Brad stifled a smile and said, "Tell you what, B-J. You put a buck on me, and I'll win you a bear. Superman and I have a lot in common."
She couldn't conceal a smirk, confident that the Hulkster's fate, or worse, awaited Brad. "To win a bear you'd have to be more powerful than a locomotive. I'd have a better chance of winning the Georgia State lottery."
"You don't believe that 'the meek shall inherit the earth?'"
Betty-Jo's smirk morphed into a smile. This just keeps getting better and better. "Perhaps they shall, but there's no way that the weak shall be given a bear."
Looking forlorn, Brad gripped her shoulders. "You're destroying the self-esteem of a sensitive nineties-kind-of-guy. But because I like you, I'll invest the buck. When..."
"You know what they say about a fool and his money."
He laughed at her. "When I win the bear, he's yours. All I ask is that you let me name him."
"Sounds reasonable to me. But if you're a smarter fool than you appear to be, you won't rush out to buy a name book."
"'Oh ye of little faith.'"
"You know, this is all fine for you, but what about me? It's taken me years to build a rep for only dating real men."
He shook his head, picked up the mallet with one hand, and swung it. The shell-shocked clapper blasted straight up to Superman, and made a hell of a noise that could be heard all over the park.
"Un-be-lievable!" the carnie hollered before he handed Betty-Jo a huge brown-eyed bear. "The odd guy can ring the Man usin' both arms, but this is the first time anyone's rung it usin' only one."
She hugged her bear. "Please tell me that what just happened, didn't," she said. She knew she had a problem because she loved her bear, but she was furious with herself for loving him.
Brad chuckled. "On a positive note, your reputation for only dating real men is still intact."
"My bear's eyes are the same color as yours," she said, vaguely thinking that she had seen his eyes somewhere before. Then, sounding as contrite as possible, "What are you going to name him?"
"I'm naming him I Love Only You Brad."
"You can't name him that! Bears are named Pooh, or Honey, or Bear, not I Love Only You Brad."
That brought a frown from him. "Betty-Jo, you are quickly becoming a pain in the butt. First you refused to wager a buck on me. Now you won't keep your promise to let me name your bear." She tossed her hair, but said nothing. "Tell me your bear's name, and all is forgiven."
Indignant, but with no obvious alternative, she whispered, "I Love Only You Brad."
The bear-winning super-hero patted her on the head. "They must be spiking the cotton candy with something, because in under ten minutes you've gone from 'I don't even like you' to 'I love only you Brad.'"
"Why couldn't I be dating Howard the Duck?"
"Think of me as your consolation prize."
"So now, I suppose, you'll be asking me my bear's name all evening."
He laughed, and pulled her against him. "It wouldn't be happening if you'd wagered that dollar on me."
She scowled, and shoved him away. This one's not just conceited; he's also presumptuous. "You guys are impossible. 'If you can't pick up the pace you'll be the last creatures on earth to be civilized by women.'"
"That may not be all bad. Remember what happened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden when one of your people taught him how to share. Before he could say, 'No God! Not my fault!' he was slithering along the ground on his belly."
She laughed, and shoved Brad again, but then, before she could stop him, he took her hand.
Her response was immediate. My God, stop, she yelled to herself as a great, dazzling happiness streaked through her, conjuring up unacceptable fantasies as it raced along. How can the fool be doing this to me? He's only holding my hand! So why does it feel as if he's grabbed hold of my heart? Without her consent, she gave him a long glance, and then, worse—her hand tightened on his.
Minutes later, past the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Carrousel, Brad stopped, and bought tickets for a roller coaster named Death Leap. "Ever been on this?" he said.
"No, heights bother me." She knew she should refuse to ride Death Leap, but she was reluctant to show her bear winning date any vulnerability.
As Brad escorted her to the front car, he said, "Not to worry. Nothing terrible ever happened to Lois Lane when she was with Superman."
She handed her bear to the attendant, and the slow climb to the summit began. Brad's fingers killed the time by perusing her neck and ear. The sensations he was creating went to places where they had no business being. But Betty-Jo had more to worry about than unruly sensations, because heights didn't just bother her—they terrified her. They had ever since, five months earlier, a foul smelling redneck had tried to kick her off a balcony at the Strand Princess.
