Commitment Hour lop-2

by James Alan Gardner

  Our house lay close to the water, one of four identical cabins set aside for pre-Commitment couples. By the time you reached age nineteen, you were expected to be living with someone, getting a taste of how your later life might go. That gave you one year as master of the house and one year as mistress, so that you'd see both sides before Committing. When you chose your final gender, the gods wanted you well-informed.

  Not that a short time playing house could really prepare people for the long haul… but the little cabin we were allotted by the Council of Elders had a pressure-cooker quality that helped simulate the intensity of decades living in each other's laps. The cabin was cramped; it was damp; it reeked constantly of fish; and when spring thaw raised the lake level, water sometimes oozed up through the floorboards, puddling in the north corner where the carpenters had skimped on support joists. If a couple could laugh together, and solve problems together, the hardship drew them closer to each other. If not… well, that was useful information to have before Committing, wasn't it?

  As I approached the cabin, I could see dim light shining through the window's mosquito net: light from our only oil lamp, burning on our only table. Of course, Leeta would still be talking with Cappie — explaining the full duties of priestess while there was still time to back away. As if Cappie really had the temperament for such a job! I loved the man, I truly did, but he was hopeless when it came to interacting with people. Whenever I tried to talk about feelings, his or mine, he'd think I was asking for advice! He'd completely miss the point, or squirm uncomfortably, or…

  I kicked myself for thinking of the male Cappie again. The female version was almost an unknown quantity; I'd only seen her through my male half's eyes, and I knew better than to trust his judgment.

  Still… Cappie as priestess? I'd make a better priestess than she would. Wouldn't I?

  Would I?

  Hmmm.

  It would be a good position for me: prestigious, but not onerous. I'd still have ample free time to practice violin and jaunt down-peninsula to earn gold at festivals. I wouldn't be allowed to marry Cappie, but I could still keep him as a lover… a live-in lover, and not cooped up in a tiny fish-smelling cabin: the priestess's house was quite spacious. And because I wasn't married, I'd still be free for any sweet-smelling Yoskar I might meet when I went south to play.

  You didn't expect me to be more of a saint than my male self, did you?

  Since I was in my male body, I had to pretend to be Male-Me… and as I reached the cabin porch, I stopped to ponder if he would knock on the door or just barge in unannounced. He prided himself on being a gentleman, but only on those rare occasions when it occurred to him there was more than one way to behave. I decided to knock, then tromp inside without waiting to be invited — it seemed like an appropriate combination of surface courtesy and self-centered entitlement. Being such an obvious lout made me queasy, but I didn't want Cappie to think I was anyone more than my unsubtle male self.

  I knocked. I tromped. I said, "Hi."

  Leeta was rocking in the chair by our fireplace; Cappie sat on the floor a short distance away, knees hugged up to her chest. They had the air of people talking about such important things that they hadn't spoken for several minutes. When they turned to look at me, their expressions were more surprised than annoyed at the interruption.

  "Weren't you going back to the marsh?" Cappie asked. Her voice almost whispered; I suppose she was reluctant to speak any louder.

  "No point to vigil anymore," I replied. "Like you told Hakoore, we aren't going to catch ducks, not the way Steck ruined our nets. And when I thought of sitting out there doing nothing, versus coming back to talk with you…"

  Leeta shifted in the rocker. "If you two want to talk…"

  "No." Cappie put a hand on Leeta's knee so the priestess stayed in the chair. "I doubt if Fullin has talking in mind." With her gaze fixed on me, she closed up the top few buttons of her shirt.

  "Oh, please," I told her with wounded dignity, "when I say 'talk,' I mean 'talk.' If Steck hadn't interrupted us in the marsh, I would have done it there."

  "Do you expect me to believe that? You've avoided things for months—"

  "And I don't want to keep avoiding them until it's too late. Look, Cappie, I've been telling myself for weeks that tonight's the night to settle everything. I thought we'd be alone on vigil and we wouldn't have any distractions…"

  "We're alone every night, Fullin. We have this cabin all to ourselves."

