She lay in bed with me like a dead body
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nd I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints.I couldn’t sleep for a week, she was so cold. I blamed her for everything, but she didn’t answer. I couldn’t understand her stupid behavior! When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist. Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages. Without me, she wouldn’t exist, so of course she was grateful.I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain, And it was I who attracted everybody’s attention, Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed. I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up— You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality. I didn’t mind her waiting on me, and she adored it. In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn’t help but noticeHer tidiness and her calmness and her patience: She humored my weakness like the best of nurses,Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly.In time our relationship grew more intense. She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish. I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself,
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