Once upon a time, there was a guy. Not a prince, no, nothing so fancy. Nor was he a poor orphan boy, no, nothing so pathetic. Just an ordinary guy with a job, two ordinary parents (still married!), a car and a turtle.

One day this guy (whose name is Ray, in case I forgot to mention) was offered a new job. It sounded like a fairly simple job, just to take over for another guy (also named Ray, but with a different nose) and cover for him while he wandered off into parts unknown. So Ray (the one without the nose) agreed. (Not that he didn't have a nose, he did, a very nice nose. It just wasn't quite as prominent as the other Ray's.)

And so, all of a sudden, Ray found himself saddled with two sisters (real sisters, not stepsisters, and not evil at all, thank heaven, though one had deplorable taste in husbands), a mother (a very nice one at that), and another ex-wife. (Still very nice. I mean, not all of the ladies in question were quite up to Canadian-standard nice, but as Americans go, they made do quite... nicely.) Alas, Ray also found himself back in contact with his old ex-wife (not ancient-old, previous--old) The Stella.

The Stella wasn't a member of the Witches' Guild, although she had been extended invitations on several occasions, but she was a lawyer, and wasn't about to win the Miss Cordiality contest any time soon. (At least not in this Tale. Maybe next time.) Unfortunately, The Stella is not the villain today, so nothing gruesome that usually happens to villains in Cinderella tales (feet chopped off, eyes pecked out, assorted hideous painful deaths, etc) happens to her. Sorry.

Another woman that Ray had to work with in the course of his new duties was The Ice Queen. She had been called the Dragon Lady, but after a few sessions with an image coordinator, she'd changed her style just a wee bit. Cutting down on the fire-breathing saves the draperies. Flaming draperies are always a drawback with interior decorating, I'm told.

Now, The Ice Queen had working for her (for, not under, sheesh!) an incredibly handsome, polite and intelligent man, the Ice Prince, so called because of his unfailingly charming, polite and faintly chilly reception of female interest in his person. The Ice Queen had at one time, been interested in making the Prince work under her as well as for her, but one of her retainers, a bright young man named Turnbull, had warned her off. He'd offered her irrefutable proof that the Ice Prince was no ladies' man at all.

So, even though she still watched 'the proof' every once in a while (and was about to wear out the tape in certain parts, good thing she had a nice copy...) and never really looked at Turnbull, her desk, the Prince, or feather dusters the same way again, The Ice Queen was determined to pair off the Prince with some deserving guy. (That way she could sneer at all the women lusting after the Prince: 'So what if I can't have him? Neither can you! Neener-neener-neener!' Well, maybe without the neeners.)

Her first thought was of course, Turnbull, but he'd just found his own one-true-love, a particularly gruff (yet entirely hunky) lieutenant of the guard, so she had to think of another plan. A particularly cunning and devious plan, perhaps bordering on the truly twisted...

She rather liked the plan where she threw a ball in the Prince's honor, and have all the lovely ladies swoon over him, and then turn green with envy when the Prince started dancing with whole hordes of gorgeous men, and then she could pick through his leftovers and maybe even start a harem of her own... but the Prince had all the rhythm of a stick, and so she had to chuck that idea. Pity though, about the harem.

And finally The Ice Queen decided to send the Prince's friend Ray packing (the old Ray, the one with the nose), and replaced him with a rather delectable morsel of Rayness, and sat back to watch the sparks fly. The Prince was, of course, rather upset by the replacement of his friend, despite the cooperation of everyone around him in the charade.

And he tested the new Ray, and found out his teeth were different and his hair was different and his nose was strikingly not all that it had been, and of course his fingerprints were just not right. And at the same time he found that Ray was a very nice man, and courageous and brave and handsome, and right about then he realized that Ray's eyes were the color of the skies of his native lands, and his teeth were the white of the snow on the tundra and the Prince found himself rather insistently aroused whenever he was around Ray.

And then The Ice Queen found herself throwing a ball after all, and the Prince decided to hide in a closet with his new Ray while The Ice Queen built her harem, and he found that he and Ray fit rather well after all. And after a very long time, they emerged from the closet, rumpled and sated. (Which was a look no one but Turnbull and The Ice Queen had seen on the Prince before), and they all loved happily ever after.

(And after she'd completed her harem, The Ice Queen tossed out her video tape since she didn't need it any more, but I'm told there are copies somewhere on e-Bay.)

The En-

Well, it occurs to me that it should have read 'lived happily ever after', but I think I'll leave it as it is. It's certainly appropriate.

The End.

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