Christine sipped her wine and waited for Leah to return from the dance floor. Her lover had finally realized that there was no way she would be willing to dance to bitch-rock, and thusly had gone off to strut her stuff with whoever was interested. Christine was hard-pressed to keep her eyes off the raven-haired figure in silver and black; she would be the first to admit that Leah knew how to work what she had, and had the guts to go out there and work it in any conditions.

Someone, a black woman with numerous piercings and close-cropped hair, stepped into her line of sight. She had a pen in one hand and a napkin in the other, and both were extended optimistically in Christine's direction. The tall blonde sighed. "You've got me confused with someone else. I'm not who you think I am."

Leah pushed her way through the crowd until she was directly behind the would-be autograph seeker, who didn't seem to believe Christine's explanation. "Hey, bitch, back off my woman!" she snapped. The silver ankh around her neck caught the flashing lights in an echoing pattern that edged around having meaning, like Morse code reassurance. The black woman moved out of the way. Leah promptly sat down on Christine's lap and rested her head on Christine's shoulder. "I left them creaming and screaming for me, but damn, baby, if you'd been out there, they'd have cleared the floor for us."

Christine laughed. "Come on, I'm not nearly half the dancer you are. Besides, I can't control myself when you're dancing up on me. I prefer to save that kind of behavior for when we're alone. I don't like being the floor show, you know that." She kissed Leah's warm, flushed cheek, slowly licking away the sweat. Leah shifted position so that she was straddling Christine's waist and took the kiss to her lips. She hooked a finger into Christine's blue blouse, seeking her breast, but Christine's hand seized her wrist and pulled her back. "Later," she whispered huskily, breathlessly, into Leah's black hair before losing herself in the dizzying scent of musk and lavender shampoo.

"How many is that this month, seven? Swear to God, if I ever meet this woman everyone thinks you are in a dark alley, I'm gonna break her face. No one's gonna mistake you two then."

"Don't. She's cool. It doesn't bother me. It's kinda nice, actually. You're really cute when you get possessive." Christine leaned back and smiled, but there was the slightest hint of a wince in her expression.

Leah changed position again, this time taking a chair for herself; she could see that her weight was starting to bother the slender blonde. "Ah, how I miss Meg and-"

"Don't go there tonight. I almost got into a fight in the lounge with that new American history teacher from Charleston- he thinks she should have been shot in the courtroom. Dom from the math department had to hold me back. Besides, Meg always struck me as willing to take you home with them. I don't miss you dirty dancing with either or both of them. Always made me nervous you'd throw me over for the short blonde."

"Glad you didn't see me with Anne and Dee, then. Man, nobody shakes and bakes like them! Believe me, now I know how Dee gets through opposing defenses!"

Christine didn't rise to the bait. "Awww, look, you tired them out." She pointed through the crowd to a table where two blonde women were slumped in each other's arms. Leah grinned and planted a kiss on the soft skin over Christine's jawbone, making her lover shiver just a little bit.

"So what's your New Year's resolution, baby?" the dark-haired woman purred.

"To clear the White Widow, squeeze that raise out of the Department of Education, and buy a new computer. I've heard good things about that Carter system the new Dormans have. What about you?" As Leah whispered in her ear, Christine started to blush furiously. "Uh, anything not involving me?" Leah just smiled inscrutably and emptied her second Guinness of the night before getting up and heading back to the dance floor. This time Christine followed her, because she was a sucker for the style of the cover band that had just taken the stage. She knew that she and Leah were the kind of odd couple that turned heads: Christine, the tall, gawky, uncoordinated blonde; Leah, a curvaceous brunette whose head barely came up past Christine's chin. She still didn't know why the suave Californian had singled out the born schoolmarm with what only looked like an athlete's body, what Leah had seen in her that first time they met at the bar that made her take an interest. She still worried sometimes that Leah would get bored with her and leave. But when Leah pressed against her, churning her hips to the persistent guitar beat, swaying to the music, she forgot her discomfort, forgot how to do anything but move in time with Leah's rhythm.

The music faltered and slowed, becoming ragged. Christine stumbled, and for once she wasn't the only one. All eyes were on the stocky man who had just come in, blinking as if confused, and the slinky short-haired brunette with him. "You lost, breeder?" someone asked with a nasty edge to her voice.

"Shut your trap, Ali, everyone knows Jeanne!" Leah yelled back. She focused her attention on the band. "Shame on you for letting some man distract you! Cut it out, fill it up again, and go, go, go!" Slowly, the band started again, and the dancers began anew. Leah reached out and pinched a pert Hispanic waitress. "Hey, bonita, buy Anne and Dee a round for me, and a little somethin' somethin' for yourself," she said, slipping a twenty down the waitress's bra. Most people would have had issues with that, but Christine was used to Leah's flirtatious behavior. She was vindicated when Leah reached up, locked her arms around Christine's waist, and slow-danced with her through two songs, even as the others around them changed partners. "Oh, Chrissy... Goddess was good to me when She sent you my way."

"Love you too, Lee." That having been settled, the couple retired from the dance floor to a scattering of applause. A table opened up for them, and they seized the opportunity. "Are your feet okay?"

"You only nailed me twice with those big clumsy feet of yours. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were learning to dance. Is there another woman you haven't bothered to tell me about?" Leah delivered the words in a teasing lilt, one hand resting comfortably on Christine's knee.

"Who knows? Maybe these old dogs can learn new tricks." Christine waylaid a scantily-clad waitress and ordered refills for their drinks, along with two glasses of water. The waitress hurried back and seemed to forget to ask them for money.

