RAPUNZEL : NEW
AND IMPROVED, WITH SEX AND DEATH
David Hayward
Long ago, in a land far away, there was an ivory tower, which had neither stairs nor door, only a balcony. It had a comely princess named Rapunzel imprisoned in the top. This had all transpired in a rather typical way. Some shit went down with a childless couple, a herb garden, and an evil enchantress. Rapunzel, and her situation, were the result.
The princess Rapunzel gave every impression of being unhappy, and, having read some pop psychology, the people of the land assumed her situation made her so. All talk of the matter revolved around whether a prince worthy enough would come and rescue her. In the meantime, the princess Rapunzel amused herself within the confines of the tower. She watched TV, phoned friends, shopped from catalogues using credit cards supplied by her father, and ate out of boredom.
The sorceress would visit occasionally, ascending the tower by means of Rapunzel's stupendously long hair. She taught Rapunzel things. One day, she got to the top and was stabbed many times by Rapunzel, who then methodically dismembered her corpse, minced it, and fed it to some crows.
Not long after, a prince came riding through the forest. Guided by the sound of Rapunzel's TV, he made his way to the tower. Finding there was no door to the tower, he called up "Hello?".
"Yes?",
shouted Rapunzel, leaning over the balcony to look down.
"What's yer name luv?"
"Rapunzel".
"Are y'stuck in that tower? Would y'like to be rescued?"
"Yes, and yes! An evil enchantress entrapped me here".
So, the prince did loudly quote the Beastie Boys:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down yer hair, so I can get into yer underwear!"
"At last", thought the princess, steadfastly maintaining her mask of victimhood. She cast her plaited hair from the balcony, and the prince leapt to it and climbed. On the way up, he should have had to ignore certain disquieting thoughts, such as "Why hasn't her neck broken?", and "Why are we not both plummeting headlong toward the earth, our heads to be dashed to pieces like earthenware pots, brains pouring out onto the ground?" Instead, he was thinking "Yesss! Gonna get some!"
It simply never occurred to the prince that there was something slightly awry about the whole situation: that the princess must be something slightly removed from "Human". Even when he got to the top, and the princess demanded that he have his entire fortune delivered, it did not make him suspicious, for her charms were sweet, prominent, and utilised to the utmost degree. So the prince, overwhelmed with hormonal red-blooded joy, complied with her demand, and sent to his servants to bring all his earthly wealth. For the princess, the following days consisted mainly of alternating between giving blow jobs and hoisting baskets of treasure up with her hair.
When there was no more treasure to be brought, the princess gave a smile to her prince, and it was a thin, cruel one. Then she did cut her hair off, and cast it from the tower one final time. Her hair was now very short indeed, and the prince found out that underneath the sweetness, all was bitter. The princess had learned attentively at the feet of the enchantress; she was a militant and exploitative psuedo-feminist. She had no intention of leaving her tower, nor did she intend to let her prince do so. The prince realised that the avarice and lust that had brought him here had removed him also from being completely "Human", and made him equally exploitative and selfish; as much the misogynist as she was the misandrist. Now he sought escape, but there was none. "Ah well," he thought, "at least there's a TV".
That is the end of his story, but not ours.
In the land below, the kingdom declined, and many others rose up in its stead. The story repeated itself many times, the ivory towers raising themselves from the life below, then becoming prisons of bitterness and hate. Some of the princes confined to the towers later escaped, but never with more than half of their stuff. Some of the princesses and princes saw exactly what was going to happen to them if they stayed passive, and, after figuring out their sexuality and just how unimportant the opinion of others can be, chose not to live in towers, grew into actual human adults, did what they wanted to do, and found a largely happy existence free of labels and exploitation. Some of them even formed healthy relationships.