Free Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner

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 pores 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