Madison was in her first class of the summer when her cellphone rang.

The professor, a youngish-looking fellow who insisted that everyone call him "Roger" instead of "Professor Hangleton"—Madison thought she would insist on the same thing if that was her name—gave her a wry look and continued on with his introductory lecture. Meanwhile, Madison dove for her phone to shut it the hell up. She didn't recognize the number, besides noticing that it was in her area code, and the person didn't leave a message, so it wasn't until after that introductory class was over that she was able to call the number back.

"Hello?"

"Hi?"

"Hi, umm.... Who is this?"

"I beg your pardon, but, you called me." The caller was speaking in the lilting tones of an Indian or Pakistani.

"Yes, but, you called me first. This is Madison Bechtel."

"Ohh, Madison! Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't recognize your voice. Please forgive me. This is Jenna Sayuri."

Madison knew Jenna. She was in Madison's grade and they had shared a number of classes over their years at Mount Hill. She was indeed Indian, with rich brown skin and lustrous hair—attractive, certainly; not without her share of suitors. Really, except for being Indian, she was in the same social strata as Madison—but the races didn't mix; it was just one of the unwritten rules of popularity. As a consequence, Madison could not think of a single reason why Jenna might be calling her. "Umm... Hi, Jenna. This is Madison Bechtel. —Umm. Of course. You knew that. Umm. what can I do for you?"

"Well, I was calling about the, ah... The discoveries that were passed around about you just prior to the end of school."

"...Oh?" said Madison. It was one of the last things she wanted to discuss, and Jenna Mayuri one of the last people she wanted to discuss it with. She didn't think it was intentional, but Jenna had always managed to radiate an air of... Well, arrogance was the only real word for it. It was like she considered most people beneath her.

"I'm sure you're aware that there's been a lot of whispering about you behind backs. You know how it is: half of it's fact, half of it's exaggeration, and half of it is outright lies."

For lack of anything else to say, Madison replied, "Three halves. Must be a lot of talk."

"It is," said Jenna without a trace of irony. "But the reason I'm calling is to tell you that I don't hold with any of that. We've known each other for a while, and you have always struck me as a completely normal girl. I can't see how that has changed. After all, you had your... Condition... Even then. True, you didn't know it, but that doesn't make you different. And I don't see why we should treat you differently either."

"Uhh, ahm..." said Madison, who had not been expecting anything like this. "Um, thank you, Jenna."

"And I wanted to say that, if you are in need of social contact this summer, or would simply like someone to talk to, I would be happy to be your friend at any time."

"Thank you," said Madison again, meaning it this time. "I really appreciate that. I may just take you up on it."

"Oh, at any time," said Jenna. "Feel free."

"Jenna? Jenna Sayuri?" was Devin's response. "But... She's..."

"Stuck-up," said Nancy.

"Yeah," said Madison. "It's like she thinks she's better than us."

"Yeah," said Devin. "Of course, some of that might just be cultural. She emigrated, you can tell by her accent."

"Whereas you speak perfect English because you were born here," Nancy said, completely straight-faced. It was true, after all.

"Yeah," said Devin. "My mom and my uncle flip R's and L's left and right, whereas I—"

"Flip R's and L's?" Madison said.

"It's a Japanese thing," said Nancy. "They don't really distinguish between the L and R sound; you can use them interchangeably in their language."

"Really?" said Madison.

"Yes, rearry," said Devin, straight-faced. "It cause some probrem some time, ret me terr you, fripping errs and alls reft and light."

Nancy sniggered. "Whose terrible idea was it to do that in Japanese? It's like the word 'lisp'. When you have a lithp, you can't thay that you have a lithp. Thome thaditht mutht've been in charge of that one."

"God, what if you had both of them," Devin giggled. " 'Herro, I am Japanethe, I have rithp and I frip my errs and alls.' —err. 'Errth and allth. Can anybody underthtand me? I rithen to mytherf and I cannot underthtand my own dithcourrthe.'"

"Jesus Christ, Devin, making fun of your own ethnicity," said Nancy, sniggering.

"Excuse me!" Devin said with a weak attempt at indignance. "I'm a chink! I can make fun of other chinks if I want to."

"So, Jenna," said Madison loudly, to bring the two of them back on topic. "Who neither flips her L's and R's nor has a lisp." Sometimes she wondered who the best friends were in this crowd. If she left Nancy and Devin to their own devices, they would tangent until armageddon. "Why do you say it's cultural?"

"Well, maybe it is," said Devin. "Like I was saying, you can tell by her accent that she grew up speaking an Indian language, and picked up English second. (Though she does speak it really well.) It means she grew up, at least a little, in India, and absorbed some of their cultural practices and mores and standards."

"Does that include being snotty to white people?" said Madison.

"I don't know," said Devin. "Like I've ever studied Indian culture. All I'm saying is that there might be a reason for her behavior that isn't related to her personality."

