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I run a private campground. Sometimes I think that the sort of stuff I deal with is ridiculous, and no, I’m not talking about the people who vomit all over the porta-johns after getting ludicrously drunk. I’m talking about the inhuman things and all the brushes I’ve had with death. I think - why is my job so terrible? But I suppose there’s lots of terrible jobs out there. Some might even be as dangerous as mine. I hear late night security guards see a lot of weird stuff. I guess I’m trying to keep from feeling sorry for myself. I’ve been down a bit lately and that’s just not me. I’m not a ‘good vibes only’ person, but I’ve always loved this campground and I love what I do, even if it is a little terrifying sometimes.
It’s just this worst of years is starting to wear me out, I think.
Anyway, if you’re new here, you should really start at the beginning and if you’re totally lost, this might help.
Let’s talk about Balor and Lugh for a moment. Yep, it’s Irish history time.
Balor was the leader of the fomorian host. The fomorians are creatures of tyranny and cruelty, huge and misshapen. I could recite a bunch of poetic prose at you about how fearsome or horrid Balor was, but this isn’t a book report, so I’ll just cut to the interesting part. His eye. His one eye that when he opened it, he laid waste to all that he gazed upon. If Godzilla and Cyclops from X-Men had an illicit love child, it would be Balor.
Since we’re talking about giants already, have another random fact: the Romans believed that dinosaur bones were the bones of mythological giants and would try to classify what giant they came from. Of course, given the sorts of creatures I deal with, I’m not convinced that all of those bones were merely dinosaur bones. I read that in a book whose title I forget, a few chapters after the Roman birth control that involved stuffing a dead frog up you-know-where.
Don’t ever buy me a beer unless you want to be treated to an hour or more of random facts like this.
Okay, back to Irish history. I would say sorry for the tangent, but I’m not. I’m really not.
Lugh has resemblance to a sun god. He is also the grandson of Balor and was foretold to be the one to slay him. Of course, this resulted in shenanigans with Balor’s daughter being locked away, there was a quarrel over a cow (all the best wars in Irish history start with a cow), and then a revenge pregnancy and BAM, Lugh was born. Lugh grew up to be talented in everything, which was highly respected by the Danaans.
I’m gonna go all book report here and cite directly from Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race by T.W. Rolleston because that’s what I usually go to when I need to look this stuff up. “...the surname Ildanach is conferred upon him, meaning ‘The All-Craftsman’, Prince of all the Sciences; while another name that he commonly bore was Lugh Lamfada, or Lugh of the Long Arm.”
So for those of you that have kids, next time they complain about their homework, just remind them that they could grow up to be like Lugh, Prince of all the Sciences, if they just apply themselves.
Anyway, Lugh leads the Danaan to slaughter the fomorians instead of offering tribute and the war starts. Some more stuff happens, the sons of Turenn kill Lugh’s father, then Lugh makes them bring him some magical things including a sweet spear, and then the sons of Turenn are mortally wounded in their quest and Lugh is like ‘nah die mad’ instead of saving them. These early heroes are kind of complicated, they ain’t Captain America here.
Then there’s the final battle with the fomorians. The one that is apparently being continued on my campground. The second battle of Moytura, on a plain in the north of county Sligo. Balor went all eyeball-Godzilla on the Danaan, killing at least one of their heroes and many others. But then Balor’s eye began to droop in weariness and Lugh, seeing his chance, hurls a stone right through the giant’s eyeball and straight into his brain. And so the tyrant Balor was killed and the fomorians routed.
You should really read up on this yourself. I haven’t even touched on the harp that flies around and kills a bunch of fomorians. Good stuff, that.
History is a complicated thing when these inhuman things are involved. Patterns echo, louder than they do with our own history. I wonder if this is why these two combatants found their way here, to continue their war. If they are doomed to battle as they did so long ago, until the fomorian is slain as Balor was. Perhaps that is the reason for the fairy’s confidence.
I also wonder if this is why Beau suffers like he does and why he’s earned the ire of the other campground inhabitants. He is trying to expand his own pattern to something far greater than it is.
But enough about history and theorizing. On to the stuff that happened this week and why I’m starting to feel a little exhausted from dealing with crisis after crisis. Part of it is physical exhaustion, I suspect. For lack of a solution, I’m dealing with the thorns the hard way. Tearing them out by hand. Every day I make my rounds around the campground and then head back to the garage and fetch a shovel and hoe and find a patch and get to work. I rip out as much as I can and then do it all over again the next day.
I’m relying on my brother to do the research to figure out how to stop them for good. He’s scouring the family notes for references to the gummy bears. I think he’s a little sick of me pivoting his research focus, as he had to abandon going through our mother’s journal. It can’t be helped.
At least the book I found in the attic is going to a dedicated reader. The university’s rare manuscripts department thinks the book is from the mid-1800’s and found a student willing to go through it and photograph the pages for some extra credit. I’ll hear back from them… eventually, I guess. This is a college student we’re talking about, after all.
In the meantime, I’m just trying to hold ground on the campsite. Keep the thorns from overwhelming us until we find a way to destroy them permanently.
It was a rare sunny day when I went out to remove a patch in a particularly bad location. It was encroaching on the gas line that runs through my land and I didn’t know how deep the roots went, but I really didn’t want to find out and then have to involve public utilities in a supernatural war that cracked one of their pipes. So I was there, on the edge of the woods, right where we started clearing the trees to keep them away from the line. I was using plain hand tools because I was worried that these unnatural thorns would do something horrible to more sophisticated equipment and I’ve already wrecked enough stuff this year.
(thank you to the person who gave me that used four-wheeler, I know coordinating drop-off was a pain but it’s very appreciated)
The daylight hours are by no means safe on my campground, but I felt fairly at ease while clearing the thorns. Most of the creatures that hunt in daylight hours set lures to draw people off the road and while I wasn’t on the road, I was at least in the open, and knew better than to follow anything strange. The other creatures that seek people out are the harvesters and Beau, and I wasn’t particularly concerned about them. So I focused on my task instead and as I worked, I saw something strange deep into the thicket of thorns.
They remind me of bird’s nests when they’ve had some time to grow. Their black vines wind around each other, spiraling inwards before the outer layers branch out again to choke the surrounding plant life. It forms an impenetrable wall of wiry fiber and vicious thorns. I have to hack it away a little bit at a time, cutting through a handful of strands and then ripping those out before starting on the next layer.
This time, as I was tearing away a layer, I thought I saw something moving in the middle.
I stepped back, staring at it suspiciously. When nothing happened, I tentatively poked at the thicket with my hoe. Still nothing. I tried hitting it a couple times.
Nothing.
Satisfied it was my imagination, I went back to work.
And then something moved again, as I was leaning in close to cut through some more vines. It came tearing out of the center of the thicket, scuttling rapidly free, and I screamed and threw myself backwards as it lunged at my face.
Then it landed on the ground, pivoted, and scurried off into the woods. I lay there on the ground, heart pounding and chest heaving.
It was a spider. A rather large spider.
And it hadn’t thrown itself at me, it was merely trying to escape in case I accidentally killed it while removing the thorns.
Cautiously, I took up the hoe again and this time, I levered the thicket open, trying to see into the middle of it. More spiders spilled out as I did so and this time I ignored them, gritting my teeth and steeling my nerves as they ran down my hoe and over my boots and vanished into the woods.
At the heart of the thicket were cobwebs. They covered the thorns in dull fluff, blunting their tips. And the vines themselves… were tattered. Chewed apart, bit by bit. I hooked the end of my hoe into this empty space the spiders had carved and I pulled and with a groan, the thicket simply fell apart.
The lady with extra eyes was a protector of the campground. It was one of her natures. It seems she’s carrying on her task even in her reborn form.
I cannot tell you how conflicted this makes me feel. I grieve for what I did. I’m hopeful for the future, for the possibility that I’ll see the lady again - or at least, another incarnation of her. And I’m afraid that it’s nothing but a cycle, one that inevitably spins towards either my death or hers.
She’s been killed before. I wonder if my ancestor was similarly conflicted and I wonder if someday, my niece or one of her descendents will have to make the same horrible choice I did.
Or perhaps the cycle will be broken when something ascends. Perhaps - if it is something that treats my line kindly - it will have the power to save both of us.
I don’t think being preoccupied with these thoughts is the reason for what happened next. There was no warning. Certainly, I had a sense of unease, but that is simply the case for when I interact with these thorns. They make my skin crawl. They are unnatural things, poisoning the soil around them, and they feel malevolent. Like they know I am there to destroy them. But otherwise, there was no change in the air to warn me I was no longer alone.
“What are you doing, campground manager?” a voice directly at my back rumbled.
I dropped the hoe. I think I squeaked in horror. Then I spun around and found myself face-to-face with the fomorian. It leaned over, putting its lone eye on the same level as mine. All I could see was the darkness of its hood, the shadow engulfing us both, and the red eye glinting like a ruby.
“I’m… gardening,” I said as a panicked sweat broke out on my brow. “Winter is the best time for it, you know. No undergrowth to deal with. You can just take stuff right out of the ground.”
“It looks like you are destroying my thorns.”
“Ohhhhhh welllll I thought these were just a poison ivy variant. I’ve been hearing about them in the local gardening club, they said they were cropping up and I really can’t let them take root on my campground because I have enough people stumbling into normal poison ivy already even though we mark it with magenta spray paint - seriously, how do you miss that? I guess they were too drunk to see straight, hahah.”
I think I was babbling a little bit because the longer I kept talking, the more I delayed whatever it was the fomorian intended to do with me. This was a strategy that was bound to fail at some point, however, with the deleterious side-effect of exhausting the fomorian’s patience.
“Enough,” the fomorian finally snapped.
So that’s another thing to mark off my bucket list. Annoying a fomorian. I’m lucky I’m alive to even have a bucket list still.
It put a hand on my shoulder. Its long fingers wrapped around my upper back. One grazed my neck and my hair stood on end and I stiffened as cold fear wound its way down my spine. This didn’t seem fair. How did something so big sneak up on me?
“Uh, your horse kind of has dibs I think,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure where the dapple-gray stallion was, but I was ready to claim anything to make it reconsider killing me outright.
“I am its master,” the fomorian said calmly. “It will take whatever scraps I offer it.”
It paused. The hand on my shoulder dipped and long fingers wrapped around my chest. I inhaled sharply in terror and my heart raced painfully. I felt frozen, helpless but to watch in mounting dread as it straightened, lifting me up off the ground and holding me level with its single glowing eye.
“I said I would kill you next we met,” the fomorian said. “That I would break your bones and drink your blood.”
“Have you… reconsidered?”
“I have. There are better fates for meddlesome humans.”
‘Better’ is an extremely relative term here.
In panic, I seized my knife and drew it. I stabbed it straight down with both hands, driving it down to the hilt into the fomorian’s wrist. Then I wrenched it free and stabbed him again and again, growing ever more panicked as the creature refused to react, as if I were merely an ant biting at its pallid flesh.
It opened its hand and dropped me. I tried to land on my feet and for a few seconds, I did, but the impact was too hard, the ground too slick with snow, and I am not a gymnast. My feet slipped out from under me and I landed hard on my back. I was fumbling for the knife before it even registered that I hadn’t started breathing again yet. Blind panic drove me on. Just as my fingers closed on it, the ground around me lurched, as four fingers came crashing down into the frozen soil. They formed a cage around me, the palm pressed low enough that I was just barely pinned to the ground by its pressure. I stared up at the fomorian looming over me.
“Since the thorns concern you so,” it rumbled, “I will help you understand them better. I will plant them in your flesh. They will feed on you until there is nothing left to consume.”
I kicked, trying to squeeze myself out from under its grip. But I could only watch in horror as it reached into its bag and pulled out a single seed. It held this balanced for a moment on its finger.
Then it dropped the seed neatly between my collarbones.
There was a sharp pain, like a bee sting. The fomorian released me from under its hand and I tore at my clothing, frantic, ripping open my jacket and pulling the hem of my shirt down, clawing at my stinging flesh. Nothing. There was nothing there. No seed. Just a thin cut, not even the size of my thumb. The flesh was blackened at the edges.
I was close to hysteria. All I could think of was those thorns choking the life out of the trees, spines growing through them like worms. Now, it was inside my chest. I’d seen someone die in a similar way before. The thought of such a fate horrified me beyond measure and I dug at my own flesh until blood ran down to my stomach and finally - more than the pain - the cold realization that the seed had vanished somewhere beyond my reach was what made me stop.
When I looked up, the fomorian was gone. I could only gather my tools and return to the house to clean up my chest and bandage the wound I’d made, trying to ignore the pain and the creeping sensation along my skin. I wondered how long it would take. I wondered if the shiver I felt along my spine was my imagination or if the thorns were spreading through my body already. I took a couple shots of whiskey to steady myself and radioed for Bryan.
I’m really not sure what his relationship with the fairy is, but I’m starting to suspect there’s something going on there. More so than I initially thought. Anyway, I asked if he’d request the fairy to pay the house a visit. I desperately needed help, I said, and it involved the fomorian.
The fairy showed up a few hours later. The sun was still up, but the fairy seemed to glow with their own sunlight. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to gaze upon Lugh, whom they had once followed into battle. They stared at me from the back of their deer a moment, then languidly dismounted and walked closer. I looked away under their intent scrutiny, keenly aware that I was just a dumb mortal who had gotten into more trouble than she could handle.
“I cannot cure this, if this is what you wish,” they finally said.
“Then who can?” I asked desperately, snapping my head up to meet their gaze.
They seemed… sad. But also stern.
“Where is your protector?” they asked.
“My what?”
“The one seeking a name.”
Obviously by this point I knew they were referring to Beau. I don’t necessarily think of him as my protector, as there’s been plenty of times he’s merely stood by and let something awful happen to me. The bit about seeking a name though… Well, there’s only one thing on this campground doing that, as far as I’m aware.
But instead of answering the fairy’s question, I continued to play dumb. Perhaps if I could get them to recognize Beau’s name, that would grant it a little more significance than what we collectively have already given it.
“Beau,” the fairy murmured. “Since you insist I speak that name.”
Don’t say I never did anything for him.
I told them the truth. I didn’t know where Beau was. He wasn’t mine to control, after all, and he only came when he chose to. I had no doubt that if he didn’t want to be summoned, he simply wouldn’t show. Nor did I think he tailed my every movement through the forest. Beau expected me to be able to take care of myself, to a degree. Mutual respect and all.
“Do you mean to say he can fix this?” I asked. “It’s not something I swallowed.”
“No. But he is on good terms with the creatures you have taken to calling the harvesters and I think they would accept a request from him, should he ask that they cut it out of you.”
I thought of how my great-aunt died and I could not speak. There was a touch against my cheek, like a moth’s wing, and it brought me back to myself.
“Poor thing,” the fairy said softly. “You have time yet. Seek another way, if you cannot bear the thought of such a remedy.”
Then their tone turned stern and unforgiving and they dropped their hand, stepping back a pace.
“And campground manager?” they added. “Do not summon me again in such a way.”
“Why can’t I?” I demanded, somewhat wildly. “You’re waging a war on my land.”
I was feeling a little spicy after my encounter with the fomorian.
“I am defending your land against a would-be conqueror that you led here.”
Being petty is a lot less fun when the other person refuses to engage. The fairy said it so plainly, with all the interest of stating the sky was blue. They didn’t even look at me while they did so, but I could not help but squirm with uncomfortable guilt.
“Besides,” the fairy continued. “Doing so endangers Bryan.”
Ah. That… made sense. And I only felt more guilty for not thinking of this myself. Normally I pride myself on how I protect my staff, but I admit that there have been lapses in the past. This might have become one of them, had the fairy not intervened. Bryan is accommodating and I think I take that for granted at times.
“Is there a way I should contact you?” I asked.
“No. I will come if I am needed.”
The deer turned and walked away, leaving me standing there on the front porch of my house, my chest stinging with every breath, with the only cure available to me one that I fear with all of my being.
I’m a campground manager. I… haven’t spoken to Beau yet. I cancelled knife fighting with him so I could keep my distance, in case he noticed something was amiss. Said I was worn out from ripping out thorns and he respected that, as I’ve already had to explain that sometimes humans need rest days. I admit I’m feeling a little desperate right now. My options are slim. I’m going to try the dancers, though I fear they can only cure diseases or poisons. If that fails…
I’m going to seek out the spiders. [x]
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I run a private campground. Over a year ago I started telling you all about my little patch of field and forest and the creatures that live on it - and how to survive them. I did not spare the details, which led to a fair number of you going, wow Kate, you’re kind of a monster yourself. I justified it by telling myself that when you’re dealing with flesh-eating horses and other monstrosities, you have to be a bit ruthless.
Then a year ago, Perchta showed up and gave me a warning that made me reconsider my position. I keep the bloody piece of thread on my dresser as a reminder.
If you’re new here, you should really start at the beginning and if you’re totally lost, this might help.
