 This appeared in salon.com, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Men's Health, and Nylon. She lives in Upstate New York. Please welcome Chloe. Hi everyone. It's her back to follow, you guys are great. Thanks for having me. I have like a lot of different friends here from all different walks of life, so thanks for coming. And I've never been to San Francisco before. I got in last night and if we're being honest, I got really hammered and I'm in like pretty rough shape right now. I'm sorry I was late. We couldn't find the room. But I love San Francisco so far and it's been amazing. I'm going to read from my book. Unfortunately, I don't have any copies with me because I was, I'm all out. I'm reading from this like busted up review copy with a sticker on it. And but if you want to buy a copy, just talk to me and I'll have copies soon and we can figure something out. It is a novella and it's a story of two women, 19 years apart. One is gay and in a relationship. She has a girlfriend and the other one doesn't really know what she is. And they start up a torrid love affair that's just up and down. So I'm going to actually read from different parts of it since there's really no spoiler. It's just a totally, it's just doomed from the beginning. So I'm going to skip around. So if you're like wondering, oh, I'm confused. Are they together or not together? It's just totally a roller coaster. I knew I found Finn's aesthetic attractive, but I hadn't yet explored feelings of being attracted to her, in part because I hadn't yet explored my ability to fall for a woman. I figured if I were going to be with a woman, I would have been with one by now. I would know if I was bisexual or gay. Being a writer, I assumed I was at least mildly self-aware. It also had not occurred to me that Finn might be attracted to me. It didn't occur to me she might be interested in me as more than a friend. It didn't occur to me, even though she wrote me an email in which she said she wanted me to read on a bar stool under dim lights for her while she sipped on a beer. Yeah, book it, her email ended. Book it. And I do vaguely remember staring at her brown hands while she spoke. Her knuckle tattoos, thinking they were the most beautiful hands I had ever seen. After the first time I sleep with Finn, I excitedly tell one of my bisexual friends about my weekend. She shakes her head. You guys shouldn't do that. I play dumb and ask, why not? She raises her voice and says, because you're not a lesbian, because she has a girlfriend. She is hot, though, she adds, and I agree. When morning, my phone interrupts my sleep and it's Finn. She says she wanted to hear my voice. She has left work on her lunch break and she's going to buy a slice of pizza. Sometimes on American Idol, Nicki Minaj says, I'm obsessed with you, she says. I'm obsessed with you right now, I say. I'm so obsessed with you right now. My mother had recently told me that life could be exciting without drugs. After having sex with Finn, I begin to agree with my mother. I've never had a therapist before, but in this city, everyone seems to have both a therapist and an acupuncturist. After a week of avoidant behavior, spend eating my weight in macaroni and cheese while watching the movie Mermaids, I decide, hey, maybe I could use someone to talk to you. I find a woman named Karma, and I call her, but she's $100 per session, and I quickly hang up. I find a woman with long red hair. She's smiling in her online photo, her arm is around her dog. Her voice is meek, but she sounds nurturing like I can trust her. Dr. Kay's office is on the third floor of a large building. The room is spacious with two windows. Through them, there is a large tree I grow accustomed to staring at through each season. The furniture is Ikea style. Dr. Kay wears cardigans and flats. She never takes notes while I talk, but she remembers everything. I love having this woman's full attention. I love the way she looks at me while I talk. I love the way her eyes tear up when mine do. Does your therapist think I'm bad for you? Finn asks. I don't want to be bad for you. Finn gives me a choice. Do I want to wear her flannel shirt or her sweatshirt or her leather jacket? It is a few weeks after the first time we slept together, and it's a weeknight. I choose the flannel because I've already worn the sweatshirt and jacket, and I like to wear as many different pieces of clothing of other peoples as I can. Finn fingers me under the table under my dress, which makes this easier. Come home with me, she says, three times in my ear. She's too drunk to steer her bike home. She thinks she is going to puke. She accuses me of roofing her drink. So I walk her bike, and she stumbles along next to me. This is the first time she has drunk more than I have. We fall asleep holding each other and wake up early. What