Commitment Hour

again after the solstice? When I stopped being a woman, did I stop liking men? Or did I like men all the time, or both men and women, or what?

I couldn't decide if such questions were indecent or just trite. No one asks a woman, 'Hey, how does it feel to have breasts?' or a man, 'Isn't it weird having a penis?' The questions don't make sense — you don't think about yourself on that level. In Tober Cove, only a person's current gender mattered. Whatever happened before or after was irrelevant.

On the other hand, Rashid wasn't the type to stop asking questions just because I showed disinterest. 'And,' he continued, 'Steck tells me that all residents of Tober Cove bear a child when they're nineteen or twenty.'

'In one of their last years before Commitment,' I nodded. 'Tomorrow at noon, several male teenagers will go off to Birds Home with Master Crow, and when they come back at sunset, they'll be female and pregnant. The baby is born five or six months later.'

'Of course,' Steck put in, 'Master Crow is said to be the baby's father… even though the child often grows to look strikingly like someone else in the village.'

I glowered at the Neut. As a former Tober, Steck must know that Master Crow made such children resemble other people in the cove so the kids would fit in with their peers. The offspring of Master Crow had enough prestige already, compared to children with human fathers. They didn't need to look special too.

But I didn't have the patience to bandy words with a Neut. I just told Rashid, 'Master Crow fathers the babies to make sure every Tober experiences childbirth, nursing and such, before Committing to one sex or the other. We have to know everything about being a woman, and everything about being a man, so we can make the right choice.'

'You give birth to children… and I assume you're encouraged to have sexual relationships…'

'Doesn't take much encouraging,' Steck snickered.

I glared. My stomach clenched to hear a Neut talk smut.

'So every Tober,' Rashid continued, 'gets to make love as both a male and a female—'

'Not every Tober,' Steck interrupted. 'Some find they can only get lucky when they're women… and then only with men who are really hard up.'

I gave the Neut a curious look.

'Or it might work the other way around,' Steck added hurriedly.

'Either way, I can see it's important information to have,' Rashid said, 'when you're trying to decide how to spend the rest of your life. You must be thankful if you have a strong reason to choose one gender over the other. Like, uhh… if making love is more enjoyable as a woman or a man?'

Every Tober in the party groaned. Even Kaeomi, Stallor and Mintz, blessed with the collective intelligence of pine sap, smacked their foreheads and grimaced. Behind us, Bonnakkut muttered something that was probably obscene and even Steck mumbled, 'Come on, boss, you're embarrassing me.'

'What'd I say?' Rashid demanded.

No one answered. We'd all been asked that question a thousand times, by peddlers passing through town, by Wiretown merchants buying our fish and grain… even by a half-dead Mishie pirate who once washed up along our coast. Was making love better as a man or a woman? The first time you hear the question, you feel smug; outsiders envy us for knowing both sides of the bed. But after you hear the question over and over, asked with drooling leers or fervent sincerity, you want to hide your head and weep.

It's better with some men than other men, okay? It's better with some women than other women. And it's better with a Tober than with anyone else, because we've been both sexes, so we know what is and isn't fragile.

While the rest of us cringed at Rashid's question, Leeta took it upon herself to give an answer. 'If sex were better as a woman, Tober Cove would be all female, don't you think? And if it were better as a man, we'd all be men. But the cove population is half and half, give or take a handful, so that should tell you something. Not just about who likes bedding whom, but about men things in general versus women things in general. Cove people are free to choose, and they choose half and half. Think about that.'

'And think about it quietly,' Bonnakkut growled. 'No more talk.' Clearly, our esteemed First Warrior didn't want Rashid asking any of the other foolish questions outsiders always foist upon Tobers… and for once, I agreed with him.

We finished the walk in silence. High clouds had drifted in from the lake over the last hour, but we still had plenty of starlight to travel by. From time to time an owl hooted at us, and once Leeta called a halt while a porcupine waddled across the trail. On a normal night, one of the Warriors would have put an arrow through the beast, just on principle; the damned porcs love eating salty wood, which means they're forever gnawing on our outhouse seats and leaving loose quills behind. Most Tobers get rudely spiked at least once in our lives, and that means most Tobers hate porcupines. But the bullies must have spent all their arrows on what Rashid called his 'force field,' and Bonnakkut was saving his bullets for more prestigious targets.

In time, we reached the lake shore: Mother Lake we called it, though the maps in Wiretown labeled it Lake Heron. The Tober name was better — herons are marsh birds who never put a toe into the deep waters of Mother Lake. Even at summer solstice, the water was cold enough that your lungs could seize up if you dove straight in. Parents made children wear ropes when they went swimming, and once or twice a season, we used those ropes to land someone who'd stopped being able to take in air. Men working the perch boats had their ropes too, and bright orange OldTech life jackets retrieved from the Cheecheemaun steel-boat that ran aground in Old Tober Harbor four hundred years ago.