  "No we don't — the kids are always here. But tonight Waggett's with my father and Pona's with your family… this is our chance."

  "Don't worry about me," Leeta said, placing her plump little hand on Cappie's shoulder. "We can talk about being priestess another time."

  "But…"

  "I'm not going to die before you get back," she told Cappie with a reproving smile. "And it's important for you and Fullin to clear the air before tomorrow. You know it is."

  "Definitely," I agreed. "We shouldn't be mad at each other tomorrow."

  Cappie stared at me, obviously wondering if I was up to some trick. I met her gaze with all the sincerity I could muster, warning myself to be careful — she might wear men's clothes, but this Cappie wasn't the male version I knew so well. I couldn't take anything for granted.

  "All right," she sighed. "I'll let you talk."

  "Don't just talk," Leeta said, getting to her feet. "You have to listen too — both of you." She took a step toward the door, then turned back to Cappie. "And if you decide in the end that you want to Commit male, do what's right for your life. There are other women in the village who could become priestess."

  "Sure," I nodded. "For all we know, I might end up Committing female. Then I could be priestess."

  I laughed lightly, in the hope they wouldn't think about that too seriously; but both of them gave me a look, as if they were far from sure I was joking.

  "Okay," Cappie said. "Talk."

  I took a deep breath. She was standing beside the door, having just closed it behind Leeta. I leaned against the cold stone fireplace, directly across the room from her — I had the impression that Male-Me did a lot of leaning against things. Men do.

  "Well?" Cappie asked.

  "Okay," I told her, "it's just… it's been a bit of a bad year for us, hasn't it?"

  "That's like saying a tornado is a bit of a bad wind."

  "It hasn't been that horrible," I protested. "We've stumbled along. Still… this is hard on my pride, but when I'm a guy I'm colossally stupid. Self-centered. Obnoxious even. I have no idea why any woman would… never mind. Things were better last year, weren't they? When you were the boy and I was the girl?"

  "We just hadn't had as much time to get on each other's nerves," Cappie replied. Her voice was sharp with bitterness. "Last year we were still fresh, that's all."

  "No it isn't. We felt right together. We loved each other."

  "And you don't love me now?"

  "Cappie…" I wanted to plant my hands on her shoulders and burn my gaze into hers, but we were still far apart, on opposite sides of the cabin. "Listen, because I mean this: I want to throw away this year and go back to the way things used to be. You a man and me a woman. As a woman, I love you deeply. As a man… I'm all screwed up."

  "Amen to that last." She took a step toward me. "You aren't just saying this to keep me quiet, are you Fullin? Or because you're horny?"

  "I'm not horny." I had a feeling Male-Me would have been — aroused by her clothes, and the quiet solitude of the night. But I felt no sexual passion for the Cappie before me… at least nothing beyond a certain curiosity of how it would feel to make love inside a male body.

  "And I'm not up to any tricks," I went on quickly. "I'm being honest. I love you, Cappie, I really do; but so much crap gets in the way when our sexes are wrong."

  "Fullin… such strong language!" She gave the ghost of a smile. "I suppose it means you're sincere."

  "Don't laugh at me." I pushed myself off the wall and mo
ved toward her. "I'm telling the truth."

  "And not just what I want to hear." She slipped behind one of the wooden chairs arranged around our table, so that the chair came between her and me. "You haven't asked yet how I feel."

  "Don't you feel the same way?"

  "About us? Yes and no. Yes, it was better last year; but considering how bad it's got this year, that's not saying much. I just don't know if our sexes had much to do with it, ever. We started out happy; now we aren't. Maybe the novelty of being together just wore off."

  "Cappie," I said, "we've been together longer than two years. We've been together all our lives. After my mother died, we nursed together — so your mother constantly reminds me. And we played in the same henyards, hung our coats side by side in school, froze our toes together that night when you were trying to work up the nerve to kiss me…"

  She rolled her eyes and gave a rueful chuckle. "That was my male half. I've never understood what was going through my head."