"You mean, that was programmed into her by culture," Nancy said.

"Yeah, exactly," said Devin. "None of us are perfectly free to shape ourselves however we want—by the time we're able to think for ourselves, there are already things that are programmed into us and which we'd have a hard time taking out again. What's the worse curse word in the English language? It's 'fuck', right? What's it mean? It means 'sex', it relates to sex. The absolute worst swear word in our language is 'sex'. That's cultural, isn't it? There's no guarantee that the worst swear word in—what—in Norse or Chinese or Swahili has anything to do with sex. It's probably something completely different—and probably something way more threatening. I mean, really, which is more dangerous, sex or an atomic bomb? Or a T-Rex? Or syphillis? So the fact that we swear by it says more about us than it does about anything else."

"God, you're right," said Madison, suddenly glimpsing the panorama Devin was describing. "There's a lot of things that could explain why any given person does any given thing. I mean, maybe it's genetic—or maybe it's something their parents trained them to do. Or maybe they learned it from their environment—from their peers."

"Or from bullies," Devin said.

"Or maybe it's something their culture expects of them. Look at all the different ways people carry out religious worship. Or maybe it's something that they would just do no matter what, that just comes out of themselves."

"Out of their soul," said Nancy.

"Yeah," said Madison. "It's... There's so much." She turned to Devin. "And you study this? How do you wade through it??"

"It's fun, isn't it?" Devin asked with a wide, bright grin. "There's always so much more than you realized."

"So, Jenna, said Nancy loudly, and Madison realized that she had precipitated the tangent this time. "Are you going to contact her?"

"Well... I dunno," Madison said. "I mean... I don't think she was faking it or anything. I think she meant what she said. But... No matter where she got that habit of looking down her nose at people, it's still there. And I'm not sure I wanna deal with that."

"Why not?" said Devin. "What've you got to lose?"

"A couple hours of my life," said Madison.

"What, are you secretly dying?" Devin said. "Are you in a terminal condition all of a sudden?"

"Yes, she is," said Nancy. "It's called living."

Devin rolled his eyes, tossed his head. "Well, you live like that if you want to, but I'm still of the opinion that you have nothing to lose. What harm could come of it?"

"Yeah, well, you're the most optimistic one of us all," Madison said. She had meant it to be sarcastic, maybe a little scornful, but it didn't come out that way. The way she said it, it sounded more like a compliment.

Devin gave her a smile. "Somebody has to be. I mean, look at Nancy over there, all doom-and-gloom-and—"

Nancy's cellphone cut off the proceedings, chittering like a rodent. Nancy checked the display, frowned, and flipped it open. "Hello?... Yes? Yes, hi, it's me. How're you doing?... That's good. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh..."

Then she blinked at Madison.

"Yes, actually, I'm still friends with Madison, why?"

Another pause, and then she took the phone away from her ear and put the caller on speaker. "—just been thinking, and... I felt really bad about... Well."

"About what, Haley," Nancy said, and Madison suddenly recognized the voice: Haley Lombardo, she of the recently-lost virginity. What was she calling Nancy about?

"About... How we all treated Madison," Haley said.

Madison stared.

"Look, the other girls don't know I'm calling, they're happy she's gone. You know how it is. But... I mean, we just started treating her like she was the plague. Craig started coming by—and Jessica McLaughlin jumped on that, you know how she's always had a crush on him—and she was encouraging him to, you know, spread the word about Madison, and... And talk about how she was a mutant, and... God, it was disgusting. The others just ate it up."

Madison opened her mouth to say something, but Nancy gestured for silence with a hand. "Is Vanessa getting in on that?"

"No, Vanessa said to stop it," Haley said. "She said she didn't want to be involved in that. Of course, Jessica didn't—she and Craig just started whispering instead of shouting. I don't think they even know what they were talking about anyway. They were saying something about how Madison, in addition to her, um, female genitalia, has... Umm. You know. A, umm." Madison could practically hear the blush. "A scrotum. But whenever anybody asks Craig if he's seen it, he just, you know, he either blows it over, or he makes something up. It's disgusting."

"What, Madison having a scrotum?"

A snort. "No. Craig."

You and me both, Madison thought.

"Okay, and..." said Nancy. "Why are you telling us this?"

"Because I don't want to be involved in it," Haley said. "They're just getting off on it, you know? They're, like, having so much fun spouting shit about Madison. And I'm like, What's she ever done to you, and they're like, What does that matter. And... Well, I dunno what I can do once school starts up again, but right now it's summer and Jessica's off in, what, Hawaii or Barbados or some other tropical paradise right now, and Vanessa's with her, so I can hang out with whoever I darn well please."

"And... You want to hang out with Madison?" Nancy said.

"...Yeah," said Haley. "I..." She sighed. "God, I dunno. There's— ...Something happened recently, something that kind of set me apart from other people—not a lot of people know it, because Brent kept quiet about it—"

"Brent?" said Nancy. "Your boyfriend? What would he have to do with it?" Nancy was enjoying this, Madison realized: she already knew the answer, but she was still playing Haley on, just to see her squirm. "...Wait. Did you...?"

