Luck of the Draw (Xanth) by Piers Anthony

covet that too. They will say whatever they think will please or flatter you. If you could somehow study them each before you had to make a commitment, so as to know their real natures when they weren’t trying to impress you directly, that might help.”
    “I can do that.”
    “I’m not sure how.”
    “Let me show you something.” She gestured to a large tapestry hanging on the wall. “This is the Xanth Tapestry, woven long ago by a marvelously talented Sorceress. It shows everything in Xanth, now and in the past. I can watch whatever I want.”
    “Anything?” he asked, amazed again.
    “Almost anything,” she said with another smile. “We have not been able to watch folk summoning the stork, because the Adult Conspiracy forbids. That has been most frustrating, because we have always been most curious about what is most secret. But I am now at the age where I can begin to get half a notion.”
    “Then maybe you can observe the several suitors. I suggest that you do so. Someone among them may emerge as the man you could love and appreciate for the long term, regardless of the way he may impress you today. That insight could be invaluable.”
    She eyed him with that canny expression. “And if it is not you? Will you be jealous?”
    “You’re teasing me again, you naughty girl. Once this Demon contest is over, as I understand it, the rest of us will be relieved of our artificial love for you and thus not be jealous. Regretful that we were not chosen, perhaps, but not hurting in the manner of rejected lovers.”
    “But right now, if you saw me kissing another man?”
    “Right now I’d be jealous, despite understanding its foolishness. I am trying to be objective here, drawing on my perspective, and give you sensible advice. You aren’t helping.”
    “You’re honest.”
    “I try to be.”
    “I like you.”
    Bryce sighed. “And I like you, Princess. But that is to be expected, in the circumstance.”
    “What is this word you used, perspective? I thought that was part of the limited magic of Mundania, where distant things race to keep up with you.”
    He had to chuckle. “This is of course how you would see it. But this word has a figurative as well as a literal meaning. What I mean by it is that I have a lifetime of experience that enables me to see and allow for some of the follies of the moment, such as loving and desiring a teen princess. I know, as I did not when I was a teen, that this is a kind of fascination, not true love.”
    “You think I will be dishonest and get fat?”
    “No, actually. Here in Xanth people do not seem to get fat unless they choose to be. But there will surely be constraints that would similarly turn me off, in time.”
    “You would not want to be a princess or queen consort?”
    “It is not what I seek.”
    “What do you seek?”
    Bryce considered for a good two and a half moments. “I don’t actually know, given my unfamiliarity with this magic realm. Perhaps some genuinely useful employment, and the love of a good woman close to my own age, as I had before.”
    “Not power, glory, notoriety?”
    “Definitely not those. I’m not an adventurer.”
    “Passion?”
    He smiled ruefully. “That I would like. I am after all a man. When you manage to fathom the Adult Conspiracy, you may come to understand that aspect.”
    “Passion. I could give you that, I think, once I learned how. I don’t really need to understand it.”
    “Princess, that isn’t what I meant!”
    Her clothing faded, so that she was standing nude. She was not shaped like the mischievous voluptuous Demoness Metria, but she was absolutely lovely in her modest nubility. “This isn’t enough?”
    “Harmony, cover up!” he said.
    “You don’t like me?”
    “I love you! That’s the problem. You are freaking me out.”
    “But I’m not wearing panties.”
    And panties were magical, causing male freak-out, as he had discovered. “I spoke figuratively. Please.”
    Her clothing reappeared. “Did I