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Splendid Man's Most Embarrassing Evening - Episode 15

    Splendid Man once mentioned to me that his favorite dish when he was a tot on Strontium, the planet of his birth on which all life had been destroyed by a great flood, had been crystal-snake stew.  Even though I may not have the power of Splendid Recall like my splendid pal, I always make it a point to remember things like that.  You never know when they’ll come in handy.
    Like tonight, for instance.  Tonight was a very special occasion, and only the best cuisine could grace our table.  I had gotten the recipe for the stew from Splendid Girl, and spent the entire day in the kitchen preparing my pal’s favorite dish.  
    But where the heck did he get ahold of a crystal snake? you’re probably asking yourself.  I didn’t, of course.  Even had one of the reptiles miraculously survived Strontium’s doom, it would have been invulnerable under Earth’s argon-tinged atmosphere and lesser gravity and therefore impossible to cook.  Obviously.  But like all good chefs, you learn to make substitutes when the exact ingredients are unavailable.  In this case, I remembered Splendid Man saying that crystal snake tasted like chicken, so I used frog legs.
    I was standing over the stove stirring the stew when my dining room window suddenly exploded.
    “Oh, no,” I called from the kitchen.  “Is it seven already?”
    “Seven on the nose, Will,” Splendid Man said.
    “Sorry,” I said.  “I forgot to leave the window open.”
    “I’m the one who should be sorry, Will,” Splendid Man said.  “I shouldn’t have been flying so fast that I wasn’t able to slacken my speed when I saw that the window was closed.  It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been installing some wainscoting in my lunar Citadel of Contemplation, lost track of the time myself, and left with only half a nanosecond to spare.”
    “I won’t let you take the blame, pal,” I insisted.
    “Well, I’ll tell you what, pal,” he said.  “After dinner, I’ll fly down to the beach and fashion a new window from the sand.”
    “That would be swell,” I said.
    Suddenly, Splendid Man drew up short.  “That smell!” he exclaimed.  “That can only be Strontiumese crystal-snake stew!”
    “Your sense of Splendid Smell never fails you, does it?” I asked.
    “But, Will,” he cried, “where the heck did you get ahold of a crystal snake?”
    “Er…that’s for me to know and you to find out,” I said, deciding he would be happier if I let him believe we were having the real article.  And keeping him happy tonight was a priority.
    “It smells fantastic, Will.”
    “Thanks, Cal,” I said, beaming with pride.
    Even though Splendid Man can live interminably without food and drink, he ate voraciously of the stew and drank glass after glass of the cabernet that had cost me half a paycheck from my temporary job at Kragen’s.  I didn’t have a chance to break the news to him until we were sipping our café royales.
    “Cal, I said.  “I…er…have something to tell you.”
    “Why, Will,” Splendid Man said.  “I haven’t seen you so nervous since you accompanied me on a mission in space and helped me repel an invasion of Altairian mud fiends.  What is it?”
    “Well, I need to ask your permission for something,” I stammered.
    “What, Will?  Go on.”
    “Well, haven’t you wondered why I haven’t complained about being lonely of late?”
    “Actually, Will,” he said,  “I’ve wondered why I’ve seen so little of you of late.”
    With a pang, I suddenly realized that I’d been neglecting my big buddy.  I started to apologize, then decided to forge on with my announcement.  It would explain, if not excuse, my neglect.
    “Well, you see, pal,” I gulped, “I’m engaged to be married.”
    Cal gazed at me with a look of utter stupefaction.  Then, seeming to recover himself, he said, “But that’s wonderful news, pal.  Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Well…er…you see…”
“And why the heck would you need my permission?”
I took a deep breath and poured it out. “Because my fiancée is none other that your Splendid Cousin, Kar’En, the Doll of Dynamism, who miraculously escaped Strontium’s doom!”
    I know this is hard to believe, but Splendid Man’s skin actually turned white.  Fleetingly, I wondered if maybe some silver strontiumite flakes had gotten mixed in with the poppy seed (an excellent substitute for Strontiumese gloppo seed, by the way) I’d put in the stew.
    “Speak to me, pal,” I choked.
    Then that Splendid Epidermis changed color again, this time to a red so livid that it rivaled the costume of the Crimson Spear. I was reminded of the classic comic book story, “The Bizarre Transformations of the Chameleon Splendid Man,” but not even the most lurid effects ever achieved by four-color Benday dots could approximate the chromatic oscillations transpiring before my eyes.  Splendid Man pushed his chair back so hard that the legs dug furrows in my no-wax floor.  He jumped to his feet and started pacing furiously about my dining room.  
