Universe 9 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Terry Carr

  But eventually Jules accepted Leo. He was “that guy who’s always around” in Jules’ mind. Leo didn’t care for that, but saw it as progress. In a few more days Jules began to discover that he liked Leo. They began to share things, to talk more. The subject of their previous relationship was taboo for a while. It was as if Jules wanted to know Leo from scratch, not acknowledging there had ever been a Cleo who had once been his wife.

  It was not that simple; Leo would not let it be. Jules sometimes sounded like he was mourning the passing of a loved one when he hesitantly began talking about the hurt inside him. He was able to talk freely to Leo, and it was in a slightly different manner from the way he had talked to Cleo. He poured out his soul. It was astonishing to Leo that there were so many bruises on it, so many defenses and insecurities. There was buried hostility which Jules had never felt free to tell a woman.

  Leo let him go on, but when Jules started a sentence with, “I could never tell this to Cleo,” or, “Now that she’s gone,” Leo would go to him, take his hand, and force him to look.

  “I’m Cleo,” he would say. “I’m right here, and I love you.”

  They started doing things together. Jules took him to places Cleo had never been. They went out drinking together and had a wonderful time getting sloshed. Before, it had always been dinner with a few drinks or dopesticks, then a show or concert. Now they might come home at 0200 harmonizing loud enough to get thrown in jail. Jules admitted he hadn’t had so much fun since his college days.

  Socializing was a problem. Few of their old friends were changers, and neither of them wanted to face the complications of going to a party as a couple. They couldn’t make friends among changers, because Jules correctly saw he would be seen as an outsider.

  So they saw a lot of men. Leo had thought he knew all of Jules’ close friends, but found he had been wrong. He saw a side of Jules he had never seen before: more relaxed in ways, some of his guardedness gone, but with other defenses in place. Leo sometimes felt like a spy, looking in on a stratum of society he had always known was there, but he had never been able to penetrate. If Cleo had walked into the group its structure would have changed subtly; she would have created a new milieu by her presence, like light destroying the atom it was meant to observe.

  After his initial outing to the Oophyte, Leo remained celibate for a long time. He did not want to have sex casually; he wanted to love Jules. As far as he knew, Jules was abstaining, too.

  But they found an acceptable alternative in double-dating. They shopped around together for a while, taking out different women and having a lot of fun without getting into sex, until each settled on a woman he could have a relationship with. Jules was with Diane, a woman he had known at work for many years. Leo went out with Harriet.

  The four of them had great times together, Leo loved being a pal to Jules, but would not let it remain simply that. He took to reminding Jules that he could do this with Cleo, too. What Leo wanted to emphasize was that he could be a companion, a buddy, a confidant no matter which sex he was. He wanted to combine the best of being a woman and being a man, be both things for Jules, fulfill all his needs. But it hurt to think that Jules would not do the same for him.

  “Well, hello, Leo. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  “Can I come in, Harriet?”

  She held the door open for him.

  “Can I get you anything? Oh, yeah, before you go any further, that ‘Harriet’ business is finished. I changed my name today. It’s Joule from now on. That’s spelled j-o-u-l-e.”

  “Okay, Joule. Nothing for me, thanks.” He sat on her couch.

  Leo was not surprised at the new name. Changers had a tendency to get away from “name” names. Some did as Cleo had done by choosing a gender equivalent or a similar sound. Others ignored gender connotations and used the one they had always used. But most eventually chose a neutral word, according to personal preference.

  “Jules, Julia,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” Joule’s brow wrinkled slightly.

  “Did you come here for mothering? Things going badly?”

  Leo slumped down and contemplated his folded hands.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m depressed. How long has it been now? Five months? I’ve learned a lot, but I’m not sure just what it is. I feel like I’ve grown. I see the world... well, I see things differently, yes. But I’m still basically the same person.”

  “In the sense that you’re the same person at thirty-three as you were at ten?”

  Leo squirmed. “Okay. Yeah, I’ve changed. But it’s not any kind of reversal. Nothing turned topsy-turvy. It’s an expansion. It’s not a new viewpoint. It’s like filling something up, moving out into unused spaces. Becoming...” His hands groped in the air, then fell back into his lap. “It’s like a completion.”

  Joule smiled. “And you’re disappointed? What more could you ask?”

  Leo didn’t want to get into that just yet. “Listen to this, and see if you agree. I always saw male and female—whatever that is. and I don’t know if the two really exist other than physically and don’t think it’s important anyway... I saw those qualities as separate. Later, I thought of them like Siamese twins in everybody’s head. But the twins were usually fighting, trying to cut each other off. One would beat the other down, maim it, throw it in a cell, and never feed it, but they were always connected and the beaten-down one would make the winner pay for the victory.

  “So I wanted to try and patch things up between them. I thought I’d just introduce them to each other and try to referee, but they got along a lot better than I expected. In fact, they turned into one whole person, and found they could be very happy together. I can’t tell them apart anymore. Does that make any sense?”

  Joule moved over to sit beside him.