"Shit. I guess I'm not keeping quiet about it very well, am I. Yeah. We did."

Nancy, grinning like a shit-house cat: "How was it?"

"That's besides the point, the point is..." said Haley. "The point is... The few people he did tell—you know, his friends, the people he trusts—they all look at me different now. They know. And, I can tell just by the way they act towards me. I can tell they're... Thinking about what Brent and I did."

"Yeah," said Nancy. Madison suddenly wondered how many people Don Calhoun had told, and how many of those you're-different looks Nancy had had to endure.

"And... I realized that... Well, Madison must be going through the same thing. You know?"

"And that matters to you?" said Nancy in a different voice.

"Well, yeah! Shouldn't it?"

Madison held up her hand, to indicate that she wanted to take the floor, and Nancy gestured for her to go ahead. "Haley. This is Madison. You're on speakerphone."

"Ohmygod Madison have you been listening? Oh my god, I'm so sorry for— Madison, I had nothing to—"

"Haley—"

"—do with it, I swear, it was all Jessica, you know that—"

"Haley—"

"­—I would never try to stab you in the back like that, I'm really—"

"Haley!" said Madison, and Haley's babble cut off. "It's okay. I forgive you. —Actually, no, I don't forgive you, because as far as I'm concerned you did nothing wrong. There's nothing to forgive. It's okay."

"So, Haley," said Nancy in conversational tones. "You were calling us because you wanted to hang out with us?"

"Yeah. ...I mean, if you're okay with it. I just... I wanted to apologize, and give you one of your friends back. I mean, we were all like, you know, Oh yeah, Madison, we'll always be there for you, and then this shit happens, and look what we do. God, Vanessa's been a better friend to you than we have."

Arguably, this was true, but Madison didn't see any need to make Haley feel worse. "Umm, yeah, we're okay with it. Umm. The next time we try and put something together, we'll, umm, we'll look you up, okay?"

"Okay, that works. I ended up getting a job at Starbucks, so I'm not sure when I'm really available, but—"

Madison recognized a Haley-Lombardo babble when she heard one. "Haley. We'll call you," she said, smiling.

"Okay, umm, I'll talk to you later. ...Umm. Madison?"

"Yeah?"

"...I'm sorry."

Madison felt a different smile on her face. "It's okay. And thank you for calling, Haley. It's always good to know who my friends are."

When Haley had hung up, Devin raised his head and said, "Boy, she must really be upset."

"Yeah, sounds like it," Nancy agreed. "I wonder how much of it is just annoyance with Vanessa's little clique. Haley jumps ship when she feels like she isn't getting what she deserves."

"Look, guys, I don't have so many friends that I'm going to turn one down just because her motives aren't pure," Madison snapped. "Yeah, so, she thinks she sees a better chance with me than with Vanessa. So what? I think I see a better chance with her than without her. How am I any better? I'm not, is the answer, but that's okay. We're using each other, and we both know it. And how is that any different from any other friendship?"

"Boy," said Devin. "That's harsh."

"If true," said Nancy.

"Yeah, but... I mean, come on. Don't you believe in true friendship? Love? Loyalty?"

"Oh, God, not another one," Nancy moaned. "You two should get on famously."

Devin turned to Madison, grinning widely. "What, you also believe in loyalty that transcends all bounds? Love that can never be broken? Devotion until your dying day?"

"Not in public I don't," Madison retorted, and Devin laughed.

"Actually, if you think about it, this solves your Jenna situation," said Nancy. "Just invite Haley along too as a counterbalance. If Jenna gets to be too much, you can just get Haley to start babbling."

"Yeah, but..." said Madison. "Is that... Polite? I mean, they don't realize—"

"It's not like they can do anything anyway," Nancy said. "You're the one with the power here. They're the ones asking to be your friends."

"She's got a point," said Devin.

So Nancy called Haley back, and Madison called Jenna back, and they made plans to meet the very next day. Madison warned them both that the other girl would be coming, and that furthermore Devin would be present; both of them remembered Devin, though neither knew him very well. The funny thing was that Haley and Jenna both wanted to bring their boyfriends—whom, they assured Madison, were perfectly well-behaved and would not cause any problems. Madison and Devin and Nancy had a short discussion over this eventuality and eventually decided that boyfriends should not be too big of an issue. "Plus," said Devin, laughing in that high voice of his, "it'd be nice to have a little more testosterone around."

"Madison probably has more of it than you," Nancy said. "Fuck, I probably have more of it than you."

"Shh!" said Devin, pretending at indignance. "I told you not to tell anybody about that!"

