His eyes projected their strange probe at me and I screamed. I tried to twist away. I hadn’t wanted this, I was sure I hadn’t. I struggled terribly. I think he lifted me right off the ground with his big hands. He held me until he was finished, and then let me drop. I huddled to the ground, sobbing. He sat down beside me. He didn’t try to touch me. He didn’t try to go away. I quieted at last and crouched there, waiting.
He said, ‘I ain’t going to do much of that no more.’
I sat up and tucked my skirt close around me and laid my cheek on my updrawn knees so I could see his face. ‘What happened?’
He cursed. ‘Damn mishmash inside you. Thirty-three years old—what you want to live like that for?’
‘I live very comfortably,’ I said with some pique.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘All by yourself for ten years now ‘cept for someone to do your work. Nobody else.’
‘Men are animals, and women…’
‘You really hate women. They all know something you don’t.’
‘I don’t want to know. I’m quite happy the way I am.’
‘Hell you are.’