SOME PRINCESSES ARE GAY

NCE UPON A TIME…

There lived a prince who wanted to marry a princess. Also, his dad required him to marry a princess if he wanted to take over the successful family business of ruling the kingdom.

But it couldn’t be just any princess from any rando kingdom. She needed to be smart, have great hair, and run a lifestyle blog. Finally, if the Prince was really getting serious with her, she had to undergo a special test. She had to prove she was delicate and sensitive enough to feel a single teeny tiny pea underneath twenty mattresses and twenty memory-
foam pads.

There were many problems with this stupid test. For starters, being delicate and sensitive are not traits required for a male ruler. Also, blueberries would have smelled much nicer than peas. But, hey, this test had been passed from one royal generation to the next and no one ever questioned it.

The Prince chatted, swiped, and met a lot of princesses, but none who warranted a dinner date after a mead date. His parents were getting so concerned they had considered setting him up with the Queen’s friend Sylvia’s daughter even though she hadn’t quite outgrown her goth phase.

One night, a terrible storm blew through the kingdom. Safe inside, the Prince sipped a mulled wine while playing games with a few squires when he heard a knock at the door. He rushed to the castle gates and there standing in the rain was a young woman.

“Can I please stay the night and wait out the storm?” she asked. “I’m a princess and I was on my way back to my kingdom when my horse got spooked by the lightning and ran off.”

She peered inside and saw the squires.

“Are you all playing Dungeons and Dragons?” she exclaimed. “That is my favorite game! At my castle, we play in our actual dungeon with my pet dragon nearby because it feels festive.”

They spent the evening playing various games, discussing where they went to finishing school, and listening to their favorite indie wizard bands that could simultaneously cast spells and shred on the mandolin.

The Prince couldn’t believe his luck! The Princess was funny, smart, and he enjoyed her company. The King and Queen, who had been subtly listening in from the next room, could barely contain their excitement.

“Don’t mind us!” said the Queen as she burst through the door with a bowl of turkey leg snacks so she could get a better look at the Princess. “We thought you two might want something to munch on.”

“Hey, squires, take a hint and skedaddle,” said the King.

The Princess appeared to check off all of the boxes. Even after getting caught in a storm, she still had great hair. Anyone who could beat the Prince at so many games clearly had a brain, and a quick search revealed her popular lifestyle blog, called The Twig, which she posted on a scroll outside her castle each morning. She was perfect!

It was time for the pea test. The King and Queen placed a tiny pea on the bottom of a guest room bed, gathered twenty mattresses and twenty memory-foam pads from around the castle, and piled them on top. They hoped the Princess would have as much of a hard time sleeping tonight as they would waiting for the results.

The Prince and Princess said goodnight to each other and parted for their separate rooms. The Princess thought it was extremely bizarre that she needed to climb an extension ladder to get to the top of her bed but figured maybe that was just what they considered chic interior design in this kingdom. Either that or they had a roach problem.

In the morning, the family gathered in the dining hall and waited for the Princess to awaken. Would she pass the pea test? Was she so refined as to feel a single pea underneath twenty mattresses and twenty memory-foam pads? Was she “the one?”

Finally the Princess walked into the room. She had bags under her eyes and yawned widely.

“Is coffee a thing in this kingdom? If so, I’d love a quadruple espresso.”

“I take it you didn’t sleep well?” the Queen asked giddily.

“Was there anything wrong with your bed?” asked the King.

Normally she wouldn’t have complained, but maybe they wanted genuine feedback on their strangely tall beds.

“You would think a lot of cushion would be comfortable but to be honest, it felt like there was a giant rock stabbing me in my back all night,” said the Princess.

“Hooray!” said the Prince. “You passed the test! We put a pea under your bed to see if you would feel it. And you did! Will you marry me?”

“At least there’s not a roach problem. Also, no. I’m gay.”

“Really?” said the Prince.

“Yep. I am very much attracted to women. Mostly, brown eyes with cheekbones that can slice a stone,” said the Princess. “This isn’t, like, something I’m making up to get out of marrying you.”

“You can’t be gay, you seem so normal,” said the King.

“I am normal. You’re the one who stacks forty mattresses on top of each other.”

“But you could feel the pea!” said the Queen. “That means you’re delicate and sensitive, like all the straight princesses I know. Except for Sylvia’s goth tragedy of a daughter.”

“Whoa. What exactly do you think lesbian princesses are like?” said the Princess, scrunching her forehead.

“The way you asked that question makes me think maybe I shouldn’t answer it,” said the Queen.

“How do you know you like women?” asked the King.

“I’ve just always known,” explained the Princess patiently. She’d been through this before.

“But… how?” repeated the King.

“The same way I know you put a pea under my mattresses last night,” said the Princess. “It’s obvious.”

“But if you’ve never been with a prince, how do you know you wouldn’t like it?” asked the Queen.

“Do you need to kiss a frog to know you don’t want to kiss a frog?” asked the Princess.

“Well, actually, my cousin kissed a frog and it worked out great for her,” said the Prince.

“I heard about that. Bad example,” said the Princess. “My point is, I know I don’t want to kiss a prince.”

“But who will you pass your crown on to?” asked the King. “Royal legacy can’t end because you’re into chicks.”

“If I meet another princess I dig, I can marry her, rule the land, and when we’re ready, we’ll figure out how to have a family if we want. There are a lot of options and different kinds of families.”

“Hm. It’s strange we’ve never thought about that as an option,” said the Queen.

“Indeed it is,” said the King. “I suppose we’ve just never met a gay princess before.”

“Or you didn’t realize it,” said the Princess. “A lot of people assume it’s not hard to be gay anymore because it’s so accepted in pop culture thanks to Modern Royal Family, but discrimination and violence toward gay people still exists.”

“Thank you for explaining all this to my parents,” said the Prince. “Before you head home can we play one more game of Dungeons and Dragons? We could also listen to the new album from Sorcerer Youth.”

“Totally. But one last thing. You all gotta get rid of the pea thing,” said the Princess. “I almost fell off the bed a few times. It’s super dangerous. And the only thing that test actually reveals is what a whiny house guest someone is to complain about the guest bed.”

“Come to think of it, why can’t I just rule the kingdom on my own?” said the Prince.

“It’s strange we’ve never thought about that as an option either,” said the King. “I guess you can! We just assumed happiness was a retread of our own life and how we lived. The pea test worked for us. We’ve been married forty-seven years!”

“I never felt the pea,” the Queen said quietly.

“What?!” said the King.

“I had a huge crush on you and bribed one of the ladies in waiting to tell me about the test,” said the Queen. “But it all worked out, right?”

“Indeed it did,” said the King.

From that day forth, future female leaders were tested for their integrity, intelligence, and taste in music, the Queen gave the extension ladder back to the fire department, and the only thing peas were used for was soup.

THE END