Alicia Erian

“For dinner, we had thin-crust pizza at a place called Panjo's. Daddy said that it was his favourite and that he ate there a lot. He said the last time he'd been there, he'd come with a woman from work, on a date. He said he'd liked her quite a bit until she took out a cigarette. The he realised she was stupid. I thought she was stupid, too, not because she smoked, but because she'd gone on a date with Daddy.”

“It was just too tense, being with Daddy. He wanted everything done in a certain way that only he knew about. I was afraid to move half the time. One I spilled some juice on one of his foreign rugs, and he told me I would never find a husband.”

“I began to think that my body was the most special thing in the world. Better than other bodies, even. Not because of the way it looked, but because of all the things it could do. All the different buttons there were to push. I wanted to find out what every single one of them was. I wanted to feel as good as possible.”