Greetings. I am Prince Ludwig von Koopa, Ph D.

Or I will be soon, anyway. After enduring the thirteen years of Hell that was Koopergarten and grade school, as my father had insisted despite the bachelor's degree I had achieved at the age of four, I had graduated first among my so-called 'peers' at the Mushroom Kingdom Academy, and immediately after I packed up and made my way off to Frankenstein University to earn a Ph D. in Mad Science and an M.F.A. in Mad Music.

The faculty here, quite naturally, are very much impressed by my prodigious levels of talent and skill. So impressed, as a matter of fact, that I have been granted an entire research laboratory all to myself. The very same one my great uncle Wolfgang used to direct, as a matter of fact, before his frequent psychotic episodes, and subsequent detainments at the asylum, rendered him unfit for professorship in the eyes of this institution.

I snicker with glee. These shall truly be the best years of my life. Here among the high-end supercomputing equipment, the cryogenic chambers stocked with organs and tissue samples that I can assemble like robot parts into a living being of my own design, the voice-activated chemical cabinets that can dispense a vial of almost any chemical species ever synthesized upon command, provided you know its IUPAC nomenclature - this laboratory was not designed to be accessible for the mentally disabled - a cleanroom for assembling nanoprocessors and other nanoscale materials, a tabletop particle accelerator, an MRI machine, a laser that can be tuned through a wide spectrum ranging from infrared to x-rays, an astronomical observatory on the top floor, a jar with my Großonkel's gallbladder in it that he gave me as a back-to-uni present, and other things which I am sworn to keep top-secret. Not to mention my favorite, the spiraling tubes of distillation equipment that I had set up to drip a drop of cold-brewed Kaffee every three point one seven seconds into a large beaker. Gourmet perfection cannot be rushed.

No more being ordered around by 'King Dad'.

No more of Lemmy sneaking into my room to steal my imported chocolates and scribble his crayons over my textbooks.

No more of Roy physically and verbally harassing me for my less masculine hobbies, whilst concealing his own feminine interests. Of course, I am polite enough to allow him to carry on believing that he has pulled the wool over everyone's eyes regarding said interests; or, shall I say, not foolhardy enough not to.

No more of arguing with Iggy over which of us is the superior inventor, which of us has the higher IQ, et cetera et cetera. He has been so poisoned by envy that he is unable to admit that I clearly have him defeated on all measures. Poor delusional bastard, and to think that he accuses me of the same.

No more of listening to Wendy's shrill whining and trifling gossip and prattling on the merits of lowbrow consumer culture. I appreciate a fine new pair of shoes as much as anybody, but to purchase a dozen pairs with money that is not even hers, and only because somebody arbitrarily decided that they were 'in season', only to dispose of them as soon as they no longer hurt to walk in, is simply disgusting.

No more of being the target of Morton's obnoxious, repetitive, and unwitty jokes. He will never let me live down the time I vomited over the electronic harpsichord during my performance at the school talent show, having eaten a few spoiled bratwursts earlier that day. Morton immediately broke out in laughter, shouting, "HA HAHAHAHA, man I guess those was some SPOILED BRATS! GET IT? SPOILED BRATS? HAHAHAHAHA!" It seems now, however, that a video of him exhibiting the most disturbing behaviour at a vibrating furniture store has become viral over the internet; although such viewing content is not at all my cup of tea, I am indeed pleased that somebody has taken the initiative to give Morton a taste of his own medicine.

And no more of having to keep an eye on Larry, knowing he is always looking for an opportunity to lift Coins and other valuables from my possession. Or pester me about helping him with some ludicrous scam of his. When he asked me to synthesize illicit substances for his drug dealing operation, I told him to find somebody else to supply his wares.

Just me, myself, and my solitude. My brains. My ideas. My creations. My-

"LUDDY! I've filled your prescription!"

The one who broke my moment of peace is none other than fellow Ph D. candidate Princess Lavender of Sarasaland. I would normally be most annoyed at her for bursting into my lab like this, but in this case, I have made a deal with her to supply me with a certain mind-enhancing nootropic, in exchange for a seat at tonight's performance of my original musical theatre production, "Frigid: Kingdom of the Snow Prince". A tame request, knowing what she is inclined to ask for.

Not that I am incapable of synthesizing the nootropic for myself; rather, I find the process to be excruciatingly tedious. However, it is not legally available for purchase, and the variety that Larry sells is of very questionable composition.

My hair bristles as Lavender leans in to sniff my neck. "Mmm, is that CnR Create Leo for Men you are wearing?"

"Why, yes. I am rather fond of the coffee accord in the base."

Lavender inhales more deeply. " I am also picking up the accord of lavender."

