Sex had always given Edith trouble. She never lost herself to the obliterating black box of desire. Only ever: Is this enough? Is this too much? Sometimes she’d end up crying. Sometimes she’d tell her partner about the girlfriend who’d assaulted her, who teased her for crying after.

In the early months, it was enough to want and be wanted. Tessa was gorgeous and confident and hungry. There were hours in bed, the press of body against body, meals cobbled together in the thin hours of morning.

It was when the newness wore off that Edith began to worry. At a party, she overheard Meghan saying, You were practically gold-star, what are you doing. Heard Tessa responding, Who fucking cares? And Edith wondered: don’t you?

In bed, Edith drifted from the place where Tess’s body and hers met. She couldn’t compete with gay girls’ natural intimacy. Her amateur skill would be weighed against the countless ranks of women who knew how to fist someone.

Joni? You with me?

Tessa above her, glistening in the lamplight. Cupping Edith’s chin.

Can we change the music?

Sorry. She did. Sondheim’s not exactly mood music.

Neither was Silver Jews, to be fair, but Edith wasn’t going to ask again.

Better?

Yeah. Tessa coaxed Edith back inside her, and both shuddered. Only—

Yeah?

You want this, right?

Of course I do. Warmth. Body, hand, hip, kiss. Edith was still and it was all pleasure. A shift like refocusing her eyes: it was easy to picture Tessa topping her.

Say it again, Tess.

I want this. I want you.

Keep going.

I want this.

A week later, Tessa proposed something new.

What is it?

One second. Nimble movements in the bedroom’s dark. There might be nothing but the two of them. Edith might have no body at all, only an archipelago of nerves. Places made purely to take Tessa’s touch.

Tessa straddled her knee. The silicone cock bobbing over her leg.

What do you think? Tessa could pull off a seductive tone but couldn’t hide her uncertainty. Do you want me to fuck you?

Early on, Edith never had a real answer about what she wanted: she liked normal things. She didn’t want to be hit, or choked, or pissed on. If she’d been less self-conscious, she would have said, I want to make love to you. I love you, Tess.

Yes, she said, and meant it. Yes, Tessa, fuck me.

It left her sore and throbbing. Wiping herself down in the bathroom after, Edith lost her sense of self. For a second, it was Tessa standing there, Tessa whose body she lived in.

(Stupid boy. Can’t let your girlfriend fuck you without losing your masculinity.)

Then there was the pregnancy scare. By the time Edith asked, it had been seven weeks since Tessa’s last period. I didn’t want to mention, Tessa said.

Should we be worried? The power of that we. Holding them. All their love and all their fear.

I’ve never been super regular. Fingers drawn across the hair on Edith’s chest. Maybe we should be better about condoms, yeah?

Edith would have mistakenly called herself careful. What she lacked in control, she made up for in precise timing. So relentless and imperturbable was their desire for each other that all seemed riskless. Theirs was a story of odds overcome, not mistake and pain and blood.

Yeah, you’re right.

Two more weeks passed. They didn’t buy a pregnancy test; there was safety in not knowing. An impossible future: walks through the Common, hiking in the mountains, infant slung across her chest. Words without referent: my wife, my daughter. Who could dream such a thing?

Every time she reached for Tess’s hand, every time they woke up pressed against each other, no matter that they kissed with the same fervor and professed their love every day—still that refrain: she wouldn’t have to deal with this if she were with another woman.

And there were moments, out in the world, when Tessa was the first to drop her hand. That slight distance between them as they walked, no shoulder pressed to Edith’s own. No arm draped across her shoulders. No kiss at parting. Edith knew the same refrain must run through Tessa’s head.

Tessa wasn’t pregnant. Edith had the idiot luck of countless men before her, and after. How horrible to find, then, that the worrying did not stop.

*

Why don’t you sign up for a community writing class? Tessa asked one night. She’d been at lesbian billiards late with Sapphic Somerville. It’d be a good way to make friends.

They’re really expensive.

Joni, I love you, but how much do you spend on books each month?

A normal amount. The spare bedroom had become an ad hoc extension of Edith’s library. Tessa called it the Piles, like a haunted fantasy locale. You don’t need to worry about me.

Boston was not the worst place to become a writer. There were the bookstores, the esteemed faculty in the schools. Edith assumed she’d find community between the book clubs and readings and the packed shelves. She was still waiting to find it. She pecked away at her little stories: a man dated death, a horde of insects invaded a town. All her Puritan industry became shadow-flat words on the page and more empty hours in their apartment.

I don’t worry, I only want you to be happy.

Thanks, Mom.

Hey, no psychosexuality at the dinner table.

Edith didn’t lack friends. She and Charlie got a drink every couple weeks. And there was Celeste, a UMass grad student they’d met at trivia. Sometimes she and Celeste would go to a bookstore, an experience bogged down by Celeste talking about Early Modern theater and performance theory.

They were friends, but they weren’t her people.

But Tessa had made a life for herself. Spring’s thaw brought her out of their apartment cloister and into friends’ embrace—all a little softer, a little paler than they’d been in the fall. For a while, Edith enjoyed the solitude Tessa’s outings brought, but she’d gone on living as though it were winter.

One afternoon, she caught Tessa’s eyes, magnified by her makeup mirror. She was getting ready for another meetup.

What if I came with you?

Tessa’s eyes didn’t leave the mirror. Highlighter, eyeliner, shadow. You hate hiking.

It’s not real hiking. There’s nothing larger than a hill around here.

I don’t want you to get stuck having a bad time. You sulk—you know you do, Joni, don’t try to deny it.

Only to signal I’m ready to go.

Believe me, you don’t need to signal. It’s very clear when you’re done.

Tess frowned, scrubbed makeup from her eyes. She patted them dry, reapplied.

So that’s a no, then.

What if we got dinner with Colleen and Agnes next week? Agnes was the painfully shy girl Colleen was dating. She flinched when you said her name.

You’re always telling me to meet new people.

Yes, but these are my people.

You mean gay.

You can say dykes, Joni. I empower you.

Do they treat you differently now you’re bisexual? Tessa smirked but didn’t answer. Edith knew she still thought of herself as gay. If you’re too embarrassed to be seen by your cool gay friends with your boyfriend you can say—­

Hold on. Eyes severe with liquid liner. She called Edith by her name—her given name. A child in trouble. Don’t try. How many times have you met my friends.

You always call me your partner.

You want to be demoted? Slampiece? Piece of trim? What’s your preferred euphemism?

Just say “boyfriend,” Tess. Give it a try. If you burst into flames, I’ll throw myself on the fire to put it out.

Dear boy of mine, I love you. My friends love you. But this isn’t your place.

Yeah, yeah.

Tessa’s eyes caught Edith’s, and Edith did not hold her gaze. Each knew the rhythm of relationships. The glorious Golden Age could only last so long. But hadn’t Edith dreamed this might be history’s first exception?

Now you’re sulking, Tessa said. Where do you want to go?

That night, their fight more or less forgotten, Edith told Tessa, I think I’m gonna apply to grad school. There are a lot of good writing programs around here. The applications were due in a couple of months; she wasn’t sure she meant it.

But Tessa, being a considerate partner, and already wondering if there was a logical endpoint to their love, said, That’s great, Joni.