Trophy Wife Quotes

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?” (…) A sigh of longing. “To be honest, I wanted to be ruler of the entire world. Or the ruler’s trophy wife.

Somehow I think Trophy Wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But hey, I haven't ever met a Trophy Wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs.

The mother of a trophy wife is not automatically a trophy mother-in-law.

I want a trophy wife. I’ll keep her on the shelf next to my future Nobel peace prize. (I plan on inventing a gun that shoots love, not bullets.)


The evening was still warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward.

Che abandoned his first wife, Hilda, a Peruvian woman of Indian extraction, for a taller, blonder trophy wife (also named Aleida). Their 1959 wedding in Havana was the social event of the year and featured Raul Castro as "best man." After he married Aleida, Che would continue to "upgrade" his women, taking the worldly Tamara "Tania" Bunke, born of German parents in Argentina, as his mistress.

I want a trophy wife, because the only thing I’ve ever won is a fourth-place ribbon in the fourth grade. I’d treat her well, and I wouldn’t let her get too dusty on the shelf.

Thor is so sweet. He appreciates my abilities so much he calls me his trophy wife.

I didn’t know, in my enthusiastic youth, that every little action, choice and deed could have significance, that decisions we made could stay with us and we rarely had the opportunity to go back and undo the poor ones we made.

That didn’t stop you from sucking my cock.” He doesn’t smile, and the first real stab of fear hits me.

The Trophy Wife wore a red dress four measured inches above the knee, and lipstick in a shade to match; this plus the kind of face that usually came with a slogan slapped above it, and a figure men would pay money to see with staples through the middle.

Here I am in Barneys (RIP), as the impatient, high-powered career woman on her lunch break; that’s me, too, at Saks, the indecisive middle manager who only recently started buying luxury; at Gucci, the flighty trophy wife; at Louis Vuitton, the spoiled heiress; and here at Nordstrom, my favorite of them all, I am the down-to-earth stay-at-home mom, which is to say, more or less myself.

I’d forgotten that the generally accepted norm of well done, medium and rare was translated to pink, bloody, and still mooing by a French chef.

Is there any language as powerful as money? If you had enough, you could be whatever you wanted… make your life whatever you wanted it to be… and the past didn’t matter.

I will not love you. I will have no use for you other than sex and photo ops.

Maybe there's hope for her after all. I'm upgrading her future potential to trophy wife and/or anchorwoman on the local news.

She’ll become some bitchy trophy wife and make anyone’s life miserable that doesn’t bow to her greatness. I refuse to be one of her victims.

​ I can do this. Life as a trophy wife? Piece of freaking cake.

I’m guessing she’s a soon-to-be trophy wife. Speaks five languages, looks like an angel, and probably fucks like a siren.

Lust is a dangerous thing. It can seduce your mind and lead it blindfolded to the cliff that will be its demise. Nathan takes me to that cliff, my body bending and molding beneath his, my heart coming up for air in between soft caresses with his mouth while his cock hammers out a slick, rapid motion.

Somehow I think trophy wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But, hey, I haven’t ever met a trophy wife, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man’s heart is six inches of metal between his ribs.

If… it’s such a big word. You hang your dreams, aspirations, hopes on it, then it topples over and pins you down, leaving you squirming like a worm. A sad word, full of regret for what might have been. A melancholic word hinting at missed opportunities, at wonderful lives almost lived.

While I appear to be happy and giggling, rest assured that inside I am sad. And angry. Like that one time—Feb 14, 1997, at 1:47 pm to be exact—when John Beaverthief stole my girlfriend. He snatched her from the shelf of my life like she was a trophy wife. But she was no trophy; she was more of a maquette.

I was riding with her on Marine One when she read that Donald Trump had divorced his first wife to marry a much younger woman. I learned she didn’t have much patience with men who sought trophy wives when she said: That man will never set foot again in the White House as long as I have anything to do with it.

It’s a little something extra I call the Zeta Factor. Y’know Catherine Zeta-Jones, right? Oscar winner, trophy wife, bipolar beauty. Well, take away the Zeta and she’s just ol’ Cathy Jones. Ain’t nobody wanna be no Cathy Jones. No, thank you. Ya gotta throw some fuckin’ Zeta into your life and make it sparkle.