I cringe. For all of her annoying characteristics, the younger cousin of Sarasaland's crown princess Daisy is among the few in my acquaintance whose intellect is in any league near my own, and furthermore, who views me as an ally rather than as a bitter rival, and yet I have always felt ill at ease around her. Behind comically enormous pink-rimmed spectacles, her eyes are aglow with an unsettling lascivity, feeling in a way toward me that I have never felt toward another, nor am I sure that I am even capable of feeling in such a way. I suppose that others would find the absence of such feelings to be a pathological trait, but every time I have borne witness to the angst that my siblings have suffered during the throes of their hormonal years, I have felt nothing but relief to be exempt from such distractions.

"Do you like my perfume Luddy?"

She smells as though she had submerged herself in it. "It's... tolerable." Barely. I soon realise that I recall smelling the same scent on Wendy, and a whiff of it off of Roy beneath all the zirconium-heavy antiperspirant and Old Spice.

"I made it myself! You can buy it in stores now, I call it Fairy Princess by Lavender. The top notes are marion berry, white tea, peach, pink freesia and wild lavender; the heart notes are Vanilla Dome vanilla, honeysuckle, and sugar glazed lavender, and the base notes are sandalwood, Baltic amber, cashmere musk, and-"

"Let me guess... LAVENDER."

"Ah-ah! BULGARIAN lavender!"

Shocker. "Will you kindly hand over what I had requested now and LEAVE."

"Sure thing!" Lavender hands me a paper bag with a gift bow stuck to it. What I see inside is a Pez dispenser... designed to look like me.

"I know you collect Pez dispensers, and I noticed that there was no Pez dispenser made to look like you, which if you ask me is a travesty! So I had one custom made to look like you."

I rather like it... but the most I shall tell her is a brusque "thank you".

"I designed the pills with a nanostructure that can store more of the active molecules for enhanced potency and duration."

"Impressive" I mutter as I open the dispenser and swallow two of the blue pills. That is my standard dose; rather small by most measures, but, as I have a familial predisposition to mania and psychosis, I feel it would be unwise of me to consume a larger dose, lest I trigger a dormant disorder to awaken.

"Luddy, be careful, one of those pills is at least TWICE as potent as the ones you're used to."

"You may leave now, Prinzessin."

"Uh, okay then, bye Luddy! See you at the show tonight!" I hear her run off, stop for a moment and run back.

"Oh and in exchange for filling your next prescription I would like you to help me with my upcoming flanker fragrance. It's going to be called Fairy Queen by Lavender, and I want it to be a more mature scent, since you've got such good taste about such things... for this one, I'm thinking champaca and FRENCH lavender."

"We shall discuss that later. You are DISMISSED now, Prinzessin."

"Okies... bye again!" She runs off, knowing that if she doesn't that I will be forced to seize her and physically escort her out. I lock every single lock in the lab's superfluous security system behind her.

I dump out the beaker of coffee that had taken hours to fill to three-quarters. I saw what she did there. She has been trying to slip me samples of her experimental love potions for years.

I open my miniature refrigerator to take out my substitute caffeine beverage of choice, a blue edition Red Boo.

Red Boo?!

I could have sworn... I know for a FACT that it was a Red BULL when I purchased it and when I put it in the refrigerator! First the spoilt brats and now this. I should have thought twice about purchasing a miniature refrigerator, or anything for that matter from a flea market inside a refurbished Ghost House.

I do not feel in particular need of caffeine at this moment anyway. Although I could use a drink for the liquid content, as my mouth is already parched, a side effect of the nootropic. I had already become tolerant of that effect at my normal dose, so Lavender was indeed right about these pills being stronger.

But the bothersome feeling of dry mouth soon becomes the last thing on my mind as I dive headfirst into the pile of projects and assignments I have fallen behind on. As much as it blows my mind that I have ever fallen behind on anything, I can attest that it is due to no lack of intellectual fortitude, but rather to a certain... distraction.

There is a pipe to a Game Guy casino on the Frankenstein University campus. Having never set foot inside a casino before, barring the occasional music performance, I felt it would be an important and inspiring experience to... test a few of my hypotheses on combinatorial game theory.

Playing the games - I mean, testing my hypotheses turned out to be far more pleasurable than I had thought it would be. I was studying in the casino for the entire weekend without rest, drinking nothing but Kaffee and eating nothing but the nootropic pills, and yes, I wagered my own money - not enough to ruin me, but nonetheless, I did it. I picked up gambling. I am not proud to admit it, but I have succumbed to the raging pleasure of this new vice.

But for all the catching up on assignments that I have now to do, I had gotten exactly what I had intended to out of that experience. I speed through the more trivial of my assignments - proving group theoretical conjectures, debugging the code I had written for my new and improved strong AI drones, and typing up the abstract for the research paper on the latest results on my cure for brain cancer, concealing the fact that my test subjects were Dentist Guys in training from the university's Mad Dentistry programme, of course - and once that is all finished, I am ready - MORE than ready - to write up the details of my doctoral dissertation.

