I wanted no one else for a long time. No one else measured up. Men who resembled him—who possessed his compact form, high brow, or wavy brown hair—only honed my grief. We kept in touch as promised, via letters and the rare phone call. He sent me gifts that helped me cling to the hope that he might one day leave d**k and come to me: an onyx pentagram ring, a Valentine’s Day bear with devil horns. (Appropriate, since I’d always called him my demon lover, my Mephistopheles, making me, of course, a Faustus willingly bargaining his soul.) Upon the bear was imprinted the words I was so frantic to hear and to see: “I Love You.”
Truth be told, September 19, 1991 was the day of our first goodbye. There were actually two other partings, an admission that dilutes the epic importance of the first. In
