"I thought it sucked," he said.

She flung the pages in his face. She turned her back on him and put her hands on the window sill, and leaned her forehead onto the cold glass. It was raining outside, but she didn't take notice; it always rained this time of the year. She wanted to cry, but couldn't. She knew why he was doing this. She just didn't understand why she kept putting up with it.

He frowned. He didn't feel like dealing with her overreactions. "You asked for my honest opinion," he said. "And my honest opinion is that if you ever want to get published, you're going to have to write a lot better than that shit."

"You didn't have to be so harsh," she said. "You could have said, 'It could use some work,' or you could have looked for something that you thought needed work and marked it with a fucking pen!" She was screaming now. "You didn't have to reject the whole thing outright!"

"Does it matter?" He screamed back. "All that would have happened if I had told you it 'needed work' is that you would have insinuated that I thought it sucked, and we would be fighting right now about me not being honest with you. You asked for my honest opinion. And my honest opinion is that it sucked."

She looked out the window and bit her lip. She could feel the tears welling up inside of her. She swallowed the sadness and the rage boiling up inside of her.

He approached her. He kissed her hand, which was now rubbing the back of her neck, as if trying to make some futile attempt at comforting her.

"Honey," he said gently. He wrapped his arms around her stomach, and continued to kiss her neck until she succumbed to his embrace.

"Honey," he said again.

"What?" she grumbled, half exasperated, half relieved that the fight was over.

"Maybe we shouldn't be so avid about writing to Penthouse Forum."