Rick
August 3, 1999. 2:04 a.m. I have my voluptuous bottom planted in front of my incredible Windows 98 PC. I have been scouring the interwebs for the past few hours looking for any and all deliciously lewd Sailor Moon images. All the best ones are on sites filled with those Japanese letters… I wonder what they are saying to the me. I try to save this one delicious image, but my stupid computer has run out of space… Drat. Come ON! I bash my fist against the table and hurt my pinky. This hard drive is 300 megabytes big! How could I have run out already!? 300 MB is like infinite memory! Ugh! Fine! Stupid greedy companies… Sigh…
I open my homework folder and begin rummaging through which things I should remove… I cannot remove my comic idea sheets. They must stay. My poetry must stay as well. My old sweetheart’s emails must stay as well. They are the key to everything… my only remaining tie to the one true sweetheart. If only I could find her again, I could refill my Heart Meter and fix everything. My motivations would be through the roof. I would get the motivation to lose weight. I could even start cooking if she came back to me… though she could just be playing hard to get. I am sure if I read through her emails again, I can find a hint to her whereabouts. I just hope she’s not with any jerkops or manajerks… wait! No! That would be perfect! I could use that opportunity to save her and win her heart that way!
What was I doing? Oh yes, deleting the old porno. Hmmm… Which character could I delete… Chibusa’s staying. The blondes are staying… I cannot delete any of them. They’re all too adorable and perfect. They are the true warriors of peace and love and kindness and beautiful female femininity. As I browse through my collection, my hand slithers downward and I start doin’ the hankypanky again. They’re so cute and strong and nice… Everyone loves them and they’re so cute to each other. I wonder what a genderbent version of Sailor Moon would be like… my nipples enharden and I stop immediately. No. No. No. That’s bad. Those demons still exist within me… Why have not I purged them yet!? AGH! I pinch my nipples to try and squeeze the evil homo out of me, but that just makes me more crazy. Why did I even think of that!? A male Sailor Moon would be awful! They would all be aggressive and mean and smelly! No one would watch that! They wouldn’t look cute at all in those outfits either!!!!! No one would watch such a disgusting show… Everyone loves girls way more! And why shouldn’t they!? Girls are so much nicer and cleaner because they were made that way by God-Jesus.
As I continue hankying myself, my brain starts to think… I can feel the inner wheels of my mind begin to spin like hedgehogs. Wait a second… I’m just your average joe. I hate men because they’re nasty. Everyone else hates me because I’m a man… but I’m not. I’m not smelly or aggressive. I respect women and their friendship and their hobbies. All my friends are women too. I scroll through image after image after image of lesbian Sailor Moon art. They look so happy… so excited… so pure. Girl relationships are just better. So, so much better. I also like My Little Pony… but that’s for girls… so… maybe I’m a girl. All the math checks out! I like lesbians, My Little Pony, and anime girls… Hold on! I scroll over to a drawing of Regina; my beautiful female half, that I drew last week and gaze into it with all my psychic might before closing my beautiful mud eyes.
I imagine myself as Regina… The high voice, the delicious curvy hips, the big bountiful breasts… I imagine myself doing the hanky panky with my sweetheart… and it is beautiful. I start to cry just thinking about it. Everyone would be nice to me and I could go to all my galpal sleepovers no problem. If only I were born a girl… I could touch bouncy boobers any time I wanted. I think I might just get too distracted by my body. Just as I start to think about how cute I’d look and getting all the lesbian china I want, I feel my body relax and my pants get wet.
Hoo boy hoo man that was nice. Beyond nice. I had never felt a feeling like that. Lights are going off all over my head. I have never felt as happy like this before. Okay except for that time I got that Transformers lego set. Wait… do I have to let go of Transformers if I’m a girl? No no no no. That cannot be. Wait. Tomboys exist! Yeah! I can just be a tomboy! Best of both worlds babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Let me see here… How to become a girl… What is this mystical link? Click. I can hypnotize myself? Listen to these stereo beats and your brain will rewire itself to adjust your body into the one you desire. What!? How did I not know about these!? I must listen to these at once!
