‘I don’t believe in it’, she said.

‘Strange, I thought you all did’.

She looked up at him now, studying him. This man of of average build. He had brown hair, and blue eyes. He was not unhandsome.

‘That’s quite the assumption’ she said, as she turned away from him. His eyes did not follow. Rather, he found a fixed point in the air and stared at it hard, thinking.

‘Where I come from, it is a requirement. There can be no reproduction without it’.

‘Don’t you have animals where you come from?

‘No’, he smiled. ‘Not as you would understand it’.

‘Cows, dogs, horses, they reproduce readily enough without love’.

‘Have you asked them? He inquired. She turned abruptly, stood up and began pacing the room. A woman with blue eyes, and blonde hair. She was beautiful by any standard.

‘Don’t be ridiculous’. She was smiling now.

‘You do realise who you’re talking to? He offered.

‘As my mother used to say, what’s that got to do with the price of eggs? Men and women have casual sex all the time. Not every child is conceived out of love, and don’t even get me started on birth control’

He stood up then but instead of appearing larger, he somehow became smaller, like he had shrunk inwards.

‘That makes me sad’, he declared mournfully.

‘For us life is too precious’, he explained. ‘The intention must be pure, and the conception, consummated by love’.

‘So now’, she stopped to face him, ‘I’m not only a prisoner, but I’m receiving a lecture on love from a fucking alien. What a day!