While today is not her feast day, Beau warned me that the seamstress of slaughter was drawing close. He felt her presence. Like a storm on the horizon. I suppose it makes sense that she can show up whenever she feels like it. I don’t follow her tenets. I don’t weave. My family ancestry is a muddled mess and we don’t keep the traditions of any one culture. Perchta has no traditional claim on me. Her appearance last year was a special interest she showed for… reasons, I guess.
Perhaps she makes exceptions for people she particularly takes issue with. I suppose it’s pointless to wonder why I’ve been singled out when I’m sure there’s much worse people to go after, like insurance company executives. (if you’re reading this and have the chance to maybe book an executive retreat for said insurance companies, I’ll offer a substantial discount for use of my campground, just saying)
But these creatures do what they will. Perhaps I merited special attention because my land was in the early throes of turning ancient and the decision of who it will go to is of great importance to more than just people that like to go camping.
I waited for Perchta’s arrival in my living room. My tarot deck was sitting out on the coffee table for no other reason than it felt appropriate. I wasn’t trying to do any readings. It hadn’t been very effective last year. I feel it was trying to tell me something, but my mind is so preoccupied with the here and now that I don’t have space in my brain for these nebulous ‘what-ifs?’
But honestly, at that moment, my mind was mostly occupied with dread. I can’t undo the past. People died on my land this past year and that cannot be changed. My theory that Perchta was asking for a specific outcome at some point in the future rather than a general “don’t let people die” could very well have been nothing but wishful thinking. There was no avoiding my fate. I could only wait to find out if Perchta took offense at my actions or not.
I think I dozed off a bit on the sofa, for I next remember being startled awake by the front door banging open. It brought with it a hefty gust of cold air that sank its teeth into my ears and fingers. I fear January is going to be brutal if the temperature continues to fall like this.
Framed in the doorway stood Perchta. She was dressed in a radiant, white gossamer dress with no sleeves. It billowed at her feet like drifts of snow. In one hand she held a needle, already threaded.
I eyed it nervously. Granted, it wasn’t a plough and chain that she used on particularly wicked individuals, but disemboweling is disemboweling, regardless of how you’re sewn back up.
“I, uh, made tea,” I offered.
She stepped inside, her expression composed and her steps deliberate. Making a point. She did not have to be invited inside. She was an ancient thing and could go as she willed.
“That would be lovely,” she hissed.
So I went to the kitchen where there was already a carafe from earlier in the evening and when I came back with two mugs she was seated on my sofa and was sewing up a rip in one of my jackets. I don’t remember quite what caused the tear, it was either while clearing out dead branches or fleeing from the fomorian. You know. Just campground things. I set the tea down in front of her and perched on the edge of a chair, too nervous to actually settle down.
“You act like you’re ready to flee at any moment,” Perchta commented, not taking her eyes off her work.
“I am,” I laughed nervously. “Did you come to just mend my jacket or is that thread also meant for me?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m trying. I really am.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
Her eyes flickered up from her work to regard me. I took a deep breath and tried to summon any conviction I had in my heart. Wasn’t I doing better? Wasn’t I trying to not take the easy way out, no matter how seductively it whispered to me?
“Because I’m frightened,” I said, my sudden honesty surprising even me. “I don’t want to die - and yet - that’s the only way I read this situation. You said I could save everyone and with the land turning ancient… I think that means I need to let some benevolent creature take my life and entrust the land to its protection.”
Perchta said nothing. She only continued to sew and I waited until she was done. She knotted the thread with a few deft motions of the needle and broke the strands with her teeth. Then she set the jacket aside and granted me her full attention. Still, she did not speak. The question of my character was for me alone to answer.
“I want to do what you told me,” I said desperately. “Why do I have to die though?”
“You should know the power in sacrifice. It’s only right, isn’t it? After all these generations of sacrificing others to this land, now the debt falls to you.”
“We didn’t sacrifice people.”
“Didn’t you?”
She leaned forwards and slipped a card out of the tarot deck that sat on the table. Justice. She held it up for me to see, a silent condemnation of my family’s blood history. Me and my damn rules. Perhaps they saved some, but they also served to absolve me of responsibility. What’s fair is fair, after all. They were warned.
I suppose that didn’t make it right.
“Am I… at least on the right track?”
“This would not be a civil conversation if you were not.”
I laughed, a brief bout of hysteria induced by how close I’d been sitting to a gorey demise and the relief of release. She wasn’t here to kill me. I didn’t have to save everyone starting with the instant she stabbed her needle through my flesh. At some point in the future, I had to make the right choice, and in the meantime keep the land from falling into the wrong hands. It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
Still. My conversation with Perchta wasn’t over. There was something I needed from her.
“You wouldn’t have come here just to inform me I get a reprieve,” I said. “You’d have just… not shown at all.”
“And you wouldn’t have invited me for tea if you weren’t preparing to ask something of me.”
I’m not sure what it says about me that the person that truly seems to get me and my nervous habits is someone who runs around replacing people’s entrails with straw and rocks.
I stood and went to the guest bedroom, which used to be my room when I was a child. I returned with a couple bags of children’s shoes and toys. Gifts from the gofundme. Y'all are so clever.
“These are gifts for your children,” I said, setting them at her feet. She merely regarded me placidly, her hands crossed over her needle and thread.
“I have none with me.”
“There are some on this campground in want of a mother.”
If this past year has taught me anything, it’s that the best way to get rid of something inhuman is to sic an even bigger and nastier inhuman thing on it. Perchta was silent and still for a moment, then she demurely closed her eyes and gestured, beckoning me to come closer. I complied, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. She took my right hand with her left and then held her needle up between us. Then she made a stitch. A careful incision on the tip of my finger, where the skin is calloused and she could run the needle through without drawing blood. It was a strange and unpleasant sensation, having thread drawn through the tip of my finger like that, but it didn’t hurt. She put another stitch in my next finger, and so on and so on, until white thread ran loosely between each fingertip of my hand. Then she took the left and did the same, all with the same long, continuous piece of thread. She hummed as she worked and did not open her eyes until it was done. Then she bid me to break the thread myself with my teeth. I stared at my hands and the threads connecting finger to finger, hand to hand.
“There,” she said. “All done. Now go bring me my children.”
I began to walk to the garage, but Perchta stopped me by speaking.
“You can use the front door,” she said slyly. “The little girl will respect you as my envoy tonight.”
An envoy of Perchta. Certainly something that not just anyone can put on their resume.
The little girl was standing in the yard, watching, as I left through the front door. She wasn’t crying. Her eyes were wide and she watched in silence as I walked to the gate. On impulse, I turned to her.
“I’m not… making a mistake, am I?” I asked.
I didn’t expect a response. It’s just this year has been so messed up and weird that I didn’t want to rule it out, either. The little girl stared back at me for a moment and then slowly - very slowly - shook her head no. I was not making a mistake.
Beau told me that the way to avoid the children was to stay off the roads. That meant the way to find them was to stay on the roads. I nervously walked along, wishing I’d thought to grab more than just my jacket. A hat or scarf, maybe. I certainly couldn’t wear gloves and I didn’t want to shove my hands in my pockets lest I break the threads. My fingers began to ache and I was only mostly certain it was from the cold. I wasn’t sure what the threads were for or what I was supposed to do with them. I could only hope that, like most of these inhuman things, it would become apparent at the point it was needed.
I’d just entered the deep woods when I saw a figure standing on the road up ahead. I could not see them clearly because a night mist was encroaching on the campground, rolling in and pouring into the low parts of the land. It hovered silver over the snow. I approached warily, gauging the size of the person before me. Small. A child. I took a deep breath and regretted it, for the cold chewed at my lungs.
The child was alone. She was small and dirty, standing barefoot in the packed snow on the dirt road. I looked around, trying to make sure her peers weren’t lurking in ambush nearby. There were no footprints to betray them. For that matter, she didn’t leave any footprints either.
“You’re looking for us,” the child said to me.
Her voice seemed wrong. It was too solemn for a child.
“I’ve found a mother for you,” I replied, stopping just a few feet away.
“My mother wasn’t here when I needed her.”
“This one is different. I promise.”
I held out my hand, the threads glowing like the moonlight. The child looked askance at them, considering. Then, slowly, tentatively, she put her hand in mine. Something flashed through my field of vision. A child. A mother. A frozen lake.
“You drowned,” I gasped, when the visions cleared. My chest ached, as if I’d been the one thrashing in the darkness and the cold, alone and afraid.
“I cried for my mother,” she whispered, “and she never came. The water filled my lungs instead.”
I told her it was okay. I’d take her to her new mother and this one would always be there. I squeezed her hand tight.
One of the threads loosened from my finger. It wrapped around her wrist. And on we walked, through the woods as the mist steadily grew thicker.
The next child was a boy. He died as a teenager. I saw how his mother wasn’t ever really there for him, not even as she sat at his hospital bedside as he died after the car crash. I was a little puzzled by this, for he wasn’t a child necessarily, and as the thread looped it around his wrist he appeared to me as he did in the moment he died, a teenager with a broken face and blood-stained eyes. But he came with me. As did the next. And the next. And finally, at the last, I understood.
A girl. I saw her life, I saw her bury her mother at a younger age than I buried mine. I saw her with children of her own and I saw them grow up and leave. Then I saw her die, quietly in her sleep. She never woke, only stirred slightly to call out, her lips barely moving, and then she was gone.
I was so certain that these were the souls of unbaptized children. But my theories are only theories. Sometimes I’m wrong.
Perhaps at one point dying before baptism is all that could give rise to these lost children, but the world has changed. We’ve changed. And our collective fears and hopes and needs have shifted, moving from the fear of an early death or starvation to the more nebulous fears of loneliness and emptiness.
As I watched the old woman, crying out softly in her sleep, I finally understood what the children were.
The souls of those that died alone, wanting for a mother, and being denied that gentle comfort of a hand to hold in their last moments.
I took her hand and promised to take her to someone that would make sure she was never alone again. She gazed up at me with hopeful eyes as a thread wrapped itself around her wrist.
The task was done. I’d collected all the children and I still had a few strands to spare. Satisfied, I turned to return to the house where Perchta waited for us. It was then that I realized I could no longer see the road. In fact, I couldn’t see anything of the campground at all. For a moment I panicked, thinking perhaps I was in the gray world, but there were no trees and no sky, leeched of color. Just the mist.
Sometimes, roads will lead you somewhere other than where you intended to go.
There was movement in the fog. I squinted, trying to discern shapes out of the shifting haze. With a start, I realized what it was. Children. Rows and rows of children, all pulling at each other, struggling to get ahead in the surging press of bodies. Their eyes were wide with desperation, a hopeless yearning not out of hunger or malice, but a simple primal need to not be left behind. To not be left alone in this in-between world. There were so many. The tide of bodies vanished into the mist but I knew they were there, an endless mass of lost souls that all cried out for the same thing. They stretched out fingers in my direction as they pleaded.
Mother. I want my mother.
And I only had two strings left.
“We’re going to play a game, children,” I said frantically to the ones I’d already bound. “It’s called ‘run like hell from the undead horde.’”
I ran. And it was like the children - and adults - yoked to me were nothing more than wisps of wind. They trailed behind me, almost formless, bound only to this reality by the threads around their wrists. I dragged them along in my wake, binding them to my humanity, and carried them out of this half-realm of the lonesome dead.
There was a light up ahead. The light of my front porch. The only beacon I had. I ran for it as the horde closed in around me, hands reaching out of the mist to snatch at my jacket. They screamed at me to take them with me. To not leave them alone. But most of all, they cried out for their mothers.
“I’m sorry!” I cried out. “There’s too many of you!”
I stretched out my hand for the light of my front porch. Cold hands closed on my legs, seizing the hem of my jeans. The dead sobbed, trying to drag me back in their desperate loneliness. So unwilling to be left alone in their moment of need once again that they were willing to consign another to the same fate. I felt my fingers touch a doorknob and then I was falling forwards, tumbling into the warmth and light of my entryway.
Panting, I whirled around. The children were gone. The mist was gone. There was only my front yard and the little girl, watching, just as she’d been when I’d left. I slowly closed the door, staring at the threads still attached to my fingers.
“Did I… fail?” I asked, not turning around, fearing the answer. “Did I not run fast enough?”
The children I’d had with me were nowhere to be seen.
“No. Come here.”
She snipped the threads from my fingers, one by one, and tucked them away into some invisible pocket. As she worked, I noticed that the toys and shoes were gone. I also noticed that her shears were stained with layers of blood, but I tried not to focus on that too much.
“Thank you for collecting them for me,” she said. “If more find your way to the campground, I’ll come for them as well.”
“There were… countless souls. Are they all trapped there until someone claims them?”
She tilted her head at me as if I’d asked a strange question.
“Not all are trapped,” she said. “Nor are all of them souls. Some are… echoes. You shouldn’t bother with such things. It is beyond your domain.”
Life advice from Perchta. Don’t worry about the dead, for there’s nothing we can do for them. It’s cold comfort. I half-listened as Perchta told me that she’d take the children with her and she’d set them loose on the night of her wild hunt. I wondered if the children would ride a wagon, in amongst the hordes of her followers, screeching as they raced through the night and chased down anything unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. Then she said something that brought my full attention back to her.
“You belong with my hunt,” Perchta said thoughtfully. “Granted, you’re currently alive, but your death is written in your family’s blood. What’s a handful of years matter? One? Ten? Come with me, Kate, and I’ll give you the mother you still yearn for.”
I looked up at her. Her appearance had changed. She wore boots. Her gossamer dress was gone, replaced by practical jeans and a flannel plaid shirt I knew too well. I knew what it smelled like.
It was my mother’s favorite.
And Perchta wore my mother’s face. Her hair. The steely look in her eyes, glinting like fire.
“You cry out for you, do you not?” she continued. “I hear it in your heart.”
“Everyone dies,” I said through clenched teeth. I stepped backwards towards the door. “I will learn to live with this.”
“You don’t have to.”
She reached out for me with my mother’s hand.
I watched her die, all those years ago. In my dream, far away in my bed in my college apartment. It was a true dream. The little girl sat on her bed, her hands stained with my mother’s blood, and her abdomen was split open and the organs inside strewn about and packed back in carelessly, like a child assembling bricks.
Now Perchta stood here, hand outstretched, coming to claim me as one of her own lost children. To run in her wild hunt, to be lost forever to this world and belong to the other.
I think… I went a little mad at that point. I ran. Straight out the front door, heedless of the little girl or my own safety. I stumbled down the front steps and the little girl hurried forwards, but it wasn’t for me. She stepped behind me, standing between me and Perchta, and I didn’t dare stop and watch. I could barely see, anyway, for the tears in my eyes. I burst through the gate and out to the road and I ran to the only place I could think of.
I ran to the graveyard. I collapsed in front of my mother’s grave. And I screamed my grief to the cold earth, weeping for a mother that was gone and could not be replaced.
I was there for a long time. Finally, a voice made me come back to myself. The little girl. I didn’t turn around. She wasn’t close by. She’d never crossed into the graveyard before, to my knowledge.
“She’s gone,” the little girl said. “I don’t think she’ll be back until next year.”
“She didn’t try to take you?” I sniffled.
“I have no mother, for I was never born.”
She’s not a ghost. She was never a human to begin with. She’s something fully inhuman, created specifically as my family’s curse. For a moment, I was stunned at this revelation, and my mind whirled with all the questions it created. How does such a thing happen? What is my family’s relationship with this land?
I asked where she came from, then, if not a mother. The little girl didn’t answer. I twisted where I knelt and turned around to look.
Above me loomed the beast and in its jaws was the little girl’s body, slack and silent. Its teeth were like spikes carved from obsidian, its multitude of eyes shone like stars, and it consumed the sky above me so that all I could see was its hide, carved from the waning night itself. I could feel the heat of its throat and the weight of its breath upon me.
My death, staring down upon me, mere feet away.
It was like the world spun. I felt like a feather, buffeted by a storm, my body weightless, and then knew nothing more.
I awoke to find myself alone in the graveyard. The sun was over the horizon. And embarrassingly, my jeans were wet. If I have to surmise what happened… I pissed myself and fainted.
So… yeah. That’s a thing that happened.
Look - I’m a campground manager. I’ve dealt with a lot of shit over the years but I fear the beast like I fear no other. At least it was sated by the little girl. At least I’m still here.
This world is a cruel place. It takes our fears and turns them against us. These things that we dread, that we try not to think about but haunt us nonetheless, in the silent spaces of our mind, are plucked clear and given form and life. They are turned into weapons, into monsters, and into curses. This world shackles us with the things we seek to flee.
I have no comfort to give you. How can I tell you to come to terms with your loneliness, with your loss, when I can’t do so myself?
Perchta was right. I miss my mother. I miss both my parents. I want them back more than anything. And I fear death because I know it will be by the hand of some inhuman thing and by that nature, I will be alone when I die. [x]
Read the full list of rules.
Visit the campground's website.