Leah poked the blonde suddenly. "Check it out. Jeanne and that guy she brought in are going over to Annie and Dee. Oh man, is Annie ever going to rip Jeanne a new one next time they're both here."

"Maybe he's a fashion queen and Jeanne's staging an intervention. If they're going to take the twin thing all the way, they should at least make it look good." Christine squinted at the disheveled man approaching the blondes. "Okay, maybe not."

"Looks like he can't tell the difference. How many is that now, ten just this week? Annie should learn how to forge Dee's signature, just for the hell of it."

"Awwwww, he's all awkward and blushy, he liiiiiiiiiikes her!"

"Stop it, Chrissy, you're aww'ing like a straight girl!" Christine laughed softly at that and put her arm over Leah's shoulders, sliding her hand down Leah's silver tank top. "Oh, okay, no straight girl would do that. Or... that. I like that. I think I'll keep you." They kissed for a while, happy just to be in each other's company.

Christine looked down at her watch. "Wow, it's almost midnight. I mean, it doesn't matter all that much, the way we've been kissing, right?"

"Sure it matters. It means a new year is coming, full of promise... and full of you. What more could I ask for?"

Christine poked her head out of the kitchen with a pronounced grumble. "Leaaaaah, come on, get off the computer!"

"Just a few more minutes, I think I've almost got all the quirks worked out. We need a new USB hub. I can't plug my webcam into this new hard drive. Remind me why we didn't go for the-"

"Because my raise didn't come through and you're between jobs, so we had to go cheap and Carter-based Dormans are as cheap as computers come, especially when we buy one during spring liquidation. You've been wrangling with that thing since before I got home. Come to dinner, baby, your food's getting cold." Christine came out of the kitchen and massaged Leah's shoulders, surprised that she wasn't getting even an unconscious reaction of relaxing muscles and released tension, let alone the little moans that Leah had a tendency to let out when Christine made her happy in any way. She waved a hand in front of Leah's eyes, but there was no reaction. Christine took a radical step and flipped the switch on the power strip. Only then did Leah shudder and turn to her, blue eyes glassy and unfocused. "Lee, you been holding out porn on me?"

"What do I need porn for? I have you." The words came out with an unexpected insincerity, but Christine didn't hear it. She just liked the sound of being better than porn. She kissed the top of Leah's head as her partner got up from the computer. They ate in unusual, uncomfortable silence, Leah wolfing her food quickly and Christine lingering over it so she could figure out what she had done right with this sauce.

"What's the big rush? You haven't said a word since you sat down. Did they reject you for that chorus role? Is that why you're in a bad mood?"

Leah shook her head, eyes flickering ever so slightly to the computer. Christine didn't notice. She did, however, notice when she came into the living room, ready to check her e-mail and chat with her sister back in Chicago, that Leah had returned to her symbiotic connection to the computer. "Lee, c'mon. If I'm not on by ten, Felicia starts calling random NYPD precincts to find out if I'm missing. The computer will still be there tomorrow, and you can do whatever it is you're doing then." Unconsciously, she'd slipped into her teacher's voice, warm but firm, the kind of voice that people listened to without really thinking about it. Leah stepped away from the computer with dragging feet and a sullen look that Christine had seen a hundred times before on some of her more recalcitrant students' faces. Christine settled down at the computer and pumped the chair down so that she would be comfortable. Soon she was clicking through her e-mail with a frown on her face. "Were you getting all these pop-ups when you were on? I can't do anything without the computer asking me if I want to download pictures of hot babes. I think we've been hit with spyware. And only on the first day, that's got to be some kind of record."

"Hot babes? Where?"

"I thought you said you didn't need porn as long as you had me?"

"Come on, can't I have both? I thought these things came with pop-up blockers. Guess I was so distracted I didn't even notice the ads. Jeez..." Leah shook her head, but her eyes were locked on the computer screen. There was naked longing on her face, a yearning that Christine could neither see nor would she understand if she did see it. Even as Christine caught up on family matters with her older sister, Leah leaned over her shoulder, eagerly waiting for her to finish up so she could return to the computer. Christine signed off a little after eleven, telling all and sundry that she was dead tired, and she had to be up an hour early for a staff meeting at her high school. Leah climbed into bed with her for warmth and comfort, and because neither of them could get to sleep without the other's presence; three years had done a lot to set them in their habits.

But as soon as Christine's breathing had evened out and she was sound asleep, Leah slipped away to the computer and began to surf again, the only illumination in the room coming from the computer monitor. In its light, she looked washed out and dead, her blue eyes burning with unholy fire.

Leah came into the living room without her shirt on, a habit that Christine had never tried very hard to break her of and would not have had much luck with anyway. The necklace she wore was different, and Christine called attention to that fact- hard not to, when there was nothing else around it but Leah. "Yeah, do you like it? I still don't know where my ankh went- probably some homeless bum sold it for crack. But this is just as good, and it only cost me five bucks on the street corner by the theater."

"But it's a cross. I thought you were going to get a new ankh."

"Oh, they're almost the same anyway. They look just about alike, and they're both big on the eternal life thing."

Christine sighed and went into pedagogical mode. "The ankh was an ancient Egyptian symbol for eternal life, associated with their polytheistic religion and usually combined with the knot of the goddess Isis. The cross is a Christian symbol for their Savior and is associated with his suffering. Other than the superifcial similarity, there's no connection at all, and in fact in some ways they're complete opposites."

"I should have known you'd have something to say about it. You know so much." Leah snuggled into Christine's arms, curling up comfortably. "I got a callback from that dance troupe. They want me to come back later today. If I make it through this round, I might be part of their permanent troupe!"