Nathan's temper rages, and he forces out the next question through clenched teeth. “Have. You. Touched. Her?” “Yes.” The response is a challenge…

Parents, do your daughters come home smelling like an orchard? Is their giggle quotient higher than usual? They may be in thrall to the dangerous wine cooler. Gateway drug of the terminally insecure, its usage results in excessive clumsiness and the condition ‘trophy wife-itis.’ The lethalness of which only manifests after age thirty-five and ends in gutter living and suicide.

I believe in brevity. I believe that you, the reader, entrust me, the writer, with your most valued commodity—your time. I shouldn’t take more than my share. For that reason, I love the short sentence. Big-time game it is. Hiding in the jungle of circular construction and six-syllable canyons. As I write, I hunt. And when I find, I shoot. Then I drag the treasure out of the trees and marvel. Not all of my prey make their way into chapters. So what becomes of them? I save them. But I can’t keep them to myself. So, may I invite you to see my trophy case? What follows are cuts from this book and a couple of others. Keep the ones you like. Forgive the ones you don’t. Share them when you can. But if you do, keep it brief. Pray all the time. If necessary, use words. Sacrilege is to feel guilt for sins forgiven. God forgets the past. Imitate him. Greed I’ve often regretted. Generosity—never. Never miss a chance to read a child a story. Pursue forgiveness, not innocence. Be doubly kind to the people who bring your food or park your car. In buying a gift for your wife, practicality can be more expensive than extravagance. Don’t ask God to do what you want. Ask God to do what is right. Nails didn’t hold God to a cross. Love did.

It was his power, his gift, suddenly to shed all superfluities, to shrink and diminish so that he looked barer and felt sparer, even physically, yet lost none of his intensity of mind, and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on - that was his fate, his gift. But having thrown away, when he dismounted, all gestures and fripperies, all trophies of nuts and roses, and shrunk so that not only fame but even his own name was forgotten by him, he kept even in that desolation a vigilance which spared no phantom and luxuriated in no vision, and it was in this guise that he inspired in William Bankes (intermittently) and in Charles Tansley (obsequiously) and in his wife now, when she looked up and saw him standing at the edge of the lawn, profoundly, reverence, and pity, and gratitude too, as a stake driven into the bed of a channel upon which the gulls perch and the waves beat inspires in merry boat-loads a feeling of gratitude for the duty it is taking upon itself of marking the channel out there in the floods alone.

Your relationships are the only “trophies” that you can take to heaven, so spend your life investing in them. Trust God, treasure your wife, spend time with your kids and build a legacy of love, laughter and faith in your family that will impact the world for generations to come!

Susannah was lonely; I knew that about her, could see it among all the other small trophies of unhappiness that she lined up on triumphant display for me, the way children often do, providing an entire museum of disappointments and inviting the parents in, as if to say: You see? You see how you fucked me up and what it led to? It led to this!

He took a trip ... up to ... Elliott's house, his mansion rather. Awful place, twelve bedrooms and swimming pool and media hall and five car garage, but cheap and shoddy all the same, like the one next door and next door to that. A row of Ikea houses, such wealthy mediocrity. His very own son. His big, bald son. Who could believe it. The bigness, the baldness, the stupidity. In a house designed to bore the daylight out of visitors, no character at all, all blonde wood and fluorescent lighting and clean white machinery. Not to mention his brand new wife, number three, a clean white machine herself. Up from the cookie cutter and into Elliott's life, she might as well have jumped out of the microwave, her skin orange, her teeth pearly white. A trophy wife. But why the word "trophy"? Something to shoot on a safari.

In the year 2000, it was standard practice for the successful chief executive officer of a corporation to shuck his wife of two to three decades’ standing for the simple reason that her subcutaneous packing was deteriorating, her shoulders and upper back were thickening like a shot-putter’s—in short, she was no longer sexy. Once he set up the old wife in a needlepoint shop where she could sell yarn to her friends, he was free to take on a new wife, a “trophy wife,” preferably a woman in her twenties, and preferably blond, as in an expression from that time, a “lemon tart.” What was the downside? Was the new couple considered radioactive socially? Did people talk sotto voce, behind the hand, when the tainted pair came by? Not for a moment. All that happened was that everybody got on the cell phone or the Internet and rang up or E-mailed one another to find out the spelling of the new wife’s first name, because it was always some name like Serena and nobody was sure how to spell it.