She started to tremble as the coaster neared its crest. "Brad, I'm fri... nervous," she said. "Please hold me."
He draped his upper arm across her shoulders, and then dropped his hand down over her breast.
Incensed, she almost forgot how frightened she was. "Not that way!" she exclaimed, and pushed his hand away. Who does he think he is?
He grinned impishly, and his eyes tracked hers. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, who does this guy think he is? What makes him think that just 'cause my breasts have him all excited he's allowed to put the grab on them?"
"Actually, I was thinking who sprinkled the fool with pervert dust?"
He blew her hair away from her eyes. "Is it wise to imply that the only person who can save you from this mean ol' coaster is a pervert?"
"If I survive this ordeal, you're a dead pervert!" Then she looked into the abyss below, and had second thoughts about pervert killing. She clung to him and said, "Changed my mind. I love only you Brad."
* * *
There, on top of the world, Brad thought he heard moon-glow. "That's my girl," he said, and kissed the tip of Betty-Jo's nose. "But love—at a bare minimum—means never calling your best-ever boyfriend a pervert."
As the coaster began its downward plunge, Brad held Betty-Jo Chance, the Myrtle Beach moth slayer, tightly against him.
* * *
Far away, on Olympus, the goddess of love gave her nails a crimson touch-up as she viewed Mercury's transmission, and listened to his report. She was pleased. "Unfortunately, Princess Betty-Jo and Raiden are not dead, like they were supposed to be—but soon. I'll wait until they get to know each other better; then it will be my turn to have some fun."
-2-
MERCURY
Speed-bumps
Nineteen years earlier, on an overcast Saturday in March of '75, Mercury had arrived at Myrtle Beach. The three-day commute from Olympus had been tedious, but it had to be made; Dixie Lee Chance had to die before her baby was born.
The messenger god had staked out the Strand Princess, and he was rewarded for his patience when Dixie Lee waddled up to a cab.
She looks like a heffalump, he'd thought. A beautiful green-eyed heffalump, granted, but a heffalump nevertheless.
"Grand Strand General," Dixie Lee said, "and hurry!"
Mercury had moved quickly. He'd possessed Waldo Whittle, the obese cab driver who had responded to Dixie Lee's call, and then he'd hurried, but not to the hospital. He'd taken Dixie Lee to a secluded house he'd rented on Red Fox Road in Surfside Beach. There, he'd handcuffed her to a bed, and unsheathed his hunting knife.
"What are you doing?" a disbelieving Dixie Lee cried.
"You have to die before your baby is born." If I can do this.
"Please," Dixie Lee pleaded, "don't hurt my baby."
My god she's beautiful. Damn it! I can't end her this way. He'd locked her in the bedroom, her wrist still handcuffed to the bed, and gone to buy a gun. Shoot her? That I should be able to manage—if I close my eyes.
When he'd returned, Saturday-night-special in hand, Dixie Lee was busily giving birth to Betty-Jo. Her head was already out.
"Stop! Don't push!" he'd
yelled. He tried to shove baby Betty-Jo back in, but it wasn't happening because she was slippery, and he couldn't risk harming her once she'd been born. "This can't be how they get the caramel into the Caramilk Bar," he said.
Dixie Lee had stifled a smirk and continued to push. "You're not ready for prime time stupidity yet," she said. "First you have to practice getting toothpaste back into a squeeze tube."
He'd loosed a crooked smile, which quit abruptly when he shoved even harder, and found that Dixie Lee was still winning the baby-pushing event. But he couldn't give up—the stakes were too high.
Betty-Jo's shoulders were almost out when he'd had what he thought was a bright idea. He retrieved the toilet bowel plunger from beside the toilet, and positioned it over the baby's head. It fit perfectly. "A tiara for you, Princess," he said. Then he pushed on the plunger as hard as he dared. But even with the added leverage, Betty-Jo still wouldn't go back into Dixie Lee where she had to be if he were to complete his mission. Betty-Jo Chance made her worldly debut two weeks early.
