Instead I called my  friend Jasmine, an English professor who seemed blissfully married to Glen, an attorney even taller than Aaron. He was a hunk too, and a great father to their three daughters. To my surprise, Jasmine admitted that Glen wasn’t sexually aggressive either. "His work takes so much out of him. His boss is a stressed-out maniac. We’re always broke. His parents are crazy and draining. When he gets home, I don’t think he wants to risk rejection," she explained.

"You don’t feel let down having to initiate it all the time?" I asked.

"Well, I give him a break. I let different things count as aggressive. If he says, ‘You look beautiful in that dress,’ or holds my hand, then I take it from there," Jasmine said. "Always with compassion."

Jasmine was so compassionate that for a second I felt sorry for modern men; surely the mixed messages from multiple waves of the women’s movement had paralyzed them. Aaron was exhausted, working crazy hours at three jobs. He had also been assisting me with my addiction therapy, going along with my therapist Dr. Winters’ semi-kooky mandates - holding me for an hour while we watched TV without talking every night, throwing out all candy or junk food in the house, taking long walks with me when I got antsy.

Dr. Winters latest written edict ordered: "Sex for Medicinal Purposes." I waited for the appropriate time to show it to Aaron over the weekend, as if it were a "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

On Friday night, we had a fight when Aaron did the laundry but just happened to forget to do MY laundry. Then, afraid his clothes would shrink in the dryer, he hung them up all over the bathroom and  living room, until our sleek Manhattan high rise  looked like Fiddler On the Roofs'  Anatevka. Since Aaron had dropped twenty pounds  lately, why would he care if his jeans or shirts shrunk a little bit? He’d been coming home from work every night at midnight. He wasn’t sleeping or eating well. When I found a toothbrush and clean pair of polka dot boxer shorts in his briefcase, I worried that he was having an affair. Then I worried that he never even thought of having an affair.

Too preoccupied with stemming my own self-destructive impulses, I realized that Aaron wasn’t just acting like a male jerk. He was being insaner than I was. I suggested he call Dr. Winters to make an appointment for himself. To my surprise, he didn’t argue at all. I suspected that Aaron was becoming jealous of my fascinating weekly discussions with the good doctor. At least I hoped he was.

"I’m seeing him at eight forty-five Thursday morning," he told me when he came home at midnight on Monday.

"That’s so funny,  because my appointment is for eight forty-five Thursday night. We’ll be Dr. Winters' bookends. There’s a screenplay in it, like Rashomon."

"Let’s screw with his head," Aaron said. "Make up bizarre conflicting stories to see if he’s really listening."

I was not thrilled to share my shrink, though I had originally stolen him from Aaron, who had stolen him from his ex-fiancée. I feared that Oedipal triangles and dormant sibling rivalry would  resurface all over the place.  Yet how could I not trust the guy who made Aaron make an honest woman out of me? Not to  mention morphing me into a smoke-alcohol-and-freelance-headache-free soon-to-be published memoirist who weighed 137 pounds, a miracle all by itself. 

Instead of leaving well enough alone,  I'd  made the mistake of admitting that the best way for me to stay off nicotine would be to nix ten  pounds.  That way I would  relinquish the reason I'd always gone back. Thus Dr. Winters'  latest torture  involved giving up   bread products - since that was the quickest, healthiest way I lost weight.  I could eat unlimited protein, fat, fruits, and vegetables,  while I said goodbye to  my  cherished pasta, potatoes, pizza,  pita, pancakes, sandwiches, pastries, cake, and Entenmann's fat-free brownies. Worse, I'd sadly bid adieu to the fried rice, shrimp dumplings, sesame cold noodles, scallion pancakes, egg rolls,  and almond cookies that I had been ordering in weekly from Sammy's Noodle Shop. I was still in the throes of serious Sammy's withdrawal.

Adding sex to the taboo list was killing me. It was deprivation overload. Making myself come wasn't really satisfying. Sort of  like eating hard boiled eggs when I was dying for French toast made from challah. I was  desperate.  I figured if Dr. Winters had gotten me  married, clean, and published,  chances were he could get me laid.

At my eight-forty-five Thursday night session, before I could even say "hello," he looked at me and said, "Stop criticizing Aaron."

"Why?" I asked. "Aaron criticizes me constantly. He says incredibly mean things. If I take out his garbage, I’m an 'anal neat-freak.' When I didn’t let him order garlic naan at Café Spice,  he said ‘You’re such a controlling shrew.' Did you know that when Lilly sold my memoir, Aaron had the nerve to tell  my close friend Susie, ‘Thank God my father isn’t alive to read it.’ How passive-aggressive is that? He didn't tell it to one of his best friends,which would be bad enough. But he told it to one of mine!"

"What did you say to him?"

"I said, ‘Go chew on yourself,' which my brothers used to tell  me.  Sometimes I ignore him. I don’t care. Growing up  with  three rambunctious kid brothers,  I'm used to fighting."

"Stop fighting with Aaron," Dr. Winters insisted.

"Why do I have to be more sensitive than he is?"

"Because criticism doesn’t bother you but it bothers him," he said.

"That’s ridiculous." I crossed my arms. "What a double standard!"