4: How to Exorcise a Princess in Three Easy Steps

Once upon a child…is a used-clothing store for children ages two to ten. And now, for something completely different!

It was a dark and stormy night…but nothing bad happened because everyone was already asleep. Ha!

So there was this princess, right? But isn't there always? Haven't you ever wondered how Europe ever got along when every conceivable square meter of land was covered by kingdoms? I mean, seriously! If you can read a fairy tale without stumbling across nine different kingdoms, I've certainly never heard of it! You'd think they'd get to fighting and killing each other, as people are wont to do. It was no wonder kings could give their daughters away like cattlethere were at least nineteen of them around at any given time! But I digress. This is not the time or place for commentary.

The princess that I mentioned had been cast out of her own kingdom, probably because the nine-hundred other neighboring kings thought it would be fun to murder their neighbors, burn their houses (to make room for…houses), salt their fields (so they'd have a chance to plant THEIR God-given vegetable gardens and NOT the heathen wilted flowers of their hated enemy's blood rituals!), rape the women (or whatever livestock was around), send children off to slavery (wacky times), and basically make life a living hell for everyone that didn't swear blind, unyielding fealty to themselves. But hey, if you want to make a kingdom omelet, you have to break a few skulls.

Since kingdoms were slightly more ubiquitous than the blades of grass and clumps of dirt they killed people over, our heroine, whose name was Princess Anthy Himemiya, was quickly able to find refuge in one of the "good" neighboring kingdoms (they only SLIGHTLY raped). Unfortunately for her, it had been a dark and stormy night (as I mentioned), and the poor girl was utterly askew and askance from wandering around out in the wind and rain and mud and frogs and locusts and walruses and crocodiles and dogs and okay I just went off on another tangent, but trust me, this was one hell of a storm, and Anthy was in a ghastly state.

Luckily, the people of this castle were better than most (they didn't pillage and plunder so much as ask impolitely), and they took Anthy into their care. As it happened to be, there was another princess living in that castle, a lesbian princess, who wanted desperately to be in a raunchy, exciting, sexy, steamy relationship with a princess of her own. She had more than a few cute maids and handmaidens at her beck and call, and a handful of hot bodyguards, erm…"protecting" her, but she was royalty, darn it! She couldn't very well get married to a handmaiden (though to be fair, she didn't want to disappoint all of her lovers by saying that she desired one more than the rest)! The princess wanted another princess as her bride, and just as she was opening the door to let this pathetic soul inside, she met what appeared to be the girl of her dreams!

"Oh, hello Miss Utena!" Princess Anthy exclaimed. Utena flinched.

"Ssh! (Anthy, we're not supposed to know each other yet!)"

"But we do know each other, Miss Utena," she answered blithely. Utena stammered.

"Uh…do you mean like one of those 'star-crossed lovers destined to meet and be together regardless of who they are or what time period it is'? You know, reincarnation and all that romantic crap?"

"Nope!" she squeaked. "I'm your Rose Bride! Have you forgotten already?"

Utena struggled to maintain her dignity. Quietly, without anyone else noticing, she took Anthy with her to a secluded place, hit her soundly on the head with a comically-oversized mallet, and brought her back, none the wiser.

"Um, so, miss," she muttered, "we've never met before, have we?" Once the twittering birds and orbiting stars had faded, Anthy shook her head clear and smiled innocently.

"No, I don't seem to remember you…or me…or anything else…"

"Perfect! So let's get this perfectly common girl to bed! But first I have to tear off her clothes and get her in a tub of steamy water, before slathering oil and lotion all over her body!"

Pause.

"Um…did I say 'I have to'? Because I meant to say my handmaidens have to! Yes! My handmaidens! And I have to, uhh…supervise! Yeah! To make sure they clean everything!"

"Goody!" Anthy exclaimed, and so Utena, Anthy, and all the handmaidens went to the royal baths and had a lesbian orgy! Yay! Thanks to the power of hot lesbian sex, Anthy was able to recall a few memories, and dredged up the crazy notion that she was a princess (but really, who wasn't?). Princess Utena believed her, of course, but then posed that she was seeking out a TRUE princess for her bride, and not just any horny young nymphomaniac pansexual woman would do (although there was room for that, too). This led to a debate about what a true princess was, and so, before she was put to bed, Utena slipped a pea underneath Anthy's mattress, believing that a true princess would have skin so fair that she would feel the pea beneath her as she slept. Of course, since we're following the laws of physics here, Anthy crushed the pea flat the moment she laid down. Fortunately, there was enough left over for pea soup, which she promptly made, ate, and regurgitated everywhere. Oh no! I think Anthy's demon possessed!

Utena barged into Anthy's room just as her prospective lesbian wife hovered above the bed, uttering nonsensical arcane gibberish as her head lolled and revolved on its shoulders. She spewed enormous floods of Princess and the Pea soup everywhere, especially on Utena, and as her would-be lover called out to her,

"ANTHYYYYY!"

Like that, she turned around, her eyes glowing fiery orange.

"AnThY iSn'T hErE rIgHt NoW, mIsS uTeNa! ShAlL i TaKe A mEsSaGe FoR hEr?"

Sheesh, you all have absolutely no idea how difficult that was to type.

Anyway, Utena screamed, "Stop that! Get out of her at once, or else!"

