Waiting to Exhale Read Free Page B

myself. What would be nice is to know you're with one who's looking out for your best interests, one who makes you feel special, safe, and secure. And one who excites you. I'm tired of being the thriller, always trying to prove myself. Shit, I want to be the thrills for a change. I want a man to go out of his way for me. It would also be nice to meet one who understands that it takes more than a stiff dick to keep a woman happy. But most of the ones I've met don't have a clue.
    What I want to know is this. How do you tell a man-in a nice way-that he makes you sick? Cecil was so vulgar when he drank that I had to drive his ass home after we went out. Which was all of three times. He still doesn't understand why I didn't want to see him anymore. Bill just irritated the hell out of me. I think he got a real charge bringing everything he thought I did wrong to my attention. He corrected me whenever I mispronounced a word and told me that I watered my plants too much. He wouldn't eat my jelly because some dots of butter were in it. And he insisted on showing me how to get more dishes in the dishwasher. He was always right, and everything had to be done his way. He made me want to throw up. And what if a man's a drag in bed? This list is too long to name names, but of course all black'men think they can fuck because they all have at least ten-inch dicks. I wish I could tell some of them that they should start by checking the dictionary under F for "foreplay," G for "gentle," and Tfor "tender" or "take your time." I've wanted to tell some of them that acrobatics and banging the hell out of me is not the same as making love. I've had enough bladder infections to last the rest of my life. And boring? John and Elliot were beyond dull. All they ever talked about were their jobs and sports. At first I thought this shit was masculine, but they lived and breathed for ESPN. Both of them had satellites, which is why neither one of them lasted longer than a baseball season. And what about Sam and Arthur and a few others, who were "recreational" drug users but couldn't do anything unless they did a few lines or smoked a joint first? I made the mistake of telling them that right after college cocaine became my drug of choice but I stopped doing that shit years and years ago. Now that we're all damn near middle age, I don't want to be around anybody who's still into drugs. And I'm not interested in rehabilitating anybody, either. I've tried it, and it doesn't work. And Darrell. The wimp. He was scared of damn near everything: spiders, snakes, mice, heights, and he wouldn't drive at night and couldn't fix shit. And then there're the rest, the ones who wanted to own me after I slept with them two or three times, or the ones who were just too stiff and IBMish, or so married to their jobs that they hardly had any time left for themselves, let alone me.
    I have tried being honest, telling them as diplomatically as I pos- sibiy could that they just weren't right for me, that they shouldn't take it personally because there was somebody out there for everybody. Which is how I became "the bitch." They couldn't stand the thought of being rejected, that I didn't want them, so of course something had to be wrong with me. I know I'm not perfect, but I've spent tons of energy trying to be. I wanted to tell all of them to come back and see me after they grew up or got some serious counseling. Unfortunately, most men are deaf. They hate advice. Especially if it's from a woman. They get defensive as hell if you so much as suggest that there's a few things they might try doing that would truly please you. "Fuck you" is what they ended up saying to me, because they didn't want to be told what I liked or needed; they preferred to guess. Well, I'm here to tell you that at least seventy-five percent of the ones I've met were terrible guessers.
    All I've had in the three years I've been in Denver are dates from hell in one form or another. I'm sick of dating. All