Chapter 28: There Goes That Man-Mustached Dandruff-Flake Streamline Despot.

Sergei was in the mood for love. It had been minutes since he downed his last paper cupful of strawberry Arbor Mist, and gazed longingly at the pixelated image of Tootie from The Facts of Life on the screen of his Apple Quadra. If only it didn't have that watermarked copyright notice across her face! Nevertheless, it was enough to put Sergei on the prowl.

"Yes," he thought. "Tonight the prey becomes the prey, and I shall be the Feral Invasive Species of Love."

While Sergei's primary construction project was still the completion of a giant velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks, visible from space, he had ordered additional work to be done on the palace. Primary among these secondary works was what Sergei tastefully referred to as the "Vroom Vroom Room," a dual NASCAR and dinosaur themed love nest featuring racecar beds and thick artificial foliage covering the ceiling. Animatronic pterodactyls would gasp in pre-programmed awe at the spectacle of his lovemaking, and when the lights were turned off, phosphorescent velociraptors glowed against the walls in erotic poses. Just the thought of flipping off the light switch and watching a tyrannosaurus get it on with a triceratops made him giggle like an overweight, furry-backed schoolgirl with male genitals. His dandruff stood out on the black furry sheets under the blacklights.

Although there were still some finishing touches to be completed- the real racecars used as beds posed a serious carbon monoxide threat- Sergei deemed it satisfactorily done, enough to christen it in an unholy and drippy manner. "Tonight," he assured himself, "tonight the pills will work, the itching will subside, and Eleni will learn a new lesson in how to lay silently, hum, and think of baseball!"

By and by he went about preparing himself in the usual manner. He donned his authentic Fred Flintstone animal-pattern muu-muu, and regreased his mustache with crude petroleum. He placed kernals of corn over his few unstained teeth, to give them all a uniform glean of yellow from a distance. He sang "Aqualung" while flexing his muscles in the mirror, satisfied that the hair on his arms ebbed and flowed in unison, as a single manly wave of hirsute blackness rippling from shoulder to fingertip. He wept tenderly.

Finally, it was time to summon Eleni for her sexing-up. Sliding down the fireman's pole through the floor, he arrived in the midst of her yoga class.

"Sergei!" she yelped. "Is it that time of the month again?"

"Aye, it is," he assured her, forgetting that he was dressed as a caveman, and deciding instead to be a pirate for the evening. "You'll be the booty I plunder on me poop deck tonight," he continued, not even sure what that meant, although he desperately wanted it to involve butt sex.

"Shiver me timbers!" he exclaimed, hurling Eleni over his shoulder with a popping of his joints, and lurching across the parquet floor towards the ballroom exit. "Avast! Me kidneys," he moaned under her weight and that of his mustache. Twenty agonizing paces and ten minutes later, he finally reached the door. Around this point he decided it was best that she carry him instead. They took the elevator up, she propping him up and wiping the sweat from his brow and chins.

Inside the be-leafed walls of the Vroom Vroom Room, Sergei splayed Eleni out as much as one could be splayed upon a twin-size racecar bed with an awkwardly-located stick-shift. A toy airplane circled above her on a string. Nearby on the nightstand, the head of Mr. T bobbled enthusiastically to the vibrations of Sergei's vain efforts to struggle his way out of his muu-muu. He cursed whoever designed it, and their children, pets, pet rocks, and garden gnomes. "May they never suffocate by inhaling their own virile, tangled mustache hair," he cried, for this was the most noble and honorable death he could envision for a warrior stud such as himself, that which every man, woman and child should aspire to experience.

It would not come off. His arms were stuck inside, and all he could see was darkness. It was like staring at his own matted chest hair.

Unable to free his arms himself, he began to panic. As he ran in circles around the bed, hitting his shins against the tires and becoming tied up in vines, Eleni could not assist, for she had fallen asleep. Sergei needed to remember in the future that it was unnecessary to drug her since she had already been willing to entertain his predilections.

Exhausted, he sat down in the center of the floor, surrounded by the very Lincoln Logs which he had used to design his pleasure chamber. He weighed his options, from sobbing bitterly, to ringing the help, to spending the rest of his days within the confines of his leopard muu-muu and building a new civilization inside with only his tongue.

"Arrgh," he said aloud, beginning a torturous monologue in pirate speech. "I hoisted me mainsail and aimed for the shores o' her briny depths, but ran aground on the reef of frustration." He thought a moment, and considered whether her "briny depths" could or should have a shoreline. "Aw, nuts, can I start over?" he asked no one.

No, he decided. He could not. He would just have to wait until he was freed, and then pay someone to write the speech for him. Then he would restage the entire night exactly, only this time, he'd know what to say in response to his troubles.

And damn, it would be profound.