Lin smiled. “Indeed! How clever is that? The very sheets are the prison and the bed is a horseless carriage of sorts.”
Ama nodded. “Exactly.” She spit a joint of meat over the fire. Licking flames met fat and sinew causing sputters and pops and new odor to fill the cave. Lovely, roasting meat.
“Dear lady, how is the bed invoked?” Lin asked. “Never had I heard of a more interesting
objet enchanté
.”
“Oh, I do love it when my prisoners speak French!” Ama cried.
“I am not your prisoner, am I? Truly, am I not your lover?” Lin asked.
“Shrewd prince. You are the prey of the ogress sisters of the deep woods and what we have done with you, instead of eating you, is make you our lover in hopes that one of us will…oh, I should say no more about these things,” Ama said.
“In hopes that one of you will what?” Lin approached the ogress as she tended her roast and lightly stroked her on her warty, wrinkled shoulder. He cringed at the contact.
“We’d like children. There are no males of our species. To breed we must choose a father from another breed altogether,” Ama replied.
“Children. Dangerous little creatures. I’ve never wanted them myself, for one day I fear I’ll drink from my cup and be poisoned by my own child. We breed them to take over for us, you know. It’s the kingly thing to do. And yet, if our child shows too much promise or ambition, he or she must be locked away less hemlock become a plaything in the glass.”
Ama shuddered under the prince’s delicate caresses upon her shoulders. She’d never been touched so delicately before. “You are allowing paranoia to get the best of you, sir. Children are a gift and a blessing.”
“If you bare a child, madam, will it be comely?” Lin asked.
“Will I bare an ogre? No. Ogres are made, not birthed. My child will be human or wolf or bear or pixie.”
Lin returned to his seat. “You have mated with forest animals?”
“We have been trying to conceive for some time. From largest to smallest, we have loved every forest creature in hopes of siring children. You are not the first human we have tried, though you have lasted twice as long as any other. Human men cannot handle the love of the masks.”
Lin glanced at the masks, propped up against the cave wall. “The masks give you an illusion of female perfection—though I am assuming now that males will see you as their own kind. Bear to bear. Wolf to wolf. Yes?”
Ama nodded. “The illusion makes us more palatable to our captives. Ogres are not comely.”
“I disagree, my lady,” Lin said, spitting out the words before he could stop himself. “I am finding you quite agreeable in your natural state.”
“Eat your meat, sir and stop trying to butter up an old ogress,” Ama said, offering Lin a slice of the roasted venison.
“Sister! He is free?” Angr asked, stepping into the light.
“He is hungry,” Ama replied.
“Oh, well then. Do eat prince. Eat and enjoy your repast. But let me ask you this before you take the first bite, will you marry us?” Angr asked.
“When I am king I can take as many wives as I wish. Or I can just keep you as concubines. How would you feel about that?” Lin asked.
Ama giggled. “Concubines? Do you hear that, sister?”
“Eat,” Angr insisted.
Lin did not want to consume the enchanted venison. As hungry as he was, he did not want to further enhance the enchantments binding him to the cave. “I say, before I eat this lovely joint of venison, will you don your masks and…no, I dare not ask it.”
“Ask what?” Angr asked.
“Yes, do speak!” Ama insisted.
“The bed flies, you say? Will you make love to me, in mid-air?”
The sisters smiled broadly, each displaying their jagged yellow ogre teeth. “I see no harm in this, sister. No harm at all. He could not escape, nor would he jump to his doom, for he is a Christian and of royal blood. Suicide is a sin.”
“I have no intention of jumping or trying to escape. I want only to feel the wind on high while pleasuring you, my dear captors. Sweet captivity that it is. So sweet.” Lin batted his long eyelashes at the sisters and whispered as seductively as he could, “
Sweet
.”
“Get on the bed, sir. Get on quickly!” Angr ordered. She picked up her golden mask and slipped it over her face as she tossed Ama the silver one.
Lin stretched out on the runic spoon-carved bed with its enchanted linens and beckoned the sisters to his sides. He glanced up at Sigyn’s perch, knowing she could see and hear all that he was accomplishing.
