Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (72 page)

“You can’t do this to me, you know,” I say, tugging
on the sort-of clean pair of Levi’s Pegeen has snatched from under
my bed.

“Yes I can. You owe me a favor, remember?”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. Remember that couple of weeks when I
picked up all your night shifts at the plant so you could go out
dancing at Balloonz?”

This isn’t ringing a bell. “Huh?”

Pegeen rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t
remember. You were so gaga over that bartender you met down there,
you went to Balloonz four nights in a row trying to track him down.
But as I recall, he never showed up there again? Because he got
fired for hitting on you, right?”

Oh crap
, I think. “But—but that was almost
two years ago!”
I thought Pegeen forgot all about those
night shifts.

“Maybe so, but you
still
owe me that favor,
and now I’m calling it in. So march! I don’t want to miss the first
round of fighting. Arundel the Black of Hawk’s Key is leading off,
and he is a
major
babe.”

I hang my head and follow Pegeen out to her car
without even bothering to tie my tattered Keds sneakers. As per
usual with Pegeen, she never forgets anything—especially when it
comes to calling in favors.

I fall asleep about two minutes after Pegeen pulls
her rusty, rattling Tercel onto the I-75 entrance ramp. I must
sleep for almost two hours, because I don’t wake up until Pegeen
starts poking me in the shoulder as she drives down a foggy
two-lane rural route somewhere north of Columbus.

“Wake up, Lees,” Pegeen says, using my old high
school nickname. “I need you to help me find the turnoff. Here,
look at the map.” Pegeen tosses me a crudely drawn Xerox copy of an
event flyer for the Blood and Roses Tournament and Feast. According
to the flyer, the Blood and Roses Tournament is taking place today,
May 17
^th
, at Wapakoneta’s Neil Armstrong High School
Gymnasium from 8:00 am until 5 pm. The Blood and Roses Feast will
take place at the Ohio Caverns Underground Party Room at 6:00 pm,
to be immediately followed by something called a “revel”. The flyer
says a few other things, like “SCA Members Get In For $5, Mundane
Folk Get In For $10” and “Crash Space Available; Inquire Day of
Event For Details”. There’s also a bad pen-and-ink drawing of
something that looks like a cross between a dragon and a monkey.
But no map.

“Uhh, there’s no map on here, Pegeen.”

“Sure there is,” Pegeen says, snatching the flyer.
“It’s right here—wait. You’re right. There’s no map. I must have
forgotten to bring the second page. Crap.”

“Do you have any idea where we are?” I ask, looking
nervously at the raggedy cornfields and dilapidated farmhouses
scattered along the road.

“Nope. Wait a sec. I’ll pull over.” The rusty old
Tercel’s near-worthless shocks creak in agony as the car bounces to
a stop. Pegeen reaches into her ample bosom, which is nearly
bursting out of her tight corset-top, and pulls out a tiny cell
phone—the pricey, paper-thin Apple iPhone that just came out a few
weeks ago.

“Is that a new phone, Pegeen?”

“Yeah, I just picked it up recently. It fits right
into the crack between my boobs, which is great, because there’s
really no other place to carry a cell phone when you’re wearing
period garb at an event.”

“Wow, looks expensive,” I mutter, unimpressed. I
wonder how many actual medieval and Renaissance maidens carried
iPhones, and stifle a giggle.

“It’s no big deal. Arundel bought it for me.” Pegeen
glances at her watch. “Well, it’s only 8:45, so we’re early as far
as SCA time goes. I should be able to catch Arundel before he puts
on his armor for the Lists. He can give us directions.” She shouts
“ARUNDEL” into the phone’s voice-command speaker and it dials
automatically.

“Hello, Arundel?” Pegeen purrs into the phone, her
voice twinging with lust. “Hi honey, it’s me. Look, my friend Lisa
and I are kind of lost. I was wondering if you could give us
directions?”

Pegeen twirls her velvet corset strings around her
fingers while she listens to Arundel say something. Then she
giggles wickedly.

“Ohhhhhhhhh, Arundel! You really shouldn’t say
things like that to me so early in the morning. You’ll get me so
hot I’ll never be able to keep my gown on while I watch you fight.”
Pegeen blushes pepper-red and giggles again. Then she starts to
moan just a little bit.

I’ve never seen Pegeen act this aroused in front of
me before, even after all the boyfriends I’ve watched her run
through over the years. Apparently Arundel is providing Pegeen with
a little more than just driving directions.

