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  "And how exactly does that jibe with turning the other cheek?"

  "I'm not judging you," Pauline explains. "I'm just offering my biblical worldview."

  "Well," Vanessa says, getting to her feet. "I guess I'm blind then, because that's far too subtle a distinction for me to see. How dare you tell me that what makes me me is wrong? How dare you say that you're tolerant, as long as I'm just like you? How dare you suggest that I shouldn't be allowed to get married to someone I love, or adopt a child, or that gay rights don't qualify as civil rights because, unlike skin color or disabilities, you think that sexual orientation can be changed? But you know what? Even that argument doesn't hold water, because you can change your religion, and religious affiliation is still protected by law. Which is the only reason I'm going to ask you politely to leave my home, instead of throwing you out on your hypocritical evangelical asses."

  Zoe stands up, too. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," she says.

  On the way back home, it starts to rain. I listen to the windshield wipers keeping time and think about how Zoe, in the passenger seat, used to drum on the glove compartment along with the beat.

  "Can I ask you something personal?" I say, turning to Pauline.

  "Sure."

  "Do you . . . you know . . . ever miss it?"

  Pauline glances at me. "Some people do. They struggle for years. It's like any other addiction--they figure out that this is their drug, and they make the decision to not let that be part of their lives. If they're lucky, they may consider themselves completely cured and have a true identity change. But even if they aren't that lucky, they still get up in the morning and pray to God to get through one more day without acting on those attractions."

  I realize that she did not really answer my question.

  "Christians have been called upon to struggle for ages," Pauline says. "This isn't any different."

  Once, Zoe and I went to a wedding of one of her clients. It was a Jewish wedding, and it was really beautiful--with trappings and traditions I had never seen before. The bride and groom stood under a canopy, and the prayers were in an unfamiliar language. At the end, the rabbi had the groom stomp on a wineglass wrapped in a napkin. May your marriage last as long as it would take to put these pieces back together, he said. Afterward, when everyone was congratulating the couple, I sneaked underneath the canopy and took a tiny shard of glass from the napkin where it still lay on the grass. I threw it into the ocean on the way home, so that, no matter what, that glass could never be reconstructed, so the couple would stay together forever.

  When Zoe asked what I was doing and I told her, she said she thought she loved me more in that moment than she ever had before.

  My heart, it kind of feels like that wineglass these days. Like something that's supposed to be whole but--thanks to some idiot who thought he knew better--doesn't stand a freaking chance.

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  Marry Me (2:59)

  ZOE

  Everyone wants to know what the sex is like.

  It's different from being with a man, for all the obvious reasons, and many more that you'd never imagine. For one thing, it's more emotional, and there's less to prove. There are moments that are soft and tender, and others that are raw and intense--but it's not as if there's a guy to play the dominant role and a girl to play the passive one. We take turns being protected, and being the protector.

  Sex with a woman is what you wish it was with a man but it rarely seems to be: all about the journey, and not the destination. It's foreplay forever. It is the freedom to not have to suck in your stomach or think about cellulite. It is being able to say, that feels good and, more important, that doesn't. I will admit that, at first, it was strange to curl up in Vanessa's arms when I was used to resting against a muscular chest--but the strangeness wasn't unpleasant. Just unfamiliar, as if I'd suddenly moved to the rainforest after living in the desert. It is another kind of beautiful.

  Sometimes when a male colleague finds out I am with Vanessa, I can see it in his eyes--the expectation that every night is a girl-on-girl porn video. My current sex life is no more like that than my former one was like a love scene with Brad Pitt. I could sleep with a man again, but I don't think I'd enjoy it, or feel as safe, or as daring. So if I am not filled by Vanessa--in the literal sense, anyway--I am fulfilled by her, which is way better.

  The real difference between my marriage to Max and my relationship with Vanessa has nothing to do with the sex, actually. It's about balance. When Max would come home, I'd wonder if he was in a good mood, or if he'd had a good day--and I would become the person he needed me to be accordingly. With Vanessa, I get to come home and just be me.

  With Vanessa, I wake up and think: This is my best friend. This is the most brilliant person in my life. I wake up and think, I have so much more to lose.

  Every day is a negotiation. Vanessa and I sit down over coffee, and, instead of her burying herself in the newspaper--like Max used to do--we discuss what needs to be done. Now that I've moved in with her, we have a household to run. There's no man who's expected to change the lightbulbs that burn out, or take out the trash. If something heavy has to be moved, we do it together. One of us has to mow the lawn, do the bills, clean out the gutters.

  When I was married, Max would ask what was for dinner; I'd ask if he picked up the dry cleaning. Now, Vanessa and I map out our chores. If Vanessa needs to run an errand on the way home from school, she might pick up takeout. If I'm headed into town, I'll take her car for the day, so that I can fill it up with gas. There is a lot of talking, a lot of give-and-take, when it's just two women in a kitchen.

  It's funny--when I used to hear gay people using the term partner for their significant other, it seemed strange to me. Weren't heterosexual spouses partners, too? But now I see that this isn't the case, that there is a difference between someone you call your "other half" at a cocktail party and someone who truly completes you. Vanessa and I have to invent the dynamic between us, because it's not the traditional husband-wife deal. The result is that we're constantly making decisions together. We're always asking each other for opinions. We assume nothing. And that way, we're a lot less likely to get our feelings bruised.

  You'd think that by now, a month into this relationship, some of the blush has worn off, that I might love Vanessa but not be quite as in love with her--but it's not true. She's still the one I can't wait to talk to after something phenomenal happens at work. She's the one I want to celebrate with when, three months after my hysterectomy, I'm still cancer-free. She's the one I want to lounge around with on a lazy Sunday. For this reason, a lot of chores that we could divide and conquer on weekends take twice as long, because we do them together. Since we want to be together anyway, why not?

  Which is why we find ourselves in the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon in March, reading the labels on salad dressing, when Max walks up to me. I hug him, a reflexive habit--and try not to look at his black suit and skinny tie. He looks like the kid from high school who thought if he dressed like the cool guys he'd become one by default, except it never really works that way.

  I can feel Vanessa, burning behind me, waiting for an introduction. But the words get stuck in my throat.

  Max holds out his hand; Vanessa shakes it. This is hell, I think. The man I used to love and the woman I cannot live without. I know what Vanessa wants, what she expects. For all the protesting I've done to convince her that I'm not leaving her anytime soon, here is the perfect proof. All I have to do is tell Max that, now, Vanessa and I are a couple.

  So why can't I?

  Vanessa stares at me, and then her mouth tightens. "I'm just going to grab the produce," she says, but as she moves away, I feel something snap inside my chest, like a string too tightly wound.

  Max's friend appears, a clone in a similar suit, with an Adam's apple that bobs like the plumb bubble