Literacy is no substitute for foreplay
from the Autumn 2008 issue

I love women. I love the way hair flows in breeze. I love the way scent lingers on neck. I love the way skirts fall across backside. I love the way blouses separate to reveal plump and pendulous breasts. I love whispering sweet words as I nibble on long necks.

One thing I do not love, however, is when ladies tell me of books they read. As connoisseur of beautiful ladies, I am often with university students who wish to discuss “amazing” literature they read. The number of titles I hear when caressing ladies—Like Water for Chocolate, Unbearable Lightness of Being, Madame Bovary—I am unable to count. If I received cash payments for listening to such titles, I would be very rich man. As I do not, however, I dislike such discussions; they serve only to block kisses.

Because I am foreign, ladies often assume I have great love for literature. “Unlike American men,” they often begin, I surely understand subtleties of Little Birds. I nod sensually during such talk, hoping that minds will soon be diverted from books and back to groin.

Is mistake to think that I understand literature. As victim of Soviet education system, I was apprenticed to work in shoe factory at age twelve. With collapse of Soviet Union I was forced to make my way on street. The closest I have got to literature was when I worked as janitor at University of Kiev.

As I discovered that good looks and sexy accent could be lucrative to my time with ladies, I learned foreign ladies often talk of books. I learned to fake love for literature, but this was annoyance, forcing me to spend small fortune in Cliffs Notes for Lady Chatterley’s Lover before my rendezvous with sexy ladies.

Take current lady, for example. She is student at American university majoring in English Literature, spending year in Rome. Aside from foolishness of learning Italian from Ukrainian boy toy, why study English Literature in Italy, country with no English Literature? But, eh, girl has nice legs. And generous father. So I stick around.

Girl is always asking me about opinion of books she read. She think I go out and buy Infinite Jest. Book has 1079 pages. That’s at least 1079 minutes I could be spending with sexy ladies. Plus, is very hard it is to get Ukrainian translation of American book in Italian city. Waste of time.

And so, in the final analysis, ladies should reconsider interest in literature. Leave literature to class time. When you’re with me, is sexy time.

Anatoly Soldak divides his time between New York City and Rome, Italy.

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