Let me share the first ‘chapter’ of the book I hope to write one day. That is, if I can somehow make heads or tails exactly where I want to go with the story. Can anyone say, scatterbrained?

Meet Belen. Belen is a small (no more than 4’8″), rather chubby woman who looks forty-ish. She is, in fact, 29. She has very dark skin (particularly around the elbows), dark eyes, and very thick lips – characteristics that are common in the village where she came from, no doubt from obscure pygmy ancestors.

I’d like to say that Belen is a simple girl. Unfortunately,she isn’t. She likes to paint the toenails of her rather wide-spread feet red, and wear tube tops and blue eyeshadow. She has visions of grandeur that far exceed her simple upbringing. This dreams, or delusions, however you might see it, brings her to The City. In the hopes of snagging herself a worthwhile husband, she (rather foolishly) finds herself employed in a seedy bar on a seedy street in a seedy part of town.

Suffice to say, she didn’t find a husband. She did find, however, that the foreign customers who frequented the bar were far more generous than the local customers. It was then that Belen decided that she was going to marry an “Amerikano” (as all foreign men were known in that part of the world, regardless of where they came from).

So now Belen has a plan. After all, she’s not such an airhead as most people think she is. She is aware that she’s not likely to find a rich Amerikano to marry if she was a whore working in a seedy bar on a seedy street in a seedy part of town. It was possible, indeed, but it was highly unlikely, and Belen was not one to risk the odds. Belen figures that she needs a job that’s respectable, yet still downtrodden enough for a hapless Amerikano to want to rescue her.

With her limited skills and education, Belen finds herself working as a housemaid. She was lucky enough to find a job where there were no children to look after, as they were all teenagers, and to find an employer who treated her almost as a member of the family. Within days, Belen befriended the teenagers, learned how to use the computer, and discovered the joys of email and mIRC.

Soon enough, Belen had several “pen pals” (though she never did use a pen) – all of them foreign, all of them old, all of them wanted to “take care” of her. Belen immediately started enjoying the fruits of her labor. She started receiving packages from all over the world, mostly containing beauty products that were yet to start working on this little pygmy. She became a constant Western Union customer, receiving thousands of dollars in remittances from her many paramours.

And what’s a girl from an obscure province in the mountains to do with all that money and material possessions? Send it home? Share with her newfound family? We’d all like to think so. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

First, Belen developed a drinking problem. Then, she started sleeping around with the various houseboys in the village, who, incidentally, she was spending for. Soon enough, her kind employer got wind of the situation and inevitably fired her.

Belen had no choice but to choose amongst her many “sponsors” to rescue her from her predicament. She finally settled on an Amerikano from Amsterdam. Bob (pronounced ‘Boob’, obviously not American) was 65 years old, divorced, fat, and had a bad comb-over. When he arrived in The City to marry her, his body odor struck her like a ton of bricks. But she figured he was old and was going to die soon, leaving her all his money.

They were married in her village’s little church. It was the biggest and grandest celebration the village has ever seen – all paid for by Bob, of course. Three months later, Belen finally got her visa to Holland and off she flew with Bob, red toenails and all, to the land of long winters where she was to become the wife of a fat, smelly, old man, obligated to give him blow jobs, hand jobs, and heaven only knows what other kinds of jobs.

That was 10 years ago. Since then, Bob have had three strokes and is now permanently bedridden. Belen ministers to his needs, counting the days when Bob finally dies and she can have all his money to herself. He, in turn, is living the rest of his days happy that he found himself a good wife who’ll take care of him until the end. Everybody’s happy. Everybody wins.

So, am I going to be the next Candace Bushnell, or should I just give it up as a lost cause? Let me know what you think! I promise, I won’t cry!