Sejong
November 27th, 2007. 3:41 p.m. We took yet another break in Angela’s room. Lied about for a bit, collected ourselves, and changed clothes. I changed my appearance once more before Angela shot us back in. After a minute of stomach churning movement, we pop out of a manhole cover and plop on our butts by some pool. There’s a small TV monitor hovering next to us. It looks clunky, grey, and has a huge spinning antenna off the top, but it’s working. It’s even playing some old looking show that I do not recognize. It’s black and white and live action. Never thought a person like Rick would be into old soaps, but then again the less I know about Rick, the better. Behind us is a big, generic-looking office building with sliding glass doors leading outside on every floor. That’s… dangerous, but intriguing. May have to save that for a later painting.
There’s some women and girls chilling by the pool having fun. A lot of fun. The kind of fun that gets the F.B.I. involved. Each one has a different colored bikini that defies all physics and gravity to cling to their flesh. Well… bikini is a tad generous. It looks more like ribbons made of rubber. All the women are also exceedingly shiny. There’s this blinding sheen on their cleavage, armpits, and knees. This and Angela’s commissions make me wonder if armpit fetishes are genetic.
I do my best to ignore it and just stare out into the adjacent beach. Yes, there is a pool beside a beach. I’ve already learned not to question things. I understand that human brains are hard-wired to find sense in nonsense, but some things you just have to let go.
The horizon is gorgeous. Despite being only three o’ clock, the sea appears to be stuck in a perpetual sunset. The blue of the sea and orange of the sky blend perfectly… and the water moves with a style and bounciness that just isn’t possible in real life. It looks lifelike, but better. More animated. How is it that out of everything in this realm, Rick chooses to make the water look great? There’s also a plethora of little sea creatures waddling across the sand and swimming lazily in the ocean. Each one has a different color scheme, number of legs, and manner of speech. Some speak in fluent English, some in broken Spanish, some in butchered Ebonics. Others just repeat one word over and over again. They don’t look suitable for life at all, but they’re endlessly fascinating to me. I could never have come up with these designs in a million years. He doesn’t understand proportions, anatomy, color theory, or scale, but he managed to make the most stunning ocean I’ve ever seen in any medium. It isn’t fair… but that means he’s not completely insane. He could live happily as an artist if he just put a little more effort into practicing. There’s potential here… He has the passion for great art… that makes this whole ordeal all the more frustrating.
“So, Angela. What’s the plan?” I look over to her to see her looking back at the girls playing in the pool. I don’t know what emotion is on her face and I don’t want to know. Josh and Vivian are just staring out at the sunset. Viv manages a smile. Josh looks tired. Old and tired. I nudge Angela. She doesn’t respond. I muster up the courage and deliver a light jab to Angela’s elbow. “Angela!”
“Bwah!” Angela spins back around to face me. “Sorry. Hmmm…” she glances back at the girls before looking back at me. “I was thinking the high school.”
“Why the hell would anyone put school in their power fantasy world?” Vivian asks without looking away from the sunset.
“Because he peaked in high school.” Angela shrugs.
“That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.” Vivian chuckles. “Any ideas on how we get there?”
“School bus.” Angela points her thumb to the building behind us. “It’s the only way he knows how to get to school.”
“Right.” Vivian takes a deep breath. “Shall we get goi-”
The floating tv monitor beside us starts beeping and a red exclamation mark flashes across the screen. “Warning. Warning. We have an emergency broadcast from the True and Honest Mayor: Rick Cobb. Now displaying.”
The feed cuts to Rick sitting behind his desk with his palms laid flat against the desk. He looks away from the camera every few seconds. The video is caked in this gross yellow light that makes the background look like it's doused in moldy lemonade. The intensity of the light and lack of shutter focus makes Rick appear much darker. I can barely see his face. The audio quality sounds on par with a laser disk. If you don’t know what a laser disk is, good. I can’t tell if the video quality is better or worse than last time. He managed to follow the rule of thirds this time, but he introduced a light that just makes the video unpleasant to look at. There’s also this low tone in the background… I feel like I’m watching a snuff film.
He licks his lips and begins speaking. “Citizens of Rickville… after the most recent singing challenge… I’m sure some false, slanderous lies will be popping up against - about me. I’m here to squash those in the butt right here, right now. I’m here to tell you for real - for true - that I am straight. I will tell you why from my life story in a few short minutes.”