Now what do I do? He'd reached up to tug on his earring, but of course it wasn't there. Then he'd tried to page Venus, but she wasn't picking up. "To Hades with you, Goritch! If I could replace you in bed I'd have dumped you long ago."
The goddess was crackers. She made him brush the roof of his mouth because that was where she said the odor causing bacteria lived, and she wore red silk teddies with 'I Love My Piranha' stenciled across the chest. No sane goddess loves piranha! Unfortunately, she was the only goddess, sane or otherwise, who'd sleep with a short guy. He knew that from painful experience. Over the centuries he'd tried to bed them all. Maybe if I got a pair of elevator shoes, he'd thought.
He'd given Betty-Jo's bottom a whack, and got her howling. Then he'd boiled the blade of his knife and severed the umbilical cord. Ironic, he thought, minutes ago I was trying to kill The Princess—now I have to make sure she lives. That insight had infuriated him. You schmuck! Look at you! Stuck on earth suffering from a premature birth, and sexual gratification underload. But at least you can do something about your gratification problem. You can get yourself a mortal—have some fun for a change.
As luck would have it, fat Waldo's wife was a sexy, raven-haired beauty with an hourglass figure. Rebecca Whittle had married Waldo after she got plastered one evening, ended up pregnant, and decided that any father for her daughter was better than no father. Once married, however, the fuzziness in her logic had become nauseatingly apparent whenever Waldo's flab was anywhere near. Her solution was to forbid him to touch her unless she had nothing better to do to amuse herself. On those occasions, she'd do a leisurely striptease to turn him on, and then taunt him about the size of his weenie.
"I'd have more fun with a golf pencil," she had enjoyed telling him....
Waldo's sex life with Rebecca took a turn for the better when a Mercury possessed Waldo arrived at Waldo's place, and found Rebecca napping.
"What should we do?" Mercury had asked Waldo. "I'm horny as hell."
"I'm always horny—especially in the morning, Waldo had replied."
"So what do you do?"
"'Well, sometimes I wake up [obnoxious]. But most of the time I just let her sleep.'"
Mercury decided to wake Obnoxious and was delighted to find that she was in the mood for fun and games. She had encouraged him to tie her to a kitchen chair, to try to add some spice to an otherwise tedious lovemaking routine. But Rebecca wasn't the good time Mercury had been hoping for, because, as he'd discovered, chairs aren't the best place to do it—too tippy and awkward—and Waldo's thing, which had to compete for maneuvering room with his stomach, had provided precious little sensation.
"Your weenie's so dinky it would frustrate a sex starved Chihuahua," Rebecca had informed him.
"Does that mean we're not having fun yet?" he'd countered, even though he'd been well aware that they weren't.
Finally, hornier than ever, he'd given control back to Waldo. Watching Rebecca savage Waldo—after he untied her—had turned out to be the best part of the evening.
Oh well, he'd thought, perhaps the wench is pregnant. I may be able to use a mean-spirited mortal when Princess Betty-Jo is old enough to die.
Later, on his commute back to Olympus, Mercury had moved into worry mode. It wasn't my fault, he thought, but that won't matter. He knew he'd be punished for his failure to kill The Princess before she was borne. His anxiety had heightened as the light years slipped away, and he drew ever closer to Venus and her wrath.
-3-
FELICITY READY
A Love Child for Felicity
Felicity Ready grew up near the Allegheny River in Riverton Springs, a steel town to the northeast of Pittsburgh. Her mother, Katherine, had lost her husband—the only man she'd ever loved—when Felicity was five. After a stint as a topless dancer, and then as a waitress, Katherine had worked as a receptionist for Cons Steel. She never had enough money, but she had plenty of boyfriends. As Felicity matured, some of Katherine's boyfriends began to take an interest in her, but she refused to play until late in '75 when an Adonis moved in downstairs. Christian Paris was tall and gorgeous, and he had just earned a philosophy degree. That impressed Felicity, but what set her heart aflutter was his grin—his dimples did her in.