This is an attempt at creating a complete database of all 3DS and Wii U games that didn't make the cut to the Switch (from Nintendo masterpieces to shovelware).
As it stands, the "raw data", consisting of just the list of the last-gen non-Switch games, is already gathered. This is, however, still a working progress as much more can be done, for example classify the games in categories such as "Third Party", "Indie Gem", "Shovelware", among others. Other information such as each game's developer would also enrich this list.
The idea behind this list is manly software preservation, because someday the other consoles' eShops will close and similarly to the Wii Shop channel some games may be lost, and with this database we know which of the bunch are not "safe" on Switch. But this is also a matter of consistency across Nintendo platforms, hence the inclusion of games with physical version. The Switch is such an amazing and successful console that, in my opinion (and of many here in this sub), it would be amazing if virtually every game was ported to it (or at least every Nintendo related one) .
There is some subjectivity in this selection of games, because we didn't include games that already have a improved version on the Switch (games that include the vast majority of the base game content), so for example Smash 4 is not here, because almost everything it had to offer is replicated in Ultimate. In the other hand, Mario Kart 7 is in fact listed, because very few of it's tracks are represented in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
The criteria used are as follows:
- Every original 3DS game not on Switch is featured
- If a game is in both 3DS and Wii U but not in Switch, it appears listed as 3DS game (because the 3DS outlived the Wii U and probably so will it's eShop)
- Every original Wii U game not on 3DS and not on Switch is featured
- This searched is based on the PAL games of the consoles and in Nintendo's official website
- If a game has a port/enhanced version/remake announced for the Nintendo Switch (e.g. Super Mario 3D World) it is off the list.
--
​
The idea of this post is creating this database together as a fun little fan project, seeing as it is incomplete and can have a much better organization and presentation that it has as of this moment.
​
Possible improvements/updates:
- Adding the other regions (NA and Japan)
- Tag the games as "Indie Gem", "Shovelware"...
- Associate to each game a possible reason for why the port hasn't happened yet (e.g. extinct developer, technical difficulties, irrelevance, etc...)
- Group the numbers in graphs or other more pleasant presentation
- Create dream ports to Switch (a favorite of this sub :) ) based on the games yet to port (not only of a simple game like Xenoblade Chronicles X for Switch but for example: Etrian Odyssey Collection, based on the fact that there are a bunch of games from that series "stuck" on the 3DS)
​
Well here it goes:
​
Legend:
N = Made/Published by Nintendo
TP = Third Party with physical version
IG = Indie Gem (subjective)
​
\*3DS*\**
​
​
*#\*
10-in-1 Arcade Collection
1001 Spikes
101 DinoPets 3D
101 Penguin Pets 3D
101 Pony Pets 3D
2 Fast 4 Gnomz
2048
35 Junior Games
3D Game Collection
3D Gunstar Heroes
3D MahJongg
3D Solitaire
50 Classic Games
7th Dragon III Code: VFD
​
*A\*
A-Train™ 3D: City Simulator
AERO PORTER
ARC STYLE: Baseball 3D
ARC STYLE: Football 3D
ATTACK OF THE FRIDAY MONSTERS! A TOKYO TALE
AZADA
Adventure Bar Story
Adventure Labyrinth Story
Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd you steal our garbage?!!
Adventure Time™: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!
AiRace Speed
AiRace Xeno
Akari by Nikoli
Alien on the run
Alphadia
Angry Birds Star Wars
Angry Birds™ Trilogy
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Welcome amiibo
Animal Hospital
Anime Workshop
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Around the World with Hello Kitty and Friends
As Aventuras de Tintim
As Misteriosas Cidades de Ouro: Caminhos Secretos
Ascent of Kings
Asphalt™ 3D
Atlantic Quest
Atlantis-6
Azure Snake
​
*B\*
B.O.O.L: Master labyrinth puzzles
BIKE RIDER DX2 : GALAXY
BLAZBLUE CONTINUUM SHIFT II
BLOK DROP CHAOS
BOX UP
BOXBOXBOY!
BOXBOY!
BRICK RACE
BRICK THRU
BUGS vs. TANKS!™
BYE-BYE BOXBOY!
Balloon Pop® Remix
Banana Bliss: Jungle Puzzles
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Barbie Groom and Glam Pups
Barbie and her Sisters Puppy Rescue
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
Battleminer
Battleminerz
BearShark
Bella Sara 2 - The Magic of Drasilmare
Ben 10 Omniverse™ 2
Best Friends - My Horse 3D
Best of Arcade Games
Best of Board Games
Best of Casual Games
Beyblade Evolution
Big Bass Arcade: No Limit
Bike Rider DX
Bird Mania 3D
Bird Mania Christmas 3D
Blast 'Em Bunnies
Blasting Agent: Ultimate Edition
BlockForm
Bloody Vampire
Boulder Dash-XL 3D
Bowling Bonanza 3D
Brave Tank Hero
Bravely Default
Bravely Second™: End Layer
Bricks Defender
Bricks Defender 2
Bricks Pinball
Bricks Pinball 2
Brilliant Hamsters!
Brunch Panic
Bubble Pop World
Butterfly: Inchworm Animation II
​
*C\*
COLOR CUBES
CÓMO ENTRENAR A TU DRAGÓN 2
CRIMSON SHROUD
CUP CRITTERS
Candy, Please!
Carps & Dragons
Castle Clout 3D
Castle Conqueror Defender
Castle Conqueror EX
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate
Cats & Dogs 3D - Pets at play
Cazzarion
Cazzarion Adventureland
Chain Blaster
Chase: Cold Case Investigations ~Distant Memories~
Chevrolet Camaro Wild Ride 3D
Chibi-Robo! Let’s Go, Photo!
Chibi-Robo!™ Zip Lash
Christmas Night Archery
Christmas Wonderland 3
Christmas Wonderland 4
Classic Card Games
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Coaster Creator 3D
Cocoro
Cocoto Alien Brick Breaker
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
Collide-a-Ball
Colors! 3D
Comic Workshop
Comic Workshop 2
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars
Conveni Dream
Cooking Mama 4
Cooking Mama: Bon Appétit!
Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop
Corpse Party
Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut 3D
Crazy Construction
Crazy Kangaroo
Creeping Terror
Crollors Game Pack
Crush 3D
Crystareino
Cube Creator 3D
Cube Tactics
Cubic Ninja
Cubit The Hardcore Platformer Robot
Culdcept™ Revolt
Cut the Rope
​
*D\*
DEAD OR ALIVE® Dimensions
DON'T CRASH GO
DRAGON QUEST VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past
DRAGON QUEST VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
DRIVER® RENEGADE 3D
Dan McFox: Head Hunter
Dark Island
Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe
Defend your Crypt
Dementium Remastered
Demon King Box
Detective Pikachu
Digger Dan DX
Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger
Dillon’s Rolling Western
Disney Magical World
Disney Magical World 2
Disney Planes: Fire & Rescue
Disney Wreck-It Ralph
Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights
Dodge Club Pocket
Doll Fashion Atelier
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Dot Runner: Complete Edition
Dr Kawashima's Devilish Brain Training: Can you stay focused?
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure
Dragon Ball Fusions
Drancia Saga
Dream Trigger 3D
Dress To Play: Cute Witches!
Dress To Play: Magic Bubbles!
DualPenSports™
​
*E\*
EDGE
Epic Word Search Holiday Special
Escape From Forest
Escape From Zombie City
EscapeVektor
Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Etrian Odyssey Nexus
Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth
Etrian Odyssey™ IV: Legends of the Titan
Etrian Odyssey™ Untold: The Millennium Girl
European Conqueror 3D
Ever Oasis
Excave
Excave II : Wizard of the Underworld
Excave III : Tower of Destiny
​
*F\*
F1 2011
FIFTEEN
FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS
FISH ON 3D
FOUR BOMBS
Fallblox
Family Bowling 3D
Family Fishing
Family Kart 3D
Family Tennis 3D
Fantasy Life
Fantasy Pirates
Fat Dragons
Fatal Fracture
Fire Emblem: Echoes Shadows of Valentia
Fire Emblem: Fates
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Fishdom H2O: Hidden Odyssey
Flap Flap
Flick Golf 3D
Flipnote Studio 3D
Football Up 3D
Fossil Fighters Frontier
Fractured Soul
Freakyforms Deluxe Your Creations, Alive!
Frontier Days Founding Pioneers
Fullblox
Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Funfair Party Games
​
*G\*
GALAXY BLASTER
GALAXY BLASTER CODE RED
GLORY OF GENERALS
GUIDE THE GHOST
Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove 3D
Games Festival 2
Gardening Mama: Forest Friends
Glory of Generals The Pacific
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D
Gourmet Dream
Governor of Poker
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters
Groove Heaven
Guia De Conversação Com Falas - 7 Idiomas
Gummy Bears Magical Medallion
Gummy Bears Mini Golf
Gunslugs 2
Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure
​
*H\*
Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi
Halloween Night Archery
Halloween: Doces ou Travessuras 2
Happy Circus
HarmoKnight
Harvest Moon: A New Beginning
Harvest Moon: Skytree Village
Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley
Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns
Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX
Hazumi
Heart Beaten
Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D
Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D
Hello Kitty & Friends: Rockin' World Tour
Hello Kitty & Sanrio Friends 3D Racing
Hello Kitty Happy Happy Family
Hello Kitty and the Apron of Magic: Rhythm Cooking
Heroes of Ruin
Hey! PIKMIN
Hidden Expedition® Titanic
Hiding Out
Hit Ninja
Hollywood Fame: Hidden Object Adventure
Hometown Story
Horror Stories
Horse Vet 3D
Hot Wheels World's Best Driver
Hotel Transylvania
Hydroventure™: Spin Cycle
​
*I\*
I Love My Cats
I Love My Dogs
I Love My Horse
I Love My Pets
I Love My Pony
I am an air traffic controller AIRPORT HERO HAWAII
I am an air traffic controller AIRPORT HERO NARITA
I am an air traffic controller AIRPORT HERO OSAKA-KIX
I.F.O
IRONFALL Invasion
Ice Station Z
Imagine™ Fashion Designer 3D
Inazuma Eleven
Inazuma Eleven 3: Bomb Blast
Inazuma Eleven 3: Lightning Bolt
Inazuma Eleven 3: Team Ogre Attacks!
Inazuma Eleven GO Chrono Stones: Thunderflash
Inazuma Eleven GO Chrono Stones: Wildfire
Inazuma Eleven GO: Light
Inazuma Eleven GO: Shadow
Infinite Dunamis
Infinite Golf
​
*J\*
Jake Hunter Detective Story: Ghost of the Dusk
James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes
Japanese Rail Sim 3D 5 types of trains
Japanese Rail Sim 3D Journey to Kyoto
Japanese Rail Sim 3D Monorail Trip to Okinawa
Japanese Rail Sim 3D Travel of Steam
Jet Dog
Jett Rocket II: The Wrath of Taikai
Jewel Master Atlantis 3D
Jewel Master Cradle of Egypt 2 3D
Jewel Match 3
Jewel Quest 4 - Heritage
Jewel Quest Mysteries 3 - The Seventh Gate
Jewel Quest The Sapphire Dragon
Johnny Dynamite
Johnny Hotshot™
Johnny Kung Fu™
Johnny's Payday Panic
Journey to Kreisia
Jump Trials Supreme
Justice Chronicles
​
*K\*
KAMI
KINGDOM HEARTS 3D [Dream Drop Distance]
Karous - The Beast Of Re:Eden -
Kid Icarus: Uprising
Kingdom's Item Shop
Kirby Battle Royale
Kirby's Blowout Blast
Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn
Kirby: Planet Robobot
Kirby: Triple Deluxe
Kung Fu FIGHT!
Kung Fu Rabbit
Kutar (Collection)
​
*L\*
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
LEGO Legends of CHIMA: Laval's Journey
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
LEGO O Senhor dos Anéis
LEGO® Marvel Avengers
LEGO® Ninjago™: Nindroids™
LEGO® Ninjago™: Shadow of Ronin
LEGO® Pirates of the Caribbean The Video Game
LIBERATION MAIDEN™
Langrisser Re:Incarnation -TENSEI-
League of Heroes
Legna Tactica
Life with Horses 3D
Lifespeed
Lionel City Builder 3D: Rise of the Rails
Little Adventure on the Prairie
Little Battlers eXperience
Lola's Math Train
Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven
Love Hero
Lucky Luke & The Daltons
Luigi's Mansion
Luigi’s Mansion 2
Luv Me Buddies Wonderland
Luxor
​
*M\*
MYST
Machine Knight
Mad Dog McCree™
Mahjong 3D – Essentials
Mahjong 3D – Warriors of the Emperor
Mahjong Mysteries - Ancient Athena
Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Bros.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions
Mario Golf: World Tour
Mario Kart 7
Mario Party: Island Tour
Mario Party: Star Rush
Mario Party: The Top 100
Mario Sports Superstars
Mario Tennis Open
Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars
Marvel Pinball 3D
Maze Breaker
Maze Breaker 2
Maze Breaker 3
Me & My Pets 3D
Mes Comptines
Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D
Metroid Prime: Blast Ball
Metroid Prime: Federation Force
Metroid: Samus Returns
Miitopia
Mike the Knight and The Great Gallop
Mindfeud
Mini Golf Resort
Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge
Mini Sports Collection
Moco Moco Friends
Mononoke Forest
Monster Combine TD
Monster High New Ghoul in School™
Monster High 13 Wishes™
Monster High Skultimate Roller Maze™
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
Monster Hunter Stories™
Mountain Peak Battle Mess
Murder on the Titanic
Music On: Electric Guitar
Musicverse: Electronic Keyboard
My First Songs
My First Songs 2
My Foal 3D
My Life on a Farm 3D
My Little Baby 3D
My Pet School 3D
My Style Studio: Hair Salon
My Western Horse 3D
My Zoo Vet Practice 3D
Mysterious Stars 3D: A Fairy Tale
Mysterious Stars 3D: Road To Idol
Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove
Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst
Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst
Mystery Murders: The Sleeping Palace
​
*N\*
NARUTO Powerful Shippuden
NINJA SMASHER!
Nano Assault EX
Naruto Shippuden: The New Era
Navy Commander
Need for Speed: The Run
New Art Academy
New Super Mario Bros. 2
NightSky
Ninja Battle Heroes
Ninja Usagimaru - The Gem of Blessings -
Ninja Usagimaru - The Mysterious Karakuri Castle
Nintendo 3DS Guide Louvre
Nintendo Badge Arcade
Nintendo Pocket Football Club
Nintendo presents: New Style Boutique
Nintendo presents: New Style Boutique 2 - Fashion Forward
Nintendo presents: New Style Boutique 3 – Styling Star
Nintendogs + cats: Buldogue Francês e Novos Amigos
Nintendogs + cats: Caniche Toy e Novos Amigos