I don’t mind admitting this, but he terrified me at that moment.  For once, I was able to fully appreciate the intrepidity that such evil villains as Steamy, the Water Vapor Creature, Sir Qwertyuiop, that wicked fairy from the 37th Dimension, and Plasto, the Man with the Strontiumite Spleen, display again and again when pitting themselves against an angry Man of Splendor.
    At length, he stopped pacing, turned a baleful glance upon me, and roared, “I can’t believe that you, my best pal next to Bobby Anderssen, the albino, could do such a thing!”  
    “Do what, Cal?” I gasped, desperately clutching the edge of the table to anchor myself against the sonic onslaught he was suddenly hurling at me.
    “How could you possibly even consider wedding a girl who is still a minor?!” he bellowed.
    It was no use.  I lost my grip and fell over backwards, chair and all.
    “She hasn’t even graduated from high school!” he boomed.  “She still wears her hair in pigtails when in her Peggy Pearl Perkins secret identity! For Amundsen’s sake, Will, she still dreams about horses!”
    I didn’t move.  Sprawled out on the floor, the sonic waves passed harmlessly over me.
    “And besides, when she is finally ready to wed, it should be to someone Splendid like herself!  Someone like Finwad, the fish boy from Lemuria, or Cerebriac 6.2, the Stripling with the Positronic Brain from the 8th Dimension!”
    That got my goat.  Like a sailor struggling to keep at the helm in a typhoon, I grimly righted myself.  “Listen, pal,” I shouted, “and listen good. You’re not talking to any Joe Blow on the street.  You happen to be talking to Literary Lad, honorary member of the Array of Splendid Striplings, that glittering band of teenagers in the 31st Century.  Furthermore, you happen to be addressing the mascot of the North American Alliance for Meetness, that gathering of the world’s greatest Splendid Stars.  What gives you the right, just because you’re the greatest hero of them all, to decide I’m not splendid enough for your cousin?”
    My words were like a shower of silver strontiumite meteors, suddenly dampening his fury.
    “I’m sorry, Will,” he said, slumping in a chair.  “I didn’t mean to suggest that at all.  I’m as quick as anyone to admire your phenomenal dexterity with words.  I admit I was wrong to imply that Finwad, Cerebriac 6.2, or even Cosmo, the Awesome Stud, could make a better husband for her.  But still, Will.  She’s so young.  So very young.”
    “Maybe she’s physically young,” I retorted, still a little hot under the collar, “but she’s certainly not emotionally immature.  As Doc Quackeray, that brilliant scientist, recently noted in an important paper, girls endowed with Splendid Powers mature much faster than their peers.  I think you know as well as I do that Splendid Girl is every inch a woman.  Besides, I’ve vowed not to marry her until she turns eighteen.”
    “You’re right,” Cal said, hanging his head.  “You’re absolutely right.  She is very mature for her years.  Like the time she chose to sacrifice her own life in order to rescue her foster parents, Ted and Irma Perkins, from the machinations of that master criminal of the Ghost World, Casp’Er, entirely unaware that Blotchy the Splendid Cat had already cleverly summoned a pair of Ted and Irma robots to deceive Casp’Er and make her demise unnecessary.  Or the time…”
    “Or the time she gave her heart to the man who loves her and will care for her for the rest of her days,” I said calmly.
    He looked at me then with eyes filled with tears, and spoke in a voice so fraught with emotion that I could never effectively convey it on the page unless I were to punctuate his sentence with such words as “choke” and “gulp.”  “I’m sure you do love her, Will.  It’s just that…I love her too.  And I’d imagined…a different future for her, that’s all.”
    That’s when it hit me.  “Oh, geez, Cal,” I said.  “Of course.  How could I be so blind?”
    He looked searchingly at me.  “Blind…?”
    “I understand, Cal.  I understand at last why you’ve never proposed marriage to Pepper Pine, and why your romance with your old mermaid sweetheart Pura Poseidonis of Lemuria mysteriously broke down into a bittersweet friendship, and why, with Patti Pert and countless millions of other beautiful women throwing themselves at you, you’ve always held yourself aloof!  Cal, I understand!”
    “You…you do?”