“Well, we don’t know
exactly
where we are,”
Pegeen coos. “But as long as I’ve got you on the phone,
Arundel—-
ooooohhhhhhh
! Now that’s not very
chivalrous
of you! I thought you were only into
courtly
love!
Ahhhhh—”

Exasperated, I grab the iPhone from Pegeen. “Hello?”
I say into the tiny mouthpiece. “This is Pegeen’s friend Lisa.
We’re lost somewhere on a country road. There aren’t too many
landmarks—but there’s an old yellow farmhouse up ahead.”

Arundel the Black—who sounds more like an oversexed
fratboy on a cell phone than a knight in shining armor to me—says
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Right. Cool. You aren’t too far. Just, uh, drive
past the yellow house a little bit ‘til you see the uh, Tractor
Supply store, then turn left. The high school will be, uh, like,
you know, uh, right there.”

“Thanks.” I shut off the phone and hand it back to a
stunned Pegeen. “I know where we’re going now. Can we get this show
on the road, please? I’m sure you don’t want to miss any of the,
uhhhh,
fighting
.” I bat my eyes at Pegeen suggestively.

Pegeen blushes to her ears and shoves her phone back
between her boobs. “Sure, Lees.”

We arrive at Neil Armstrong High School—a long
dirty-gray building that resembles a machine-shop factory more than
it does a school—about five minutes later. Pegeen parks the car in
the lot, which is filled with shiny Lexuses, Volvos, and Cadillacs,
plus a smattering of minivans and trucks that all sport multiple
bumper stickers with odd sayings like “I Brake For Vikings,”
“Fighters Do It In Chainmail,” and “Do Not Tailgate The Dragon, For
You Are Meaty and Taste Good With Ketchup.”

Pegeen opens the creaking trunk of her Tercel and
pulls out a huge black cloak with faux-fur lining. She pulls it
around her plump frame until it covers her loud Renaissance outfit
completely, making her look like a much wider version of Arwen in
Lord of the Rings.
I have to admit—the dark, velvety cloak
makes Pegeen look magical.

“Wow,” I say, staring. “Where’d you get that?”

“Oh, Arundel bought it for me from a merchant at the
Springtide Day Festival and Feast last month. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s very nice. But aren’t you hot? It’s
going to be like, eighty-five degrees today.”

“Oh, they have air conditioning inside, don’t
worry.”

“But they didn’t have air conditioning during the
Middle Ages,” I said. “Did they?”

Pegeen laughs. “Lisa, one thing you need to learn
about SCA is that we recreate the Middle Ages not as they
were
, but as they
should
have been. And there
definitely
should
have been air conditioning back then. And
cars, too.” Pegeen slams the trunk of her Tercel shut. “Only in
SCA, cars are called
dragons
.”

“Cars are dragons?” I don’t know whether to laugh or
nod in bewilderment. I decide it’s probably safer to nod.

“One more thing, Lees. For the rest of the day, my
name is not Pegeen. So don’t call me Pegeen, okay?”

“What should I call you?”

“Pegonia ap Wihommenneesdattir de Tyre.”

I blink. “Pegonia ap
what
?”

“Well, just Pegonia is okay, I guess. Let’s go,
Lees. You’re going to have so much
fun!”

****

We enter Neil Armstrong High School and follow some
hand-lettered paper signs marked with “SCA THIS WAY” up and down
the linoleum hallways until we find the gymnasium. There are
several people of varying ages milling around the gym entrance, all
wearing medieval clothing of varying quality. And when I say
“varying quality”, I mean that one attractive youngish woman sports
an elaborately crafted red-velvet English Tudor garment worthy of
Queen Elizabeth I, while a few feet away, a portly middle-aged man
wears something that looks like a stapled-together burlap sack over
a T-shirt and bluejeans.

It must be pretty obvious to everyone that I’m a
newbie, because before I have time to look around any more, the
youngish woman in the Queen Elizabeth I outfit saunters right up to
me and starts pumping my hand.

“Good tidings, good tidings, milady!” Queen
Elizabeth sputters in a fake British accent.

“Huh?”

“That means ‘hello’ around here, dear,” Queen
Elizabeth says in a more normal voice. “You see, we speak
forsoothly
in the S-C-A.” (Instead of pronouncing it “skah”
like Pegeen/Pegonia does, Queen Elizabeth spells the abbreviation
out—‘ess-see-ay’, with a slight lisp on the ‘ess.’)