"Oh, Lee, that's fabulous! Good luck! Or is it break a leg? I never can remember what it is for dancers." Christine pressed a soft kiss to Leah's mouth.

"That's enough for me. That's all I need." Leah smiled and fingered the silver cross on its chain. "It really is a pretty thing, isn't it? Spaaaaaarkly..."

"Have you been bumming your smokes off Brandi the hippie again?"

"No, but thanks for reminding me- we need to get a new air filter. This one isn't going to be enough if I bring cigarettes into the house."

"But I'm allergic to cigarette smoke, you know that. It makes me throw up. Why else do you think I celebrated when the city banned smoking in clubs and bars for once and for all? It meant I could spend a night at the Ladies' Room without spending the night in the ladies' room. Please, Lee, think before you chase me out of our own home."

Leah sighed. "Fine. I'll do my smoking outside the apartment."

"I didn't know you were that far back on the habit. You told me you'd kicked it." Christine sighed and pulled Leah close to her. "I wish you wouldn't lie to me about things like that. It makes me think you're using it as practice for bigger lies."

"I'm not, I swear. What kind of woman do you think I am?" Leah pulled away and wrapped her arms around herself. Before Christine could backpedal and soften her statement, Leah had gone into the bedroom to put on her shirt. Christine followed her, only to be told, "I'd like a little privacy while I get dressed, if you don't mind. I don't want to be late for that audition. I'll be back later. Don't wait up for me unless you're not wearing anything."

That sounded more like the Leah that Christine had come to love more and more over the four years that they'd been together, and it reassured her that despite the changes in the other woman, their love would last. So she waited, first cooking one of her special secret recipes, then eating by herself and putting Leah's portion in the refrigerator. She went online at her usual time and chatted briefly with Felicia in Chicago, but cut the conversation short. She found that the computer was getting on her nerves more and more often, even though they'd finally managed to get the pop-ups under control. There was still something about it that gave her the creeps. Maybe it was just some of the new features that were supposed to make it more user-friendly; Leah loved them, but Christine always had the sense that the computer knew a little too much about her personal life.

By eleven, she was settled in bed with a book on Japanese history, wearing the lavender negligee that Leah had given her for their second anniversary and waiting eagerly for Leah to come home. But she could only wait so long, and by twelve-thirty she had turned out the light and gone to sleep with suspicious bits of moisture at the corners of her eyes.

She had no way of knowing that Leah had come home at eleven-thirty with a cloud of cigarette smoke surrounding her, Oak Tree soda can in hand, and sat right down at the computer without even checking to see if Christine was waiting for her or not. Nor did she hear the ecstatic sigh of relief that escaped Leah once she was settled in at the computer and surfing the Internet.

"Get the fuck down, Chrissy!" Leah screamed as bullets whizzed through the air. Christine ducked so as to be less of a target and got behind the wall where Leah was sheltered and laying down cover fire. "Stay here and load our guns! You'll get yourself hurt if you go out there!"

Christine nodded with terror in her eyes and started fumbling clips into the pile of guns that lay in front of her. Leah and some of their friends picked them up and emptied them rapid-fire. She still wasn't sure how she had gotten mixed up in rebellion; all she wanted was a place where she and Leah could be happy together without people pointing at them and mocking them.

Leah. Leah was why she was involved in this. Leah was why she was fighting, or at least helping people fight. Leah was the reason why she would do almost anything. She knew that she was crazy for being so in love that she would follow her beloved into a firefight that she had no place in, but she also knew that there was no way she could let Leah go out there alone.

Memories assailed her. She remembered too clearly the deathwatch from the roof of their apartment building as the Thanksgiving Day parade went on without a hitch even as they saw the smoke rising in the distance; everyone at the Ladies' Room still thought she was a ghost until Leah kissed her and held her tight, and even then they all kept their distance. She recalled following the Tina Washington trial in the local papers, balancing the Post's strident right-wing cries for the activist's head with the outrage in the more liberal Newsday, playing the Times's protest at the miscarriage of justice against the News's calculated indifference. Leah had spent a lot of those nights drinking at strange bars with strange women, coming home late and so indignant that it took hours for Christine to calm her down so that she could sleep. Before all of that, though, before the bloodshed and the nightmares, there was something else that had been bothering Christine: she was used to the idea of New York being a place where people ended up, not where they were from, but in all her years as a transplant from Chicago, she'd never seen so many people fleeing from anywhere. Every time they turned around at the bar, there were half a dozen new faces, people from Atlanta, from Charlotte, from Detroit, from places all over the country that were changing faster than any of them understood. They talked like veterans and huddled together like refugees, terrified and confused, and their terror and confusion spilled over to the others so that everyone was afraid.

The wind howled like a banshee come to foretell death, and cut like a cold steel blade through their flesh. Men and women screamed and fell on both sides of the fight, dead when they fell, or dying when they hit the ground, or squirming in agonized suffering until their bodies finally gave out, or lying exposed on the pavement because they couldn't move, or crawling away slowly with their pain etched on their features. Christine, loading the guns and occasionally pulling people back under cover, slowly grew numb in both mind and body, unaware of the frigid weather that brought out goosebumps on her throat, indifferent to the cries of pain so long as Leah's figure standing proud in front of her didn't waver. Friends fell around her, and somehow she couldn't muster up the interest to see what had happened to them or to see if they could be helped. Her world, her focus, had narrowed to making sure that the guns were all loaded with ammo and that she and Leah didn't end up dead.

