Keep his identity a secret

Felixia may be an incurable prankster, but there is also wisdom in her words to be cautious. Besides, she had blessed him with a super-sized gift between his legs, so she certainly means to do well by him. Duncan decides to heed her counsel for now.

“The name is Duncan. Duncan MacDunphy, of the Outer Keenton MacDunphys,” says the prince. He borrowed the name from Patty MacDunphy, a childhood friend of his sister. She was his first real crush. He clearly remembered the day he saw her and felt such a magnetic attraction to her breasts, which seemed to have bloomed overnight into the most captivating things he had ever seen. He could still picture them, so tantalizingly bouyant! A quick glance at Cassandra’s inviting set of knockers confirmed the reason he was revisiting this boyhood memory.

Cassandra’s father rose with difficulty from his chair to greet their guest. Duncan was struck by how old he and his wife looked. They must have had Cassandra much later in life than normal. That, or they had lived a very hard life.

“Welcome to our humble home, young man. I am Carl. This is my wife Gladys.”

Duncan pulls up a chair at the table with Carl while Cassandra rushes to help her mother prepare dinner.

“We were worried about you, Dear,” says Gladys to her daughter. “It is getting late, and we were afraid some ill fate had befallen you.”

Cassandra explains that she encountered Duncan, leaving out the part about them both being nude at the time of their meeting. She explained how she urged him to stay with them for the night for his own safety and to speak to the constable tomorrow about the band of dwarves he had seen.

“You are wise to be indoors at night,” said Carl. “These are evil times. Just this morning I got word from Dugan — he lives five miles down the road — that his son has gone missing.”

“Oh no!” exclaims Casandra. “Not Alex, too!”

Carl nods. “These disappearances are most distressing. I fear greatly for our Cassandra here. I am not the man I once was, and if someone were to come after her, I don’t know how much good I would be in defending her.”

“Dear, you are frightening our daughter,” said Gladys, reaching out and putting a whithered hand on Cassandra’s shoulder. “Can we discuss something less foreboding? Besides, what reason have we to fear his night? We are blessed to have a fine, strong young man under our roof. What harm could befall us?”

Carl heeds his wife’s words, and the conversation soon changes to the weather, the state of the milk production of the family cow, and, unfortunately for Duncan, a laundry list of physical ailments with which the old couple contends.

“I’ve got this carbuncle the size of a goose egg right here on my left buttock,” says Carl, making an effort to rise and give evidence to his words.

“That’s quite all right,” said Duncan, motioning for the old man to remain seated. “That sounds most — disturbing.” Indeed it was — especially since the women were in the process of putting food on the table.

Carl nods gravely. “I tell you, old age is not for the faint of heart. I was once as healthy and robust as you are, but now, I spend the first 30 minutes of my day hacking up mouthful after mouthful of this horrid green phlegm. Gladys, do you still have the bowl I filled up this morning? I want to show our visitor.”

“No, I don’t, Dear. I needed the bowl for the gravy.” Gladys chose that moment to set a bowl of gravy on the table in front of Duncan, who tried his best not to stare at it or look for evidence of whether it was washed.

“I’ll say this, though,” continues the old man. “I’m just as regular now as I was when I was your age. And you know the secret to that?”

Duncan shook his head, keenly aware that as thorough as his royal education was, nothing had prepared him for the protocol of what to say during a discussion of one’s bowel movements at the dinner table.

“The secret is developing a strict routine and sticking with it,” says Carl, slapping the table for emphasis. “All my life I have followed the same schedule. I eat a fistful of prunes right before going to bed, and every morning, just like clockwork, I empty my bowels promptly at 5:00.”

Carl smiles proudly. Not knowing what else he should say, Duncan observes, “That’s most impressive.”

Gladys sets a plate of some kind of meat on the table and says, “Unfortunately, these days he usually doesn’t get out of bed until sometime after 6:00.”

For a man who is rarely at a loss for words, Duncan finds himself strangely silent. When the table is loaded with food, the women sit down and they begin their meal. Duncan marvels at how such a modest-looking home with no able-bodied males can enjoy so much food He concludes they must be making it a special occasion in his honor, and he tries to respect that by eating everything that is heaped on his plate, but finds his once-enormous appetite has diminished substantially.

