The truest measure of a man is the love of a good woman... or something.

A Man among Vikings
By Jesse Rabbit

---

 
It all began in Gender Studies. It was a bright August day, 8 am, the first day of school. I walked into my first college class, wondering if I was in the right place and ten minutes later I was certain that my life would never be the same again.

As I sat down between a short girl in fatigues and a guy who could have been, no joke, the entire football team, a slender woman walked out of a door near the front of the room and faced the class with a smile.

“My name is Professor Bell Norn, and this is Gender Studies. If you think you’ve got the wrong room, please leave now. Everyone good?” She paused and I looked around but no one moved. “Good. Now, at the end of class I want each of you to grab a syllabus and reading list from the back table. You are all responsible for reading and understanding everything in the syllabus, I’m not going to waste my time or yours explaining. Now, before we begin, I want you all to pull out a piece of paper and a pen… no pencils, this isn’t grade school, here we write things to last.”

There was a general shuffle as the class did as she asked, meanwhile I studied my new professor. She was tall, although without a frame of reference it was hard to say how tall, but at least 5’10” and probably as much as 6’2”. She was older than me, that much was certain but for the life of me I couldn’t tell if she was thirty, sixty, or ninety. There was an ageless quality to her, a timelessness which seemed to flow out of her in waves. For a a few seconds I imagined her standing in a stone circle in flowing robes speaking in some ancient language, looking just the same… then she spoke again.

“Alright, put your name on the paper and then write your answer to this question, then fold your paper in half and pass it to the end of your row.” And a hidden projector clicked on and the words “What did the Norsemen of the Viking Period call a female who dressed and acted like a male?”

There was dead silence for second and then the sound of two hundred pens scratching at paper. I wrote “Whatever is Norwegian for witch?” and passed it along to the end of the row where it was promptly collected by what I assumed was a TA.

A minute later, all the papers were collected and the professor smiled. “How many of you wrote down ‘a pervert’ or something along those lines?” about half the hands in the room went up. “How many of you wrote down something along the lines of ‘a witch’?” most of the rest of the hands went up. “how many of you wrote down something like ‘dead meat’?” all the rest went up. “Did anyone have a different answer?” No raised their hand.

“Would it surprise you to know that the answer is…” and there was another click and the words “A MAN” appeared on the board. I don’t know about the rest of the class, but I for one was floored. It had never occurred to me before that some cultures might be that strange. She went on, over the next hour and a half, to explain the differences between gender and sex, and all about gender-roles and society.

Now, I’d been raised in a liberal family. My parents were both hippies, both democrats, both obnoxious know it alls. I’d know about gays and lesbians since I was a kid, and to me they were little more than ways to label people. My parents had raised me to a woman of the new millennia. I’d known that I could be anything I wanted to be, be it a cop, pilot, soldier, doctor, what have you. How did I know, cause my parents told me so. And I’d believed them. Ten minutes into Professor Norn’s class and I knew exactly what I wanted to be… A Man… a Man among Vikings. It was about to become a very strange year.

***

I got back from class at 4 in the afternoon to find an army jacket and a stack of boxes camped out in front of my dorm room.

“Hello?” I asked, hoping that the jacket’s occupant was awake. No response. I said it again a little louder, then nudged the protruding Doc Martin with my adidas. The most amazing grey eyes looked up at me and I forgot to breathe as I stumbled back. The jacket unfolded and a pair of delicate hands with deep purple nails pulled a pair of serious headphones down to rest around a slender neck. The girl in the jacket extended a hand towards me.

“You must be my roomie?” she said, her voice lightly accented.

I nodded, unable to think of anything to say.

“Great… could you open the door so I can move my stuff in… its only I’ve been waiting for like three hours and I’ve really got to pee.”

I choked, then managed a small smile. “I can… but I can also watch your stuff for you while you… ummm… yeah.” I could tell I was blushing, I hate blushing, but being of pure Norwegian decent, I’ve got fair skin like you wouldn’t believe… no one believes me when I tell them I’m Jewish, but its true. 6-4, 145, blonde and blue, Volley-Ball scholarship. My new roomie, who stood maybe all of 5 foot nothing, smiled like I’d just promised her straight A’s for the year, then dashed off towards the bathrooms down the hall. I shook my head and chuckled, then unlocked the door.