Nintendogs + cats: Golden Retriever e Novos Amigos
Noah's Cradle
Noitu Love: Devolution
​
*O\*
Ocean Runner
Of Mice And Sand
One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP
One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP 2
One Piece: Romance Dawn
Outback Pet Rescue 3D
​
*P\*
PAC-MAN & Galaga Dimensions
PAC-MAN Party 3D
PAC-MAN e as Aventuras Fantasmagóricas
PES 2011 3D
PES 2012 3D
PICROSS e
PICROSS e1
PICROSS e2
PICROSS e3
PICROSS e4
PICROSS e5
PICROSS e6
PICROSS e7
PICROSS e8
PIX3D
PUZZLE BOBBLE UNIVERSE™
PUZZLEBOX setup
Paddington™: Adventures in London
Painting Workshop
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Parascientific Escape - Crossing at the Farthest Horizon
Parascientific Escape - Gear Detective
Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas
Parking Star 3D
Pazuru
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
Petit Novel series – Harvest December
Pets Resort 3D
Petz® Beach
Phil'sEpicFill-a-PixAdventure
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice
Phoenix Wright™: Ace Attorney™ – Dual Destinies
Picdun 2: Witch's Curse
Pick-A-Gem
Picross 3D: Round 2
Pilotwings Resort
Pinball Breaker
Pinball Breaker 2
Pinball Breaker 3
Pinball Breaker 4
Pinball Breaker V
Pinball Breaker VI
Pixel Hunter
Pixel Paint
PixelMaker
PixelMaker Studio
Planet Crashers
Pocket Card Jockey
Pokédex 3D Pro
Pokémon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire
Pokémon Art Academy
Pokémon Dream Radar
Pokémon Link: Battle!
Pokémon Sun / Moon
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
Pokémon Picross
Pokémon Rumble World
Pokémon Shuffle
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon
Pokémon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon
Pokémon X / Y
Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World
Power Disc Slam
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Project X Zone
Proun+
Pullblox™
Pure Chess®
Putty Squad
Puzzle & Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition
Puzzle Labyrinth
Pyramids
Pyramids 2
​
*Q\*
Quarters, Please!
Quarters, Please! Vol. 2
Quiet, Please!
​
*R\*
RIDGE RACER™ 3D
RPG Maker Fes
RTO
RTO 2
RTO 3
RV-7 My Drone
Rabbids Rumble
Rabbids® 3D
Rabi Laby 3
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology
Radiohammer
Rage of the Gladiator
Rainbow Snake
Rayman 3D
Rayman Origins
Reel Fishing Paradise 3D
Reel Fishing® 3D Paradise Mini
Regular Show: Mordecai & Rigby in 8-Bit Land
Resident Evil™: The Mercenaries 3D
Return to PopoloCrois: A STORY OF SEASONS Fairytale
Rhythm Paradise Megamix
Rhythm Thief: & the Emperor's Treasure
Riding Star 3D
Rising Board 3D
River City: Knights of Justice
River City: Rival Showdown
River City: Tokyo Rumble
Robot Rescue 3D
Rubik's® Cube
Runny Egg
Rytmik Ultimate
​
*S\*
SADAME
SAMURAI WARRIORS: Chronicles
SAMURAI WARRIORS: Chronicles 3
SENRAN KAGURA 2: Deep Crimson
SENRAN KAGURA Burst
SHOOT THE BALL
SPACE DEFENDER BATTLE INFINITY
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
SWIPE
Safari Quest
Samurai G™
Samurai Sword Destiny™
Sanrio characters Picross
Sayonara UmiharaKawase
Secret Agent Files: Miami
Secret Mysteries in London
Shanghai Mahjong
Shift DX
Shifting World
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux
Shin Megami Tensei®: Devil Summoner®: Soul Hackers™
Shinobi
Siesta Fiesta
Silver Falls - Undertakers
Silver Falls - 3 Down Stars
Sims 3
Skater Cat
Skylanders SWAP Force
Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure
Skylanders SuperChargers Racing
Skylanders Trap Team
Slice It!
Smash Bowling 3D
Smash Cat Heroes
Snake3d
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice
Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
Sonic Generations
Sonic Lost World
Sparkle Snapshots™ 3D
SpeedThru: Potzol’s Puzzle
SpeedX 3D Hyper Edition
Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir
Splash or Crash
Splat The Difference
SpongeBob HeroPants
SpongeBob SquarePants™: Plankton's Robotic Revenge
SpongeBob SquigglePants
Squarcat
Sssnakes
Star Fox 64 3D
Steel Diver
Steel Empire
Stella Glow
Stickman Super Athletics
Story of Seasons
Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns
Sudoku - The Puzzle Game Collection
Sudoku Party
Sudoku by Nikoli
Sumico
Super Black Bass 3D
Super Monkey Ball™ 3D
Super Pokémon™ Rumble
Super Street Fighter™ IV 3D Edition
Super Strike Beach Volleyball™
Survivor - Heroes
Sweet Memories Blackjack
Symphony of Eternity
​
*T\*
TABLE TENNIS INFINITY
TEKKEN 3D PRIME EDITION
THE DENPA MEN: They Came By Wave
THE DENPA MEN 2: Beyond the Waves
THE DENPA MEN 3: The Rise of Digitoll
THE STARSHIP DAMREY™
THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY
THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY CURTAIN CALL™
TOUCH BATTLE TANK - TAG COMBAT -
TOYS VS MONSTERS
Tales of the Abyss
Tangram Style
Tank Onslaught
Tank Troopers
Tappingo
Tappingo 2
Teddy Together
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze
Tenkai Knights™: Brave Battle
The 3D Machine
The Amazing Spider-Man™
The Amazing Spider-Man 2™
The Battle Cats POP!
The Cube
The Delusions of Von Sottendorff and his Square Mind
The LEGO® Movie Videogame
The Legend of Dark Witch 2
The Legend of Dark Witch 3 Wisdom and Lunacy
The Legend of Kusakari
The Legend of Legacy
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
The Magic Hammer
The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure
The Penguins of Madagascar
The Phantom Thief Stina and 30 Jewels
Thomas and Friends Steaming Around Sodor
Thorium Wars: Attack of the Skyfighter
Tiny Games - Knights & Dragons
Titan Attacks!
Tokyo Crash Mobs
Tom Clancy’s™ GHOST RECON® SHADOW WARS
Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell® 3D
Tomodachi Life
Top Model 3D
Touch Battle Tank 3D
Touch Battle Tank 3D 2
Toy Defense
Toy Stunt Bike
Triple Breakout
Troca-Desenhos
Turbo: Super Stunt Squad
Turkey, Please!
Turtle Tale
​
*U\*
UP UP BOT
URBAN TRIAL FREESTYLE™
Ultimate NES™ Remix
Undead Bowling
Undead Storm Nightmare
Unlucky Mage
Urban Trial Freestyle 2
​
*V\*
VAN HELSING SNIPER ZX100
Vacation Adventures: Park Ranger
Vacation Adventures: Park Ranger 2
Vamos Aprender Inglês com a Biff, o Chip e o Kipper
Viking Invasion 2 - Tower Defense
Virtue's Last Reward
VoxelMaker
​
*W\*
WAKEDAS
WEAPON SHOP de OMASSE™
War & Romance Visual Novel
WarioWare Gold
Winter Sports 2012 - Feel the Spirit
Winx Club: Salvar Alfea
Witch & Hero 3
Witch's Cat
Wizdom
Worcle Worlds
Word Search 10K
Word Wizard 3D
WordsUp! Academy
World Conqueror 3D
​
*Y\*
YAKARI: The Mystery of Four-Seasons
YO-KAI WATCH BLASTERS Red Cat Corps / White Dog Squad
YO-KAI WATCH 2: Bony Spirits / Fleshy Souls / Psychic Specters
YO-KAI WATCH™ 3
Yoshi’s New Island
Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal® World Duel Carnival™
​
*Z\*
ZARA the Fastest Fairy
ZIG ZAG GO
Zen Pinball 3D
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
Zombie Incident
Zombie Slayer Diox™
​
​
\*WII U*\**
​
​
*#\*
3Souls
​
*A\*
A Drawing's Journey
A.C.E. – Alien Cleanup Elite
Absolutely Unstoppable MineRun
Aenigma Os
Affordable Space Adventures [IG]
Alice in Wonderland
Amiibo Touch & Play: Nintendo Classics Highlights [N]
Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival [N]
Annihilation
Aperion Cyberstorm
Armikrog
Armillo
Armored ACORNs: Action Squirrel Squad
Art Academy: Atelier [N]
Art Academy: SketchPad [N]
​
*B\*
B3 Game Expo For Bees
BADLAND: Game of the Year Edition [IG]
BIT.TRIP Presents… Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien [IG]
BLOC
BLOK DROP U
BLOK DROP X TWISTED FUSION
Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition [TP]
Batman: Arkham Origins [TP]
Beatbuddy
Ben 10 Omniverse [TP]
Bird Mania Party
Blek
Blocky Bot
Block Zombies!
Bombing Bastards
Bridge Constructor Playground
Buddy & Me: Dream Edition
​
*C\*
COLOR BOMBS
Cake Ninja 3: The Legend Continues
Call of Duty: Black Ops II [TP]
Call of Duty: Ghosts [TP]
Candy Hoarder
Canvaleon
Chasing Aurora
Chasing Dead
Chimpuzzle Pro
Chompy Chomp Chomp Party
Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus
Citadale - The Legends Trilogy
Cloudberry Kingdom
Cocoto Magic Circus 2
Collateral Thinking
Color Symphony 2
Cosmophony
Costume Quest 2
Cube Life: Pixel Action Heroes
Cubemen 2
Cycle of Eternity: Space Anomaly
​
*D\*
Defense Dome
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director's Cut [TP]
Devil's Third [N]
Dinox
Disney Infinity [TP]
Dr. Luigi [N]
Dragon Skills
Dreamals
Dreamals: Dream Quest
Drop It: Block Paradise!
Dual Core
DuckTales: Remastered [TP]
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
Dying Is Dangerous
​
*E\*
Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip
El Silla - Arcade Edition
Epic Dumpster Bear
Evofish
Exile's End
Extreme Exorcism
​
*F\*
F1 RACE STARS™ POWERED UP EDITION [TP]
Falling Skies: The Game
Family Party: 30 Great Games® Obstacle Arcade
Fire: Ungh's Quest
Fit Music for Wii U [N]
Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2 [TP]
Flight of Light
Flowerworks HD: Follie's Adventure
Frankenstein – Master of Death
FreezeME [IG]
Frenchy Bird
Funk of Titans
Funky Barn
​
*G\*
GAME PARTY CHAMPIONS [TP]
Game & Wario [N]
Gear Gauntlet
Gravity Badgers
Gravity+
Grumpy Reaper
Guac' a Mole
Guitar Hero Live [TP]
​
*H\*
High Strangeness
Hot Rod Racer
How To Survive
Hurry Up! Bird Hunter
​
*I\*
I C REDD
Infinity Runner
Injustice: Gods Among Us [TP]
Insect Planet TD
​
*J\*
JACKPOT 777
Jett Tailfin©
Joe's Diner
Jones on Fire
​
*K\*
Kick & Fennick
KickBeat Special Edition
Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush [N]
Knytt Underground™
​
*L\*
LEGO Dimensions [TP]
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes [TP]
Laser Blaster
Level 22
Lovely Planet [IG]
​
*M\*
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games [N]
Mario Party 10 [N]
Marvel Avengers™: Battle For Earth [TP]
Masked Forces
Mass Effect 3 Special Edition [TP]
Master Reboot
Midnight 2
Midtown Crazy Race
Mighty No. 9 [IG]
MikroGame: Rotator
Mon Premier Karaoké
Monkey Pirates
Mortar Melon
Mr. Pumpkin Adventure
Mutant Alien Moles of the Dead
My Style Studio: Notebook
​
*N\*
NINJA GAIDEN 3: Razor's Edge [TP]
Need for Speed: Most Wanted U [TP]
Nano Assault Neo [IG]
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) [IG]
Ninja Pizza Girl
Ninja Strike™: Dangerous Dash
Nintendo Land [N]
Nova-111
​
*O\*
ORBIT
Ohayou! Beginner's Japanese
Olympia Rising
Os Rios de Alice: Versão extendida
​
*P\*
PANDA LOVE
PENTAPUZZLE
PINBALL
PIXEL SLIME U
PSIBO
Paper Mario Color Splash [N]
Paper Monsters Recut [IG]
Petite Zombies
PictoParty
Pier Solar and the Great Architects
Pokémon Rumble U [N]
Plenty of Fishies
Preston Sterling and the Legend of Excalibur
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water [N]
Puddle™
Pullblox World [N]
Pumped BMX + [IG]
Puzzle Monkeys
​
*Q\*
Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut [IG]
Queen's Garden
​
*R\*
RADIANTFLUX: HYPERFRACTAL
REPLAY: VHS is not dead
RUSH
Rabbids Land [TP]
Race The Sun [IG]
Rakoo & Friends
Red Riding Hood
Rise of the Guardians
Rock Zombie
Rorrim
Roving Rogue
Run Run and Die
​
*S\*
SDK Paint
SDK Spriter
SHOOTY SPACE
SMART Adventures Mission Math: Sabotage at the Space Station
SPACE HULK
SPHERE SLICE
SPLASHY DUCK
STARWHAL [IG]
STEEL LORDS
STEEL RIVALS
SUPER ROBO MOUSE
SWAP BLOCKS
Sanatory Hallways
Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails
Scribble
Seasonal Assistant
Shadow Archer
Shadow Archery
Shadow Puppeteer [IG]
Shiny The Firefly
Shutshimi
SiNG PARTY [TP]
Sinister Assistant
Skylanders Giants [TP]
Skylanders SuperChargers [TP]
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric [TP]
Space Hunted
Space Hunted: The Lost Levels
Space Intervention
Spellcaster's Assistant
Spin the Bottle: Bumpie's Party [IG]
Sports Connection [TP]
Star Fox Guard [N]
Star Fox Zero [N]
Star Sky 2
Star Splash: Shattered Star
Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones [IG]
Stone Shire
Sudoku & Permudoku
Super Destronaut 2: Go Duck Yourself
Super Ultra Star Shooter
Suspension Railroad Simulator
Sweetest Thing
​
*T\*
TABLETOP GALLERY
TANK! TANK! TANK! [TP]
TAP TAP ARCADE
TAP TAP ARCADE 2
TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT™ 2 Wii U Edition [TP]
TEMPLE OF YOG
TITANS TOWER
TNT Racers - Nitro Machines Edition
TOUCH SELECTIONS
Tengami [IG]
Teslapunk
Test Your Mind
Tested with robots !
Tetrobot & Co.
The Beggar's Ride
The Croods: Prehistoric Party!
The Gem Collector
The Girl and the Robot
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD [N]
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD [N]
The Quiet Collection
The Smurfs™ 2 [TP]
The Stonecutter
The Swapper [IG]
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® Blacklist™ [TP]
Toon Tanks
Totem Topple
Toto Temple Deluxe [IG]
Twisted Fusion
​
*U\*
U Host
Underground
​
*V\*
VRog
​
*W\*
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper [TP]
Watch_Dogs™ [TP]
Wicked Monsters Blast! HD PLUS
Wii Fit U [N]
Wii Karaoke U by JOYSOUND [N]
Wii Party U [N]
Wii Sports Club [N]
Wooden Sen'SeY
Word Party
​
*X\*
XType Plus [IG]
Xenoblade Chronicles X [N]
​
*Y\*
Y.A.S.G
Year Walk [IG]
Your Shape®: Fitness Evolved 2013 [TP]
​
*Z\*
ZaciSa: Defense of the Crayon Dimensions!
Zen Pinball 2
ZombiU [TP]
Zombie Brigade: No Brain No Gain
Zombie Defense
Zumba Fitness: World Party [TP]
​
--
\WII U [N] Nintendo Games (26)\**
Amiibo Touch & Play: Nintendo Classics Highlights
Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
Art Academy: Atelier
Art Academy: SketchPad
Devil's Third
Dr. Luigi
Fit Music for Wii U
Game & Wario
Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Mario Party 10
Nintendo Land
Paper Mario Color Splash
Pokémon Rumble U
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water
Pullblox World
Star Fox Guard
Star Fox Zero
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
Wii Fit U
Wii Karaoke U by JOYSOUND
Wii Party U
Wii Sports Club
Xenoblade Chronicles X
​
--
​
Well feel free to add or modify anything you want, obviously. And feel free to also ask why the inclusion or the lack of it of any game. There must be some errors on the list, naturally, so if you know any information about a game that would take it off or put it on the list (an announcement for example) please share it with us!!!

