desireearmfeldt

Stella doesn’t have anything against men.  Not in the abstract; not in the aggregate.  Sure, two-thirds of them are assholes, but she tries very hard not to take that out on the hapless other third.  Most days.

(Ex-husbands, apparently, require a special exemption clause.)

When it comes to sex, she is certainly very much in favor of men.  Not that she has anything against the idea of women having sex with each other, intellectually, but her body knows what it wants, and apparently that’s big hands and muscular chests and strong sweat and maybe half a day’s worth of beard.

And it’s not that she has any desire to be a man.  It’s true she’s spent her entire professional life in what is still a man’s world, where she has to devote half her energy to being so tough, controlled, and competent that no one can ever have an excuse to dismiss her for being a girl.  It’s true they do it anyway, and sometimes it makes her spitting mad, and sometimes it just wears her out.  But Stella doesn’t need her life to be easier.  She likes the challenge; she likes the fight.  She likes the fact that she wins the fight more often than not, and she likes to think that she’s making a difference for the women who come after her.

Her ex-husband once told her, “Inside your head, you’re six feet and two hundred pounds and can drive rivets with your fists.”  He meant it as a compliment, but it isn’t literally true.  Inside her head, Stella is blonde and petite and pretty and can stop a 200-pound linebacker in his tracks with a stern glare.  That’s who she is, and who she wants to be.

It’s just that sometimes, she wonders what it would be like to kiss someone without having to look up.