By the time she got back, I’d moved all her boxes into the room and set up her printer and laptop plus the ipod dock and this weird pad that I only knew went with it because of the USB connector. “Hey, thanks… umm....” she paused.

“Kara… Kara Kant.”

She smiled, “Woah, with two K’s?”

I nodded, “yup.”

“Right on. I’m Mei Mai… or in traditional Chinese, Mai Mei.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Sorry, old joke.” She looked around the room, then smiled. “You like supergirl?” she said, pointing at a picture of me dressed as Supergirl with my best friends from highschool dressed as Catwoman and the world’s bustiest Wonderwoman. I looked, then laughed. “Yeah, that’s Deedee and Ceecee… I think I’m detecting a theme… Deirdre and Cassidy, they were on the team… volley-ball… in highschool. They started calling me Supergirl back in middleschool.”

“Huh? Why? Got laser vision?”

“Ha Ha. No. Supergirl’s name is Kara… and Kant sounds like Kent, Superman’s last name… so… plus I’m blonde and she’s blonde.”

“Gotcha. So…”

“So…” I floundered around for something to say and then fell back on that old college standard. “What’s your major?”

“Art… Graphic Design…. And pre-med.”

“Art and Pre-Med? Why?”

“Someone has to draw all those illustrations, duh!”

I laughed. “Right. Gotcha. Umm… I took the right side, hope you don’t mind?” She shook her head then looked down at my feet, then slowly trailed her eyes upwards.

“Geez, you are one tall drink of water.”

“I’m a what?”

“I don’t know, it just came out. So… are you from around here or…”

I flopped down on my bed and kicked off my shoes. “Naw, I’m from Boston. You?”

“Taiwan.”

“So… which of us is farther away from home?”

“Well, I think Massachusetts is still closer to Hawaii than Taiwan.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Sure!”

“Great… loser has to streak the mall from Varney Circle to Henke Hall.”

“What!” I practically shrieked.

“Chicken?”

Having just decided to embark on an insane plan to somehow become a Viking, I thought about whether or not a Viking would back down from just such a bet, then shook my head. “You’re on, tiny.”

Twenty minutes later, with the help of google earth and some internet math, we determined the distance between Taiwan and Honolulu to be roughly 5070 miles, to which Mei said “Hah, beat that Gwai-lo.” So we did Boston… 5085. I, seated, turned from the screen and smirked at my diminutive roommate.

“I’d say I won, shrimptoast.”

She nodded, then began to strip down.

“Hey… what… oh my god.” I turned away, blushing deeper than ever. “I thought you were joking!”

“I never joke about a bet!” and with that my insane new roommate ran out the room and down the hall. I thought about it for a second, or two, or three, then launched myself out of the chair so fast it clattered to the ground behind me. I caught up to her before she even reached the front door, grabbed her, hoisted all of her 95 pounds over my shoulder and carried this naked goof back upstairs. We got a couple of strange looks from people, Mei just waved at them and said, “Nice weather huh?” I groaned… it was going to be a long year.

***

I wasn’t wrong, but the days settled into a routine. Both of us were serious about our classwork and I had practice and she spent a lot of time drawing on what I learned was a Tablet. We liked totally different music… at first, but soon discovered that we both liked heavy metal, a genre neither of us had heard all that much of. The days were packed, there was always homework that needed to be done, but we made a rule that every week we’d go out for diner on Thursday, do laundry on Tuesday, and go to the beach or at least do something fun every Sunday.

In all things, Mei was crazier than me. She kept making bets and daring me to do strange, stupid, or just plain goofy things… and she had no shame… at all. She danced with abandon. She sat around the room in her panties and a t-shirt. She, five weeks into school, dragged me to a dance club, where she proceeded to whip off her top and revealed to the world that, instead of a bra or halter top, she was wearing electrical tape x’s over her nipples. Yet for all that, she never dated. By the time Halloween rolled around, I’d broken up with my third boyfriend. He’d lasted longer than the other two, almost three full weeks and had been an attentive lover, but the chemistry was wrong and he wasn’t much fun outside of the bedroom. The other two had been college jocks, too stupid to really get me, although they were fun.

