"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 05 - Ogre Ogre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

thought. A nymph would have been flattered-but Tandy
was human. She sought no demon lover.

Tandy got up and went to the mirror. The magic lantern
brightened as she approached, so that she could see herself.
She was nineteen years old, but she looked like a child in
her nightie and lady-slippers, her brown tresses mussed
from constant squirming, her blue eyes peering out wor-
riedly. She wished she looked more like her mother-but of
course no human person could match the pretty faces and
fantastic figures of nymphs. That was what nymphdom
was all about-to attract men like Crombie who judged the
distaff to be good for only one thing. Nymphs were good
for that thing. Human girls could be good for it, too, but
they really had to work at it; they fouled it up by assigning
far more meaning to it than the nymphs did, so were
unable to proceed with sheer delighted abandon. They were
cursed by their awareness of consequence.

She peered more closely at herself, brushing her tresses
back with her hands, rearranging her nightie, standing
straighten She was no child, whatever her famer might
choose to think. Yet she was not exactly buxom, either.
Her human heritage had given her a good mind and a soul,
at the expense of voluptuousness. She had a cute face, with
a pert, upturned nose and full lips, she decided, but not
enough of the rest of it. She couldn't make it as a nymph.

The demon Fiant obviously thought she would do, how-
ever. Maybe he didn't realize that her human component
made her less of a good thing. Maybe he was slumming,
looking for an intriguing change of pace from the dusky
demonesses who could assume any form they chose, even

Ogre, Ogre 3

animal forms. It was said that sometimes they would
change to animal form in the middle of the act of-but no
human girl was supposed to be able to imagine anything
like that. Tandy couldn't change form, in or out of bed,
and certainly she didn't want any demon's attention. If
only she could convince him of that!

There was nothing to do but try to sleep again. The de-
mon would come or he wouldn't; since she had no control
over that, there was no sense worrying.

She lay down amidst the mess her bed had become and
worried. She closed her eyes and remained still, as if sleep-
ing, but remained tensely awake. Maybe after a while her