“Hi Amber… Love your smile!!!
It’s radiant and it makes me smile just seeing it…
That’s a beautiful lens in your photo… 300 mm?
Sex, Drugs, Politics, and War.
Can you tell me a bit more about each of those?”
I toy with the idea of description before naming it simply.
“Why thank you. I do love to smile.
Indeed, it is a 300 mm. Aren’t you forward to comment on size 
Sex, Drugs, Politics, War…
Yes,
I can describe all four with the same word,
ART.”
and so it is that the dance begins to a certain end…
“Amber,
Ha! I could mention other sizes, but I will stick with lenses for now!
I find war to be sullied by art.
Art, in true fashion, can embody war, but I don’t summarily consider war art.
How do you figure?
I’d love to buy you a drink.
Dexter”
Innuendo is my favorite part of flirtation. It can go anywhere or nowhere at once…
“Dexter should know the beauty of his own splatter.
I am only interested in one size.
A drink would be lovely.
Shall we make plans?”
I wondered about safety, deciding that he didn’t need to be safe.
All men are serial killers…
If I am going to keep my daughter safe, it’s about time I start teaching her about men. I thought I had more time because she is still just a girl, but I don’t. She is all at once beautiful and the boys are already paying attention. She is eleven and yet she plays the game like a master. It was with quiet fascination that I let my fifth grader teach me the art of attraction.
The poor kid had it bad. I know because I steal her phone when she goes to school so I can snoop on the account that I am a closet drama whore and I remember how I felt around that age. I had mad crushes. I was the girl who wrote a boys last name on her peechee folder because we were going to get married someday. I would practice writing my name next to his to see if we sounded good together. It was a big f*cking deal too, as in, a make it or break it kind of thing. A man’s name is important. Amber Cuntfinger…. Ummm… yeah… no thank you. Crushes were made and let go by a name alone. My new name would need to be fabulous if I was expected to change my given, because the Gave’s are a motherf*cking tough breed. They don’t fancy pansies and they will tell it to you until you cry, because you cry. My dad is like a steak: lean and lank, mean and tender, at the same time. If I were to write the cuss of him, he would be pulled out into the street and flogged until he bleeds his own loathing. My father is the passion of the Christ by his conviction of beliefs and you can’t say the sh*t he says out loud or the world will hate you. I am afraid to even write it and so you get the “soft” version. My dad had one purpose in raising me.
“Don’t grow up to be a b*tch Amber.”
My brother should grow up to be a man, living the honor of the GAVE name to pass on by generation, and I should aspire not to sully it with my female perversion. I fear the verdict is still out on whether or not my father served his purpose. I could very well in fact be, a b*tch. Sure as sh*t, it could be my identity and from where I am sitting it doesn’t really look like there is anything wrong with it either. My own daughter, is in fact, a little b*tch. I can say this because I saw her torture him with my own eyes and I am telling you right now the girl derived pleasure from it. Like I said before the poor kid had it bad.
If you want to know how I feel about my daughter getting text messages from boys I will tell you that so far it amuses me because my kid is a shark, and not the kind that plays games either. She is the kind of shark that eats people, and her eyes twinkle when she does. Nom, Nom, Nom. She chews them up and giggles with delight. “Sapphire! Be nice to that poor boy. He clearly likes you. It’s ok if you don’t like him back. Just don’t be mean.” My protest came after scrolling through her messages, both smiling and shaking my head at the same time.
“Why can’t I be mean…” she said, instead of asking. She stated it like it could and would continue. “He can stop writing me anytime mom. I don’t care. I don’t care what he does. I don’t even care if he likes me.”
I was all at once proud because I had managed to raise an independent young lady, but I wondered about the validity of her front by lack of caring. Someday she would care and he might not. I could not deem her strength until she knew the compassion of weakness, the bittersweet longing of love had and lost by heartbreak. Sometimes harder still is pining. It is an abundant torture to long for something you have no hope of getting back or ever. If you are weak, which most of us are, you might find yourself wondering about what is missing inside yourself because if you were right how could he ever want to leave you? It took me years to recognize that sometimes the only wrong is preference, and sometimes the only misdeed is time.
When they told me that marriage was a lifetime
I had no idea that life was so long,
but then I had the energy to accomplish forever
back when I was nineteen.
I have only ever been in love twice. My first love took my virginity and my last took my heart as the love of my life. He was my seventeen year lifetime and I died at the end of it sure as I was born again as someone different. Divorce is like dying and living all over again. It’s like we were frozen into each other, developed to form like ideas, and now that we are separate I am needing to learn everything all over because the real world doesn’t work like we did. We were nice people, nice to each other and nice to everyone else. In the real world guys are freaked out by too much kindness, especially when it comes from a pretty girl. My friend Brad taught me that as he was scrolling through my messages, the on-line dating sort.
“Dude, What are you doing!” he scolded me as he browsed to critique. “You complimented that guy five times in the first few messages. You are way too fine to be acting like that.
“Pretty is as pretty does. I am a nice person Brad!” I folded my arms in protest, thinking of my friend Heidi, who gave me the same lecture only condensed. She advised me to keep it short, no messaging necessary, just meet. “You say way to f*cking much Amber. All they hear is blah, blah, done.” She is right too. Every time I say too much, too soon, it ends up to that equal: “Blah, Blah, Done.”
I was thinking of my daughter as I yelled at my friend Brad. “Why can’t I be nice to him Brad! NEWSFLASH! If I like a guy I plan to be nice to him. I am generally only rude when I feel the opposite of like.”
“I hate to tell you this Amber, but people are not that nice. Especially girls. You are all but throwing yourself at him, coming off way too strong,” he said still reading. “Guys should chase you.” Sapphire again came to mind and I knew that he was right. The poor boy that liked her endured six months of my daughter ignoring and insulting him. He not only came back, he begged. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze Sapphire. Please just give me one chance. I promise you that I will never hurt you. I promise Sapphire. Just one chance. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze.”
It was the begging that pulled at my heart strings willing her to be gentle, but she did not take pity. “What ever,” was as much attention as she ever gave him. To me she simply said, “Don’t worry about him mom. He likes it.”
He came back because he did.