The month before Halloween, Professor Norn announced that, in honor of the season, our assignment was to dress up in drag at least once a week and go out in public for at least an hour at a time, and record people’s reactions and our own. We had to document everything, including pictures, then write about how it made us feel. That caused a lot of outcry, not all of it from the boys. My gargantuan friend, whose name was Jake, only objected on the grounds that finding men’s clothes to fit him was hard enough. Several of the girls helped him out there. Several girls I didn’t know, all of them black and extremely busty commented that no one was going to believe they were men, no matter how they dressed. The Professor said that she’d be perfectly willing to discuss individual problems during office hours or via email, then said that this was worth 20% of the final grade, and was listed in the syllabus as “Field Work.” With tests accounting for 40%, homework another 40%, and attendance being only counted against you, that was a huge chunk of the grade. It did make me wonder what the Field Work assignment was like for Winter Semester (as big a joke as that concept is here in Hawai’i.)

I spent the weekend thinking about the assignment, then emailed the Professor.

“Do we have to dress in modern fashion? I mean, like wear a business suit or something?”

She responded within seconds.

“What have you in mind, Miss Kant?”

“Could I dress like a Viking?” I was suddenly glad I was alone in my room, because I was suddenly blushing for no apparently good reason.

“If you mean like a Norseman Warrior, then I see no reason why not. In fact, I do believe my college Professor Malus in the Anthropology department can help you with your outfit.”

I thanked her and headed over to the library for a study group. When I returned to drop off my stuff, Mei was back and I said, “Diner?”

She said, “Sure… you got a call from this guy, said you could call him or email him at [email protected] and he’d be happy to help with your project…. What project.”

I tried, I really did, to get her to drop it, but Mei is tenacious. Every two or three minutes she’d ask, right in the middle of whatever we were talking about, “What project? Huh huh huh?” Finally, when it was clear that she had no intention of letting me sleep until I answered her, I told her. She was quiet for so long I thought she’d fallen asleep. Finally, after about twenty minutes, she said, “Can I film it?”

I sighed, then said “Yeah, sure. I have to document it anyway. Why?”

“No real reason… you do realize you’re going to have to wear a fur thing… in October… in Hawai’i right?”

I grunted.

“and chainmail?”

I grunted again.

“And a helmet.”

“Yes. I do realize. Now go to sleep, some of us have to be up early.

***

Professor Malus reminded me a lot of my uncle Lars, who’s a very strange duck and no mistake. Wide muttonchops framed a wide jovial face and a tweed jacket could not disguise an athlete’s physique. He outfitted in Viking Regalia so easily that it seemed like he’d been outfitting warriors for centuries. He gave me everything I needed, except a spear, sword, or any other kind of weapon. And all he asked for was to take a few photos of me, although he did provide weapons for the photo session.

I’d like to say I got a lot of odd looks walking around campus dressed like a Viking Warrior… but that would be an understatement. First off, that stuff was heavy. Especially the wooden shield. And the fur smelled like… well, it smelled like an athletic supporter. And it drew attention. Every member of Peta, People Against Fur, the Vegan Alliance, and the ASPCA seemed to descend on me to yell at me about how fur was murder. And it was. Oh my god I was so hot. But I figured a Viking would never surrender to heatstroke, so I hydrated constantly and went out mostly in the evenings. And everywhere I went I was shadowed by little Mei and her videocamera.

Aside from the fur-haters, the reactions were mostly confusion or laughter or pointing. Most everyone treated me like a man, since under the chainmail and its padding you could not tell that I was female… or at least it was pretty damned hard. After the first time I was exhausted. I barely had enough energy left to get undressed and then I just collapsed on my bed. But I was also strangely giddy. I was almost vibrating.

I was just laying there, trying to find the energy to get up and shower when I felt a weight settle on the bed next to me and then a warm wetness was moving down my neck and back and a pair of small hands were moving my hair out of the way. I turned my head and saw Mei sitting there, wiping me down with a cool cloth. I smiled and she grinned her goofy grin back. Finally, with her help and a bottle of Gatorade I was able to stumble into the showers and clean off in time for my date. I have no idea what the movie was about, but the sex afterwards was incredible.