  "But I like your male half," I said. "I like you this way too," I added hurriedly, "but we work better the other way around."

  "And what about me being priestess?" she asked. "I can't just drop that — not after making such a fuss in front of the council."

  "Leeta said she could get someone else."

  "But suppose I want to be priestess. If Leeta can't pick me, she'll have to pick one of the older women — someone who's already Committed female. And when I think of the older women, they're all so conventional… or else completely crazy."

  "If you're worried about it," I told her, "I'll volunteer to be priestess. Okay? And I'll consult you on everything — we'll make decisions together. If you have changes you want to make, I'll make them. You can be the power behind the throne."

  She looked at me suspiciously. "Is that what this is about, Fullin? You've decided you want to be priestess?"

  "I've decided I can't live without you," I answered. "It kills me when we can't look each other in the eye, and I want to fix that. If you don't want me to fill in as priestess for you, fine — let one of the older women do it. They aren't all so bad. And at least we won't be as closed off to each other as we've both been the past year."

  Cappie's eyes glistened in the lamplight as she searched my face. "Usually I can tell when you're lying," she whispered. "It has been rough, hasn't it?"

  Slowly I walked around the chair she'd been holding between us. Her hands gripped the wooden back tightly; I laid my own hands gently on hers, then lifted them to kiss her fingertips. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if shutting off everything but the touch of my lips. Then she let out a sigh and pulled reluctantly away.

  "You've lied to me a lot, Fullin," she said. "You've hurt me and ignored me. I've almost drowned in loneliness."

  "That was this year," I told her. "When I'm a woman, I—"

  She put her fingers against my mouth to silence me. "Don't make me mad with excuses. I don't want to be mad. I just… you wouldn't lie about something as important as this, would you? No, forget I said that — you've never been deliberately cruel. You can be so damned thoughtless, but you've never hurt me intentionally."

  "I love you, Cappie," I said. It wasn't a lie — when I thought of the male Cappie, my heart shone. "Do you love me?"

  Silence. Then she answered, "I'm so lonely, I can't tell."

  Her arms came around my neck and she pulled herself tight to me, as desperate as all the devils in the world.

  EIGHT

  A Call for the Weasel

  I awoke male. Male-Me in Male-me.

  The cabin was dark and the sheets beneath me damp with sweat: mine and Cappie's, slick for each other. When I licked my lips, they tasted of her.

  Oh, boy — I was in deep, deep donkey dung.

  I could remember everything my sister self had done… as much as you can ever remember what happens when you make love. It had been a novelty for my female half — she had taken her time. That had been what Cappie wanted too: she whispered that she longed for comfort. Tenderness. No inventive athletics, just melting into each other, touching and being touched.

  Ooo, yuck.

  My sister self, gurgling lovey-dovey sentiments to another woman… what had I been thinking?

  And I couldn't quite reconstruct the exact sequence of events. Had Female-Me been aroused before the touching began? It didn't bother me if my male body had responded physically to physical stimulation; but if my female half had been excited purely by looking at a female Cappie, before the strokes and caresses…

  Well, at least our bodies had been male and female. At least we had that. Last summer down-peninsula, when I had been female and the woman doctor had… no, I didn't want to remember. That had been a perversion: two physical women. But this time, Cappie and I had been in male and female bodies, and that was all that mattered.

  In sex, souls didn't count. Did they?

  Cappie lay sleeping beside me. I couldn't see in the dark, but I imagined she had a smile on her face.

  Yikes.

  I'd made love with Cappie… promised to become Mocking Priestess on her behalf… formed a pact that I'd become female and she'd become male, even though that sort of arrangement was strictly against the Patriarch's Law…

  And speaking of the Patriarch's Law, I was supposed to be on vigil.

  Yikes again.

  I had to restrain myself from leaping out of the bed. How soon was sunrise? Could I get back to the marsh in time?

