From the second Nari got me upstairs and into bed, she pretty much went no holds bar. Her tongue just wiped me out from down under and I could only make screechy chipmunk noises. By the time this great, grand, sword-and-sorcery level lesbian sex was over, she wrapped me up and cuddled me.
“Holy god…that was just…ohh…it had to be breaking some commandment or something….” I mumbled dizzily. “Seriously you MI5, if I ever asked you for anything downstairs, then just forget it….”
“And why might that be?” Nari asked, nibbling along my ear, which in itself made me feel tingly. “Just tell me about this ‘idea’ you speak of. Yes, that is an order.”
“OK…well for starters,” I said with a wink, “maybe I should provide some context before you decide that I need to be hauled off to the nearest cuckoo’s nest?”
I began backtracking over my life from the past five to six months and assured Nari that my channel was now in the dumps. Of course, I was just as successful as I always was. But my pregnancy sort of ushered in some kind of demonic, Findom alter-ego—let’s just say it would have given a possessed Linda Blair a run for her money. I hardly needed to list my crimes, however, as Nari seemed to already know all about it.
“Yes, I have seen some of these new streams of yours. But you should not feel guilty about them. Those beggars you provide content for…they wanted it. They wanted to be your bitches.”
“Oh lord…” I said, rolling my eyes. But no matter how much I labored upon how my current videos might as well just be me doing spider walks while screaming “your mom sucks cock in hell!” Nari only grew closer. With her head swooped especially close to my ear, she whispered, “All I said was that you had nothing to be ashamed of…I never said that this act wasn’t wrong.”
Before I could assume that Nari might just be trying to lay some enlightening Chinese fortune cookie lesson on me, she added, “It was only a problem because it was beneath you. You were not happy this way. It was obvious just from your eyes. You felt disgusted that you were degrading them (and that they wanted to be degraded). Such animal behavior…it is not in your heart!”
It seemed pretty amazing that Nari, of all people, was saying such a thing. It made me wonder if she herself suffered from some sort of hidden self-loathing. (That old Far East shame-culture thing maybe?) But as she cuddled me more, I couldn’t help but to try to keep the conversation straight. “Thank you so much for picking up on that…. Yeah, so I guess on this long hard road out of hell, I’ve had this hunch. Maybe I could tame the most renegade bounds of cyber-space and usher in an all-out Promised Land for all those who can’t get a date?”
Nari didn’t look quite as dismissive as I thought she might, so I took that has a thumbs up. “You know like, there should be this resource…this place for all the ‘losers’ of the world to go whenever they’re feeling that sinking pit called loneliness. Okay, I promise I’m not going to break into a Billy Joel song, but really; what could be so bad about a website where someone (anyone) could immediately be hooked up with people who just wanna remind them that they’re still human, y’know?”
“Basically, you mean a virtual platform of other Princess Misakis?” Nari said, with at least some interest.
“Look, I’m just tired of living in a world where if you find yourself alone or without help, you’re basically just screwed; unless of course you’ve got the social goods, which I only barely seem to scrape by with…. But yeah, I’d like to open up a little Princess Misaki Land where all the virgins have to do is follow that yellow brick road. Heck you could even invite those munchkin pals of yours!”
After a few giggles, Nari stayed silent for a while, but she sure had an answer when she eventually spoke up. “I could never be part of something like this. But, I know there are others who do things more the way…you do. I will see what can be done.”
I was about ready to clap my hands and ask my protector a million questions. But it just happened to be around this time when we both heard an unmistakable…knocking noise from downstairs (that might or might not have been coming from a hentai-watching serial killer).
“Ssshhh! Just stay here!” Nari was in command with all-out action-hero bravado. “Take care of the little ones…I will handle this….
“Oh save me!” I said in my damsel-voice. Yes, this she-devil was heading downstairs and ready for blood, without a single weapon. The only thing covering her bare skin was a little bathrobe, which she hardly bothered to put completely on. I seriously couldn’t have felt more awed by her at this point.
But after this amazing Goddess stomped her big 6-foot-self down to the living room, I quickly noticed something was wrong…very wrong; and it happened the second the action started. Yes, I now needed to race downstairs as speedily as possible, with nothing on but an oversized night shirt.
“NARI PLEASE STOP!” I cried, hugging the stair rails. Nari just looked over at me with a scowl. “PLEASE! He…well…he’s…he’s kind of my housekeeper, I guess?”
“Wait…what??” Nari had the funniest face I might have ever seen on her.
Standing right by her (with her hand ready to pull his ear off) was none other than a cartoonishly drunk Stevie, who was so wet you’d think the guy tipped head-first into a swimming pool. I could suddenly picture the poor fella standing under a streetlight and re-enacting those cliched black-and-white movie scenes where the guy says he “ain’t got nothin’ to live for.”
“Oh, Puh P-Princess…you’ve gotta forgive me….” he drawled with a hiccup. His voice now had this weird, off-the-wall deepness that reminded me of Fat Albert. “Please, please juh…just take me back. I’ve never (hiccup)—I’ll never make another excuse again….”