I’d like to go to one,” she said. “It might not be my thing even, but I’d like to go at least once to say I’ve done it. Sometimes I feel cheated. I know it’s selfish, but sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if my grandfather didn’t get himself exiled. Who knows, I might have been a lady.” He didn’t have much use for ladies. A lady was someone else’s wife or daughter or sister. They were not real, almost like trophies forever out of his reach. She was real. And strong. She looked about to cry. “Would you like to dance?” Her eyes opened wide. “Are you serious?” Once he learned something, he never forgot it. William took a step forward and executed a perfect deep bow, his left arm out. “Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, Lady Cerise?” She cleared her throat and curtsied, holding imaginary skirts. “Certainly, Lord Bill. But we have no music.” “That’s fine.” He stepped to her, sliding one arm around her waist. She put her hand on his shoulder. Her body touched his, and he spun with her around the attic, light on his feet, leading her. It took her a moment and then she caught his rhythm and followed him. She was flexible and quick, and he kept picturing her naked. “You dance really well, Lord Bill.” “Especially if I have a knife.” She laughed. They circled the attic once, twice, and he brought them to the center of the room, shifting from a quick dance to a smooth swaying. “Why are we slowing down?” she asked. “It’s a slow song.” “Ah.” She leaned against him. They were almost hugging.

The shrine derived its sanctity from the Book of Genesis, which recounts how Abraham bought the cave from a certain Ephron the Hittite (for “four hundred shekels of silver”) as a burial site for his wife, Sarah. Eventually, Abraham is interred alongside his wife and later other Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs are buried there as well—Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah. Over the centuries, the appeal of this Old Testament narrative to all three monotheistic religions made the cave a trophy for competing empires. It served as a Jewish shrine under Herod the Great, who surrounded it with huge stone walls, a basilica in the Byzantine era, and a mosque after the invasion of the Muslims. The Crusaders made a church of the site in 1100 but it reverted to a mosque when Saladin conquered the area in 1188.

Silly stuff could tickle him no end. Chris loved practical jokes, even when they weren’t planned. One day he brought home a large kudu head to keep for a friend. (Kudus are large African antelopes; this one had been shot and mounted as a trophy.) I was in the kitchen getting something out of the refrigerator. I heard a noise and looked up-there was a beast in my house! I screamed. Chris appeared behind the head. For a brief moment his face was tight with concern and worry. It was a very brief moment. When he realized he’d scared me with the silly head, he began laughing so hard the house shook. “I’m sorry,” he said, gasping for air. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He laughed some more. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said when he managed to stop momentarily. “I’m sorry.” Another five minutes of hysterical laughter. By now it was contagious, and I started laughing, too. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he said finally. “But it couldn’t have worked out better.

She could sense the approach of land- taste when the waters changed, feel when currents turned cool or warm- but it didn't hurt to keep an eye on the shore now and then, and an ear out for boats. The slap of oars could be heard for leagues. Her father had told tales about armored seafarers in days long past, whose trireme ships had three banks of rowers to ply the waters- you could hear them clear down to Atlantica, he'd say. Any louder and they would disrupt the songs of the half-people- the dolphins and whales who used their voices to navigate the waters. Even before her father had enacted the ban on going to the surface, it was rare that a boat would encounter a mer. If the captain kept to the old ways, he would either carefully steer away or throw her a tribute: fruit of the land, the apples and grapes merfolk treasured more than treasure. In return the mermaid might present him with fruit of the sea- gems, or a comb from her hair. But there was always the chance of an unscrupulous crew, and nets, and the potential prize of a mermaid wife or trophy to present the king. (Considering some of the nets that merfolk had found and freed their underwater brethren from, it was quite understandable that Triton believed humans might eat anything they found in the sea- including merfolk.)

I can see her on your arm like an empty dress, a kind of echo at a higher pitch.