    “Yes, Cal!  You’ve been saving yourself for your cousin Splendid Girl!”
    He frowned.  “What?”
    “I’m sorry, Cal,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “It must be so lonely, being the most Splendid of all Splendid Heroes. Of course you yearn for a soulmate of splendor equal to your own.  And here you are, putting your loneliness aside to help me meet girls and build up my confidence, and what happens but…”
    “No.  Will.  Whoa.  Stop.”
    “You don’t have to hide it from me, pal.  I…”
    “Will.  Listen to me.  Kar’En is a Splendid Girl indeed, whether you capitalize the words or not.  But even though cousins are allowed to marry in certain countries on Earth, Kar’En and I are from Strontium, where marriage between cousins was unlawful.”
    “The heart knows no laws, as a wise man once…”
    “Will?  Pal?  Will you just take my word for it that I don’t have, and never have had, any romantic interest in my cousin?  My feelings for her are entirely…not parental, exactly, but…”
    “Avuncular?”
    “Yes, Will.  Your phenomenal verbal dexterity has come through again.  My feelings for Kar’En are entirely avuncular.  All I care about is her happiness.”
"Does this mean you're giving us your blessing, pal?"
"Promise me she'll finish college, Will."
"You know how I value education, pal.  So does this mean you're giving us your blessing?"
"And hold off on having children, Will. She needs to grow up more herself before she takes on that responsibility."
"As do I, pal, as do I.  So are you giving us your blessing now?”
He hesitated.  “There’s just one more thing,” he finally said, “and it’s not meant to be a condition.  Only a request.  A small request.”
“Anything,” I said.
He gave me a smile, but it looked forced.  “Just don’t forget your old pal,” he said.  “Okay?”
Even though he tried to toss it off lightly, I could tell it was anything but.  “Not a chance,” I said, touched beyond words.  “Not in a million years!”
“Glad to hear it, pal!” he said, and this time the smile he flashed me was genuine.  He stood up and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You have my blessings, pal.  If Kar’En truly feels ready to get married, then I’m glad it will be to a true pal like you.  I’ve got to level with you, I was getting pretty worried when she was dating Turgid Boy, the Hero from Andromeda.”
     “That’s swell of you, pal,” I said.  “That’s truly swell. But…er…there’s still one more question I have to ask you.”
    “What more, Will?”    
    I summoned up all my strength and blurted it out.  “Is Kar’En…er… well…is she a virgin?”
    The words exploded from Cal’s throat at such splendid amplitude that they blew out all my remaining windows.  “Of course she’s a virgin!  Have you forgotten that she was raised in a Strontiumese generation starship on which all life, except hers, was lost when the air and provisions ran out?  Do you think she’s some Earthling tart?  Of course she’s a virgin! Why, on the old planet, no self-respecting girl would even think of giving herself to a man before her wedding night!”
    For the first time I detected a trace of a Strontiumese accent in Cal’s speech.
    I asked, “Were all natives of Strontium really that morally upright?”
    The anger left his voice as he answered, “Well, not really.  But in addition to Splendid Strength and Splendid Speed, we’ve developed the power of Splendid Virtue under Earth’s argon-tinged atmosphere and lesser gravity.”    
    “Oh.  That explains your unfailing selflessness and good judgment in all your work as Earth’s self-appointed benefactor, except when exposed to bizarre and malignant influences like lavender strontiumite, or evil magic such as practiced by the ancient sorceress Aeaea who, incidentally, once turned me into a horse.”
    He nodded thoughtfully.  “Like the time lavender strontiumite caused my eyebrows to fall off and I became as twisted and evil as my archnemesis, Pox Pascal.”
    “I remember,” I said.  “Those were tense times.”
    “I hope I’ve allayed your anxieties about Splendid Girl’s virginity, Will.”
    He hadn’t.  Not quite.  But I felt too shaken to bring up what was really preying on my mind.  I decided to let it lay for the time being, and address another concern that was far less delicate in nature.  “Well, actually pal, there is one little thing that’s still nagging at me.”
    He narrowed his eyes.  “Yes, Will?”
    “Actually, two little things,” I said, endeavoring lamely to break the tension with a joke.  “Ha ha.  You see, there’s the issue of her…er…bosom.”  I remembered how, on my first date with Splendid Girl, she had used that bosom to shield District Attorney Jenkins from a hail of gangland bullets.  “I confess to a great liking for that portion of the female body, and of course the great wonder and appeal of women’s breasts to men down the ages has been their softness.”