The next three times were easier, since they were later in the day and I didn’t have a date that night, but each time I’d come back to the dorm practically buzzing. It was like I was high. The second time, Mei had to run to get to some artsy movie she wanted to see and I spent an hour masturbating like crazy before wearing myself out. The third and fourth time I dropped by my boyfriend’s dorm and acted a little wanton. The fifth time… well, it was two days before Halloween and I’d broken up with what’s-his-name three days earlier. I was so keyed up I was looking for any excuse at all to kick Mei out of the room so I could have a little me time, but she just wouldn’t take the hint. I thought about doing it in the showers, but I’m not that good at keeping quiet.

Mei must have finally gotten the hint, because she came over and kissed me on the nose. “You know, if you want to play tickle the little elf, I don’t mind.” And she turned off the light and, putting on her headphones, settled in to write email (probably to her family in Taiwan, which she did every day practically). I stared at her back for several minutes, gnawing on my lower lip, then figured a Viking wouldn’t care so I undressed and slid under my sheets. I think it was even better than before.

***

The day before Halloween, a select few of us presented our findings (a three to five minute presentation that we’d originally given for our TA’s, with two or three being selected from each group to present to the full class). Guess who was selected. Me, Jake, and this guy Sam (who was clearly gay) from my group. Jake had said it was nerve wracking at first, that he kept thinking that everyone was staring at him cause he was wearing a dress… then he just stopped caring cause, since he’s so big people stare all the time. He said he still didn’t get make-up, but that women must be crazy cause the shoes were damned uncomfortable. Sam had hated it. He ranted about how he’d felt like a queen, like a faerie, and like he was going to be attacked and beaten at every turn. He also said that his boyfriend had almost broken up with him twice. I got a lot of laughs from my tales of Viking Mayhem… or rather, Viking Laundry, Viking Shopping, Viking eating Sushi. I didn’t go into just how exciting I’d found it, but did say that it was a real thrill.

I’d just finished, and was expecting the same, “Very good, Miss Kant,” that all the others had gotten (with their own names inserted) but instead, Professor Norns asked me a question, “So, what are planning on dressing as for Halloween, Miss Kant?”

I turned to face my ageless teacher and blinked. “I… I don’t… I hadn’t really considered it.” She just smiled at me, as if waiting for an answer. Finally, more out of desperation than anything else, I said, “Superman.”

“I look forward to that.” She said, then dismissed me with a “Very good, Miss Kant.

It wasn’t until I was halfway back to the dorm that I realized I’d said Superman instead of Supergirl. I told Mei this and she smiled, “Cool… and I’ll go as Batman!” I looked down at her in surprise and she grinned up at me.

“Sexy Batman,” she added, insouciantly. “You know that Superman and Batman are lovers, right?” I groaned. Mei had this theory that the entire Justice League was gay, especially the Greens, Arrow and Lantern, since the lantern symbol was clearly a vagina and the arrow a penis. I sighed. It was hard not strangling her most days.

It wasn’t hard finding costumes for us, although the padding was clearly not designed for a girl and so it was a little uncomfortable. Mei’s costume was for teens and showed more nipplage than Val Kilmer’s. Seriously.

If dressing as a Viking had aroused me, dressing as Superman nearly killed me. By the end of the day I was so aroused I was almost seeing double. I drank too much at the dorm party (shhh… underage drinking… eeeeevil!) and hooked up with Danny Greenbaugh, a friend from my organic chemistry class and a few Jewish mixers I’d been too, who was dressed as, of all things, Princess Leia. I dragged him back to our dorm room and was planning on having my way with him, when I heard a noise out in the hall. I thought about ignoring it, but after a minute realized that it was the combined sound of someone sniffling and keys trying to fit into the lock. I swore under my breath and, pushing Danny back onto the bed and opened the door.

Mei looked miserable. She’d been crying, obviously for a while and was swaying from side to side, looking non-too steady. The last I’d seen her, she was going off with some of her Chinese friends to get something to eat. One of them was down the hall, looking concerned. I shooed him away, since he really shouldn’t have been in our dorm this late, silently assuring him that I’d take good care of her.

I picked her up and set her on the bed, or at least tried to, but she clung to my neck and sobbed into my hair. I looked over at Danny but at some point he’d passed out completely. I sighed and carefully pealed Mei off of me before she got too much snot on my hair.

