A History of Madness 4

I could hear the wine pouring through the phone into her glass
and she said

“I want a baby. Did you know babies can learn in the womb?
Isn’t that beautiful? They would learn so much from me
and if it didn’t turn out well
I could just give it up for adoption.”

And I laughed in the terrible way that I know and later
she said “I don’t even think you can be sweet to a woman,”
and I said “I can be,”
and she asked me how, so I told her
that I am half-decent at giving massages
and don’t mind giving my money away
and that I know how to brush hair and make breakfast and get water
and hold someone when their cramps start up
and I told her I wasn’t really such a bad guy as I pretended to be
and then I started crying or maybe I was crying all along.

Later she explained to me that she did not want to date me or fuck me
and all I could think to say was “Man, I never asked you.”