It had taken me months to find the place, but from the first time I walked in, I knew it was what I was looking for--a little bar off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. My little Audi looked a little out of place in the parking lot among the pick-up trucks, second-hand vans, and mud-spattered SUVs, but not inordinately so. I parked it in one corner of the lot, actually up on grass, where a half-dozen other cars that might qualify as "luxury" clustered together, as if for protection from the bigger, meaner cars.

I had come here once before, on a scouting mission. I had to see for myself if such a place existed. There had been a few other women of my type there, sitting at the bar, drinking mixed drinks and wine spritzers, and talking to everyone but each other.

It was one of the first spots I'd found in my searching where I was actually comfortable going inside. I'd spent less than ten minutes in the Clit Club before making a run for it. I hadn't even gone inside Meow Mix, surrounded as it was by pretty college girls dressed like they could have been going to any club in Manhattan, travelling in packs, playing at bisexuality for the shock value, always touching each other like someone might mistake them for a closet homophobe if they broke contact for a second.

I was a fine one to talk about playing at bisexuality. At home, I had a new husband. Or, at least after two years of marriage, he still felt like a new husband. The house was still impossibly clean, too--the sort of clean that only a new house which has never had a child inside of it can be--clean and white and quiet, our voices disappearing into the high ceilings without an echo. When I am done with what I came here for, I will go home to him, wrap myself around him, make love to him, make the child I told him I wanted two years ago, that I do want, but keep balking out of fear of what I'm leaving behind.

I like this place. I don't even know if it has a name beyond BAR, as seen in pink neon block lettes, visible from the highway. It's dark and smoky with the low ebb and flow of conversation and the sharp clack-clack of a game of pool going on in the back. It's just like a thousand thousand bars across the country, only there don't seem to be any men here. Nothing keeps them out. There's no bouncer, no sign saying "Y Chromosomes Stop Here" outside the door. I suspect men do come in from time to time, maybe have a beer, then figure out that they don't belong and leave. But, it's not a lesbian bar. There are no lesbian bars out here. It's just a place that men don't belong.

Outside, it's brisk, just cold enough to crinkle my nipples through the thin fabric of my blouse. Inside, it's much warmer, hot even, from the press of bodies. People seem comfortable enough hanging their jackets in the front hall with no coat check, so I do the same. I'm wearing a tan, sensible skirt and cream-colored blouse that would not have looked out of place at work. I debated dressing down a bit, trying to fit in a little better. But, as I said, I am not the only woman of my type here. Some people might not like the idea of being pigeonholed, but I find it ideal. I have a type in within it, I am anonymous.

I sidle up to the bar and order a beer. It is the first beer I've drunk in years, but it feels right and tastes so good in the hot, smoky darkness.

"You have a very pretty accent," says one of the girls sitting at the bar. Her own English is heavily accented--Jamaican or Bahamian, maybe. The speaker is dark-skinned enough to be from any of those places or Africa for that matter, "Where is it from?"

Anticipating my answer to the question brings a little frisson of fear to my spine, of misunderstanding and rejection, "South Africa," I say, wondering if I am not deliberately clipping my tones, "Johannesburg." My questioner's eyes widen a little. Against her black face and the darkness, it's like a cartoon of something sinister peering out of the darkness. I wonder if I am losing her, but I am a deal closer. I press on, "I'm Kerry," I say, extending my hand.

With a momentary glance, she takes the hand I've offered her, shaking it. Her palm is dry and faintly callused, her nails trimmed to a functional length, "I'm Mariah," she says, "like the singer, only prettier."

I smile appreciatively at the joke. Mariah moves in closer, taking the stool next to me, turning in to face me, rocking back and forth as she talks so that her knees occasionally brush against mine. Her voice is rich and sweet and melodious, her body all curves. I don't know what she would want with a woman like me, but I never understood that with my husband either. Still, he loves me and pays homage to my pale, tiny form as often as he can.

The conversation is a series of cues, signals that it is okay to proceed. It doesn't last long. Our worlds are too different. She sells sneakers in Bayside. I have not owned a pair of sneakers since college and when I did, they were sneakers, not cross-trainers or running shoes or any of the other phrases she uses while speaking about her work as a pretense to making sure that I am on the level as I do the same.