“So I used a horseshoe nail and dug the egg sack out of my elbow,” says Carl, regaling Duncan with yet another fascinating tale. “I drained half a quart of pus from the opening, and my elbow went from the size of a melon back to normal in less than a day. The egg sack never hatched though, so I don’t know if it was a spider or a Negobian Chittlelouse. I kept it though, if you want to see it.”

“No, that’s quite all right,” answered Duncan, who suddenly doesn’t feel all that well.

“That was the summer Cassandra was born,” added Gladys. “I had never given birth before, but of course I had seen cows and pigs when they did it. I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’ I gave birth to her while from right here on this very table!”

Cassandra chose this moment to save her guest. “Father and Mother, perhaps we should let our guest get some rest. He looks fatigued from his travels.”

Carl notices Duncan’s appearance and says, “My goodness, young man! Are you usually that complexion? You look rather green! You know, the summer before last I ate a bad orchanfruit. I turned green like that and had diarrhea for four days. Explosive it was! You can still see the pattern on the wall in our bedroom, and Gladys’ silhouette in the middle of it because she couldn’t duck in time.”

Duncan is grateful to Cassandra for the excuse to escape this torturous experience. Despite his hunger, he was barely able to **** down a few bites, and even that was a Herculean chore as he tried to banish from his mind the images Carl was describing. “I’m sure I will be fine,” he says apologetically. “I am sorry I have not been able to take advantage of this lovely meal. But Cassandra is right; I am feeling a bit poorly. Probably too much sun.”

“Oh you poor dear,” said Gladys, getting up and helping Duncan away from the table. “I wish I had known. I would have insisted you go down to the river while it was still daylight. You could have cooled yourself. Plus, it is most lovely there.”

Duncan gives a quick glance at Cassandra, who meets his eye and smiles. “That sounds lovely, Ma’am. I hope to experience it — and its beauty — tomorrow, perhaps.”

“You shall sleep in Cassandra’s room,” says Gladys. “Cassandra, you will be quite comfortable out here by the fire, won’t you?”

Duncan protests. “I won’t hear of it! I will not put a lady out of her bed. A place on the floor near the fire will be most satisfactory for me. After all, I’ve been sleeping outside on hard ground; this is most comfortable in comparison.”

Despite the family’s insistence to the contrary, Duncan prepares his bed near the stove. “Besides, if there truly is danger out there, what better place for me to help keep my guests safe than near the door?” Reluctantly, they accept Duncan’s insistence that Cassandra not be displaced.

The women put away the remaining food while Carl retires to his bedroom. Just as the ladies finish with the dishes, Carl shuffles out in his nightshirt to bid Duncan goodnight. “If nature calls during the night, you will want to use a bedpan. It’s too dangerous to go outside in the dark to the outhouse. Gladys, where is the bedpan? It’s not in its usual place.”

“Here it is, Dear,” she says sweetly. “I needed an extra dish since we had company.”

The couple bids Duncan goodnight and shuffles off happily to their room, giving Duncan fresh fuel for nightmares as he gets an uncensored look at Carl's backside through a tear in the nightshirt.

As Duncan is about to put out the light, Cassandra emerges from her room. She is in a white nightshirt that extends only a wee bit past her hips. Whether because the material is worn thin with age or by design, Duncan can see her body’s silhouette through the fabric as she emerges from the light of her room. As beautiful and alluring as she was when standing naked in the river, this, in many ways, is even more breathtaking. For the first time since dinner started, Duncan starts to feel good.

“I’m sorry for my parents’ choice of dinner table discussion. They are old, and they have little to talk about other than their health and their fear concerning these disappearances. And I am sorry we have no better accommodations to offer you than these.”

Cassandra motions to the room around them, but Duncan can hardly take his eyes off of her. When he realizes he is staring, he shakes his head to refocus and says, “Not at all. You are most kind to take in a stranger this way. I hope to soon repay your kindness.”

Cassandra smiles mysteriously. “I look forward to that. By the way, if you need anything during the night, you should come to me. My parents are quite deaf and would sleep through the end of the world itself.”

With a parting smile, Cassandra returns to her room. It does not escape Duncan’s notice that she leaves the door open.

He strips off his shirt and lays down, wearing only his pants. As he lays on his back, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the ever-louder snoring coming from the parents’ bedroom, he tries to decipher the meaning of Cassandra’s words. Was she actually inviting him into her bed with assurances that the parents would not be able to hear, or was she merely extending courtesy to a stranger?