“Aaaaaw yeah.” Vivian starts clapping and pivots towards the tv. “Let’s go!”
Rick continues. “Anyway, most of my friends in my life have been female. I have had very few male acquaintances and they definitely turned me off from a majority of them because they are rude, crude, and inconsiderate; causing wars and such. Women however… are so sweet and kind and you don’t have to look at any in the nude to not - to see - not to - to see the attraction, beauty in each and every wonderful women. Each of them, the majority of them have caring qualities. Me and them just want to be understood, and I understand the ladies. I understand the women.” he takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair. “But I do not need to fall or stoop down to the level where my hormones would be in a rage to appreciate them as being my galpals. Anyway, getting to the women, you can definitely see… the sheer brilliance of their delightful personalities between every one of them…” Rick closes his eyes and grasps at invisible… things in the air. “Granted, some of them can turn and not be nice, but we have to learn to abide by them. Even if they act in a harsh nature, they still care about the men in their lives. Especially the children that she and her husband pushed together. The same way that I would push a child with my future sweetheart. Never gonna give you uuuuup.”
Rick sinks into his chair and glances to the side. “I assure you I am straight. Any man would be crazy or even ignorant to not recognize women’s outer beauty, but I appreciate the inner beauty more.” Rick looks down and holds up a lewd magazine to the camera. “And Playboy has been able to help me to better relate and appreciate the female species, the women, the beautiful ladies.” he moans and rubs his thumbs over the nipples on the magazine cover. “But I digress, because I do not need magazines to prove that I am straight because I am educated through my lifetime and sex ed in high school and my ins and outs of my sweetheart search. I am straight because I care about every woman I have come across. I would even go as far as to stoop to one low level…” Rick’s eyes grow wide. “Boobies.”
Vivian, Josh, and even Angela start having a laughing fit. They sound like a pack of hyenas.
Rick continues. “Chinas…” he moans. “Gorgeous… very gorgeous. I’m straight. I love the women. Outside and inside. That should be enough to prove that I am straight… even to those who dare say otherwise. If you do say otherwise… If I were not a baptized man… I would tell you to go to hell, but I won’t because I am more kind than you think. Anyway, peace and love. Bye now.” By the end of his speech, he looked significantly worse than when he started. His already greasy hair now looked glued on. Enormous pit stains spilled down to his hips. How does one have performance anxiety to a crowd of creations that love you unconditionally? I do not comprehend.”
Vivian, Josh, and Angela finally stop laughing after two more minutes. Vivian has to wipe tears from her red eyes. Josh is clutching his stomach with his normal, smug smile restored. Angela is still chuckling silently to herself.
“Okay.” Vivian takes a deep breath. “Now that is the most depressing thing I’ve heard.” She coughs. “He’s totally gay, right? That just screams hardcore repression right there.”
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“I…” Angela purses her lips. “I honestly can’t tell. He doesn’t comprehend gender, sex, or other people the same way we do.”
“How so?” I tilt my head.
“Buddy. Pal. Sejong. Dude.” Angela gets up and offers me her hand. “There is not enough time in the world for me to explain all that. The best I can do is theory craft, but we’d be here all day. Come on. We got a bus to catch.”
Angela
November 27th, 2007. 4:09 p.m. We waited a little while by the bus stop and sure enough a bright yellow school bus came along and picked us up. There were a bunch of other human kids on the bus. Each of them was either decked out in a fresh tux or a beautiful flowing dress. The bus driver was yet another hedgehog who was aggressively tapping a ‘No Hanky Panky’ sign beside his seat the whole ride. The students were mostly talking nonsense. They all sounded like background noise from students on some highschool drama show. None of the conversations were coherent either. They all consisted of them just asking each other questions or just constant compliments about how beautiful everyone is.
Wait a sec… I… I recognize everyone on the bus. Maya, Jason, Sabrina, Regina, Jessica, Catherine, Alec, Joshua, Miranda, Tiffany, Sarah. Holy crap… What the hell… I sit down with my team in the back of the bus and just try to ignore the rest of the bitches.
“You okay, Angie?” Josh wraps his arm around me.
“No…” I sigh. “Everyone in this bus is based off some bitch-ass I went to highschool with.”
