Free Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello Page B

that.

    On the cruise the Intelligent Woman wanders the ship library and complains that the novels are too mainstream, and then finds one she can tolerate and reads.
    The Beautiful Woman does not read. Somehow she made straight A’s through high school and college, a feat that required copious amounts of reading. But now that there is nothing she is required to memorize for a test she does not read anymore, and she never will, but you already knew that.

    When the Aggressive Woman’s Ft. Lauderdale Fling told the Beautiful Woman he had fallen in love with her (in the span of three days), the Beautiful Woman let him kiss her even though he was short and stocky and a Guido who spoke with a New Jersey accent she would recall a decade later when watching The Sopranos on HBO. Nobody could fathom why a Beautiful Woman with a Boyfriend who sent roses every day would possibly kiss such a little toad, especially when her Best Friend the Aggressive Woman was so smitten with him, being as she preferred Guidos, for reasons of her own.
    The Intelligent Woman and her Friends think, in retrospect, that they understand the Beautiful Woman’s motives now. But probably they are wrong. Probably they still don’t.

    On the cruise, the Intelligent Man and the Macho Man play another round of chess. They speak about their Careers, though their work is not similar and they do not understand what the other does.
    The Intelligent Man is an almost-renowned Scientist. The Macho Man is Regional Manager for a Best Buy and has a Company Car. But he is a good sport about losing at chess. And, being a Manager, he is a good listener, or good at pretending he is.
    The Intelligent Woman failed both physics and trigonometry in high school because she was busy reading Anaïs Nin and scribbling secret poetry that did not turn out to be Any Good. She does not play chess. When her Husband discusses work too often, she cites his Presbyterian upbringing as though this is self-explanatory and necessarily a flaw.

    Whenever the Beautiful Woman takes off her shirt at home, her Husband shouts, Boobies! No matter what else he is doing.

    The Beautiful Woman grew up in the suburbs.
    Duh!

    The suburb in question is in Minnesota, and mostly Anglo-blond. The Beautiful Woman is Jewish and olive-skinned. In high school, she was not considered a Beautiful Woman. She was considered a Stingy Jew. Or a Puerto Rican, because she was so dark. That is what Boyfriend Number One was: Puerto Rican. When they were together, Minnesotans said, Look at the two Wetbacks. The Beautiful Woman loved Boyfriend Number One so fiercely, she wept every time they made love and kept his photo in her bathroom no matter how hysterical it drove her mother. He was the only one who understood.
    When she got to college, she dumped him immediately for the first persistent Jew.

    The Beautiful Woman told the Aggressive Woman that the kiss didn’t mean anything; she was only being polite. She said the Ft. Lauderdale Fling was ugly and the Aggressive Woman could have him, although of course he didn’t want her. The Aggressive Woman said, Your beak-nosed Boyfriend is ugly, too! The Beautiful Woman said, Well I don’t see anybody sending you roses, so you really have no right to judge.
    The Intelligent Woman thought all the men in question were so undesirable it was literally amazing, but she didn’t open her mouth because not only was she receiving no roses, she didn’t even have a Fling to lose to another woman to begin with. So she kept quiet and flicked ants off the bed in their cheap room.

    The Beautiful Woman daydreams about a man who looks deep into her eyes and says her name tenderly while making love. She likes kisses that are not too wet and sloppy. Whenever a man tells her she is pretty, she melts.
    The Intelligent Woman has recurrent nightmares of damp, flabby sex with her mother.
    Both of the Husbands, asleep and awake, dream about head.

    On the cruise, which