Trophy Wives [10w] A trophy wife loses her appeal once she's not mounted.

My wife has said that a bitter, sour Christian is one of Satan’s greatest trophies—and she’s right.

How many times are we held back because we’re not good enough either? How many days are we discouraged because we don’t realize the extent of God’s grace? I’m not a perfect wife, but I cling to the verse in Proverbs 12:4, “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” With joy I’m reminded that I’d rather be a crown than a trophy wife, and that I’d rather have virtue than vogue. Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. – Proverbs 31:10 You’re so much more than just another pretty face; you’re deeply loved by a God Who numbers your hair. The same God who painted spots on ladybugs' backs, and lights up our skies with fireflies created you, redeemed you, and knows you by name. Have you surrendered your life to the Lord? Here’s merely a glimpse of who we become through His grace:

One can of stewed tomatoes, and her meager grocery shopping list would be complete. From its position on the upper shelf beyond her reach, the can taunted her with its flashy red label and bright green letters. It practically goaded her to come and get it. Her gaze darted to the plaque hung from a nail on the center shelf: “Please Let Us Assist You.” She’d be happy to if Mr. Reilly noticed anyone in the store besides the customers with money. As it was, she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Hannah glanced from the sign to the stout, long-nosed grocer. Behind the counter, he continued his chatty dialogue with the banker’s wife, turning a blind eye as her five-year-old son skipped around the mercantile like a child at the fair. Easing the wheeled ladder back and forth a few inches on its rail, Hannah watched to see if Mr. Reilly noticed. When he didn’t turn her direction, she hiked up her skirt. With one foot firmly planted on the ladder’s first step, Hannah rolled the ladder a yard to the right. After stopping beneath the elusive tomatoes, she scurried up the three flat rungs and clasped the can in her hand before hoisting it aloft like a trophy.

Since being dumped by my ex-boyfriend last year. Steven Michael Raleigh decided that finishing his MBA meant he needed a trophy wife who

First of all, Mr. Cheating Bastard, this is no time to be insulting my car-care abilities, and secondly, she doesn't want to talk to you." He hung his head. "It is true, I have been a bad husband, a stupid man, and a careless friend, but I love my wife and I must talk to her." He really looked dreadful, which was satisfying. I shook my head. "Did you just arrive?" He nodded. "Then you haven't unpacked yet, which will save you some time. Go back to Italy, Berto, back to your little girlfriend." "She is gone. It is over." I switched over to disgusted frown. "Well. Maggie is not a consolation prize, shithead. She's the trophy, the Pulitzer, the Nobel. The fact that your girlfriend dumped you means nothing. Go home.

Supposedly, he didn’t used to be a douchebag, of which you are the proof. At one time, long, long ago, he was someone your mother could love. We don’t quite believe this, even though he will occasionally roll his eyes at one of your colorful outfits or pseudo-revolutionary statements and say something cryptic like If you only knew me when I first met your mom, like you’re too late, you missed your chance to have a parent who actually understands you, and now you’re stuck with this prematurely balding man who works seventy hours a week at a bank and drives a gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive Suburban, even though he never hauls anything around except his new brat kid and way-too-young and obnoxiously boring trophy wife and the occasional large electronics purchase.

The city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward.

Myriam gritted her teeth and extinguished every one of her thoughts except one: glory. She roared with the fury of every woman who had ever been scorned by the world of man, and even though she wanted nothing more than to hold her wife, she forced her mind to stoically accept the present moment and filled herself with fearless rage. “Come, Hunter! Come and taste my blades and know that you are not the most terrifying monster on Earth. I am!” Myriam screamed, her rasping voice a trophy proving that Hunters had every right to fear her.

So we can work together and do all this good,” I say, “but the whole time you’re looking at my wife and thinking she’s a mistake? That she’s some Anglo trophy I use to prove something to other people? Even worse, because of some self-hate, to feel better about myself?” He goes quiet, his chest swelling with the deep breath he draws in. I gesture to the proposal abandoned on his desk, my excitement smothered by disappointment and disillusion. “How do you squeeze such big ideas into such a narrow mind? You’re smarter than this, Iz,” I say quietly. “I thought I could follow you. I thought you had answers, solutions.” I walk to the door and give him one last sad, disgusted glance, saying what I’m fully prepared to accept may be my last words to him ever. “Turns out you’re the problem.

