Read Online Swell Foop by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page A

blinked and looked at her. "Did something happen?"
    "Metric freaked you out with her bloomers."
    "Oh? I don't remember."
    "If I had realized that zombies can be freaked out that way, I would have had a much easier time escaping you and your minions, way back when."
    "Most zombies wouldn't freak. Their eyes are not good enough to see anything clearly."
    "And most fully living men lose their freak the moment the sight ends," Breanna said. "So I guess you're in between."
    "I suppose," he agreed. "I wonder if that explains those jumps in time when I'm at home with Zyzzyva."
    "She's freaking you out when she wants to be left alone!" Breanna exclaimed. "The canny wench!"
    "But I would rather not be freaked out. It is confusing."
    "Well, you're married. I understand married men don't freak out much, at least not from seeing their wives' panties. They're too familiar."
    "That's true," Metria said. "I can't freak out my husband anymore unless I assume the form of an unfamiliar woman. It's frustrating."
    "Unfamiliar?" Xeth asked.
    "Once I pretended to be a Mundane Chinese princess with the talent of making animals sing. That put him away for hours. Another time I emulated a woman who could form living things into useful shapes, such as making a tree into a chair."
    "Ogres do that," Breanna said.
    "Without twisting it into a pretzel, I mean. In the guise of doing that, I bent forward a bit too far, and he freaked right out." Metria frowned. "And he has the gall to claim he doesn't peek at other women!"
    "Say, maybe if you just remember that, it won't happen," Breanna told Xeth. "Don't let Zyzzyva fool you into seeming unfamiliar."
    "I will."
    "And if you fake being freaked out, you can fool her ," Metria said. "Then you'll see whatever she's doing when she thinks you aren't watching."
    "I will."
    "Aren't we sort of betraying the female conspiracy?" Breanna asked her.
    "Yes. Isn't it fun?"
    "Yeah!" They giggled together.
    Breanna focused on the faint glow in her mind. "This way," she said, opening a door. She peered in.
    Then Xeth was waving a hand before her face. "Breanna! Come out of it!"
    "Come out of what?" she asked. "I was just going into this room."
    "You freaked out."
    She laughed. "Silly! Women don't freak!"
    "Then what is the demoness doing?"
    Now Breanna saw that Metria was hovering quite still, like a weightless statue, staring into the room. She was, indeed, freaked out.
    "What's in there?" Breanna asked.
    "Male demons in underpants."
    "Wow! You mean male pants freak out females?"
    "Evidently these ones do."
    "Demon pants!" she said, catching on. "They must have special potency. I never heard of a woman being freaked out by a living man's underwear."
    Xeth put his hand in front of Metria's face, interrupting the view. She resumed motion. "Well, let's get on with it," she said, peering ahead—and freaked out again.
    "We'd better try another route," Breanna decided.
    Xeth covered Metria's gaze again, and this time continued to block her view until they got the door closed. "But we have to get moving," she protested.
    "Not that way," Breanna said. "You freaked out."
    "Oh—you mean they have those male hot pants on display again?"
    "For sure."
    "They're not supposed to do it back ."
    "Turnabout's not fair play?" Breanna asked.
    "Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?"
    Breanna decided not to argue the case. "Well, I just want to find the Ring of Fire. I need to find an alternate route." She opened the next door.
    There was an immediate chorus of screams, and a tangle of assorted limbs. "That's a demoness dorm," Metria explained.
    "Why should they care?"
    "They scream every time the door opens, just in case it's necessary."
    "But demons can assume any form they want to, can't they?"
    "Of course. They're just having fun, same as the boys. Soon one dorm or the other will stage a freakout raid."
    "Well, I'm getting tired of demon fun. I just want to find that Ring."
    "Then maybe you need an M-path."
    "A what?"
    "It's a path