The father who once sat you down on his knees and caressed your long teen-aged braid. You were brave enough to look into his eyes and caught sight of a gleam of hunger or a veiled perturbation that made him close to you and fearful and desirable.

Men. The priest breathing heavily behind the bars of the confessional.

“I am guilty of having sinned against purity.”

“In thought? In word? In deed? With yourself? With an accomplice? Have you done it again? How many times?”

When the temptation seizes you, commend yourself to the Most Holy Virgin, invoking her in any of her guises. Repent in your heart, carry out the penitence. Go in peace.

Men. When you and your cousin are hiding in the attic, you feel his hot breath on the back of your neck. His hands are searching for something and neither you nor he knows where it is nor how it is hidden, how it can be found. In the distance you can hear the sounds of the household, blotted out by the beating of your hearts.

Suddenly, doors are flung open as if to startle a guilty act and the governess is there clapping her hands energetically.

“Come out of there! Aren’t you ashamed? You’re not little Indian brats to be entertaining yourselves like that.”

Men. The classmate who asks, while the teacher is intent on explaining a math problem, if you’ve seen your brothers naked when they’re taking a bath. No, you haven’t seen them, you don’t want to see them. But after that you can’t stay away from the keyholes, the chinks in the walls, and you don’t find out anything but you feel dirty inside. And sad.

Men. The family friend makes a nervous joke about how your bodice is beginning to fill out. The maids rummage through the sheets, the underwear. Until one day the cry goes up. Blood. Wherever you go, a trickle follows you and gives you away: ailing female. No, you’re not going to die. You’re only going to stay in bed for a while, without drinking any thing acidic, making sudden movements or bathing. You don’t know why. But the others do. And they smile.

Men. During the serenades they look at you insistently, deliberately. During the fairs they send you flowers and gifts. During the kermesses they shower you with confetti. During the dances they take you by the waist and spin you around until you’re dizzy.

“Stand back, enemy! The heart of Jesus is with me!”

But how are you going to recognize the enemy’s face in the dark corners, the lonely places? There they undermine your maidenhood, chipping away at the “no” that defended it.

You take off your clothes in front of the mirror and gaze at yourself with the fascination of someone leaning over an abyss, with the stubbornness of someone questioning a sphinx.