are these underwear? She asks. What do they look like? I tell her they are gray and lace and cheap. She says they feel so rough like they will never come off. Like, even if there was a war, they would still stay on. I tell Finn I'm worried her rings are going to come off inside of me. I'm terrified of things getting stuck inside my vagina, though nothing like that has ever happened. Whenever we have sex, Finn throws one of her back ribs out and can feel it for weeks afterward. No one has ever laughed at that before. My right shoulder blade is always bothering me. I'm hyper aware of it sticking out of my back. She calls it my wing. I love asking her, will you fix my wing? When I ask that, she nods, turns me onto my back, and touches my shoulder blade tenderly. She takes my hand, stretches my arm out, and moves it in circles, coaxes it back into place. Tonight, while she is doing this, it is quiet until she says, I don't know, but when you moved here, I felt like you belonged to me. She says, if you fall in love with someone else, will you tell me? I ask her, why? So I can be happy for you. And sad for me, she says. And we both laugh a little. Then she mumbles, I don't want you to fall in love with anyone else. Finn and I both have a birthday in spring. She gives me nothing for my birthday. I give her nothing for hers. On my birthday Eve, Nathan and I hit the bars after work. We drink white trashes, shit whiskey followed by Miller High Life. And at the end of the night, we find ourselves at a strip club. I keep putting dollar bills into the stripper's underwear and a man on the loudspeaker says, please stop touching the dancers. Nathan drives me home and is patient with my manic chatter while we sit parked outside my apartment. I sing along to dream on by Aerosmith and when I'm finished, I lean over and vomit on the sidewalk. Nathan holds my hair back from my face, rubs my back. When I finish, he looks apologetic and embarrassed. He tells me he's gotten his period and could he come use the bathroom? His testosterone levels are out of whack. I feel terrible that he's been silently struggling all night. While we walk downstairs to my apartment, he gently points out to me that I have pissed myself. My mom's birthday also falls in spring and she flies in to visit me. I meet her at the airport. I do with my mother many of the same things I do with Finn. We lie in my bed and watch girls. My mom sleeps on the side of the bed Finn slept on. I get dressed with my mom still in the room. She makes comments on my outfit choices. I have a newfound fascination with my mother. If she has a new bracelet, I want to try it on. If she has a glass of water, I want to sip. If she has boots I haven't seen, I want to borrow them for the day. I want to know her dreams in the morning. It was similar with Finn. I take her hat off of her head and put it on my own. I took her rings off of her fingers and onto my own. I once told her I wanted to dress up in all her clothes. I wanted what was not mine. In Finn's absence I crave the attention of women. It doesn't matter who it is. I jump at the chance to be around females in public and private settings with friends and strangers. I also join an online dating site. Remember when you went dyke shopping? The female Woody Allen asked me over the phone recently. That sounded exhausting and depressing. But I am a social fucking butterfly. I accept all invitations and often I do the inviting. One Saturday I go on three dates in a row with women I meet online. I tell myself these dates are a distraction technique but there is part of me that hopes I will fall in love. I meet a woman who describes herself in her online profile as a dyke who rides bikes. This is perfect and I wonder if she'll be like Finn. I meet her on the patio of a bar and 10 minutes into our conversation I learn. One, she's an alcoholic. Two, Augustine Burroughs is her hero. Three, she checks herself into rehab often. She works delivering sandwiches for a cafe. Her face is all busted up from falling off of her bike the night before drunk. I'm attracted to this kind of mess and we make plans to hang out again a few days later. I meet her outside of her grandmother's house. We sit on the lawn close to one another and she passes me the apple she is eating. I take a bite and pass it back. This feels intimate to me, sharing saliva. Are we girlfriends? I wonder in my head. Or are we just sharing an apple? We walk to the grocery store to buy a six pack and I make a salad at the salad bar. She asks me for $10 to purchase the beer saying she doesn't have any money. She whispers in my ear, just walk out the door with the salad. I am surprised when she says this. Not because it's something I have never done but because it is something I have. We sit outside drinking beers, sharing my stolen salad which is when she