Advika could no longer throw her hands up with all the women Destiny’s Child saluted in their song. She really was just a trophy wife.

It makes me want to tear the world apart for her. She was never supposed to mean anything to me. She wasn’t supposed to be someone I’d care about. All I wanted her to be was my trophy wife, someone to keep my bed warm, someone that’d keep my mother happy and entertained, and my grandfather off my back. I shouldn’t care about her tears, but I do.

Shallow. Harmless. A little bit stupid. Crazy in love with you. Needs access to every part of the house. Let’s see . . . Who am I? Well, Roman’s trophy wife, of course. I am pretty, elegant, and extremely snobbish. I love wearing expensive clothes, just the best labels. I’m not really into dresses unless the occasion requires it. I much more prefer designer jeans, paired with silky blouses. The heels are a must.

Every time I try to get out of the game, something pulls me back in. This shit is gon’ be the death of me, but I refuse to let it be the death of Jada.

I’ve grown up in a world where men use women to get what they want. They’re either trophy wives, dirty little secrets, or the wife they publicly proclaim to adore while secretly fucking everything they can get their hands on.

Never make the same mistake twice.

Will you be my girlfriend? Circle Yes or No.

I’d wasted all my time getting an education when I should have been pursuing my true calling of becoming a trophy wife and grandbaby-producer as quickly as possible.

The Dark Cloud Is the luxury brand that seeks brand ambassadors while it convinces you that you’re plain Is the thunderstorm that wants you to experience its rain Is the discrimination that destroys everything that is good Is the trophy wife that learned how to make it in the hood

If I was smart, I would have dragged her out of here before the men in this room had a chance to place her on their mental scale and weigh her against everything they’re looking for in a trophy wife. Better yet, I would have fucked her so loud in the other room they’d know who she belongs to.

So, tell me, Jaxon. Which lady slept in your bed last night? Was it Natalie or the curvy, albeit cold, chalice every young boy dreams of taking to bed?" Jaxon shot me a glare from across the table. "What do you think?" Shrugging, I replied with a smirk, "I think you're a pussy who cuddled his wife instead of kicking her out to spend a night with your mistress made of silver. You may have coveted Natalie for ten years before you finally scored her, but this trophy has been in your sights since you had superheroes printed on your underwear.

I know it's hard for you to wrap your pea-sized brain around, Benji boy, but when all this fades away, love remains. If I had to choose between never winning this trophy or having my wife, I would choose her. Every. Single. Time.

What about you? World domination? Best salesman in the world? Trophy wife who sucks you off every night?” I shook my head. “No. I just want to make my mom proud.” “I wasn’t expecting that.” She finally faced me. “Is she hard on you?

Pff! Thank you, no. All the single men my age want either a trophy wife or a housekeeper, and I’m not doing either.

In a self-absorbed society with a narcissism epidemic, everyone values image perception over reality. No one cares about being real anymore.

Shallow. Harmless. A little bit stupid. Crazy in love with you. Needs access to every part of the house. Let’s see . . . Who am I? Well, Roman’s trophy wife, of course. I am pretty, elegant, and extremely snobbish. I love wearing expensive clothes, just the best labels. I’m not really into dresses unless the occasion requires it. I much more prefer designer jeans, paired with silky blouses. The heels are a must.” She pauses, opens her eyes, and turns toward me. “Are heels a must, do you think?” She scrunches her tiny nose. “Of course they are. Damn it. I hate wearing heels.” She closes her eyes again and continues. “The heels are a must, and I have dozens of them. Roman loves when I wear them, he says they make my butt look amazing. I’m also very self-conscious about my height, and wearing heels all the time makes me forget how short I am. My favorite pastime is shopping, and I buy a ton of clothes. My husband has to allocate one driver specifically for me and my shopping sprees.” Another pause and she turns toward me again. “Roman, I’ll need funds to support her addiction with clothes. She is an impulse buyer.” “You’ll get anything you need,” I laugh. She’s completely nuts. “My husband is crazy about me, and he allows me to do whatever I want with the house, like rearrange furniture, so the vibe of the house works better with the earth vibrations. The house feels terribly cold, so I buy a bunch of indoor plants and spread them everywhere. I also tour every single room because I want to make sure the unobstructed energy flows, so I rearrange paintings and mirrors. I also hate the dining room table, it’s so overstated, and I decide to swap it with a sleek glass one I found in an interior design magazine.” Another pause. “This woman is expensive, Roman. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.” “I’ll manage.” “Your funeral.” She shrugs and continues. “My husband doesn’t like it when he’s interrupted, but of course, that doesn’t apply to me. I often come into his office just to check up on him and exchange a few kisses. It annoys his men so much. They wonder what he sees in me and why he allows me so much freedom, and then decide he’s thinking with his dick. I’m always around, and they hate it.

