[Audio edition at the end]
He told me from the first that I was his dream woman, but I didn’t sense the full shape of that for decades, long after I’d stopped speaking to him, even guiltily, once or twice a year. I was young, black and beautiful. Desperately vulnerable and inexperienced, at a crossroads with half a dozen signposts and all of them broken or turned on me like accusing fingers. It felt like everyone who was supposed to help me had abandoned the job for better prospects.