The History of Don Cocksote

"What luck! Our meeting today was destiny, there's no doubt about it! I am the famous Don Cocksote, master of the amorous arts and champion of love! If you stay with me, I promise not only to teach you how to become the world's second greatest lover, after myself, of course, but also you'll receive much coitus, per os, per anum, et more ferarum along the way."

He scratched his head. "So, per year?"

"Let me see...probably about three hundred times, at least, more if we're fortunate, but I certainly cannot imagine any less."

"And the coitus, there'll be a lot of it?"

"Enough to fill volumes! You'll be the envy of every sultan, emperor, and khan who ever ruled. Every one of them would trade all of his earthly belongings to be in your place right now, with how bright your future looks. Why, you might even get a chance at the fabled gomorrahmy, or even the lioness crouching on the cheese grater!."

"It's that valuable?"

"Why, it's the most precious thing in the world, more so than sapphires or pearls or platinum itself. Men and women will do anything for it, climb any mountain, swim any ocean, sit through any dull movie, even for the slightest possibility of acquiring it! It's a treasure like none other!"

His eyes grew wide with avarice and he whistled in appreciation. "Perhaps our meeting was destined. I've just lost my job last week, and was wondering how I would survive, and now you've been put in my life. I hate to ask, but they say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Coitus in the future is all well and good, but what about in the present? If I go along with you and work for you, can I get paid, as well? I don't need much, just enough to fill my stomach and put a pillow under my head each night, until we get the coitus."

"Paid? Well, it often happens that men pay others for their time and services, but never in this way... Yet, I suppose I've never come across any objection to it in the literature I've read. I suppose the usual rate is..." His fingers danced and he bit his lip as he attempted to convert payments. "Would fifty dollars be sufficient?"

"Per day?"

"Not even for the most vulgar of prostibulae! No, per hour. I know it's not much, but you won't be doing all that's customary, so I gave myself a bit of a discount, since you seem to be such a good-hearted person."

"That's quite alright, I can live with discounts like that. Thank you very much, Don Cocksote!"

"Oh, that's much too formal. You can simply call me 'your grace.' And what is your name, good sir?"

"Sean Painter," he replied. "It's good to be properly introduced."

"Sancho Pantsless!" Cocksote interpreted. "A name that bodes well for the adventure on which he now find ourselves!"

"No, your grace, actually it's Sea-"

"Hurry, Sancho! Adventures await, and they won't wait for us forever! We leave now!"

"Y-yes, your grace! I'm right behind you!"

Don Cocksote led the way, while Sancho brought up the rear, his head already imagining the coituses he would receive, glimmering like gold and shining like diamonds. How Theresa would respect him if he came home so wealthy as that!

Chapter IIII: In which a brother pines for his sister.

Sancho climbed into the sidecar of Celery, Cocksote started up her engine, and the two of them began their adventure. First, they would need to find someone in need of their unusual sort of succor.

"I have an idea, Sancho!" cheered Don Cocksote.

"What?! I can't hear you over the wind, your grace!"

"There's no need! For just as the hands need only to listen to the brain, and don't require mouths of their own, so, too, do you need only to obey my excellent advice in order to achieve success! Onwards!"

"What?!"

In all of the stories that Don Cocksote had read, there was no place more full of the lovelorn and the hopeless than the local bar. Here congregated deviants, perverts, and lovers of every stripe, and he knew that they had only to throw a rock to hit someone in need of their assistance. Soon enough, they came across a suitable bar, next door to a small motel. The sun hadn't yet set, and so there were only a few cars in the parking lot, but surely those would be the most desperate and most desirous of help. He parked celery near the door and walked through the door.

In the dimly lit room, a few men played billiards, a scattering of people were at the bar, and one man sat off by himself, with three empty classes around him, and another half-full glass in his hand, his head resting in the crook of his arm against the table.

"There, Sancho! That's whom we're destined to aid! I can feel it in my bones!"

"Are you sure? My bones don't feel like anything right now. How do yours feel?"

"Like destiny, Sancho! Like destiny!"

The two of them sat on either side of the man. "Tell us your problems, stranger. I assure you that my compatriot and I can assist you with any problem you may have," offered Cocksote.