4 Hands
All I could think to myself was “Fuck, No parking.” A hundred or more cars lay in front of me with the kind of organization you come to expect from used car lots and repair centers. Still, given the number of businesses listed in one business park, you’d think there would be one damn real parking lot. But no, I was forced to parallel park my 2010 Mercedes between two large work trucks. As I stepped out of the right side of my car I was careful to check to see that more cars weren’t coming down the narrow pathway. I was still getting used to cars coming down the left side of the road since moving to the UK for work. Driving really wasn’t that hard, it just takes your brain time to readjust to how weird things look after leading a whole life the other way everyday.
I couldn’t even see where I was supposed to be going. Online the Map search lead to a street view of an auto-garage. I would have assumed it was all a scam if the website for the massage parlor hadn’t looked so professionally done. I mean, seriously, internet scams can be pretty complex these days, but a fully functioning website that is updated daily, has working phone numbers and doesn’t ask for any money up front? It had to be legitimate.
To assuage my own anxieties about undercover police officers and being sent to holding cells naked, I did my own research about how legal this all was. As it turns out, at least according to the hundred or more website that I reviewed, nude massage in the UK is legal. Sure, all of the websites use thinly veiled terms like “100% Full body”, “Deluxe Package”, and “Tantric Massage.” It was that last one that really got my attention. I had routinely been getting traditional deep tissue massages for most of my adult life just for muscle soreness and relaxation; but I had never come across this term before. So when I did a browser search for local massage places to get a normal end of the week massage, I was surprised to come across so many establishments offering this service I had never before heard of.
I am ashamed to admit how enticing I found the whole idea. I’ve never in my life considered going to anything like a prostitute. Honestly the very idea of doing something like that actually made me kind of sick and unaroused. But the idea of a beautiful naked woman rubbing up and down by body while giving me my normal deep tissue massage, well, I admit… I found that beyond intriguing. I have never had trouble meeting women at any time in my life and I didn’t feel lonely or any of those other excuses that men give for doing this type of thing. If you get down to brass tax, I was just very excited by the idea and could not see a downside. As usual, my adventurous side won the internal debate. Afterall, I was single, it’s legal, and I had no intention of having sex with or exchanging fluids with anyone. What harm could a hand job do?
I had to send another text to the number from the website. “Where is your place? I just see a parking lot of old cars and a few guys in coveralls.”
“Look for the sign.” They replied after almost 5 minutes.
“What sign? I don’t see anything.” I wrote back hoping that my frustration was appropriately conveyed.
“Down The Alley”, they wrote back. I am willing to admit that the poor grammar and punctuation irked me in my already annoyed state. I was almost starting to feel that this was even more of a mistake and just leaving. But then they wrote again.
“Go straight Ahead. Your Appointment is now.”, again with the weird capitalization. How did they know I should be going straight ahead? I peered around for cameras hoping that my dark sunglasses made me look more casual; but I didn’t see any anywhere. I kept wondering to myself where they could be seeing me from while I started to walk ahead.
As I passed by the men in greasy coveralls, I expected to have that high school type feeling of being judged by people who didn’t even know my name. However, as I did my best to again use my sunglasses to obscure me watching them to see if they were watching me, I was surprised to find that they had hardly taken notice. They went about their business attending to the cars replacing price stickers and buffing hoods. Not a second glance was given.
Sure enough, I proceeded to find an alley ahead of me. There it was lodged between a half burned out autoshop that I was surprised to see was still in business and a dingy used Auto-sales office. No other people could be seen in or around the alley. As I approached the opening to the enclave, the aforementioned sign began to come into view. Who were they kidding? The sign was huge. But despite its size, it was on the ground at eye level with the fence at the far end of the alley. The letters were so large that you could only actually make out the A-S-S of “massage.” The wordplay in this was not lost on me. I don’t see how it could have been lost on anyone with eyes and a basic grasp of the English language. I had no doubts that whoever had set the sign up probably thought it was funny as all hell.
The alley was largely empty other than some leaves and a few pieces of carpet remains that looked like they had been stripped from the floor of one of the old shaggin-wagon vans out in the used car parking lot. At the end of the sidewalk, you had no choice but to make a left out of the alley thanks to the fence the sign was posted on. The sign could now be seen in full view: “Worther’s Naturist Spa and Massage.” It was obvious whoever commissioned the sign had at least thought that it would be the real centerpiece of this business park or possibly of a roadside billboard. It’s sheer size for a small independent business of any kind was almost comical. It actually made me chuckle a little bit when the irony of this huge sign being for a business that likely prided itself on at least a modicum of discretion.
Now I could see the real entrance to the massage parlor. A clean looking beige door which looked unassuming enough. It almost looked more like the entry way to a nice family home, complete with mail slot and sunflower garland hanging from the knocker. The door was however held ajar with the foot of the stair case visible. Walking in I could see a series of documents on the wall including copies of various business licensees and massage certificates. There was even a stack of business cards and some flyers. More and more this was seeming less like something adventurous and sleezy and more like just another afternoon relaxation activity.
I climbed the single flight of stairs and immediately came upon another plain unmarked door. The door was visibly locked from the other side with a deadbolt in place; but there was a call bell to the right of the frame with a small hand written sticky note saying “Ring For Entry. Masks Must be Worn.” Nothing about this seemed unusual. Any business these days that cared even an iota for their customers or their reputation required masks during the pandemic and that was even before the government mandate. This felt like just another thing that I could allow to ease me into a feeling of normalcy.
I rang the bell and allowed thirty seconds that felt like 5 minutes to pass. Ultimately, I had to ring three or four times before I finally heard rustling behind the door. The man behind the door swung it open hard enough to almost hit himself in the face with the edge of the door.
“Are you Mr. Calvin? The polite gentlemen from our text messages with an appointment this afternoon at 1:00pm?”, he asked with an almost insulting amount of formality.
“Uh… Yes, I am. And you can just call me Calvin.”, I replied sheepishly.
“My apologies. I assumed someone with such a business-like manner via text message would prefer to be called by their surname.”, he replied. I honestly thought he at this point he might be faking his British accent. Not that I doubted he was British given his tall thin frame, balding white hair, long face, and hooked nose that seemed to be the stamp of any man born in the UK before 1965. No, it just seemed like he was being intentionally theatrical, probably as some ongoing joke at my expense. Of course, he was just referring to my nervous texts setting up this appointment. I admit that I was probably the wrong side of terse asking flat one-to-two-word questions like “Time available?”, “price?”, and “Options?”. So, sue me, I was nervous.
“Yeah… sorry. You probably hear this all the time. But this is my first time doing anything like this. I wasn’t sure how to ask the questions that I wanted to or even if I was allowed to say certain things.”, I blurted out probably more anxiously than I intended.
“No problem, mate. A lot of you Americans get skittish your first time taking advantage of British hospitality. Nothing to be ashamed of.”, he retorted now sounding suddenly relaxed and jovial.
“Well… thank you. When do we uh… get started.?”, I said feigning relaxation.
“Whenever you would like. All of our masseuses are ready all the time… as long as they aren’t with another client that is. Remind me, you wanted a 60-minute Tantric massage?”, he asked.
“Yes, that was what the website said. It caught my eye and seemed like the right price. £120 I believe is what it said.”
“Oh yes, one of our most popular offerings. Will literally blow your top over that one.”, he said with what had to be the driest sense of humor in the entirety of the United Kingdom. “But have you seen any of our other offerings?”
“Just what was on the website.”, I replied.
“Well, let me test your resolve then. What if I told you that for a mere 50 quid more you can double your experience?”
“What your offering BOGO half off deals today?”, I snorted.
“No, mate. One massage. Two masseuses. Four hands. 20 fingers. Double, well… everything. How does that sound?”, he said with the first degree of salesmanship he had displayed thus far. And, I’ll be honest, what a sale. I had already come this far in the name of feeling adventurous and of course more than a bit horny. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford a few extra dollars. Money that I would probably waste on fast food and impulse internet shopping. What was the difference at this point?
“I have to say, a good deal is where you find it. Fuck it, let's do it!”, I said with the kind of cheesy bravado that I would have cringed at if I heard someone else talk that way.
“Good choice, my son. You won’t regret it.” He said looking down his hooked nose at me. “Now, go to the other room where you see those lockers. Grab a towel, strip, and go take a quick shower. I promise by the time you are done rinsing your ladies will have the room all ready for you and will come get you.” He gestured to the locker room with the adjacent showers. I nodded, briefly said thank you, and nearly vibrated away in excitement. I was jittery just at the thought of one nude body rub down. Now with this whole unanticipated experience suddenly arising, I could hardly contain myself.
My clothes came off so quickly I probably looked like a teenager in a late-night cartoon about to lose his virginity. I haphazardly shoved them into a locker and grabbed a towel. It was only now that I was totally naked in a new and oddly open location that it dawned on me how empty this place seemed to be despite the man’s references to other clients and multiple masseuses. It was almost believable that he was here entirely alone.
I immediately jumped in the nearest shower and started to rinse. The shower was surprisingly clean given this establishments somewhat seedy location. I take quick showers at the laziest of times, but this probably set the land speed record. As I was getting out of the shower, I caught a glimpse of the first other person I had seen here yet. An older, somewhat rotund man was now back at the lockers. He was stark pale and had the look of someone who probably was on a first name basis with his cardiologist and vascular surgeon. He kept his eyes down the entire time and didn’t even seem to be looking at his own locker much less me. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I turned to see a completely naked woman staring me directly in the eyes. She had big brown eyes that had just a hint of pink in the whites as though she hadn’t slept enough. Her frame was small and pixielike with long black hair up in a centered pony tail coming from top of her head. She was quite pretty in any traditional sense, but you could tell that her makeup was hiding the signs of a life that had been both longer and harder than she wanted anyone to know about. Her large breasts had the slope and angle that only comes from nature. Her waist was narrow compared to her hips. A cursory glance did not reveal a single hair on her porcelain skin anywhere below the eyebrows.
“Are you my 1 o’clock?”, She asked flatly and with unwavering eye contact. Her accent was that sort of eastern European that all Americans just assume is Transylvanian. I got the feeling she was both experienced enough with this to not be even remotely bashful but was also testing me to see if I would take the time to look at her body instead of just maintain eye contact.
“Yes, that’s me. All Showered and ready for my appointment.”
“Good. Follow me, please.”, she said and immediately about faced. Not a trace of jiggle on her frame as she strode away. I wish I could say the same for myself.
I followed her into a hall with three doors on each side. The middle door on my right was wide open. The room appeared totally dark on the inside if not for a series of candles haphazardly lit around the room. There was a clean looking massage table with a series of towels strategically folded upon it in the center of the room. The whole place had that somewhat oppressive aroma of lavender and Teatree oil that accompanies a lot of wellness spas and headshops. I stepped into the room, my towel hung loosely around me.
“Welcome, sir.”, came a voice from the corner suddenly. I whirled to see another young women I hadn’t been able to see in the dark upon walking in. This girl was much younger than the first. She was probably 19 or 20. Her accent was much thicker. Unlike her colleague she was not completely nude. She was wearing a dark black bikini which would have been small even on someone without her clearly augmented bust and hips. I immediately replied hello but she seemed unmoved. It was possible this one didn’t actually speak a word of English. I could see the candle light reflected in her eyes, but it was clear that she was actually attempting to avoid sharing my gaze.
“That is Scarlett. My name is Sophia. We will be your massage today.”, The voice of the first girl came from the door. Her poor grammar highlighting her foreignness despite her minimal accent. “Please remove your towel and lay in bed.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I laid down on my back without delay. As I positioned myself, I saw Scarlett reaching behind her back for her bikini strap. Now she made eye contact with me and had a look of some shame. Sophia chimed in with a smile.
“Please, on stomach for now.”, She instructed. I averted my eyes from Scarlett and flipped over, now feeling my own hint of shame. What a dumb mistake, of course they meant on my stomach. We all knew was coming; but I still paid for a 60-minute massage, damnit. How over eager could I be?
I placed my face down into the divot for it at the end of the table. I felt the table surface indent slightly on both sides with the touch of multiple pressure points. There was whispering in Eastern-European sounding language that I honestly couldn’t hear well enough to understand even if I did speak any languages from that part of the world. Then suddenly a whisper in my right ear, “ We start now.”
Fingernails lightly grazed down my back on both sides. The first pass was a light caress with the unmistakable alternating stroke of 2 coordinated hands. Then suddenly, a biting pain in my back. Ten individual needle points all along my right side followed by a downward rake. I winced hard and all sensation suddenly left my back.
“Too much pressure?”, cooed Sophia into my right ear.
“Uh… Yes. Sorry. Less please.”, I snorted back trying to contain my shock at the now diminishing pain. Of all the stupid things, I instinctually tried to maintain some façade of machismo in front of these two beautiful women. An instinct I think most men have when there is even a hint of sexual activity on the horizon.
“We start again now.”, whispered the squeaking accented voice of Scarlett in my left ear for the first time since her initial greeting. I guess I was wrong about her not speaking another word of English. Maybe she was just shy. With this thought, I felt many fingertips lay into my thoracic spine on both sides. I wondered to myself how a girl who touches naked people for a living, and sometimes lets them touch her, could be shy. For the first time it occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t her choice. Maybe I was contributing to some kind of horrific human trafficking event that was forcing this beautiful young girl to do something she hated for some scumbag gangster’s profit. At that thought, I should have gotten right up off the bed and stormed out. But what I really did was push that thought deep into the recesses of my mind with self-righteous justifications like I could never be so dumb as to even accidentally support something like that.
The pace of their caresses quickened. I heard a squishing sound followed by warm liquid on my back. The stroking of hands became more glossy and smooth. I smelled an unusual but not unpleasant combination of teatree, acidity, and something metallic. I felt a slight burn on my skin that disappeared as quickly as it began.
I felt skin and mounds of flesh press into my back from all sides. The unmistakable sensation of breasts against my back. An electric buzz of excitement filled my whole body. More of that metallic liquid was squirted. Despite my excitement, something about the sensation was not to my expectation. Then it hit me. The skin against mine was cold. Where as it should have been warm in that hot room, this was downright cool. Worse yet, it felt dry despite the puddled oil on my back. This was nothing like what I anticipated from the smooth skin on saw on these two women. I tried to push the thought from my mind and concentrate on what mattered here. I was the center of attention in a room with 2 beautiful naked women, I should be more excited.
I took a deep breath and focused. With my face down in the bed I tried to picture the seductive curves of Scarlett. I couldn’t wait to see her when the time came to flip over. Now the feel of oiled flesh against flesh began to feel stickier and rougher. More finger tips pressed into my skin. For a few moments it felt like another round of deep tissue massage; then a sudden stab of pain like nails into my back. I winced and momentarily cried out, “Excuse me, please watch your nails.”
“Sorry, baby. We will be more gentle.”, came the whispering voice of Sophia suddenly much closer to my ear than I thought. With this, I felt the smooth rub or freshly oiled hands and skin on both sides of my back and thighs. Feeling much oilier now and pleasantly warm, sounds of heavy breathing begin to fill the room around me. This sounded like the kind of heavy breathing I would expect from a lover instinctively trying to tell me what we were doing was working. I smiled to myself, suddenly feeling very relaxed and heavy eyed. I felt hard as a rock; my erection digging into the table somewhat pleasantly. Despite this I felt increasingly sleepy, like the sensation of letting yourself go limp in a warm bath.
The grip of sleep began to take over. My heavy eyelids began to fall in synchrony with my long deep breaths. When open, the floor I looked at through the hole in the table began to fuzz in and out. In addition to the long slow strokes against my skin with intermingling hands, fingers, and breasts… a new sensation started. With increasing frequency a new wet, soft, rough rag ran across my back. It ran in long zigzags up and down my spine. My sleepy mind was unable to fully put into words how it felt. Deep in my blissful haze I assumed they must be slowly cleaning the oil from my back for the part of my massage.
As the moist rag got to the top of my back it neared the spot of that second terrible pinch. I felt a deep burning sensation as the rag circled this area. It felt like sunburn in a warm shower. Despite how unpleasant this was, I was too sleepy and comfortable to speak up. The burning stopped as the rag swept back down by back.
Four hands now laid simultaneously to my whole upper back. The hands remained stationary with deep even pressure. The rough rag continued to run up and down the left side of my back. A lower, more appropriately paranoid part of my brain sent up a thousand warning flags that my conscious brain just could not be bothered to examine too closely. Soft words in that other language came from above me on the right. Sophia’s voice was in a higher whisper now and almost sounded forceful or angry. As soon as her voice stopped on my right, an exacerbated sigh came from my left and the moist rag was removed from my skin. The darkness of the room and the haze in my vision weighed heavy. Through the black and mist, I was acutely aware that I was still hard as a diamond. In the heavy silence since Sophia stopped her hushed demands of Scarlett, I was acutely aware of the aching in my balls and shaft. I was awake enough to still be excited about what I knew was about to happen.
“Baby… turn over now.”, came Scarlett’s voice with an excited, almost demanding tone. The time for whispering had gone. I sluggishly pulled myself into full reality. My relaxed muscles felt heavy and hard to get moving, like the first moments getting out of bed in the early morning. The combination of excitement and forcing myself to move gave me a head rush with some spots in my vision. As I flopped onto my back I strained to see the two gorgeous, nude beauties I had only gotten that first glimpse of when I came in. I had a sense of cool relief as my erection was finally freed from the pressure of the flat table. My eyes still had that flashing blackness overlying the already dark aura of the room as my head rush continued. The shape of the girls started to come into focus.
The two women started to come into grayish focus. Just as the edges of their silhouettes started to become crisp in my vision, Scarlett placed a firm grip around the base of my shaft. A short, deep gasp escaped my lips. The sensation was more shock than sensual. It felt more commanding than anything, like she were grabbing the reigns on a horse. More spots came into my vision. Despite the dimples in my sight, I could now make out a black, haphazard gloss across the both Sophia and Scarlett’s skin. It cut through and divided their black outlines. The smears went clear up over their breasts, across their necks, and splashed across their faces and distorted them oddly.
Trying to focus on these striking visages started to help clear my vision. I could see now that it wasn’t just the dark streaks distorting their forms. Even in the dark room I could see that their unsmeared skin was gray and sallow looking. Beneath the inky blots on their faces, their lips looked too plump with deep cracks and crevices. Their eyes looked somehow both dull and unfocused; but their furrowed brows still conveyed a predatory gaze that made my entire body freeze even my shallow breathing. Their hair still shown smooth and black but now seemed to move in long sleek tendrils. It looked more like independent tentacles than strands of hair. Each breast looked horrifically scarred. If either ever had normal tissue where their nipples should lie, then they had long ago been scratched and torn away. Neither Scarlett or Sophia shifted their eyes from my face as I took them all in. Both of their previously porcelain skinned forms were now riddled with course, jagged black body hairs. The bases of each hair erupted from reddish boils that gave them the appearance of wasp stingers at the ready. As I eyes traced down their individual forms I could see that each of their stomachs was protruding with puffing stretch marks and oddly flat navels.
It was now that they started to move closer to the head if the bed. From my vantage they did not appear to walk but slide forward, never breaking their hungry gaze from me. Everything below their hips was obscured by the edge of the bed. But, as they moved closer a foul, putrid aroma of rot and infection approached my nostrils. This smell was mixed with another smell I recognized. I couldn’t say I have lead a violent life, but I knew the metallic coin smell of blood as well as anyone else. Visible up close now I could see that the dark streaks that covered them were beginning to dry in all too familiar flaking streaks I recognized from years of shaving and paper cuts.
It was Scarlett who hissed out her words now, filled with venom and malice; “This what you came for?”. As she said this she gave a cruel wrenching at the base of my somehow still erect penis. Pain shot through the deep portions of my body, but I couldn’t fight back. I could feel her nails dig into the pubic area above my genitals, piercing the skin lightly. I began to scream, but Sophia covered my mouth and gripped my throat.
“Please, save for the end. You may not have the strength to finish if you waste breath like that. Did you know that when human men are erect, their cock receives almost as much blood as their brain every minute?”, she said with a smirk.
I was now beginning to feel faint again despite my the adrenaline dumping into my blood probably as fast as I was losing it. The world was going dark as I felt another hard, sharp tug on my member. Sophia leaned in close to my face and seemed to make a face between a smile and snarl. Then she just licked her lips and tightened the grip on my throat. Then the entire universe became a far away thing. There was nothing except the blackness and the pain it was slowly replacing.
The first thing I remember after that is the feeling like someone had filled my throat with kitty litter. The next was the realization that I was something resembling alive. I wiggled my fingers and then my toes. I opened and closed my jaw and then my eyes. Everything seemed to be working. Above me was the same plain white ceiling I had seen upon first lying down. I tried to sit up and felt shaky. I had the passing thought that it must have all been a terrible dream. I laughed to myself at the thought of being some deranged Dorothy. Then I saw… and felt... all of the wounds. I was covered in blood. I was covered in deep scratches and cuts from below my ribs down to my mid thighs. There was barely 2 inches if clear skin left anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE. Everything ached and stung. Some wounds appeared still fresh and oozed small amounts of blood.
The only thing that kept me from screaming was sheer confusion. Right around the time I was starting to panic I heard a voice from the corner of the room.
“You shouldn’t struggle around like that. Likely to pass out.”, Sophia’s voice came quietly but clearly. She sat there on a stool in a satin red bathrobe with her legs held together. She had her held tilted all the way back and seemed to just be staring at the ceiling in a bored sort of way.
“What the fuck is going on!”, I yelled. “What did you do to me?!” Tears began to come into my eyes and down my cheeks. I wanted to lunge at her and shake answers from her. But the image of the last memory she’d given me kept me restrained with fear.
“What? You didn’t care for your massage?”, she replied sarcastically. “That’s a shame. We were so happy to serve a regular client.” With that there was a small knock on the door and it opened a crack.
“Is he awake? Oh good! Mr. Calvin, you’re up!”, the British front desk clerk replied. I just stared at him in reply. I couldn’t find a single word to speak from the swirl going on inside my head.
“Please, you should rest. The first time can be quite jarring for a lot of our customers. And I believe that you have a long ride home.”, he added. Finally, I found some more words.
“What…. THE FUCK… did you do to me!?”, I screamed again. Believing that maybe I would get a better response than I did from that bitch in the corner.
“We got you your massage as requested. Wasn’t it good? Two pretty girls baring their skin for you and enjoying your body. Oh, what fun?”
“What are these bitches? What happened to me? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”, I huffed with barely the strength to stay angry.
“I am just a simple middleman. These fine ladies need clients for their work and young people like yourself want that personal touch.”, he said with a wink. “You see, there was a time when this kind thing had to be done in back alleys and dirty houses where the police may not appreciate our presence. But, as modern tastes and laws have changed, our work has become less dangerous… but we have far more competition. Yes, it seems anyone with an internet connection and a need for some spare cash can make themselves a proper whore these days. And don’t get me started on all of the massage parlors who make use of trafficked people from the east. That just makes me sick to my stomach.”
His manner of speaking of this was so nonchalant that my brain couldn’t make a sensible connection between his words and his tone. His only response to my stuttering and cursing was to stare at me incredulously as though I was the one not making any sense.
“What…What did you do to me?:, I stammered.
“My boy, we made you a loyal customer.”
“FUCK YOU!”, I screamed hoarsely. “You all are going to fucking jail, you sick freak. I am never com..”, I stopped as he spoke up.
“I think you misunderstand. After this little taste I think you will find it is quite hard not to come back every so often… when… The Itch… sets in. These fine ladies are quite good at what they do and our customers almost always find their way back sooner or later. I think the record at this point is about… Oh, 17 days the last time I checked.”, he explained, continuing his matter-of-fact tone.
“15.”,Sophia interjected. She absentmindedly licked the back of her pinky.
“Ah yes. Thank you, darling.”, he replied, smiling.
My heart was starting to race even harder. I felt faint. Somehow I found the strength to slowly stand from the table and start to back away. The two continued to seem downright disinterested. “What makes your think I would ever let any of these sick bitches touch me ever again.”
“Well, you may notice some issues if you don’t.”, he replied
“Issues?”
“Well… first you’ll notice some cravings that most people will find rather detestable. Oh, especially the police if you should act on them. I’d say even the greatest gentleman with the self-control of a saint would find it hard to keep their hands to themselves if they don’t make it here on their own when the mood struck them. And even if you are comfortable acting on those particular sorts of feelings, there will be the other negative effects.”
I just stood there trembling. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I started to shake my head in denial about what was happening.
“To cut this enlightening conversation short,”, Sophia interjected; “You die slowly and painfully if you don’t come back and see me real soon. Just not on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am not here on those days. You can maybe see Scarlett if you want; but I guarantee you won’t feel quite like you got your money’s worth.”
“And why is that, you evil skank?”, I stammered. The force of my heaving breaths was starting to make the pain in my back itch and burn with every movement.
“Because, baby, I got two licks at you. Scarlett only got one. She’s newer here and can be a bit overzealous if she takes too many turns. That’s why we only let her do the group thing… for now. You should be proud though. Neither of us thought you had it in you to give us such a mouthful. Most probably couldn’t have… finished.” With that, Sophia got up to leave. As she stood, she made a pretty obvious point of letting me see under her robe before tying it tight. Her breasts and stomach were still covered in dried blood that I couldn’t see before. “Come back really soon, baby. I’ll love to get my hands back on you anytime.”
Then she was out the door and gone.
“Please, please just tell me what the hell is going on? What is this place? What is she?”, I started to cry. Tears streamed down my cheeks both because I was so deeply, darkly afraid; but also because as soon as Sophia left I started to feel a craving for her to touch me again. It was just a spark, but I already knew it was there.
“I wish I could tell you, sir. I wasn’t lying before. I really am just hired help. I answered an advertisement from the internet, just like you.”
“Is she some kind of a vampire? A Demon? What? Please, if you aren’t one of them; then you can help me. Please help me.” As I said this, I started falling to my knees in front of him. I felt like I was pleading with every cell in my body.
“Be serious, mate. Vampires and demons? This isn’t some kind of fantasy.”

