New York isn't quite ready for me strutting around in a crown and fancy dress; I doubt that Mario and Luigi's old friends are either. Tonight it's a pink sundress with a red shrug since it's a little cold out tonight. And for that extra touch to look more casual and carefree there's the red tennis shoes with white trim that I got on one of my first visits to this world. I'm only thinking of my shoes because I am staring down at my feet.
Ranoosh. The window sign has something that looks like a vase running along the side of the vertical text and the air smells like incense and fruit. Still not sure what it is exactly, but we're doing something called shisha. It involves smoking a lot of smoke, which is something I don't do anymore—when Daisy and I were in high school we would smoke cigarettes that we bought off this older kid at school because we thought it made us look older, but I stopped after like six months.
People around sit at tables with impressive glass apparatus in front of them. We haven't gotten ours yet, but I'm watching other parties to get a better feel for what it is. Water goes in the base of it and there's this long ornate hose coming out of the side near a metal tray at the top. A women at another table with dark red hair takes a drag on the hose. She exhales a ring of white smoke followed by a wispy cloud that flattens as it crosses the table in front of her.
"You there, Dolcezza?" Mario leans down so that he's more centered in my vision and waves his hand from side to side. A few of the others at the table giggle.
"Huh?" It takes me a second to process what he's saying despite hearing him clearly. "Oh, yeah. It's okay." I pat him on the leg, but decide to leave my hand resting against the inside of his knee. I'm wedged between Pauline and Mario, Daisy got here a little after us so she and Luigi are to Mario's other side. The rest of the table is virtually strangers—at least to me. My mind is half trying to listen to the conversation around me and half running over the names of the people we've met up with. Really no need to go over Pauline and Daisy, those are self explanatory. There's one other woman, Darla, she's a school teacher. Apparently Luigi had a crush on her when they were kids. Then there's Aaron. He doesn't live in the city full time and only comes back when he's not working in the oil fields. Daune is a construction worker and finally there's Geraldo—I forget what Geraldo does.
This place is pretty dark with a strange purple light as the only source of illumination outside of the counter ares where the cash register is. Mario slides his hand in between the chair and the small of my back. Okay, so he can tell something is wrong with me? Does he know what it is?
"So I can see why Mario likes you—or hear rather," Aaron leans down to say over the low chatter of people in the background and the sound of the radio coming through the cafe speakers. "Most women never shut up, but you've hardly said a word."
Out of the corner of my eye I see Daisy tense up, she wants to say something and I can see it in her face as she bites her bottom lip and turns quickly to stare at the man behind the cash register at the front. I have to carefully consider myself here; I've never been the snarky witted type like Daisy and these people don't know me. Even with the low level of rudeness I'm capable of, it's going to come off making me seem un-fun and mean. There is something else I can do.
"Oh. Sorry, were you talking to me?" I ask.
"Yeah—never mind," Aaron says.
I tug Mario toward me, kissing the side of face before turning to glance up at Aaron. "I just get distracted so easily when I'm bored."
"Good girl, Peach, don't give him the time of day," says Pauline. "The rest of us really don't." A round of laughter erupts from most of the rest of the group, save Luigi who seems oddly confused by it all.
We stay gathered around the small table together for a while before a waitress comes to take our order. She explains what hookah is, probably for my benefit. It's basically tobacco that's been treated na flavored to be sweet or yummy and then it's smoked during socializing or to relax. Everyone tells me to just share with Mario, but I don't really want the kind of flavor that he's prone to pick.
"I'll have a cherry, no—double cherry please." Mario and I often have different ideas about what tastes good.
When the hookah comes out I am rewarded with something a little closer to the raw cherry flavor than I expected, but I still like it. There's a wild authentic quality to it that you tend not to get in juices that are only cherry inspired. The first drag on it pulls so much smoke into my body that I hack and cough like I am drowning. Mario pats my back and I can barely make out him asking if I am okay.
"I'm fine."
"It's a bit much to take in the first time," Darla says. "Just pull in enough to fill your mouth and exhale until you feel more comfortable with the whole thing."
Daisy reaches for my hose. "Let me try," she says. "Catch your breath for a second." She sucks on the hose to the point that the sound of the air rushing through it and the water bubbling in the base is all that I can hear over everything going on around me. Just looking at the thing I am guessing that the smoke is pulled down from the top—there's a thing that seems to have something hot inside. The smoke goes down the middle and into the water as some kind of filter and then is pulled out through the hose on the side. The whole thing is pretty clever and cool.
A billowing push of smoke comes out of Daisy's mouth and extends over the table to join the other clouds being blown by the others. My fingers find Mario's hand at my side and I pull it up into my lap and clutch it there. This is…jarring. I'm not in the position of power because I can't just say that I am the Princess. People are going to treat me like a normal woman and that's what I have always think I wanted. That's why I like Mario and Luigi so much, they just treat me like me, but it feels weird to be in the middle of a group of people doing it like this.
This is the role I never expected to play: the doting girlfriend to a working class man. The quiet, pretty piece of arm candy that he shows off to his friends. I know Mario doesn't see it that way and he doesn't even mean for it to look like that, but that's what his friends expect. At least that is what I think they would expect.
