My name is Kim, and I'm writing to tell some of the stories that I participated in--and that my friends and non-friend participated in--in the South Florida city where we lived for about three years. We moved there so that my boyfriend, Joel, could open his used and rare record and book store, Vinyl & Pulp. I had gotten a job in the Housing office at the Liberal Arts college as a low-level administrator, overseeing the diversity and socializing programs in the school dorms. That mainly meant dealing with bitchy middle-aged women who ran the housing system and who had once been very pretty, and their teenage forerunners who lived in the dorms now and who set all records for pettiness and self-centeredness. Every day was a new meeting or email exchange in which I wanted to slap some sense into a pretty little princess who thought that it was appropriate to come into a college office with her full-on battle make-up on and her boobs hanging out.
At the same time, I have to admit that it was that part of the job that got me up in the morning. Life with Joel was wonderful in the sense that was always dutiful, and charming when he was supposed to be charming, and as good of a provider as you could expect from a man whose goal in life was to fawn over rare vinyls and signed copies of third-tier novels. He was the good boyfriend, and that was the beginning and end of his existence so far as that went. Now before I give the wrong impression, I have to say that I was in love with him and that he was *mine* in the sense that women like me use that term (the meaning of that will probably be more clear after I've told my stories). But he was boring to be around day after day, and night after night. We would go to dinner and a movie or just sit around at home, where I'd read a magazine while he played Xbox, and talk about work and our neighbors and their work and dinner-and-movie dates. I felt like the passion was being drained out of me as the shallow kisses and shampoo ads stacked up one atop the other.
Looking back in the light of what happened for me while we lived in that city, I had always felt that way while spending time with boyfriends and family, or on shopping trips where my girlfriends would prattle on and smile about everything. My social life in high school, college, and after had been like the show floor of a furniture store: Everything is set up to look just perfect, but after you've been there for a few minutes you start to understand what a lobotomy would feel like. I wanted something that would inject some life into me. I wanted to flip the furniture over, get thrown over a couch, and smash a lamp over someone's head. Metaphorically and literally. I had been in two fights in high school, but they were the typical hair-pulling and shouting matches at parties, chick-fests where there wasn't any real chance that anyone would suffer and the guys were cheering us on.
My entry into the world of catfighting came from Claudia, a Latina woman who was one of the major real estate agents here in town. She had helped two of our administrators buy houses when they moved to town, although Joel and I had not used her. She was extremely pretty and curvy, very busty and with sweeping hips and a tight butt. She and I had met several times at parties; all of the clients she had gotten close to were men, and she seemed to be around a lot. Claudia was the kind of woman who flirted with her male clients just enough to get them coming back to her for more attention, but not enough for anything real to be there. Her looks helped her do this, of course, but she was very skilled at walking that line. She would wear a sweater that was too low and too tight, a skirt that was split too high and that was too tight across her upper thighs, but she'd never do anything more than touch a male client on the arm or smile too much in front of his wife. In fact, I had noticed once or twice that she smiled at the wife of the man right after she had touched his arm or brushed into him. Sometimes, it seemed to me that she was aiming her flirtations at the wife more so than at the man she was touching. She had a way of tossing her black hair in the middle of a party that only another woman would really notice and understand the meaning of.
Claudia and I first really spoke at a Christmas party thrown by Richard, my supervisor, and his "permanent girlfriend" Wendy, an ad executive at a local agency. Richard loved that his parties were a little more interesting than the usual fair in town, and he only invited people that he knew would be in on it. He was the type who never outgrew the thrill of being the host with a little drugs & sex mixed in with the drinking, and he was the only adult in our group whose parties still included people sitting on the back porch getting high and couples--and sometimes people who weren't couples--sneaking off for a while. His girlfriend Wendy was a great match for him, too, always the woman who wanted to show off a little more, get a little drunker and wilder. She was Chinese-American, slender and pretty and still in her late 20s (Richard was in his late 50s, but people had basically gotten beyond their age difference because they so were so immaturely matched for each other). Tonight Wendy was wearing a dark green blouse that was open halfway down her shirt and too tight, showing off her small pert breasts and her lean torso and arms. She was bouncing around the room, taking over each conversation that she entered. Joel had stayed home tonight, and I was glad that he wasn't here watching the hostess move around the room.
I had stationed myself at the bar, drinking a glass of wine, when Claudia drifted over and took the stool next to me. We smiled and gave each other a quick lookover. She was wearing a dark blue v-neck sweater that showed off an impressive amount of cleavage (and it was very firm cleavage, too, I might add, impressive for a woman who was probably carrying a DD cup). She saw me check and said, with a giggle and a bit of a smirk, "I've always felt like women like us should stick together," with a nod toward Wendy. We both laughed at that. I'm a well-built woman, too, with D cup assets that were only a bit smaller than Claudia's and still just as firm. I had played club soccer in college, and I still had that athletic build in my hips and legs, and I was tighter through there than Claudia, although I was a good bit larger than Wendy. Wendy was a pretty woman, but not many women would have put her in Claudia's class. They probably would put me in Claudia's class, though. I have shorter light brown hair, and although I was showing a little cleavage that night, it wasn't as much as Claudia's deep showcase.
"I've noticed that you don't mingle with the other women at these things," Claudia said, swiveling so that she was facing me more directly.
I looked at her for a second. Her comment was obviously meant to steer me toward something specific, but she was also right. I had never had many female friends. I had always felt that there was some tension or barrier between me and all the women around me. I had never gotten too far into the world of catty remarks and buried hostility, but I had always understood where that need came from. I told her, "I guess I've never felt the need for it."
"I can tell, it's okay. You're like me. You can't tell me that you don't feel the same tension that I do when we have seen each other at these parties. You feel the same competitive desire that I do," she added, and now she was leaning in closer, in a way that was aggressive and conspiratorial at the same time.
I took a deep drink of my wine and said, "When I was playing soccer, it always felt like I was playing against the other girls rather than playing a sport."