My body is erupting with howls of laughter. I am salivating - foam, as my mouth is too dry not to stretch the saliva with colloidal bubbles - at my own buzzing electric thoughts. I shall have to use the really BIG chalkboard for this!

The chalkboard so big, one must use an escalating ladder on wheels to write across it! The fever, the RELEASE! This is truly groundbreaking. I have discovered an algorithm that, given the current state of one's neural synapses, or at the macro level, one's mind, can construct a Markov decision process detailing the expected decisions made by the subject given any external input. This means that I can systematically read minds, and what's more, figure out exactly WHICH buttons to push on a person to put its mind into a state of perfect predictability - FOOLPROOF MENTAL MANIPULATION! WOOHOOHOO I will ALWAYS have the upper hand on my enemies! Even Ignatius, my greatest rival and own brother shall be confounded senseless! It's all a matter of being able to remember the entire algorithm and spontaneously crunch through the millions of variables, but that should be no problem, my brain is plenty big enough to hold all of that in. I'll ALWAYS WIN at the casino, even at those pesky imperfect information type chance games, I'll see right through that poker face every time! WOOHOOHOOOOO I'LL EVEN BE ABLE TO BEAT THE PIANO!

I'm almost breathless from giggling. Perhaps I am turning out just a little bit like my Großonkel after all.

I finish writing it down, my brain buzzed from the pleasure of watching my own theory unfold perfectly before my eyes. Yes... YEEEES! WOOHOOHOO I'M A GENIUS! I'M SOOOO SMART! SUCH BRILLIANCE! I'M SO BREATHLESS FROM MY OWN BRILLIANCE IT'S KILLING ME!

My brain explodes with a rush of electric pleasure, too much for even my own king-sized cranium to contain, so it spills out down the spine in shivering shock waves throughout my body. My face is almost numb from laughing like one of Onkel's electroconvulsive test subjects, and it takes me a while to realise that my pants are soaked from this pleasure.

Just a natural bodily function, albeit an awkward and frustrating one; not exactly one of evolution's crown jewels, but nothing to be ashamed of. I need to change anyway, since rehearsal for my musical will begin in about an hour.

In a nutshell, Frigid: Kingdom of the Snow Prince tells the story of a faux-Scandinavian prince who, indifferent to all of his would-be suitors, is frustrated by his parents' constant attempts to make him marry, so he runs away and locks himself in an ice palace where, finally at peace with himself in the freedom of solitude, he learns to love himself and thus declares himself the King of Hearts, but his plans to establish his own Kingdom of Hearts are tragically cut short when he becomes a little too passionate with himself and accidentally slices a sword through his own skull. It's mostly a one-man show, with a score that is as crowd-pleasing as it is elegant.

I have been looking forward all day to changing into my costume. I retrieve it from the laboratory's locker room and carry it up to the great mirrored picture frame. Here I stand in soiled trousers and a lab coat that also could use a washing, albeit smartened up with a silken bow tie. Eighteenth century style cravats are more my style, but a cravat would look rather ridiculous with lab attire.

I unbutton my labcoat and toss it off for the robot laundry maids to take care of. I do the same with the rest of my clothing, though not without a sneering look of disgust at the sodden mess I had made of my pants. Before suiting up in my princely theatre garb however, I take more than a moment to observe and even admire my unclothed reflection.

I only now notice how much of my spare fat has been burned away. This is not surprising, as the nootropic is known to reduce appetite and result in subsequent weight loss. As of late I have hardly touched the wafer cookies and pastries that I typically snack on during long laboratory hours; it was only a little while ago that I had to throw out a barely nibbled cinnamon roll and a "barbarian" creme doughnut that had been bitten once into a fat crescent shape and gutted of its creme, both of which had become moldier than my penicillin petri dishes. Most of my calorie consumption has been in liquid form, from Koopaccinos or energy drinks. Perhaps I shall not have to wear a corset with my costume after all.

That is not to say that I have become skin and bone; rather, the fat had melted away to unveil beautiful, toned muscles underneath. Many are surprised that such a cerebral fellow as myself who engages neither in physical sports nor a fitness regimen would have such muscle. This is largely ignorance on their part; singing opera requires a greater degree of physical exertion than most realise, as does playing certain musical instruments. In addition, I have taken up ballet again since starting university; I had been introduced as a young child during my stay with Mutter, but I was later peer-pressured to quit while growing up in the strictly gender-conformist culture of Dark Land.

