She's never asked you to feel sorry for her. In fact she tells you it wasn't heartache. An aching heart is one thing, but a heart that's been cut is something else. And her heart was slashed. It was a dull knife, and it took a long time to cut her. But she was cut. She has more scars than skin, but she doesn't want pity. In fact she might turn violent. She can cut, too. She holds on to her trauma like a handle. Because it's hers. It's what she has. And without ever admitting it, she likes it. She has sweet feelings about the terrible things that happened to her. They are unmentionable. Yes. They are inhuman. But they belong to her. She has lived with them for so long. Somebody sensible might say, “let's strip them from you. Let's take them. They are things that you should not covet.” But she says no. She says they are the things she fingers when she’s alone in the dark under the covers “with my hands where they shouldn't be. I think about the things that were done to me that were mine. They are the things that I know. And they happen so often that how am I supposed to let them go? How am I supposed reject the pleasure when for so long that's all that I was offered? I was given no pleasure. This was the definition that he gave me. And now you ask me to use the dictionary because what I think is pleasure is not? Well I have one thing to tell you,” she says. “My pleasure is mine. And no one has to know about it. I will let myself have it. Even though it means that I have to sit in the tub with my attacker. I will not correct myself. I will let the word stay turned upside down. How can I ever understand? How can I ever understand what has happened to me? No one can. He defined pleasure for me, and I will not correct that sick son-of-a-bitch.” She paused and her eyes turned so small. “It’s all I have left of him.”