Intimacies

by Katie Kitamura

But a narrative becomes persuasive not through complexity but conviction,

She wrapped her arm around my shoulder, a gesture that was surely affectionate, but which came across as bizarre and out of character, she was not usually physically demonstrative.

And yet our behavior did not seem especially strange, people behave with such conscious and unconscious dishonesty all the time.

is both more resilient and more fragile than one expects,

it was simply another one of those buildings that exist in the landscape in which you live, of which you never take real notice and whose purpose you never know.

charisma was not inherent but had to be constantly reinforced.

My job is to make the space between languages as small as possible.

And I realized that for him I was pure instrument, someone without will or judgment, a consciousness-free zone into which he could escape, the only company he could now bear—that, that was the reason why he had requested my presence, that was the reason I was there. I

This was not a painting of temptation, but rather one of harassment and intimidation, a scene that could be taking place right now in nearly anyplace in the world. The painting operated around a schism, it represented two irreconcilable subjective positions: the man, who believed the scene to be one of ardor and seduction, and the woman, who had been plunged into a state of fear and humiliation.

The trial by its nature demands more from the victims than it does from the accused, the judge said, which is in and of itself another injustice, and for which I can only express my profound regret.