They spread my legs. Obscenely, indecently — and that humiliation torments me more than anything else. It’s silly, I know. With everything that’s happened, this shouldn’t be what preoccupies me. Yet I can’t shake it off. You can’t, when you’ve never been stripped of your dignity quite like that before. And I’ve always been shy — painfully so — probably because of how I was raised.

My parents never let a hair fall from my head. They shielded me even when I didn’t need protecting, even when I was at fault and deserved a scolding. They treated me like something fragile and precious, while I played at being rebellious. Maybe deep down I was trying to free myself from their watchful care. Then they left to work in Spain, and I stayed behind — alone in the small studio apartment they’d bought with the money from selling a few inherited fields.

Everything was going just fine. I passed my exams easily, my parents sent money regularly, and I didn’t need to work. All I had to do was finish university and learn Spanish well enough to adapt when I moved there. They had even planned a job for me — a manager in their office-cleaning company. I had no plans of my own. I’d let them decide everything, and had even stopped pretending to resist.

And then they spread my legs — and there was no one left to protect me, to console me, or to give me hope. I never imagined something like that could happen to me of all people. I felt degraded, ashamed to the bone. I was sure everyone was laughing behind my back. And that shame hurt more than the physical pain.

I supposed they had their reasons for doing it, but I often thought they might have shown a little mercy. They didn’t seem to grasp how humiliating it was. They looked at me as if I were an object. Perhaps their work had hardened them that way.

It happened in seconds. I ran across the street — the red light caught me halfway through. A car started abruptly and clipped me with its fender. Before I could get up — and I could have, I wasn’t badly hurt — a truck’s wheel rolled over my thighs. The driver didn’t see me, or couldn’t stop in time.

When I woke up, my legs were spread wide apart. The doctors told me both femurs were fractured but not displaced — I’d be fine with “conservative treatment.” Which turned out to mean a monstrous plaster cast stretching from my ankles to above my navel, holding my legs at a perfect right angle. Naturally, the body’s orifices were left uncovered, so I could be… taken care of, as they put it.

The anesthesia had already worn off during the plastering, so I saw everything. And afterward, no one bothered to cover me. When they carried me out on the stretcher, everyone in the corridor saw what no one had ever seen. I’d never had a serious boyfriend, never been with anyone. I tried to cover myself with my hand, but of course I couldn’t keep it there forever. No one laughed — some even looked away in discomfort — but I felt naked before the entire world. And when I did cover myself, I felt even worse, as if I were touching myself deliberately, indecently.

At last a nurse noticed and threw an old towel over me.

That towel became my faithful friend. They removed it only when they had to… attend to me. My doctor sometimes lifted it too, to inspect something — I never knew quite what. Otherwise, I felt more or less fine. It didn’t hurt much. What tormented me most was being trapped like that, forever spread apart. My legs were fixed at an angle to my body, and when I lay down — which was most of the time — they stuck upward on their strange metal supports, in a posture that seemed obscenely suggestive. As if I were the neighborhood slut, begging to be taken.

Thank goodness for my friend the towel, who helped me feel at least somewhat human.

One day, while flexing my feet to keep the muscles toned — as the doctor had advised — a classmate from university appeared at the door. We’d had coffee together a few times between lectures, nothing more. I barely knew where he was from. He stood there, pale as a sheet, staring. I stopped moving, checked that the towel was still in place, and bit my lip. I had never felt so helplessly exposed. He held flowers and chocolates and asked if he might come in. I said I didn’t mind.

He asked about my injuries, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. I hadn’t invited him to sit, so he just stood there. His gaze flickered toward the towel, then darted away toward the window — and I found that oddly funny. It pleased me, somehow, that I could make him nervous. For some reason, I suddenly felt less humiliated, and even allowed myself to smile. I wondered how he’d heard about the accident.

When was leaving, he shyly asked if he could visit again. I told him to do whatever he liked, only not to bring flowers — I’m allergic.

By his third visit, he dared to take my hand without asking. By the fifth, he playfully brushed his fingers over my toes and said it was lucky they hadn’t cast my feet — they were “so tiny, so lovely to look at.” He said he could watch them for hours without getting bored. I believed him. His eyes told the truth.

By then I enjoyed his company — any topic, any talk. In his presence, I felt somehow naturally, unselfconsciously spread out. The towel had become less of a loyal friend and more of an old acquaintance.

On his tenth visit, he said he longed to hug me, but was afraid he’d hurt me. I told him I wasn’t that fragile, that I could endure a hug or two — if it was gentle.

And by the thirteenth, I realized I didn’t mind being spread out in front of him.
Only him.
No one else.