    “Is that so?” asked Cal.
    “Why sure,” I said.  “Throughout the world’s literature, from the Ramayana to Portnoy’s Complaint, runs the image of the soft, comforting breast.  But since the breasts, like all body parts, of Strontiumese natives are tougher even than titanium, so that not even an atom bomb blast can harm them, I’m worried that Kar’En’s breasts won’t be…er…well, that they won’t be especially yielding.  I thought I might be able to tell when I embraced her, but with those indestructible garments of hers…”
"I see what you mean,” mused Cal.  “After all, natural Strontiumese fabrics, like the living denizens of my native planet, become invulnerable to normal stresses in Earth's argon-tinged atmosphere and lesser gravity.  I imagine that would pertain to a young lady's costume, as well as  her…er...”
“Underthings?”
“Thank you.”
"You’re welcome.  But that’s what’s worrying me.  What exactly was so unbending?  Kar’En herself, or her Strontiumese unmentionables?”
    “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about that , Will.  I’ve never given Kar’En more than a brotherly peck on the cheek.  In fact, being endowed with Splendid Agility and Balance, I can’t think when I’ve ever even accidentally brushed the breasts of any Splendid Powered Strontiumese lass, not even the diminutive members of the Splendid Girl Calamity Unit from Stontor, the City in a Can.”
    “Well,” I sighed.  “I guess I’ll be finding out soon enough.”
    He breathed a sigh of relief.  “So is your mind at rest now, pal?”
    “Well, actually” I said, and I could see the pain in his eyes when I did so.   But I couldn’t put it off any longer.  I shifted uncomfortably and said, “There is one other teeny-weeny anxiety knocking around in my noggin.”
    “What’s that, Will?” he asked, more agonized that I’d even seen him when there wasn’t silver strontiumite in the vicinity.
“I’m not sure how to say this, but…er…well, if Kar’En’s entire body is invulnerable, including the…er…personal area, and she’s a virgin, then…er…well…”
    “Yes, Will?”
    “Well, don’t you understand, Cal?  If every part of her is immune to harm and…er…rupture, and every part of her girlish body is intact then, well, things might be a little…er….difficult the first time we…er…”
    He stared at me uncomprehendingly for a while.  His eyebrows shot up when he got it.  “Oh, my.  That is a problem.”
    He began pacing the room nervously.  He furrowed his brow in thought.  “Let’s see,” he said.  “I can whisk you off to my Citadel of Contemplation on the moon and use one of my Splendid Devices to grant you temporary Splendid Powers great enough to…er…”
    “That’ll work,” I said.
    “The trouble with that is that I’ve granted Splendid Powers to others, like my pal Bobby, in the past, and every time they’ve affected the personality of the recipient.  Even the nicest folks become dangerous menaces when they suddenly find themselves Splendid.  It takes time to learn that with splendid power there must also come splendid responsibility.”
    “But, pal.  I only want Splendid Powers long enough to…er…”
    “Still, I’d rather find another way,” he said.
    “What if Kar’En and I honeymoon on a planet with an argon-free atmosphere?” I suggested.  “Since natives of Strontium lose their Splendid Powers on an argon-free planet, she’d be no more Splendid than me and I’d easily be able to…er…”
    “Ingenious, Will!” exclaimed Splendid Man.  “In fact, that might be a good way to start up the marriage, with the two of you on equal terms.”
    “Not quite equal, if I have anything to say about it.”
    “Then, when you come back to Earth’s argon-tinged atmosphere,” continued Cal, “her invulnerability will no longer pose a problem, as her…er… that is to say, you’ll have already…er…there’ll no longer be…er…”    
    “Got it,” I said.
    He exhaled in evident relief and made as if to dry off his brow, even though his Splendid Pores don’t sweat and his brow was perfectly dry.   “Well, then, Will, I imagine that wraps up all your concerns.  There’s nothing left for me to say but congratulations.  Right, Will?  That’s all that’s left for me to say?”
    I nodded.  “Thanks, pal.”
    “And Will?” said Cal.
    “Yes, Cal?” I said.
    “Do wait until the appropriate time, okay?”
    “Of course, pal,” I said.  “I respect Kar’En too much to do anything prematurely.”
    My future cousin-in-law smiled and shook my hand.