How? You're gonna be in this freaky book world if everything goes according to plan," he counters. "You could always come with us," Raul offers. "I have a jet in my world." Reese glances dubiously at him in the rearview mirror. "So does that make Brad, like, a trophy wife or something?" "I'm not a trophy wife!" I snap. "I'm a trophy omega. Get it straight.

His final touches completed, His Highness offers me his arm. On Wednesdays I'm now required to enter the grand assembly in the Hall of Mirrors on his arm like a glowing trophy. Not the kind of trophy one wins for completing a challenge, the kind one stuffs and hangs on the wall after killing it.

There is a misperception about black women in society. When a black woman presents expectations to a man, she is seen as needy, bossy and a gold digger. When a woman who is not of African American descent expresses the same thing from a man, she is seen as a trophy wife. When a woman of European descent presents the same thing, she is viewed as a classy woman with standards. When a woman of European descent presents the same standards as a black woman, the Caucasian woman is credited for implementing rules of dating when she expects a man to pay for dinner or when she tells a man what she desires out of a relationship. The value of African American women is reduced not only by dominant culture and society, but by men, particularly African American men. The media, radio, music, television, newspapers and movies have devalued African American women when in reality African American women are honorable, respectable, classy, elegant, beautiful, educated and hardworking women. Dark skin women are viewed as angry, unattractive and uneducated within modern society. African American women are seen as loud, irate, insensitive and angry women as a result of labels from some African American men, media, movies and music. Television, magazines, social media, internet, videos and some music present Hispanic, Latino, White and Armenian women as trophy wives, idols and models while presenting African American women as mistresses, one night stands, casual sex, gold diggers and “baby mamas.” Latino and Dominican women are viewed as physically beautiful while Caucasian women are viewed as ideal and classy within media, music, music videos and movies. Media presents black women as bitter, scorned, ghetto, ratchet and promiscuous as if women of other races do not exhibit those characteristics. Women of other races are on television and the internet using profanity, fighting, engaging in sexual acts and cheating, however, there is an emphasis on African American women who exhibit those behaviors” (McEachern 85).

me, and

This necessitated each village be self-supporting and self-sustaining. And, if you looked at 1100’s Europe, you would see that the types of jobs and professions the villagers took on reflected this fact. You had the butcher, the farmer, the blacksmith, the clothier, the knight, the baker, the goldsmith and of course the all-important grog maker. Everybody had a job or a task that carried their weight in the village. What you did NOT have was the professional activist, the social worker, the starving artist, the trophy wife, the socialite or the village welfare bum. Everybody had a job and everybody’s job provided vital and required services and products to the village. Now, the reason we understand this is because a village is a small enough entity for us to wrap our brains around. We see the little village with the little cows and the village people walking in the muddy streets. But ask yourself this question: How is a country any different than a village?

She will never make a good submissive. She's too dainty, and fucking easily bruised. Don't you think I've considered it? She's a trophy wife. I keep her like I would a bloody porcelain doll. Pretty to look at, and great for the portfolio that's all she will ever be good for.

There were two faces pressed cheek to cheek and looking at the camera: an overly tanned older man, grimacing and shiny, and the trophy wife. They were holding up champagne flutes in hands loaded down with bling. #ilovemyshipwreckedparents. “Hashtag asskiss,” said Rafe. “Parents? She’s not even his mother!” said Sukey. “Unless she had him when she was three,” said Jen. I quit the app.