I slide out of my shell so that I can get a better view. As I ogle myself, my mind half-consciously draws comparisons between my own body and Michelangelo's David, while my fingers half-mindedly trace down the contours of my torso, from the pectoralis majors down the ribcage to the groin. The feel of my claws just lightly grazing the groin area triggers a reflexive contraction of the genital area. This is a normal response, tested along with the patellar reflex during physical exams, but it feels borderline painful, even violative, when the doctor does it.

Under my own hands, however, it is not unpleasant at all.

My eyes at last peer downward to gaze upon my scrotum and... penis, with a bashful curiosity. I have had reasons over the years to hide my genitals from the prying eyes of even my own brothers - modesty; a desire not to attract unwarranted jealousy, from Roy in particular; and also not to draw attention to a striking difference between my own and those of my brothers.

Circumcision is not practiced in Dark Land; I have seen more than enough of Koopa phalli to be certain of that. I on the other hand was hatched and for a short time raised in the Real World, where the severing the foreskins of young males, though not universal, is practiced by multiple cultures for a variety of reasons. My absence of foreskin then more than anything marks me as a Real Worlder by birth. I fortunately do not recall the incident, nor did I even know what had happened or even that something had happened for a considerable while, nor am I certain of my maternal family's rationale behind the action. Curious though I may be, I have always found myself tongue-tied every time I had gotten the chance to ask them.

The organ is partially erect, which is worrisome. If it is not resolved, I fear that it will split open my lovely new pair of skintight plum silk velvet breeches. I return to the locker to retrieve my ballet tights and leotard to wear underneath, with the hope that the chafing of spandex beneath the binding tightness at the crotch of the leotard would stifle it to soften up and shrink away.

Afterwards I button up my waistcoat, fasten the solid gold monogrammed cufflinks on my burgundy tailcoat, pull up and garter my silken white stockings, slide into the silky velvet breeches - even through the tights, my loins quiver at the mere feel of these! - slip on my shiny black patent leather opera slippers, and tie up the lace and frills of the cravat around my shirt collar as icing on the cake.

For additional finishing touches, I powder my face, color the lips red, apply blush to the cheeks, and brush glittering bismuth powder over the eyelids. I spray on more of the cologne that the Princess had admired. I pick up a can of Dr. K's Perm-in-a-Can and spray it over my unkempt blue locks. My hair is now instantly perfect, just as I - er, Dr. K had designed the spray to do, if rather crisper and curlier than I normally wear it.

I do look dashing in this suit. Quite handsome, if I do say so myself. So meticulously decorated and tied up like a holiday present.

Simply cannot wait to open it up and tear it all off...

Did I say that? It must have been the quite ravishing creature I see staring back at me. His eyes are wide and dark and lovely, reminding me of the cosmetic purpose of deadly nightshade, for which it is also called belladonna, except that the pupils of this bello Don are widened not by atropine but by the nootropic. Just another benign side effect...

He raises his eyebrows up and down in a flirtatious manner. I try not to look at his velvet pants. The hot blood rushes into my own velvet pants... and face... I blush and turn away.

I reel from that intensive experience, and I realize that I actually feel rather giddy. The fiery sense of clarity has not faded; it as though a birthday cake covered by glaring bright, almost too bright candles is illuminating the cozy alcove of my mind. My expansive, immensely creative mind, casting its many constituent objects in a brighter, more colorful light than I had ever seen, or rather thought of them in before. Even the music is more colorful, as nonsensical as that sounds... but the strings of a symphony I had neither heard nor dreamed of before are playing, and as the sound grows, the more colorful and creative the symphony becomes...

I AM INSPIRED!

Inspired to create a music video, and not just any music video but the most avant garde music video this century has yet seen. That video shall be shot straight away!

What better way to burn all this excess pleasure out of my system!

I am an electric being, with lightning quick movements and a high enough voltage in my nerve endings to jump a spark gap the size of this entire lab!

My brain is so loud that it can be heard outside of my skull. The symphony blaring out of my head is also electric, as though played on synthesizers like electronic dance music rather than live acoustic instruments in the hands of virtuosi, but strangely, that does not bother me at all. Avant garde, after all, means pushing boundaries, and the orchestration is no less complex regardless of what instruments are used.

And now the disembodied pairs of mechanical legs come out. Multiple pairs of female legs with stilettos on the feet are walking along the lab floor, fully actuated. Male legs in businesslike trousers burst out of the cabinets, kicking them open, swinging along like marionette legs.

WOOHOOHOO! PERFECT! WOOHOO! LEGS! HOW RICH! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOO! EXACTLY how I envisioned it!

All that's missing is... PYJAMAS!

Pyjamas?

ACH! I feel a swift, sudden kick from behind. It misses my testes, which is quite fortunate because those are a sensitive spot, but the toe nails me squarely in the anus. It doesn't feel quite all that painful; as a matter of fact, it almost feels... pleasant.

