"[asking about sex] The question startles even you, the moment you've uttered it. She turns to face you, in a rustle of resettling skirts. "If you mean, did my artist sleep with me-- no, he didn't." No. He wouldn't have. Just look at her: she's beautiful in a crystalline way, but the more you look at particulars, the more they disturb. No one is so sleek, so unforgiving. The proportions are subtly wrong, too -- the size of the head, the shape and width of the mouth... That's it, then. You could stay and question her, and maybe find out more -- if she knows more -- about the tortured persona of the artist. But you're bored with sexual angst. It's one of those topics that everyone uses and no one has anything interesting to say about."