Editor Walt here. One of our consistently hilarious contributors, Martti Nelson, has a new book out. It’s a wild adventure that manages to do the near-impossible task of satirizing a genre while still highlighting all the things we love about it. Martti was kind enough to let us run a short excerpt from the new book below:
Chapter Six: The Princess Diarrhea-ies
Our heroine, Sophie, has woken up in the second rom-com orchestrated by Tiffani the Psychic, who wears far too much pink and thinks Sophie needs to learn what real love is.
I stomped my foot and ground out, “What have you done to me now? And if you play ignorant one more time, I will set fire to this room!”
“Oh, Sophie. So violent, ha ha!” Tiffani pranced to the bed and perched on the edge. “You are Her Highness, the Princess of Ugh, a principality in Europe.”
“Where in Europe?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Tiffani fanned her hands as she thickened the plot. “You are engaged to Princess Regina of the realm MacGuffin. Isn’t that romantic?”
It couldn’t be my Regina, right? The stunning goddess who’d made me turn back flips for her approval? Which I had done gleefully because I’m a sucker for beautiful women who treat me like shit? One time, Jodie had asked me why I take no guff from dudes, but let ladies grind me to dust?
What a rude question.
“Realm MacGuffin,” I said to Tiffani, pointedly, as if my tongue were a dagger. “Now, I wasn’t the best in English class, but that sounds like bullshit to me.”
Jodie said, “Oh, Princess Regina is real. This marriage has been arranged since the two of you were toddlers.”
I drained a second coffee, yet it did not reassure me the way it ought to have. My stomach still stabbed me with worry-jabs. My gaze darted around, as if Regina would pop out of the curtains or from under the bed at any moment. “What year is it?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Tiffani stood and fluffed up her costume. “You are Princess Sophie, you’re twenty-six years old, and the entire castle is at your disposal.”
“Great, then I can leave.”
“Not like that, ha ha!”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and said, “Jodie, you are going to have a difficult time believing this, but none of this is happening is real life.”
Jodie squeaked and sat up on her knees. “Does it feel like a dream because you’re so happy?”
I shook my head. “Oh, boy. Tiffani, tell her. I can’t bear to disappoint that perfect face.”
“Ha ha!”
My jaw set alllll the way to one side. Clearly, my threats needed to get more creative. “Tell her. If you don’t, the first time I meet my future bride, I will embarrass the country of Argurgh, or wherever we are. I’ll—I’ll confess my everlasting devotion to Lord Fartula, the constipated Dracula I am in love with, and who will be the third in my marriage with Princess Charm School.”
Tiffani sighed and bunched her mouth together into a butthole of disapproval. But she knew I would do it; I was already imagining how I would give an exclusive interview to the local paper, Imaginary News Today. I’d tell them about the ongoing sexy adventures of Lord Fartula, who, despite his digestive problems, possessed two of something, and they weren’t in his mouth.
And so, Tiffani the Psychic explained to Jodie why we were trapped in a rom-com. She corroborated that Ugh did not exist. In her telling of my tale of woe, she was some kind of love heroine who personally pulled me from a cesspool of, well, cesspool; cleaned me up; and saved my very existence from pathetic waste. Honestly, I perked to be described in such a badass way. Everyone knew that sullen people were the coolest.
My bestie blinked. “Um…what? But we live in Ugh! In the palace. We grew up here.” She extended her arms wide. “Swimming in the sacred Spurious Springs. Picking wildflowers on Phony Hill. Galloping—wait, I’m starting to hear it.”
“Yup. In reality, we went to high school in Gator Riviera, Florida.”
She reared back, which was the proper response. “That place sounds fake, too.”
A trickle of sweat meandered down my spine; I needed Jodie so badly to believe me. I took her hand. “Tiffani, show Jodie where Ugh is on a map.”
For once, the psychic sputtered. Her squirming made me horny, I reveled in it so thoroughly. Her reply was, “Uuuuummmmmm…”
“She can’t!” I turned to my bestie. “Jodie, what other countries is Ugh next to?”
Her dark eyebrows came together as she counted them off. “We’re on the Southern border of Pretendia, East of Shamistan, and West of Tiffani-Upon-Gucci.” Her head whipped Tiffani’s direction. “Hey!”
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Attack of the Rom-Com is available at any of the links below: