Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“Lookin’ at naked asses bouncing to music ain’t no copin’ mechanism, and it ain’t no fantasy. It’s exploitation. It helps no-good mothafuckas cheat. Puts ideals in their head. If it was just dancin’ and you were fully clothed, that would be one thing. But you strip down. They see everything… from your roota to your toota.”
“Some men just enjoy being in the company of beautiful women, Mama. My body is only being looked at, not given away or even sold. I’m not a prostitute and besides, not everyone’s story is the same.”
“It’s all about lust, like I said, so the story is the same. Don’t matter that the book cover is different—the chapters all read identical, the pictures are carbon copies, and the ending is never a surprise. Music. Drinks. Drugs. Ass. Tits. Pussy. That’s it, that’s all.” She tapped her cigarette into the ashtray again. “Most of those bastards got ass at home. Why they need to see yours? Why don’t they shove some of that money into their own girlfriends’ or wives’ G-strings? I’m certain they’d appreciate it.”
“That’s where the fantasy comes in. Sometimes their wives don’t look at them the way I do. We don’t know them, so we can play up to how they wish to be perceived. Their wives and girlfriends don’t dance for them and make them feel like they’re the center of their worlds. Because they don’t want to, or they can’t.”
“…And they shouldn’t want to. I raised you, Nadia, to never love a man more than he loves you, and never love nobody more than you love yourself. It’s not selfish, it’s survival. It’s best not to love they asses at all, ’cause men don’t know how to love. They can’t even spell love.” Nadia closed the magazine and reached for another. “Their whole existence revolves around what a bitch can do for them. What she can cook for them. Clean up for them. Suck off for them. Indentured servitude. Slavery still exists. It’s the woman. We’re the slaves. First to a White slave master, then to our men. Take, take, take. Seldom give, except for plenty of grief. All these guys care about is money a woman brings to the table, and what orders she can obey.
“Shit, we built the damn table and set it, too! Our religion has been used against us. Your father became a preacher on account of him realizing he could manipulate people by saying it’s the word of God. The purposeful misinterpretations of the Bible is the worst thing to ever happen to humankind.” That pizza looks good. She flipped a page. “It’s been used to teach us to tear each other apart, to always go wit’ the man’s side against other women, and to fight each other for some dusty ol’ dick. We call our daughters fast, and blame them when grown ass men flirt with ’em, or worse. How we even know God a man, huh? Callin’ Him Father. If He created us, then he’s a woman. That’s what makes sense.”
“Why do you think that?” Nadia removed a glass lid from a matching candy bowl and popped a mint into her mouth, sucking loudly.
“Women give birth, not men! That’s why. How we gonna be somebody’s children, but never came from a womb? That’s patriarchy. A bunch of bull!”
“God isn’t human.”
“Right, so why should it be a He?! To control us. We don’t assign a gender at all, and if we just must, why not call God, Mama?! Mama brings life into this world. We’re the incubator. No seed can do anything without first being put into the soil, and given sunlight and rain. Semen has no life without us, and yet women create every time we open our damn eyes, and even in our sleep!” Mama’s words shook that entire room.
The woman was crazy. She was opinionated and harsh, at times downright rude, but one thing was certain: she was also smart and a thinker, whether Nadia disagreed with her or not. The way she put ideas together was thought provoking to say the least. That couldn’t be taken away.
“Nadia.” She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray and shook her head. “They been lyin’ to us since that ugly story of Adam and Eve. For all we know, Adam ate that damn apple, if there even was one, and we’ve been bamboozled.”
Nadia was used to her mother going off like this. Since she was a little girl, Mama had made it perfectly clear that she was at war with God. Religion. Bible folks. The woman had been raised in the church, and had been a devoted Christian up until she gave birth to her second child, Nelson. She loved God, and claimed to still love God, but now, she had questions. Some of Mama’s points, wild or not, couldn’t be easily rejected. They had merit, and deserved exploration. Nadia dismissed most of them, but held onto a few. Occasionally, Mama would say something that would make her pause. Give her food for thought. She also knew that this was how her mother dealt with her animosity towards men, or mankind in general.