Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner

him or just contradicting me. Lately she’d got into the habit of disagreeing with me, purely for spite. “What did Bonnakkut say?” she asked.
    I shook my head. Offended as I was at Bonnakkut’s insinuations, I didn’t want to discuss them with Cappie. I didn’t want to discuss anything with her. But I couldn’t help saying, “Leeta claims you volunteered to take over as Mocking Priestess.”
    “Someone has to,” Cappie replied. “Doctor Gorallin found lumps in Leeta’s breasts. Both of them. This is her last solstice.”
    “That’s too bad,” I said, in that immediate, automatic tone of voice you always use when you speak of death. But a moment later, I thought about the slow dance in the woods, and said again, “That’s too bad.”
    “So Leeta asked if I’d be her successor,” Cappie continued. “I’m tempted, Fullin, I’m really tempted. Tober Cove needs a priestess, as counterbalance to the Patriarch’s Man. Besides,” she said with a half smile, “the wardrobe suits me. If you think I look good in suspenders, just wait till you see me wear milkweed.”
    I had a vision of Cappie and me on a bed slathered flank-deep in milkweed silk…which could be interesting…if she wore the suspenders too.
    “So you’re going to Commit as a woman?” I asked.
    She grimaced. “I’ve tried to talk about this for months, Fullin, and you’ve just avoided the subject.”
    “You’ve been after me to say what I’ll do. You never mentioned what you want.”
    “Because you never asked!”
    “I figured if you’d made a decision, you’d tell me,” I said. “Why would you keep asking what I intend to do, when you really wanted to tell me what you intend to do?”
    “Men!” Cappie flumped down on the top step and made a show of burying her face in her hands. The too-big sleeves of her father’s shirt dangled around her slim wrists like puffed cuffs. It’s odd how something as simple as dangling sleeves can make you want a woman, when everything else makes you invent excuses to avoid her.
    I sat beside her on the step. “Do you really want to become the next Mocking Priestess?”
    She lifted her head. “We holy acolytes describe the job as just ‘Priestess.’ The ‘Mocking’ part is more of a hobby…when the Patriarch’s Man says something so boneheaded, you can’t help but hit him with a dig.”
    “So you’re going to do it?”
    “Why shouldn’t I?”
    I shrugged. My first reaction had been to oppose the idea. It wasn’t just that the priestess was a figure of ridicule among the men in town. The priestess also had a lot of errands to run—consecrating babies, attending to the dead, telling stories for children, teetering on that uncomfortable wooden stool in the back of the Council Hall while the male Elders held their meetings. Cappie wouldn’t have time to do the chores a wife should do…and despite everything, I still pictured myself married to Cappie after we Committed.
    Everyone in the cove expected us to get married. They said we were the perfect couple.
    But when I thought about it, Cappie becoming priestess had its good points too. For one thing, it would be an excuse not to marry her, an excuse the rest of the cove would understand—the priestess wasn’t allowed to take a husband, since that might create a “conflict of interest.” On the other hand, the priestess wasn’t expected to be celibate either; Leeta supposedly had a sex life, judging by the way people occasionally winked when talking about her. With Cappie as the next Mocking Priestess, I could bed her if I wanted (say, when she wore men’s clothing), but never have to tie the unforgiving knot.
    Another good thing about Cappie taking over from Leeta: it would shut Bonnakkut out of her life. The women of the cove would hate to see their oh-so-serene priestess associating with the First Warrior, just as the men would hate their manly First Warrior spending time with a puddinghead priestess. Even if I dumped Cappie,