“James LaFond, is there any hope of finding a woman with whom I could have a meeting of the mind? I’m talking about true love. Getting pussy is easy. But I want someone I can live with, can grow old with, can share a view of the world that is free of all this social justice bullshit. Or is this romance in my soul, this desire for a soulmate, is this a fool’s errand?”

-Danny Wrathbone

Change of heroic venue.

Danny and the Oracle are not taken like Beowulf before them to the Hall of Eternal Trials, where heroes contend with The Powers. Rather, they find themselves escorted in the manner of Enoch, in decorative felt armor and standing before the tapestried walls of the Nuptial Chamber of the Four Winds, also known as the Womb of Nations, where gods and heroes sired the young tribes on the loins of captive mortal women in the dawn of the world.

Before them the matchless hero is inspecting a group of naked women with the aid of a strident little faerie. This faerie is two feet tall, Asian in feature, with huge almond eyes, has an assortment of hairpins and combs and such pinning her high-piled hair, has somewhat underpowered wings, and curiously, has prehensile toes for climbing the luxuriant back hair of our hero, where she clings and clicks and sings in her tiny voice into the ears of her giant Master: a matchless warrior, two parts god, one part man.

As his eyes appraised the booty before him, his deep resonant voice seemed to address them, the Oracle and the Petitioner, behind him, “I have summoned women of your own Modern Age for a demonstration of selection that will be within your life scope. As to the sentimental inquiry…The Powers only gave women brains so that they would not forget to breathe. Lack of oxygenation impedes vaginal lubrication and hence seeding. After slaughtering enemies bedaytime, rooting in a sandbox should not be the Victor’s lot.”

Danny Wrathbone’s chin sunk to his chest and the Goliath jaw set in something close to empathy and the Petitioner was instructed, “They are more than wombs: there is song, dance, wound-dressing, preparation of food—they are not without their own sort of cunning. This is to be used to turn them upon one another, assigned one as a sheepdog to assist in sorting the rest. One might actually form a relationship of sorts with such a one…observe.”

From left to right seven naked figures stood before the giant and his flitting and clicking and twittering attendant:

-1. Queen Elizabeth, in her Assumption make up, without the grand dress, her figure leaving something to be desired in a sunken way…

The Darling Scion of Albion, the Virgin Queen stood in a pallid rage and quivered when the faerie directed her to kneel before her Master, who seemed displeased by her appearance more than her high and mighty spirit of defiance. The hero grunted, “Take her to the Ishtar Gate. Perhaps that whore Shamahat can make something of her. I well imagine some of the merchants will fancy her pasty reserve.”

With that the Virgin Queen was strung with a lariat of brazen chord and lead roughly to the open stair that looked down over the city, below which the multitude babbled, a multitude which began bidding on the ivory waif in a dozen languages when she appeared in the cruel light of the morning sun.

-2. Shulamith "Shulie" Firestone, fresh from her Chicago Art School graduation and a beating from her abusive boyfriend in 1967, was pleasingly proportioned under a shock of unruly black hair. The faerie inspected the girl, who, behind one black eye refused to kneel and trembled, “I am an emancipated woman.”

But there was a pleading eye cast up at the giant who grinned and said to his attendant, “Muzzle and decorate her. When the King of Kish arrives with his infernal petitions for mercy, set her on his lap so he might have the discourse he deserves.”

-3. The third from the left, shimmering like polished ebony as the morning sun struck her glorious skin through the Sunrise Arch and glinted upon her tear-streaked cheek, was Robin Givens, plucked via the ether of dream from her tearful 1988 interview with then husband Mike Tyson and Barbara Walters. The titanic Master of the house hissed a harsh whistle as he appraised her form, and then winced as she sniffled in a bratty manner and declared, “My husband will knock you out. Get me some clothes and have this freaky little bitch call my mother. I’m done with this—where is Barbara!”

“Enough,” moaned the giant, “It seems your sissy age has ruined even the most promising wenches—comes of profligate mind meeting instead of passionate breeding.”

The weird, almond-eyed faerie then flew over to the giant, hooked her prehensile toes into his back hair, and held conclave in twittering clicks until her Master nodded in agreement and said, “Yes, the men of Opar shall appreciate her company—perhaps even elevate her to queen.”

Robin’s beautiful face shone with a slight manipulative twist, as if yet another man had come mewing to lap tears from her hand. This was cut short by her astonished yelp as the faerie grasped her nipples in her cruel little toes and pulled forth a great hair pin from her bundle of piled hair and transfixed both of Robin’s lips together, grabbed her by the ear and tugged her like a harbor boat bringing an oil tanker to port towards the open archway facing the south and the Lands of the Sons of Ham.

There the faerie twittered and called as the ebony girl cried, until three massive, silver-backed ape men came to bear her away as she descended into spasms of weeping wrack… and grunted cheers were heard from bestial throats wafting up from the streets below…

-4. From the center of the line, now at its far left, came the voice of the tallest woman there, Pam Grier, from the 1994 set of Foxy Brown, standing proudly with hands on amble hips and winking up at her master, “Did those Negroes have tusks?”

