"I did have a thing," I said, "though I couldn't figure out what to do with it. As far as lesbians were concerned, I barely knew they existed. I had a pretty elaborate fantasy life, but as far as I can remember it was pretty much dyke-free."

"I just have this image of a hot chat room conversation, with two gay women pulling out all the stops and telling each other just what they want to do and how they'll do it, and each one of them is actually a boy. I just thought of something."

"What?"

"Well, the boys who do this. I mean, they may be crazy but they're not stupid, right?"

"So?"

"So don't you figure they know their online buddy is about as much of a lesbian as they are? And if they know, and get off on it anyway, what does that make them?"

"Happy," I suggested.

"I guess. Anyway, you get a lot less of that crap with Date-a-Dyke. There's no chatting, you just post messages back and forth. And if you click you make a date to meet."

"And this'll be what, your fourth date?"

"Only the third, Bern. I had one all set a week ago, and she canceled."

"Cold feet?"

She shook her head. "Warm memories. She and her ex were going to try to make it work after all. So it was just as well she canceled, because earlier she'd said she was footloose and fancy-free, that her last relationship was a horror and she never wanted to see the bitch again. If she was going to be carrying all that baggage, well, I'm glad I didn't waste an evening on her."

"Figures."

"The one I'm seeing Friday," she said, "is a paralegal at a law firm that represents lenders in commercial real estate transactions."

"She probably tweaked it a little to make it sound exciting."

"So it's not glamorous. It's not as though washing dogs day in and day out is gonna get you on the cover ofVanity Fair. Anyway, she sounds interesting. Of course, without a photograph it's hard to know if you're going to be attracted to one another."