Even with all that protection, men died. My mother… I'd been born when she was twenty. The Elders told me she'd Committed male when the time came, had gone to work on the perch boats and run afoul of a fierce flash storm…

Which is another reason I liked to call it Mother Lake.

But the lake was calm that Commitment Eve, lapping the rocky shore with regular rhythmic waves. Water stretched out forever, dotted by flowerpot islands and off to the north, a long low outcrop called the Bear's Rump… I don't know why. I've never made a detailed study of bears.

In another ten minutes we rounded the eastern headland and sighted Tober Cove itself. At that distance in the dark, I couldn't see more than the OldTech radio antenna on Patriarch Hill, but I could smell the village with all the fondness of home. Wharf odors predominated — fresh perch, salted perch, and the rotting pile of junk fish waiting to be minced for fertilizer — but the air also carried fragrances from the farms that ringed the edge of town: sheep, cattle, hundreds of chickens, and the sweet perfume of clover.

Above all that ran one more smell, usually tamped down on summer evenings, but thick tonight because it was solstice: woodsmoke, coming from every chimney. Tomorrow was Commitment Day. Cook stoves would burn all night long, roasting meat and baking bread, warming potatoes and simmering white bean/crayfish chowder, all in preparation for the great feast that celebrated… well, that celebrated me. And Cappie, of course. We two had reached the age of Commitment. For one day, we were the cove's official darlings.

The door of the Council Hall opened and someone stepped onto the wide cement area at the top of the steps. Lamplight spilled from inside the hall, silhouetting the figure: a man's clothes, but not a man's body.

'That's Cappie,' Bonnakkut said from behind me.

I nodded.

'Hard to decide,' Bonnakkut went on softly, 'whether I'd rather see her Commit as man or woman. If she decides to be a man, she'll make one hell of a warrior. Strong as a bull, but fast… she could win half the sports trophies at Wiretown Fall Fair.'

I knew that; Cappie's muscles had got me out of several down-peninsula scrapes, in the years when she was male and people were jealous of my talent. Still, I wondered why Bonnakkut had chosen this moment to rhapsodize about her prowess.

'On the other hand,' Bonnakkut said, 'if she decides to be a woman… well, I like her as a woman, just fine.'

I stared at him. He smirked back. 'Cappie's mine,' I said.

'You're sure of that?'

'What do you mean?'

Bonnakkut kept smirking. 'Maybe I just mean that tomorrow is Commitment Day. If you both Commit female… you and Cappie can still be good friends, as the saying goes, but she'll be looking for a man. Maybe that's all I mean.'

'And maybe it isn't?'

'Nearly every weekend, you go down-peninsula to play your little fiddle,' Bonnakkut said. 'Maybe Cappie likes company when you're gone.'

I would have punched him in the mouth if I hadn't been afraid of hurting my fingers. Bonnakkut's gun didn't scare me, and neither did his huge arms and shoulders… but a violinist has to think of his hands first, no matter how badly he'd like to thrash someone. I could only say, 'You've always been a lying asshole, Bonnakkut. It's nice when you provide new proof.'

Then, before he got ideas about retaliation, I hopped in front of Rashid to get that violet light between me and Bonnakkut's anger.

When Cappie caught sight of us coming up the beach, she called into the Council Hall and several more people joined her on the steps. In the darkness, all I could see were silhouettes — silhouettes with the tousled hair and skewed clothing of folks just roused from their beds. The women of Tober Cove might spend much of Commitment Eve cooking, but the men (especially the Elders) slept like slugs, wisely saving their energy for the next day.

Though I could only see the Elders' silhouettes, I could still recognize Mayor Teggeree: a balloon of a man as wide as a door and as heavy as a prize heifer. Perhaps there's some secret law of the Spark Lords that all mayors have to be fat; in my travels down-peninsula I've never met a mayor who didn't bulge at the seams, even in perverse towns where women held the office.

Another person came out to the steps, this one holding an oil lantern. Teggeree snatched the lantern and held it above his head… as if it would help him see better, instead of interfering with his night vision. He stood for some time, the lantern glow lighting his squint as he tried to identify who was approaching him.

I could tell the exact moment when the lamplight touched our party — everyone on the steps gasped and started babbling. Well… not everyone. Cappie stayed silent, wearing a grim look on her face. Sometimes she had no sense of humor. Personally I couldn't help but chuckle at the flabbergasted expressions on the Elders' faces; it isn't every day you walk up to the Council Hall with a knight and Neut on your heels.

Mayor Teggeree soon composed himself enough to call in his sonorous voice, 'Bonnakkut… what do you think you're doing?'

'The situation is complicated,' Bonnakkut replied. 'Very complicated.' With a false air of casualness, he lowered his hand to stroke the Beretta on his belt. 'This is a matter for the full council to decide.'