Granula Crump folded her formidable forearms. ‘Bit fancy,’ she sniffed.

Igneous Crump shrugged his boulder like shoulders, sighing, ‘It’s the modern way, my Gritsome.’

‘My school just had mallets and a place to beat your head against a stone. Didn’t do me any harm.’ Absently she touched the side of her head where the six inch depression lay. 

‘We live in a different world. Fissure needs the best education if he’s to make it as a modern ogre.’

Just then an enormous man with a face like a cliff appeared. Granula sucked in a breath. ‘See what I mean. He’s combed his hair. I hope they don’t expect Fissure to preen. He’s a rock solid ogre. I’ll not_’

‘I’m sure it’s just the way it’s sitting. Now let’s listen.’

The man smiled, gravestone dentures filling his mouth.’

‘See, even his teeth are look clean. I_’

‘Shush.’

‘Ogres and Ogresses,’ began the headmaster, ‘welcome to the Grit School. I know you’re time is precious and you’ve all axes to grind so if I may, I’ll ask you to each join a group for the tour.’

Granula and Igneous shuffled forward, following a lumpen gnarly ogre who waved them outside. ‘Here at the Grit, we believe we need to prepare our young charges for the modern world and especially how to behave with the opposite sex.’ He eyed Granula warily, aware of her craggy scowl filling her face. ‘The days when courtship comprised of an ogress being flung into a pit and the ogre have his nadgers crushed between two boulders are long gone…’

Igneous sniggered. ‘You remember that quarry when…’ he stopped when he realised others were staring. ‘Sorry.’

The teacher smiled. ‘Mr Crump is it? Maybe you’d like to try our latest tool of love.’

A small avalanche of rubble fell from Igneous’ horrified face as he tensed. ‘What do I do?’

‘Imagine if you will that you and Mrs Crump here are on your first date. You’ve shared some fast food.  A rat pie fr’instance. And now you want to show that you have feelings for her. What would you do?’

‘Er, try and bite off her nose?’

‘Once maybe, but with the advent of so much American Ogery on the TV, our little ogrets, Generation Gravel, expect something more tender, yes?’

‘Like a bucket of hot lava poured…?’  

‘I was thinking of a kiss, perhaps. This is a kissing post. You see it is sized for a junior ogre. It is covered in a hard wearing acnoidal material that replicate the slimy rough texture of a young orge’s flesh and at the top we have a biologically exact replica of an ogre’s lips. If you would…’

‘I…’

‘You do know how to kiss?’

Igneous glanced at his wife. She glared at him. ‘Not with me, he doesn’t,’ she said, the thunder in her voice apparent to all.

‘I’ve seen it on that game show, Stove An Ogre. It looked awful.’

‘Well, little Fissure will be trying soon so off you go. Just attach your lips at the top. That’s it. Then… Mr Crump? What are you doing?’

Igneous stood back, a chuck of the stone lips lodged between his front teeth.

The teacher looked horrified. ‘Did you just bite off the bottom lip?’

The other parents wrinkled their noses while the teacher tried and failed not to show his disgust. Igneous looked at his wife. She smiled broadly and moved in close. ‘My Igneous. You old romantic ogre, you,’ she said as she leant back and kicked him in the basalt.

This piece was written in response to the latest #writephoto prompt