  “It’s a good analogy, in its way. I feel something like that, but I don’t think about it anymore. So what’s the problem? You just told me you feel whole now.”

  Leo’s face controlled. “Yes. I do. And if I am, what does that make Jules?” He began to cry, and Joule let him get it out, just holding his hand. She thought he’d better face it alone, this time. When he had calmed down, she began to speak quietly.

  “Leo, Jules is happy as he is. I think he could be much happier, but there’s no way for us to show him that without having him do something he fears so much. It’s possible that he will do it someday, after more time to get used to it. And it’s possible that he’ll hate it and run screaming back to his manhood. Sometimes the maimed twin can’t be rehabilitated.”

  She sighed heavily, and got up to pace the room.

  “There’s going to be a lot of this in the coming years,” she said. “A lot of broken hearts. We’re not really very much like them, you know. We get along better. We’re not angels, but we may be the most civilized, considerate group the race has yet produced. There are fools and bastards among us, just like the one-sexers, but I think we tend to be a little less foolish, and a little less cruel. I think changing is here to stay.

  “And what you’ve got to realize is that you’re lucky. And so is Jules. It could have been much worse. I know of several broken homes just among my own friends. There’s going to be many more before society has assimilated this. But your love for Jules and his for you has held you together. He’s made a tremendous adjustment, maybe as big as the one you made. He likes you. In either sex. Okay, so you don’t make love to him as Leo. You may never reach that point.”

  “We did. Last night.” Leo shifted on the couch. “I... I got mad. I told him if he wanted to see Cleo, he had to learn to relate to me, because I’m me, dammit.”

  “I think that might have been a mistake.”

  Leo looked away from her. “I’m starting to think so, too.”

  “But I think the two of you can patch it up, if there’s any damage. You’ve come through a lot together.”

  “I didn’t mean to force anything on him, I just got mad.”

  “A
nd maybe you should have. It might have been just the thing. You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Leo wiped his eyes and stood up.

  “Thanks, Harr... sorry. Joule. You’ve helped me. I... uh, I may not be seeing you as often for a while.”

  “I understand. Let’s stay friends, okay?” She kissed him, and he hurried away.

  She was sitting on a pillow facing the door when he came home from work, her legs crossed, elbows resting on her knee with a dopestick in her hand. She smiled at him.

  “Well, you’re home early. What happened?”

  “I stayed home from work.” She nearly choked, trying not to laugh. He threw his coat to the closet and hurried into the kitchen. She heard something being stirred, then the sound of glass shattering. He burst through the doorway.

  “Cleo!”

  “Darling, you look so handsome with your mouth hanging open.”

  He shut it, but still seemed unable to move. She went to him, feeling tingling excitement in her loins like the return of an old friend. She put her arms around him, and he nearly crushed her. She loved it.

  He drew back slightly and couldn’t seem to get enough of her face, his eyes roaming every detail.

  “How long will you stay this way?” he asked. “Do you have any idea?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  He smiled, a little sheepishly. “I hope you won’t take this wrong. I’m so happy to see you. Maybe I shouldn’t say it... but no, I think I’d better. I like Leo. I think I’ll miss him, a little.”

  She nodded. “I’m not hurt. How could I be?” She drew away and led him to a pillow. “Sit down, Jules. We have to have a talk.” His knees gave way under him and he sat, looking up expectantly.

  “Leo isn’t gone, and don’t you ever think that for a minute. He’s right here.” She thumped her chest and looked at him defiantly. “He’ll always be here. He’ll never go away.”

  “I’m sorry, Cleo, I—”

  “No. don’t talk yet. It was my own fault, but I didn’t know any better. I never should have called myself Leo. It gave you an easy out. You didn’t have to face Cleo being a male. I’m changing all that. My name is Nile. N-i-l-e. I won’t answer to anything else.”

  “All right. It’s a nice name.”

  “I thought of calling myself Lion. For Leo the lion. But I decided to be who I always was, the queen of the Nile, Cleopatra. For old time’s sake.”

  He said nothing, but his eyes showed his appreciation.

  “What you have to understand is that they’re both gone, in a sense. You’ll never be with Cleo again. I look like her now. I resemble her inside, too, like an adult resembles the child. I have a tremendous amount in common with what she was. But I’m not her.”

  He nodded. She sat beside him and took his hand.

  “Jules, this isn’t going to be easy. There are things I want to do, people I want to meet. We’re not going to be able to share the same friends. We could drift apart because of it. I’m going to have to fight resentment because you’ll be holding me back. You won’t let me explore your female side like I want to. You’re going to resent me because I’ll be trying to force you into something you think is wrong for you. But I want to try and make it work.”

  He let out his breath. “God, Cl... Nile. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought you were leading up to leaving me.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Not if I can help it. I want each of us to try and accept the other as they are. For me, that includes being male whenever I feel like it. It’s all the same to me, but I know it’s going to be hard for you.”

  They embraced, and Jules wiped his tears on her shoulder, then faced her again.

  “I’ll do anything and everything in my power, up to—”

  She put her finger to her lips. “I know. I accept you that way. But I’ll keep trying to convince you.”

  <>