Now I’m even more lost. “Um, what does
forsoothly
mean?” It sounds like some kind of tooth
disease.

“It means to speak in the manner of courtly
love.”

I have no idea what that means, either. So I just
shrug. This doesn’t seem to impress Queen Elizabeth.

“Well, it certainly seems you’ve got a lot to
learn!” Queen Elizabeth beams. “You’re Pegonia ap
Wihommenneesdattir de Tyre’s friend, aren’t you?”

I just nod. I’m not about to try pronouncing
Pegeen’s SCA name.

“Yes, she told me you’d be coming. Why don’t I help
you get settled in?”

“Uhhh, okay,” I stammer. I look around desperately
for Pegeen, but my best friend had disappeared.

“First, we need to get you garbed,” Queen Elizabeth
explains. “What period do you think you’d like to wear?”

I draw a blank. “Uh, what did you say?”

“I said, what
period
do you think you’d like
to wear?”

Period? What does she mean,
wear
a
period?

I decide to hazard a guess. “Uhhh, I’m not having my
period right now. Is that a problem?” I blurt, not knowing what
else to say. But when I see Queen Elizabeth’s lips purse like an
old-maid schoolteacher, I know that’s probably the wrong
answer.

Queen Elizabeth just laughs. “Oh, not
that
kind of period, dear.
Time
period. Do you want to be Norman
England, early Viking, Italian Renaissance? Tudor? Cavalier?”

“Uhhh—“

Queen Elizabeth smiles gently and folds her hands
onto her bodice’s padded waist. Her growing impatience is obvious,
and she sighs. “How about I just give you one of our general
‘medieval fantasy’ outfits? Those aren’t necessarily tied to a
specific time period. That way, you can experience several at once,
which might help you in developing your own S-C-A persona.”

I still don’t understand much of what Queen
Elizabeth is saying, but figure feigning agreement is the best way
to go. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take one of those general fantasy-whatever
things.”

“Wonderful! Let’s see then. You’re pretty slender,
and your bosom is on the small side—I bet you’ll look great in a
corset. And a nice, full skirt. That would definitely give you a
nice shape. How about that?”

“Okay, sure, whatever,” I shrug. I keep looking
around for Pegeen, but all I can see are a bunch of burly-looking
men carrying huge wooden sticks covered with duct tape and wearing
suits of homemade armor that resemble modified garbage cans.

Queen Elizabeth rummages around in a couple of
cardboard boxes stashed under a folding table. “You know dear, most
S-C-A folk aren’t quite as thin and petite as you are, so we tend
to only have larger sizes in our Gold Key garb supply. But it does
look like I have
one
piece that will fit you nicely, and it
just so happens to fall into the ‘general medieval fantasy’
category. Here we are.”

Queen Elizabeth pulls out a garish hot-pink
polyester taffeta dress spackled with sequins from one of her boxes
and holds it out towards me. “This is one of our most popular gowns
in the Gold Key booth. Many, many young women have worn this one
over the years at their first events. The corset is built from a
McDonald’s pickle-storage barrel. Isn’t that clever? I must say,
it’s not necessarily the prettiest garb you’ll see here today, but
it’ll do for you to wear around as a newbie.”

I stare at the bizarre garment, thinking I’d rather
walk around naked all day than be caught wearing something made out
of a fast-food container.

Queen Elizabeth shakes the costume at me, urging me
to take it. I snatch it from her and hold out the filmy hot-pink
dress material between two fingers.

“Gee,” I say. “Well. Thank you, uh, I guess. Is this
corset thing really made out of a
pickle barrel
?” I notice
the dress’ corset top does have a vaguely fast-food type of smell.
Like pickles. And hamburger grease.

Yummy.

“Oh yes, indeed,” Queen Elizabeth replies. “Lots of
S-C-A folks use those McDonald’s pickle barrels to make costumes
and armor and such. You’ll see that as you watch the fighters. It’s
amazing what you can do with that pickle-barrel material. It’s so
strong, yet
so
flexible!”

“Oh. Well. That’s nice,” I mutter. “So, where do I
change?”

Queen Elizabeth smiles broadly back. “I’m
so
glad the garb will work out for you! There’s an empty classroom
right down the hall to your left—you can change in there and lock
up your personal belongings there, too—here’s a key. When you’re
changed, we’ll take care of your registration and then you’ll
officially be admitted to the Blood and Roses Tournament!”