"Everyone get the hell out of here!" Christine didn't recognize the voice, only that it was male and hoarse from yelling. She looked over at an exhausted black man with long, ragged cornrows. "We got this under control- take your guns somewhere else!" As Christine's eyes adjusted to the smoky air, she saw the silhouette behind the black man, a bulky figure with light hair. He seemed vaguely familiar from somewhere, but Christine couldn't place him.

"We'll leave you two to it, then," Leah said with a wink. "Come on, everyone, these two gents want this corner to themselves."

"There's a couple of people fighting their way up Broadway who could use some backup," the other man said, emerging from the shadows. He looked like he hadn't seen the sun in months, and his blue eyes were watery and bloodshot. Somehow he seemed to be in his element, smeared with blood and soot as he was. He smiled suddenly, but the expression was gone before Chrstine could analyze it. "What're you standing here for? There's feds to kill."

The group packed up their guns and got away. As they did, one of Leah's friends said, "Guess the rumors about Todd Carter going off the deep end were true, huh?"

"That's where I recognized him from! I couldn't place him, but I knew that he looked familiar from somewhere!" Christine exclaimed, snapping her fingers.

"Man, if that's what saved our country from terrorists, you gotta wonder why they don't call them mild-irritationists. Goddess, that man's a complete wreck. I wouldn't put my money on him versus the squeegee guy down the street, much less a bunch of armed fanatics."

A howling battle cry split the air behind them as shots rang out again. The screams of pain from government forces doubled and redoubled. "You were saying, Leah?" a stern-faced woman with gray hair said, cracking a small smile before her face went impassive again.

"What the hell ever, Millie. C'mon, I think I spotted those people he was talking about." Leah indicated a tall dark-haired man and a petite redhead who were fighting their way back-to-back up the street. Guns drawn, they eliminated the government forces in a hurry, and once the battle started again, no one really had time to think things through too clearly.

Christine came into the living room in her favorite pair of khakis and a daring top that resembled nothing less than a butterfly wrapped around her chest. "Hey, hon, it's two for one draft night at the Ladies' Room, aren't you coming?"

"Naaah, Channel 8 is premiering some interesting programs tonight, and I want to stay here and check them out." Leah didn't look away from the flickering screen of the small television she had bought when she came into a bonus for being an emergency dancer for a Broadway musical a year ago.

"You're missing two-for-one Guinnesses and Left Exit for a bunch of TV shows? Come on, I know we have a VCR around here. We can hook it up and you won't have to miss anything. Look, I even wore your Christmas present, even though it's not nearly enough for this weather."

"It's not the same as watching them live!"

"Yes, it is. You don't even have to worry about fast forwarding through commercials and missing good lines. C'mon, Lee, it's no fun there without you. I just end up sitting by myself and getting soused, or I try to dance alone and end up on the wrong side of some butch couple. Besides, if you're there, no one thinks I'm a ghost and tries to exorcise me. It may get me free vodka, but I don't want to ruin this shirt." Leah's silence was starting to become unnerving. "Look, I promise I won't get mad at you if you throw your underwear at that yummy guitarist again, I was just mad that time because I liked that bra on you. I won't go if you don't; you know I only go to see Left Exit so you'll go when Dye the Carpet is playing."

"Oh, all right." Leah reluctantly got off the couch and took her coat off the hook behind the door.

"You're not changing?" Christine made a vague hand gesture at Leah's jeans and sweatshirt, garb meant for hanging around the house, not for arousing desire in the hearts of women everywhere.

"It's not worth the trouble."

The bar was quieter than it should have been with Left Exit rocking and snarling on stage. The chill of the February night was one reason, but there was a more emotional edge to it as well. Things hadn't been the same since the chaotic whirl of the past autumn, when the justice system had blindly murdered a woman whose only crime was to fight for her people, when smoke had once more obscured the skyline of lower Manhattan, when blood had flowed down Broadway. The party looked the same as it always had: women dancing provocatively close together with straying hands and sure steps, women leaning against the bar with glasses in their hands and lust in their eyes, women nestled in each other's arms with tired smiles and flushed faces, women swaying across the dance floor with rolling hips and hot eyes. But there was an undercurrent of unease running through all of them; their world had been so rocked by the one-two-three punch of Tina Washington, Lady Liberty, and Times Square that they no longer knew what was next.

Leah bought two beers and Christine's wine, nodding her head to the beat. One of the beers was gone in a hurry as Leah watched the dancers. "Go on," Christine said indulgently. Leah smiled and strode out onto the dance floor, taking the second beer with her. All eyes were immediately on her, no matter how dowdily or unattractively she was dressed. Christine stayed behind and watched her, continuing to stare at the scene even after she lost sight of Leah. To distract herself from the snarl of electric guitars, she concentrated on the lesson plan she was working on for next year's global studies class; it was the only way she could keep from losing her sanity when listening to bitch-rock.

Time passed. Left Exit took a break. Christine gratefully rubbed her ears, waiting for Leah to come back, but no curvy black-haired figure appeared from the crowd. She buttonholed a waitress, a pale girl with blue hair, and asked, "Hey, have you seen Leah?"

The waitress did a double-take when she saw Christine, but got over it in a hurry. "What's she look like? I've only been here four months, so I don't know all the regulars by heart yet."

That took Christine as much by surprise as not finding Leah in the first place. She was used to hearing detailed stories of Leah's solo exploits on nights when she had papers to grade or was just too tired to socialize. "Everyone knows Leah. She's about 5'5", black hair, blue eyes, puts her money where your bra is. You have to have seen her, you'd know her if you saw her."

