 What is the nature of the narrator's relationship with his wife?
Volpla By WYMAN GUIN Illustrated by [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always maintained, was a cosmic one—till I learned the Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor! I heard my daughter's running feet in the animal rooms and her rollerskates banging at her side. I unlocked the door, held it against her pushing and slipped out so that, for all her peering, she could see nothing. Volplas at last. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, twelve. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had given me the idea of a flying mutant. "Tell your mother that I retaliate. Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. My wife tried the door, too, but more subtly, as if casually touching the knob while calling. I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up the ketchup and said, "I've reached the dangerous age." I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, the dangerous age. I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other direction. My wife brought me a bowl of salad and I munched the hamburger and watched the boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture. "You look as though a little water might help," she agreed, sitting down next to me with her plate. "Say, what goes with you? I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, but I've always...." Outside this little town, I found a litter of flat stones that had young black-snakes under each slab.
 They are an affectionate couple who respect each other.
 They have a happy marriage but the narrator is interested in the maid.  They have been together for a long time and the narrator is reaching a dangerous age.  They are an affectionate couple who respect each other.  They stayed together for their children and pretend to like each other.