"It's hard for me to say if it's Sept. 11 or just getting older," she says. She's only a year older, though. Before, she was considering leaving New York to be closer to a faraway boyfriend. Now he's out of the picture, and she's still here. She wants to be in New York and date a local boy. She's still feeling vulnerable and needy: "Even the toughest sex-and-the-city little girl may need somebody to tickle her back and help her go to sleep. You can't necessarily be tough and make it on your own anymore."

What happened to "terror sex"?

It's probably impossible to have end-of-the-world, earth-shattering terror sex for an entire year without serious chafing. And so, at some point between mid-October and January, we stopped. Even the Gold Crown Escort Service -- "for the most discerning of gentlemen" -- says that it's been a bit slow lately.

Many New Yorkers recall the feelings of vulnerability, the need to connect with someone physically, the hot, sweaty sex that followed the attack on the World Trade Center last fall. It wasn't sacrilegious; we just didn't know what else to do. We clung to each other -- just sometimes without clothes. Throughout the city were echoes of screams and cries of pain, panic, despair and passion all rolled into one giant force of uncontrollable emotion like none of us have ever experienced before.

Remember?

For those of us who did not experience the personal loss of a loved one, it has faded a bit. I ride the subway every day without hesitation. Phone conversations start with "Hey!" instead of a loaded, "Are you OK?" and end with "Talk to you later," instead of, "Remember, I love you." The planes flying over my house now are because I live 10 minutes from LaGuardia Airport, and not because fighter jets are patrolling the airspace around my city.

Until every news outlet forces me to relive the event Wednesday, I'm doing OK.

Until something else happens, it appears we've come out on the other side. Passions may have cooled, but we exchanged "terror sex" for something new.

"One thing I did notice is, around November I couldn't trick like I used to," says Stephen. He corrects himself wryly. "Well, I did, but it wasn't with the same gusto. My heart wasn't in it." He admits to being "loose," and before Sept. 11, found sex in the gay social scene readily available. He would go out at night with the intention of finding someone to have sex with. After the attacks, he says, he found more comfort in having conversations with lovers, emotional connections that he hadn't experienced in that way before. He didn't go back.

"In December, after going through this deep depression, I decided to grab life in this really clichéd, Sondheim-y way," he says. Eat better, exercise more, take more chances emotionally. He met a man who felt the same and they became monogamous right away, which is rare for him.

"We both came together with a similar attitude, which was: I'm kind of sick of the nightlife, sexual rat race. Let's be honest and let's be really sexual and let's get to know each other." He says it's the best sex of his life and the relationship itself is more rewarding than he could ever have imagined.

A result of 9/11?

"I think 9/11 got me there quicker. I know this is not an across-the-board thing that all gay men did," he says. "I think I was headed there anyway."