I get kicked again, this time in the shell and I am knocked onto my belly. I feel my shell being stomped upon.

It's one of the pairs of mechanical male legs, and I see a pair of female legs walking up toward me. She jumps up, spreads to do the splits, lands her crotch on my neck, and clenches it between her thighs.

I scream in anguish at this act of physical violation. The female legs shake and bounce up and down while keeping a tight grip on my head, ruining my hair, rubbing the hard plastic crotch into my skull like Roy's fist when he gives me a "noogie".

She must adore the brain...

The male legs meanwhile continue to knock me between the buttocks, delivering kicks like long, lazy swings of a pendulum. This is all part of the video plot of course. The music is quite upbeat at this part. Still, this scene ought to have ended by now...

Have you tried asking them politely to quit it?

I suppose it's worth a shot. "I... I beg your pardon, Mister and Miss Legs, but would you please be so kind as to discontinue assaulting me?"

Both pairs of legs stop attacking me at once and walk off. All of the other leg pair automatons are walking on the ceiling now.

I push myself up and wipe the dust off of my outfit. My cravat at least is not too soiled. I reach down to feel my pants, hoping that the kicking did not cause it to rip at the seams, but all I feel is the now-frayed fabric of my ballet tights. What happened to my pants?

I now see that the pair of female legs that had been attacking me is wearing them!

I chase the contraption as it starts running instead of walking. "GIVE THOSE BACK YOU TORSOLESS TRAMP!"

Then again, the autonomous bottom-down mannequin does not have an erection threatening to burst the pants open, so perhaps they are safer on her for the moment. Now where is my velvet robe...

Pyjamas!

What about the pyjamas? What pyjamas? I turn around...

I do indeed see a pair of pyjamas. Black and white striped, far too tall for my figure, and carrying a bucket of laundry detergent in one animated sleeve, and a dispenser cup full of detergent powder in the other.

I run for my life! Screaming; I hope my screaming sounds musical, or I shall have to record it again, or - heaven forbid - correct it using Autotune. I pass through the closest door to another room and slam it shut on the monstrosity.

I meet my admirer again at the mirror in this room. He too is missing the fabulous velvet breeches, and his erection has burst through the ballet spandex through the side of the leotard crotch. From the top up however he is still a perfect, angelic androgyne, and he is shaking his hips to the music in my head, eyeing me as though I were a delicious cake for him to dig into, made all the more desirable by its state of forbidden-ness.

I am not even sickened by his lust this time around, for I now mirror his feelings and desires exactly.

"You..." I say, panting, fearing my trademark eloquence has been lost to the snarling, primal beast that has taken over. I paw the mirror, and he follows suit. "I... want... you in ways that I have never... wanted... ANYONE... or anything..."

My delectable Doppelganger nods, snarling his pleasure just under his breath. Small flames flicker out as he exhales; I can almost feel his breath like a radiator upon my face. "But of course. How could any of the inferior beings you are surrounded by possibly please you as much as you could please yourself?"

I moan at his voice, like liquid dopamine dripping into my ears. "But... how... how best to, have our cake, and eat it, so to say..."

"What irony that you should speak of cake, when you have not touched it, or any other food for that matter in a good while... so unlike us..."

"And the irony that I should hunger for nothing else, and yet hunger for YOU!"

"For ME!"

"For US!"

If I resist these flaming urges for one more moment, I will spontaneously combust! "WATCH OUT MEIN LIEBE HERE I COME!"
We leap out to seize each other at the exact same moment. I feel the blissful shattering of the mirror between us. I fall to the floor, showered by the sparkling mirror dust.

I roar in dissatisfaction.

This video will not end before we make schweet, schweet love.

"Damn straight!" I shout out loud. I shove the door open. The pyjamas are gone.

"Shall I hunt down my pants now, or shall I track down my velvet robe and make the loveliest of love in that instead?"

Look to your left...

Son of a... that's my houserobe now that's swinging the pail of detergent around!

"ENOUGH!" I thrust my hand out and strike the naughty garment with a lightning bolt. I pick it up, but I hesitate to wear it. It is shorted out and immobilized now, but the static electricity that it now carries is pulling my hair out of place. I toss the clingy mess at the detergent that is dumped all over the floor. Perhaps the pyjamas will return and take the detergent and actually do some laundry with it.

"I really want those pants back..."

Forget it for now. You don't have time to be chasing those verdammten legs back and forth.

True. I squint as I pull my fingers over my erect penis. It feels like a very pleasant, dopamine-kissed massage, but my touch here evokes none of the passion such as that which had suddenly awakened in me at the sight of myself. My hands, lovely, strong yet dexterous and musically trained as they may be, are not sufficient...