“What do you mean?” Sejong looks at the assholes. “Are they identical in terms of personality? Appearance? Both?”
“Appearance.” I rest my head on Josh’s bountiful pec and feel a little better. “They all look exactly the same as they did senior year. Don’t like it one bit.”
“They aren’t Rick’s friends are they?” Vivian asks and pokes one Catherine in the back of the head repeatedly.
Catherine does not respond.
“Friends?” I shake my head. “Hell no. All these people got paid to hang with Rick.”
“Okay…” Vivian pats my head. “Now that’s the most depressing thing I’ve heard all day.”
“How did they get paid?” Sejong examines the frill of one of the bitch’s dresses.
“Sabrina, Sarah, and Jessica got paid by my dad each time they hung out with him. Think the rate was like $40 a playdate. Catherine and Miranda had lunch with him occasionally out of pity. Alec and Joshua were told they would be able to graduate if they let him play basketball with them.”
“Yikes…” Vivian falls back in her seat. “What about the two in the front left row?”
“That’s Mary and Regina.” I sigh and close my eyes. “Mary was Rick’s first crush. She’d hang out with him after school every day to play cards and watch anime.”
“Was she paid too?” Vivian asks.
“Not… initially.” I keep my eyes closed.
“What’s that mean?” Sejong asks.
“I think she genuinely liked hanging out with him at first. She was kinda weird too. Things got dicey with Rick when he started rubbing up on her and trying to kiss her in public.”
“Mmm…” Vivian sounds ready to vom. “Yeah… that’ll do it.”
“Yeah… the comics he drew of him fingerblasting her didn’t help either.” I chuckle.
Vivian sounds like a broken whoopie cushion. “Can I see that? Does that comic still exist?”
“Probably. You’d have to dig around in his room to find it though.”
“Never mind. I’m good.” Vivian takes a deep breath. “So what made her stop hanging out with him?”
“It could’ve been anything honestly.” I sigh. “Eventually, she just hung out with him so that he would buy her stuff.”
“How the hell did he get money?” Josh rubs his hand over mine… I needed that. So. So much.
“He didn’t. Used my mom’s credit card.” I yawn and open my eyes.
“Oooooh.” my team nods in unison.
“Yeup. She got some good manga, dolls, and nazi memorabilia out of him.”
“I’m sorry some what?” Vivian suppresses a new laughing fit.
“Told you. She was weird too. Wasn’t a nazi - alledgely - but had a real hard on for them.”
“Is anyone that associates with your family decent?” Josh asks.
“Nope. My family ruins everything they touch…”
“I see…” Vivian looks around the bus. “What about the girl next to her? The one with the big tits.”
“That’s Regina.” I sigh. “Rick’s rule 63 version of himself.”
“O… kay…” Vivian wheezes. “Um… did you hang out with any of these people in high school?”
Wry laughter blurts out of my lips. “Nah. Kinda hard to make friends when you’re the sibling of the school tard.”
“Angela.” Sejong scolds me.
“Their words.” I point to the rest of the passengers. “Not mine.”
“I take it high school sucked for you then?” Vivian asks.
“Yeeeeeup.” I hold Josh’s hand and run my thumb along his knuckles. “I just kinda laid low, did my best, and tried to distance myself from him as much as I could for four years. The best part was actually when my dad died.”
“Angela…” Sejong tried to scold me, but sounded too sad to convey anything resembling discontent. “I’m so sorry… what’d he die of?”
“Overdosed on fentanyl a week after Rick graduated.”
“Oh my god… Angela, I’m so sorry.” Sejong looks down at the floor.
“Ah, don’t be.” I laugh. “My dad was a bitch. He deserved it. You should’ve seen him on the ambulance bed. Looked like a crap-stained potato sack.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sejong looks me dead in the eye. He’s trying really hard to look tough, but it ain’t working. I’ve seen that look too many times to care. “He’s your father… how could you be so callous?”
“He was a racist, mangy old kook who lived with a daughter he hated, a wife who kept yelling at him and stealing his money, and just about the worst son anyone could have ever asked for. OD’ing was the nicest death the bastard could’ve wished for. I woulda done the same thing if I was him. Why should I feel anything for him?”
