Chapter 25
The following morn brought a double blow. My handsome lover started the day off wrong as we broke fast.
“Can I be what?” I roared.
“You don’t need to act like a woman, just be a softer man,” he reasoned.
“Hah!” I sputtered. “I am nota womanly man, and I won’t bea womanly man. I built your bloody wigwam and dressed up like a bawdy-house madam, and if that’s not good enough, then so be it! I’ll be myself, as you instructed me in the mountains. ‘They’ll accept you if you’re just yourself, Billy. And I always tell the truth!’ Those were your words, Cut Hand, scion of the People of the Yanube!” I added as a deliberate stricture.
“I did not lie!” he protested. “I just…miscalculated.”
“Say it, Cut Hand! How did you miscalculate?”
“Men already have children before they marry win-tays,” he said hastily.
“If you think I’m going to wait until you marry and have two or three fry, you can perform an unnatural act upon yourself!”
He drew himself up proudly. “I will resolve this.”