Eva : Part 3

Choose Me
by Xenia Ruiz

(Page 3 of 6)

During my teenage years, I had fought anorexia when I wasn't even overweight, before it had become a popular women's problem, before I knew it was a disease with a scientific name. Then years later, when I did gain weight, I went on yo-yo diets, losing and gaining the same thirty pounds over and over. The only good thing that came out of my last relationship with a man was that he helped me lose the weight that had been dogging me, and I had succeeded in keeping it off after the breakup. Still, I carried a sore spot for overweight people and took it personally if I saw or heard anyone criticizing them. Inside, I was still like them.

"I mean . . . I just don't think it's normal for an attractive, healthy woman to deny her sexuality," he continued, not really apologizing at all. "Unless she has some leftover issues from her childhood."

Jerk! I wanted to yell. I got up, ready to go, and then I heard Simone go too far. "Well, Eva's celibate."

I shook my head in disbelief even though she had done this to me many times before, when we partied long ago before I got saved, but back then we were usually drinking and I was able to laugh it off. I dropped the book on the table and spun around and walked away. She called me but this time, I didn't look back.

Being celibate has its advantages. First of all, I had cleansed my body of what I considered to be unclean, germ-carrying men - the men I had slept with in my past without using latex protection, men who had been with countless other anonymous women. Even before the AIDS hysteria, before I found a reliable birth control method that gave me a false sense of protection - from pregnancy but not from STDs - I thought celibacy made sense. Second, celibacy gave me control over my body, which in turn, gave me power over my emotions and my life. I was free from the drama that came with sex. I didn't miss the games, waiting for calls that never came, and the taking for granted that happened once a woman gave herself to a man. But most important of all, being celibate had spiritual advantages. The knowledge that being intimate with a man outside of marriage was wrong went back to my religious upbringing and was reinforced by my mother's warnings. To know that I was pure once again in God's eyes was the biggest reward of all.

So I was proud to be celibate and even wore the T-shirt - "Celebrate Celibacy!" - which Simone had specially made for me on my first anniversary. As one of the leaders of my church's youth ministry, I counseled preteens and teenagers to lead lives of abstinence. I felt blessed when Maya would tell me of her never-ending drama with Alex, her husband, or when I saw how depressed Simone became after men dropped her once they realized they were being used. So why was I so angry with her?

"You were the one who said you wanted to have stimulating conversations with educated men, with similar tastes. Were we not in a bookstore? Is that not where educated men go? I was just trying to help a sister out. I love you, you know I love you, but I hate to see you denying yourself what is fundamentally a human right. A basic human right that should be covered in the Constitution. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and getting your groove on. I mean, why does it have to mean anything? Why can't you just have sex and stop attaching so much baggage to it?"

I had forgotten Simone was in the car. When she followed me out of the bookstore, I refused to talk to her, and realizing she had crossed the line this time, she sat in the backseat instead of next to me in the front. She knew my anger was the one thing over which I hadn't gained control. Because of my unpredictable temper and because Simone and Maya thought I hated men, they called me "Evileen." Most of the time, it didn't bother me because I knew I didn't hate men, I just didn't have much patience for the majority of them. However, the nickname still stung when I wasn't in the mood.

"Are you going to stay mad at me all day?" she asked when I didn't comment on her tirade.

We didn't speak for the next couple of miles, ignoring each other: me driving in contemplation, her thumbing through her latest movie script. She was currently starring in an independent film about a woman who couldn't decide between the two men in her life, a role that was written for her by one of her two lovers, an amateur screenwriter-producer-director eight years her junior. The other man, an older man, was the owner of the salon where she worked, her day job.

At the next light, I braked extra hard, jerking her forward.

"That was totally unnecessary. And childish," she said.

"Put your stupid seat belt on," I told her.

A car pulled up next to us at the light and I looked over casually at a late-model Mercedes, then at the brother with a bald head, wearing a business suit and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to a Ramsey Lewis tune on his radio.

"Unfortunately, Don was involved with someone," Simone continued.

The brother bopped his head over in our direction and nodded in acknowledgment. Still upset, I ignored him.

"Hello," I heard Simone call from the backseat.

"Hello," he answered, smiling over his shoulder at Simone. "Why are you in the backseat?"

"My friend likes to pretend she's my chauffeur."

The light changed and I hit the accelerator, jerking her back.

Copyright © 2005 by Xenia Ruiz

About the Author

A graduate of Northwestern University, Xenia Ruiz received First Prize in the university's Iota Sigma Epsilon Fiction Contest for her short story, "Pops." She currently lives in Chicago with her son and daughter.