The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever (5 page)

In the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee,
Freddy—Foul Odor—Smith worked his still. Pigs found him offensive.
That was because Foul Odor never bathed.

A few good old boys, on the lam from the
Tennessee authorities, had become semi-permanent residents of South
Carolina, and they had a standing order for the smelly one's
product. It was during Foul Odor's March moonshine foray to Myrtle
Beach that Mercury possessed him—not always an easy task since most
mortals couldn't be possessed, and even at its easiest, possession
was exhausting work. Then, with Mercury at the controls, they
checked into an eighth floor room at the Strand Princess.

What I need is a drink to steady my nerves,
Mercury thought. But before long—after numerous swigs from Foul
Odor's jug—he wasn't thinking too clearly. No reason why I
shouldn't have a good time with The Princess before I show her to
the exit.

* * *

A week after her triumph at the indoor tennis
championship, Betty-Jo came close to finding a man—thanks to the
efforts of Venus and Mercury—but Foul Odor Smith was the deadly,
not the loveable variety of man she was looking for.

She was doing fill-in housekeeping at The
Princess when a foul smelling, pot-bellied, redneck blew his nose
on a pillowcase and staggered over to her. It was eleven A.M., but
the redneck was already seriously polluted.

"You and me is gonna have some fun now,
honey," he said.

"If it's a fun time you're looking for, why
don't you go out back and goose a chicken?"

The redneck gave her a lopsided leer. "Ah
already got me a chick—and you're it!"

"So now you're thinking it'll soon be happy
as a pig-in-clover time for you, 'cause you get to be the pig."

"Shud your face!" he said, closing on her as
she backed away.

If I humor the porker, I wonder if he'll
leave? "Don't you think the world would be a better place if you
stopped trying to add branches to your family tree?" she
quipped.

"I'm warning you. Shud-up and strip!"

"Listen to me—then think for a moment. 'I'm
not your type.'

"What d' yuh mean yuh ain't ma type?"

"'I'm not inflatable.'"

Unfortunately, Foul Odor was between Betty-Jo
and the door. "You oinker!" she yelled, you've shoved your snout
into the wrong trough this time." She tried to escape over the bed
but he cornered her and ripped off her blouse and skirt. Then he
pulled down her bra and stared at her breasts in disbelief.

She was so shocked by the speed and ferocity
of the attack that she neglected to scream.

He yanked her hair and snarled, "On your
knees!"

Betty-Jo's presence of mind struggled back,
with an idea that might give her a chance. "If you won't hurt me,
I'll do something for you that I know you'll really like," she
said. She sank to the floor, her head at the level of his crotch.
Then she made a fist with her right hand, and a lid for it with her
left. "Lift the lid on the garbage can," she said."

Amazingly, he did.

She jabbed her fist upward as hard as she
could. The blow may have been lucky, but it served its purpose.
Foul Odor howled in pain and staggered backward clutching his
groin.

"Oh, oh. You're gonna be one irate piggy
now," she said.

"You bitch! I'll teach yuh t' mess with
me!"

Betty-Jo should have known better, but she
couldn't resist one last dig. "Listen! I'm sure you've been told
that you're not fit to sleep with pigs. But I'd stand up for you.
'Oh yes you are!'"

Foul Odor was still between her and the door,
so she retreated to the balcony. She could feel her heart pounding
as he closed on her. There was no escape, but she tried anyway. She
climbed over the balcony railing, and started to shinny down the
outside. Perhaps I can swing to the balcony below. It was a good
idea—for Tarzan maybe, but it didn't work for her. She could hear
the porker wheezing above her, and looked up; he was looming over
her, his piggy eyes leering. Then he knelt down and tried to pry
her fingers from the bars.

I don't believe it! This pig's trying to kill
me!

When finger prying didn't work, he stood up
and gave her fingers a vicious kick. She screamed, and let go of
the bar with one hand.

Fear engulfed her. She looked down at the
concrete, eight stories below, and fought to hold on with her other
hand, but the pain in her fingers was excruciating—her grip was
failing.

