I remember when I was a boy, my mother would take me to The Girls club after work. She’d drink her martinis and tell the ladies how she’d so hoped for a girl. But he’s such a darling little thing, the ladies would tisk and sing, picking me up in their arms. Dolly, the redhead, would dance with me crushed against her huge breasts. When she was soused, she would reach into my pants with her long fingernails, checking to see if my fruit was ripe. Hands off, Dolly dear, my mother would say, swishing me away in her arms. He’s not yours yet. They would all howl. Dolly had a reputation. She was our local fruit picker. Her claim to fame, she had once slept with Julio Vega.

Julio Vega was the first man to ever run for president. Not that the women would ever elect a man in our country. After all, the men had only recently won the right to vote back then. But women loved Julio Vega for his long dark eyelashes, his curly locks, and his white-toothed smile, later used in a Colgate ad. Julio Vega had once been crowned our beauty king and paraded around town in a float of adoring ladies. Rumor had it that he was even more beautiful in person. Once a woman saw him in the skin, she was never the same woman. She would hang on his every word, his every gesture and glance. Julio loved the women loving him. That’s why he said what they wanted to hear.

Oh what a good politician he was. A man’s place is at the feet of his women, he said. A man is meant to do physical labor and menial jobs like paving roads, sweeping floors, cleaning latrines. If God had wanted men to do office work, he would have made them less muscular, less angry, less eager for wars. The men, of course, were enraged by his words, and overcome with jealousy of his good looks. But soon the men began to dress like Julio, to wear glasses like Julio, even to buy the cologne and shampoo Julio Vega was said to use. In this way the men became Julio-men, and the women hummed around their Julios like bees around blossoms before ascending to their glass offices in the sky.