Then I brushed my hair a hundred times, as princesses do, my mother always says, with my vagina even now, as I write in the dead of night, still smelling of sex.

4 December 2001 12:45 P.M.

"Did you have fun last night?" my mother asked me this morning, drowning out the gurgle of the coffeepot with a yawn.

I shrugged and responded that I'd spent the night just like so many others.

"Your clothes had a strange smell," she said with her usual look of wanting to know everything, especially when it concerns me.

Frightened, I abruptly turned my back to her and bit my lip. I thought she might have picked up the scent of sperm.

"What kind of smell?" I asked, feigning composure, mindlessly observing the sun through the kitchen window.

"Smoke. It smelled like marijuana," she said with an expression of disgust.

Relieved, I turned around, smiled slightly, and said, "Well, people were smoking in the club last night. I couldn't possibly ask them to put it out."

She gave me a surly look and said, "If you come home stoned, you won't even be allowed to go to school."

"That's fine with me," I joked. "I'll see if I can find a reliable dealer. Thanks, you've given me a great excuse to cut those shitty classes."

As if the only thing that might be harmful is hashish. I'd smoke gram after gram if it could help me shake off this strange sensation of emptiness, of nothingness. It's as if I were suspended in the air, looking down in shock at what I did yesterday. No, that wasn't me. That was the girl who doesn't love herself, who allowed herself to be touched by greedy, unfamiliar hands, who became a receptacle for the sperm of five different guys, who so defiled her soul that she can't feel pain.