"I'll ask around," the waitress promised, slipping back into the crowd. Christine waited impatiently; a chill ran through her, making her shiver. No one looked at her or acknowledged her presence, to the point where she half-wondered if she had become invisible or turned into a ghost. The blue-haired girl came back a few minutes later and tapped her on the shoulder. "Gretchen saw her leave in the middle of 'Demon With A Poison Dart'."

Christine's face fell. "Thanks. Wish she'd told me she wanted to leave, though. That was one of the early numbers, right?"

"Yeah, just after 'Nothing Says Forever'- that's the ballad," the waitress said, adding the informational bit at the end when she saw Christine's confusion. She didn't know that it stemmed from more than the music.

Christine tipped the girl automatically and left the bar with her brow furrowed in thought. She had a bad feeling about this, and it was more than fulfilled when she came home to find Leah planted on the couch, staring at the television with glassy eyes. "That was uncalled-for and unkind. If you didn't want to go, you could have just told me instead of leaving me there to worry about you." Leah didn't respond. "Why are you ignoring me? What did I do? Lee, I love you, what did I do to get you mad at me? Whatever it is, I'll turn it around. Just talk to me!"

"It's not you. Now would you please shut up? I'm missing my show here."

Christine turned and walked away before Leah could see her cry. She had a reading nook in the corner of their bedroom, and it was to that little spot she retired with a sheaf of short stories that a friend in the English department had handed her. Aching melancholy, a quiet belief in the power of true love, a sickened sense of alienation, a tearing homesickness: all of these themes and emotions spoke to Christine more strongly than anything ever had before, and her tears flowed free with the pain. The last line of one story- My mask shatters at her feet- made her clutch her pillow the way she should have been holding her lover and weep bitterly, her long body wracked with sobs. She knew that Leah could get very wrapped up in something she was doing, and that she liked her television as much as the next person, but she'd never brushed Christine off so brusquely before. It didn't make sense, but it was one in a string of behaviors that had been changing lately. Just last month they'd fought over how much money Leah was spending on cigarettes, and before that it had been over what they were going to do on Sunday nights, and before that... but Christine didn't want to think back on their fights, because it only depressed her even more.

Leah came in at eleven-thirty, after the local news had finished, and saw her. "Oh, Chrissy, I'm sorry I bit your head off, you know how I am when I get involved in something. It's not you, really, it isn't. I just didn't think. I'm sorry."

"You blew me off for TV." Christine brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and looked up at Leah. "I just wish I understood why."

"I just haven't been feeling the Ladies' Room lately, you know? It's been such a downer since the Battle of Times Square. The party's gone dead. I just- yeah, I should've told you, but I ended up by the door and I thought I could grab my chance to go without causing too much trouble." Leah winked and wiggled just a little bit to indicate that she wouldn't have minded some trouble. "Come to bed, Chrissy. I'm cold."

Christine gladly climbed in next to her beloved and took the smaller woman in her arms. "Love you, Lee."

"Love you too, Chrissy." As Christine drifted off to sleep, Leah laid a series of small kisses along her jawline and whispered, "Oh, Chrissy, God was good when He sent you my way."

Christine stumbled in the front door and promptly collapsed on the couch. "Long day?" Leah asked without even looking over.

"I hate teaching summer school. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Joseph knows that, I don't know why he keeps assigning it to me." Christine mustered up the energy to lift her head from the couch. After a moment's pause, her brows knit. "I'm hallucinating. Your hair looks blonde."

"It is. I had it dyed today at that new salon down the street. The cutest little redhead took care of me- I almost took him home to show you, he was so adorable, like some kind of porcelain doll." Leah twirled, her hair flying out like gold chains. "What do you think?"

"I like you as a brunette. It makes you look dark and mysterious. Bleach jobs can't help but look tacky."

"So you don't like it? Would you leave me over it?"

Christine let out a short, dry bark of laughter. "Lee, I love you. I'd love you blonde, brunette, redheaded, green, or bald. Your hair color doesn't matter to me. It's you I'm in love with, not your hair."

"So you don't mind if I keep it like this?"

"If that's what makes you happy, then that's what makes me happy." Leah was satisfied with that and came over to massage Christine's shoulder, sore from hours of writing on the chalkboard. "Ohhhh, yes, right THERE. It's times like this I almost wish they'd go to that computer-based package I've heard about, religious aspects be damned."

"How do you keep religious biases out of global studies? We all know Islam is a false religion, so how can you teach about it without giving it validity? How can you not make it clear that Christianity is superior?"

"All religions are taught about in the context of their cultures so as to allow people to understand why a culture developed the way it did. Okay, after that dry of an explanation, I need a glass of water. I hate quoting from textbooks, but it's the only way I can get the point across. The people who wrote the books are smarter than I am. They know how to say things like that. I just keep thinking it's the same ideas wrapped up in different clothing. It's all surface stuff anyway, different names and different pictures for the same mindset, and they all get thrown aside whenever it's convenient anyway. I can't buy into all of them, so I can't buy into any of them- they're all a bunch of hypocrites anyway, talking about loving one's neighbor on one hand and going out to kick the neighbor's ass on the other."

Through the whole speech, Leah had been turning steadily redder and redder until she finally shrieked, "Chrissy, are you nuts?! We saw what happens to people who thought Islam would save them! They turned into monsters, hateful fiends who only wanted to kill good people! How can you defend that?"

"They were fanatics who horrified even moderate Muslims. You can't use them as a representative sample, that's just not fair. How would the Irish like it if you judged them by Sinn Fein? How would most Jews like it if you judged them by the Zionists?" Christine frowned and shifted so that she was slightly more upright. "You know I don't enjoy having these weird religious discussions with you. It always makes me uncomfortable. I'll go to that church you like in Jersey with you just as long as the minister stops cranking out sermons on the sinfulness of homosexuality, but that's it. I like to believe things on my own terms, no one else's."

