55

The bastard promised that, if I kissed him, he’d turn into a handsome prince. Boy do I know how to pick ’em. So, if that wasn’t bad enough, somehow he persuaded me to marry him.

Meanwhile, I keep kissing him—which he apparently loves—hoping for some results, to no effect. Okay. Some effect. I got warts.

He calls me “princess” trying to butter me up and urges me to embrace patience. “These things take time,” he says. Then he goes out back to the garden and hangs out by the pond with his amphibious friends.

I was so miserable. I mean, he moves into my lousy cottage, when I was led to expect a castle. The place is falling down around us. Do I need to point out that his domestic skills are not up to home repairs, much less home improvement? On the plus side, we never seem to have flies.

What could I do? I had to end it. Divorce was the only hope. Clearly I had made a mistake. My sister married that jerk Brian, that’s true. But at least Brian and Judy are nearly the same species.

I call him in. He senses something is wrong. He looks at me with those eyes that I so want to dissect.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “Before you say a word, I have one last request.”

I stare at him.

“A last kiss,” he says.

Grudgingly, I grant his request. And, at that moment he changed! He became a handsome, tall, regal man! He had a castle and a kingdom, or princedom or whatever.

“So,” he says with a smirk. “What exactly did you want to say?”

I begged him to forgive me. I wanted us to be together forever.

Then I discovered he was fooling around with the tadpole next door. The bastard.