The Unraveling

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

  Vir shoulder was a fingerbreadth from Fift’s. Ze could put zir arm around vir broad, powerful back. Ze’d done it any number of times; why was ze afraid to now? What would it be like, ze wondered, if they were a hundred years older, if their Courting Century had begun? Then there wouldn’t be anything wrong with Fift having the thoughts ze was having now. Even then, Staids were supposed to be shy, to care about the emotional connection and not the physical . . . but you could see plenty of grown-up Staids and Vails kissing, and Fift had lingered at times, careful to just seem to stumble on them in the background of something else ze was looking for . . .

  “What . . . person?” Fift said.

  In the body sitting next to zir, Shria turned, cocked one eyebrow in question.

  “You said, ‘if you get too attached to one person,’ instead of just . . . fun explosions. So . . . who?”

  Shria ran vir fingers through the long red loops of vir hair, swept it from vir foreheads—the same gesture, in both bodies—snapping it together in a clip mounted behind each left ear. A tracing of silver glittered at vir temples, against vir lavender skin. It looked applied, not grown. “Hmm,” ve said. “No. I’ve been telling all the secrets so far. I think it’s your turn.”

  Fift swallowed. “Don’t you think maybe Pom and Pip will be—”

  “Ha. Stop stalling.” Standing, ve put vir hands on vir hips. “Pom will never shut up about zir glorious coup with the Cirque Fantabulous until someone shuts zir up. And your Mom won’t be in any hurry to conclude such a profitable transaction. We have plenty of time. No. You. Secret. Now!” In the body beside Fift, ve gave zir a playful shove, vir long-fingered hand clapping on zir shoulder, a gentle, electrifying pressure.

  “Okay,” Fift said. Ze took a deep breath. If not Shria, then who? If not now, then when? At zir center, deep in, where there should be peace and stillness, there was an unruly sea. “Sometimes I . . . you know what you were saying about sometimes wishing you were . . . not what you are? Sometimes I wonder, well . . . they can make mistakes, can’t they?”

  “Who?”

  “The—the Midwives. When they . . . I mean, they come when you’re a baby and they . . .” Fift had watched the house-feed footage of zir gendering a hundred times. It had taken the pair of Midwives, a dour Staid and a bubbly, talkative Vail in matching robes, maybe half an hour—ringing small bells in zir ears, stroking zir tiny hands with feathers, probing and measuring zir reactions—to decide ze was a Staid.

  Shria whistled. “I guess. I mean, all those old epics have heroes who get regendered. And people apply today sometimes, too, right? Claim there was a mistake, try to get an adjudicator to declare them misgendered? But I think it hardly ever works anymore; they just get postponed and postponed. But Fift, um . . . I mean . . .”

  Fift scowled. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not very vailish. I’m not brave or strong or wild, I don’t care about dressing up or showing off. I’m not even like Mother Pip, who people used to make fun of because ze’s so decisive and loud . . .”

  “Right,” Shria said. “Or Pom Politigus—I mean, ze gets away with it somehow. I guess people expect a somatic styling impresario to be weird—but all those wacky bodies—!”

  “I know,” Fift said. “I’m not saying I’d be a better Vail than I am a Staid. I’d be a lousy Vail. You’d probably be better at both—”

  “Oh, quit it!” Ve was smiling and frowning at the same time. It was a cockeyed compliment.

  “I just . . . sometimes I just want . . . vailish things.” Ze flushed. “That I shouldn’t.”

  “Hmm,” Shria said. “Okay.”

  Fift’s ears were burning. Ze looked at zir hands. Zir stomach was cold and heavy, as if ze’d eaten ice. Ze shouldn’t have said anything.

  “I think that’s all the vines,” Arevio said mildly. “Well done, Fift Brulio.”

  Fift looked up at zir Father, shocked—ze had almost forgotten where else ze was. Arevio smiled, amused at zir expression. “Are you enjoying your business voyage with Pip Mirtumil?”

  “Look, Fift,” Shria said, turning to zir. “Like I said before . . . I don’t really believe it’s as different for Staids and Vails as we all pretend it is. Those things you . . . want . . . there’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s normal. I think lots of people wonder if they’ve been misgendered! It’s just too dangerous to say out loud. To challenge the Midwives . . .” Ve shuddered. “But why”—ve licked vir lips—“why should they have so much influence? Why should everyone be afraid of them? I actually”—ve looked down—“I have a, uh, secret about that, too.”

