“ ‘That’s a cotton-pickin’ shame,’ the Princess opines. ‘I sure wish I knew you before she frogged you. I kinda dig tall, handsome young Princes with muscles myself. I guess it’s like a stage I’m goin’ through. Too bad. But then that’s life.’
“ ‘What’s life?’ asks the Frog with froggishly philosophical curiosity.
“ ‘Life,’ the Princess tells him, ‘is a bucket of manure with the handles on the inside.’ ”
“But you digress,” I pointed out to Lolly.
“Sorry.” She got back to the story. “Anyway, the Frog tells the Princess she can be heaps of help to him if she wants to be.
“ ‘Like how?’ the Princess asks.
“ ‘Like you can help me cast off this spell,’ the Frog tells her. ‘If you take me home tonight and put me under your pillow when you go to bed, when you wake up in the morning, I won’t be a Frog any more. I’ll be a big, handsome, young, muscle-dripping Prince again. I’ll be disenchanted!’
“ ‘With that kind of a build-up, Froggy, if it doesn’t work, I’ll be disenchanted!’ the Princess tells him.
“ ‘Will you do it?’ the Frog wheedles.
“ ‘Well, I never made it with a Frog before,’ muses the Princess. ‘It might be a new kick at that.’
“So the Princess takes the Frog back to her pad and puts him under her pillow when she goes to sleep that night. She wakes up the next morning, and there, sure enough, is a great big handsome Prince with muscles hanging off his muscles. And-—” Lolly paused and nodded to the children.
“—And do you know to this day her mother doesn’t believe that story,” they chimed in to supply the ending, chortling with glee.
“Wrong!” Lolly shook her head. “This was a very poor Princess. She was too poor to have a mother. But she did have this gleep she was shacking up with. So he comes in in the ayem and what do you think he does?”
“Raps her on the snoot,” Raymond suggested.
“Throws her out of the pad,” Lucinda offered.
“You’re both wrong. He keeps his cool altogether. Doesn’t even blink an orb-lash. And you know why he isn’t bugged at finding this Prince in bed with his chick?”
“No! Why? Tell us!” The children jumped up and down.
“Because he knows it’s a Fairy Prince!” Lolly told them. “And the moral of the story is never get involved with an effeminate Frog. Now get to bed, you two. And I don’t want to hear a croak out of you.”
I took one last puff and tamped out the reefer as Lucinda and Raymond trotted off to bed. I was waiting when Lolly turned to me.
“Baby-sitting has a deleterious effect on my love life,” she sighed. “Now, where were we?”
“My right hand was here.” I put it on the back of her neck. “My left hand was here.” I cupped her bare breast under the blouse. “And my lips were here.” I kissed her.
Lolly’s breast throbbed under my touch. Her sharp little teeth closed on my lip and drew blood. Her nails shredded my shirt. These kids were too much! I reflected. They liked their sex raw with violence! I made a mental note to let myself go, to be every bit as uninhibited as Lolly was. Then I let the action suit the resolve.
“Ouch!” She broke away from me. “You pinched my thigh!” She rubbed the spot gingerly. “What did you do that for?”
“I felt like it,” I panted. “You should do whatever you feel like doing in sex. Isn’t that what you believe?”
“I guess so.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But not so hard, huh. I bruise easy.”
I kissed her again and let my fingers trail up the inside surface of her leg. A muscle tensed under her soft flesh.
“Do you want to play ‘Trust me’?” she panted.
“Huh?”
“ ‘Trust Me.’ It’s a game the kids play.”
Well, I figured to myself, any game the kids played was good enough for me. Never too old to learn, I told myself. “Sure,” I told Lolly. “How do you play?”
“Like this.” She took my hand and put it on her knee. “Now ask me if I trust you.”
“Do you trust me?” I asked obediently.
“Yes. Now move your hand just a little higher and ask me again.”
I did as she said. “Trust me?”
“Yes.”
I moved my hand still higher. “Trust me?”
“Ummm . . . ‘Yes.”
Still higher and her thigh-flesh quivered hotly under my finger. “Trust me?”
“No.” She snapped her legs closed and pinned my hand where it had come to rest.
“Now what happens?” I wondered.
“Now it’s my turn.” Lolly put her hand on my knee. “Trust me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Trust me?”
“Completely.”
“Trust me?”
“Thoroughly.”
“You’ll be sorry if you don’t stop me,” she advised. “Trust me?”
“That I doubt,” I told her. “Yes, I still trust you.”
“Trust me?” She went for broke.
“I’ll say,” I gasped.
Her hand closed into a cruel fist and squeezed hard. “Ow! Hey! What’s the big idea?”
“I told you you’d be sorry,” she laughed. She eased up on the pressure but maintained the grip. “Trust me?”
“No!” I was learning.
“All right. Now it’s your turn again.” Her thighs separated.
“Trust me?”
“Ye-e-esss.”
I moved my hand higher. “Trust me?”
“All right.”
Now I was right on target. For a moment I toyed with the idea of revenge. But lust won out. The skimpy material of her shorts was pulsating under my hand. I groped for a few seconds and then I located the fluttering guardian of her womanhood. Her fist closed more gently around me now and started to move rhythmically. I pushed her blouse out of the way and kissed the long, cherry-red tips of her breasts. The pinkish aureoles around them darkened and the nipples became rigid. It was a prolonged, tender, passionate caress. The only thing wrong with it was that it ended with fangs. Canine fangs! Without a sound of warning, they embedded themselves in my jutting posterior and held on painfully.
“YOWEE!” I jumped up and spun around in an effort to dislodge them. “OHHH!”
“Hold still, Vance!” Lolly came to my rescue. “Let me pull him loose.” She finally succeeded and the pain let up a bit.
I turned to find her holding something that looked like the wrong end of a sick dust mop. “What the hell is it?” I inquired, rubbing my injured backside tenderly.
“This is Ming Toy, the family Pekingese.” She cuddled the monster. “Ming Toy, this is Vance. Say hello nicely now.”
The little monster snarled and bared his teeth at me.
“The same to you, buddy,” I snarled back. “You nip me again, and I’ll turn you into a stole!”
“Don’t be like that, Vance,” Lolly purred. “He was only trying to protect me. He didn’t understand, did you Ming Toy? He thought you were hurting me.”
“Maybe you should tell him about the birds and the bees,” I suggested drily.
Ming Toy growled and looked at me with a savage glitter in his eyes.
“I think he’s jealous.” Lolly giggled. “Isn’t that cute?”
“Adorable. Couldn’t we tie him on the tailpipe of a passing sports car or something?”
“Oh, you’re mean! But all right. I’ll lock him down the basement.” Lolly carried the mutt oil in the direction of the kitchen.
Alone, I reached behind me to investigate the amount of damage to the seat of my pants. It seemed considerable. Still groping, I craned my neck over my shoulder, trying to see it.