Ama slipped into her silver mask. Lin marveled at the transformation of the ogresses in his arms. From wretched beasties to nubile young women in a flicker of a moment.
Angr reached inside Lin’s long underwear, gripping the burgeoning hardness of his manhood. She whispered, giving his penis a stroke with each word, “Roll, my bed, roll quickly on whithersoever I wish thee,—be gone.”
A brief sensation of being folded in half gripped Lin. He held his breath, fearful, yet excited at the same moment. A thousand pinpoints of light struck him; struck the bed as the folding sensation continued. He felt his stomach touch his backbone as the bed sailed upward, and outward.
High above the canopy of trees, eye to eye with the mountain peaks, the trio made love. The masked women nearly sent him over the edge with their passions. Lin was but a rag doll, being tossed between them atop the bed as it drifted on air currents only hawks and eagles shared. He feasted greedily between their sweet thighs, putting thoughts of maggots and offal far from his mind. They sucked his penis and testicles so skillfully…just far enough to tease him and make him want more, but never far enough to allow him to come. His orgasms were allowed only deep inside them. Either of them. It didn’t seem to matter. As long as his royal seed spilled where it had a chance to flower, they didn’t care.
Resting against Ama Silver Mask’s round, warm bosom, he caressed the shapely backside of Angr Gold Mask and watched day turn to dusk.
“Eventide is at hand, ladies. This is the time of day when magic is afoot in the forest. Does the pull of eventide affect even the heavens?” Lin asked.
“The pull of the eventide is stronger than any tide or current of earth and sky. The magic extends to the vault of heaven and to the roots of the tree of life, itself,” Ama replied.
“Then let us make love one last time to honor the pull of old, deep magics,” Lin said. “Can I order the bed to take us out to sea? I wish to watch the sun set against a liquid horizon.”
“Tell the bed where you wish to go. It’s that simple,” Angr replied.
“Bed, take me to the eastern shore!” Lin commanded.
Lin feigned exhaustion and pretended to fall into a deep sleep as the bed returned to the cave of Ama and Angr.
At morning’s first light, he knew they’d go into the forest as always, to hunt and do whatever their little ogress hearts chose to do. He wasn’t sure he wanted details. He was certain, however, that they weren’t half as evil as society made them out to be. So, he was starving and was being used sexually to conceive a child upon an ogress wench. At least they didn’t want to be king! King, like the lovely, odd, Sigyn. King?
The prince was awake, but again feigning sleep when Angr intoned the call of their enchanted goose. “Sing, my geese, with strains so deep, that Lin, entranced, may remain asleep."
As soon as Sigyn believed it safe to emerge from her hidey-hole, she awakened Prince Lin. “Sing, my geese with cheer and glee that Hlini from sleep aroused may be.”
“Sigyn, did you bring me a potato?” Lin asked.
“To the devil with you, sire. Have you no manners?” Sigyn asked.
“Ask me after I eat a roasted potato,” Lin remarked, taking the blackened purple potato from Sigyn as she removed it from her pocket. “Oh, dear Lord in heaven there is nothing richer than your potatoes. I am a new man. Revived and saved.”
“Quit the poetry and let’s away before your lovers return and roast my head.”
“It’s too late for that, garden wench.”
Sigyn didn’t need to turn her head to know which ogress had caught her helping the prince to escape. She knew their voices and their body odor all too well. “Ama Silver Mask.”
“And her sister,” Angr added.
Sigyn stood. “So, here you have it. The prince is coming with me. Now.”
“Bravely spoken for a human,” Angr replied. “But the prince is ours and he stays until we tire of him. We are not tired of him.”
“Lin,” Ama began. “Do you wish to be freed of our love? I can’t believe you are unhappy in any way.”
Lin swallowed the last of his potato. Should he be charming or forthright? “A man imprisoned in a comfortable cell is still a prisoner. I am a prince of the kingdom and have duties beyond your sweet lips.”
Sigyn thought she might vomit. “There, you have it. The prince will take his leave now.”