And so it was that, at 3 PM the next day, a group of people assembled at Madison's house which could be best described as "a bunch." Jenna and her boyfriend were punctual, as was Devin, whereas Haley chose to show up later—or perhaps simply failed to be on-time—and Nancy, as usual, simply popped in whenever she darn well felt like it. Of course, that made it hard for Madison to grab Nancy in private and ask her about their previous adventure. She wasn't sure how she understood it, but she knew it was true: that covering things up would only make them worse. If Nancy had any reservations about the fact that she had seen all of Madison there was to see, they needed to talk about it instead of ignore it. If only Nancy could bloody well be on time.

Jenna had never been to Madison's house before nor met her parents; she was gracious and polite in meeting Mrs. Bechtel and Connor, who was of course making his best 14-year-old effort at not being impressed by the upperclassmen whom he would join at Mount Hill in August. Haley had visited here before, but for her boyfriend, Brent Warburton, as well as Jenna's, a bespectacled, cave-chested boy with the unfortunate name of Simon Biggerstaff, this was all a new experience. Brent reminded Haley of Craig—attractive on the outside, maybe not so much a catch on the inside—but she trusted Haley's judgment. (Really, what other choice did she have?—to protest that this man was a bad idea, and Haley had better break up with him, or else? Maybe if she were Jessica McLaughlin.) Simon was a curiosity too, in his own way: furtive, underconfident, ill-at-ease amongst even as motley a crew as this one (though Madison had a hunch that this was true of any gathering he might be in, not just there).

As she would say to Devin, later: "He thinks he's out of his league."

Devin would give her a curious look and say, "Isn't he? I think he's taller than Jenna physically, but she still seems to dwarf him because she stands up straight."

"True enough, but one of the secrets you learn by being popular is that it's more important what you think than what you are. I mean, look at Haley. She's not in our league either—she's so fat."

"She's not fat. I mean, she's not like life-threateningly obese, she's still healthy. It's just our cultural obsession with thinness."

"That's true, but my point is that, regardless of whether the standards are kind or intelligent or even correct, they still say she's too big to really climb to the top. But she doesn't let that stop her." She would lean over and spear Devin with a look at this time. "She just keeps on playing. And since she thinks she belongs at the top, we treat her like she does."

"Whereas Simon..."

"With his every action, says, I don't belong here. And so we treat him that way too."

"Show people how you want to be treated."

"Exactly. Wasn't that your theory?"

"So you believe in it now?"

She would shrug. "I guess I always have, whether or not I realized it."

But all this was in the future. For now there was the hashy business of first contact. Brent she had some sense of, and Haley's behavior she could predict and even influence to a certain extent; Jenna and Simon were uncharted territory, and here there might be dragons. Maybe not Simon; he seemed too meek to really start anything—but then, wasn't it always the kids like him who blew up their high schools? The marginalized, overlooked ones; the ones whom everyone beat up on? At least he had Jenna to keep him sane.

Or did he? The impression Madison got, watching the two of them interact, was of a master-slave relationship. Jenna ignored him most of the time, barely even acknowledging his efforts to join in on the conversations, and Simon seemed pathetically glad the few times she did deign to make him room. Most of the time he sat by her side, trying and failing to break into the group, and Jenna would occasionally dispatch him to run some errand—fetch me a coke, that sort of thing. It was too early to ask, but Madison wondered what the nature of that relationship was. She didn't know for certain, of course—nobody did—but her guess was that the two of them weren't lovers, that Jenna wasn't compensating Simon in that way—for that matter, that Simon wasn't compensating Jenna in that way. She wasn't sure why she felt that way, except for noticing their body language: how tentative Simon was, how brusquely Jenna brushed off his affections. Haley and Brent had never believed in public displays of affection either (as opposed to Jessica McLaughlin, who might at any given time be plastered onto her boyfriend-du-jour in an entirely inappropriate manner), but Brent had his arm around her most of the time they were at Madison's house, and she seemed completely comfortable there. Jenna, for her part, couldn't seem to keep enough distance between herself and Simon.

Was that wise?, Madison wondered. Shouldn't she be treating him better? What if he blew up his high school? —With Madison in it? Was she now on his shit list for having been present for this public humiliation?

And yet, she completely understood why Jenna would want Simon to keep his mouth shut in public: he was, in short, embarrassing. He either looked down at the table or down at girls' breasts—Jenna was wearing a high-necked shirt, despite the heat, and Madison thought she understood why. And everything to him seemed to be cartoons or video games. Or porn, of course. Or porn. An exchange might go like this:

"So, I told him, 'Heck no, you want us to get in trouble?'" Haley laughed and gave her boyfriend a playful swat. "I mean, they have cameras on those changing rooms. Not to mention store employees. What if the manager came and knocked on the door?"

Simon burst in at this point: "I saw this thing on the Internet where these two girls were together in a changing room, and—"

As this was his fifth or sixth outburst of the day, Jenna evidently could not contain herself any longer. "The Internet. So you mean it was porn."