At least my panties are presentable, she
thought—and then, I'm insane! Why am I worrying about my undies at
a time like this?

Foul Odor drew back his foot for a final,
lethal kick.

The
Mystery Hero

Fight it Tiger, Betty-Jo could hear her daddy
[Victor] saying. No second chances this time. I have to be tough
like my tiger Ben-Gal or I'm going to be dead like Hoffa, and if
I'm dead like Hoffa, who'll take care of daddy and brother
Eddie?

She screamed. Then she screamed again, and
again, and again.

"Shud-up, yah bitch!" Foul Odor backed away
from the balcony railing and the unwanted attention Betty-Jo was
attracting.

* * *

When the hotel guests heard screams, they
looked up and saw a garter-belted and nearly naked Betty-Jo
clinging to a balcony railing with one hand. One longhaired guy,
with the sun directly behind Betty-Jo, thought he saw an angel. He
told an elderly woman to go for help and then raced into the hotel
and up eight flights of stairs. On the eighth floor he kicked open
the door to the room that the screams were coming from. Then he ran
onto the balcony, leaned over the railing, grasped the angel's
wrist, and started to lift her to safety.

"Don't worry, beautiful angel," he said. "I
have you. You'll soon be safe." But as he eased Betty-Jo up the
outside of the railing, Foul Odor attacked. The young man kicked
backward, catching Foul Odor on the shin. That slowed him down, but
only for a minute—he came at the guy again and hammered him.

* * *

The distraught matron hurried to Victor
Chance's office and blurted out what was happening on The
Princess's eighth-floor balcony. Victor grabbed his Louisville
Slugger and charged up the stairs to room 808—there, on the
balcony, a longhaired guy was struggling to hold onto Betty-Jo
while a fat slob assaulted him.

The first swing of Victor's bat shattered the
Foul Odor's jaw; the second crushed his kneecap.

* * *

Mercury—who until the first swing of the bat
had been enjoying himself—couldn't handle the pain. He gave up
possession of Foul Odor, and forgot about his fishing excursion to
eliminate Brad—but he promised himself that Victor Chance would pay
for the pain he had been in, and for his failure to kill The
Princess.

* * *

Betty-Jo, sobbing and distraught, clung to
her daddy as he wrapped a blanket around her. "Thank God you're
okay," Victor said. Then he carried her to her room and held
her.

After dinner he said, "Tiger, don't let one
SOB make you fearful of men. There are many fine men out there, and
you'll find one that's right for you."

"But how will I know when I've found a good
one?"

Victor grinned and stroked her hair. "Check
his teeth."

She smiled for the first time since the
attack. "That works with horses, but you know it won't work with
men."

"Trust me, you'll know the right guy when he
comes along. Who knows, maybe the fellow who saved you is your kind
of guy. He's strong enough, and he's a fearless fool. Too bad he
has so much hair."

She was suddenly mad at herself. "I forgot
about the fellow who saved me. I have to thank him!"

"I tried to find him, but he's disappeared.
He isn't staying at The Princess, and nobody knows where he came
from. He's a mystery hero."

"He's my mystery hero! If he'd arrived any
later I would have fallen. I owe him my life.

As the evening wore on, and her shock and
fear subsided, Victor became cheerier. "I expect the sight of your
garter belt will ensure the return of the men who were lounging by
the pool when you started to scream. Do that once a week we'll
never have a vacancy problem. Problem is, you scared the hell out
of me."

Her smile started and then hesitated. "I
scared myself as well. I must have been quite a sight. I wish I'd
worn pantyhose, although I'm really not a pantyhose kind of
girl."

"Your mother didn't have much use for
pantyhose either." He gave her a goodnight kiss on the forehead.
"Love you, Tiger," he said.

* * *

Four hundred light years away, on Olympus,
Venus had moved her hand under her silver lamé gown when Foul
Odor's assault on Betty-Jo began. Then she watched gleefully as The
Princess dangled from the balcony railing. But when it became
apparent that Princess Betty-Jo was going to live, the love goddess
grabbed Old Hairball by the scruff of the neck, and flung him at a
marble statue.

