by John Varley
"Are you feeling comfortable now? Just nod if you can't talk."
"Wha..."
"Relax. It's all over. You'll be feeling like walking in a few minutes. We'll have someone take you home. You may feel drunk for a while, but there's no drugs in your system."
"Wha... happen?"
"It's over. Just relax."
Cleo did, curling up in a ball. Eventually he began to laugh.
Drunk was not the word for it. He sprawled on the bed, trying on pronouns for size. It was all so funny. He was on his back with his hands in his lap. He giggled and rolled back and forth, over and over, fell on the floor in hysterics.
He raised his head.
"Is that you, Jules?"
"Yes, it's me." He helped Cleo back onto the bed, then sat on the edge, not too near, but not unreachably far away. "How do you feel?"
He snorted. "Drunker 'n a skunk." He narrowed his eyes, forced them to focus on Jules. "You must call me Leo now. Cleo is a woman's name. You shouldn't have called me Cleo then."
"All right, I didn't call you Cleo, though."
"You didn't? Are you sure?"
"I'm very sure it's something I wouldn't have said."
"Oh. Okay." He lifted his head and looked confused for a moment. "You know what? I'm gonna be sick."
Leo felt much better an hour later. He sat in the living room with Jules, both of them on the big pillows that were the only furniture.
They spoke of inconsequential matters for a time, punctuated by long silences. Leo was no more used to the sound of his new voice than Jules was.
"Well," Jules said, finally, slapping his hands on his knees and standing up. "I really don't know what your plans are from here. Did you want to go out tonight? Find a woman, see what it's like?"
Leo shook his head. "I tried that out as soon as I got home," he said. "The male orgasm, I mean."
"What was it like?"
He laughed. "Certainly you know that by now."
"No, I meant, after being a woman—"
"I know what you mean." He shrugged. "The erection is interesting. So much larger than what I'm used to. Otherwise..." He frowned for a moment. "A lot the same. Some different. More localized.
Messier."
"Um." Jules looked away, studying the electric fireplace as if seeing it for the first time. "Had you planned to move out? It isn't necessary, you know. We could move people around. I can go in with Paul, or we could move him in with me in... in our old room. You could have his." He turned away from Leo, and put his hand to his face.
Leo ached to get up and comfort him, but felt it would be exactly the wrong thing to do. He let Jules get himself under control.
"If you'll have me, I'd like to continue sleeping with you."
Jules said nothing, and didn't turn around.
"Jules, I'm perfectly willing to do whatever will make you most comfortable. There doesn't have to be any sex. Or I'd be happy to do what I used to do when I was in late pregnancy. You wouldn't have to do anything at all."
"No sex," he said.
"Fine, fine. Jules, I'm getting awfully tired. Are you ready to sleep?"
There was a long pause, then he turned and nodded.
They lay quietly, side by side, not touching. The lights were out; Leo could barely see the outline of Jules's body. After a long time, Jules turned on his side.
"Cleo, are you in there? Do you still love me?"
"I'm here," she said. "I love you. I always will."
Jules jumped when Leo touched him, but made no objection. He began to cry, and Leo held him close. They fell asleep in each other's arms.
The Oophyte was as full and noisy as ever. It gave Leo a headache.
He did not like the place any more than Cleo had, but it was the only place he knew to find sex partners quickly and easily, with no emotional entanglements and no long process of seduction.
Everyone there was available; all one needed to do was ask. They used each other for sexual calisthenics just one step removed from masturbation, cheerfully admitted the fact, and took the position that if you didn't approve, what were you doing there? There were plenty of other places for romance and relationships.
Leo didn't normally approve of it—not for himself, though he cared not at all what other people did for amusement. He preferred to know someone he bedded.
But he was here tonight to learn. He felt he needed the practice. He did not buy the argument that he would know just what to do because he had been a woman and knew what they liked. He needed to know how people reacted to him as a male.