"No, it was anime," Simon protested. (Devin would later call attention to the fact that Simon had pronounced it correctly, 'ahh-nee-may', instead of the American tendency to treat it like the first three syllables of the word 'animation'.)

"They make pornography animes?" said Jenna, pronouncing it the American way ('aan-i-may'). "Why else would there be two girls together in a changing room?"

"Are you kidding? That's not as uncommon as you think. In this one—"

"Oh, I fancy a cookie right now. Dear, would you mind...?" And off Simon would go, annoyed but acquiescent, and a rapid succession of expressions would flit across Jenna's face, too fast for Madison to catch, before she turned back to Haley and said, "So, where were we?" And by the time Simon returned, the conversation would have safely moved off. Though only for a little while. Evidently, Simon had an encyclopedic knowledge of these things.

Haley, as predicted, was a leaven to Jenna, helping to balance out the conversations. She could be counted on to talk, talk, talk if need be—but Madison was surprised to find out that there wasn't much need. Jenna was operating from a different set of assumptions, that much was obvious—she spoke of everything as if it were tiring and passé—but despite all that she was clearly trying to be friendly, and it worked. Evidently, Devin's analysis of cultural infusion had been accurate.

It was Jenna who brought everything round, in the end. "Look, I do not mean to bring up an uncomfortable topic, but... I have no idea what to believe about anything. Madison, you must know that there are fifty different stories circulating about you, each more outrageous than the last. So... If it's okay with you, I wanted to ask you, what is your condition? What is it they found out about you?"

Devin, looking alarmed: "I'm not sure that this is, um, the best conversation to be having right now—"

"Dude, I want to know," said Brent, speaking up for almost the first time. "'s the only reason I came here."

Nancy, her anger flashing: "What, so once we tell you, you'll just go out and gossip it and spread it around?"

Madison stepped in before her protectors could really get started. "I'll tell you, Brent. I'll tell all of you. But only if you promise that, if you tell other people, you'll tell it right. Jenna's right, there are a lot of stories running around." She'd never heard any of them, but she'd have to be dumber than she was to not realize they existed. "This is our chance—my chance—to get the real one into circulation, and to make sure the truth gets out. Will you guys help me with that?"

Simon nodded. Jenna said, "Of course." Haley nodded, and Brent shrugged and said, "Fine."

So Madison took a deep breath and told them.

"My story begins in the womb, when my mom was only seven weeks pregnant. Before then, there isn't very much difference between a male fetus and a female fetus; they're almost identical, except for the gonads."

"What's a gonad?" Haley said.

"Loins," said Jenna. "Ovaries for women, testicles for men."

" 'Loins'?" said Brent.

"So, before seven weeks, a female fetus has ovaries and a male fetus has testicles, but there's no other real difference?" Devin asked—a leading question, to help her get back on track.

"Yeah, basically," said Madison. "I can't remember the exact details, but let's just say it's that and correct it later if we have to. Here's the part I am sure of: at seven weeks, a human fetus starts deciding whether it should turn into a guy or a girl. There's an easy way to check this: the fetus just has to look inside itself and figure out if it has any testosterone, because testes produce that and ovaries don't. If it doesn't find any testosterone, by default it starts turning into a girl."

"Really?" said Jenna. "That's interesting. Instead of just turning into something that has no sex at all?"

"Hey, a lot of us have that problem anyway," Nancy said, and Haley laughed.

"Well, if you think about it from an evolutionary or a biological perspective, it makes sense," said Devin. "Our whole objective, from Mother Nature's point of view, is to have sex and reproduce and have babies. So to create an offspring that, you know, can't reproduce—that's a huge waste of resources. Not to mention how dangerous it is for the mother to bear a child. It's not easy to do that. So, if there is some sort of malfunction, it's still better for the child to have some form of sex organ, even if they don't work very well—they might work, and the child may be able to reproduce, and fulfill his or her mission as assigned by Mother Nature."

"Yeah, but, if there is a mistake or a mutation, isn't it in Evolution's best interests for that child to be sterile?" Simon said. "After all, you don't want to pass on a genetic defect. Wouldn't it be smarter for the fetus to, you know, scan its own DNA and then, I dunno, atrophy the sexual organs?"

Madison wondered what it would be like to have the anatomical completeness of a Barbie doll—because, undoubtedly, that was what Simon was advocating. It doesn't matter in my case anyway, though: I'm sterile to begin with. She felt a wry laugh rising within her. And if someone asked me to trade in my coochie for boobs the size of Barbie's, I'd probably do it.

"That would be good, yes," Devin said, "but you're thinking of it as being like a virus-scan program or something. Mother Nature doesn't work that way."

"So you defaulted into being a girl?" Jenna said, trying (vainly) to keep the discussion on-subject.

