Laura is certain she was molested when she was very young. She doesn’t remember it but she can imagine it. She thinks her deepest fantasies are proof of it.

It’s like her dog and mail carriers. She adopted Logan when he was a year old; his fears were already formed. She acquired him from her friend Karen’s youngest and least responsible brother, and William has told her the dog has no reason to hate postmen. But Laura knows he must have been maced. He’s a people-loving animal who goes berserk whenever he sees the postal uniform or cart.

Other dogs didn’t teach hers to hate mailmen. His antipathy has to be founded on experience. In the same way, those images of Laura’s violation at the hands of a large woman: they have to come from somewhere. Laura’s straight. Totally. Her mother isn’t big. But she envisions a tall woman, a 250-pound woman, undressing a struggling little girl. The image is stimulating. Laura admits that. But she doesn’t want the experience.

She’s straight. She wants a man. She really does; it’s been awhile now. Laura doesn’t think she wants a marital-type relationship – she won’t sign up for one of those introduction services – but she sits in her study and she thinks about sex. Good old heterosexual sex. She sits in her study and wonders.

She has a walk scheduled today with her friend Karen, who happens to be a 250-pound gay woman. All of Karen’s lovers have been straight except when they were with her. She has been alone for several years now. Sometimes Karen looks at Laura that way, but she’s never spoken or acted on it. That’s a good thing, because Laura would not be receptive. Which makes Laura’s fantasy all the more weird.

Driving east this morning, Karen looks at the rising sun through an arc of streaks on her windshield; she hates this. She paid extra for so-called detailing, and apparently the car people couldn’t even get the glass clean. Typical. Another situation trying to needle her.

That’s what she liked about Disneyland: no streaky glass. Everything was orderly and in its place. The way all life should be.

Her friend Laura disagrees. First Laura was shocked to learn Karen had never been to the place. Then she went on about how great it is, except she complained about what she called subtle forms of crowd control. Laura told Karen about going there with her mother and her kids, and how her mom couldn’t find a place to buy chewing gum. That was owing to Disney’s ban of all sales of the stuff on his property, because it’s so hard to pick off the pavement. Laura thought that was too controlling. But Karen wishes they’d ban gum sales universally. Karen wishes everywhere were as clean and orderly.

She retches a grunt as she spots the squashed bug in the corner of her windshield. The incompetent car-washers couldn’t even scrape off all the dead bugs! This one is big. It looks like it was one of those dust-colored beetle things. She doesn’t want to deal with it.

Laura will take care of it, if Karen asks her to. That’s the thing about Earth signs, Karen notes; they don’t mind dealing with the dirt and gore. It’s funny how Laura usually seems so feminine to her, but when it comes to taking care of bugs or street people, Laura makes Karen feel femme.

Laura. No, Karen decides. She’s not going to go there. She doesn’t want to mess up their friendship, the way she did with Vickie when she came on to her. Karen can’t seem to get her timing right any more.

Or maybe it’s that she was never the initiator before Vickie. Maybe she just has to be the – what? recipient? Odd thought…

For now, Karen figures she’ll just stay with her apartment, her car, her sole proprietorship business. She doesn’t need the hassles of home ownership, let alone the labors of a relationship. She’s in a place where if something goes wrong, she wants to be able to call someone to fix it. She doesn’t want to have to deal with it herself. She’s got the money.

For now, Karen will let vague fantasies wash over her. Laura arranged on her couch… not. As likely to be a guy arranging Karen. What the hell, she thinks as she exits the freeway. She’s never tried a man.

Laura is making coffee when Karen arrives. She already has three shots of espresso in her cup and she’s about to foam skim milk to create cappuccino. Karen declines a cup but begs Laura to clear the bug off her windshield. The two of them visit Karen’s parked car, and Laura uses a square of paper towel as the shroud for what must have been an impressive beetle. The phrase “timidly fastidious” rolls around in her head while she wipes the vestiges of bug blood off the windshield glass. Sometimes Karen surprises her with her delicacy and squeamishness. The woman always wears trousers, sits like a trucker and walks like a fully-equipped cop, but she’s scared of bugs and fingernail dirt and avoids most bodily fluids. She’s like a bulldyke channeling a limp-wristed faggot channeling a girly-girl; somehow three layers of prototypical and unattractive characteristics combine to describe an individual Laura likes, loves, and doesn’t want as a mate. She met Karen years ago, back when Karen’s brother William worked at the day care center Laura used for her son. They get together every other month or so for a meal.

Laura is 60 but she has a large-featured face and she exercises an hour or more a day, so she looks about 53. She’s five and a half feet tall and her curly hair is well-colored a medium chestnut. She has good posture. She’s spent a lot of time in her room in the years since her divorce. She says it has been a time of tremendous emotional growth. It hasn’t been a time for meeting many people.

Karen is the same height as Laura but she weighs much more, so she appears nearly as wide as she is high. She’s 56. She maintains her hair at almost the same reddish tone it was before she turned gray, and she keeps it short and blows it dry. Since she is very private and hasn’t been in a relationship for a long time, almost no one other than her hairstylist knows how wavy it really is. The only exercise Karen gets is the occasional walk with Laura or one of the few other people with whom she will spend any time. Most of her hours go to building her Internet business. She approaches the project like it’s a holy mission. She studies astrology like it’s a religion. She spends her time in her apartment, fingertips on her keyboard and eyes on her new flat screen, or astrology book in hand.

The women settle in the atrium before their walk. Laura sips cooling cappuccino and Karen starts talking about her brother William.