  “What?” Fift asked vem. “You do?”

  Arevio raised an eyebrow.

  “Um, yes, thank you,” Fift told vem. “It’s very—educational.”

  “Yeah,” Shria said, “but . . .” Vir standing body blew out a puff of air. Sitting, ve turned vir face away from Fift. “Yeah, that one’s a big one though. Maybe I should work up to it.”

  “Oh,” Fift said. “Well, I don’t have a lot more secrets. I might be out. I . . . told you my big one.”

  “That’s it? That’s fifteen years of secrets?”

  “Hmm.” Ze tried to think. It was weird sitting here, no agents to ask for help with context or memory, no parents arguing about what ze said. It was peaceful, amazing, but also stressful—a constant unnatural feeling of being somewhere that shouldn’t exist, like a hiding place that required you to brace your legs against—“Oh, okay! Remember our bathing pool, at my apartment? There’s this ventilation shaft above it—you probably didn’t notice it, but it’s where the steam goes. Well, you can climb up into it. If you fill the room with steam, you can sneak up in there, and the house feed can’t see you at all. You just vanish. I did that a couple of times, and my parents never found out.”

  “Wow,” Shria said. “When did you figure this out?”

  “Before we met. I was like eight.”

  “Vvonda,” Shria said.

  “What?”

  “Vir name is Vvonda.” Ve flushed, vir violet skin darkening to plum. “Ve’s this big, beautiful, tough . . . Ve’s our age, but you don’t know vem; ve’s from the other side of Foo. We hang out and we, you know, had sex a few times, but then . . . I stopped asking, because I thought it was getting weird. I didn’t want vem to think I was always following vem around. There’s no reason for vem to think about me. Ve’s nice enough, but I’m not . . .” Ve looked down at vir folded hands. “I haven’t . . . done anything.”

  Now Fift did touch Shria; ze put zir hand on vir back, resting it between vir shoulder blades. Fift could feel the muffled echo of vir heartbeat.

  “But what about your work here?” ze said. “I mean, everybody’s so impressed with you—”

  “Oh.” Shria shrugged. “I don’t think Vvonda would care about that. I don’t know.” Ve scowled.

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway.” Shria’s standing body began to pace again, slapping vemself on the abdomen; vir sitting body was still against Fift’s hand. “Anyway, it’s stupid. I mean, that’s not really a big secret. About Vvonda. It doesn’t mean anything. I just meant it as an example of how—how things get complicated. Sex sounds like a fun game, but then . . . Anyway.” Ve took a deep breath.

  “Well,” Fift said. “You said you had another secret. A big one.”

  “Want to see my new genitals?” Shria said.

  Fift yanked zir hand away from Shria’s back. “Do they have . . . something to do with your . . .”

  “Of course not,” Shria said. “I’m just stalling.”

  Fift snorted. “Fine,” ze said, feeling a sudden, tiny, guttering flame of bravery catch at the edge of a tangled mossy underbrush of caution. “Show me your fucking genitals.”

  “Is there another kind?” Shria said sweetly. In vir standing body, ve started unbuttoning vir smoky-gray uniform. It had twenty-seven buttons, which ran from vir right knee, crossing vir body to end under vir left arm.

  Fift swallowed.


  “Fift?” Arevio was holding out vir hand, and Fift handed vem zir knife. “Thank you.” Ve hung up the knives. “I’m off to play snapjump in Wallacomp now, Fift. Will you be all right here? I must say, you seem very distracted.”

  “Oh,” Fift said. “Yes, I’m all right. I need to review things. For school. I mean, that’s what I was thinking about. Assignments. From my scholastic agents. Even though . . .” Ze swallowed. Of course Arevio could see perfectly well from zir logs that ze wasn’t doing homework. “Even though I didn’t look them up just now or anything. I just remembered that there were some. Many. Actually. So I should do that now. Look them up. And then, um, do them.”

  The uniform fell to the floor. Shria unwrapped vir undersarong. “Ta da!”

  There were no visible genitals. The smooth lavender rows of Shria’s abdominal muscles descended into a flourish of blue fur—the rounded curve of the underbelly, the smaller hump of an unmarked mons.

  “Oh,” Fift said. “Uh . . .”

  “Shh!” Shria said. “Watch this.” Ve stepped closer to Fift, half an armlength away. Ve closed all vir eyes.