Inspired by the overwhelmingly positive response to my previous 'book report' on Ramona Singer's Life on the Ramona Coaster (seriously, thank you all -- truly supporting other women 🙏🙏), I decided to try my hand at writing up yet another of the embarrassing number of Housewives books in my personal collection: Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen's Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City with Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle.
After reading just the title of this book, I'm already exhausted. It's pretentiously long and awkwardly phrased while somehow still managing to be entirely devoid of meaning. In other words, a perfect encapsulation of Simon and Alex. The summary on the back cover describes the pair as the "breakout stars" of RHONY, an assessment that I would charitably call 'debatable,' before going on to inform me that I can look forward to "informative and often hair-raising stories of life in the urban jungle," and that "Alex and Simon use their own hard-won experience as a springboard to discuss a host of parenting topics." I anticipate that this content will be quite useful to me, the guardian of four cats that I spoil endlessly and treat like my actual children.
One of the pull-quotes on the back cover allegedly comes from our very own Bethenny Frankel. I say 'allegedly' because I refuse to believe that the following passage would ever come out of Bethenny's mouth (or keyboard or whatever):

Alex and Simon don't take themselves too seriously, which seems to be essential to parenting. Their fresh 'he said, she said' perspective on parenting is both humorous and insightful!

Please, take a moment and do your very best to picture mention-it-all, betting-on-horse-races-at-age-five Bethenny unironically using the phrase "fresh 'he said, she said' perspective." To describe Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord. Right, didn't think so.
My experience reading Little Kids, Big City started on an unexpected high note when I opened the front cover to find that my copy (purchased used through Better World Books for the low, low price of $5.31 with shipping) had been signed by Ms. you-are-in-high-school-while-I-am-in-Brooklyn herself, Alex McCord! Truly a gift I do not deserve. Samantha and Debbie (whoever and wherever you may be), thank you for your service. I am forever in your debt.
Unfortunately, as would soon become painfully clear to me, after starting off on such a promising note, I would have nowhere to go but down.
The book, which is written in alternating passages from Alex and Simon, begins its introduction with a chronicle of Alex's "fashionably nomadic" early adulthood. Ever the proto-edgelord, she recalls, "I did all those things our mothers warned us about and had fun doing them." We switch to Simon's perspective to hear the deeply embarrassing story of the couple meeting through a dating app while Simon was on a business trip in New York City. No, there is absolutely nothing embarrassing about meeting someone on a dating app. But there absolutely is something embarrassing about using the profile name "Yetisrule" to meet someone on a dating app. To clarify, this was apparently Alex's username, and I remain hopeful that we will get a more thorough explanation of her connection to the elusive Yeti as this book continues.
Alex tells us that, while she and Simon hadn't initially planned to have children, they eventually started to have "clucky feelings." I have never heard this phrase in my entire twenty-five years of life, but based on context clues and also a Google search, I learned that it means they wanted to have a baby. Don't worry, though! As Alex tells us, "You can be eight months pregnant and wear a leather miniskirt." Personally, this is life-changing news -- I had always believed that I couldn't have kids unless I was willing to compromise my 90s goth aesthetic! Maybe I'll rethink this child-free thing after all.
The next bit of advice seems like it actually could potentially be sort of helpful. "No one is a good parent all the time -- nor is anyone a bad parent all the time," they reassure the reader. "You can become a parent without losing yourself." Unfortunately, as soon as I catch myself nodding along, the modicum of goodwill I'd built up is promptly trashed by a gag-worthy line from Simon: "If you take nothing away but a wry smile after reading our little tome, then we've done our job." I immediately vow not to smile until I'm finished reading this book. Excuse me, this little tome.
The book starts in earnest with Chapter 1: "Does a German Shepherd Need a Birth Plan?" To be perfectly honest, I was not expecting a riddle at this juncture, but I am nevertheless excited to hear Simon and Alex tell us "why childbirth is not an intellectual activity." First, however, we get a passing reference to "Park Slope, home of the ParkSlopeParents.com message board made famous in 2007 with a so-ridiculous-it-got-headlines discussion on gender-specific baby hats and where feminism can be taken to extremes." And despite the lame alarmist allusion to ~*XTREME feminism*~, this line did manage to lead me down an interesting Internet rabbit hole, so thanks for that, I guess?
Jesus Christ, I am on PAGE 4 and I am already so done with Simon. Presented without comment:

With the Park Slope OB-GYN, we had the first sonogram and saw the little blip on the screen -- our child-to-be. They say seeing is believing and as nothing was happening inside me, seeing confirmation on the video monitor that indeed my spermatozoa had penetrated and infiltrated one of Alex's ova made me aware that my days as a footloose and fancy-free guy might be coming to an end.

Y'all, I am currently working on my PhD in Molecular Biology. Which, if you were not previously aware, gives me the authority to decree that Simon is never allowed to use the word "spermatozoa" ever again. And so it is.
I was about to say that Alex's passages are at least more tolerable, but it appears I spoke too soon.

The stats they quoted referenced a 40 percent cesarean section rate in the city, and I wonder how that can be acceptable? Are we heading toward Brave New World, where babies are scientifically created in petri dishes and gestated in artificial wombs? Oh wait, we're already there. Are we heading towards a Wall-E existence, where we ride around in carts everywhere and do nothing for ourselves so that our bodies break down and we're all fat, oozy blobs drinking protein from a straw? Somebody slap me, please!!

Truly, Alex, it would be my pleasure.
As a Type-A person, just reading the story of Alex's first pregnancy and delivery gave me anxiety. She says that she just never really "felt the need to establish a birth plan" and that she "gave in to any craving [she] felt." Don’t worry, though -- "If I had suddenly craved chalk, ecstasy or Elmer's Glue, I'd have thought twice." I feel like there is some symbolism here to unpack (Could the Elmer's Glue be a metaphor for the childlike spirit of connection and unity???). Simon describes himself as "a learn-on-the-job guy" and tells us that he and Alex "failed to attend the last couple of [birthing] classes as by then we both just wanted to let instinct take over when the time came." As someone who has never trusted my instincts even once in my entire life, I cannot relate.
Twelve days after his due date, baby François is born. Except it turns out that he actually was born right on time, but Alex "didn't keep regimented track of [her] periods" and miscalculated. What a bummer that modern medicine hasn't advanced to the point where doctors can guide you about that sort of thing.
I don't even know what to say about this next bit, but God help me, I still have 215 more pages of this book to go.

Although the final stages of labor were very, very painful, I [Alex] never used our code word (tin can) for "game over, give me drugs." I definitely recommend using a code word, because it was kind of fun to scream, "I want drugs, give me drugs" through a contraction and have the midwife, nurse and Simon all know I wasn't serious. Once he [François] was finally out of my body, I experienced a tsunami of endorphins that was almost orgasmic, and I understand completely the stories other women have written about ecstatic birth. Simon was sitting behind me at the point of birth, and later when we untangled ourselves he discovered he'd actually ejaculated though hadn't felt any of the normal lead-up to that. It may seem distasteful to some, and definitely neither of us was thinking of sex at the time, but with the rush of emotion and my lower nerve endings going crazy, it's not too far a stretch to say that it's a profound experience.

Johan is born two years later, although it's unclear from the text whether either parent reached orgasm during the event.
The chapter ends with a top-ten list entitled "10 Things We'll Remember That Happened During Pregnancy." These include useful tidbits like

1. Best advice I heard: men's genitals grow and change shape regularly, then go back to the way they were before. Don't worry about your female delicate bits being able to retract.

Which is…a lovely sentiment. But one that is slightly undermined by phrasing the first part in the grossest way possible, as well as by the use of the phrase "female delicate bits." I do like the idea that they "retract," however, because I think it's very cool to imagine the vagina as an SUV sunroof. By the grace of God, Chapter 1 comes to a close.
In Chapter 2 (titled "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, What's My Name Again? and Who is This Alien?" -- seriously, were they padding their word count with chapter titles?), we get more questionable parenting advice from the McCord-van Kempens. They glibly dismiss concerns about co-sleeping ("Simon and I both slept with cats and dogs our whole lives without squishing them"), which I honestly would be more annoyed about if I hadn't immediately gone on to read Simon's account of "the midnight race to the 24-hour pharmacy to buy a breast pump as Alex's breasts were seemingly engorged with too much milk and she thought they were about to explode and fly off her chest." As it stands, I'm truly too defeated to care. Again, just to be perfectly clear: no shade to having issues breastfeeding, all shade to using the word 'engorged.’ And also for giving me the mental image of Alex's breasts desperately struggling to flee from her body (though to be fair, who could blame them?).
Proving that she does not inhabit the same world as the rest of us mortals, Alex tells us that she expected that her state of sleep-deprivation as she raised two young children would "spur [her] creativity with graphic design." For some reason, this does not seem to be the case. Alex is puzzled.
Finally, we've come to this chapter's top ten list ("Top 10 Memories of Random Things We Did While in the Post-Birth Haze"). While these lists have so far been utterly irredeemable, they also mean the chapter is coming to a close, so I can at least take some solace in that. This particular list ranges from the irritating…

1. We subversively took sleeping babies to as many non-child-friendly places as possible to prove the point that children can be seen, not heard and not bothersome, such as dinner at the Ritz in London, the Sahara Desert, shopping on Madison Avenue, Underbar in Union Square and film festivals.

…to the truly unnecessary.

1. While changing François' diaper on day one or two, we both stood mesmerized by the changing pad as meconium oozed out of him. It was really the most bizarre and fascinating thing I'd seen to date.

With the couple's general backstory and credentials now under our belts, Chapter 3 ("The Screaming Kid on the Plane is NOT Mine! (This Time)") focuses on advice for traveling with children, which Alex admits "can be a complete pain in the you-know-what." I cannot describe the rage I feel at the fact that she has -- in no fewer than 50 pages -- forced me to read about both her newborn son's excrement and her husband's ejaculate, but cannot bring herself to use the word "ass." Alex, we're really far beyond that at this point, don't you think?
Not to be outdone, Simon shares a conversation he had with François that is remarkable not for its content, but for the fact that one of Simon's nicknames for his son is apparently "F-Boy." Thanks, I hate it.
This chapter's list ("Alex's Top 10 Travel Memories") includes the entry:

1. Both boys charging down Saline Beach in St. Barths like something out of Lord of the Flies.

So, like a horde of primal sadists? I'm wondering if Alex and Simon have inadvertently confused Lord of the Flies with the hit 2007 reality show Kid Nation. I really hope that's what's going on here.
Chapter 4 ("'Mommy, Johan is Gone!'") promises to teach us how to handle accidents. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel taking emergency advice from the authors of this particular book, but (in large part due to the fact that I have slept since reading the previous chapter, giving the pain a chance to dull somewhat), I am willing to at least hear them out.
After relaying a story of François needing emergency surgery after a foot injury, Alex tells us that at one point, she and Simon realized they had spent "nearly $5000 on Indian takeout" in the past year. For the mathematically averse, this works out to a monthly budget of roughly $100 worth of Indian food per week, making my quarantine Uber Eats habit seem downright quaint by comparison. The chapter-ending list walks us through the "Top 10 Things We Do in a Crisis," and fortunately, the tips seem pretty benign.