She smiled up at me, then her cheeks bulged and I grabbed the trashcan just in time as she was violently and loudly sick. After a while the heaves stopped and she just kind of fell asleep leaning against me. With yet another sigh of exasperation, I laid her back and, taking a towel and wash cloth with me, went to the bathroom to wash out the trash can. I cleaned my friend up, undressed her (all the way because at some point she’d clearly lost control of her bladder.) and then stood there looking back and forth between the unconscious duo. With a disgusted grunt I tossed a blanket over Danny’s form and stripped out of my own costume, then crawled into bed with Mei, but not on the same layer.

Danny was gone when I woke up the next day, feeling very much like a truck had run me over. I checked my clock and saw that I had five hours before I had to get to the hall to get ready for the game… at least it was a home game. I grabbed a bottle of water and some asprin off the nightstand and drained half of it, then went back to sleep, not even thinking about who’s bed I was in.

I woke again three hours later, feeling much better. I was feeling pretty good, actually, warm… I looked down and realized that Mei was snuggled against me, her head resting on my chest, a small pool of drool soaking through my top. I further realized that she had apparently squirmed out of her own layer and was in fact pressed full length against me. I did mention she was naked, right?

Trying very hard not to freak out or think about just how close her mouth was to my nipple, I slowly untangled myself from her embrace and slipped a pillow under her head. I grabbed my robe and shower kit, then snuck out, showered, and grabbed something to eat. I did some light exercise, then jogged over to the sports center. We crushed BYU-Hawai’i.

I barely saw Mei over the next week, since we had three away games in a row, but since we’d had 5 home games in a row before that, I guess I shouldn’t complain. Still, I really wanted to talk to Mei about whatever had been bugging her. As it was, I didn’t get to ask Mei about it before I found out. I was coming back to the dorm after getting in from the airport from Fresno, when I saw this very well dressed Chinese lady standing in outside our dorm hall looking nervous. She looked familiar, and after a few seconds I recognized her as Mei’s mom.

I walked up and said, in what I imagine is horrible Taiwanese, “Hello Missus Mai.” She looked at me sharply… or rather at my chest, then tilted her head back to look at my face.

“You know my daughter?” she asked, face puckered rather tight.

“Yeah. Sure. She’s my roommate.” I said, feeling too drained to try and figure out what the Lady Dragon’s problem might be.

“You must be Kara Kant. My daughter speaks of you well. You are an athlete?” she said it in such a way as to make it clear it was not a question. “You study a lot… and date many boys. My daughter… she does not date?” That was a question.

I shook my head. “Nope, the only people she hangs out with are her study groups, the Chinese Union kids, and me. She spends most of her time drawing or painting or doing homework.” I left out the video games and the times we went to the beach.

She nodded curtly, then asked if I would show her to our room, which I did. I plead fatigue, cause I didn’t even think about how Mei usually dresses. So it was that Mei’s mom walked in on Mei in shirt and panties, bopping her head to the Ramones and reading her Art History textbook. There was much yelling and whining and more yelling, all in Chinese. I tossed my bag on the bed, went to the bathroom, then walked back into the room, picked up Mei’s Mom, and carried the utterly surprised woman out into the hall. Without a word, I turned around and closed the door between the two. Mei looked at me with wide eyes.

Almost at once there came a pounding on the door. I opened it. “Yes?”

A red faced Chinese matron glared up at me. “How dare you-“

I cut her off by putting a finger over her lips. “How dare you, madam. This is my room. I do not barge into your house and start yelling at your husband. I expect the same courtesy, or at least an equal measure. Mei, I am certain, does not enjoy being yelled at. If you want to talk with her, as you clearly do since you have flown five thousand miles to see your daughter, you should keep a civil tongue in your head.”

She glowered at me, then snapped, “I do not have to take lessons in politeness from a…” she trailed off.

“Foreigner? Child? Well, lady, first of all, this is my country, not yours, so you’re the foreigner. Second, neither I nor your daughter are children. Young adults, certainly, but adults, by the laws and customs of both your country and mine. Anyway, I’m tired, and hungry, and I have classes in the morning, so unless you want to buy me dinner, could you please take this conversation elsewhere?”

And with that I closed the door in her face again, then motioned for Mei to get herself dressed really quick. I also whispered, “There, now she’ll spend the whole evening ranting about how rude your loutish roommate is.” Mei hugged me, got dressed, and dashed out. I didn’t see her again for three days.

