I had lunch with a friend recently and as we caught up, she noted that she had returned to the gym. “My thighs are rubbing together,” she said. “It was time to do something.”
I had a good laugh as I asked, “Aren’t your thighs supposed to rub together?”
Because my thighs have been rubbing together since the day I was born. All my chunky baby folds couldn’t help but rub! As I thought about it, I don’t think there was ever a time in my many odd years that my thighs didn’t touch!
I haven’t worn shorts, or a skirt or dress in over ten years. Not even a skirt or dress to church and to hear my mother tell it, me wearing pants to Sunday service at her conservative black Baptist church is close to being sacrilegious. And not that I don’t want to wear a skirt or shorts, but I’m just more comfortable covering up my brand of chunky in a pair of pants. It’s a choice and I appreciate being able to make it as the moment moves me.
I’m a writer and I write about women of all sizes and shapes. Women who are confident in their skin. No nonsense women who are tough as nails and brimming with attitude. One of my last heroines, a voluptuous woman named Rebecca Marks, from my book To Tempt A Stallion, is a full-figured beauty who has no issues with anything short and tight. Her confidence assuaged every ounce of my own insecurity about my body, and I admit to having one or two issues, the least of which are my thighs.
Rebecca steals each scene in the book because of her confidence. She has no issue strutting into a room in stiletto heels and a mini skirt. In the bedroom, she is a lingerie fantasy come true. Rebecca has no qualms about greeting her man in nothing but her beautiful brown skin and a trench coat. It was romantic and cute.
I tried that once. Determined to throw some spice into a failing marriage I thought I’d surprise the now ex-husband by picking him up at work in nothing but a trench coat. It was during a Connecticut winter. Slipping and sliding across the roads we landed in a snow bank. Three hours later, two state troopers and a tow truck finally got us home. Two children were running amuck as we walked in the door, the older brother in charge not having bothered to send them to bed. I had ice formations in every crease and crevice of my body and the ex-hubby had attitude, swearing that one of the troopers and the tow truck driver got a peek at my goodies when a gust of wind blew up that trench coat. Two days later I was bedridden, battling a nasty bronchial infection and a touch of pneumonia. There was nothing romantic or cute about my trench coat experience.
Rebecca is Big Girl Magic! She can cuss like a sailor, handle her business better than any man, fight a good fight when necessary and celebrates her successes with cognac and a cigar. She is tough as nails and she isn’t a size two. But I’ve also written female characters who were a size two and they were just as bad ass, equally as confident, and whole-heartedly just as amazing.
The beauty of writing multicultural romance is that I can write about women who are fearless and undaunted by the expectations of others and opinions that say they aren’t good enough. Women of color who defy the societal stereotypes that proclaim them angry, loud, and unworthy. Women who are movers and shakers and leaving indelible marks on the world. Incredible women who simply want to be loved and appreciated and who are treated like the true queens they are. They find love with heroes who are delicious, decadent drinks of all things good. It’s love in every shade of beauty imaginable! My heroines are bad ass women who might ponder the ramifications of their thighs rubbing together and still be well with the world.
