Whatever he said about comporting myself apparently went out the window during one of these festivals. My dress is a mess, the laces pulled loose, and the big buttons on my blouse are half undone. He stops himself when he realizes he’s just shoved his hand into my blouse and squeezed my breast. I bounce on his lap and giggle and laugh at nothing.
Even the castle is a less dreary place. While we were gone the servants hung flowers and bright banners from the battlements and gargoyles, and the black, brooding stone is suddenly alive with color, like flowers springing from the darkness of the earth. I stand there and stare at it in the reverence only a drunk woman can muster, and jump up to kiss his cheek.
“Why all this?”
I though the festival was over, but music blares from the courtyards. The servants are free for the day, too, it seems.
“No more winters,” he declares, holding me by the waist. “Today begins the summer of my heart. Dance with me.”
How can I argue with that?
We dance until I can’t stand up, then sit on benches in the great hall. No throne, only long tables covered in food, so many things I’ve never even seen before. I eat onion soup from what he calls a trencher, a hollowed loaf of bread, then tear it apart and eat it. There’s wild boar and goose, goat and pheasant, and I can barely eat more than a sliver of each, just enough to enjoy the taste before moving on.
Kristoff stands and claps his hands, motioning, and I burst out laughing like a lunatic as the servants carry out an enormous platter piled high with hot, steaming cheeseburgers. I grab one and so does he, one in either hand. I don’t know how he eats it all.
The party gets wilder and wilder as the night wears on. Before I realize it I’m up on top of one of the tables in a wild dance where partners are passed from person to person, spun around and around until I’m in his arms again.
By nightfall I’m exhausted, stuffed, sweaty, and very thoroughly drunk, babbling to the crown prince of Kosztyla about the first time I ever drank, when I downed half a bottle of grape vodka and it all came right back up, as if it hit my stomach and bounced back. The prince laughs and everyone else laughs, either because the story was hilarious or there is nothing quite as funny as a room full of laughing people.
Eventually I’m in his arms, carried up to his private quarters, moaning and queasy from all the food. I lie there as he strips me down on the bed, pulling the clothes away until I’m in my birthday suit, shivering on the silks. He joins me and pulls covers up, and I lie there moaning for half the night until I finally pass out.
When I wake up my head is hammering and I run to the bathroom, uncaring of the cold stone under my bare feet as I fight back the urge to puke. The prince follows me, and as I kneel over the toilet, laces his fingers in my hair and holds it back.
Kneeling naked over the toilet, I can’t be very sexy, but you’d never know it from the way he looks at me. I end up keeping it down with a great struggle, and plop on the floor, beet red.
He gingerly draws me to my feet and gives me a light pat on the ass. “Clean up and put on a dressing gown, so I may have breakfast brought.”
“Ugh, I can’t eat.”
“I command it,” he says mockingly, and kisses my cheek.
After I’m dressed in a fluffy, heavy robe and slippers, I join him in the “solar” (what a weird name for a room) and eat a light breakfast of fruit and bread, served with cranberry juice and a half glass of tomato juice, no vodka.
“No hair of the dog, huh?”
He smirks. “I thought it unwise. I can’t have you unloading your breakfast all over my shoes while we meet with the German consulate.”
“Meet with the what?”
It’s in advance of the trip to New York. This apparently requires I step up the complexity of my dress. Back to the princess outfit, but I don’t mind it this time. Green again, he likes me in green. I think I look ridiculous but after I’m all laced up and adjust my skirts, he looks at me reverently.
“I’m glad you decided not to wear a cream-colored dress when I asked. I don’t want to see you in a lighter shade until our wedding day.”
I almost correct him but stop myself. Every hour that passes, the trip to New York grows closer. I was hot for it not long ago, somehow convinced even after I slept with him that I would be able to leave, but now I’m not so sure.
My home, where I come from. Not New York, but the United States. I’m going to see my parents again…if I call them, which I haven’t yet.
The meeting is at eleven in the morning, in the great hall. I can’t follow much of it, since it’s, you know, in German, but I smile and try to pick out a few words. They sound angry, I know that.
I end up…hanging out with the ambassador’s wife. I say a few sentences to her through a translator, and we eat brunch. I can’t wait for it to be over and when it finally is, I try to keep myself from leaping up to run over by the prince so he can rescue me from Castle Awkward.
“What was all that about?” I ask him when it’s over.
“The Americans wished to convey through him that they wish your immediate safe return. Your parents have made quite a noise with the authorities demanding you come back.”