  With agonizing caution, I pulled away from Cappie's sleeping body, holding my breath so I wouldn't smell the cowbarn sweat and sex that oozed off her skin. She was naked, of course, no longer wearing her father's clothes; plain old Cappie now, except for the short-chopped hair. In the darkness, that haircut made her look disturbing — I didn't like seeing her scalp so easily, or the raw shape of her skull. It was like one of those terror tales the old men told around the campfire: the hero embraces a beautiful woman and when he pulls away, finds that she's turned into a worm-eaten corpse.

  No. That wasn't fair. Cappie may have looked scrawny and underdeveloped as she lay uncovered in the darkness, but she was no horrible monster. She was just… ordinary.

  Didn't my female half realize that?

  My life had progressed beyond this unsophisticated girl in my bed. I was famous the whole length of the peninsula. Admired by far more interesting women.

  I couldn't let myself get trapped by mediocrity when I was just coming into my own. This was no time to make senseless commitments.

  I managed to find my clothes — scattered over the floor and furniture, but thank heaven the cabin was small — and I took everything outside so there was less chance of waking Cappie while I dressed. No one saw me. Only one of the nearby cabins was occupied, and that belonged to Chum and Thorn: a pair of nineteen-year-olds who lived together like crashing thunderheads. One second they'd be screeching over who should empty the chamberpot, and the next they'd be passionately a'moan with rough lovemaking that smacked against their cabin walls and knocked out chips of mortar. Since tomorrow would be their last sex switch before permanent Commitment, I was sure they had battered themselves into raw-chapped stupor hours ago. They would never open their eyes long enough to notice me on my own porch, pulling on my pants and hurrying off into the darkness.

  Hurrying off, then hurrying back again. A gentleman doesn't abandon a woman in the middle of the night, without at least leaving a note. Just inside the door, Cappie and I kept a white pine board and a stick of charcoal for leaving each other messages. Holding the charcoal with a feather touch to avoid making noise, I wrote GONE BACK TO VIGIL… then added, LOVE, FULLIN.

  Anything else would have been rude.

  The black sky was just beginning to lighten over Mother Lake as I reached the trail to the marsh. Dawn was still a good hour away. I slowed down and tried to force myself to relax, to keep an eye out for snapping turtles, but I didn't have the concentration. My mind kept going back to Cappie.

  What had I do
ne?

  What had I promised?

  What would she think when she found me gone?

  This mess was my sister self's fault. If she hadn't showed up, I could have fobbed Cappie off forever. Evaded conversation. Avoided promises.

  A gentleman doesn't break his promises — a smart gentleman doesn't make any.

  Now what was I going to do?

  I didn't want to hurt her; that would just cause trouble. Cappie wouldn't hesitate to make an embarrassing scene in public, even on Commitment Day. My only choice was to play along with what my female self had tied me to, at least until we reached Birds Home. Then… well, if Cappie was going to Commit male, I could go male too, making a relationship impossible.

  Or maybe I could Commit Neut, get myself banished, and escape everything.

  Not funny, Fullin.

  My violin was safe where I left it, inside the log near the duck flats. I took it out of the case, tuned up, and played… not exercises or any specific song, just playing, soft or loud, sweet or savage, whatever came from second to second. It helped. Music doesn't solve problems, any more than daylight eliminates stars; but while the sun shines the stars are invisible, and while the music sang from my bow, Cappie, Steck, Female-Me, and everyone else who choked up my life vanished into the breakers of sound.

  In the sky, stars began to fade. Light seeped up from the eastern horizon, pasty-faced and watery as predawn usually is. (Zephram once observed to me, "Master Day is not a morning person.") In the wan yellow light, flies began to buzz and frogs to chug, while loons still called night songs to each other and fish splashed the surface of open water, on the grab for fluff and insects.

  Buzz, chug, hoo-ee-oo, splash.

  Buzz, chug, hoo-ee-oo, splash.