The man lifted his head high enough for his bleary eyes to take in the two men. "Just let me drink myself into a stupor in peace... I'm a freak."

"There's no such thing," replied Sancho. "Each of us is made differently, but we're all made for a purpose. If a screwdriver thinks it's a hammer, it'll think it's a freak of a hammer, but once it realizes it's a screwdriver after all, everything will be alright in the end. I think that right now you just think you're a hammer, but if you simply realize what you are, you'll be back to normal in no time." Sancho moved the man's drink out of his reach. "Trust me, that stuff won't help you. Now tell us why you're so depressed."

The man hesitated briefly. His eyes flashed from the glass to Sancho, and he relented. "I love my sister."

"Well, that's only to be expected! You're family!"

"No, I mean, I'm in love with her."

"Oh! Oh..." Sancho coughed. "Well, if a car were meant to be a dog, it wouldn't have been a kitten. You two were born brother and sister, and if you were meant to be together, wouldn't you have ended up in different families?"

"Sancho! Incest is the purest of loves, as we can see from the tales of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose gods always found partners from within their own family trees. Not only that, but even the pharaohs of Egypt married their siblings."

"Yes, but they're fake and dead, respectively, and don't make for good role models in any case," Sancho retorted. He turned to the man again. "How does your sister feel about this? Does she know?"

The man sighed. "Yeah... She caught me whacking off to her pictures and called me a pervert, so I came here to drink my memories away. I don't even know what I'll do if she tells anyone. I'll never be able to get a job or make friends or get a date. Nobody wants to be associated with a sisterfucker."

"What an odd reaction..." Don Cocksote mused. "Why, in my innumerable experiences, nothing else is required for a familial relationship to turn from storge to eros but that one member has to see the other nude. And to be masturbating! Why, I wouldn't have thought there was a sister alive who would be able to resist her brother after seeing that. I dare say, this is the first instance of such an event I have ever heard tell of! Are you certain that you were manustuprating yourself?"

"I'm pretty sure. It's kind of hard to mix that up with knitting. God, I can only imagine what she thinks of me now... She must think I'm a monster. She's so innocent, too; I'm pretty sure she's a virgin."

"A virgin? Why, her heart must be of adamant to be able to resist such a sight, for virgins are the most voracious of women," Don Cocksote instructed his audience. "For, just as one who has never tasted water feels insatiable thirst, so, too, does one who has never tried sex have an unstoppable yearning for it."

"Is that really true?" asked Sancho.

Chapter V: In Which Don Cocksote replies to Sancho.

"Of course!"

Chapter VI: In which Don Cocksote and Sancho Pantsless advise the drinker of the sorrowful figure.

"Can we get back to my problem, please?"

"I apologize, but the ways of love are a secret to everybody. It is therefore part of my sacred quest to share them with all at any moment, and to exposit what is otherwise obscure, in order that one day, the entire world will shine in amorous enlightenment," Don Cocksote explained. "As for your problem, let's look at it rationally." Don Cocksote raised his fingers with each point he made. "You are in love with your sister. She has apparently rejected you. You do not wish for anyone else to know. And you are quickly becoming drunk.

"The solution is obvious!"

"It is?" Sancho and the drunkard asked with one voice.

"It is! You must walk in on her masturbating!" he exclaimed, pounding his fist into his open palm. "She has, by some sorcery, failed to become enraptured with you after seeing you naked, but if she were to be seen naked by you, why, it is impossible that she would not become besotted and enthralled with her voyeur. It's the way of the world!"

The man groaned and sunk his head back into her arms. "It's hopeless..."

"It's not hopeless, my friend. God doesn't give you more than you can handle, and he won't start now. His grace was right in the beginning, we do need to think about this reasonably. It may be a sad one, but it's a fact nonetheless that your sister does not share your feelings. I do not know whether or not you're an incapable man, but I truly believe that this is an impossible deed.

"All you can do now is move on. You can't change the way she feels about you, any less than you can simply wake up tomorrow and stop caring for her. All you can change is how you act, and soon your actions will become habit, and habits will become your character. If you avoid your sister and try to move your feelings somewhere else and pray for guidance, you'll be able to get over this.

