After three years of marriage to Jane I had lost interest in her and had stopped having sex with her. I had found—and I shudder to mention this—ways to blame her for my lack of interest. I told her that her clothes were all wrong—especially her underwear. I told her her education was lacking, that I felt she was afraid of sex. I had married her in the first place because she was a kind of boyish, no-nonsense woman, and now I blamed her for being that way, told her I wanted her to be more feminine. Yet the truth was that I mistrusted women who were very feminine. I told Jane in anger that I thought she was a repressed lesbian because of the way she wore blue jeans all the time. It was horrible of me to say such things. I had winced over them more than once, here in Limbo, before I discovered that I could change them. I am not a cruel person; I really wanted to erase those cruelties.

And I did. I went through the five years with Jane, making myself into a pleasant and honest person. I told her of the tapering off of my desire for her. I was kind to her in every way. She was understanding, and grateful for my straightforwardness. There were no fights.

I did not have sex with her any more than I had had originally. Living in Limbo all these years had obliterated any interest in sex for me. I made no changes in that department.

My second wife was named Millie. She was a librarian for a chemical company and very serious. Millie was a very serious person. It was eventually that seriousness that I learned to hate. Whenever I spoke to her, even about unimportant matters like the grade of hamburger we were using or the best kinds of plant food, she was always incredibly attentive. Millie had a good figure and an earnest sexual style, but she wore drab clothes. She looked like the librarian she was to the core.