Leah shrugged, tossed her now-golden hair, and grabbed the remote. "Let's see what's on the tube." She clicked it on. As usual, it was on Channel 8, the alternative channel, though Leah had occasionally been trying the fare on Channel 1. Christine was about to protest the summary dismissal of their conversation, but the words died in her throat as she saw the dead-eyed image on the screen. Leah too seemed captivated by the pretty young woman with short platinum hair; her sharp features lent her a detached elegance. They watched in horror, transfixed by the cold, callous words that tumbled from the young woman's lips. As the gun came into the frame, Christine seized Leah's hand tightly. Leah didn't seem to notice until the shot actually rang out and Christine clenched her hand so hard that she left bruises later.

"Oh my God," Christine whispered, completely unaware of the irony of her words. "She just- did you see that? Why? What a waste... how can any God say that it's all right for someone to die like that just to prove a point?"

Leah didn't answer. That would have required re-hinging her jaw, and her mouth still hung open. The sight of a young lesbian committing suicide because of who and what she was stuck in her mind and commanded all her thought processes. Horrifying, that it was, but it held a curious fascination as well.

"You have an unhealthy fascination with tall, muscled women. I like it." Christine sat down on the couch next to Leah and put her arm over the other woman's shoulder. Leah absently pushed away, not bothering to look at Christine, her eyes instead fixed on the female commentator. "Have you always had a thing for blondes, or did I start a trend? Come on. I'm right here and Dale is in Newark. You can't have her anyway, she's too busy staring at Roy. I don't understand why, but I guess we're not meant to."

"Mmm," Leah agreed noncommittally, reaching for her soda.

Christine listened to the commentary, or what passed for commentary; it was hard to call it an actual team, because Roy was the only one talking. Dale sat there and smiled, inserting the occasional giggle or sigh. "I'd love to know who writes his stuff."

"Hmm?"

"Not that he doesn't have a sense of humor, and not that this isn't good stuff, but you used to bring that sports mag home, and his column was about the only thing I could stand out of it. This isn't his style. It's too orderly."

"Mmm."

"Lee, are you even listening to me? It's a timeout, and I didn't think you cared so much about players' husbands. Wives, maybe, or domestic partners, but not the men." Christine again snuggled close to Leah, and again Leah pushed her away without really thinking about it. She experimentally sniffed herself. "No, I remembered to put on deodorant this morning, that can't be what's making me so disgusting that you can't stand to have me touching you. I wish you'd tell me what was the matter. I worry about you when you don't talk to me. I don't know what's on your mind and what you're thinking. Please, Lee..."

"After the game," Leah said absently.

"All right. As long as you don't go watch something else and forget that I'm here." Christine sat back against the couch and watched Leah as Leah watched the game. She was used to the way that Leah got so absorbed in whatever it was she was doing, but she couldn't remember a time when it had been this intense. If the apartment started burning around them, Christine honestly wasn't sure if Leah would even notice, and that frightened her more than she wanted to think about. She couldn't wait for the game to be over.

Leah came back to herself when the game was over. "Sorry, Chrissy, I wanted to concentrate on the game, and you make it impossible to do that. Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"Nothing really. I miss you, that's all."

"Miss me? But I'm right here. I always am." Leah rested her head on Christine's shoulder and looked up into her partner's dark eyes. "What do you think about having kids?"

The question took Christine by surprise. She had to think about her answer. "I never thought about it with you before, because you always made it clear you didn't want any. I used to imagine what it would be like- doesn't every little girl? But I haven't thought about it in years. Isn't it a little late now?"

"I can still carry a kid. You'd make a great mom. Come on. It's what we were meant to do. If we're going to go against the Bible by being lesbians, let's at least make up for it by having a child the way women were meant to."

"Stop right there. If you only want to do this because of some religious conviction, it's not going to happen. I don't know when you started buying into what you used to call the 'systematic patriarchal scam', but until I know why you went from a pagan to a Baptist, I'm not giving in to any whims that have to do with religion."

"It's not a whim! It's time for me to take on my role as a real woman and have children. It's too late for me to have two, but at least I can have one. I want it for you as much as for me. It'd be good for you. Please, Chrissy, let me do this for us. Let's be a normal family, or at least as normal as we can be."

"We're already a normal family, for New York. We've been legal for almost four years, and we've been together nine years. We have no pets, no kids, and two salaries that barely keep us afloat. We can't afford to have a kid, especially not if you're the one carrying it, because that would mean you'd have to stop working while you were pregnant *and* afterwards so you could nurse the baby. It just doesn't work for us now." Christine hugged Leah close to her to take the sting out of her words.

"I'm quitting the company anyway. I'm tired of people staring at my body. It makes me feel dirtier than I am. I don't want to feel like a whore, an object of lust, anymore." Leah's voice had grown cool and distant here, and Christine looked at her in concern.

"You want to give up something you love because of what the churches say? This is New York, Lee! We're supposed to be free of all that stuff! Do what you want to do, not what the Bible says to do! Stay with the troupe, Lee, stay with the things you love. Stay with me."

"Of course I'll stay with you. I love you." Though she sealed the words with a gentle kiss, Leah's eyes didn't meet Christine's.

As they twined and twisted together, Christine's mouth explored Leah's body, her tongue licking across Leah's soft skin. She knew all the spots where Leah was ticklish, all the sensitive places where a single touch could elicit a delicious shiver or a drawn-out moan of pleasure, the location of every secret Leah's body had to offer. On a lazy August evening like this, when time seemed to stop for the rest of the world and every movement seemed filmed in slow motion, those were good things to know. They didn't have much more time for casual lovemaking like this; school was starting again soon, and Christine would have to immerse herself in her work.