She had been the “muse” of a writer for a while. You hardly heard his name anymore. He was quite famous at the time, although possibly more famous for his lifestyle than his works. He was unfaithful and drank from breakfast to bedtime. Boozing and whoring, he said, the Rights of Man. She had been one of his trophies, “muse” a fancy word for mistress. He lived in Chelsea but had a wife and three small children tucked away in the country somewhere.

Me: Literally any word? And I say it and we leave? Trace: Yup—any word or phrase. Say, for example, you were talking and wanted to go and said wiener. I would know it was time to leave. Me: As if I’d be able to use the word wiener in a sentence casually in front of all those people. Trace: It wouldn’t have to be in front of anyone—you could whisper wiener in my ear. This has got to be the strangest conversation I’ve ever had with a man, in my entire life. Me: Um, yeah, no. Trace: What about smegma. Or moist. Ointment. Me: LOL I laugh, imagining the look on a baseball player’s face—or a wife’s, or a girlfriend’s—if I used any of those words in a sentence. Trace: Wanker. Phlegm. Plunker. Flaps. Me: No! Where are you coming up with these? Trace: It has to be a word that is distinct so there is no mistaking it’s the escape word! Me: I get that, but does it have to be gross? Trace: What’s gross about the word plunker? Me: LOL Trace: Fine. How about…Daddy. Me: LOL Me: Nice try—I am NOT calling you Daddy in public. Trace: So what you’re saying is, you’ll call me Daddy in private? Me: LOL NO!

Really. You read romance novels?” I bite into my first hard shell taco and moan. “What trope?” Trope. Another mental pat and I smile to myself when her eyes get soft. “Um.” She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “Mostly the usual stuff. Uh, cowboy romance and…sports romance.” What’s this now? Sports romance? I sit up straighter in my chair. “That’s a thing?” “Yes.” “What kind of sports are you reading about?” She ignores me for a couple beats, choosing that moment to bite into her taco—on purpose, probably!—chewing thoughtfully and not answering the question. Swallows. Takes another bite. I swear to god she’s doing that to torture me. “Baseball.” “Like, baseball baseball? College or what?” “No, professional baseball.” “You’re reading a romance about baseball players?” “I mean—the guy is a baseball player. The girl works as the nanny.” The nanny? What the hell kind of book is this? “He hooks up with the nanny?! Is he married? Where’s the wife?

Feelings? Look mate, you know who has a lot of feelings; blokes who bludgeon their wife to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards.

The force that really made the world go round was the delicate, tender, all-too-easily-wounded snowflake that was the male ego. That was what brought nations to war, what brought soldiers to the battlefield, and what brought men to women’s beds. Either version of the cover story worked, but the top brass preferred the penniless translator version. It was cheaper, but it was also more effective. It turned out powerful men were significantly more turned on by a woman who was broke than one who already had everything she wanted. The trophy-wife version was reserved for operations where access

​ I have no great excuses for how my life has turned out. It was a simple case of poor planning. Laziness.

​ Maybe somewhere, underneath the glitter and the desperation, there was still a little of the person I used to be.

I suspect, more than voyeurism, that it has something to do with control. Control is a food that Nathan seems to feed on, devouring it with a vulgarity that clashes with his smooth exterior.

