In the morning we put on our sharp blue suits and go to hear the delegates speak through broken teeth. These are the women whose names the press must be cautioned not to mention, the ones who smuggle food across warring borders, drive defiant crosses into the burning ground. We give them our attention, we write them checks. And yet we are not ashamed to live here in our bounty. It is ours. It is what we have.

In the evening, you put on your black, your gold, and go out to the bondage club. Little thing that you are, I understand the need to slap someone around. The need for photographs and scars. And you say these are the nicest people you’ve ever met: they’re just in pain (oh yes, a little joke: I refer to the physical as well as the psychic). Little thing that you are, come home when you have had enough. I will apply the universal remedy. Perhaps serve tea.

And when the next day comes around, I’ll be the bad girl. You go to work, I’ll hit the bars. Let’s put it this way: peace is impossible, violence endemic, guilt the natural foundation of our lives. Our lives. Oh, the years I spent researching magical solutions! Page 309: In the moonlight, in a bloody dance. We could try that, too. It won’t work, but it might be our kind of fun.

Rogue states, rogue lives: all women suffer. All women search the empty marketplace, live on morsels, learn to be light sleepers in uneasy beds. Little thing that you are, pay the madman and apologize for nothing: No matter what you do, the years rage on through all their seasons of pain; I will be satisfied when you are satisfied, which means that I must watch you take your chances. Save you from all the ghosts and ancestors who think there is another way.