The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

“The little girl took the long way around, and had a good time gathering herbs—”

“Birds,” the ogresses say.

“Had a good time gathering birds and chasing butterflies—”

“Frogs and flies,” the ogresses say.

“And making posies of the little flowers that she found—”

“And making mush of the little slugs that she found.”

“The wolf didn’t waste any time getting to the granny’s house.”

“Wrong,” the eldest says. “She got there first, and do you know why, sisters?” “Because she had taken the Ogre’s boots,” the others answer.

“Terrific!” the youngest yells excitedly, and they all applaud.

The mother looks at them, sitting in their beds so cheerfully and clapping their hands the way children do. Her exhaustion goes away and a little joy returns: a joy that is worn and tattered like an old delusion, but that she has never thrown out for good and that now comes back to envelop her—still useful, if only for a moment. She wants to tell her children a story, to be there in that room with the seven little beds all in a line, talking softly in the dim light of the moon, while the curtain sways softly at the window in the shadow of the cherry tree and the room expands and contracts in time with all those small, attentive breaths as though all of them, she and her children, were being rocked upon a great warm bosom.

“I’ll go on,” she says. “The little girl got there first and told her granny what had happened. Tut your snake, your birds, your frogs, your flies, and your slugs on the doorstep so the wolf can eat them,’ her granny said. Then he won’t be hungry anymore and he’ll go away. ’ ”

“No, no!” the ogresses cry.

“I don’t understand,” their mother says.

“She wants to eat the wolf,” the youngest murmurs.

“And to eat him when he’s good and fat,” the eldest cries.

“I was forgetting,” their mother says.

“Go on, go on,” the ogresses say.

“All right,” the mother says. “The little girl got into bed with her granny, and when the wolf arrived, she pounced on him.”

“No, no,” the children cry.

“That’s not how it goes?” the mother asks, distraught.

“Details, give us details,” the children say.

“I’ll tell it,” the eldest says. “The wolf ate everything on the doorstep, but that only made him more hungry, so he got into bed with Little Red Ridinghood, who was dressed up as her grandmother. He was pretty surprised to see how that granny looked in her negligee. ‘Granny, what pretty eye shadow you have on!’ he said.” “ The better to seduce you, little wolf!’ ” all the ogresses but the youngest cry out.

“ ‘And what pretty lipstick you have on!’ ”

“ ‘The better to kiss you, little wolf. ’ ”

“ ‘And what pretty arms!’ ”

“ ‘The better to squeeze you, little wolf.’ ”

“ ‘And what pretty breasts!’ ”

“ ‘The better to arouse you, little wolf.’ ”

“That’s enough,” their mother says. “It’s time for bed. Now, here’s the end of the story. ‘Granny, what pretty pointy teeth you have,’ said the wolf. ‘The better to eat you with, little wolf!’ And as she spoke those words the naughty little girl jumped on the poor little wolf and ate him up. ”

The ogresses are very dissatisfied with this ending, but since they can’t tell why, they allow themselves to be put to bed. Their mother straightens the tips of their hair, which have become bent in the course of the story, pulls the curtain across the moon, and leaves, feeling chilly and numb.

The Ogre comes in his turn to the ogresses’ room.

“How many?” he says.

“Seven,” she says, leaning against the banister.

“Right,” the Ogre says.

Eating a whole bull this evening has calmed him down. It doesn’t even occur to him to check the graduated bars; he calls for his wife and goes to bed. The bull has calmed him down, and all he wants from her tonight are her slim thighs, which he will open without violence. He mounts her and moves without frenzy. The Ogre is so big his wife can’t feel where his body ends. She can’t touch his feet and she can’t see his head, which lies well beyond her, rubbing and hitting the wall as though involved in something that has nothing to do with her, in a language she doesn’t know. Her own head is against his ribs, and she looks for the most yielding spot to rest her face in and get a little air. All she knows of the Ogre are his lower rib cage pressing against her forehead; his stomach—she can hear the muffled echoes of the dead flesh battling inside—pressing against her ears; his enormous thighs, which immobilize her own and give her endless cramps; and his penis, which fortunately isn’t so big, and moves inside her without her feeling it—an absence sometimes rubbery, sometimes hairy and sticky. It’s just that the Ogre’s head is so far from hers, and what he is doing so far from being what she might enjoy, that she never feels even the beginning of pleasure, never even a hope of a beginning.