"So I defaulted into being a girl," Madison agreed. "I have Y chromosomes and was supposed to be a guy. But the defect wasn't in my... Testicles." There's two words I never thought I'd say. 'My testicles.' "They work just fine. The actual mutation is in the receptor to which testosterone bonds. Basically, it was broken, so the receptors didn't work right. It's like... I dunno. If testosterone is a key, then the receptor is the lock: you put testosterone in, it turns the lock and the fetus becomes a boy. But because my gene, which controls how the lock is built, was faulty, instead of a lock I had, what, I dunno, a badger or something. So of course the whole thing didn't work. It's called Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and, by way of the mechanisms I just described, it basically causes boys to default into being girls."

"So," said Brent, "you have badgers in your bloodstream."

If Simon or Jenna had said this, Madison might've let it pass. But she knew Brent. She fixed him with a stern look and said, "You promised to tell it right."

Brent gave her a narrow grin.

"So, down there..." Haley said.

"Down there, I'm a girl. Genitally I'm a girl. Reproductively I have nothing."

"You can't have kids?" Haley said.

"I have no cervix, no uterus, testicles instead of ovaries, and none of the tubing that normally connects any of it. I think they said that, even if I were to have corrective surgery and, what, reclaim my manhood or whatever, I'd still be sterile."

"Aww, that sucks!" Haley said. "I know how I'd feel if I couldn't have kids."

"Are you going to?" said Jenna.

"Going to what?" Madison said.

"Have elective surgery," Jenna said. "Reclaim your manhood."

Madison had been wondering that herself for some time. "...I don't know, actually. I just... Well, I mean, look at me. I'm wearing a pink T-shirt with Ariel on it." The same one, she realized, she'd been wearing the day she found out. "I've been a girly-girl for most of my life. To suddenly just... Switch to the other side... I'm not even sure what that means. So, no, I have no idea whether I will or not. But it's an option."

"Why would you do that?" Devin said. "You're a perfectly lovely woman."

"Well, thanks," said Madison. "But... I've gotta decide what's right for me."

"There's this one anime—" Simon began.

"Simon," said Jenna, a threat clear in her voice.

"No, seriously, I think Madison would want to hear about this one. It's called Ranma 1/2. It's really silly—it's about this guy, Ranma, who falls into an enchanted pool which puts a curse on him. Now, whenever he gets hit by cold water, he turns into a girl."

"What?!" said Haley. "What kind of crazy idea is that?"

"And Ranma got lucky that way: there are a lot of other characters who fell into that hot spring and are cursed to turn into, like, animals and stuff instead. But my point is... Well, it kind of relates, doesn't it?" Simon said. "What is Ranma, exactly? He was born a guy, but now whenever he takes a swim he turns into a woman. And whenever he jumps in a hot tub, he turns back into a man."

"How would he buy swimsuits?" said Brent.

"I don't know, I don't think he ever goes swimming," Simon said. "But, just... My point is, Madison, you're not the only one who's thought about this. You're not the only one who's wanted to, I dunno, to flip back and forth between being a guy and a girl."

That wasn't actually what she was talking about, really, but Madison didn't want to be on Simon's Shit List when he blew up the school. "Thanks, Simon. Maybe I'll look it up."

Her conversation that night was with Devin alone, as Nancy had to run home again to be in time for dinner. Devin was amused at how much Haley talked. "Is she always like that? I mean, she just gets going, and then..."

"She's always like that," Madison agreed. "It's the main reason we wanted to use her as a counter for Jenna: get her talking so much that Jenna wouldn't be able to get in a word edgewise. Fortunately we didn't need it."

"Do you think you'll invite them over again?" Devin asied.

"Maybe not... Maybe not in a whole huge clump like that," she said. "But I'm definitely glad to have Haley back, and Jenna... Well, I don't see why not. She's a nice girl. I want to get to know her more. Simon, on the other hand..."

"Yeah, what is up with that," Devin said. "Why does she treat him that way?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? Because she doesn't want to go out in public with him. And having been out in public with him, can you blame her?"

"Yeah, but, then, why doesn't she just break up with him? Or, if she's going to stay, why doesn't she treat him like you did?"

Madison blinked at him. "How did I treat him?" To her knowledge, she had tolerated him, nothing more.

"You listened to him. You took his gift. He wanted to be included, and you included him. Hon, he's just like us: outsiders, set apart by who we are. Jenna doesn't do a good job of including him, does she? But you did."

Madison gave a wry smile. "Oh good, so I won't be on his Shit List when he blows up the school."

"Hon, there doesn't have to be a shit list. If we just treat him the way we'd want to be treated if we were in his shoes..."

"You really believe that stuff," said Madison. "Are you a Christian?"

Devin gave a self-conscious laugh. "Not hardly. But it's the Golden Rule. It shows up in just about every religion you care to think of—and most of them developed it independently of each other, not copying from Jesus. As I see it, that's proof that it's true—that it's rooted in the fundamentals of human nature. It's like math. One plus one is always two, right? At least if you do it correctly. This is the same. If you study human nature enough, and correctly, you'll eventually realize that treating people how you want them to treat you, works."

