and third, the maid-knight. do you want something, sir? do you need something from someone? take it from her, sir, because she is a giver. her body is a garden ripe for the picking, and she will have you partake of its bounty. what are friends for if not this? she will never ask anything of you, sir, no sir, that would never do, not when there is more to give. please stay longer, sir, and take more of her. love what she does for you, how useful she can be, how wonderful it is to have her, to need her, feel the chill in the room when she's not there and beckon her to your side. she wants what you want. she needs, what you need. she laughs at your jokes and gasps in stunned awe of your greatness. being around her is a drug and the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh hits are free. she'll show off from time to time, but only to entertain. you'll find her an excellent conversationalist but in the quieter moments, when the wine has flowed and we talk of our younger selves, she is always the first to change the topic. when she dies of exhaustion, it is a tragedy. it was preventable. all she needed was to speak up, to take. you thought her as some kind of person beyond people, able to give from a bottomless well. you thought "how does she do it"? and the answer was she was convinced she did not deserve the bounty she grew, so she gave it to you instead. you will not know her, because she was always interested in what you had to say, what you wanted, what you were, where you were going, what excited you. you will learn later, pieced together from scattered accounts of the partygoers that also took her for granted, that she stood by your side convinced that happy endings don't get to happen to girls like her. it was easier to be happy when other people experienced joy than to hope that joy would come to her.