"Damn it!" she snarled as she disconnected
Mercury, "I almost pulled it off. Would have, if Mercury wasn't
wedded to witless! How could he have botched such an easy
assignment? Next time—if he wants to stay healthy—he'd better be
rowing with both oars in the water."

She unsheathed her nail file. On second
thought, maybe the idiot's incompetence is for the best. Now I'll
have time to make Raiden fall for the wench. Then I can bask in his
agony when she perishes.

Something
Bad

Brad's slap shot froze the goalie. Wish it
were that easy to score with the honeys, he thought. Then he got
real. Forget about scoring, my friend. Your life depends on just
getting a date for the formal.

The nineteen-year-old Trojan star raised his
arms in a celebration that was quickly curtailed by a late hit that
slammed him into the boards.

"Bloody Neanderthals!"

The Empire Canada College Trojans, or 'Safe
Sexers' as they'd been labeled by opponents, had advanced easily to
the March '94 final of the All Ontario School Championship. They
were once again playing Blessed Sepulcher, and once again they were
suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of a team that thought
'skill' was some kind of circular saw.

What can you do? Good thing Coach Wylie isn't
at this game, or he'd be clawing back my scholarship. The $20,000 a
year scholarship he'd been given to play hockey at Coastal Carolina
University was crucial. A university degree would make his mother
happy, and the hockey experience would move him one step closer to
his dream of playing in the NHL.

A bursary had enabled him to attend Empire
Canada College. His father, Rupert, was the Anglican Archbishop of
Toronto, so his family didn't have the mega-bucks that his pal's
families had. And while nobody lorded their money over him, like
Avis, he tried harder, to the point of being almost fanatical about
his hockey. But his real motivation to excel stemmed not from a
lack of money, but from his adoption. It made no sense, but a part
of him needed to prove that his birth mother had made a terrible
mistake when she'd abandoned him.

"The lack of women in my life is pathetic,"
he told his cat, PussCat. "I've been spending too much time with my
hockey, and too little time with the honeys. Good thing I'm not a
rabbit—I'd be a disgrace to my warren. Hell, I don't even have a
date for the formal. Time to make some changes in my life."

The graduation dinner and dance at the Royal
York Hotel was the social highlight of the year, and he desperately
needed a date for it. Fortunately, the Sheik—Brad's best friend and
the Trojan goalie—had set him straight about his predicament. "Have
you just arrived on this planet," he wanted to know? "It's suicide
to appear too eager with women. Like a deer can sense danger in the
forest, women can sense desperation in men—and they don't like it.
You can't act like you're afraid you're gonna miss the last
bus."

So for two weeks, Chad went into a
no-fear-of-missing-the-last-bus mode while he compiled a top-ten
list of possibles.

Number one on his list was Sandra
Manderville. Sandy was bewitching, but even better, she was
probably bad. It was in the way she wagged her tail—definitely
naughty, probably bad. In any event, she was something a guy could
look forward to.

It was an apprehensive Chad who finally
picked up the phone to call Sandy. And so he should have been,
because Sandy was number-one on every guy's list. As Nike would
say, 'Just Do It', he thought. Something bad, here I come.

"Hi, Sandy, Brad here."

"Brad?"

"Right! Brad Raiden. You must be religious
because your prayers have just been answered. I'm your date for the
ECC formal."

"Everyone's a comedian today. An hour ago
some guy called, and told me I'd just won a fabulous
prize—him!"

"Not everyday you're twice blessed."

"And now that I've been blessed by you, Mr.
Raiden, would you mind telling me something?"

"What?"

"Have we met?"

A
Barracuda for a Minnow?

Have we met? I'm dead meat. I'm toast. I'm
dead meat on toast. Even Lucky Ducky can't save me now. "We met at
the Regalford Girl's dance.... You, uh, danced with me....
Actually, we were on the dance floor chatting, and I told you that
you were lookin' fine. Then some guy cut in."

"I remember the guy who cut in," Sandy
said.

I don't believe this. "Listen, I'm tall, I
have long, light-brown hair and..."

"'That don't impress me much'—especially the
long hair bit—but the guy you were with was kind of cute."