***

I came back from practice on the third day to find Mei sitting on her bed, hugging her knees and staring off into the distance. I flopped down next to her and wrapped my arm round her shoulder. “What’s wrong kiddo?”

She blinked, then looked up at me and shook her head as if to clear it. “A really good friend of mine back home killed herself.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t say anything, and I just held her there for the longest time, until she finally sniffed and gagged. “Ewww, Go, shower, smell baaaaad.” I bopped her, then lifted her off the bed and carried her down the hall and into the showers. I turned on the water and soaked us both, clothes and all. Mei giggled and squirmed and then gave me a wedgie. I set her down and she scampered out of the shower. A second later a soaking wet t-shirt flew over the wall and hit me in the face. She came back a minute later to hand me my shower kit and announce that she’d left a towel on the hook for me.

***

Time passed and finals and the big tournaments were coming up. I’d found myself wandering through the shopping districts, listening to Orlando or some other book for class (audiobooks rule). It was during one of those trips, just as Orlando becomes a woman, that I realized I’d been looking past all the dresses and skirts and minis and purses. I found myself staring at this mannequin wearing an almost Victorian style suit. I realized that I wanted that suit… that I wanted to wear that suit… that I was, in fact, getting aroused at the very thought of how manly I’d look in it.

I ran back to the dorm and took a very cold shower. I did not sleep well that night, and I beaned the coach at practice the next day. That afternoon wasn’t a game day, and I found myself walking again through the shops. I went back every afternoon I could for a week before I bought that suit. The shop owner looked very confused, but as they say, money is money and he tailored it up right. That Friday I asked Mei if she wanted to go dancing and she, after a moment’s pause, agreed. She got such a kick out of the suit… and I got a kick out of dancing in it. I even got hit on by a few girls, although most of them backed off when I spoke. I might not have the biggest boobs, but I am a soprano.

Mei and I stayed out way too late, but neither of us drank anything, and we stumbled home, giggling like school girls the whole way. At the door to our room, I bent down and said, “Thank you for a wonderful evening, madam.” And I kissed her hand. She blushed and we both cracked up.

Over the next few weeks, I bought a couple more outfits, and sold off almost all of my more girly clothes. Somehow I just didn’t feel like wearing them anymore… then again, I’d never really thought about what I liked wearing and just sort of wore whatever I thought would make me look sexy or what everyone else was wearing. It was, I found, pretty darned hard, shopping for mens cloths that had the right… feel. Masculine wasn’t it. Powerful was as close as I could come to the right word.

And Christmas break was getting nearer and nearer. It wasn’t until I got my tickets home that I thought to ask Mei what she was doing for vacation. She shrugged, saying that she’d just stay on Campus, since her family didn’t do anything special for Christmas since they were Buddhists.

Without asking Mei, I called my mom and dad, telling them about Mei’s plans. They were thrilled at the idea and two days later I got a ticket in the mail for Mei too. Over ice cream and laundry, I slid the envelope over to Mei across the drier. She tilted her head, opened it, and then looked back up at me.

“What’s this?”

“A real vacation… if you can take the cold.”

She smirked at me, “Are you serious? You’re giving me a ticket to Boston… Are you mental?”

I shrugged, “I got a full ride. My parents have to do something with all that cash they set aside for school… yeah its fine.” Then I oofed as tiny little Mei did her best to tackle me.

“Oh thank you thank you thank you. I was going to be sooooo bored.”

I ruffled her head, “Yeah, bored, in the surf and sun capital of the universe… suuurrrrre.”

***

“Here we are,” I announced, shaking Mei awake. She’d fallen asleep when we were still inside Boston’s city limits, and that was an hour ago. She looked ridiculous, bundled up in her army jacket and like six sweaters… and she was still shivering. She looked up at me with bleary eyes.

“Where? This is the middle of nowhere.” She was looking out at the empty field of snow that stretched away for a good half a mile on the left side of the cab.

I laughed, then turned her head to face the right side. She gasped. “That’s your parent’s house?” I nodded. “Its huge.”

“Its been in the family for six generations. It used to be a manor house for this huge farm. Granddad sold most of the farm to developers, but kept about five hundred acres for the family. My uncle’s house is over there beyond those trees.”