“I can’t figure him out,” she begins. “I mean, he and Jess have been an item for over a year now, but I still don’t believe it. And I’m starting to wonder if she does.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, I had dinner with them the other night. They looked like a couple – him tall and dark and I think handsome and her blonde and not-fat – but I swear they never touched or even looked at one another. He as usual made free with her plate (Jess is a strange eater. She rarely finishes her plate. She seems to eat very slowly when the food is brought to her, and then pick up speed about when we finish ours. She covers her mouth with her hand – unmanicured nails pointing up and facing outward – even before she starts to talk. It’s weird.) They both drank easily. I think she’d had four by the time we left.

“Anyway, William walked ahead of us with his cigarette. Jess smokes more than he does, but she wasn’t right then. I commented that they’d been together for awhile now.

“She grinned at that. She said, ‘I think William knows me better than my sister does. I swear he’s my best friend. I really like being with him. And you know what I like most about him?’ (Before I could guess she continued). ‘How much he loves and respects his mother. Your mother. His consideration about her is the best indication of what a fine person he is.’

“‘And all this from a guy who isn’t gay!’ I commented then. Jess said ‘Oh I don’t know about that. He’s a little light in the (word I didn’t catch) department.’”

Karen is interrupted by Logan. She hadn’t been aware of the dog’s presence, but suddenly he’s running toward the front door, back hair up and tail down, barking and snarling like a fiend. Logan is a sweet retriever/shepard mix; Karen had never seen him attack the door like this.

“The mail must be here,” Laura commented. “It’s early.”

“Does Logan always…”

“Oh yeah. He’s been like this since I acquired him. He isn’t the best friend of the garbage man, but he goes ballistic about mailcarriers. Time to walk?”

Karen agrees. Laura takes her coffee cup to the sink while Karen uses the bathroom. They loop the leash around Logan’s neck and head south, away from the mail delivery route.

“So you think William and Jess aren’t doing it?”

“I think William’s gay.”

“But you think everyone’s gay.”

“Not everyone,” Karen asserts, poking Laura with her elbow. “But look at my brother. He’s had girlfriends now and then, but only when they chose him. It sounds like he’s usually so inebriated at the end of an evening that he just passes out in bed. He’s almost too close to his long-time best friend, and Cliff is still single too. Hell, Cliff still lives with his mother! These guys are now 44.”

“I thought Cliff had his own place.”

“It’s a separate floor and it has a private entrance, but it’s his mother’s house. He doesn’t pay rent or have a kitchen.”

“Maybe William’s an asexual. I read about them a few months ago. A new subset of human sexuality whose members are not interested in physical intimacy. They can fall in love, feel romance, definitely have an orientation toward same, different, or both genders, but they just don’t want to do it.”

Karen looks skeptical.

“No. Really. Consider my friend James. He’s not into watching sports as much as cooking, he smiles so readily he almost simpers, and he doesn’t project any machismo at all.”

“Kind of like William…”

“Yeah, and some people who know him conjecture that he’s gay.”

“But he was married.”

Karen looked archly at her friend’s words. “Like that’s a way to tell? He and Sharon were more like business partners than romantic mates. And they didn’t produce offspring, did they? I’ve gotten to know him pretty well since her death, what with the dinners and opera outings. Not only has he never come on to me or flirted, but he has zero sexual presence. I think he’s an asexual person.”

“Hmmm.”

Karen’s murmur ends the subject. They walk on in silence for half a block. Then Logan squats to shit and Laura pulls the plastic bag out of her pocket. Conversation resumes with walking.

“I wonder what Jess gets out of the relationship. Or William, for that matter.”

“C’mon, Karen. At the least, they get parental acceptance. I know your mother, and I love her, but I doubt that she’d welcome the news that William isn’t what she considers ‘normal.’ Anyway I’m pretty sure that’s what William thinks. As for Jess, didn’t you tell me she’s from conservative people?”

“Yeah. Born and raised in Oakland, but racist and fearful. Her dad’s a cop, Italian and Catholic. Her mother’s Irish Catholic.”

“Wow – that’s a offspringal challenge. Is that a word? I’m looking for the adjectival form of ‘child.’ You know: like the opposite of ‘parental.’”

Karen says, “I can’t figure Jess out. She has the lowest self-esteem of any person I’ve ever known. She has fears about incidents that have never happened to her or anyone she knows. She cries at any critical comment. She readily declares hatred for what we consider minor annoyances, like a rude bike commuter. I don’t know what her parents did to her.”

“Hold on. She’s 44! You can’t blame her parents.”

“Tell me about it. But Jess’s self-esteem issues are so profound that they really do invite you to look for a cause. It’s like there’s fossil evidence of abuse that you just can’t ignore.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Laura declares. “I’d have enough trouble living with anyone, but without sex and romance and good hugs… there’s insufficient payoff to make the effort worth it.”

“We’re dangerously close to agreement,” Karen says. Both women laugh and get on to other subjects.

And they’ll be agreeing again, but with more of an edge, in one month. That’s how long it will take for Karen to acquire Jess. It will start in four days, at a family dinner her mother will cook, attended by Karen, Laura, William, and Jess. William will be particularly attentive to his mother that evening, matching her smile for smile and almost simpering himself, and Jess will find his big sister more companionable. That occasion will lead to a lunch filled with significant words and arresting glances.

Jess and William will remain friends, but less so. It will turn out that Jess requires sex in her life. She’ll be happier, but she won’t be more self-confident. She’ll continue fearful. She won’t figure out why.