rince Gaylord, who had recently come of age, was tired of living the single life. He yearned for a young maiden to wed, but all the prospective brides with which his father presented him he found unsatisfactory and turned away.
Young Gaylord would often mount his horse, a white stallion named Fitzwilliam, and ride alone through the meadows near his castle to contemplate his loneliness. He also harbored a secret fantasy that perhaps by doing this, he'd encounter a damsel in distress to woo and wed, or at least so he could finally lose his virginity.
One day, his wish was finally granted—not the virginity part, alas, but the bit about the damsel in distress.
It was a sunny summer afternoon, and Prince Gaylord was astride Fitzwilliam, galloping over the fields. Imagining he heard a voice in the distance, he pulled the reins, paused, and listened. He heard, from just over the next hill, definite cries of pain. Female cries of pain. 'Aha!' he thought, licking his lips in anticipation. 'At last! Now's my chance!' Already picturing the grateful embraces of an undoubtedly beautiful young vixen swooning in his arms, he stifled a moan and tried to ignore his hardening member. Fitzwilliam, with a half-turn of his equine head, snorted his impatient disgust, stirring Gaylord from his reverie.
'Oh, yes, the damsel in distress,' he thought, spurring Fitzwilliam on.
Moments later, Gaylord and Fitzwilliam appeared at the crest of the hill and paused, the wind blowing in their hair and mane, respectively. This was a much for dramatic effect as it as for Gaylord to have a chance to survey the scene below and see exactly what awaited him. He trembled briefly, fearing that a fearsome dragon or wild dogs or boars awaited him, in which case, saving his own skin rather outweighed getting fucked. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and peered down.
A beautiful girl awaited him—she had a rosy complexion, a stunning figure, sparkling blue eyes, and waves of golden tresses. She was, luckily for Gaylord, not battling in vain against hideous wildebeests, but only swatting at some fire ants.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Prince Gaylord swept down the hill, brandishing his enormous sword, which he had emphatically informed his father that morning was totally not a phallic symbol. His father had only sighed resignedly, shaken his head, and muttered something about worrying about him—Gaylord—sometimes. Gaylord brushed this memory aside and charged toward the girl, crying,
"Worry ye not, fairest damsel! I shall rescue thee from thy peril!"
The girl looked up at him blankly and remained rooted to the spot, awaiting his approach. Gaylord swooped down on her and halted directly in front of her. Scowling his best sexy-macho-royalty scowl, he informed her,
"I am Prince Gaylord."
The girl made a kind of coughing noise that sounded suspiciously like she was trying to disguise a snort of derisive laughter. Gaylord decided to ignore this, scowled even more deeply, and added,
"What is your name?"
The girl swatted impatiently at another fire ant, straightened up, looked him haughtily in the eye, and informed him,
"I am Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow."
Prince Gaylord resisted the temptation to laugh at her mouthful of a name since doing so would likely reduce his chances of getting laid. Instead, he said,
"Let's go, princess." He leaned over and swooped her over the saddle.
"Hey!" she cried, annoyed and kicking a bit.
"Take it easy, Mary Sue," he began. "I just— ow!" She cut him off with a swift punch to the throat.
"My name," she roared, "is not Mary Sue! My name is Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow!"
"Fine, fine," Gaylord choked out. "If you insist. . . . I'll reserve the pet names for later," he added with what he thought was a seductive grin. Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow did not take that well, however, and she shoved him so hard he lost his balance and fell off Fitzwilliam. "Ow! Shit!" he cried, landing in a particularly large ant bed.
"Tsk, tsk," chided Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow, pointing and laughing. "Such language from royalty." With that, she clicked her tongue and rode away on Fitzwilliam, leaving Gaylord to the fire ants.
Several hours later, Gaylord was staggering through the woods when he encountered Fitzwilliam grazing peacefully. Nearby, the princess was leaning against a tree, apparently asleep. He marched up to her and cleared his throat loudly. She cracked a lid open and said,
"I thought it might be you."
"What makes you say that?" he asked. The princess opened her eyes, stood up, eyed his ant bites critically, and said,
"Well, why would anyone else around here reek of calamine lotion?" Prince Gaylord started a little at that. It hadn't occurred to him that his odoriferous ant bite treatment might betray his presence. Then he became annoyed at her casual treatment of the situation, and he pointed a shaking finger at her and shrieked,
"Why, you—you—you horrible, ungrateful bitch! What in the fuck?" She merely quirked an eyebrow. Incensed even further, Gaylord continued, "I rescued you, goddamnit! What do you have to say?!"
Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow shrugged apathetically and said,
"Eh."
"Arrgh!" yelled the irate Gaylord. "I—I—I demand a second chance!" The princess looked at him oddly. "I should be allowed to rescue you properly! Now go back to those ant beds!"
"What?!" cried the princess. "No! Look, you saved me from the ants; I gave you your horse back; we're even; so what?"
