stuff like that. White horse.

I hated him on sight.

But I couldn't out-race a horse. Nonetheless, I started moving faster, knees be d.a.m.ned.

I ran down the hill, right up to the thorns, and as I reached out with my hand, I swore I saw a s.h.i.+mmering-as if something was happening.

And I remembered...

The prince in s.h.i.+ning armor does not save Sleeping Beauty. She just happens to be awakening from her hundred year sleep when he shows up. He's just lucky.

So, okay, choice time. I can let the "gallant" prince "save" her, or go for her myself. I can let her first kiss be with me. I smirked. Rapunzel had been pleased I'd gotten there first. So Sleeping Beauty might be equally pleased to know her first kiss from me, so much so she falls madly in love with me. Or I can let him do it, the lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He leisurely trotted up to the thorns. We looked at each other over the yards of brambles between us. He took off his helmet and studied me. He'd only try to keep me from the girl. This was a challenge I was supposed to win. Wasn't I?

Granted, he had the horse, so could move faster. He had a sword to clip through all the thorns and bushes in his way better than I.

Then I realized that if I rescued the princess and won her love, it wouldn't matter, because I would be off to another tale, another rescue, and she would be left with her love for me, but I wouldn't be there.

I really hated losing this one, especially to the other team. I mean, it's one thing to lose a woman to another woman, but to a man?

Yet he lived here and had come for her. We both had. Now, he had probably come farther (on horseback, so he could not be anywhere near as thirsty as I!) but...

We looked at each other. And I gave him The Butch Nod.

They'd live happily ever after, and right then I needed to believe in it.

Sometimes you have to realize the others' forever after, and get out of its way. Even if you'd like to know how well you'd face thorns and p.r.i.c.kles, dragons and demons, and sleeping beauties. Even if you wish you could know how good you and a particular princess would be. d.a.m.nable thought-maybe not all princesses want to be rescued either.

Oh, h.e.l.l. Fairy tales really aren't that interesting. Few pages each, and gruesome. Stephen King can't compare. At some point, I hesitantly admitted to myself, I had to live in a real world and accept that every problem wasn't mine to fix.

The prince plunged into the thorns without even putting his helmet back on.

That had to hurt!

I reached out, quite tentatively, to see what I was missing...

And faded to black.

Chapter 9.