And yet, though Christine was as deft as she could only be in bed, she heard nothing from Leah, none of the little cries and sighs that made her sure that she was doing things right. She lifted her head and looked at Leah's face. Tears were trickling from her blue eyes, caressing the contours of her set face as they came down to drip from the point of her chin. There was no joy in her expression, no happiness, not even relief, just a blankness that suggested that she wanted this to be over as soon as was humanly possible. "Lee? Dear, what's the matter?"

"Get out of there," Leah said, her voice rough and raspy as she pushed Christine out from between her legs. "I can't do this anymore. I thought I could live with you without committing this sin, but that's not the case. I can't give in to these urges, and you shouldn't either."

"No," Christine whispered. "No, this is just a bad dream, this can't be happening. How can you say that? When did you start repeating everything they told you without thinking about what it meant? I love you, Lee, I have since we first met and I always will. How can that be wrong? How can being in love be wrong? Don't pull away from me now, please don't leave me now, I need you more than I ever have before." She put her hand on Leah's thigh as if the touch would burn them both. "I'm scared. They're talking war again, real war, not just an invasion that no one but AIS and the world remembers. I can't remember a time when we were at peace, you know? I think back, and we've always been at war."

"Because they all deserved it! Slant-eyed Commies and damned terrorist fiends out in the desert! None of them recognized the power of God and America! It was our duty to go over there and correct them!" Leah's face was twisted with hatred and rage. Something nasty passed over her expression, and unseen in the dark, she smiled coldly. "There's someone else in my life, Christine, someone who won't send me to hell with a touch. He told me he wanted to cleanse me of the sins I committed with you. He said he'd wait for me every night until I came to my senses. He'll be happy that I finally did." Leah got out of bed, kicking Christine accidentally a couple of times, and dressed in her best jeans and her favorite shirt. Christine stifled a sob when she recognized the outfit as almost the one that Leah had worn the night of their first date, the only difference being a pious pink t-shirt instead of the 'good bush/bad Bush' design she had worn when they first met. It was embarrassingly tight on her now, the result of too many O'Reilly burgers and not enough of Christine's salads. She strode out the door without once looking in Christine's direction. Christine immediately picked up her keys and followed at a discreet distance, just to make sure that Leah was going to be all right.

The quest took her out to the old docks, abandoned years ago when the trade winds had irrevocably started blowing in other directions. The scent of rotting fish was faint in the air, overlaid with a hint of salt and a smell that had no name but 'the smell just before rain'. Christine scratched at her face and along her arms to scrape off the coat of humidity that was making her so very uncomfortable. The sun was just going down when Leah stopped in front of a decrepit warehouse and called out, "James? Are you here, James? It's me, Leah. I want to see the light." Christine ducked into an empty storage container so as to see without being seen.

A tall figure with mussed brown hair emerged from the warehouse and gingerly took Leah in his arms. She returned his embrace with the ardor of a lover, and Christine's stomach turned at the sight. "I'm so glad you're here, Lee. You're too beautiful to be a fiend of hell. I knew you'd come to God eventually. What about that woman?"

"Don't honor that dyke with the name of woman," Leah spat, making a sign to ward off evil as she spoke. "She's too blinded by her lust to find her way home. She doesn't matter now. You're the only person who matters to me now." She kissed him deeply and long. Christine was having trouble seeing through the tears in her eyes.

James pulled away slightly, enough to confuse Leah. Before she could ask what was the matter, he explained, "I need to be sure of your humanity before I bring you to the church. Prove yourself to me, and I'll make you my wife. Can you give yourself to me?"

"Yes! Make me forget her touch! Bring me back to God!" In an ecstatic frenzy, Leah tore off her jeans and her frilly pink panties. He made a small tumbling gesture to indicate that she should take everything off, and her shirt and bra fell to the ground. She was naked in the moonlight and stunningly beautiful, and Christine could not look away from her. James was also visibly impressed. He undressed in turn, although he did leave his shirt on. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to the ground, and there Christine heard all the little moans and sighs that had been missing from their time together. The teacher in her wanted to give James pointers on where to caress and where to tickle, and the jilted lover in her wanted to kill him with her bare hands, but indecision and cowardice froze her where she was in the storage container, even when Leah let out a shrill scream.

"Thank you, Leah. You were wonderful."

"No, no, thank you! You saved me from the devil's lust! I'll be good to you for the rest of my life, I swear. You've done for me what no one else could. Just tell me I can be yours as long as I live, and I could die happy."

Something very dark and nasty passed over James's face for a moment. "As long as you live, you're mine," he agreed. "You have been saved from the devil's curse. Have you been a good Christian other than for those sins?"

"Yes! I live only to serve you, God, and my country!" Leah kissed his feet.

"Then let's celebrate your rebirth in the river." He held out hs hand, and she seized it like a lifeline. Christine, in hiding, was enough of a New Yorker to retch at the thought of bathing in one of the city's rivers. But Leah was oblivious to the pollution flowing down from factories to the north; she saw only clear water, the same way she only saw the green Statue of Liberty now, not the cold steel statue of Christine's near-twin. She stepped out into the water with the blind trust of a child, and the sullied waters caressed the blood from her thighs. James followed her, and Christine could see nothing more. She could just make out James's words: "I love you enough to take you to Heaven, Leah." There was a loud splash, and then dead silence that had an unnerving quality to it. Christine dared to poke her head out to see what was going on. Hard as she tried, she could only make out one silhouette against the skyline, and it was too tall to be Leah's. James emerged from the water, whistling, and picked up Leah's shirt to towel himself off before putting his clothes back on and taking off. Had he been less powerfully built, or had Christine been more well-coordinated, she might have confronted him, but instead she waited for him to leave before she ran to the riverbank.