tells me she was recently arrested for stealing beer from this very grocery store. She tells me she had done a bag of cocaine beforehand and I begin to wonder about the recklessness of hanging out with a girl like this. I descend forward through the day with her anyway. On some level I know I should feel uncomfortable but I do not and when she says follow me, I do. I follow her through her bedroom window. We lie in her bed, drink Svedka and play with her cat. Another woman sends me an enthusiastic and articulate message about books and writing because in my profile I say I'm a writer. We meet late one night at a bar. Her profile says that one of the first things people notice about her is that she's a drogenous but she's tall and skinny and blonde and very feminine. She tells me she's the gayest person in the world but in my head I think I've seen gayer. She is five years younger than I am, 10 inches taller. She walks me home. We go on a few more dates to the movies, to dinner and drinks and to a show. She pays for everything. She has money in a car. I have nothing. Months later I receive a mass email from her with the subject line, gender exclamation point. Those of us who receive this email are to know she now identifies as genderqueer and we must try to transition away from the pronouns she and her. A friend sets me up with a woman named Angel. Angel is wearing the uniform of women our age in this city, American apparel sweatshirt, under a jean jacket, black jeans and fry boots. They're the motorcycle design. She's sure to tell me she actually used to ride a motorcycle and that's the only reason she has them. We run into a group of her friends and she begins telling them about a girl she met and is falling in love with. She's 30, which is perfect. She turns to me and says no offense but I really need a partner who has already gone through the Saturn return. It's like San Francisco, you guys Latin, some cities nobody knows what the Saturn return is. I meet another girl in a patio of a bar. Her posture is horrendous and her social skills non-existent. I find out she's vegan and ask her related questions until I excuse myself saying I have to go to a friend's house to meet her new dog. Sitting half dressed in my bra and tights on Finn's bed I listen to Katie laying on my phone while she showers. I thought I heard music, she says, entering the room. She grabs my head and kisses me hard. One, two or three, she asks, standing at my back. What? Oh, she's talking about the clasp on my bra. It is undone and she is asking me which clasp she should put it on. One, two or three. I tell her I don't know. Any of them are fine. Maybe two, I'm not sure. No one has ever asked me this before. During my break at the library I opened the book of questions. I opened randomly to a page and the question is would you exclude sex from your life for a year if you knew you would be more peaceful? Finn asked me to marry her once. She was off to get our third round of drinks and she leaned over me where I was sitting. Her arm hung over the booth. She hunched over me. She told me she'd been thinking about it. Would you marry me? She asks. I won't answer, but she won't let me off the hook so finally I say either duh or of course. In the morning I remind her of it. What a jackass I am, she says. I see now that she said would you as opposed to will you. This is what happened. I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have fallen in love with is what Finn says, all logical and slowly when she is mad at me one night. She talks to me like I have a learning disability. I wonder if she realizes she just quoted a Buzzcock song but I don't say anything. I let it go. Who cares? She used to be able to see my mind gears turning. What? She'd ask, seeing a certain expression on my face. Nevermind, I'd shake my head and she'd say no tell me what you were gonna say. Put your heart on my heart. So I'd sigh and straddle her and lay my heart down and she'd say, this is gonna be a good one. Any discipline that ever existed flies fast out the window. Drained of mania, I become soft, gain weight. I am lethargic and the heat makes it worse. Poor me. There's nothing so sweet as wallowing in it, is there? Wallowing is like sex for depressives. Jeanette Winterson writes and written on the body. I get drunk and high like in high school. I smoke weed out of a can. I drink wine out of a box. I used to be more hardcore in myself destruction but I'm back to the basics now. I develop a nap habit for the first time in my life. I'm a proper hedonist. I do most things I can without getting out of bed. I buy one dollar pizza from 7-Eleven where the guy tells me it is $2 for two slices. I hide the pizza in my purse while I walk home because no one wants to be friends with someone who eats 7-Eleven pizza. I'll stop there, thank you so much.