M. is a spiritual cannon of a woman -- a Creator of the Universe (at least her own universe and that of some of her friends), tirelessly carving her own morality and elaborate karmic balance, with a fearlessness and tenacity that has been nothing less than terrifying to all of us. Sitting there, in my Father of M. the Bride chair, and trying to find some gem of truth in the unfortunate priestly prattle, I figured that it was the role of any organized religion to frighten one into overcoming one's own fears of true spiritual freedom: the fear of intrinsic, cosmic "wrongness" is the flaming veil through which one must march into a full possession of self-knowledge. At a certain point, you know what is right and wrong for yourself, but not without initial self-inflicted punishments from the various crowbars of guilt and dogma. We collectively create God because we ARE God, I reckoned. People have a lot of trouble gripping an idea of abounding benevolence and limitless mercy: God is always and only as cruel as people are to each other and themselves. In an utterly compassionate world, God would be perceived as much sillier and more ironically kind; less like Zeus, more like Santa Claus. Here on this earth, God still needs a fascist task force and a whole shitload of ground rules, more because of Us than Him.

But in any case, M. went through with it, and by 4 in the afternoon she was all married up, and that was that.

There was a lesbian couple at the post-wedding dinner. I knew one of the women, "Barb," from years ago, when on New Year's Eve she suggested to a bunch of us girls that we go find a firehouse and try to fuck the firemen. I was shocked by her then.

Upon arrival, Barb threw off her coat to reveal, to my shock and horror, a wedding dress with the breasts cut out and her huge, pendulous dugs swinging offensively above the bodice with tiny white pasties on the nipples. Jesus! I thought. How fucking inappropriate! A nude bride, and it's not even her wedding! Talk about pulling focus. M. didn't seem to mind, having no appreciation of social boundaries whatsoever and being generally welcoming of that type of behavior, but I felt it was gruesome. It wasn't a merry topless jape: There was way too much political Smearing-It-In-Your-Faceness about it.

Like a dog smelling fear, Barb seemed to thrive on the disgust provoked by her antagonistic nudity. "Do you like it, Cintra? I wore it Just for YOU," she said sneeringly, obviously having been told that I had previously thought she was kind of awful and unattractively lewd, and attacking me with both huge angry tits before I could get my bearings. "I'm SPEECHLESS," I hissed, with excessive hauteur. Various men swung their heads away from the area mouthing the sentiment "ooooh!"

Still, I was glad for her and her oppressive raunch. There were also very powerful Wall Street leather queens in various harnesses in attendance at the dinner: M. herself wore a white vinyl teddy and feather boa, and nearly everyone had a rambunctious, oversized hat. People stopped noticing Barb's tits after a while, and after a few glasses of champagne it was almost as pleasant as if she didn't have any tits at all. I was still infused with the holiday spirit of giving: I really appreciated the fact that Barb had shown up to be a target for my barbing. I realized solemnly that it was my place to be the uptight snit and hers to be the slummocky exhibitionist, and all was right with the world.

It was good to give a bride away, my most spectacular orphan friend. In a way, I was handing myself on to the next phase also, by giving M. to Shane before God and country; I'm getting married this year, too. As it has been with the rest of our lives, M. has taken the plunge into the iciest waters before me, coming up for air with blue lips and giving me the finger, giving me the dare and unspoken permission to do it myself.

Later that night, after watching the last episode of "I, Claudius," I dreamed of a Roman senator living in the woodsy suburbs of Rome, shortly after the death of Christ. The senator and his wife were gallivanting naked in the trees near their home when they suddenly saw two small figures approaching.

"Look," said the senator to his wife, who was wearing a black bikini-bottom and floral pasties, "satyrs."

Two young satyrs appeared silently out of the trees. They looked like naked children with moose antlers. They were wild, and stared at the couple with the same kind of quiet, ego-absent awareness that an elk would. The senator and his wife were careful not to scare them. It was clear that such innocently libidinous activity as happily frolicking naked with one's wife in the woods could attract satyrs, in my dream, much in the same way that cleaning fish can attract curious raccoons. The senator beseeched the satyrs, "Can we join you this once, and not just watch?"

The young satyrs, who possessed in their untamed manner a superior consciousness of such celestial matters, calmly shook their heads no. "Ah, well," said the senator sweetly, and guided his wife through the white columns back into their home to make love.