“Girls, Don’t mean to rush you, but I’d like to get back to the city before night falls,” said the driver my parents had hired to bring us out to the country. I nodded, then helped Mei out of the car while the driver got the bags and we tromped up to the house. My dad came out, signed something, and then hustled us into the warmth while the driver pulled out of our drive and headed back into the city.

“Welcome home kiddo,” my big brother Steve said, enveloping Mei in a huge hug. “Hey, you shrank!” I clocked him. He’s been resentful every since I got taller than him when I was sixteen… he’s a shrimp at 6 foot 2. I introduced Mei and my family, my mom, dad, five brothers, two sisters, and all my cousins. Mei looked shell shocked and totally out of place among all those tall Nordic Jews, the shortest of whom was taller than Mei… even though Rebecca is only eleven, she’s five one.

My mom came out of the kitchen, the smell of brisket and fresh challah wafting out after her. I almost swooned at the smell… it’s not easy getting good home cooking in Hawai’i. Mom hugged Mei to her massive bussom and said, “It’s wonderful to have you here, dear. You’re welcome anytime.” She turned to me, “We put a cot up in your room, Kara. We figured you two were so used to sharing a room, and your aunt Maggie is coming in tomorrow from Kansas City so we had to give her the guest room.”

I waved it off. “Naw mom, its fine, it really is.” And it was. It was a heck of a dinner, although by the end of it I was drifting off into the happy haze of too much food, too long a plane / taxi ride, and too much warmth. I had to be shaken awake and told to get some sleep, since we were going snowmobiling in the morning.

We got Mei settled and I climbed into my warm bed and was asleep in seconds. I woke up way before dawn, yawned, stretched, and realized that I was not alone in bed. At first I thought it was Shane, one of our mastiffs, but it was too small. I peeked under the covers and found Mei, who blinked up at me and shivered. “COOOOOOOLLD!” she complained, then snuggled closer. I chuckled and nodded.

“Warned you.”

Eventually though I did manage to get Mei out of bed, although it took a fair amount of tickling. We took a quick shower, both of us together to save water (the house may have a huge water heater, but there are a lot of people in the house). I offered to wash Mei’s back (I do it all the time for team mates) but she demurred. Twenty minutes later we were dressed and down stairs. I made coffee and dad and two of my brothers came zombieing in, looking hallow and undead. After making another pot for the later risers, we bundled Mei up in some real cold weather gear (left over from when we were kids) and took her for a ride. She shrieked quite nicely, clinging to my back as if certain she’d be launched into one of the trees or snowdrifts if she loosened up for even a second.

When we finally got back to the house, Mei looked shellshocked and half frozen. I carried her inside and set her in front of the fire, then went looking for some of mom’s hot chocolate (she makes it by the gallon in winter) and brought some to Mei, who treated the slightly alcoholic, slightly spicy beverage as if it were the only thing standing between her and certain doom. After a light lunch of grilled cheese sammies and tomato soup, we sat around playing games and talking until Aunt Maggie and her girlfriend Saundra showed up.

My dad gave Aunt Maggie a huge hug and said, “Well, how’s my favorite blacksheep?” and Maggie laughed and punched him in the shoulder. Mei looked at me in confusion, so I explained.

“Maggie’s a lesbian, and she’s been in a committed relationship with Saundra for almost twenty years. Grandpa didn’t approve and disowned Maggie.”

“Your grandfather disowned your aunt for being a lesbian?” Mei sounded almost glum.

“Naw… for dating a shic… a non-jew. But Dad and Uncle Mark gave her a share of the inheritance when Grandpa died.”

“Oh.” Mei was quiet for a moment, then hopped up and said, “Introduce me to your aunt and her blacksheep.”

I laughed, “No no. Maggie’s the blacksheep, Saundra’s Greek, not Africa-American, not that it matters, but…” I tried to explain about the origin of the term Blacksheep, but I was pretty vague on the details myself.

That night’s diner was even more overwhelming than the previous evening’s, although I fared a bit better. I had to drag Mei off to get ready for bed, since we were going shopping in Boston in the morning. She’d been deep in conversation with Saundra over the differences in classical depictions of women in Hellenistic versus Ming dynasty art. I was totally lost.