Things went well. He approached three women and was accepted each time. The first was a mess—so that's what they meant by too soon!—and she was rather indignant about it until he explained his situation. After that she was helpful and supportive.
He was about to leave when he was propositioned by a woman who said her name was Lynx. He was tired, but decided to go with her.
Ten frustrating minutes later she sat up and moved away from him. "What are you here for, if that's all the interest you can muster? And don't tell me it's my fault."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I forgot. I thought I could... well, I didn't realize I had to be really interested before I could perform."
"Perform? That's a funny way to put it."
"I'm sorry." He told her what the problem was, how many times he had made love in the last two hours. She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hands through her hair, frustrated and irritable.
"Well, it's not the end of the world. There's plenty more out there. But you could give a girl a warning. You didn't have to say yes back there."
"I know. It's my fault. I'll have to learn to judge my capacity, I guess. It's just that I'm used to being able to, even if I'm not particularly—"
Lynx laughed. "What am I saying? Listen to me. Honey. I used to have the same problem myself.
Weeks of not getting it up. And I know it hurts."
"Well," Leo said. "I know what you're feeling like, too. It's no fun."
Lynx shrugged. "In other circumstances, yeah. But like I said, the woods are full of 'em tonight. I won't have any problem." She put her hand on his cheek and pouted at him. "Hey, I didn't hurt your poor male ego, did I?"
Leo thought about it, probed around for bruises, and found none.
"No."
She laughed. "I didn't think so. Because you don't have one. Enjoy it, Leo. A male ego is something that has to be grown carefully, when you're young. People have to keep pointing out what you have to do to be a man, so you can recognize failure when you can't 'perform' How come you used that word?"
"I don't know. I guess I was just thinking of it that way."
"Trying to be a quote man unquote. Leo, you don't have enough emotional investment in it. And you're lucky. It took me over a year to shake mine. Don't be a man. Be a male human, instead. The switchover's a lot easier that way."
"I'm not sure what you mean."
She patted his knee. "Trust me. Do you see me getting all upset because I wasn't sexy enough to turn you on, or some such garbage? No. I wasn't brought up to worry that way. But reverse it. If I'd done to you what you just did to me, wouldn't something like that have occurred to you?"
"I think it would. Though I've always been pretty secure in that area."
"The most secure of us are whimpering children beneath it, at least some of the time. You understand that I got upset because you said yes when you weren't ready? And that's all I was upset about? It was impolite, Leo. A male human shouldn't do that to a female human. With a man and a woman, it's different. The poor fellow's got a lot of junk in his head, and so does the woman, so they shouldn't be held responsible for the tricks their egos play on them."
Leo laughed. "I don't know if you're making sense at all. But I like the sound of it. 'Male human.'
Maybe I'll see the difference one day."
Some of the expected problems never developed.
Paul barely noticed the change. Leo had pr
epared himself for a traumatic struggle with his son, and it never came. If it changed Paul's life at all, it was in the fact that he could now refer to his maternal parent as Leo instead of mother.
Strangely enough, it was Lilli who had the most trouble at first. Leo was hurt by it, tried not to show it, and did everything he could to let her adjust gradually. Finally she came to him one day about a week after the change. She said she had been silly, and wanted to know if she could get a change, too, since one of her best friends was getting one. Leo talked her into remaining female until after the onset of puberty. He told her he thought she might enjoy it.
Leo and Jules circled each other like two tigers in a cage, unsure if a fight was necessary but ready to start clawing out eyes if it came to it. Leo didn't like the analogy; if he had still been a female tiger, he would have felt sure of the outcome. But he had no wish to engage in a dominance struggle with Jules.
They shared an apartment, a family, and a bed. They were elaborately polite, but touched each other only rarely, and Leo always felt he should apologize when they did. Jules would not meet his eyes; their gazes would touch, then rebound like two cork balls with identical static charges.
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 topsyturvy.
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."
"And 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.