  The soft blue fuzz stirred, ruffled, and then separated into a forest of blue cilia, each half a fingerlength long, which rose and twined and waved in the air. They were beautiful—all the shades that are called (in defiance of the greenness of the sky) “sky blue”: from midnight, to clear morning . . .

  “All right,” said Arevio, peering at Fift, who turned abruptly to inspect the vines again. “If you’re sure . . .”

  Blue and blue and blue—so beautiful, and that feeling crashed through Fift again, like asteroids colliding in the space beyond the world. Ze balled zir hands into fists, but that was in the body in bed. The body in Shria’s operating studio in Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions was reaching out—

  Fift put zir hand in among the waving blue fronds, and they were soft as feathers.

  “Oh,” said Shria, “OH!” Vir eyes flew open, and vir strong hand clamped around Fift’s wrist.

  In the garden, Fift squeezed zir eyes shut. Thankfully, ze heard zir Father moving away, parting the vines.

  The cilia twined around Fift’s fingers, threading through them, trapping zir hand.

  “Fift,” Shria said, vir voice hoarse and urgent. “What—”

  “I’m sorry!” Horror flooded through Fift, and ze tried to pull zir hand away gently, but the cilia held. Shria’s face was flushed, contorted. “I’m hurting you!”

  “No,” Shria breathed. Ve closed vir eyes, and vir grip on Fift’s wrist loosened. The other hand on vir standing body grabbed Fift’s shoulder, slid down to grip zir bicep. “Oh—”

  In vir sitting body, behind Fift on the couch, Shria said, “I just didn’t—are you sure you—”

  Fift wiggled zir hand this way and that, trying to free zirself without hurting Shria. The cilia wound around zir fingers as fast as ze could push them away.

  “Yes,” Fift said. “Yes, I—”

  In vir sitting body, Shria made a guttural sound. Ve pressed vir standing body’s forehead into Fift’s shoulder, leaning into zir.

  “I’m sorry,” Fift said, but ze wasn’t that sorry; the cilia were soft and warm and feathery-dry, and Shria’s warm strong arms pressed around zir shoulders, and it seemed like ze might be doing this right. Zir hearts were pounding, all three.

  “Keep saying that,” Shria whispered in zir ear. “And keep . . . trying to . . . get away . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” said Fift, moving zir hand. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Zir own, old-fashioned, unstylish genitals were swelling, turgid, electrically alive. Even in the body in bed, ze was afraid to touch them. In bed, ze closed zir teeth around the base of zir thumb, hanging on.

  Shria’s cilia pulled zir gently wiggling hand into their midst. A forest of blue feathery fronds slid and wriggled and whipped over and between and around zir fingers. Shria bit zir shoulder.

  “Ow!” Fift said.

  “Sorry,” Shria gulped, then started to giggle, and then the giggles turned into moans. Ve held zir, shuddering, with both bodies. Vir arms were around zir shoulders, two from the front, two from the back. Vir heads nestled to either side of Fift’s neck. It was as warm and safe as a snuggle, but zir mouth was dry and zir blood pounded in zir ears. “Ummmmm,” Shria said, and the cilia let go, fluffed up, and settled back down into a modest blue fuzz.

  Ve sat up and turned away. In vir naked body, ve rubbed vir eyes. Ve didn’t look at Fift, but picked up vir undersarong, shook it out, and, watching it closely, wrapped it around vir waist. “Well,” ve said.

  A silence grabbed them. They’d fallen into it, and it clung to them—as if they’d fallen off the edge of Foo and were trapped in the sticky, invisible webs that braced the habitations in midair.

  Fift’s hand throbbed. It had been—it had been there among vir—

  What was Shria thinking now? Fift couldn’t see vir faces. There was no feed in the room, and ve had turned away. It was one thing to have theories about how staidchildren had the same bodies and urges as vailchildren. It was quite another to be trapped in a room with a toadclown. Fift had just . . . grabbed. Even another Vail would probably have said something: asked, or challenged, or something—they must have some kind of rituals or introductions around their childhood sport-sex. What ze had done was different: bizarre, shocking, wrong. Gluttonous, like a two-year-old stuffing sweetlace into zir mouths . . .

  “Well,” Shria said. “Well. Twice-born Kumru’s bloody placenta, with sugar on top.”

