Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello

of which became subjects of many fights.
    A Mutual College Friend who also lived in Texas (but had been born there so it was less her fault), wrote to the Intelligent Woman up East: I think that druggie is smacking her around. The Intelligent Woman was shocked. Here her friend, the Beautiful Woman whom all the Frat Boys had so pursued (the Blowjob Queen phenomenon temporarily skipped her mind), was letting herself be beaten by some Rollerblading, non-Jewish Texan! One evening when the hotline was slow, the Intelligent Woman drafted a six-page letter to the Beautiful Woman. It read, in part: You have always suffered from low self-esteem—look at how you let that ugly little Guido kiss you in Ft. Lauderdale even though you knew he was gross—but you have to get out of this relationship and learn to love yourself, because batterers never change and no woman deserves to be hit even if you have totally given over all your power to this loser. You are a Beautiful Woman; is that how you want your life to be? That night, the Intelligent Woman went home and made love with her Intelligent Non-Abusive Boyfriend and fantasized about being tied up (at this time, the Intelligent Man had not yet worked up the nerve to actually act out such things), and felt smug that she had done a good deed.
    In Texas, the Beautiful Woman read the letter and was embarrassed, not only because the Former Drug Dealer did in fact hit her on occasion but because she knew she did deserve it—she had once made such a scene at the bar that he’d had to have the bouncer remove her, all because she was convinced he was seeing another girl. He didn’t even know any other girls! All he did was Rollerblade and work in a gay bar! Once, too, she had ripped his shirt, just as she had done to the Boyfriend on Bascom Hill back in college, only the Former Drug Dealer struggled right out of his shirt and ran away from her, and she chased him down the street screaming, I blow other guys all the time! Even though it wasn’t true. The Beautiful Woman read the letter from the Intelligent Woman and thought how fortunate it must be to be so certain of one’s own opinions and ethics and what one will tolerate and not tolerate and exactly what to say and do to draw the line. But when she thought about the Intelligent Woman’s Intelligent Boyfriend, she knew she would never date him (though she might kiss him if he tried), because he was too nice and would want her to be her own person and do her own thing, and men like that made her tired, too tired to even contemplate, and not at all aroused.
    So for the second time in the friendship between the Intelligent Woman and the Beautiful Woman, a silence ensued. This one lasted for six months, after which the Former Drug Dealer did actually cheat on her with a woman (go figure), and the Beautiful Woman allowed herself to be stolen away by an Australian Conservative, and she and her swell Aussie met up with the Intelligent Woman and her new Intelligent Husband to see the Miró exhibition in Manhattan, which the Intelligent Woman thought was miraculous and the Beautiful Woman thought was fine, but really not all that.

    Speaking of battered women’s agencies (which tend to be staffed by Lesbians, do they not?), at the same time as the Beautiful Woman and the Intelligent Woman were writing or not writing to one another from the Southwest and the East respectively, back in the Midwest the Fat Counselor was trying diligently to date chicks. The sex was OK, maybe even a little better than with men; it was the romance that posed a problem. Like sometimes, she and her Partner would be dressed in their loose black slacks and eating by candlelight at a Vegetarian Restaurant, and she would feel strangely as though she were at a dress rehearsal and things were going well enough, but the audience had not yet arrived.
    Of course, the Fat Counselor had always been a little in love with the Intelligent Woman, but