'Oh, so that's Sleeping Beauty!' Bink said, contemplating the ogress. She was as ugly a creature as he cared to imagine. Yet beneath her hair, which resembled a mop just used to wipe up vomit, and her baggy coarse dress, she seemed to have rather more delicate contours than one might expect in an ogress. Then he remembered: she was no true ogress, but an actress, playing a part in one of the fiend's productions. She could probably look beautiful if she tried. Why, then, was she not trying? 'Uh, one question-'
The female, no dummy, caught his gist before he got it out. 'True, me once have other face,' she told Bink. 'Me glad get out of that rat race. Me find man better than any fiend; me like it best, by he be queened.'
So the prima donna had found a husband worthy of her attention! After meeting the fiends, Bink found himself in agreement with her choice. She was maintaining the ogress guise, which was in any event merely a physical reflection of her normal personality, while teaching Crunch to speak more intelligibly. One savvy lady fiend, there! 'Uh, congratulations,' Bink said. Aside, he explained to Cherie. 'They married on our advice. Humfrey and Crombie and Chester and the golem and I. Except that Humfrey was asleep. It was quite a story.'
'I'm sure,' Cherie agreed dubiously.
'Yes, me bash he good,' the fair she-ogre said. 'He head like wood.'
'Ogres are very passionate,' Bink murmured.
Cherie, after her initial surprise, was quick to catch on. 'How do you keep his love?' she inquired with a certain female mischief. 'Doesn't he like to go out adventuring?'
Bink realized she was thinking of Chester, perhaps unconsciously.
'Me let he go, me never say no,' the ogress said, full of the wisdom of her sex. 'When he come back, me give he crack.' She struck the ogre with a horrendous backhand wallop by way of example. Just as well, for Bink had been about to misunderstand the reference. 'Make he feel like beast, then give he feast,'
Crunch's face contorted into a smile of agreement. He was obviously well satisfied. And probably better off, Bink thought, than he might have been with a natural ogress, who would have taken his nature for granted. Whatever faults the actress might have, she certainly knew how to handle her male.
'Does the loss of magic interfere with your lifestyle?' Bink inquired. Both ogres looked at him blankly.
'They never noticed!' Cherie exclaimed. 'There's true love for you!'
The ogre couple went on its way, and Cherie resumed her run. But she was thoughtful. 'Bink, just as a rhetorical example-does a male really like to feel like a beast?'
'Yes, sometimes,' Bink agreed, thinking of Chameleon. When she was in her stupid-beautiful phase, she seemed to live only to please him, and he felt extremely manly. But when she was in her smart-ugly phase, she turned him off with her wit as well as her appearance. In that respect she was smarter when she was stupid than when she was smart. Of course now all that was over; she would stay always in her 'normal' phase, avoiding the extremes. She would never turn him off-or on.
'And a centaur-if he felt like a real stallion at home-'
'Yes. Males need to feel wanted and needed and dominant, even when they aren't. Especially at home. That ogress knows what she's doing.'
'So it seems,' Cherie agreed. 'She's a complete fake, a mere actress, yet he's so happy he'd do anything for her. But lady centaurs can act too, when they have reason?' Then she was silent as she ran.
Chapter 14
Paradox Wish
Bink, nodding again, was suddenly jolted awake. Cherie was braking so hard he was being crushed against her human back. He threw his arms about her waist, hanging on, careful not to grab too high. 'What-?'
'I almost forgot. I haven't nursed Chet in hours,'
'Chet?' Bink repeated dazedly. Oh, the foal.
She signaled to her young one, who promptly came up to nurse. Bink hastily excused himself for another kind of call of nature. Centaurs were not sensitive about natural functions; in fact they could and did perform some of them on the run. Humans were more squeamish, at least in public. It made him realize one reason why Cherie did not seem as lovely now: her breasts were enlarged to the point of ponderosity, so that she could nurse her foal. Little centaurs required a great deal of milk, especially when they had to run as much as this one did.
After a decent interval Bink cautiously returned. The foal was still nursing, but Cherie spied Bink. 'Oh, don't be so damned human,' she snapped. 'What do you think I'm doing-magic?'
Bink had to laugh, embarrassed. She had a point; he had no more occasion to let his squeamishness interfere with business than she did. His definitions of what might be obscene made no more sense than hers. He came forward, albeit diffidently. It occurred to him that centaurs were well adapted to their functions; had Cherie had an udder like a horse, the foal would have had a difficult time. He was an upright little chap, whose human section did not bend down like the neck of a horse.
'We're going the wrong way,' Cherie exclaimed.
Oh, no! 'You strayed from the path? We're lost?'
'We're on the path. But we should not be going toward Castle Roogna. Nobody there can help.'
'But the King-'