That night, we didn’t even bother setting up the cot. We just piled all the blankets and stuff on my bed and Mei climbed in with me. I was just drifting off, when Mei whispered, “Thank you so much for inviting me… I… I… really love your family.”

I nodded and grunted something affirmative sounding, then fell asleep.

The days moved forward as they are wont to do, and if Christmas is meaningless to a bunch of Jews, an Athenian, and a Buddhist, New Years is still a pretty big deal. With fires blazing in both hearths, and fifty or sixty people in the house, it was a bash to remember. At some point, about two hours before midnight, I came out of the bathroom to find Aunt Maggie leaning against the wall, watching something across the room. I looked where she was looking and saw Saundra and Mei with their heads together, talking in intent but hushed tones. I looked back to Aunt Maggie’s face, to see if she was upset, but she looked serene, almost tranquil.

“What’s up?” I asked. She didn’t turn to face me.

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I don’t know if it’s my place to say.”

“Auntie Maggie… you’re an old Jewish lady. Being a busybody is your cultural heritage… like guilt and lox.”

She laughed, then turned enough to glower at me. “I am not old… I’m only twenty-three years older than you, you little brat.” I gave her a cheeky smile and she shook her head, sighing deeply. “Your friend… she’s gay… she’s a lesbian.”

“No she…” I trailed off, then half-whispered, “Oh.” And things began to click into place. The lack of dates. Her mother’s surprise visit. The friend who’d killed herself. Why a Taiwanese girl would travel five thousand miles to study art. “Her family found out and sent her as far away as they could, didn’t they?”

Aunt Maggie turned to face me completely, eyes grave. “I’ve no idea.”

“What? She didn’t tell you that when she told you she was gay?”

Maggie laughed, but there was no humor in it. “She hasn’t said more than three words to me aside from general politeness. And if she’s talked to Saundra about it, Sandy’s said nary a word about it to me.”

“Then how?” I was at a loss.

“Gaydar.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Okay. Then I can see how she looks at you.”

“At me?”

“Yeah. At you. And how you look at her.”

“I don’t… I’m not… I… I have to sit down.”

“Good idea.”

I slid down the wall, hugging my knees. “I’m not a… I like boys… kinda.”

Aunt Maggie sat down facing me. “Yeah, well kiddo, then you got problems, cause every time that girl enters the room you focus on her like you were a house plant and she was the sun. And you touch her all the time. And she lights up whenever you’re around.”

“Oh crap.” I buried my face in my knees. “What do I do?”

“You want my advice?”

“Yes I want your advice, hence the question.”

“No need to get snippy. Are you seeing anyone?” I shook my head. “How long has it been?”

“I… I broke up with my last boyfriend in October. I’ve had a couple of flings since then… but I was just too busy… practice and games and homework.”

“Yeah… and her?”

“She doesn’t date… at all. And she never goes anywhere with less than three other people… except…”

“Except?” Maggie prodded gently.

“Well, we do stuff together.”

“Then I guess you have some decisions to make. I don’t know how her parents will take it if you two do get together, but I suspect your mom and dad will be, if not fine, then accepting. They’ll be supportive and want you to be happy kiddo.”

I nodded, not looking up as she stood and moved off into the room. An hour later, my cousin Yorik (as in alas poor. I blame academia. His brother is named Fortenbrass.) came looking for me. “Its almost time for the ball to drop.”

I got up, feeling a little like a robot, and followed him into the main room. Without really thinking about it, I moved over to where Mei was standing and, standing behind her, put my arms around her. “Having fun?” I asked, amazed at how normal my voice sounded. She nodded and I suddenly became aware of just how fast her heart was beating in her chest. As the time counted its way slowly, oh so slowly downward, I felt her warmth flow up my arms and slowly, oh so slowly through me, thawing me. I began to feel very much like I did when I dressed like a man. She was so tiny, so feminine, so warm in my arms. I was the strong one, the powerful one, the protective one.

As the counter reached one minute, the room got hushed and Mei squirmed. I glanced down at her and loosened my hold just a little. She turned around, still in the circle of my arms and looked up at me. I looked down at her. She crooked her finger at me and I leaned towards her as my family began counting down from ten.

“I’m in love with you,” she whispered, so quietly I wasn’t absolutely certain she’d said anything at all.

“I know,” I whispered back, and as the count reached zero, I kissed her.

---