Bride of Hatter
by Nikki Little
"If it's a choice between Hatter on my bones, or meat on my bones, I choose the meat." Arianne had now gone through the same ordeal as I had the previous year. If you ask me, she got lucky. I seriously did not think that Hatter would reject her because she was now pretty much the same size as me - a twelve. Arianne, however, is not quite as athletic-looking, and that made the difference. Having made a narrow escape from getting poked by Hatter, we now both turned our attention to the idea of a permanent solution to the Hatter problem. No, we weren't planning to kill him. That was out of the question. We just couldn't take any more of Hatter morphing into Bill Clinton on an annual basis and treating us all to another bimbo eruption. Or Hatter erection, to be more exact.
Arianne and I discussed the problem over a dinner by ourselves one evening. We usually ate dinner with the rest of the distillery employees, but this time we wanted some privacy. Our first idea to permanently solving the Hatter problem was simply to threaten him. I would show up in his castle wearing my Queen Of Hearts face and carrying a pair of scissors and threaten to snip him if he ever treated us to another White Queen incident. I quickly dismissed this as it was a threat that I would never be willing to carry out. As much as Hatter drives me crazy, I have to admit that he is my friend and that I wouldn't be willing to deliberately harm him in any way. Flush number one.
Our second idea was to introduce Hatter to the concept of the brothel in the world uptop. We quickly dismissed this idea as well as neither one of us wished to introduce venereal diseases to Wonderland which were and always had been nonexistent down here. It also occurred to us that this would be an excellent way of creating Wonderland's first AIDS case. Flush number two.
The third idea was to find a "clean" prostitute and bring her down here so that Arianne and I would no longer face Caterpillar's expectation that we serve as whore substitutes whenever Wonderland had a out-of-control erection running around. Arianne, who knows the world above infinitely better than I do, nearly fell off her chair laughing at the idea of finding a prostitute who was "clean." Flush three.
The fourth idea was simply to say "no" to any more of Caterpillar's demands that we drop our panties to any idiot who couldn't control his impulses. Arianne didn't know how Wonderland works, and I had to explain it.
"Caterpillar is the unofficial president and judge of Wonderland for good reason. He's probably the only one of us who is genuinely capable of being utterly impartial in dealing with whatever problems arise here. Caterpillar values harmony and unity above all else. Whenever a conflict arises between the needs or desires of an individual and the needs or desires of the community, Caterpillar always decides in favor of the needs of the community. When Hatter has one of his White Queen incidents, Caterpillar has pressured you and me to "service" him not out of concern for Hatter, but out of concern for the disruption and disharmony that these incidents create in all of Wonderland. Hatter is irreplaceable in Wonderland, and it would be a great tragedy for all of us if the White King carried out his threat to take Hatter's head. Since Pale Realm is separate from Wonderland and Wonderland's three laws do not apply there, you can understand Caterpillar's point of view."
At this, Arianne looked pensive for a moment and then commented, "So this place is essentially an anarchist commune." Now I had to smile at that, but Arianne had indeed hit the nail on the head. What else could you call a place that shared everything and did not have money? Even Pale Realm, which was separate from Wonderland, did not have money. We gave up on our search for a solution to the Hatter problem and prepared for bed. It was past nine o'clock and I was getting sleepy. I was also getting curious as to why I had failed to receive any ...ummmm... late-night visits from Arianne as I usually did. Was she angry at me for something? I decided to visit her instead and slipped into her room.
I caught Arianne contemplating the nude painting of me done by Mr. White. "Are you missing that version of me?" I asked. Arianne hadn't noticed that I had slipped into the room and paused a moment to think before answering. "No," she said. "I'm wondering how close I have become to what's in that picture." There was no full-length mirror in our house and Arianne wasn't really sure how she looked now that she was a size twelve like me instead of her old size eight. I sensed a bit of insecurity and realized why she had not come around the last two weeks. "You liked it when I was what you see in that picture. You know I enjoyed it, too. Are you worried that I won't like it on your body? Don't be silly. What I like for your body is exactly what I like for my own body. You do know that I was a size sixteen when that painting was made, don't you? You are far from that size. There's no need to be self-conscious."
This time we made love in Arianne's bed, and I found that Arianne's body was now very similar to my own. The only two differences I found was that she was a cup size bigger than me upstairs - she was before, too - and she had a bit more of a roll below the waist. I told her that she was lucky to have that roll as it was probably what had caused Hatter to walk away from her. I also suggested to Arianne that it would be wise to keep the weight until we had found a permanent solution to the Hatter problem. Then she could torture herself with a diet if she wished.
The next evening we ate alone and again discussed possible solutions. This time Arianne came up with a viable idea. "We need to find another Little Red. We need to find a near-sighted idiot who is in all sorts of hot water and would give anything to come to Wonderland to escape - even marry an old coot like Hatter." At that precise moment we both had the same inspiration. We both knew exactly who to bring to Wonderland to marry Hatter and put an end to the bimbo eruptions. The perfect woman! Well, perfect for Hatter. Even if she was already married in the world above.
A few weeks later, sure enough, Wonderland had a wedding. The bride was lovely, if empty-headed. The groom was his usual sophisticated and elegant, if not exactly charming, self. "Do you, Hatter, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" asked the Gnome priest. Yes, he did. "Do you, Sarah Palin..."
The End
This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. Electronic Arts (EA) owns the rights.