"You are supposed to be trying. You were going to start while you were expecting the baby but you wanted to wait - to make sure he was healthy and we definitely wouldn't have to try ever again -"

"I remember. I didn't want to assume that you were still interested in - recovery stuff."

"So you figured you would just not do it and see if I brought it up?"

"I'm sorry if that was wrong."

Sigh. "I love you. I want you to be okay. I can remind you of that every week but - it'd help to know that you're gonna not do it if I don't keep saying it because I try to not bring stuff up over and over again, I don't want to pressure you -"

"I didn't want to ask for things."

"- I thought fixing yourself was something I was asking you to do. Makes sense, that you wouldn't want to ask for things."

"I don't think I can independently fix myself."

"Right. Well. I want to help. If you ask me for things I'll be glad. I might be - bad at being glad - but I'm trying - and I won't be mad at you."

She rocks her baby.

"Are you sure."

"Yeah. I practiced. I imagined you saying horrible things so I could imagine how I'd react."

"Okay."

"Do you want to test it by, uh, saying that you hate me and you wish you'd never married me and you only enjoy sex when it's with that slave of yours?"

She looks up at him.

"I'm not having sex with Zakiya.

"I'm also not worried that you're going to get angry with me for - saying that. I am worried that I will ask you for something you can't provide, or find costly to provide, and you will be angry with yourself for not being able to provide it, and end up angry with me for wanting things you cannot give me."

"I will probably have all of those mental processes but I will notice that being angry with you is the most important thing to avoid and so I'll just - sulk. Which is not the best quality I could display but it's not anger."

"I guess that's fair."

"I'm working on the sulking too but - I don't have a lot of feelings? So it makes it hard."

"I don't want you to feel that you shouldn't have feelings. I would mostly like to know whether various things are going to cause you to hurt me. But this doesn't seem like something that it's very possible to receive easy or instant reassurances about."

"I am not going to hurt you except emotionally. I will probably do that a bunch by accident."

"Yes. Unfortunately being hurt emotionally is not as costless as one might hope, at this point."

"I know."

She pets her baby.

"I'm sorry for being difficult."

"The situation is difficult. I don't think you are actually being very demanding."

"Well, I've rewritten everything about myself to avoid it, so I suppose that's affirming."

"If you start being demanding again I will feel encouraged and happy."