Christian was not easily seduced by an eighteen-year-old girl; it took Felicity five months to accomplish that. The accident happened the first, and only, time they slept together, just before Christian was called up to fight in Vietnam. By the time Felicity began to show, it was too late to have an abortion, which, in any event, she did not want. She knew that her love child would be special.
Katherine was supportive, but money was tight. Thankfully, there was a cost-effective solution. Felicity went to Toronto, and stayed with her aunt while she had her baby, courtesy of Canadian Medicare. All that was required was a plastic card with a name on it. She borrowed her cousins'.
Putting baby Jason up for adoption was more difficult than Felicity anticipated. It was a heart-wrenching, God-awful ordeal that left her teary eyed and depressed for months. Even following her depression period, a day never went by when she didn't wonder what kind of man her Jason had become, and hate herself for abandoning him.
-4-
VENUS
Sex is Best with Someone You Love
It was early in '94 in the earth's 20th century, and Venus's plan to eliminate Princess Betty-Jo and Brad Raiden was finally coming to fruition. She parted her gold lamé gown to reveal a well-toned leg and a captivating inner thigh. "If you want me, you know what you have to do," she said.
Mercury's eyes roamed her curves. "Take a number?" he suggested hopefully.
"Don't be an ass!"
"Please, goddess, I could really use a sneak preview."
This planet is teaming with sex-starved gods, Venus thought, and fortunately, I control the hallelujah trail. "What about The American Princess and Raiden?"
"They're history."
"That's what you said nineteen years ago! Just before you allowed Princess Betty-Jo to be born."
"Not my fault!"
"Lucky for you that you didn't kill her back then. Zeus would have gone berserk."
"No luck involved. Zeus has decreed that if we kill a mortal before their nineteenth birthday, the loss of our immortality is automatic. I wasn't about to risk losing my immortality—not even for a good time with you."
"Look, it's water sucked up by the seven moons. But this time you'd better get it right!" Venus unsheathed her nail file, and began to sharpen her nails. In her temple on Olympus—tenth planet from the red-giant Antares—the goddess of love and beauty eased back on her Corinthian leather throne, and watched her pet piranha shred goldfish. Her laughter echoed throughout her temple as, bite by ravenous bite, the goldfish were devoured. "Don't you just love the fear in their little fishy eyes? You can almost hear them begging for mercy."
"Whatever tugs at your garter," replied a sulking Mercury.
She carefully applie
d her crimson nail polish. "Good for you, Big Vicious," she said. "As usual, my favorite red-bellied piranha is claiming the lion's share of my offering."
The messenger god held out a goldfish, and then jerked it away when Big Vicious made a lunge for it. "Repulsive glutton," he said.
"This carnage reminds me of a day I spent on earth, yucking it up with Julius Caesar and those Christians of his. You should have been there, you'd have split a gut laughing."
"Most Christians I know aren't all that funny."
"Those neophyte lion tamers were. They were trying to proselytize twenty of the hungriest lions you'll ever meet. Julius had been starving the beasts for a week."
"My money's on the lions," Mercury said.
She ran her freshly painted fingernails up the inside of the messenger god's pea-green corduroy pant-leg. He'd almost be presentable if he wasn't stature deficient, and he dropped that ridiculous gold earring.
"Please goddess," he pleaded.
She ignored his simpering, and tossed a wriggling fish to Old Hairball. Her fat cat batted it with his paw to start a game of cat and fish. "Stop playing with your dinner, and listen to me!" she shrieked. Her gaudy diamond, ruby, and emerald rings became effective brass knuckles when she clenched her fist, and whacked Old Hairball on the side of his head.
"You could be nicer to Hairball, you know."
Venus smiled an evil smile. I love cats," she said. "They taste like chicken.... Now may I get on with my story?"
Mercury took the hint. "I'm listening," he said.
"Those Christians never had a prayer. It was Christians eaten, seven—lions converted, zip."
The messenger god flashed his lopsided grin. "Not every day you're given seven good reasons to become a Buddhist."
The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever Page 2