He moves to nuzzle the side of my face, rubbing his mustache against my cheek and causing me to giggle out of turn. Aaron and Geraldo are looking at us in a curious sort of way.
Daisy hands the hose to me and I take it, choosing to pop it back into my mouth and take another drag. This time I go slower, pulling the smoke in with my chest more carefully this time. When I feel that I have taken in enough I exhale through my mouth. At first it's just in my arms—there's this creeping warmth that works its way up my body. Soon my whole form is tingly and prickly with this subtle heat. A sort of haze falls over my head and it feels like the light and color around me streak.
"You light headed?" Asks Geraldo. "There's a bit of nicotine in this and you get a buzz from it. It'll pass in a minute."
I nod. "Yeah, that tastes pretty good. Everywhere should have one of these places." I turn to Mario. "Ooo—we should open one of them back home…" I catch myself. "Eh, running a new business is nothing to jump right into. What am I saying?"
This stuff is having some kind of effect on me. There's dizziness now and that warm feeling has spread throughout my whole body. For some reason I take another drag and blow it out. I get a fun little idea as everyone around me goes back to talking about…something. Their words fall into a massive haze of light and sound.
"Mario," I tap on his arm before sucking a massive cloud into my mouth. He turns just in time for me to press my lips to his. My mouth opens against his enough for me to blow the smoke into him. As I feel the last bit of leaving my mouth there's a harsher bitter taste to it now. I bite his lip playfully and pull away.
The smoke drifts out of Mario's agape lips. "That's an idea we haven't tried before."
I turn my body so only our knees are touching. "Really? It kind of came to me."
He kisses me again.
"Damn, Mario—are you sure you're not paying her?" Aaron asks. "If so, who do I have to talk to about hooking me up?" He leans down over the table, pushing his elbow into Daune's side as if to elicit some kind of response from him. No one laughs at this or does anything but look nervously around until Daisy, with her hands poised on Luigi's shoulder and chest pushes out a cloud of smoke and says. "I remember you making the same joke about us and I also recall overhearing you crying to your ex-girlfriend about your little pecker not working. Maybe that's why you think everyone has to pay for it?"
Luigi's fingers tighten on Daisy's shoulder. "Hey-yeah Aaron, that's not the kind of thing you should be saying about, Peach or Daisy, okay?"
"Whatever. I gotta go take a piss." Aaron rose from the table, loudly pushing his chair aside with his legs and headed across the room toward the bathroom.
"He's tried to fuck me and Darla multiple times when he got drunk and he even hit on Daisy one of the first times he met her. Not sure why we keep including him," Pauline says.
"It seems rude not to," Darla says with a shrug.
"He's a fucking creep. Didn't he make some horrible rape joke like ten minutes after meeting me?" Daisy asks.
Geraldo nods. "If it even was a joke. He said something about raping a prostitute because she took his money when he was overseas and then went on to compare it to paying for a sandwich and not getting it and hopping behind the counter to make your own…and rape the girl working there."
Daisy looks at Darla. "Don't make excuses for someone like that. I mean, you can hang out with him if you want, but I'm not okay with rape jokes or people calling me a prostitute like it's some kind of joke to make fun of sex workers while at the same time trying to dump on my boyfriend because he would have to pay for me or some shit." Daisy's voice goes shrill. "Luigi is, like, the best thing to ever happen to me and he's totally worth being with and any woman would be lucky to have him." She sucks in a short puff of smoke and lets it out. "The same thing is true for Peach and Mario—I know her. So I don't find it funny to call my boyfriend worthless."
This isn't part of the act that I am supposed to be putting on or whatever. I don't need to pretend to be into Mario or to want him. Maybe that's what Aaron was hinting at about Mario paying me—the level of affection we show might seem fake to some, but it's just me. I've been chaste around Mario, much to my own dismay, due to how other rulers will judge it or what the people of my kingdom might think. That's not me. Daisy is more out there and loud, that's not me either. But I wanted Mario just as much as he wanted me. Why did I wait so long?
"Daisy," Luigi says touch her chin.
"Don't try to calm me down, Luigi, you know I hate that shit. It'll be fine."
"Daisy…" Luigi goes into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He opens the wallet and pulls out small plastic baggy holding a diamond ring. "I wasn't sure when it would be the right time to give this to you, but…"
"Stop. Of course it's a yes, you fucking idiot." Tears well up in her eyes and she looks to me and the others at the table embarrassed. "You had to do this now when I look like a shit and I'm bleeding out of the snatch for the next few days and emotional and make me cry in front of your friends and the waiter and…oh my God." She wipes the tears from her eyes and rips into the bag to put the ring on.
"I just wanted to share this with as many people as we could…" Luigi says.
Daisy shakes her head and then kisses him. "I can't even thank you properly, unless you're up for really messy period sex. We're talking Koopa Civil War levels buckets of blood."
"It's nice to see Daisy is always gross," Pauline says.
"What's a Koopa?" Asks Daune.