Angr shook her head. “No, he shall not. Tell me sister, how do you think she will taste if we stew her with exotic herbs from the East Indies? A little red pepper and saffron, perhaps?”
“She has nice skin tone and not too much fat. I think she’d be lovely in a stew. Good idea, sister,” Ama replied. “Goose!”
The grey goose waddled forward.
“Sing, my goose. Sing them to sleep,” Ama ordered.
The goose looked up at Sigyn, then leapt with cat-like precision at the ogresses. Honking wildly, the goose flapped and bit, slapped and attacked, giving Sigyn the opportunity to ensnare the sisters in a fishing net she’d rigged to drop from the ledge.
Twisted up and trapped, Ama and Angr calmed themselves, the goose biting at them whenever they moved so much as a fingertip.
“Thank you, spirit,” Sigyn said to the goose. “Now, listen to me ogresses…I shall not hesitate to burn this cave and everything in it to ashes…”
Lin interrupted. “No, please…”
Sigyn silenced the prince. “Unless you meet my demands post haste.”
“What are your demands, clever girl?” Angr asked.
“Remove the enchantment upon this fine goose here. Give her freedom.”
Fuming mad—literally—for the smell of brimstone had filled the air, Ama spat at the goose, then said quietly, but clearly, “Goose of slumbering mist I release you.”
Angr turned with some difficulty to face her sister. “Is that it? Why do your spells never rhyme?”
“A good spell is powerful in as few words as possible,” Ama replied.
In a flurry of goose feathers, the spirit encased in the honker’s form rose up in her delicate ethereal beauty. Sigyn approached the spirit and kissed her gently on the lips. “Thank you, spirit of fog and mist. You shall always be welcome in my kingdom.”
“Your kingdom?” Angr protested. “Has our prince agreed to marry you in return for his rescue?”
Sigyn laughed. “I would no sooner marry him that I would that rotting deer carcass hanging from your ceiling hook—which, incidentally, is where I got the idea to string up your fishing net.”
“Then why risk your life to rescue him if not for love?” Ama asked.
“Oh, I am taking him away in the name of love. But he is not my love,” Sigyn replied. “And, sisters, never once have I believed my life was in danger while in your presence.” It was an insult and she knew it.
“You do find us terrifying?” Ama asked.
“No. Make yourself comfortable on the bed, Prince Lin. We’re off,” Sigyn replied.
Holding back tears, Lin approached the netted ogresses. “I must leave you for now, my lovelies.”
“Do not use a flattering tongue on us, Hlini! We know what you really think of us,” Angr replied.
Lin wiped away a single tear. “No, you do not, I’m afraid. Let me prove it.” Lin reached for the roasted venison, still sitting at his place at the table. He lifted the joint and took tore off a large piece of the charred, juicy flesh.
“No! Do not eat!” Sigyn screamed.
But it was too late. The deed was done. Lin had swallowed.
He reached for a cup and filled it from the wine skin hanging off the table’s edge. He drank the contents, letting if trickle down his chin. “There, does this not show you how I feel?”
“You have bound yourself to these beastly women,” Sigyn gasped.
“And they are bound to me, for, if God is merciful and willing, they each carry my child. They shall be my wives,” Lin said proudly. “I shall return for you. I shall return for you and our spawn.”
Reaching gnarled fingers through the netting, Angr and Ama touched Lin’s fingers, sealing their love.
“All women wear a mask, Sigyn. All men become blind to the truth at times. I see beyond the foul fetidness and illusions cast by their masks, and even beyond my own ideals of what true beauty is, to see that true love does exist for everyone,” Lin said, making himself comfortable on the bed.
“I am so going to wretch!” Sigyn gagged. “Comfortable bed, I command you hold us fast during flight! Roll, my bed, roll quickly on--whithersoever I wish thee,—be gone. Take us home!”
It caused quite a commotion when a flying bed landed in the King’s courtyard, a smiling prince in his underwear and the garden corner wench sitting under the blankets as if waiting for their maid to serve tea.