This morning I was supervising the warming of milk in the microwave. This involved bending over at the waist, so that I could see what was happening in there.

Abel walked past. Stopped. Looked at me. (I saw him reflected in the glass door of the microwave.)

“Hmm,” he said, and casually lifted the hem of my morning dress. “Stay there.”

The thing about milk is that you absolutely cannot leave it unsupervised, otherwise it will explode out of its mug and try to take over the kitchen. Even if I was tempted to flee, I was effectively tied to the domestic appliance, like a 1950s wife.

I watched in the glass as Abel went to the next room and picked up a branch of pussy willow out of a big floor vase. He moved towards me with menace in his step, and gave me a hard slash across the bottom.

“Owww!” I said, and then said something rude. And then my milk started boiling, so I scrambled to subdue it.

Abel quietly examined my bottom in search of a mark. “It’s right there!” I said, pointing at a spot that felt like somebody sliced it with a knife.

“No mark,” said Abel sulkily. “Obviously, it wasn’t hard enough. There’re bits of pussy willow all over the kitchen, young lady; pick them up.”

I stuck out my lower lip, commenting that bending over in this house was some sort of magical clue for people to appear behind you with implements.

Abel asked whether I wished to tell him that I hadn’t bent over with exactly that purpose in mind.

Ah. Well. If you put it like that…