I deserve passion," she said. "I deserve to be loved- in every way. I deserve a man who'll give his whole heart, not the part he isn't using at the moment.

And so I beat him and beat him until he kissed me. And then I kept on beating him until he did it properly.

Why must women stay quietly? Why must we be little moons, each of us stuck in our little orbit, revolving around a planet that is some man? Why can't we be other planets? Why must we be moons?

That's what brings in the customers: the combination of gossip and the intricate detail about the dresses, all related as drama. It has the same effect on women, I'm told, as looking at naked women has on men.

"Miss you," he said. It was the barest murmur, scarcely a sound.

Life had a way of wrecking her careful plans, again and again. Roulette was more predictable than life. Small wonder she was so lucky at it.Life was not a wheel going round and round. It never, ever returned to the same place. It didn't stick to simple red and black and a certain array of numbers. It laughed at logic.Beneath its pretty overdress of man-imposed order, life was anarchy.

Life is not an opera. Scenes belong on the stage.