She felt the pressure of attention at her side after the subway doors closed and turned to see that the man who entered had visually claimed her. That happened with some men, who seemed to believe that if they liked the look of a woman, she was his to claim. She liked to learn other languages to connect, but thought this could be an opportunity to disconnect, to obstruct his pick-up game. She wrote Cyrillic characters furiously in her notebook because they were the most obviously foreign she could think of. When he sat pressing his thigh against hers, she spoke in Italian, “Non parlo Inglese.” But his communication was physical, and he had no regard for her words.