french lieutenant’s whore

I gave myself to him. I did it so that I should never be the same again. So that I should be seen for the outcast I am!

I knew it was ordained that I should never marry an equal, so I married shame. It is my shame that has kept me alive. My knowing that I am truly not like other women. I shall never, like them, have children and a husband and the pleasures of a home.

Sometimes I pity them. I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame, can touch me. I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing. I am hardly human anymore. I am the French lieutenant’s whore!