Sample Chapter:
FIGHTING TO KEEP MY UNDERWEAR ON

This week I got lucky: Three women. I felt like this was some kind of reward from the Almighty for all of my years playing by his rules. Finally, Heaven’s Little Black Book was opened and my name was called and God was going to give me my choice of mates. As the fortieth anniversary of my existence on this big ball of mud loomed on the horizon, I felt ready. Each of the women I was going to meet and possibly unite with in the bonds of holy matrimony was everything I looked for in a wife: gorgeous as a cover model, with the brain of a rocket scientist and the personality of a UN goodwill ambassador. But life had a way of mocking me, as I was to learn one more time.

“What has gotten into you?” Rie asked. “All of a sudden you’re meeting all of these women.” Her big eyes bulged as their socket struggled to contain them and her thick red lips remained parted when I told her about my imminent amorous adventures. Rie is probably the best female friend I have if I took the time to analyze it. But I had stopped doing that a long time now. At my age I was cynical and things like ‘best friends’ were just convenient labels – quickly removed and re-applied to someone else as the earth continued to spin on its axis, and with it, spinning people across my path some for a longer season than others.

But Rie is a sweetheart. Everybody says so and I happen to agree with them. She is easy to talk with, an attentive listener, loves a wild prank and she is good at keeping secrets. Plus she likes me. Her parents like me. Her father thinks that I am the finest, breathing young man ever since he gave up the title more than thirty years ago. Her mother thinks I am a saint in the making – a reputation that Rie is trying to tarnish with her pranks. Like the time she said, “Mommy, Clay is doing a documentary on alternative sexual practices in this country but he doesn’t want you to see it.” I would not want my own mother to see it. How can any adult talk to his parents about sex? No one would dare to imagine some wrinkled old bastard wiggling on top of his mother far less her moaning and gasping like a schoolgirl on an afternoon romp with her boyfriend. But Rie is happily married with two teenage children. Her husband is quiet and it matters little if he likes me or not. He is in his element at his public servant job buried in a dark hole on the ground floor in a government building. We are civil with each other; he trusts me with his wife and children. Rie is my true friend.

“But it’s not like I’m doing anything with them,” I said in my defense. “We’re just going out.” And it was true. Dinner was going to be my only meal; no leisurely walks or nightcaps. I did not plan for anything serious to happen.

I guess that now is a good time for me to explain what I mean when I said I got lucky. Well, I’m a single man and I think it is high time I started to nail my future down. I don’t really meet many women and the way I see it is that if there is a lonely soul who wants the benefit of my company for a few hours, I say why the hell not? It might lead to better things. I do want to see my grandchildren from this side of heaven and I figure it is about time I started putting some seed into the ground if I want to see some fruit.
“Still,” Rie protested, “that does not sound like you, Clay.”

I guess it was this big sister kind of feeling Rie had towards me. She was only two years older than me but had decades more experience. She did not want to see me do anything she considered foolish. She never got over the fact that I was chatting on the internet with a woman from Egypt and she had threatened to do the same with a man. How would I feel about that? she had asked. Then she proceeded to relate some story about a German man who was arrested for meeting a thirteen year old Italian girl with whom he had been chatting with on the internet. They had agreed to rendezvous in France. The man had claimed that she was not thirteen when he chatted with her. “And what if it was not really a woman?” Rie had asked about my online friend. The thought had never entered my mind. My dear, sweet, Egyptian princess certainly did not write to me like any man. She was tender and caring and I loved her broken English. No way. There was a greater chance of the stars going out than of my Egyptian princess being an Egyptian prince. Or was I too glad for the attention to even notice?
“I’ll tell you all about the date, Rie. I will be fine.” I concluded.
She shook her head. “I will hear about you. Good luck,” she said without meaning it.

I do not think that I’m the kind of man who turns heads when I walk into a room. I’m not bad looking, just average. I have chiseled features, but they do not all seem to fit right: my eyes are too big and round for the button of a nose that I have, my lips are uncharacteristically thin for a black man. My complexion is dark brown which more than makes up for my rather small ears on a big head. I would say I inherited my father’s genes for a trim figure; unkind folks say I’m skinny, a good candidate for the World Health Organization famine relief efforts. But I’m tall – six two – and I am proud of that.

Taken all together, I would say that I am a good package, but when I stand in front of the mirror dissecting myself, I can understand why more heads do not turn in my direction.

I am at the point in my life where I will do anything to change that. I work out at the gym and I’m seeing some progress My biceps and triceps are beginning to bulge and my pectoral muscles are now decent enough to not cause me embarrassment when I take off my shirt at the beach. I have heard it said that most women like a man with a nice butt so I’m squatting two hundred pounds to help lift my posterior.

I’m dressing trendy too, a bit metro sexual but not too much lest I attract the wrong gender. I’m going to buy a new car instead of driving around in the dull grey sedan that is ten years old now. It serves me faithfully but somehow women only notice men driving new cars – sporty new cars. I’m even thinking of changing my hairstyle since it seems like the guys with dreadlocks are the ones getting all the girls. But my hair is thick and difficult to dry so dreadlocks would be a pain to maintain anyway. I think that for now, I will keep my hair short like an army recruit’s as has been my habit for all of my adult life. A short haircut will also keep the grays hidden; dyeing would just kill me.