《Fates and Furies》Lauren Groff

Mathilde dreamt of Leo Sen.  She knew he was a young man, from the few bios that existed online.  And though Lotto was thoroughly straight - the daily greedy need ofo his hands told her this - her husband's desire had always been more to chase and capture the gleam of the person inside the body than the body itself.  And there was a part of her husband that had always been so hungry for beauty.  It was out of the question that Leo Sen's body could steal her husband; it was not out of the question that with his genius Leo could take her place in Lotto's affections.  This was worse.  In the dream, they were sitting at a table, Mathilde and Leo, and there was a giant pink cake, and though Mathilde was hungry, Leo was eating the cake, delicate bite by delicate bite, and she had to watch him eat it, smiling shyly until it was gone.

She'd always hated pregnant ladies.  The original Trojan horses, they.


I HAD OFTEN SAID that I would write, The Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With.  I have sat with so many.  I have sat with wives who were not wives, of geniuses who were real geniuses.  I have sat with real wives of geniuses who were not real geniuses.... In short I have sat very often and very long with many wives and wives of many geniuses.  Gertrude Stein wrote this in the voice of her partner, Alice B. Toklas. Stein being, apparently, the genius: Alice apparently the wife.