"Or ElSe WhAt, LiTtLe WoMaN? WIlL yOu UsE yOuR pOwErS oF hErMaPhRoDiTiSm? MwAhAhAhAhAhA! eVeN tHoUgH sHeMaLeS aRe PrEtTy HoT, tHeIr PoWeRs WiLl NoT wOrK oN mE! iNsErT vIlLaInOuS dEvIl LaUgH!"

"Powers of… What the heck are you talking about? I'll just make a phone call!"

"WhO yOu GoNnA cAlL?"

"Ghostbusters!"

"GRAAH! Curse your pop culture ingenuity!"

"Hey, your writing's back to normal," she observed.

"Yeah, doing it the other way was really super hard. I may be the avatar of evil incarnate possessing the woman you love, but even I can be considerate. Anyway, curse your clever bones!"

"My bones are none of your business!" she exclaimed. Just then, Wombatman smashed through the window!

"I am the ever-vigilant falcon hovering silently over a world gone horribly wrong, a darkness lurking in the murk hiding behind shadows lost in a world twisted in depravity."

"So?" Utena said. Wombatman coughed.

"I saw the Wombatsignal and came rushing here as fast as my Wombatboots could go."

"Um, thanks," Utena said awkwardly, "but I asked for a Ghostbuster, not a super-hero."

"I'm also a professional exorcist. But that isn't a clue to my secret identity! Nope, no sir! There isn't a forensics expert in the world who can make that connection, missy!"

"Oh, great, this is going to get really confusing," the demon possessing Anthy groaned.

"How so?" Wombatman said. Before either of them could break the fourth wall (or what little there was left of it), the real Ghostbusters (cartoon version) came storming in! As they opened their proton packs and shot the, uh, lasery thingies at Anthy (give me a break, it's been years since I saw the cartoons), she returned fire with a vile blast of acidic pea-soup compound churned up straight from her intestinal track! Yummy! The Ghostbusters were immediately blasted away, but then Priest Damian and that old guy came rushing in, throwing salt and holy water at the hovering body! More bile was spewed, so Dr. Evil was called in!

"The power of Ikuhara compels you! The power of Ikuhara compels you!"

"Foolish, feeble priests! And Ghostbusters! AND would-be world conquerors! Your pathetic attempts will not part me from my prize!"

Everyone glanced at Wombatman.

"Wasn't me."

"Yes it was!" Anthy screamed. Utena roared and pushed all of them aside.

"URRGH! Can't one of you speak without using boldface type!"

"Fourth wall!" Miki screamed, sticking his head in through the door. He was instantly covered with pea-flavored vomit. Utena helped him wipe the gunk off.

"Goodness, how much did she eat?"

"Well, there was only one pea in that soup, but…then again, this is Anthy we're talking about."

"Oh yeah, good point." So now Miki was helping Utena, Priest Damian, Old Guy, Wombatman, Dr. Evil, and the Ghostbusters exorcise a demon that had possessed Anthy Himemiya. And that was probably the most surreal sentence you will ever read in this chapter.

I like cake.

Finally, Utena could not take any more, and so she placed her hand on Anthy's chest (woo-hoo, finally!) and pulled out a sword. Then, with a big cheesy grin on, she pulled out several more swords that had been connected to the first, kind of like that magic trick where the magician…ahh, you know. But as she was pulling out the last sword, she also pulled out the demon! Anthy stopped spitting out pea soup, fell back onto the bed, and went soundly to sleep as if none of this had ever happened.

"But what about the demon?" Miki said. Utena scowled at the writhing creature, grabbed its face in her fingers, ripping it off to reveal…

"LANDSCAPER LENNY?"

"That's right!" Landscaper Lenny snarled. "It was me! I possessed Anthy Himemiya! And I'd do it again, too!"

"But why, Landscaper Lenny?" Utena said. "WHY?"

"Doubloons! Hundreds of Spanish doubloons, worth a fortune, all of them buried inside that sexy woman's body! If I could've gotten my hands on those darned things, I would've been able to cash them in for EIGHT HUNDRED SEVENTEEN DOLLARS AND FORTY-TWO CENTS! And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling lesbian princesses! And your Wombatman!"

"Yes, well, justice has been served, and so have you, punk! You can leave the rest to me, Utena; I'll take this scumbag to jail. I am the darkness underneath a full moon!"

"Thanks, Wombatmanbut will we ever see you again?"

Wombatman silently turned his head, and without saying a word, leaped back outside the window.

"Wow, so cool," Utena gasped. Just then, Anthy woke up.

"Hmm…nnnh, what a pleasant sleep I've had! Absolutely void of any nightmarish dreamscapes or traumatizing experiences! Oh, but it was certainly uncomfortable! I felt the worst bulges everywhere! My body's all sore and…mmmm, stiff." Utena smiled with relief.

"Don't worry, I'm sure a full-body tantric massage will cure your ills. But there wasn't anything beneath these mattresses, Anthy! You crushed the pea, remember?" She and Anthy lifted the mattress, but to Utena's surprise, there was a herd of elephants in there!

"Oh my!" Anthy exclaimed. Utena grimaced, but ultimately decided that any princess strong enough to sleep with a herd of elephants beneath her was more than worthy of being her bride. And so, the noble princess took the…other noble princess into her arms, drew their faces close, preparing to kiss her beloved…

When Wombatman abruptly crashed through the window again.

"Forgot to bring the criminal," he said, taking Landscaper Lenny back with him, leaving Utena and Anthy fixed to the spot, utterly bewildered.

The End.

Next installment: The Boy Who Cried Wolf