She said

She was having a picnic with her high-school boyfriend. They got into an argument, and he put his hands around her throat and choked her, cutting off her air. Just for a moment. Just to show her that he could.

She was molested by her father, and told no one for 50 years.

She was raped by her high-school boyfriend, while his parents weren’t at home.

Somehow, he caught a live mouse in the kitchen and chased her with it, backed her into a corner. He held it by the tail, dangled the scrabbling creature over her hair, her face. “Take off your clothes!” he laughed.

Her father molested two neighborhood girls. Two that came forward, two that she knew of.

She was 17, but her boyfriend was older and had his own apartment. He invited her over and plied her with beer after beer in rapid succession. Lucky for her, she progressed through “suggestible” right into “puking,” and he took her home.

She was backpacking through Europe with a female friend when the men cornered them both in a narrow stairwell. “Lesbiana! Sono lesbiana!” both women tried, in what they hoped was the local tongue. The men laughed, crowding closer.

She was groped by a shopping-mall Santa while someone snapped their picture.

He was sloppy drunk, belligerent drunk, boxer-shorts-in-public drunk. When she called him on it, he pulled back his fist for a big haymaker swing. Lucky for her, he was so drunk he fell over instead. He didn’t remember this the next day, and she never mentioned it.

If he sabotaged the condom, if he could trick her into pregnancy, she couldn’t very well leave him, could she?

He blocked the door. She could leave when he was done screaming at her and not a moment sooner.

Only one of these women is me.