"But it's not fair!" Gaylord wailed. At that point, he did what any self-respecting prince would: he threw a tantrum. He flung himself upon the forest floor and began kicking and screaming. "No fair no fair no fair no fair no fair no fair no faiiirrr!!!!!!1" Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow rolled her eyes, huffed, and walked away.
After a moment or so, Gaylord looked up and noticed that she was gone. He abruptly ended his temper tantrum, stood up, and huffed impatiently. He mounted Fitzwilliam and went home, pondering all the way what he could do to get her back. Not that he'd ever really had her in the first place.
A day or so passed, and the best plan Gaylord had was to consult the Evil Witch Lady to see what she could do. In other words, he didn't have a plan at all, so he was just going to let her think for him.
So he mounted Fitzwilliam and rode down the winding path to the shadowy part of the woods where the Evil Witch Lady made her home. He arrived at the desolate little hut and wondered fleetingly if he ought to place his faith in someone who couldn't even transform a miserable mud hut into a comfortable home. Then he remembered that that would never do, for she had appearances to keep up, and he raised his hand to knock on the door.
"Come in, Gaylord," came a rasping cry from within. He started a little, thinking she must have been powerful indeed to know not only who was outside the door but what his name was since they'd never met. What he didn't know was that she'd seen him coming through her window, and she'd guessed who he was because of his rich attire and the fact that, unlike the peasants who populated the area, he was not covered in shit.
Gaylord tentatively entered the one-room shack and looked around. A small, filthy bed lay in a corner, beside which was a small, rickety nightstand with a few books on it. An enormous old trunk of some sort lay at the foot of the bed. A rickety round table sat in the middle of the room with a couple of rickety chairs behind it. On top of the table lay the only clean item in the whole room, a clear Magic Crystal Ball Thing™ that was polished to a bright shine.
The Evil Witch Lady stood behind the table in her black robes, peering over her warts at Gaylord.
"Sit down, sit down," she told him, indicating the chair closest to him.
Never taking his eyes off her, he sat down. She took a seat opposite him and, rubbing her hands together, asked,
"Well, what can I do for you?"
Gaylord shifted uncertainly, wondering how to explain his predicament, and finally replied,
"Well, there's this princess, and—"
"Ah!" interrupted the Evil Witch Lady. "Let me guess. You love her; she won't give you the time of day; you want some kind of spell to make her love you; is that it?"
"Er—not quite—I mean—" Gaylord fumbled. He sighed. "I want to rescue her," he finished.
"Ah! A damsel in distress!" cried the old woman. "You want to be her knight in shining armor!"
"Er—yes."
"Well, let me consult my Magic Crystal Ball Thing™ . . . ." The Evil Witch Lady leaned forward and waved her hands around the Magic Crystal Ball Thing™, muttering gibberish. An image, cloudy at first, appeared in the ball.
As the image became clearer, Gaylord recognized it as Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow walking through the woods.
"That's her!" he cried. "The woman I want the chance to rescue properly so she'll fall in love with me and we can do the whole happily-ever-after-thing!"
"Of course it is," snapped the Evil Witch Lady. She calmed down and concentrated, murmuring, "So that's her, is it? Yes, yes, I can see why you'd like her; very beautiful . . . " She appeared to be lost in thought, so Gaylord slammed a ham-sized fist on the table and shouted,
"Well?!"
The Evil Witch Lady jumped a little, shook herself from her reverie, and said,
"Well, I think I can arrange something. What kind of distress do you want?"
"Huh?" Gaylord asked, panicking.
"For her, I mean," the other explained impatiently.
"Oh. Er . . . "
"Dragons? Wolves? Wildebeests?" she suggested eagerly. Gaylord gulped, made a placating gestured, and stuttered,
"N—n—no, th—that's fine; I was thinking more along the lines of—er—fire ants."
"Fire ants?" repeated the Evil Witch Lady repeated blankly.
"Yes," Gaylord insisted, daring her with a glare to laugh at him.
"Fine," she said, shrugging and removing her hands from the Magic Crystal Ball Thing™, which immediately went dark. "I'll arrange to have her trapped in a cave whose only exit is surrounded by ant beds. This will happen exactly two weeks from now. . . . Now then. Payment."
"Payment?" Gaylord asked confusedly.
"Yes. I think a simple bag of gold will do."
"But—"
"Do you want this princess or not?"
" . . . Fine," Gaylord said, tossing a small bag of gold on the table. The Evil Witch Lady snatched it up greedily, inspected its contents suspiciously, and then stared at Gaylord.
"Well?" she asked. He didn't move. "Don't you have places to be?"
Realizing that his business was apparently finished, he stood up to leave. At the door, he remembered something, turned back to the Evil Witch Lady, who was now counting out the pieces of gold (concentrating so fiercely that her tongue had slipped out the corner of her mouth), and asked,
"How will I know where the cave with the Princess in it is?"
Annoyed at the interruption, she looked up at him and said,
"I will disguise myself, meet you at your castle, and lead you there. Good day."
"Good day," he replied half-heartedly, worrying that he'd been ripped off. He decided not to pursue it, however, and left.