"It's not the end of the world to have sinful thoughts, but nothing good will come of following them. You need to accept that you and your sister just aren't meant to be together."

"Sancho..." whispered Don Cocksote. "I cannot believe you would speak such blasphemy!"

"I can't say otherwise, your grace, and if it means I'll never find a mountain of coitus, then so be it, the truth must be heard! If he stays on this path, it'll break the hearts of his entire family. It's hard, but he's her big brother, and that means doing what's best for her, even if it's hard for him, and right now, that means he needs to get over these feelings. It'll be a long journey, but he'll make it to the end of he stays on the straight and narrow path."

"Hmph, well, perhaps in this particular case, you're correct, Sancho, but in general, there is no better love than that between family."

"I can't disagree with that, your grace." Sancho turned to the man. "Do you think you'll be alright?"

"Yeah...yeah, I think I will. Thanks for the advice. I needed it. I think you're right. If I really love her, I'll do what it takes for her to be happy, right? So that means loving her like a brother, and not what I've been doing. H-hey, if I need help...can I call you and talk?"

Sancho smiled. "Of course." He scribbled his phone number onto a napkin and handed it to the man, clasping his hand between his own. Don Cocksote looked away as the two conversed.

Finally, when they had finished, he grabbed Sancho roughly by the shoulder and led him outside, barely allowing him the time to finish saying goodbye to his new friend. "Come, Sancho! We have wasted enough time here. Let us depart and search for new lovers to bring together."

"Yes, your grace..."

The two of them exited the bar, but they had spent so long on their fruitless endeavor that the sun had set. Don Cocksote wished to continue until the sun rose again, but Sancho convinced him to rest for the night, instead, and save his energy for fresh endeavors, rather than send good effort after bad, and so the two retired to the hotel and slept.

Chapter VII: In which Don Cocksote's attempts at succor are foiled by the cruel, cold facts of an uncaring universe.

By the time Don Cocksote and Sancho Pantsless awoke, it was the time for an early lunch, in Sancho's expert opinion. They had a simple lunch of roast beef sandwiches, with horseradish and mayonnaise, which Sancho enjoyed with three large pickles, as well. So eager was Don Cocksote to begin their adventure anew that he forced Sancho to finish his drink on the road, and the result was that half of it ended up on the street, half of it on his shirt, and only a few sparse drops made their way between his lips. He had half a mind to complain, but he didn't dare to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, and it was a small cross to bear indeed for the benefits that were to accrue to him at the end of this quest.

Sancho was just trying to get the last few ounces into his mouth when Celery stopped short, catapulting what was left into his face. "What was that for, your grace?" he asked with a sputter. "I held my tongue before because of our friendship, and I know I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but free drink or not, it's now all over me, and Theresa will knock me about until I'm as spotty as my shirt if I bring it back this stained. Why did we stop?"

"Nonsense, Sancho! Stains are to be appreciated greatly. For it never happens that one's shirt is stained without it requiring laundering, and while it's being laundered, then is the time to strike! Many seductions take place while clothes are being washed, although why this is, I cannot say. It is enough to know that it occurs, and so you should thank me for your current good fortune.

"As for our stop, look over there!"

Sancho did as he was told, but saw nothing extraordinary. "That's just a high school, your grace."

"Just a high school? Are you entirely illiterate, Sancho? There is no greater location for finding love as a high school, for even though students are there for just a short time, the stories are full of lascivious students and amorous teachers, all of whom inevitably encounter each other here. Even though the age of eighteen makes up but a short slice of our lives, the number of stories that occur at that age is nothing short of remarkable. Why, you'd be astounded at half of what occurs at your typical high school, even if only a tenth of what I've read is correct."

"I've been to high school myself, and I remember nothing of the sort. My teachers felt strongly about me, but no one would mistake their treatment for love. The other students didn't care much for me, either, and the only love I remember receiving was from my pet pig, Oinkers."

"You must have been the exception, then, Sancho. I know we're certain to find someone here in need of our assistance." He parked Celery in the parking lot, and the duo made their way to the school.

