Rubyfruit Jungle

by Rita Mae Brown

‘I don’t care whether they like me or not. Everybody’s stupid, that’s what I think. I care if I like me, that’s what I truly care about.’

I wanted to go my own way. That’s all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in your brain. I’d rather be alone.

life she’s wrong. She’s got to have her own way. No one is telling me what to do. No one. Especially when they’re wrong.’

By looking at him, you couldn’t tell he was into grapefruit. He didn’t wear any fruit symbols around his neck or have embroidered seeds on his shirt.

Polina’s hair was blue-black with strands of perfect, electric gray and her eyes were a soft brown. Wrinkles played around those eyes and made her look both knowing and beautiful. I realized in a flash that men were total fools to put middle-aged women out to pasture for a smooth and boring strawberry face. I don’t know about love at first sight, but I decided right then and there to bridge the generation gap. Somehow, someway, someday I was going to love this married lady with the sixteen-year-old daughter and camelback trucks filled with remnants of archaic undies.

‘How dare you! How dare you—why I’m old enough to be your mother.’ ‘I’m old enough to know that doesn’t make any difference.

More out of loneliness than love I stayed with

She encouraged my bond with Alice. We were closer in age than Polina and I were, which wouldn’t have made a difference if Polina didn’t harp about her age constantly.

‘Oh Molly, why do you have to have morals?’ ‘Because I don’t have money.’

She loved being touched and she loved touching back. Kissing was an art form to her. She was there, all there with no hang-ups, no stories to tell, just herself. And I was just me.

Besides being biologically superior, that ole frog is more together than I am. That frog doesn’t want to make movies. That frog hasn’t even seen movies and furthermore that frog doesn’t give a big damn. It just swims, eats, makes love, and sings as it pleases. Whoever heard of a neurotic frog? Where do humans get off thinking they’re the pinnacle of evolution?