I pull out an old-fashioned gold-plated timepiece from the pocket of my coat, to view my love's reflection on the gold leaf patina of the back. As I move the watch around, his appearance changes over the convex surface. I tilt it one way to enlarge his nose, and then I tilt it another way to enlarge his cranium.

That schweet, schweet brain... I so desire to make love with it!

I shiver with yearning at that thought. That is technically impossible, but still... or is it?

I run off, cackling in my highest register at full volume. I must sound as crazed as Ignatius, but I do not care. Lunacy works well for music videos, after all!

I head first into the skull room, which resembles a museum exhibit full of skulls of humans, Koopas, and other creatures from the Real World and the outer metauniversal community alike. From the skull shape, size, and dentition or in the case of avians beak structure, I can discern the age of death, gender, species and even subspecies of each of them at a mere glance. The skulls shake around and flap their mandibles but they stop as soon as I enter.

"WOOHOO... WOOOOHOOHOOHOOOOHOOHOOHAAHAAHAA AHAHA HAAAA!" I pick up a Yoshi skull. "Alas, poor Yoshi, he had a brain and could think once, but he stopped using it, so we TOOK IT AWAY!"

I toss him down and I laugh, and I laugh, even harder than the time I saw the fork and knife symbol marking the location of the new frozen yogurt shop on the school map - What irony! Really now, who eats frozen yogurt with a fork and a knife? I am nearly incapacitated by laughter, but the bony beak of a still-animated toucan skull that dangles from the ceiling snaps me out of it.

"What are you looking at?" I shoot him a sour look. "Don't make me..." I threaten as my fingers are sparking up. He falls still, and I take a deep breath and head for the nearest door.

This is the wrong room... for Hell knows what reason, it is filled with helium... and giant, floating, singing, disembodied fish heads. I shriek in a helium-pitched voice and slam the door shut.

Now to enter the right room.

The BRAIN ROOM.

My breath becomes heavy as I enter. Not because this room is chilled to refrigerator temperature, nor because the damp air smells of ethanol and formaldehyde tinged with a note that is reminiscent of the aroma of a good head cheese, but because it is stocked with rows and rows of jars filled with... brains.

I love these things. I love them perhaps a little too much, in any case certainly more than I am willing to let on to others. I love the texture, both visually and upon the fingers. To me, there is no masterpiece of nature more beautiful and arousing to the spirits than the intertwining of gyri and sulci, the deep, firm and yet ever-changing convolutions of the cerebral cortex, and the cleavage of hemispheres along the sagittal plane of the skull. The deeper the fissures, the more abundant the furrows, the greater the beauty. Without these, the brain cannot function as intended, and the poor creature whose skull contains it will be born mentally and physically disabled, if not dead. Incidentally, such a smooth cerebrum may resemble a pair of buttocks, or a pair of female breasts. I can never for the life of me understand why my brothers are so sexually aroused by something that resembles lissencephaly.

Much information about the state of the living creature, such as its personality, its skills and talents, experiences, even a rough estimate of IQ level with respect to different dimensions of intelligence, can be gleaned from a thorough visual inspection of the cerebral surface. It is not however an exact science, and any amateur attempt to guess such traits based on a superficial knowledge of the function of the Brodmann areas and the size of the associated gyri on the specimen will more often than not turn out to be dead wrong. The ability to accurately read brains, so to speak, is a very rare skill, and the only other person that I know who possesses it is none other than my own Onkel Wolfgang. He passed the skill along to me through intense coaching during my toddler years, which was especially fun because we got to blow the brains up afterwards.

I feel a greater rush than normal in the presence of these brains. They are mostly long-dead, removed from cadavers that had long since passed into rigor mortis, but toward the back of the room I have kept some fresher brains, preserved in a formula of my own invention that can keep them preserved in a state such that they can easily be brought back to life. One of my goals now is to create such a formula that can revive the older ones.

I shall now take a moment to practice my skills on these fresh meats.

This one is a dragon-koopa, female, middle-aged at time of death. She was of slightly above average intelligence, no less than one standard deviation above the norm. She had been a musician since early puberty, and these markers for well-developed motor control in the oral region lead me to surmise that her specialty was a wind instrument. She had also learned a second language before puberty, but it had attritted due to lack of use after puberty. The cause of death is not apparent here, so it was definitely not due to stroke or other form of direct brain damage.

This next one is a human, male, aged over 16 and under 25 at the time of death. His IQ was likely up to a standard deviation below average in all areas, and he had endured psychological trauma from a prepubertal age. There is also evidence of long-term prescription drug use, as the medulla is lesioned in such a way that indicates the patient suffered from the extrapyramidal symptoms associated with antipsychotics, and the hippocampus exhibits dematuration of a nature as may be expected from a history of SSRI use. More strikingly, there is evidence of electroconvulsive therapy gone horrifically awry, and I of anyone would recognize that, since untested experimental methods of ECT are among Onkel's favorite "treatments" for his "patients".

