Little Apples

AN EDITOR’S ROMANCE

Asmall, straight nose, a beautiful bust, delightful hair, and exquisite eyes—not a single typographical error. I line-edited her and we married.

“You must belong to me alone,” I told her on the day of our wedding. “I will not tolerate your being serialized. Remember that.”

The day after the wedding I already noticed a slight change in my wife. Her hair was not as lustrous, her cheeks not as beguilingly pale, her eyelashes not so diabolically black, but reddish. Her movements were not as soft, her words not as gentle. Alas! A wife is a bride that has been half disallowed by the censor.

In the first six months I surprised her with a cadet who was kissing her (cadets love complimentary pleasures). I gave her a first warning, and once more in the strictest possible terms forbade all general distribution.

In the second six months she presented me with a bonus: a little son. I looked at him, looked in the mirror, looked at him again, and said to my wife: “This is a clear case of plagiarism, my dear. It’s as plain as the nose on this child’s face. I will not be hoodwinked!” I added, issuing another warning, along with a ban that prohibited her from appearing before me for a period of three months.

But these measures did not work. By the second year of our marriage my wife had not one cadet, but a number of them. Seeing her unrepentant, and not wishing to share with colleagues, I issued a third warning and sent her, along with the little bonus, home to her parents so she could be under their watchful eye, where she is to this day.

Her parents receive monthly royalties for her upkeep.