Two weeks later, Gaylord stood in front of his castle and paced, waiting for the Evil Witch Lady to appear to him in whatever guise she had in mind.
Sure enough, a large, somewhat bedraggled crow soon appeared before him. Having expected something rather less convincing, Gaylord was a bit surprised. Apparently registering this, the crow cawed at him,
"I can take many forms, you know." Then it transformed itself into a beautiful woman whose looks outshone even Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow's. Gaylord's jaw dropped, and he wondered why the Evil Witch Lady didn't take this form more often.
"I'm not evil-looking enough if I always look like this," the woman said. Gaylord wondered if she were telepathic, but before he could voice this thought, she continued with, "No, I'm not telepathic; it's just that everyone always asks the same thing."
"Oh."
"Right. Let's go then, shall we?"
So the Evil Witch Lady transformed herself back into her crow form and led Gaylord through the woods to a cave on the other side. The cave had two mouths, one of which appeared blocked with rocks. The other entrance was surrounded by fire ant beds in a semicircle with a fifteen-foot radius. The princess stood in the middle of the cave's mouth, looking at the beds in dismay. The crow that was the Evil Witch Lady settled on a nearby tree branch to watch the proceedings.
Gaylord walked up to the edge of the ant bed semicircle and called to the somewhat surprised-looking princess,
"Never fear; Gaylord's here!" The crow rolled its black eyes and ruffled its black feathers impatiently. Gaylord ignored this and continued, "So, Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow; we meet again! And in surprisingly similar circumstances!"
"Suspiciously similar circumstances," huffed Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow, narrowing her eyes. Gaylord ignored that too and asked,
"So, how'd you get in this predicament, anyway?"
"I was exploring when there was a small avalanche and rocks blocked the only other entrance to the cave," she replied.
"Right. So. Now," Gaylord fumbled. "Uh. I guess this is the part where I rescue you . . . " He dawdled a bit and added, "Hang in there . . . " Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow rolled her eyes but stayed where she was, evidently deciding that it would be better for her if Gaylord were the one who received the ant bites and not her.
Twenty minutes later, however, Gaylord was only a few feet closer to her than he had been. His meticulous, panicky, picking path across the ant beds grew tiresome for the princess, who now stood casually leaning against the side of the entrance instead of standing expectantly as she had been. She sighed impatiently and called to him,
"You know, I'm just going to walk out of here in a minute."
"No! Wait!" Gaylord cried, balancing precariously on one leg. "I'm almost there! Just—another hour or so!"
Before the princess could reply to this, there was a loud caw, and the Evil Witch Lady in her crow form flew down from her perch in the tree and landed on a rock near Gaylord. She transformed herself into herself into her beautiful woman self and stood by the rock, looking rather disgruntled.
"Oh, for God's sake; this is ridiculous," she said, shoving Gaylord out of the way.
"Hey!" he cried, coming perilously close to plunging face first into an ant bed. Both the princess and the Evil Witch Lady ignored him as the Evil Witch Lady stomped toward the princess, oblivious to the ant beds.
"So, you're Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow?" asked the Evil Witch Lady. The princess nodded mutely. The Evil Witch Lady added, with a very suggestive note, "Well, well, aren't you the pretty one?" The princess smiled faintly. "Well, why don't you come with me instead of this old prince?"
"WHAT?!" screeched Gaylord. The princess flicked her eyes in his direction as he continued, "No! But you can't! I— we made a deal!"
"Shut up," said Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow. Gaylord stood frozen to the spot. The princess turned back to the Evil Witch Lady and continued, "As a matter of fact, I'd be happy to come with you!"
"Nooooo!" wailed Gaylord. Desperately trying to regain control of the situation, he pointed at the Evil Witch Lady and shouted, "But—but—she's old!"
The princess glanced over the young woman who was the Evil Witch Lady and then looked doubtfully at Gaylord, who whined,
"On the inside, I mean!"
The princess cast another look over the Evil Witch Lady and turned back to Gaylord. With a deliciously naughty wink, she said suggestively,
"Hey, beauty's only skin deep." She turned back to the Evil Witch Lady and added, "And speaking of skin and depth, do you have any double-ended dildos at your place?"
"Why, yes, I do," replied the Evil Witch Lady, batting her eyelashes. "As a matter of fact, I have a most extensive repertoire of sex toys."
"Excellent!" cried Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow.
"No-o-o!" sobbed Gaylord. Indicating the Evil Witch Lady, he howled, "She lives in a one-room sha-a-ack!"
The princess turned back to the Evil Witch Lady and, with her eyebrows slightly raised, she said,
"Well, then. We'll just have to collect your sex toys, and then you can come live with me at my castle."
"Arrrgh!" screamed Gaylord, agonized. He hurled himself onto the ant beds in desperation.
Princess Mary Sue Desdemona Cordelia Rainbow and the Evil Witch Lady didn't notice, however. They were too busy engaging themselves in true love's first kiss.
And they had hot lesbian sex happily ever after.