"Yeah, kind of like Simon," said Madison, and went on to share her observations regarding his self-perceived out-of-placeness. When she was done, she looked around and sighed. "God, why did Nancy have to go home. I need to talk to her."

"Excuse me," said Devin, grinning. "I'm right here."

"Yeah, but, you're not Nancy."

"And good thing too," said Devin, "or that would've been a lot of very rapid surgery."

Madison didn't laugh.

"What did you need to talk to her about?" Devin asked.

Madison gave him a narrow look. "I'm not sure I can say."

"Oh?"

"It's, um... It's private." But when she felt her face flame, she knew she'd just given it all away.

"Ooo, lascivious details!" Devin exclaimed with an unmanly squeal. "Something you might feel embarrassed about!"

"Well... Yeah, that's just it exactly, actually," said Madison, rubbing her face with a hand. "What if... What if she's so embarrassed, or upset, or disturbed or whatever, that she's avoiding me now? What if she doesn't want to be my friend anymore?"

"Well... I have to say, I think that if that were the case, she wouldn't've come tonight. You know?"

"Well, yeah, but... I mean, what if... God, I dunno. Just... If she's having second thoughts, or concerns, or, or, or anything, I want her to talk to me about it. Just... I don't want her to just let things settle between us. I don't want her to let things harden between us. I don't have that many friends to begin with that I can afford my best friend letting herself hold a grudge against me."

Devin shrugged. "Maybe nothing's wrong, and she just had to go home for dinner."

Madison squeezed her eyes shut. "Maybe."

"So, what actually happened between you two, Mad?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Do you have to call me that? It makes me sound like I ought to be committed."

"What do your parents call you?"

" 'Hey, kid,' " said Madison without humor. "Or just plain Madison."

"Maddy?"

"They used to, when I was a kid. Makes me feel like a kid."

"So you can see how I'm kind of out of options here," said Devin. "I mean, I can't just call you 'dison or something. I knew a girl named Miranda, liked to go by 'Murr'. Didn't work out very well."

"Who, Miranda Blalock? Yeah, I remember that. Good thing she likes cats."

After a short silence, Devin said, "So what did pass between you and Nancy?"

"You just want the lascivious details."

"So what if I do? Madison, if you don't want to talk about it, just say so and I won't bother it again. But if you do... I'm willing to listen."

Madison wondered for a second if she could trust him. But then she remembered that this was Devin—gentle, soft-spoken Devin, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Some people might like to spread rumors. Devin was not one of them.

She shrugged. "Well, you probably already guessed it. After that... That big argument we had last week? The one where I was cross-dressing? She basically hadn't spoken to me until Friday, when I phoned up and was like, Get your butt over here. And she was really sorry about having treated me so badly, and, to apologize, she..." She took a deep breath. "We became lovers."

Devin gazed at her steadily. That was all.

"And, just... I dunno how she's feeling, what she thinks, whether... I mean, well. She became my lover, I didn't really... It was all one-way. It really was like an apology. And I don't know—you know, how she's reacting, how she's—"

"How do you feel," Devin asked.

Madison came up short. "How do— How do I feel?"

"Yeah, I mean... About everything." A hint of a smile twinkled in his eyes. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yeah, it was... Well, I dunno, it's the first time anyone's ever... Umm... Been around... That area, you know? I never let Craig— ...Or any of my other boyfriends either, actually. Nobody else had ever been, umm. Down there."

"Down under."

"Yeah."

"Did it feel good?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely. It felt better than when I... Ahh. Attend to my own needs." At least when she wasn't using her vibrator. "Nancy, umm. Nancy knows what she's doing."

"Stands to reason. Nancy has her own down-there to fiddle around with. Boys don't. —Well, I mean, we do, but our down-there is, umm, slightly different. For instance, it is external, and doesn't work the same way."

"Yeah, no kidding. The few times I was with Craig's down-there, he had to tell me what to do the whole time. And I'm like, 'This would totally not work if I tried it on my me.' "

"Do you want her to do it again?"

"What?"

"I mean..." Devin shrugged. "If she offered you a chance to repeat the experience... Would you?"

Madison thought for a moment. "You know, I don't know. I mean... Well. The sensations were really nice, obviously, and it felt really good. And... And, like, we... We cuddled afterwards. I'd never... Boys aren't big on that, you know?"

"Most of them aren't," Devin agreed, "but as far as I can tell, they're just stupid that way."

"Yeah," said Madison. "It was really nice to, just... Be. You know? So, physically, it was a lot of fun. But, I mean... Well, if Nancy offered to do that to me again, I might say yes. But if somebody else offered to do the same thing for me, I might also say yes. There isn't... There isn't any reason it would have to be Nancy, you know? I don't have any... Attachment to it. To her."

"There's no emotions, you mean. It was just sex."