"Leah? Lee? Okay, you've done the God thing, and it sounded like you were having fun, but you can come home now. I know you can't hold your breath that long. Come on back now. Stop hiding. It's not funny anymore." Christine knew that she was babbling, but she didn't really care. She had a bad feeling about what had happened to Leah, and as long as she was babbling, she could deny it.

Leah slowly came to the surface, her long hair fanning out on top of the water, the stink of the escaping bleach complicating the air even further. Her eyes were closed; that, and the eerie composure of her features, lent her a serenity she had never before possessed. Water flowed from her nose and from between her parted lips, but the only motion of her body came from the small tides of the river. Christine grabbed her slender ankles and dragged her to shore. "Come on, come on, come on..." the older woman chanted under her breath as she pumped water out of Leah's lungs. She did what she knew of CPR, she did mouth-to-mouth, she tried her hardest to revive her lover, but the taste of rot and decay was already on her tongue. She clutched Leah's body to her and screamed at the star-strewn sky, "What kind of God are you? You hate us that much that you drive even your followers to death? Are you that fantastic that everyone has to run to your side? I loved her, and she died for you, you bastard! I don't care if you supposedly died for us, she should never have had to die for you!" Her head dropped as if the weight were too much for her neck to support. Leah's calm, even satisfied, face seemed to taunt her, and she broke down sobbing.

There was a small kernel of logic within her still, the little bit of stability that allowed her to keep order in even the most unruly of classrooms, and it told her that maybe sitting on the bank of the river with a dead body in her arms wasn't a good idea. But that voice was drowned out. She couldn't find the will to move from Leah's side, from the place where all her dreams had finally died. There didn't seem to be a point for her to do anything but wait for death to claim her. At least then she and Leah would be in the same place; she didn't know what that place was, but she supposed that this was the only way to find out. The rain came and soaked her to the skin, but she couldn't tell it apart from her tears.

She didn't know how much time passed, nor did she care. Eyes open and ears open, she saw nothing and heard nothing. Someone's hand shook her shoulder. It took a few tries before she noticed. She lifted her head and saw a child in pale blue shorts and a white t-shirt. Unruly blonde hair, several shades fairer than hers, hung over his forehead. He looked at her with pale green eyes; his gaze held a gravity unusual for someone so young. "What's the matter, pretty woman?" he asked.

"You shouldn't need to know this young," Christine answered with a sigh, biting her lip to hold back the tears. Leah had loved to tell her that she was beautiful, just to mock the old standards.

"But you're hurting. I don't like when people are hurting. They never get better 'til they deal with it." The boy looked at Leah's face. "She's very pretty."

"Yes. Yes, she is. She used to love me. I still love her."

"What happened to her? She's not breathing."

Christine let out a long breath, trying to find a way to explain this to an eight-year-old. "She thought she didn't love me anymore. Someone told her that she shouldn't love me, and she believed them and not me. That's what happens when a lot of people tell you something, you start believing it. When they told her she was bad for loving me, she decided she was going to stop. She met a man who said she could be good again if she did what he told her. She did. Then he-" She stopped abruptly, ready to cry again.

"He killed her? But didn't she do what he told her to do?"

"He said he was giving her a reward and she believed him. I don't know if that's true. I think he knew that she still loved me, and he couldn't deal with that. He thought she deserved to die for loving women. People like him think that people like me and her are evil and should not exist, that we should either love men or die."

"What are you going to do?"

"I wish I knew. I want to be with her so much it hurts, and I want it to stop hurting."

The boy squatted down on the other side of her so that they were staring at each other across the dead body. "But if you end up with her, then you'll be dead. You're too nice to die."

"That's sweet of you to say." Christine's voice was growing faint, and she looked down at Leah's face, envious of her lover's peace.

The boy reached out and grabbed Christine's chin, forcing her to look at him. It was such an adult move that it stunned her long enough for him to say, "If you die just 'cause you love her, that means the people who want you to die are happy. They killed her. Why do you want them to be happy? Live for her. Do all the things she won't do, like jumping in a pile of leaves or dressing up for Halloween. Do them for her, the way she would have done them. That way it's like she's doing them, and that way it's like she's not really gone."

"The world doesn't work that way. She's gone, and she can't come back."

"So she's dead. Do you think she would want you to die too? I wouldn't." He looked her in the eye, innocent and guileless. "I don't want you to die. Come with me to my house. Everyone can take care of you there. Pleaaaaaaaaase..." His lip started trembling and his eyes widened.

There was something about the child's naïve stubbornness that Christine couldn't refuse. He was too adorable to resist, and some of what he said made sense somehow. "Okay. But only 'cause you're cute."

"Yay! I'll call Pace, and he can take care of her. He's really good at that." The boy put his hand on top of Christine's. Some instinct allowed her to take it. Feeling the protest of stiff muscles, she struggled to her feet. Meanwhile, the child yelled, "Paaaace! Pace! I need you!"

A figure in a white outfit that resembled a beekeeper's costume came out of the shadows and looked at Leah's body. "You certainly do. I'll handle this. You take her back to the Temple."

"'kay. Bye!" He looked up at Christine and flashed an endearing smile. "What's your name?"

"Chrissy. What's yours?"

"Alex."