Her Master intoned, “The Men of Opar are primitive, but loyal.”

“That is one dumb bitch—over-plaid a fancy hand—don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll be kneeling when it counts. Just figured I’d help you sort out the rest of these bitches. Little girl there is quite a helper. What’s your name, Girl?” Pam smiled as the faerie twittered up to her shoulder, admiring her afro and whispered into her ear, to which Pam smiled, “Skanker Bell! I love it. You the prettiest bitch I ever met.”

Skanker Bell then twittered in circles of languid contentment, basking in the afterglow of such a compliment. As Pam soothed with her voice, “You know it, Girlfriend,” even as she winked and pursed her lips up at the giant and ran her long-fingered hand through the deep cushion of hair on his chest then jibed as she slapped his chainmail jockstrap, “That’s a size queen’s dream—got style, got style. Now for the rest of these bitches…”

Just like that, the blacksploitation actress took over the dispensations of the remaining seraglio occupants with Skanker Bell clasping her prehensile toes in her afro and whispering pertinent information in her ear.

Keeling before Pam, tiny and wonderfully formed, as pretty as Skanker Bell but absent the frightening hair pins and razorblade eye lashes, was the prettiest little thing any of them had ever seen, with skin the color of the summer sun:

-5. “Master, I serve you up The Golden Peach. This bitch is so fine she doesn’t even have a real name—but a marquee title! Smart, too, I bet.”

Then to the little woman of no little beauty she quipped, “This will be better than fucking cowboys in Frisco and the Triads can’t touch you here. You’re, singing and dancing for the Master and his guests.”

She then turned to Chainmail Jockstrap, “I’ll bring her too you after battles—these chinks got all kind of medicinal shit and she’s a top girl for sure the way she kneels.”

The big man grinned, rubbed his calloused paws together and rumbled, “Let it be done, let it be written!”

-6. Standing and brooding and then abruptly showing a glower of intelligence and taking to her knees, Kim Kardashian, wearing only the pink pearls from her December 2008 Playboy Photo Shoot, seemed in rightful fear, a scheming look playing plainly across her otherwise cruel face.

Pam turned above the curvaceous slut and pontificated as Skanker Bell twittered in her ear, “You know Master, I’m going to want a lot of tender alone time with you after dark. But a bitch knows a man’s burdens weigh heavy—what do you think, hate fuck in the afternoon after you finish with all that administrative bullshit?”

The matchless hero simply grinned like an idiot, the chink of shifting mail echoing through the stone-pillared room.

Pam continued, gaining more control over her master with every heave of her stupendous breasts, “When your barbarian buddies from Mu come over to get their drunk on, we can have this big-ass bitch pour the beer?”

The giant turned to the Oracle and the Petitioner, spread his great hands, and roared “True love rises like the face of the unjudging moon!”

Pam was inspecting the skin of Kim as Skanker Bell twittered and Pam exclaimed, “This bitch is all but built in a lab. The hair removal alone cost a fortune—Armenian bitches are the hairiest things…don’t you worry bitch, if any of that shit grows back Skanker Bell here ‘ill yank it right out.”

Skanker Bell then twittered in Pam’s ear and Pam said, “You right, girlfriend. She walks like a dog. Take her off to Shamahat and teach her how to put some grace in that step—go on bitch [she slapped Kim across the face] we in the Big Leagues now. A bitch needs more than curves up in here. Move on down to the dance studio with your purpose-built self.”

Skanker Bell was then herding the awkwardly swishing Kim before her through a curtained doorway.

-7. Then, as Chainmail Jockstrap, seeming to have lost half of his formidable intelligence in the wake of Pam’s rise to prominence in his seraglio winked and nodded at the Oracle and the Petitioner, Pam laughed lustily, “Barbara Eden, I Dream of Jeannie—1965, right?”

As the pretty little blonde kneeled and giggled affirmatively, Pam turned to her Master and declared, “You gonna love this pretty little bitch. But if you marry her—we might have a problem…jus’ sayin’, you the Master en all, but a bitch craves her place.”

Chainmail Jockstrap grinned witlessly and roared, as he spread his massive arms, “True love—perhaps the petitioner has shown me the way!?”

The oracle forced a nod of agreement combined with a shrug of the shoulders and Danny Wrathbone looked to him with wide-shut eyes and said, “We’re truly fucked, right?”

And Chainmail Jockstrap laughed like a boy with a bass drum for a voice as the Golden Peach and Barbara Eden playfully tugged each on a ring finger held between both of their dainty hands, as Skanker Bell twittering, and Pam lustily laughing, pushed him from behind with girlish encouragement, towards the shadowed Arch of the Setting Sun in the Hallowed West, where repose the doomed Best.