The school sat squat and flat in the center of a pavement lake, its red brick exterior marred only by a row of six foot tall brass letters reading its name. To Sancho, it resembled his own educational institutions too much for his own comfort, but to Don Cocksote, who looked at it through the eyes of a madman, it appeared much different. He saw not the small, sad, underfunded building that it was, but a magnificent academy worthy of Plato himself: a Romanesque building of marble with spires and towers, topped by a chiming clock tower decorated with gargoyles, a building that would make the other buildings at Harvard and Oxford blush with shame, such was its opulence.

Once they had gotten closer, Don Cocksote bent down and clasped Sancho's shoulder. "There, can you see him? That young man on the steps, what else could make him so morose but a defeat on the battlefield of love, what else could cause those hunched over shoulders, those baggy eyes, those disheveled habiliments?"

"He looks like an ordinary high school student to me," Sancho ventured. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! Never in my life has doubt entered my mind, even for a moment, and today won't be the day I end such a glorious tradition. Come, let's ask him." The two men walked to the steps and sat on either side of the young man.

"You have the look of someone wounded by Cupid's arrows about you, good sir," stated Don Cocksote. "Perhaps my friend and I can serve as your paranymphs. I am more knowledgeable in the ways of amour than Cyrano de Bergerac and more willing to assist than Marcus Antonius himself."

"What?"

"You look like you've been dumped, is what he means, although you wouldn't know it from listening," translated Sancho. "A trouble shared is a trouble halved, they say, if you want to tell us what's bothering you."

"Oh, yeah." The boy sighed deeply. "Marcela just friend-zoned me. I thought we were gonna go to prom together and everything..."

"Have no fear! Don Cocksote and Sancho Pantsless are at your service! You have only to tell us your predicament and it's as good as solved with us here!"

"Really? Okay... Well, it all started at my seventeenth birthday party, and-"

"Wait, you're not yet eighteen?" asked Don Cocksote.

"No, why?"

Don Cocksote stood up. "Come, Sancho, there is nothing for us here," he said, already briskly walking back to the Vespa.

Sancho hurriedly caught up. "But your grace, I think we could have helped him."

"Nonsense, Sancho! I have read every work of erotica, from Aaron and the Amorous Abbess to Zoologists Find Love in Zurich, a masterpiece of the genre, by the way, and in none of them have I ever encountered someone younger than eighteen. Clearly, it is only at that age that young men and women become capable of love, and not a day, an hour, or even a second before. Such great stories have no reason to obscure the facts of life, and when the evidence weighs to greatly on only one side of the scales, there can be no doubt as to what is true."

He climbed onto Celery and lowered his goggles onto his eyes. "Now then, let's depart, Sancho, and find someone whom we can aid."

"Yes, your grace..." he replied, climbing into the sidecar. "But if you need to help someone, I wouldn't mind a new drink."

Chapter VIII: In which the romantic potential of the undead is debated at length without settlement, and in which Sancho consumes the best drink of his life without fully realizing it until several years later, at which point he'll return, try to find the drink again, and be disappointed.

The two now entered a rural stretch of territory, an almost Arcadian plain of rolling hills. They encountered few fellow travelers, seeing more bovines than humans as Celery floated over the smooth, meandering roads.

Don Cocksote began to worry. Already, they had been dealt one defeat that day. One setback was little to worry about, for what story didn't have struggles and trials before its final resolution, but if he were to meet with another defeat, he would have to consider whether or not he might be the antagonist in someone else's story. For the protagonist, everything ought to end happily ever after, with not a single dark cloud intruding upon the eternal sunny day that was their future, of that much he was sure. He didn't dare disturb Sancho with these thoughts, though, for he was unsure of the young man's mettle, and didn't want to break a tool that had so recently been acquired.

When he saw a crowd, therefore, he increased the throttle and sped towards it, desirous of proving to himself and the world that he was Don Cocksote, unstoppable victory, unconquerable lover, friend to lovers and enemy of prudes the world over. A gathering of people stood in a loose crescent in a cemetery, the sort that dots New England even to this day, with dull grey gravestones dating back to the colonial era, full of beloved mothers and respected fathers, decorated with winged skulls and skeletons, in order that the viewer might memento mori. Short, verdant grass covered the small, slanted graveyard, and a single tree provided shade for weary visitors. On a typical day, perhaps a classroom of schoolchildren might be making wax rubbings of the reliefs right now, but today was far from typical.