Dreadful

by Caitlin Rozakis

He wondered which had come first, the conviction that women would treat him with disdain or his apparent determination to treat them like they would before they could get that far.

It occurred to him that a spell to make one’s enemies into idiots via the power of breasts might be immensely helpful. Then again, it might not be a spell. It might have only been the breasts.

He knew immediately that this had been a truly terrible idea. An idea on par, perhaps, with stripping naked, covering himself with honey, and politely requesting a bear to fight him. Preferably while drunk, and declaiming insults about the bear’s mother. Who had probably been a perfectly charming lady of the ursine persuasion.

Then he tried hard not to throw up at the sight of his own blood. He was a Dark Wizard, dammit. Dark Wizards did not faint when they saw blood.

“But we don’t choose what life we get, we just do our best to make the most of it.”

“Who’s the real anyone? When does who you’re pretending to be stop being a pretense and turns into who you really are?”