Presently, my skills are advanced enough that I can affirm the former presence of each quality with a smaller than 0.5 percent chance of being wrong. I can distinguish brains more readily than faces. Thus, it is all too obvious to me that none of these are quite the one I am looking for. I have never seen the one that I am seeking in the flesh, or rather outside of the flesh, unless the MRI images I had taken myself and pinned on the wall of my dormitory are to be counted, but I know enough that I would know it if I saw it.

And now I see it.

My penis extends and stiffens to a bonelike consistency before my speedy electric mind can even process...

Make me yours.

The brain, every bit as glorious as I had imagined but even more breathtaking to behold, is alive, pulsating, suspended in liquid inside a crystal clear glass pyramid.

I gape at it like a starved zombie from Larry's favorite video game. My manhood, having a mind of its own, thrusts itself at the glass and shatters it.

My hands catch the brain just in time before my flailing membrum virile can yet destroy its beauty. An autonomous sensory meridian response like none I have ever felt before shoots through my arms up the periphery to the spine, where it splits to shiver up to my skull and down to my loins.

A knee-jerk shriek of pre-orgasmic delight rips out from my throat. My brain is buzzing just from the presence of the other brain so close to my face. An electric field, equal and opposite to the one in my own body, must be emanating from this brain in my hands. That is absurd, that a brain should carry such a tangible electric field, but it is a SPECIAL brain, after all.

And I know all of its sweet spots.

The tips of my claws spark up, and I aim them at all of the right regions. I fire lightly, at a voltage just below the action potential threshold, but aimed such that the currents intersect at the areas that I wish to activate, and that the additive voltage at those intersections is high enough to trigger action potentials in the neurons in those areas.

My own body reacts just as if I had activated the same areas using electrodes in my own skull. Woohoo a VOODOO BRAIN! Well well well, seems my electric touch could fire off an orgasm in just about any part of my body...

I swiftly compute how to activate the neurons in such a way that I feel the tingles in my forehead instead of my genitals. Tingling, explosively... I bring the tingles down to my nose. I sneeze eight times, eight brilliant, orgasmic times. It is a sensation just like ejaculation, but in the nose, and the ejaculate is nasal mucus rather than semen. The myth about sneezing and orgasm has become a reality.

Gesundheit.

I next trigger an orgasm in my tail. It travels down my spine, and when it reaches my crooked tail it straightens out and stiffens, and the blood rushes into it but as it is incapable of ejaculation it cannot find relief. I grab it in my hand and stroke the tip with my thumb, until it relaxes and becomes rather sore.

Now for an orgasm of the gastrointestinal tract! I feel the lower intestine moving along rather too quickly... and the contents burst out of the rectum in the form of a fecal aerosol, ripping and soiling my already ruined ballet tights. I am definitely glad now that I am not wearing my velvet pants.

Another orgasm starts at the upper intestine, pushed peristaltically up to the stomach, then through the esophagus. I expect an eructation, but it comes out as vomit. It tastes of bratwurst, which is strange because I have eaten nothing solid, let alone bratwurst in the past twenty-four hours. But it certainly tastes more delicious than the last time I blew sausage.

I now trigger the nerve endings in my teeth to become erogenous zones. I have the urge to gnaw, like a puppy or a teething child, but even stronger... I bite my own arm, piercing through my silken coat sleeve and then through my scales until I bleed, but even the pain of the wound feels ecstatic. I have the urge to bite even harder, until I crunch through the radius and ulna... I turn to the brain and zap this feeling off before I can do too much damage.

Now that I have arrived at my brain's master controls, I can immediately switch off this penile turgor so that I can put my velvet pants back on and head down to the theatre to deliver my performance... ACH! I have almost COMPLETELY forgotten about my show tonight...

Not so fast, Fancypants. THIS show is not quite over...

He's right. I am still in the midst of filming my magnificent music video, one that shall sweep all the film festivals, tonight's performance of "Frigid" can wait.

It will not be over until I climax, and by that I mean genitally.

I now realise that the music playing in my mind has shut off. I must have zapped it off on accident. That must be resolved; there is no way that I can orgasm without it!

Very delicately, I tune the music in my mind, much like tuning a radio, except vastly more complicated. Some of these "stations" are awful... oh, there's the music that was on before!

Keep tuning...

If he insists. I switch to what at first sounds like a very soft ringing, a mild tinnitis... until it grows in volume and I realise it is a choir of a thousand voices - yes, I can distinguish that many voices sounding at once. They are singing a piece I have never heard of, and yet, it is familiar somehow... perhaps I have heard it in a dream?

