Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale excerpt page 144 lyrics

I can ask for something. Possibly not much; but something. Men are s** machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It's nature's way. It's God's device. It's the way things are. Aunt Lydia did not actually say this, but it was implicit in everything she did say. It hovered over her head, like golden mottoes over the saints, of the darker ages. Like them too, she was angular without flesh. I know I need to take it seriously, this desire of his. It could be important, it could be a pa**port, it could be my downfall. I need to be earnest about it, I need to ponder it. But no matter what I do, sitting here in the dark, with the searchlights illuminating the oblong of my window, from outside, through the curtain gauzy has a bridal dress, as ectoplasm, one of my hands holding the other, rocking back and forth a little, no matter what I do there something hilarious about it. He wanted me to play scrabble with him, and kiss him is if I meant it. This is one of the most bizarre things that's happened to me, ever. Context is all.