My Name is Cherie

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Just call me Cherie. It’s pronounced 'Cherry' like the fruit. Do not say it like you were doing a bad French accent. Cherry suits me just fine, thank you. Yeah, I know it’s got all those sexual overtones. Believe me, I can run with the whole virginal thing - but it’s not why I think the name suits me.

It suits me because on a bad day, I’m like an unripe cherry. Bite me, and you’ll get a tart retort, a riposte sharp as a samurai’s sword – and as deadly. Even when I’m tart, though, I’m loyal. I’ll always honour a firm friendship.

I’m best when I’m 'Cherie ripe'. Then I’m more like a geisha. I’ll do anything to please, and be so sweet, so tender, you won’t know what’s hit you. Trouble is, cherries are only ripe for a few weeks of the year. So if you decide to throw in your lot with me, expect more sour cherries than sweet ones.

I'm not all bad though. I want good things in my life. Good people. You know how people go to the movies and watch dysfunctional people in their dysfunctional lives? Well, I want to see a movie about functional people with functional lives. True-to-life stuff – not Brady Bunch-style crap. I want to know what it’s like to grow up in a family where you’re loved and accepted, where you’re encouraged to do your best and patted on the back when you succeed. I want to know what it is like to have a father who’s always there, not always away, a mother who’s a friend, not an enemy, and sisters. I want sisters. Most of all I want a big brother who thinks his little sister (me) is the best. I’d give anything to see what that was like!

I like to fantasise about life as it could be. Especially about men as they could be. The trouble with my fantasies is that sometimes I have no control over who gets to be in them. Like, you know, sometimes I’ll think some guy in real life is a jerk, yet there I’ll be, happily enjoying a little rom-com in my own head, when WHAM! In he’ll pop, and I’ll be suddenly and overwhelmingly attracted to him, and we’ll have the hottest sex I’ve ever imagined. And I can imagine pretty hot sex, I can tell you!

This out-of-control attraction to pricks really worries me, though. Every nice guy that I’ve had has been a total and utter disaster in the long run. Perhaps I might be better off with a jerk. Could it be that jerks are good for me? Holy shit! What a concept.