We make it work. Let’s just say that a lamia’s lower body is incredibly dexterous, and our bed had to be custom-made. Three times. The first two broke. The third is a reinforced steel frame with a memory foam mattress cut into a weird figure-eight shape. Our human marriage counselor had a lot of follow-up questions. We found a lamia-human specialist instead. Best decision ever.

Lying on her coil while she reads aloud, her human hand stroking my hair. Watching her catch morning light through the window, her scales shimmering like oil on water. The way she hisses when I tell a truly terrible pun—then laughs anyway.

Once a month, she molts. It’s beautiful and horrifying. She leaves a perfect, ghostly, full-body scale-cast on the bedroom floor. I once tried to hang one in the living room as a conversation piece. She was not amused. But I will say that her fresh scales are the most stunning iridescent black you’ve ever seen. Also, vacuuming is now my primary hobby. Dyson deserves a medal.

Normal couples fight about dishes. We fight about her leaving a “shed trail” across the clean carpet or the fact that my snoring vibrates the floor in a way that “sounds like a dying badger” (her words). She gets the silent treatment by retreating into a giant coil under the bed. I get the silent treatment by… walking to the kitchen, which she cannot follow because her tail gets stuck in the hallway. It’s a fair stalemate.

So yes, marriage to a lamia is chaos. Our homeowner’s insurance is a nightmare. My family still doesn’t “get it.” But every night, when she coils around me and whispers “Mine” in that low, forked-tongue voice…

Let me start by saying: I love my wife, Seraphina. She has the torso of a goddess, the scales of a midnight river, and the patience of a saint—which is necessary, because I am a clumsy human who keeps forgetting where her tail ends and the hallway begins.