“Just…” Sejong leans back. He blinks and his eyes dart around the bus for a split sec. Yeah, bitch. That’s what I thought. “Surely he must have done something nice…”
“He did actually. Managed to pay off the home mortgage and leave a nice little nest egg for my mom.”
“Isn’t that worth something?” Sejong pleads.
“It would be if my mom didn’t blow it all on a cruise for herself, a lawyer to get an assault charge wiped from Rick’s record, an extravagant funeral, and if she didn’t take out a reverse mortgage the second the funeral was over.”
“I…” Sejong closes his eyes and falls back in his chair like a deflated balloon. “Never mind… Sorry…”
“Mom made me get a part-time job just so she could feed her hoarding habit too.”
“Okay. Okay… sorry. Just, forget I said anything.” Sejong looks down at the floor and crosses his arms.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Josh rubs my head. “How’s about we change the subject? Vivian, how was school for you?”
“Eh?” Vivian perks up and looks at Josh. “It was… certainly school. Went to the same catholic school my mom did when she was a kid, took some AP classes, slept through about half of em, coasted by on a mix of As and Bs. Nothing noteworthy. Pretty boring.”
“Any friends back at high school?” Josh asks.
“Nope.” Vivian shakes her head. “Never went to any of the festivals or dances either.”
“Aw, come on, really? You didn’t have any friends? I find that hard to believe.” Josh continues.
“More like acquaintances. We’d chat sometimes during lunch or whenever they needed help on an assignment. Never really texted outside of school though. Still haven’t heard from any of them.” she shrugs.
“Seriously? Did you try texting them?”
“Yeah.” Vivian nods. “Never got a reply. Not really butthurt over it. Didn’t really mesh with anyone at my school.”
“That seems so weird… how big was your school?”
“400 students across all four grades.” Vivian burps. “Woo, ‘scuse me. Plus like, half my class got expelled freshman year for being idiots.”
“Oooh… oooh yeah that’s small. Never mind. I get it.” Josh stretches, but I hang onto his arm.
“Heh, if you think that’s bad, my elementary school was K through 8 and only had 250 kids.”
“Jesus Christ.” Josh’s arms fall back around me where they belong. “That’s a cult size.”
“Haha… yeah… catholic schools are weird, man.” Vivian laughs and adjusts her hair. “What about you, Josh?”
“Never got to finish.” Josh grins. “Got expelled halfway through.”
“The hell did you do?” I ask. “Did you get caught dealing Neo Weed?”
“Nah.” Josh chuckles and shakes his head. “The story’s waaay dumber. Some douchebag brings his dad’s glock to school and tries to shoot it up. I pop him in the head with my own piece, no one else dies, and suddenly I’m the bad guy.”
Vivian and I giggle. “Seriously? Aw that sucks dude.” I look up at him. “What happened after?”
“Got tried as an adult cause I was eighteen at the time, got ten years, only spent two months in cause I broke out.”
“Oooh… you never told me that.” I grin. “Mr. Badboy here. How’d you escape?”
“Well…” Josh rubs the back of his head. “I met Faust there. She helped a little.”
Everyone falls silent again. I cough. Sejong looks out the window. Vivian starts picking her nails. Josh looks up at the ceiling.
“So…” I look over at Sejong. “How was your high school experience?”
“Really nice.” Sejong’s eyes look ready to cry, but his smile is genuine. “Made a lot of good friends that I still talk to, had my first kiss, had an amazing prom, listened to some fun drama, aced all my art classes, and met the best teachers I ever had. It was wonderful.”
“Good for you.” I smile and nod. “Good for you.”
“Jesus Christ.” Josh looks out the window to the left and points. “What the hell’s going on?”
Me, Vivian, and Sejong all press our faces against the window and see an angry mob of hedgehogs swarming around a body chained up against a brick wall. I squint my eyes and see that the body is Yellow Rickichu. Several holes of varying size, shape, and width line his bloody corpse. There’s waaay more holes in his pelvis than anywhere else.
The hedgehogs around him chant, “Ching chong the chink is dead! Which old chink? The wicked chink! Ching chong the chink is finally deeeeead woooo!” The hedgehogs prance and skip around the corpse waving power drills as if they were sparklers.
“Still don’t wanna kill him?” I nudge Sejong’s shoulder.
Sejong just sighs and melts into his seat.