“Laurie!” Nari growled as she yanked Stevie practically across the room (while somehow not tearing his ear off). And as poor Stevie whimpered like a dog being put out at the pound, she shouted, “He LIVES here? No…not possible!”
“W-well it’s a bit of a long story, but gosh, the silly doofus has been with me since practically the start.” I gently stepped close-by. “Honest Nari, he’s harmless.”
After I made it clear where old Stevie-boy’s room was, Nari reluctantly dragged him down the hallway (by the ear of course) and pummeled him right into his dark room. He surely tripped over something but Nari just shut the door as forcefully as ever and came back over to me.
“Listen,” she said, as my womb was comfortably stroked by her wondrous hands, “I want him out of here. As soon as those babies are born.”
“But Nari! Please. Stevie is like a staple of the whole Princess Misaki experience! It just wouldn’t be the same without him and….”
“NO! No buts!” Nari countered, my words seeming to turn straight to mush. And with that amazing dense Asian stare of hers, she added, “Look, I don’t care how well you ‘know’ him. Do you really want someone like that with three vulnerable little girls running around?”
“Nari what are you even saying….” I was almost teary at this point. But after several sighs, I let my eyes meet hers again. “OK. I…look I understand…. But I don’t want to just throw him away. I mean, little visits every now and then can’t be a problem, right?”
Nari just maintained her incredible, warrior poker-face, until I finally just kicked at the ground a little and said, “God it’s sad. But Stevie should be able to manage being just another avatar in the chatroom like all the others.”
“You have done well,” Nari affirmed. Well, this sure made me feel like I had just passed the ultimate test of mind as Kwai Chang Caine. And in this mediative tone, she added, “It is so beautiful that you wanted to offer such love and compassion, but you must think of your girls first.”
While I nodded, still with a sense of tearyness, she continued, “This plan of yours. It will happen. I guarantee it.”
* * *
It really was something else how Nari’s arrival completely transformed everything. No, it’s not like she moved in a bunch of hokey decorations and turned my house into the most hipster locale in Seoul. Just her presence alone created this disciplined, “go get ‘em” attitude in the air. No longer was I just lazing around with my Gameboy and getting into diss matches with just about every other person on Twitch. Really, I was learning how to cook things that were actually not fish-sticks and SpaghettiOs.
But at the same time, she respected all my wacky obsessions. She never seemed to mind that there was always an episode of Sailor Moon or Dragonball Z blaring on at least one of the TVs. She didn’t even care that I wasn’t into all her K-Dramas (that were melodramatic enough to make the characters in “Les Misérables” roll on the floor laughing). The both of us just seemed to click so much that it all made me wonder how we could ever have been so apart for all these months. Whether I was even ‘into girls’ or not, Nari’s support played an incredible role in helping me see my life through an entirely new lens. Yes, I was finally gaining enough insight into my subconscious to one day have a roundtable discussion with the brainiest atheists on YouTube, where I could spout things like, “I think, therefore I am!” and “What does not kill us makes us stronger!”
Actually, it was more like I just explained to my biggest fan that I might’ve been a little more than a total Lolcow all this time. And it all started with a little K-Pop party in the living room. You see, I had become officially due the day prior, and Nari and I were just waiting for that water to go a breakin’.
“Oh, they are ready to be free!” Nari said as she kneeled on the carpet, with her ear sliding along my womb. “Any minute now…!”
“Look, just the fact that we’re waiting on this is probably jinxing it” I said. “Now, I’ve got just the recipe for making irony eat itself!”
I then put a big Poncho-like shirt on and grabbed a tray of snacks, which were brought right down the hall and over to…Stevie’s room.
“Ahoy you maggot! Private Pyle! There’s something for ya!” I said as I walked in.
Dear Stevie seemed to be having a priceless moment as he stood by his desk looking at this huge map that was (apparently) of my property. He had all these lines and notes written on it, as if he had just been devising the perfect security system. And as soon as he saw me, he said, “I just know it. Tomorrow I will have a way to neutralize the invader. By 09-hundred hours sharp; the defense will be in place; effective immediately.”
“Does that also involve you firing arrows at the neighbors' poodles? Look that’s great, but will you please just have a sweet?” I said with a giggle. “Nari made them. I think this is called yugwa…and didn’t she say this was dasik?”
“Whatever it is…it’s wonderful. Thank you,” Stevie said warmly.
I grinned and had a seat over on his bed. “It’s the least I can do. Are you sure you’re going to be alright at your dad’s place?”
Stevie just nodded. “It’s for the best.” But even with such a forlorn Frodo face going on, he still kept his chin up and said, “Laurie, I wanted to tell you something. You know, it’s funny that I’ve gone this long without ever really getting into it. But it’s about that…well, how I was before we got in touch.”
I had a vague sense that Stevie used to follow another ‘goddess’ before me. But he had sure never given me much detail about it. Honestly, the guy seemed too ashamed to even give her dumb username, but he did say, “Laurie…it…it was terrible. It wasn’t just that she was this heartless bitch, it was that I liked that she was…I mean, somehow there was something so fascinating about her being so superior to me that I felt ‘graced’ to even be getting humiliated by her.”
