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governments.” She turns the page. Then, “Native people have almost always understood that many Europeans were wétiko , were insane.”
    I lift up slightly again, say, “Most nonhumans know that, too.”
    â€œYes,” she says.
    I begin again.
    â€œNo,” she says.
    I stop.
    â€œLook at me.”
    I do. I like what I see.
    She laughs. “No, up here, at my face.”
    I do. I still like what I see.
    â€œI can’t tell you how nice it is not to have to pretend with you.”
    I shake my head, the barest movement.
    â€œI don’t have to pretend I’m not as smart as I am so you won’t find me intimidating. I don’t have to pretend I don’t hate this culture so you won’t think me crazy. And I don’t have to pretend I want you, because I really do. All of me. I’m not divided: brain here, body there; body here, brain there. I’m all here. No hesitation.”
    I smile.
    She says, “You help me remember I’m an animal.”
    I keep smiling. I don’t say anything.
    She doesn’t either. We just look at each other. Finally she says, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. . . .”
    â€œInterrupt away,” I say. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

seven
    beauty
    I remember the first time I told Allison she was beautiful. She shook her head, and said, “No, no. Don’t go there.”
    I wasn’t sure what I’d said. I apologized anyway, to be safe.
    â€œOh, no. I’m the one who’s sorry. Thank you. That’s nice. I just have a hard time engaging with the whole concept of beauty. It seems so random, with all the eye of the beholder stuff, and with what’s considered good-looking in one era being the next era’s horror.”
    â€œWhat does that matter? I think you’re beautiful, isn’t that enough?”
    â€œIt matters because of how much beauty standards hurt women. I know how much they hurt me, and I basically fit, more or less, into acceptable.”
    â€œAcceptable? Look in the mirror.”
    â€œThank you, but if I grant a category called ‘beautiful’ then that means that some of us are left out, and what if it’s me who’s left out?”
    â€œWell, you’re not.”
    â€œBut what if I were?”
    â€œLook, you’re an amazing painter. That leaves some people out. You’re really smart. That leaves some people out. You understand that civilization is killing the planet. That leaves some people out. You’re attracted to me. That leaves some people out.”
    â€œNot many.”
    â€œYou’re sweet, but why do you get to say it and I don’t?”
    â€œBecause you’re a man and you don’t have to carry six thousand years of patriarchal pressure on having the overwhelming majority of your worth be determined by whether men deem you fuckable based on how pleasing you are for them to look at. And so far as the painting and intelligence and understanding, those are all things I’ve worked at, that I’ve tried to develop in myself. In contrast, I was born with a certain physical appearance and there’s only so much I can do about that, for better or worse.”
    â€œYou were born smarter than other people, too, and more talented. Those were gifts that were given to you.”
    â€œBut I developed them, and besides, they aren’t based on a several thousand year history of abuse that comes from a power relationship of male watcher and female object to be judged. Women’s intelligence and artistic abilities have not so often been used against them, but beauty is constantly used as a weapon to render women self-hating and ashamed.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œHere’s my experience: you say something nice about my physical appearance and I’m immediately outside my body, imaging it, not being it. And of course I don’t measure up. My breasts are too small. . .