One

Don't let anyone tell you any different, sometimes love isn't about nothing but a crooked tooth, the curl of an eyebrow, the hairs on a wrist, a gold chain, or one small mole. For me, it's boots. Have you ever seen a black man in boots? Well, there you go. So when Darren sort of leaned into me and said my name, and I turned around to see his six-foot-three-inch body pressed firmly into two perfectly polished black boots, I'm sorry, but I was gone. Later. Goodbye. Adiós.

It wasn't like I'd never been with a man who wore boots before. But the thing with most of them was, once they took off their boots, they became that much shorter, that much fatter. At least that's the way it went with Greg and John and Roger too. No boots, no magic. Just like that, and they were reduced to this person walking around looking entirely lost. I tried. Believe me, I tried: Listen, baby, why don't you put your boots on. You look so fine in your boots. But sooner or later we had to go to bed, and poof, the magic was gone.

But not with Darren. Boots or no boots, he couldn't get on my nerves if he tried. Darren was it. The first time the combination was right: fine and intelligent. I've been out with fine men before but usually after two weeks it's like, Oh, you don't have a brain. Now why didn't I notice that before? Or the guy will be intelligent but get him in bed and he only knows one position: You on the bottom, him on top. A drop of sweat dripping in your ear every ten seconds. And don't even get me started on the pseudointelligent pro-black types. "My sister, my sister. Mother Africa, I see you have bought into the white man's lie. You must understand that it would be a mistake for me to go down on you....