“Will you bear my child?” he asked me. I laughed at him. “No, never and never.” He was not hurt. He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill. He asked only for curiosity’s sake, because it was his nature to seek out answers, to press others for their weaknesses. He wanted to see how moonish I was over him. But all the sop in me was gone. I did not lie dreaming of him during the days, I did not speak his name into my pillow. He was no husband, scarcely even a friend. He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves.
