I knock on the door. I think for a moment about how different this feels, how far we have come together, she and I, and how tonight will be another amazing step into each other.

She opens the door. She is dressed only in a t-shirt, probably Eric’s. She smiles when she opens the door and tilts her head like she sometimes does.

"Hey, Sweetie."

"Hi, Honey!"

We hug. She could be my sister except I am closer to her than I am to my own brother.

"Are you nervous?," I ask.

"No." She smiles at me and I feel that warmth, that instant comfort that I feel whenever I am around her. "I’m afraid that I’m just going to laugh."

I smile back at her. She gets on her tip-toes to kiss me on the cheek. She takes my hand. "Come on," she says as she leads me through her house toward her bedroom.

"Where did Eric and David go tonight?," I ask.

"They went over to my mom’s house. She spoils David rotten."

"Like any good grandmother should," I say.

As we approach her bedroom, I can see the warm, golden glow of candles. The room is ringed with them. When we lived together—five? ten? years ago—we used more candles than electric light. Candles always remind me of Jane.

She goes over to the bed and sits on the comforter. She smiles up at me and pats the bed next to her—sit down. I go over to her and sit down where her hand had just been.

"we’re really going to do this, aren’t we?," I ask. I am nervous and I don’t know why. I have spent countless hours on this bed with her talking about life, kids, boys, life. But tonight will be different for both of us.

She turns and kisses me, on the lips this time. Her mouth opens and I feel passion for her—this woman, this friend, this soul-mate of mine—that I didn’t know I had. I kiss her back and can feel her breathing into me, through me.

* * *

I get out of the shower, hear the phone ring. I think about not answering it, letting the machine get it. Then I decide to risk it. I dash out of the bathroom, still naked and dripping, and pick up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"AT&T Operator. I have a collect call from Italy. Will you accept the charges?"

"Who’s placing the call?"

"Jane."

"Yes! Yes, I’ll accept the charges. Put her through, please."

"Thank you. One moment."

"Hey, baby!"

"Hey, baby-doll! I can’t believe you’re calling me! How’s Italy? What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in two months!"

"Everything is great. Except I miss you. That’s why I’m calling. I just wanted you to know that I love you. I had this beautiful day here and I was thinking all about you, thinking how much you’d like it here. We all went up to the roof of this old building in Modena to sunbathe today. I was listening to the tape of The Point that you made for me and thinking how much I love you and miss you. ‘Because you see what you wanna see . . . ‘"

"’…and you hear what you wanna hear.’" We laugh. That’s what the Rock Man says in The Point. "I passed Ben Frank’s today and I thought of you. I’ve been thinking about you all the time. I wish you were back here. But just one more month . . ."

"Have you met any boys?," she asks.

"No boys yet. Still looking."

"You’ll find someone soon."

"You know what I was thinking about today—as I sat up there on that roof?"

"What?"

"I was thinking how much I love you and how close we are. And I was thinking that if you ever started going tout with a guy—like for a long time, where things looked stable and you guys were married and everything and if I had a couple of kids already—I was thinking that we could have a baby together. You and I."

"Oh, Jane! That’s so beautiful! I can’t . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know what to say. That would be so wonderful. I can’t think of a better mom that any kid could have. That would be so wonderful."

"But no doctors. We’d have to do it the old-fashioned way."

"You mean—no turkey basters?"

"Nope. Just you and me, baby."

"That would be fun."

"I think so."

"Jane—that’s the most touching thing you’ve ever said. I can’t believe that you’d do that for me—I mean, nine months . . ."

"I’d still want to see the kid. You know, I’d be Auntie Jane or something."

"Jane, I love you. I always want you to be a part of my life."

"I love you too. I miss you terribly."

* * *

I fall back on the bed and feel like I’m sinking. She’s had this huge comforter since we lived together, almost ten years now. Whenever I am on her bed, I feel safe, insulated, protected in all the most valuable ways. I feel like I am sinking into Jane.

We are still kissing. I slowly start to run my hands up the sides of her body and her skin is warm against the palm of my hand. My hands are slowly pushing up her shirt. It has been so long—ten years? longer?--since I have touched a woman’s breast. My hand wraps around and I hold her. Her body—a woman’s body—is foreign and familiar and the years since I last slept with a woman fade quickly.

