For Caitlin

We all know the story of Snow White and the seven dwarves — evil stepmother, poisoned apple, handsome prince, happily ever after. But you probably don't know the story of the other Snow White, from a couple of kingdoms over. She looked the same — dark hair, pale skin, red lips. The two kings were cousins, and they didn't have much imagination, so they just used the same name.

In this other kingdom, if a king's daughter was not married by the time she was 18, she had to go on a vision quest, a solo trip out into the wilderness to figure out what to do with her life.

A lot of princes came to court Snow White, but none of them did much for her. If they were strong and handsome, they were dumb as a stump. If they were smart, they were clumsy or misshapen. The artistic ones didn't know how to cook, and the cooks could not hold up a conversation.

So when she turned eighteen, her father set her up for the vision quest, dressing her in a white and gold traveling dress, brocade vest, and feathery hat, with plenty of food and drink. She rode off on her favorite horse, cheered by the city's crowds.

She let her horse choose his own path. After a few days of riding, she was feeling grimy and sweaty and bored, so she stopped by a lake to take a swim. She unsaddled the horse and gave him some hay. Then she took off her hat, her vest, traveling dress, and boots and neatly stacked them on the saddle. She started to run toward the water, then decided that she did not want to get her silk camisole wet, even though taking it off meant that she would be naked. She looked around to make sure nobody was looking, slipped it off, and added it to the pile of clothes.

The frigid water instantly gave her goose bumps and stiff nipples, but a few minutes of swimming warmed her up. When she felt clean and refreshed, she lay down on the soft grass in a sunny spot among the trees. The warmth lulled her to sleep, till a sudden breeze woke her up. She realized that the sun had shifted, so she was now in shade. She stretched, jumped up, and rubbed her arms to warm up, then went to get dressed.

As she put on the camisole and was reaching for the dress, something struck her as strange. It seemed very quiet. She looked around and discovered with a start that her horse was gone.

She quickly pulled on her dress and started searching, but the horse was nowhere to be seen. After several minutes, she sat down on the saddle and cried. What would she do now? If she went back home, she would be humiliated. She had no way of knowing where the horse had gone, nor did she know where she should go.

After a few minutes of crying, she decided that doing something was better than doing nothing, so she finished buttoning the dress, and pulled on her boots, her vest, and her hat. She rearranged the food and water as best she could for carrying and started walking toward the sun.

After one day, her feet were hurting her a lot, so she took off her boots. It took a little time to get used to walking barefoot, but she soon began to enjoy it.

The next day, she decided the brocade vest was too heavy and too hot, so she threw that along the side of the path.

On the third day, it was too hot for the dress, so she left it where she had slept and headed out in nothing but her silk camisole and feathered hat.

On the fourth day, when she had run out of food and water, she came to a shack in the woods with a big rocking chair on the porch. She was too exhausted to move any farther, so she sat in the chair and fell asleep.

"Here, have some water," a gentle voice said in her sleep. Then she felt herself rocking, and the same voice said, "Take a drink."

She opened her eyes and saw a nice-looking man standing over her, holding a canteen. She took a couple sips from the canteen, and he gently stroked her head with a wet cloth. As she began to revive, she realized that he was naked. "Oh," she said in surprise. "You're ..."

"I'm Bob," he said. "I live here with my brothers."

She took another sip from his canteen and tried again to comment on his nakedness. "But you're . . ."

"I'm a teacher. I like to fill people's minds with ideas."

"Oh, how do you do that?" she asked, for she had been taught to inquire politely when people started talking about their lives.

"Sometimes, I give lectures. Sometimes, I lead discussions about books the students have read. And sometimes," he said with a laugh, "I teach them by pouring ideas directly into their minds."

"Is that what this is for?" She touched his member, for that is what she had been taught to call it.

He looked a bit startled, and his voice sounded slightly strangled when he said, "That's one way."

"I would like to learn some new ideas," she said politely, then touched his member, which bounced a little in her hand. "How does this work?"

"Just take it into your mouth, and you will feel it grow, and soon the ideas will come."

He seemed to be running out of air when he said this, so she thought she should not waste time. She leaned forward and placed her lips around his member, which immediately grew larger. She looked up at him with some surprise, but he gestured with his hand for her to continue.

So she did, moving back and forth, while his member grew and grew. Suddenly, the ideas burst into her mouth. She swallowed them all and asked, "Am I smarter now?"

"Oh yes," he said with a gasp. "But it's important to keep practicing. No, not just now," he added, as she started to lean forward again.

So she decided to stay in the house and get more ideas. Since Bob was always naked, she thought it would be polite for her to do the same, and she took off her camisole, which was now quite torn and grimy, and her hat.

Over the next two days, she helped him clean up the living room. Then he had to go do some teaching.

Later that day, another brother showed up. He too was naked, but he was very grimy and dirty.

"Hello," she said when she saw him. "Are you Bob's brother?"

He seemed a bit surprised to see Snow White in the doorway to his house.

"Yes, my name is Tom."

"Have you been playing in dirt?"

"No, I'm a coal miner. My work takes me to dark and dirty places," he said.

She offered to help him wash up and filled a copper tub with water from the stream that ran by the house. He got into the tub, and she rubbed his back and arms and other parts of his body. They had to empty the tub and fill it again in order to get him very clean. When they were finished, they lay on the grass in the sun, as she had done in the woods.