Despite how unclear a lot of this still was, I was already getting the feeling that this bitch who sold her bathwater might just get along with me a little too well if she ever happened to join in on one of those horrid Captain Kirk/Howard Stern impersonator streams I used to do. Yeah, whoever this chick was, we were probably both on the same page of Heaven’s no-fly list. But old Stevie sure didn’t seem to see it that way.
“It all really did change with you Laurie…my Princess,” he added as earnestly as ever. “You taught me that I don’t have to be miserable. I can still be happy... even if it’s just because that sun is still shining.”
“Oh Stevie…” I said after giving him a hug. He seemed quite shocked that I would do this, but I just kept on embracing him and even kissed his forehead. “Look buddy, this is one heck of an important topic. But I don’t exactly think you’re much worse off than me in this department. I mean, would you actually believe that I’ve never even had a proper boyfriend?”
It was here that I told Stevie about how I knew right from the start about what I was really getting into when I hooked up with that scoundrel known as Wesley. “He had me hook, line and sinker; you know, like all the others? But I just worshiped him... Even during that second night in the city, I was practically ready to do anything to keep him around a little bit longer. No, I didn’t just go down on him like some porn star. Heh, I even had the gall to like... make out with his feet.”
Well, that sure might win the Oscar for the most embarrassing thing I ever admitted. “No, I’m not kidding.” I added with my hands over my face. “You see, I don’t think old Wes was quite satisfied with just “nailing that pussy” again. What I needed was the paypig treatment. Oh, the way he laughed at me as I worshipped him was something I’m sure I’ll never have the privilege of forgetting. He didn’t even try to act as if it was just because he was so ticklish or something. Yeah, the guy had gotten pretty open about what he really thought of me. But hey, it’s not like this was all any worse than that first “best night of my life” back when I was a thirteen-year-old who cut herself to Linkin Park or whatever. You know, old Elliot was right when he said that all that hellfire and brimstone begins at puberty.”
“But...but that’s how you became Princess Misaki in the first place, wasn’t it?” Stevie specified.
As soon as I heard him mention this, I felt an odd need to pause. Eventually, I admitted, “Stevie… I’ve got something I really need to come clean about here. Look, I never properly apologized to you for turning into one of those witches from Hocus Pocus like that.”
Now, I knew the big guy was going to just assure me up and down that there wasn’t the slightest thing to feel bad about, but I insisted. “Listen, I’ve got a little theory about this that I’m sure even the likes of Plato and Socrates would go ga-ga for. You see, I’ve come to understand that people want to be dominated for the same reason others want to dominate them in the first place; it’s all about validation. And it makes sense that I would know this, right? I mean, I can continue to cry about what happened with Wesley, but in the end, I’m not a whole lot better. After all, I like knowing that zillions of ‘no-lifers’ drool over my pics. I like knowing that they believe me to be ‘superior’ for some reason. I like knowing that I can just keep pushing them for more.”
“Princess, no…” Stevie said with concern. “If that’s really all you were, you wouldn’t even have the nerve to look into yourself like that and explain it.”
As a moment of silence came between us, I looked at Stevie and smiled again. “Thanks pal. It’s always nice to know that there’s at least somebody out there I haven’t failed. Say, have you heard about this little plan I’ve been brewing up? And no, I promise this isn’t more of that spooky business with a Wicked Witch!”
Stevie was of course completely blown away to even think that I would be starting a spiffy new website. But before I could assure him that it was a little more than just some XOOM page with a Guestbook and casino Midi music, I started to feel something. Yes…it started to happen.
* * *
“Princess? It’s started! Don’t worry everything is under control!” Stevie exclaimed.
I didn’t even have to say anything. Like the genuine super trooper that he was, Stevie practically carried me out of the room and down the hall where Nari rushed over.
“Listen, I can take her, but could you please do the driving?” she said with surprising gentleness. “Only I can calm her properly.”
“Affirmative!” Stevie exclaimed, going over to the door while Nari carried me along.
But once Stevie opened that front door…. Oh, just the thought of it still gives me shivers…. Standing outside by the car was the same deranged Doomer I had seen several weeks earlier. I think he was even mumbling something to himself in the third person, just like any psychotic otaku stalker. He could have believably jumped straight out of the X-Files.
Stevie, however, was just fearless. “You’re here for her aren’t you!” he yelled and jutted forward. “Well, I’ll see you in HELL!!!!!!” Stevie raced over and clobbered the lolicon-shirted man, resulting in the both of them wrestling along the driveway.
But from here on, I literally couldn’t comprehend anything that happened. The only thing that stuck with me about this fight was that cheesy choir music at the end of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (which just kept looping in my head for some reason).
By the time I finished blacking out, Nari was consoling me on the couch, all while an ambulance was wailing down the street.
Both the stalker and my crime-fighting hero were lying cold and motionless on the street. And there was sure a lot of blood coming from Stevie’s end…