One morning, Sophie woke up to find all her old, sensible clothes had vanished overnight, replaced by frilly, stylish dresses and some truly embarrassing underthings. As soon as she had fully processed what she was looking at, fists clenching and unclenching as she stared with disbelief at her closet, she took a deep breath.

"Howl!" she screamed loud enough to shake the rafters.

The man in question rolled over in bed and blinked innocently at her. "You've always said you hated shopping. So I did a little for you. I'm quite looking forward to seeing you in the lilac."

"I am not wearing these," Sophie snarled, fishing through the closet for the dress in question so that she could hurl it at his head. "They're impractical. How will I get any of the cleaning done?"

"I'll conjure you an apron," Howl said dismissively. "You can talk the dirt and dust off a dress, so I don't see what the fuss is all about."

It was so difficult to hold onto her anger when he was sprawled out with such calculated enticement. But this, Sophie reminded herself, was a violation, and should be treated with fitting severity.

"I don't like them," she said.

"I don't see why not," Howl said, and Sophie knew he meant it. "They're the latest fashion in Kingsbury."

Sophie covered her face with her hands and sat back down on their bed. He truly did not understand, and that made her anger subside a little. "Those clothes you got rid of were mine. These new ones… I haven't been through anything with them. I didn't hold Martha and Michael's son in them. I didn't confront the Witch of the Waste in them. Do you see?"

There was a long silence, during which Howl sat up, and said, rather sulkily, "I can bring back the old ones, if it bothers you that much."

Sophie sighed. "I'm not hurt," she lied. "I'm just disappointed that you think you can treat me like a child with shiny new presents."

"I was rather thinking of myself when I bought some of the pants," Howl admitted. "Straight from Wales- you can't find that sort of thing in Ingary, which is one of my least favorite things about this world, let me tell you."

Most of the undergarments Howl had purchased for her were as frilly as the dresses, and contained considerably more lace, though far less material. "Howl!" Sophie protested. "These are- well, I'm not going out in public with this sort of thing under my skirt!"

"Then don't," Howl said, with a wolfish grin.

She hurled a pair of particularly revealing lime green pants at his head, which seemed not to bother Howl at all.

"Isn't there anything sensible in this lot?" Sophie said despairingly. Then, to her surprise, she unearthed some plain undergarments just like the kind she had worn yesterday. As she dug, she found that there was a full week's worth of them.

"Well," her husband admitted, sitting up, "you can't have fun all the time."

Examining the clothes in more detail, Sophie found that she had been perhaps a bit harsh on them. Almost all the colors that had been chosen were flattering to her complexion, and they weren't nearly as frilly from the front as they had seemed from the side. There were even a couple that Sophie thought she might have bought herself for special occasions.

"I suppose I've been very rude," she said, loath to admit it while looking Howl in the eye.

"What's this? Is Sophie apologizing?" He threw his hands in the air dramatically.

Sophie crawled over to her husband and shoved him, hard. "It's not that rare, you pompous peacock. But yes. I'm sorry I yelled at you. Some of those clothes are lovely, and you obviously put a lot of thought into buying them. But I won't be doing the cleaning in them!"

"Fair enough," he replied merrily, planting a kiss on her cheek. "And now, if you would be so kind as to model some of those new underthings I went to great trouble and expense to acquire…"

Sophie raised both eyebrows. "That," she said, "is still up for discussion."