  In vir standing body, buttoning vir buttons, ve turned back to Fift. Beside zir, ve was still turned away. Ve looked . . . worried. Maybe scared. Ve started to reach a hand towards zir, then took it back.

  “I’m—I’m sorry, Fift. I shouldn’t have—I don’t know how that . . . happened.”

  Fift flushed. “What do you mean? Was it—did you not—like it?”

  Shria frowned, blinked. A jumble of expressions crossed vir face, like the choppy surface of a splashpool when different waves intersect. Ve settled on a smirk. “Well yeah, I liked it. But that’s not the—I shouldn’t have—”

  “It was me,” Fift said. “It was my idea. I did it.”

  “Well, okay,” Shria said. “I know. But I’m the one who—I should have—”

  “You said it didn’t matter. You said Vails and Staids were the same.”

  “That’s not exactly what I said. I said that the feelings must be the same. But Fift—”

  “How do you pee?” Fift asked.

  Shria stopped, blinked again. Ve turned, in vir sitting body, towards zir. “I have a urinary pistil. I hope you’re not going to start with that Foundationist claptrap about system-separatory antivalences and somatic harmony theory?”

  “Uh . . . no,” Fift said, “because I have no idea what that is.”

  “Oh. Never mind. Genital designer infighting. I’ll spare you the holy wars.” Ve shook vemself, stretched vir arms above vir head and cracked vir back.

  “That was, um.” Fift’s throat was tight, zir voice slightly strangled. “That was sex?”

  “Yup,” Shria said. Ve buttoned vir last button, took vir hair out of its clip, and smoothed it.

  “Oh,” Fift said. “I didn’t know it would be so . . . easy. I mean, simple. I mean. You know.”

  Shria snorted.

  “You know what I mean,” Fift said. “I thought it . . . took longer.”

  “Why don’t you quit while you’re ahead?” Shria said. Vir voice was tight. Vir other body, next to Fift, stood up, and paced across the room.

  “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or if you’re angry,” Fift said.

  Shria pulled a comb from the tool rack. Ve sat down in front of vemself. In vir standing body, ve began to tug the comb through vir sitting body’s hair. “I’m not angry,” ve said. “It’s okay.”

  “Did I say something wrong?” Fift said.

  “No, Fift. But . . . it’s not s
imple. Or easy. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” Fift swallowed. “I guess now we have another secret.”

  Shria nodded, looking grim. “Yeah, I’d say we do.”

  Fift’s throat constricted. Ze looked down at zir hands. They were trembling. Ze forced zir face to be still, expressionless. What was wrong with zir? It was zir fault. It was zir responsibility. Shria depended on zir to be the still center, to hold them both stable, in safety, in harmony, and instead . . .

  If Fift were really a Vail, underneath everything—if ze were really misgendered—ze would probably cry now. But ze couldn’t remember how to cry. When ze was seven, flailing through zir somatic integration exercises with a dozen strangers heckling over the feed, the sobs had been right at the surface, caught in zir chest, wanting to burn through, barely held back. Now there was nothing.

  Shria looked at zir and put the comb away. Ve snapped vir long red hair back into place. Ve came over, in both bodies, and sat on either side of Fift.

  “Hey,” ve said.

  Fift said nothing.

  “Did you . . . like it too?” ve said.

  It was a shocking question, but Fift couldn’t lie. Shria moaning, and the soft blue fronds, and the electric feeling of connection, as if ze was making vem real, shaping vem with zir hands like the Trickster crafting vir lesser selves. As if ve was making zir real. Ze had never felt so powerful, or so vulnerable, or so close to someone . . . like they were under each other’s skin.

  Ze nodded.

  “What do Staids do?”

  Fift frowned.

  “Come on, I know you do something. I’m not talking about the Long Conversation, either. You have bodies. You . . .”

  Fift shrugged. “We snuggle. It’s not the same thing.”

  “But surely it’s kind of . . . ?”

  “No,” Fift said, “it’s really not.”

  “Show me,” Shria said.

  “You know how to snuggle,” Fift said. “It’s nothing new. It’s how they carried you as a baby. Staids are just babies . . .”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. Show me.”

  Fift frowned. Shria, lanky and fiery and beautiful and dangerous, snuggled up like an egg in a nest? It occurred to zir that ve was trying to even things out, trying to put vemself in a situation at least half as bizarre as that of a staidchild having sex.