ere are the things I put into my vagina over the next two months: vinegar rinses; saltwater soaks; a jelly formulated with the correct vaginal pH; and estrogen cream. I tried a lubricant named Astroglide that was more glue than glide. My boyfriend and I tried all sorts of varieties of sexual activity: very quickly, so it wouldn't have time to hurt; without moving, just in there; only fingers in there; nothing at all in there, only outside. Whatever we did, it hurt. I stopped wearing trousers and I drove less. I stood in the health section of the bookstore in Harvard Square and scared myself by reading about vulvar cancer. I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor of the bathroom with a mirror and a flashlight looking at my red spots.

The last activity was interesting. I felt I was doing something forbidden. I would have preferred to look at my vagina in a brighter room, like my study, but I was afraid people would see me doing it (my street is narrow and my neighbors are very close), so I stayed in the dark, shaded bathroom. I felt I wasn't supposed to be investigating it at this length—or at any length, really. But I did. I peered and poked and spread my outer lips and my inner lips and looked into the tunnel of it and tried to figure out what was normal and what wasn't. I had no idea, of course. The more I did it, though, the more I got to know my vagina. And since it was sore in a particular spot, I could compare the rest of it to that spot. I had a control area and a sick area. The trouble was, aside from a little redness, there wasn't much difference between them.

I tried explaining what it felt like to my boyfriend. There's a firecracker in there, I said. It's like a sore throat—I thought this was a helpful image. It's similar to a throat anyhow, so this is a really sore throat. So sore you don't want to swallow, you know that kind of sore throat?

He looked at me quizzically as I made all these analogies.

I don't have one, he said, so I really can't imagine.

You have a throat, I pointed out.

I'm trying to imagine, he said.

We were completely miserable.

My boyfriend was a carpenter. We met because I needed a new front door. My old door had warped and didn't close right. When it snowed, I'd get a small snowdrift in the hall.

He'd fixed that. Curls and chips of fresh wood from the shims for the new door lay at his feet when he was done.

You got a broom? he asked.

I gave him one.

He was careful cleaning up. He made sure to get all the sawdust out of the corners, kneeling down with the dustpan—You got a dustpan?—and then holding the shavings in place as he walked them to the trash can in the kitchen.

There was something compelling about his slow, thorough care. I decided I needed some bookshelves.

I liked watching him work. I liked his soft-lead pencil shaped like a miniature plank of wood and his spring-loaded yellow tape measure as big as a baseball that hung on his belt and his habit of saying, Okay, here we go, to each piece of lumber before he cut into it.

I especially liked the way he smelled. When I stood beside him while he explained what was going to happen next with the bookshelves, I'd smell the sweetness of cut wood with its bright tang of resin.

Because he was a slow, methodical carpenter I thought he would be a slow, methodical lover too, but he wasn't. He was as energetic and inventive as a jigsaw.

For two years we were happy with the activities we shared: thinking up home improvements for him to make and having sex. Now that I did not want to have sex, though, we got into trouble.

I didn't want to have sex because it hurt. He still did, which made sense. It didn't hurt him when we had sex. And my vagina still worked in the usual way—if he kissed me, it became soft and approachable and delighted, as if there was nothing wrong with it. But the moment he touched it, I yelped.

We started having a lot of stupid arguments: what video to rent, whether to invite Paula and Ettore for dinner, whether to walk or drive to Harvard Square. These arguments were really about my vagina, and they made it hurt more.

In November I called the alternative health center for an appointment.