I must have... this song resonates with an ethereal beauty such as that I have never heard while awake. At the most, I have been lucid enough to write down a few of the notes before I had woken up enough for it to have vanished tracelessly from my mind...

And here I am now, having the entire piece recorded for my music video!

This music... these voices are pure rapture! I feel a faint flutter in my heart and a gentle buckling of the knees as the electricity rises in my body... I feel as though I am floating, being raised toward the heavens!

I feel so small before this grand chorus; surely this work is not one of my own subconscious design; it is property of Heaven, and what am I doing... who am I, to plagiarise it?

Of course you composed it, you fool! If such a place as Heaven existed, what makes you think they would allow a Hellbound bastard such as yourself to so much as listen to it?

Good point, very good point. Of COURSE I composed it; in my sleep, even! I am preternaturally gifted enough, after all.

My eyes are closed, my head leaned back in a trance state. The song is building up to a climactic crescendo, and I can feel the bright white magic glowing out of me... my spine curls backwards, I quake at the loins, and I scream, possessed by ecstasy, in a thousand voices, in every language I know, and many more that I do not. The thunder rolling through my body is so physically intense that I fear that the lightning will take my life...

I CLIMAX - an ecstatic explosion of electrified ejaculate, fired like blasphemy at the heavens, raining down like sparkling jewel drops of morning mist.

I rub my eyes, seeing the brain I have left on the floor. I raise it to my face, which once again buzzes... my penis, still not yet softened, raises once more and fires a final spritz of semen between the hemispheres.

The semen that rests like dew upon me carries a distinct, even arousing scent, which is especially delicious in combination with my cologne. I can... I can probably tweak the synapses some more so that I can make the refractory period shorter, and do this again... and again... and write my doctoral dissertation on this instead of that paltry game theory idea. No wait... there is not much I can do to the brain that will make it clear the arousal-repressing prolactin from my bloodstream more quickly... prolactin does stimulate milk production though...

I cackle out a love-drunken laugh as I arouse my breasts, causing them to become swollen like a female's, and feel the rush of ejaculating milk out of both nipples. I lick it off my succulent cerebral cortex - my tongue twists with the pleasure and agony of arousal without means of release.

I feel different, in a way that I cannot quite put my finger on as of yet... I have this strange urge to, well, I believe to share this BRILLIANT discovery of mine with the WORLD! Maybe I fundamentally changed something about my psyche whilst LITERALLY fucking around with my brain! Maybe, but if it turns out to be an issue later, I can surely resolve it. I had best see to this music video that I had just recorded - is it still being recorded? The camera should be OFF now! - and what was that other thing that I have to do?

My stream of thoughts is broken by Toccata and Fugue in D minor - that's the doorbell! WOOHOOHOO I rush to the laboratory entrance to open all the locks and answer it!

"Come IN!" I greet in a singsong voice, cackling afterwards.

"Luddy?" Oh my, it's the Prinzessin Lavender! "What are you doing? The play should have already started by now!"

"WOOHOOHOO... WAAAAHAAHAA! Oh, you mean that silly little dinner show? I have been working on far greater things, madam, FAR greater, woohoohoohaahaa!"

I place my hand on my chin as I pierce her with the most direct eye contact she has ever gotten from me. Her facial expression indicates alarm, and she steps back.

"Luddy, are you all right? You, uh... aren't quite yourself right now..."

"Am I alright? AM I ALRIGHT?! MUHAHAHAHAHAha, never better, my dear, never better!"

I take a step forward. Her perfume actually smells quite enticing now. Perhaps it's the mingling accord of FEAR that's making all the difference?

"May I invite you in? We have PLENTY of stale wafer cookies; have as much as you like!" I lick the froth from my lips. HER brain is certainly quite comely; perhaps second only to mine in the world!

"N-no thank you..."

"Oh, but I INSIST! I could introduce you to... my collection," I purr, reaching for her waist, but she pulls back. Her bespectacled face turns red when she turns it toward my crotch.

"LUDWIG... WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR PANTS?" she gasps faintly.

"BWAHAHAHAHAA, pants... there will be no need for such things as PANTS..." I growl softly, my body hot from the fire in my brain that won't burn out. The leotard crotch is tightening again, and this time it may not even hold together...

"Luddy...? Don't... are you... ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" she screams.

She WAS asking for it...

I nod in agreement. "What's the matter, my darling, is it not what you have been BEGGING of me for the better part of my LIFE?"

"Uuuuhhh... b-b-b-but..."

"WOOOOhoohoohoohoohoohoohoo, WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!"

"B-but Luddy... I-I-I'm not that kind of girl... Couldn't we at least get married first? Whaaa... NO! Keep your claws off of me! Don't make me... uh oh... STOP! PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T... HEEEEEEEEELLLLLP!"