After they dried out, she asked him about coal mining. "We go exploring through the mountains. I can demonstrate if you roll over."

She rolled over and listened carefully as he moved his hands over her bottom to show how he would explore a mountain. "Sometimes, we have to move down into the valley," and he slid his finger between the soft globes of her bottom. "When we find a possible opening," here he touched her pretty little butthole, and she shivered and gave a little squeak, "we explore it, then we have to get it ready."

He gently rubbed some of the slippery soap from the bath over her butthole, then began to push his finger inside. "Once we've prepared the opening, we need to explore." She gasped as his finger slid ever more deeply inside her once private bottom.

"Then, once the mine is ready, it's time to drill." His finger slid out, and she began to feel something much larger, much thicker sliding into her. She moaned and tried not to yell, even though the drill was stretching her wider than she had ever known. The drill began moving in and out, and she found that she liked the sensations it was sending through her.

Suddenly there was a flood, just like when the teacher's ideas burst into her mouth. She let out a very long and satisfied moan as he relaxed against her.

"And is that how you mine for coal?" He was withdrawing the drill, which she realized was his member.

"That sets up the mine for future drilling," he said. "We can work the mine again in a few days."

She was happy to have learned about coal mining and was ready to help Tom prepare dinner in the kitchen.

After another two days, Tom went back to work. Almost immediately, another brother showed up, who said his name was Jon. He looked just like the other two, so she asked him, "Are the three of you triplets?"

"No," he said, "we were just born at the same time."

She nodded, as though she understood what he meant. "And what do you do?"

"I'm a lumberjack."

"That means you cut down trees, right?"

"Yes, and we also plant them."

"How do you do that?"

He suggested that she lie down on the bed, so he could demonstrate.

"First we find a suitable patch of ground and trim away any underbrush." He took a razor and gently cut away some of the underbrush that had grown around her mound. She was a little nervous at first, but then she grew interested to see what lay behind the bush.

"Once we have cleared the ground," Jon said, "we prepare the furrow." He began sliding his finger back and forth over her furrow, which started to get wet and loose. She gasped with each stroke. "And when the furrow is ready, then we use the planter to plant our seeds deep." She saw that his member had grown very stiff, just like Bob and Tom's. He spread her legs and gently slid it - his planter, as he called it - into her furrow. Her eyes rolled into her head as he slid in and out. She moaned with each thrust, keeping in rhythm as he moved faster. And soon, as with Bob and Tom, he erupted inside her, filling her with his seed.

After his demonstration, she helped him clean up the outside of the house.

And so she lived with them, helping them clean the house inside and out, and preparing meals, even as they filled her head with ideas, mined for coal, and planted seeds. Sometimes, Bob would fill her head with ideas while Jon planted seeds or Tom searched for coal.

One day, they were all working together at the same time, the teacher, the coal miner, and the lumberjack all inside her at once. And when all three had erupted and they were resting from their labors, there came a timid knock on the door. "Come in," the three brothers said, although Snow White thought they might have waited until she was covered. She tried to pull the sheet around her as the door opened, but the brothers were all lying on parts of it.

In came a handsome young prince, who looked smart and strong and very polite. "Hello," he said. "My name is Harold, and I'm a prince. I've been looking for the other Snow White, because her father the king said I could have her if I found her. Are you she?" he asked politely and grammatically.

"Yes," she said, sitting up, though with one hand resting between her legs and the other ineffectually trying to cover her breasts.

Harold was so polite that he pretended not to be enthralled by her nakedness. "Your father was worried when your horse came home without you, and he put out word to all the princes that the one who found his pale-skinned, raven-haired Snow White would have her in marriage." He took a closer look at the woman sitting on the bed. "You're a little different from what I expected."

Snow White finally just stood up and let her hands fall by her side. "I have spent the last months working and living with no clothes on, so the sun has tanned my body and bleached my hair. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," the prince said with a gulp. He knelt down in front of her and tried not to stare too much at her bare mound and the wet lips beneath it. "Princess Snow White, will you accept this humble proposal of marriage?"

"You seem handsome and strong and intelligent and polite. Can you cook?"

"Oh yes," he said enthusiastically. "My meatloaf is known throughout our kingdom."

"Then I will be glad to marry you," she said, "so long as I can bring these three brothers, who have been so kind to me since I got lost in the woods."

Harold looked at the three large, sweaty, muscular brothers with dripping members standing in a small circle around him.

"Certainly," he said. "I'm sure they'd be most welcome."

So off they rode back to the kingdom. Snow White rode her horse, which Harold had brought for her. She wore a silken gold cape that her father had thought might come in handy. Bob, Tom, and Jon, loosely wrapped in leaves and animal skins, took turns riding Harold's horse, while he walked alongside. He guided the horses, because he had been brought up to be polite.

There was much rejoicing when they got to the kingdom, and soon Snow White and Prince Harold were married in a glorious ceremony. Bob, Tom, and Jon attended, wearing elaborate finery suitable to their professions. And they all five lived happily ever after, even though Harold spent many months, even years, trying to figure out where he fit in between the teacher, the lumberjack, and the coal miner.