her. Can you understand?
"She was beautiful, wonderful, just what I'd always wanted. She was the first pretty girl who ever looked at me twice, and I was 35 years old. So we got married. And that first night—oh, God!"
You looked up at me, your face in tears, your pleasing double chins red from the bending of your neck. I stroked your face gently, soothingly.
"That first night—our honeymoon—when I came to her, she laughed! Can you understand that? Laughed! 'You're a fat beast,' she said. 'Get away from me. I never want to see you again, you obese slob!' I could have killed her!
"She had tricked me, because of my money. I never saw her again, but I hated her with all my heart. And there was another girl, later, who laughed at me too. I couldn't stand it, so I bought the spaceship and just headed out, away from Earth. Nobody wanted me there."
You were still crying. I leaned over and kissed you. If the women of your planet were such fools not to appreciate you, it was not my fault. How badly I wanted you!
You looked up at me and smiled after I kissed you. I entered your mind again and shared contentment with you. For you were thinking of the love we had known the night before, and I was pleased.
Go on, go on! Faster yet! For the spell of love is not yet complete.
IT WAS later that I arose and prepared for the first meal at the day. Succulent fruit I took and threaded them with rich, heavy cream. Nuts from the biggest trees I opened for you, warming their savory meats over the open fire. Fat grubs, rescued from more predatory insects, I basted in their own juices until they turned a golden amber, full of flesh-giving energy.
And all the time I worked, I sang to myself. I was very happy, for it is the purpose of the happy woman to protect the beauty of her chosen male. And as I looked at you, thinking of the food, I knew that you would grow in weight, that you would increase in stature beyond even the fondest dreams of any woman on Frth.
"I . . . I think I will call you Josephine," you told me as you ate. "And I will be your Napoleon. We'll live here forever in exile. And we'll do nothing all day long but—eat," you said, winking at me and reaching for more fruit and cream. My heart wanted to burst!
"I don't guess I could tell you how much it means to me, your liking me and all that. For the first time in my life, I'm happy. I feel like I really belong, if you know what—" You broke off. "Oh, oh. Here comes somebody. Is it all right for me to be here?"
And then it was I saw them,
