Commitment Hour

people, you know hell must be involved.

Like Cappie dressing up as a man. That was deeply disturbing — I could remember being deeply disturbed.

And yet, as I cuddled my son in the darkness of Zephram's house, I couldn't understand why Cappie's clothes had affected me at all. They were only clothes… and it was only Cappie, my oldest and dearest friend, who hadn't been possessed at all — just helping Leeta with the solstice dance.

Generous, dependable Cappie.

I smiled fondly. As a woman, I still loved Cappie — no resentment of her neediness, no suffocation if she wanted to talk about Us. In fact, words like 'neediness' and 'suffocation' felt alien in my mind: cast-off sentiments left behind by someone else. The gritty tension that had grown between Cappie and my male half, the silences, the avoidance, the evasions and lies… I could still remember all that, but the memories were like stories I'd heard secondhand, or thoughts I'd read in an OldTech book.

The past year had left its mark on my brain, but not my soul. As a woman, I wasn't mad at Cappie, or afraid of a future together. I loved him.

Her.

No, him. I loved him. In a way, I barely knew her.

That's the odd thing about having two souls. It's fuzzier than being two separate people, with no sharp division between boy and girl. My consciousness was one long, uninterrupted line: I was always me, Fullin, a continuous thread stretching back to my earliest days. It was just that some parts of the thread were dyed red, and others dyed blue.

When I was Female-Me, I felt differently; I thought differently; I seldom felt the emotional impact of events that had happened to Male-Me… his obsession with snapping turtles, for example. When I was boy of six, I had been dangling my feet off the docks with several other children, when the girl beside me got bitten by a snapper. The turtle took off two of her toes, and the girl screamed, and the blood spilled…

Both Male-Me and Female-Me remembered that moment. But when I was male, the memory crackled with immediacy, very vivid, very real. Now that I was female, the memory was like something I'd seen in a dream — still meaningful enough for me to be wary of turtles, but not the overwhelming concern my brother self felt.

I had said all this a year before, to my pretty carpenter Yoskar… who wanted to be sure that whatever he was doing, he was doing it with a woman. The best way I found to explain it was this. Suppose twin children are born, a boy and a girl; and suppose that every day, one twin goes out into the world while the other stays home in bed. The first day the girl goes out, the second day the boy goes, and so on, back and forth. At the end of each day, the twin who's been outside tells the twin in bed everything that happened — every new thing learned, every emotion felt, every daydream that happened to sift down under the afternoon sun. In this way, the twins know the same things and have the same experiences to remember… but the experiences have different weight. Half your life is real, and half just comes from stories at the end of the day.

Is it any wonder the two children grow up with different outlooks? And of course, there are other differences. In time, the girl will take a shine to boys, just as the boy puffs himself in front of girls. (At least, that's how it works with most girls and boys.) And your boy self has only heard about the principles of hem-stitching while your girl hands have actually done it… just as your girl self observes spear practice, but your boy self is the one who wakes with tired muscles.

A single line of memories, but two different experiences.

So, when one of my souls took over from the other, the world quietly shifted. Different things became important. Different things caught my eye. Different interpretations occurred to me for the same set of facts.

Even though I happened to be in my male body — even though I could feel a penis pushing against my pants, still wet from Cypress Creek — I knew with unquestioning acceptance that I was a woman.

I could feel my absent breasts like weightless phantoms.

I could squeeze crotch muscles this body didn't possess.

I even had a sense of humor. Male-Me didn't possess one of those, either.

And it all felt completely natural… just as it must have felt natural for Cappie to dress like a man in the swamp, and fight like one too. Now that I was a woman, the Patriarch's words about separate male and female souls struck me as the kind of dogmatic oversimplification you always expect from men.

The priestess had explained it better, in one of those 'girls only' sessions that Male-Me never made an effort to remember. 'Yes,' Leeta had said, 'you have two souls, male and female. And they've gone through different upbringings, haven't they? You girls live fully in your female years, but experience your male years at arm's length. Of course your two halves will see things differently — you've had different lives. But what the Patriarch lied about is that a female soul can be anything, just as a male soul can. It's not like only one half is capable of cooking, and the other can shoot a bow. You girls can be whole universes, just as your brother selves can be whole universes. You can't help but be different people… but you can both be whole. You know you can.'

'You're going to be whole, Waggett,' I whispered to my son. 'If Daddy Fullin says the Patriarch will only let you be half a person, you tell him Mommy says that's a load of horse-flop.'

My boy didn't answer — if he wasn't completely asleep, he'd drifted three-quarters of the way. Carefully, I carried him back to the crib and tucked him in. As his little fists relaxed open, I kissed him lightly on the cheek, then silently left the house.

The night was quiet as I walked through the hundred paces of forest that separated Zephram's house from the rest of the village. Twice, I caught myself staring at my feet because they weren't the proper distance away. My male body was three fingers shorter than my female, and it took some getting used to.

Still, it was a minor adjustment compared to some of the changes I'd gone through. On Commitment Day when I was thirteen, I went from a prepubescent boy to a fully-blossomed girl, almost a head taller, rounded above and below, and just starting my first period. I stared at more than my feet, let me tell you… at least when I wasn't tripping over doorsteps, bumping into furniture, and wondering what the hell the gods had been thinking when they invented menstruation.

The one saving grace was Cappie, who'd gone through his first period a few months before. He sat me down so earnestly and tried to explain… but he'd gone all male and shy and mortified, with a stricken expression that made me laugh myself wet and forget about my cramps….

Never mind. You had to be there. And you had to be thirteen.

When I reached the village square, I paused for a moment. Turning right would take me to the path leading into Cypress Marsh… and I could remember how Male-Me thought it crucial to resume our vigil for the rest of the night. He'd always had inexplicable priorities. Surely it was more important to patch things up with Cappie, to make sure he — no, she  — wasn't ratcheting herself into a resentment that would poison our Commitment and the rest of our lives. Cappie had a tendency to brood if you didn't chivvy him out of it fast. The last thing we needed was either of us fuming and sullen when we finally reached Commitment Hour.

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