1. Knowing what calms the children down, such as making silly faces or reciting Shel Silverstein poetry backwards.

Wait, hang on. What?

reciting Shel Silverstein poetry backwards

I'm sorry, please forgive me if I have missed some recent, paradigm-shifting development in the field of early childhood education, but what?? As in, "ends sidewalk the where?" "Sdne klawedis eht erehw?" I am truly befuddled.
Maybe the next chapter ("'Is Today a Work Day or a Home Day, Mommy?'") will have some applicable wisdom for me, as I will, in fact, be working from home every other week for the foreseeable future. And, I cannot stress this enough, I am a psychotically overinvested cat mom. Alas, we are instead treated to an unnecessarily detailed breakdown of how important it is to delegate, and specifically that Simon cleans up vomit and Alex cleans up "feces in the various forms that come out of children's bottoms at appropriate and sometimes inappropriate times such as the middle of Thanksgiving festivities." As if we needed another reason to consider Thanksgiving problematic.
The chapter takes a brief commercial break…

When an everyday product can do double duty such as Dawn Hand Renewal with Olay Beauty, a dish soap that seals in moisture while I'm tackling cleanup, sure, I'll buy it.

…before closing out with a list of the "Top 10 Things We Do Because We Were Here First." I am happy to confirm your worst suspicions and tell you that item number one is indeed "Have passionate sex."
In Chapter 6 ("I Saw Your Nanny…Being Normal?"), I find myself actually sympathizing with Alex for the first time in this book. Which is mostly just because the chapter starts by talking about all of the awful, catty parental competitions that seem endemic to a certain crew of white Manhattan moms, and it makes Alex come off at least slightly less irritating in comparison.
That is, at least until a few pages later, when she starts to complain about a previous au pair:

She was sullen, melodramatic and kept a blog about how she hated Americans, hated France, hated us and the children but loved New York. I think she must have thought we were idiots, and when she asked us to leave early we were only too happy to get her out of our home.

I would love to meet this woman. I think we could be great friends.
This chapter's list is even more difficult to parse than previous ones, because while it's titled "Top 10 Things Caregivers Have Inadvertently Done to Amuse, Annoy or Thrill Us," it's not at all clear which descriptors apply to which points. When a babysitter "accidentally used a household cleaning wipe when changing a diaper," were the McCord-Van Kempens amused? Annoyed? Thrilled? The world may never know.
In Chapter 7 ("'Putting To Death Is Not Nice,' a Duet for Two Boys and A Guitar"), Alex and Simon share some of their hard-earned childrearing wisdom with us. Which basically amounts to Alex telling us that, while normally misbehavior from the kids incurs a warning followed by a time-out, she has also developed an ingenious new strategy where she actually steps in to intervene when the stakes are higher. Let's listen in:

A third permutation is when there's a behavior that has to stop immediately, say if Johan has a big blue indelible marker and is running through a white hotel suite. I swoop in and grab the marker as to risk a three count [warning] would be to risk decoration of the sofa.

Take the marker from the toddler immediately instead of trying to reason with him? Groundbreaking.
Side Note: At this point in my reading, I am incredibly satisfied to report that I have discovered my first typo in the book, and in one of Simon's sections no less! ("These toads secret [sic] a poison…"). This is wildly pedantic of me and proof that I am a deeply sick person.
We run though a list of "Top 10 Things We Never Thought We Would Have To Explain" ("10. Why hot pizza stones do not like Legos.") before moving right along into Chapter 8, "Don't Listen to the Well-Meaning Morons." Strangely, I have a very vivid memory of Alex saying "I have a chapter in my book called, 'Don't Listen to the Well-Meaning Morons" in some distant RHONY episode or reunion. I guess she was telling the truth.
The chapter opens with a series of passages in which Alex and Simon respond to various comments that have been made about their parenting over the years. I think this device is supposed to be a bit of lighthearted snark on overbearing strangers, but instead just comes off as weirdly defensive and passive-aggressive. A few examples:

"My daughter is perfect. Her table manners are excellent, she never speaks unless spoken to and we've always had white sofas at home since she was a child, with no staining."
-A woman with one preteen daughter, no sons
Your daughter sounds boring. I wouldn't want my sons to date her..

Zing!

"Why are you outside?" - A bagel seller in Montreal, in February
I'm hungry and the stroller is well protected under the plastic cover. Johan is warm and cozy, the others are asleep in the hotel and I'm going stir-crazy. Is that enough, or should I buy my bagel from someone else?

Got 'em!

"Excuse me, your baby is crying." -- Someone said to Simon as they peered into the stroller to try and determine the cause of said noise.
You don't say! Do you think, you stupid idiot, that I don't hear that? Do you think I think it's just loud music? Do you think I don't want him to stop and that I like it???

Sorry, did I say 'passive-aggressive'? Let's change that to just 'aggressive.'
But despite bristling at being the recipient of unwanted advice, far be it from Alex to shy away from giving her opinions on the shortcomings of other parents.

There was a mom at another table who wore all black and told her hyperactive daughter that they had to have a family meeting to decide what to do next. The type of woman who might ask her daughter to "process her feelings" about which color to choose. The type of woman who wanted make [sic] a big huge hairy deal about including her daughter in the decision-making process and "negotiating" the next best step for the family to take in the pottery shop. Pardon me while I shoot myself.

I'm sorry, but I just cannot respect this take coming from a woman who calms her sons by reciting comedic children's poetry backwards.
We next learn that there are "many websites out in cyberspace," some of which offer child-rearing advice. Simon summarizes their useless "vitriol" as such:

They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, whereas for the 21st century surely hell no longer hath fury, as it's all been hurled at the belittled and scorned Internet mom.

I'm honestly not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean, and my confusion continues all the way through this chapter's "Top 10 Ways We Make Ourselves Feel Better When It's All Getting To Be Too Much." We begin reasonably enough…

1. Check to see whether the person offering advice has children. How old are they?
   
2. Do they have a point? Are they right? It is entirely possible.
   

…before quickly losing all sense of self-awareness and flying completely off the rails.

1. Will we ever see this person again? If not, can we get away with unleashing our fury on them? Note, if you're reading this and decide to try it for yourself, go big or go home.

The last few chapters have been a bit Alex-heavy, but never fear -- Simon pops back up in Chapter 9 ("If I Wouldn't Eat That, My Kid Won't Either") to tell us a charming story about how the family refers to his Bolognese sauce as "Dead Cow Sauce," and this is because his children are incredibly enlightened and understand the circle of life and where food comes from. Or something along those lines.
This chapter also provides a lot of really incontrovertible proof that, even though you may swear that your kids say the most hilarious things all the time, you are wrong. I love kids. I can play cool aunt with the best of them. But this "recipe" for "Johan's Concoction" tries so hard to be cute and funny ("whisk violently -- making sure to spill a little out of the top") that I could barely stifle my groans. For anyone who happens to frequent RebornDollCringe, I am strongly and inexplicably reminded of Britton.
A list of "Top 10 Things We Don't Like About Children's Restaurants" culminates with

1. Where would you rather be? A bistro devoted to race-car driving, with 1950s toy cars on the walls, or T.G.I. Friday's?

Excuse me, ma'am, you must be unfamiliar with the concept of Endless Apps®.
The title of Chapter 10 is "You'll Give in Before I Do!" and although the subtitle lets me know this is referencing "the art and warfare of bedtime," it's hard not to take it as a personal taunt from the authors. Most of this chapter is just transcriptions of 'cute' things François and Johan have said to try to avoid going to bed, but we do get this gem:

Slaying the dragon is our family euphemism for using the toilet (drowning the dragons that live in the sewer) and is fun for the boys to talk about, though probably not forever.

Before giving us a chance to adequately process this revelation, Alex goes on to reflect:

Hmm, perhaps I should delete this -- I don’t want obnoxious classmates getting hold of this book in 10 years and asking the boys if they need to slay the dragon in the middle of geometry class.

Alex, I assure you, you truly have nothing to worry about. Any self-respecting bully will be far too focused on the fact that Simon ejaculated at the moment of his son's birth to pay this comparatively trivial factoid any attention.
The authors shake things up and end this chapter with lists of both "Top 20 Bedtime Stories" and "Top 10 Lullabies," both of which are thankfully inoffensive.
In Chapter 11 ("Children Like Shiny Objects"), we follow Alex and Simon as they purchase the townhouse we see them renovating on RHONY. Although other (read: lesser) parents might store breakables out of reach or limit children's toys to playrooms and bedrooms, Alex and Simon were blessed with two boys whose aesthetic sensibilities are already quite developed:

One kind of funny thing that I noticed recently is that the toys the boys tend to leave upstairs in our red and black living room often tend to be red and black as well. I'm not sure whether that's intentional, but it's funny that the room always seems to match regardless of its contents.

The list of "Top 10 Craziest Places We've Found Objects" is mercifully absent of any orifice-related discoveries.
After reading just the title of Chapter 12 ("Raising Baby Einsteins"), I'm bracing myself for the self-satisfied smugness to come. This preparation turns out to be duly warranted. Baby sign language is dismissed as "a scheme dreamed up by ASL experts who wanted to sell classes to easily influenced new parents," Mommy and Me classes are "not really for teaching anything," and we learn that Alex and Simon have instituted a bizarre family rule that "if a talking toy came into our house, it had to speak a foreign language or speak English in an accent other than American."
We learn that Simon apparently does not know what antonyms are (for the record, Simon, the word you're looking for is homophones) and that New York City is replete with "wailing, nocturnal, type-A obsessed harridans willing to sleep with persons not their spouse if they think it will help their child get into THE RIGHT SCHOOL." Uh, yikes. After a tediously long description of François' pre-school admissions process, Alex informs us:

As a former actor, I've always gotten into play-acting and dressing up with my children. Perhaps a little too much. But I've taken the opportunity to show off a few old monologues, complete with bounding around like a puppy. If you have knowledge, why not share it? If you happen to know Puck's speeches from a Midsummer Night's Dream by ear with tumbling and staged sword play, why the heck don’t you share that with your boisterous boys, who love it and run around shouting, "Thou speakest aright!"

I am suddenly compelled to call my mother and thank her profusely for never making me put up with anything like this. Maybe I'll also get her thoughts on one of the tips listed in "Top 10 Favorite 'Developmental' Things To Do": "if they want something that you want to delay giving them, make them ask in every language they can before giving in." To me, this seems like an effective way to encourage your children to learn how to say "Fuck you, mom" in French as early as possible.
In Chapter 13 ("Urban Wonderland"), Alex and Simon promise to share their unique perspective on "taking advantage of raising a child in the urban jungle." But mostly, we just get a rant about how everyone thinks their kids have weird names, and that makes Simon mad. This chapter's "Top 10 Reasons New York is the Center of the Universe to a Kid" list reminds us what truly matters: "there are more songs with NYC in their titles than any other city."
Immediately after telling us how great it is to live in a city (excuse me, urban jungle), Alex and Simon switch tack and spend Chapter 14 ("'Daddy, a Cow! And It's Not in a Zoo!") expounding on the importance of exposing kids to nature. Sounds great, I'm on board. Unfortunately, we almost immediately take a hard left turn into a story from Simon's childhood where he and his brother are "befriended by this old guy, Dick, who lived on the outskirts of town in a small tin shed." We hear that Dick "occasionally pulled out an early Playboy magazine back from the days when the lower regions were airbrushed out," and that "there had been pretty strong rumors of pedophilia," before promptly returning to the main narrative with no further explanation. I can only describe the transition as 'jarring.'
I can tell how exhausted I am at this point in the book by how hurriedly I skimmed the list of "Top 10 Differences We've Noticed Between City Kids and Country Kids." To be honest, I'm almost annoyed when a particularly bizarre quote manages to catch my attention, because that means I have to think about it for the full amount of time it takes me to transcribe from the page. I'm beginning to think that my initial hope that I could glean some useful cat-rearing advice from this experience may have been overzealous.
Chapter 15 ("You're Such a Great Parent, You Should Be on TV (LOL)") is the only chapter to directly address the family's time on RHONY. It starts with this (attempted) comedy bit in which Alex and Simon pretend to be hilariously self-aware and self-effacing (Alex: "Look up 'Mommylicious' in the dictionary and you will see a photo of me in a ball gown, breast-feeding an infant while making Osso Buco and directing carpenters to build a bookcase for my Dickens and Shakespeare."). This posture would be infinitely more believable if I hadn't spent the previous 205 pages watching these two take themselves deadly seriously.
But rather than share any juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits (or, indeed, convey anything of substance at all), Alex and Simon spend exactly 3.5 pages blustering about how it wasn't harmful for their children to be on TV before giving us a list of "Top 10 Hilarious Things The Boys Have Done While Filming or at Photo Shoots." Spoiler alert: none of them are 'hilarious.'
Chapter 16 is literally titled "The Light at the End of the Tunnel," which makes me feel like this whole experience may have just been Alex and Simon playing some sort of twisted game with me. Alex tells us this is "the chapter of hope," but given that she then tells us about a time when she "spent one full hour discussing why magic markers cannot be carried around with the caps off, particularly in a hotel suite with white couches and walls," I'm not sure exactly where this hope is coming from. Also it seems like this markers-in-a-hotel-room thing happens weirdly frequently. We are then treated to Alex and Simon's "Top 10 Moments of Getting It,'" which includes

1. Apropos of nothing, Johan said, "You give us time-outs because you are teaching us to be good grown-ups."

This is a thing I'm sure Johan said completely organically and not in response to hearing his parents say "we're giving you a time-out so that you learn to be a good grown-up" approximately seven zillion times.
This brings us to the book's Epilogue (a mercifully short two pages) featuring the line "If you made it to the end of this book, we salute you." Honored to accept this hard-earned accolade, I can finally close the book and start figuring out a way to erase the memory of Simon busting a mid-childbirth nut from my aching brain. Wish me luck!