Madison sat bolt-upright on her bed. "Yeah! Yeah, that's it exactly! Devin, you're a genius!" Devin turned a pleasant shade of red at this comment. "I'd always wondered what people were saying about, you know, just-sex for sex's sake—well, I mean, I'd never done sex anyhow, so how am I supposed to know the difference between one and the other. But... Yeah, now I see it. It's like... It's just like masturbating, in a way. You know? I mean, someone's doing it for you, but it's not... There's no significance to it. There's no importance to it. You're just getting your kicks. It's not special."

Devin gave her a wry smile. "Well, just so you know, hon, you can't go around masquerading as a guy with that kind of attitude. Guys just want to get it any way they can, and as long as it feels good they don't care if it's just somebody else jacking them off."

"Really?" said Madison. "You?"

Devin turned red again. "Well. Not all guys. I mean, there are exceptions, you know. So, what can you tell Nancy out of all this? What have you learned?"

"That if she never wants to do it again, I'll be okay with that."

"And what will you do if she does want to do it again?" Devin said. "If she really, really wants to do it again?"

"What, me?"

Devin laughed. "Yes, Madison Bechtel. You."

"No, I mean, what is it she wants to do? Just me? Or is there something else she has in mind?"

"Why, does that make a difference?"

"Yeah, if..." She puttered to a halt. "I guess it's ungrateful, but if... If she wants me to... You know. Reciprocate. I'm not sure I'd want to. It's just... God, I dunno. The idea of... Of having my hand there. Of having my face there. I mean, that's not a, a sanitary area, you know?"

"And yet you don't mind her getting all up in your area?" said Devin, with a hint of a smile.

Madison tossed her hands. "Look, I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. But the simple fact is, I just have no interest in Nancy sexually. I don't mind if she, you know, wants to do me favors, but I don't think she's obligated to, by any means, and I certainly don't feel obligated to do her any. —Favors. God, what a double entendre."

"Is it just Nancy, or..."

"Or?"

"I mean, that you aren't turned on by. Is this a..." He spread his hands, beckoning.

"God, how do I know. I mean, it's not like I've ever... Devin, the sum total of my life's sexual experience is hands-on-Craig's-thing three times, Nancy-doing-stuff-to-me once, and then some me-playing-with-myself. That's not a lot to draw on."

"Okay, try it this way," Devin said. "Imagine if it were Jenna who had done that to you, instead of Nancy. Does it seem any better? Do you think the sex would've been special?"

Madison closed her eyes and imagined. It didn't take long. "No, not really."

"What about if it was with Haley?"

"No, not really."

"And what about if it was with Craig?"

"What, Craig?"

"No, not Craig as he is now," said Devin. "Not... Not asshole Craig who likes to slander you. The Craig who asked you out. The Craig you dated. The one you must've been attracted to on some level, or else you wouldn't've gone with him."

"The Craig of Before," Madison said.

"Yeah," said Devin. "That Craig."

Madison imagined broad shoulders, arms like pillars on either side of her head. She imagined her hands clutching his shoulder blades, running over his chest. She imagined the rise and fall, the clench of his buttocks. She imagined the face she'd seen the one time he'd come all over her hand—that dazed, dazzled, gasping look—and the way it had made her feel, and what it must take to put that expression on her own face.

"Yes," said Madison. "Special sex."

"So you're probably straight," said Devin. "You're probably just a straight woman."

"Or am I a gay man," Madison grumbled.

"Umm... Why don't we, umm. Leave that for now," said Devin. "I mean, you... God, I dunno. The term I've seen on the Internet is 'intersexed'—someone who isn't male or female, but rather somewhere in between. To a certain extent, the labels 'man' and 'woman', 'male' and 'female', don't really apply to you."

"But what if I want them to," Madison asked.

"Then you should keep cross-dressing," Devin said, shrugging. "Mad, most of us are trapped in the bodies and gender roles and identities we were born with. You aren't. You have enough physical and genetic justification to be a guy or a girl, whichever you choose. You have a freedom most of us don't have, and never will have. I mean, how many other people on Earth get to ask, with a straight face, whether they're a straight woman or a gay man?"

Madison remembered being reminded by her mother as a child that there were starving children in Africa who would give anything for those brussel sprouts. "Well, they can have it, as far as I'm concerned. Just because I have the freedom doesn't mean I want it. Didn't you ever have something like that?"

"Well..." said Devin. "Yeah."

At the front door, she gave him a hug. "Thanks for listening so much. I can't think of any other friend I could've talked to about this."

"Oh, come on," Devin said, smiling. "Jenna? Haley?"

"Any male friend," Madison said. "And it's good to have a guy friend, you know? Someone you don't have to be embarrassed with?"

She didn't understand, at the time, why Devin seemed to be saddened at this comment. "Oh. Yeah. Sure."

She thought about kissing him on the cheek, but realized it might skeeve him out. It was just as well. Testicles notwithstanding, there were still many things Madison didn't know about being a guy.