Her hands run through my hair as we kiss. One of her hands reaches down to my waist and tugs my shirt out of my jeans. She puts her hand onto my stomach. She reaches up to my chest, caressing as she goes. She starts to giggle and we both open our eyes, breaking the kiss.

"What?," I ask her, more curious than hurt.

"You’ve got such a hairy chest! Eric doesn’t have a hairy chest at all."

I start to giggle now, too. And then we are laughing together, really laughing. We see each other again as friends, as the crazy girl in my high school calculus class, as the pudgy boy who came out to her on the Forth of July. And here we are, making love. We laugh because we have been friends for so long that sex now seems unimportant but also beautiful. We already share so much intimacy that the sex seems silly, innocent.

We stop laughing but keep smiling. You make me feel special, I want to say. You fill me in ways that I don’t understand. Whenever I am with you, I feel free. I want to say all this to her but instead can only say the shorthand. "I love you." I know she knows what I mean. She looks at me and smiles.

"Make love to me, big boy," she says playfully as she rolls on her back. We start giggling again and then I crawl on her, tickling her for a moment before kissing her again.

* * *

Brad and I are in bed together. He is reading his trashy magazine and I am holding him, trying to sleep but unable to. I sit up in bed.

"I’ve been thinking about kids again lately," I say. Brad puts his magazine down.

"Yeah?," Brad asks.

"I really want to be a father."

"I know, honey. So do I." This is an old conversation.

"I want to do something about it. We’ve both got jobs. we’ve been together over five years now. I think it’s time."

"Is your biological clock ticking?," he asks, somewhat sarcastically.

"I’m serious."

"Have you talked to Jane about it again?"

"Yeah. She said she’d talked to Eric about it and that he was okay with the idea. Having his wife sleep with her gay best friend isn’t threatening to him. And they had David almost three years ago now. She said that she’d still be willing to have a baby with me—with us." He sits next to me, silent. We have talked about this before but never in such concrete terms. Having sex with Jane was always a hypothetical, and now I am trying to make it a reality. "How would you feel about it?"

There is silence next to me as he thinks about it. We have been monogamous for five years. I always thought the issue would be one of us wanting to sleep with another man. Now I am asking how he would feel if I were to sleep with my best friend, my oldest friend, my female friend, Jane.

"I know that you and Jane are close," he says, choosing his words carefully. "And I know that you want to be with me. If it were just to try to have a child—I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I think that any child you have will be beautiful. And I would feel privileged, honored, to be a part of raising that child."

I am relieved, excited. I remember again why I am with Brad, why I love him. I snuggle against his body. I love this man, love sleeping with this man, love having sex with this man. Suddenly I am sad because I wish that we could create the child together, that we could make love to each other and have this beautiful baby with our shared bodies. But we both know it cannot happen that way.

I go to say, "I love you." Before I can get the words out, he says, "I love you, too." Comforting sleep comes quickly and I dream of my child.

* * *

I enter her slowly even though I don’t need to. We are both turned on, our silliness replaced with something deeper, something more mature, something close to passion and friendship. We have been kissing for so long now that my lips are getting tired.

Her body next to mine seems foreign even though I have known her longer than I have known Brad. I can feel right now the importance of what we are doing. We are trying to create a baby, trying to create life. It has nothing to do with sex between me and Jane. But it has everything to do with me having sex with Jane. Because this isn’t just about creating a child and I know that now. This moment—this sex—is also about the love between us. I realize that the reason I have been nervous and scared about this whole thing is because I love Jane and am attracted to Jane. I am sad that I might only be with her once like this.

I break the kiss. She opens her eyes and I look at her. She is beautiful. I have looked at this face a thousand times and still find the beauty in it. She smiles at me, her breath quickening as is mine.

"I love you, Jane," I whisper to her, meaning more than just that.

"I love you, too," she says. And we are kissing again, knowing that we are both close.

Our breathing heightens, deepens, quickens. I feel her body against mine, see that face. I hold on to her, never want to let go.

Our kissing slows. Our breathing deepens, settles. I slowly shift my weight so that I am laying next to her, my leg and arm still on her.

She starts to giggle. I start to giggle, too. Then I am laughing and pull her closer to me.