The Patriots’ quarterback, Tom Brady, had scored touchdowns in far less time. Sure enough, within seconds of the start of play, Brady moved his team halfway down the field. With seventeen seconds remaining, the Patriots were within striking distance, poised for a final big play that would hand Dungy another defeat and crush, yet again, his team’s Super Bowl dreams. As the Patriots approached the line of scrimmage, the Colts’ defense went into their stances. Marlin Jackson, a Colts cornerback, stood ten yards back from the line. He looked at his cues: the width of the gaps between the Patriot linemen and the depth of the running back’s stance. Both told him this was going to be a passing play. Tom Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback, took the snap and dropped back to pass. Jackson was already moving. Brady cocked his arm and heaved the ball. His intended target was a Patriot receiver twenty-two yards away, wide open, near the middle of the field. If the receiver caught the ball, it was likely he could make it close to the end zone or score a touchdown. The football flew through the air. Jackson, the Colts cornerback, was already running at an angle, following his habits. He rushed past the receiver’s right shoulder, cutting in front of him just as the ball arrived. Jackson plucked the ball out of the air for an interception, ran a few more steps and then slid to the ground, hugging the ball to his chest. The whole play had taken less than five seconds. The game was over. Dungy and the Colts had won. Two weeks later, they won the Super Bowl. There are dozens of reasons that might explain why the Colts finally became champions that year. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe it was just their time. But Dungy’s players say it’s because they believed, and because that belief made everything they had learned—all the routines they had practiced until they became automatic—stick, even at the most stressful moments. “We’re proud to have won this championship for our leader, Coach Dungy,” Peyton Manning told the crowd afterward, cradling the Lombardi Trophy. Dungy turned to his wife. “We did it,” he said.

Columbia expected it to sell huge because my single had done so well. I did, too. Though it would eventually go double platinum, that first week it sold sixty-five thousand copies, landing with a thud at number sixty-five on the Billboard chart. Many critics, mostly men, seemed to review who they thought I was rather than the actual work. I would get used to that, but it was a shock to me then. One called me an aspiring trophy wife, and another wrote that I should leave because my mom was waiting for me in a station wagon. I still don’t get that one—a convertible, maybe.

Sometimes the devil you know is the better option than the devil you don’t.

was to be Wesley Thorton's trophy wife. It's too bad I can’t look the other way on infidelity. My life probably could have been almost perfect.

When William Harness, a regular soldier, was recruiting in Sheffield, he set off with three or four other officers, as he told his wife Bessy: Then follows a Cart with a Barrel of ale with fidlers and a Man with a Surloin of Roast Beef upon a pitch fork, then my Colours of yellow silk with a blue shield with a reath of oak leaves and trophies, and in Silver letters on one side ‘Capt. Harness’s Rangers’, on the other ‘Capt. Harness’s Saucy Sheffielders’.8 The sergeant, corps, drums and fifes followed. ‘You can conceive the stir in a prosperous place like this all this noise must make. I am become very popular.’ Harness was one of many officers recruiting their own companies. He had been in the army for thirteen years, saving money to marry his ‘adored Bessy’, Elizabeth Biggs, in 1791. During her long wait Bessy took up botany, tried to run a book club in her home town of Aylesbury, and loyally made him shirts.

They had nothing. In their houses, there was nothing. At first. You had to stay in the dark of the huts a long while to make out what was on the walls. In the wife's hut a wavy pattern of broad white and ochre bands. In others - she did not know whether or not she was welcome where they dipped in and out all day from dark to light like swallows - she caught a glimpse of a single painted circle, an eye or target, as she saw it. In one dwelling where she was invited to enter there was the tail of an animal and a rodent skull, dried gut, dangling from the thatch. Commonly there were very small mirrors snapping at the stray beams of light like hungry fish rising. They reflected nothing. An impression - sensation - of seeing something intricately banal, manufactured, replicated, made her turn as if someone had spoken to her from back there. It was in the hut where the yokes and traces for the plough-oxen were. She went inside again and discovered insignia, like war medals, nailed just to the left of the dark doorway. The enamel emblem's Red Cross was foxed and pitted with damp, bonded with dirt to the mud and dung plaster that was slowly incorporating it. The engraved lettering on the brass arm-plaque had filled with rust. The one was a medallion of the kind presented to black miners who pass a First Aid exam on how to treat injuries likely to occur underground, the other was a black miner's badge of rank, the highest open to him. Someone from the mines; someone had gone to the gold mines and come home with these trophies. Or they had been sent home; and where was the owner? No one lived in this hut. But someone had; had had possessions, his treasure displayed. Had gone away, or died - was forgotten or was commemorated by the evidence of these objects left, or placed, in the hut. Mine workers had been coming from out of these places for a long, long time, almost as long as the mines had existed. She read the brass arm-plaque: Boss Boy.

My wife has said that a bitter, sour Christian is one of Satan’s greatest trophies—and she’s right.