“It's simple!' I respond, at the edge of my sobriety. "You just have to read and write! That's how I do it! That's how anyone does it! But you also have to be sincere. That matters more than anything!' Even at my loudest, my voice remains hard to hear. He leans in. He wants to be seated close to me. Not for any reason other than to absorb all that I have to say. I begin to understand that it is my mind he wants, not my body. But that feels a little like being heard and not seen, and one still finds in the end that the entirety of their needs must be negotiated. I suppose for a woman there is always that arduous choice: whether to be loved or to be respected.”