Luigi and Daisy snap a selfie to commemorate the occasion even though none of us would ever forget it. The rest of the night is just amazing fun. We danced and drank a little and smoked some more. After hours of smelling Mario and his body against mine I suggested that we go check on Aaron. He had never come back from the restroom and honestly I didn't care, but I needed to get him away. In the dim lighting of the single person bathroom I cornered Mario and slipped out of my top. We couldn't do much here—I didn't want any part of me that wasn't my shoes to touch this floor—but he ran his tongue over my breasts, taking them into his mouth and pressing them against my body with his face. And I squatted down, being sure to keep my balance, and took him into my mouth for a hasty, sloppy few minutes of him trying not to moan too loud or press his back against the grungy wall.
A bit of it got into my hair and down my cheek onto my shoulder. He helps me wash up in the sink. "What prompted that?" Asks Mario, still catching his breath.
"I wanted you inside of me and that was the easiest way to do it. Do I need to have a reason?" I ask. He doesn't answer. "We can finish up later if you want, at the Brooklyn apartment."
"You miss coming over at all?" He asks.
"It's been weeks and maybe a little bit. I miss shopping with Luigi and cuddling with you in that awful bed you still have. I miss taking time off from all this war stuff to be us."
"After the war we'll still be here. No one is going anywhere, except maybe Rosalina since she always vanishes, but you'll still have your friends. You'll still have your creepy stalker Bowser, you'll still have me," he says so confident that I almost believe him.
"But the war could take anything away from me. It could take you That's why…as High Queen and Empress I forbid you from entering combat for me. You're to rule by my side, not…fight my wars."
"Wait just a minute Peach, you can't do that!"
"Why…why the Hell not? I'm still the boss of you. I'm the boss of everyone." My chest feels like it's going to explode, like I might vomit or just pass out.
"What's all this now?" Asks Mario. "Why are you being like this?"
"Because if I lose you everyone will see what an awful woman I am. Everyone will know I'm selfish and broken and I'll be no good to anyone. I'm not prepared to rule without you or to go on functioning without you, so will you for the sake of your people promise me that you'll stay out of this one?"
"No. Someone tried to kill my wife. My fucking wife, you! They almost killed Daisy twice and Bowser one time and they dropped a goddamn castle on your head. I won't stay out of it, I want to see this motherfucker roast."
I shake my head. "I see. I just thought that you were fighting because it was the right thing to do. It's okay to be selfish. We're allowed to be selfish. Be selfish, please this once!"
"I am!" He hollered throwing his arms back. "I don't give a shit about what ruin did to the kingdom. I want him dead because he tried to hurt you, Peach."
"Well, vengeance doesn't suit either of us, does it?" I ask. "I suppose I can't stop you, but you can't stop me. This is my fight. The Ruin wants me, so I have to go to it."
"Oh, so it's good for thee and not for me, then is it?" Mario asks. "How come you get to risk your life to fight this thing but I can't?"
"I'm panicking, okay?" I yell. "I'm not a wartime ruler, I wasn't-wasn't made for this! I know I'll probably die, but I want to make sure something of me survives. The people who love me."
Mario grabs me around the shoulders. "I love you enough to face this with you. If you die doing this so do I."
"That's the compromise we're coming to then?" I ask.
"Smithy, Tatanga, Count Bleck and Dimentio—we've dealt with high level threats before. Bowser destroyed the universe on mistake that time, but it got better. We can deal with this and will deal with this together." He kisses me on the head and we stand embracing for a long time.
"You okay in there?" Pauline asks through the door.
"Yeah." I answer.
"Well come out. These beers are running right through me!" Pauline shouts.
Mario and I laugh and leave the restroom hand and hand. We're heading back to the apartment so I can make good on my promise. Luigi and Daisy are cuddled up on the couch and we congratulate them before leaving.
As we get outside after paying it's drizzling and a familiar voice calls to us. "Hey, it's the newly engaged couple." There's the sound of hooves under cutting the voice, but it's clear.
We turn to see the horse drawn carriage from the night I proposed slowing down right off to our side, the horses taking on a trotting gait.
"It was Jeff, right?" Asks Mario.
"Yeah, how'd you remember?" Jeff asks.
"Just a memorable night, but we're married now. We already tied the knot," Mario adds.
Jeff chuckles. "I'm closing it up for the night, but this calls for a celebration, where are you kids headed?"
"Home—to his apartment," I explain.
"Well, in honor of your special occasion and change in Facebook relationship status, how about I give you a free ride home?" Jeff asks.
A big smile flashes across my face. "I'd be delighted!"
Jeff hopped down to help me up. "Come on, up you go. I think I remember the way, Peach and ummm…"
"Mario," Mario says.
"Sorry, pretty lady like that with a name like hers you tend to remember," Jeff says as he is climbing back into the front seat of his carriage. The horses let out a little noise as he directs them out into the damp Brooklyn street. It was raining that night too, the night we were last in this carriage, the night we first—well first did a lot of things. Maybe it's some kind of omen. My worrying is all for nothing and I'm destined to win, destined to triumph over Ruin because that's the first thing any Toadstool Queen ever did.
I lay my head against Mario and have a little waking dream, a dream of a great peace. Mario's right, I know we can do this.