It made for awkward conversations over chicken scallopini. Bowser Jr. would say things like, So who was my mom anyway?
And Bowser would say things like, How do you like the scallopini?
Dad?
Yeah?
Who was my mom anyway?
Bowser Jr. ate with a bib because he was unforgivably messy. The two of them could be classified as medically obese. Bowser would take his blood pressure regularly and, at the times when the blood pressure was too high or too low, would not know what to do. Would, when the blood pressure was low, talk about how much he hated Mario. When the blood pressure was too high, relax in the football-field-sized pool that Bowser Jr.'s mother had installed after they had got married. As a wedding gift. Bowser Jr.'s mother provided the two of them as a wedding gift. It was a good excuse. Bowser bought it. After Bowser Jr.'s mother died, Bowser speculated that she bought the pool for herself. He didn't maintain the pool. Nobody maintained the pool. He relaxed in his own grime.
Which was another feature about the Bowsers, that they never bathed. They never bathed after Bowser Jr.'s mother died.
And truthfully, Bowser Jr.'s existence was on the whole highly existential and he had, on multiple occasions, asked his father if he should see a psychiatrist. His father said no, that it would be expensive, and so Bowser Jr. took up painting, and had, for a time, found comfort in painting, in the specific oils he combined to create different oils, understanding the nuances of gradients and shading, doing studies in perspective, shadows, non-linearity, cubism, dadaism, drawing and then painting, using a knife to chip off dried oil. Bowser Jr.'s face at these times was without affect. His upper eyelids would draw almost to a close and his snout would pull straight and his chin would be angled roughly twenty degrees up, to the point where he wasn't even looking at the canvas anymore. He had started with duplications and imitations. Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali. He developed his own style. The paint kept him mostly placid, to the point that the placidity would begin leaking into other areas of life such that, when Mario the bastard plumber would invade the castle and once again take away that one harlot whose name neither Bowser Jr. nor Bowser could remember, and who showed up at the castle dressed differently such that they could not identify her, and besides Bowser Jr. and Bowser had so many harlots come and go from the castle that they could not keep track of them all, but the placidity had leaked into that area of life such that he became wallflower-like. The specific harlot was fond of bondage, though a lot of harlots were fond of bondage as well. And it would be the unfortunate case that Bowser Jr. and Bowser would forget about the specific harlot in bondage. It was more the case that Bowser would forget; Bowser Jr. had no business with harlots, except to occasionally go down and see the ones in bondage and paint a canvas with their bodies, usually distorted so as to be unrecognizable. Usually while Bowser was at the bakery buying scones or danishes. The distortions were such that they were unrecognizable to Bowser and such that, when Bowser would come into Bowser Jr.'s room and see whether his son was stashing pornography or certain kinds of paraphernalia, or firearms, or actually just a general search for immoral materials, and had only found Bowser Jr.'s paintings stacked against a wall twelve-deep, the backmost paintings with the paint beginning to chip from the wood backs of the canvases in front. Bowser would view these paintings before they became totally ruined; he did not realize that they were actually cleverly disguised pornographic things that Bowser Jr. would view with pleasure not in the strictly animalistic-slash-masturbatory sense, but in the borderline Stendhal-like sense. That his jaw literally loosened involuntarily and that he would feel aroused not because of the porn's beauty, but because of the hues' concert. The images had more than once caused involuntary ejaculation. Once, Bowser Jr. had involuntarily ejaculated on a painting and was trying to clean the painting of fluids when Bowser walked in and, like being shot with a Bullet Bill, had found that these were actually all the naked and bondaged women in the basement that the pictures had been depicting, only distorted such that he (Bowser) could not recognize them as pornographic material. And that, he could smell, Bowser Jr. had ejaculated in the room. And furthermore, Bowser was growing agitated by his son's general lack of affect and placidity with life, that the blank stare had appeared around the dinner table, and actually as Bowser racked his brains for more places he had seen the blank stare. He hadn't. Bowser Jr. had only appeared in his room or at the dinner table. And so Bowser had decided that this foray into painting was enough. Trashed the paintings and set fire to the paintbrushes. Bowser Jr. said that he hated him.
I hate you, Bowser Jr. said.
He fell into a state of hyperexistentialism. Mario the bastard plumber would come by the castle and Bowser Jr. would ask him what the point of it was, that Mario was always saving the same harlot from the same castle, and didn't he get tired of it all, and was he going to do this until he was dead? Bowser Jr. sought escape in having coffee with Luigi, but Luigi was flakey and would, on multiple occasions, attempt to make passes at Bowser Jr.
His father was a megalomaniac and would spend his wealth on harlots and castle fortifications in the form of enslaved turtles. Bowser Jr. found that he could not connect with his father on this most fundamental level.
Yet he felt a continued sexual attraction with him. One that he knew would remain unrequited.
One night, Bowser Jr. wandered into the basement (which his father preferred to call a "dungeon" even though it was anything but) and spoke to the bondaged harlots. There was one harlot in particular which he found particularly perceptive, with which he decided he would hold a conversation.
Hello, Bowser Jr. said.
She didn't say anything.
He felt the stones beneath his feet. Cold. Everything in the basement was cold and too well insulated. In the summer, the place might be deadly. Maybe there was an air conditioning unit.
I wish to speak with you, Bowser Jr. said.
There was something simultaneously frightening and charming about her. Bowser Jr. said this. He said, There is something simultaneously frightening and charming about you.
He said, Are you uncomfortable?
The harlot nodded. He said, Shall I loosen the chains? He loosened the chains. He took off his bib and threw it on the ground. His bib had his face on it, only it looked sadder than his actual face. Or it looked just as sad as his actual face. Because the bib was made of cotton.
He said, I am lonely.
The harlot said, We are all lonely.
Bowser Jr. said, I wish to be less lonely.
The harlot said, You must find somebody for you. A prince in shining armor. But a princess for you.
Bowser Jr. said, I speculate I might be homosexual. It unsettles me. I hold a stronger-than-I-think-normal attraction to my father. Does that make me a homosexual?
The harlot said, You only spend time with your father. You have never spent time with princesses. You become lonely. You seek out presence from him because he is the only one present.
Bowser Jr. said, Will you be my princess?
The basement was drafty. Bowser Jr. thought that that didn't make sense. He heard the chains rattle around him. It smelled too human down there. Bowser Jr. was not human enough, or else he was too human. There were too many things. He had painted masterpieces once. He lived in a castle. Was that what children dreamed about, living in castles? Was he still a child? The harlot sat on the ground next to him, unfurling a cloud of dust and humanity between the two of them.
The harlot said, I'm sorry, Bowser Jr.
She said, But your princess is in another castle.