His last girlfriend had evaporated into a vapor before vanishing completely. Another girl, soft as a hamster, was blown away by a spring breeze.

He had heard about other kinds of women. Women with full breasts or sharp elbows or a voting record. Could he love a woman like that? Have sex with a woman he could run into at Target? His friends had exes like this. Ex-girlfriends who didn’t leave the country after a breakup. 

He had always preferred to think of vaginas as a theory. What if a vagina had agency that couldn’t be put out with a fire extinguisher? 

He had heard a story. Probably an urban legend. A woman on a dating app tricking men with elements of conventional hotness, only to reveal herself as an author whose books contained thinly veiled portraits of the men she met.   

He shook his head to himself before bending down to pick up the dog poop. He refused to give up his dream of finding a Thumbelina in a cereal box.