Chapter 1

Danni kissed me and things were going to get weird. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to, the idea was fine and I enjoyed it. She’s way taller than I and she turned me around, bent down and tried a social kiss; then I softened my lips and she made a little noise and softened hers and then she started shaking. It lasted longer than I think she’d expected and since I had no gauge I enjoyed it until she was breathing raggedly and her long gold hair had fallen around both of our faces. “Um. Permissions. Ash, I would like you to touch me intimately. Please touch me intimately.” “Danni, I would like you to touch me intimately. Please touch me intimately.” “More soon?” she asked as we parted in my front yard, and I said “please”.

We’ve known one another since I was ten and he eleven, that’s when (then-) Danny and his family moved into their house on Gauss, maybe three hundred meters from my fam’s place on Riemann. We did stupid kid shit and some pretty interesting things like our Litha break class in applied chemistry when we were under-thirteens - juniors - and when he became an official minor he stuck in his gender change and he was then Danni.

The first thing she asked me that day was ‘is it okay, Ash?’ And I said “sure, why wouldn’t it be?” “Well, I’m a little breathless and maybe fearful, and I don’t want it to get in the way.” I shook my head. “You are the same, and you are not. This is for you, not me. Think about how Danielle Masato Glass feels, think about what she wants. I’m your friend, your good friend. My feelings haven’t changed, so please think about yours.”

I went into the house and opened the cabinet that housed my desk, sat down and started on homework. I finished the comp. geom. and the calc except for one problem (need to ask Serge about a technique I couldn’t remember) and took up Mr. Moss’ assigned book “Tristram Shandy”. Taken together and so far along I find it strange because some of the themes feel modern even though Sterne finished it in the eighteenth century, and it’s funny in spots. My mood wasn’t bad when my mom rang the dinner bell. A half-minute later my ‘rents, my Auntie Sumi, my brother Serge and I were around the table. Gretchen would be out to eat with us, she was now assembling the plates.

Mom was host, of course; she affirmed “Karma is real”, we echoed her. She sat, we sat. Then I got up, helped Gretchen bring the plates in, clockwise serving around the table with me last. Dad poured wine for all. Matching wine with Auntie Sumi’s poke, laulau, and chicken long rice was a bit of a trick, she’s from Hawai’i and pushes this stuff so Mom and Dad had learned to match wine with all kinds of food and this one was an Etna rosato.

Mom picked up her fork. “E ‘ai kāua.” (Hawai’ian for ‘let’s eat’.)

We tucked in and it fell to me as the youngest to start table talk. “Serge, differentiation under the integral?” “Can’t teach it but show me what you got after dinner.” “Thanks. Bang-ja Oh and I are going to finish Dr. Green’s class neck-and-neck for first.” My Auntie Sumi asked “have you met Elizabeth?” I nodded. “Yes, she’s elegant and a bit eerie.” “She’s ... a very strong pattern recognizer. You can learn a lot from her.” “Bang-ja does that too. She and I pushed one another in comp. geom and calc and o-chem this year. Last year it was linear algebra and algorithm design and chemistry.” “What you find eerie about Elizabeth might simply mean ‘uncanny’.” I nodded. Eyes turned to Serge, it didn’t do to have too long a paragraph about the day’s events.

“I’m diving with Edward on Sunday.” Appreciative noises all around the table. Serge had been “Edward this” and “Edward that” for several weeks, and it was surprising to all of us the mysterious Edward hadn’t fallen more quickly for him. Serge is stocky and, well, a bit plain and one wouldn’t notice him in a crowd until he speaks, but then people lean in just as we were doing now. “Kelp forest off Fort Ross, it’s a long day trip.” Dad said “I thought that was all eaten ... some kind of starfish?” “Sea urchins, then there was a long interval where the urchins were gobbled up by the starfish you’re thinking of, there was a classic - and smelly - predation collapse and the kelp forest came back.” “OK. Please check your equipment early.” Serge nodded. “Already done.” Like the climbing, we were mostly nervous about his habit of diving but he needed to do him and we tried not to worry too much.

Dad adjusted his collar and spoke. “Those little multi-test packages” - a box maybe the size of your thumb, they test for some genetic variations - “are in first article inspection and we can publish about them.” He’s a geneticist and he prizes shop talk. Only Mom can follow him more than a millimeter deep into his big, dark pond. She had her own bulletin. “The Section has hired two new programmers and a materials scientist, they’ll be joining us within the next couple weeks.” “What kind of materials scientist?” “Crystallographer.” Auntie looked down at the table, then looked back up at Mom and said “Thanks, Kalash.”

Auntie announced that a week from Saturday we would host a picnic for a few people on the Square, which is where just about everyone from the Collective likes to go to be with their friends. The doors to most Collective operations close promptly at 1800 Friday and remain that way until 0800 Monday. People are supposed to enjoy themselves and not work all the time. Dad hates that.

“Who will you invite?” asked Serge. “Of course the Glass’, the Espindas, the Antwis and I wonder if the Ohs would come. A few Aunties and their fams, the Shigezawas, the Roepers ... well?” “Just how many people do you want?” “Don’t know - a hundred, two hundred?” “Sumi, you’re talking massive logistics.” “I know”, she said with her I-have-a-plan look twitching at the edges of her mouth.

We had plenty to talk about as the luau food disappeared. When there was nothing left but the taro and ti-leaf laulau wrappings Mom put down her fork and rose. We all rose, thanking Auntie and Gretchen, and I collected the empty plates for the dish machine. Auntie waited. “It’ll only be a minute or two.” “On deck?” she asked. “Yes, Auntie.”

Auntie Sumi is older than Mom and Dad and she is an organizer and planner for our family. I’m taller than she, which isn’t saying much. When she asks “would you consider...?” it means “I would like you to do this” and one does not turn Auntie down. Somehow she arranges things such that doing what she wishes works out well, and I’d long since learned that doing something different has unfortunate results. “Yes, Auntie” is a smart thing to say, and then follow through on.

Once the kitchen table was clear and clean I went out on deck. Auntie rose, hugged me. “You have news, I can tell.” “Danni kissed me.” Her eyes widened. “First kiss?” “Yes, except for Shawna a few times in middle school.” “Permissions?” I nodded. She sat, patted the couch next to her and that’s where I sat.

Auntie said “you’re late for that, you know?” I nodded. “Scary, because the weird wiring is going to become an issue. I know Danni wants to play with me and I feel good that it’s her, but what if things continue to not work?”

“You know all about your Auntie Berenice, we’ve told you even before you were old enough to understand so you wouldn’t be surprised. Today is one of the reasons why. I would like you to consider allowing yourself to try all kinds of things.” “I’d hate to lose Danni as a friend...”. “That, I suspect, won’t happen. You’re following Berenice almost exactly in terms of your physical development and when she started playing with her friends she found that her own strange wiring was fun. That year she wore out Mitsouko and Aelfrid with her wenching and boy-chasing. It was hard on them because of the sexual policing...”. “Yes, I read about Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall and like that, and I think people don’t do that any longer.” “They mostly don’t, there are backward places still, like Ghana.” Aelfrid was Ghanaian and that’s where my tightly-coiled hair and caramel color come from - not only from my mom’s side. My genetic dad, who was my Aunt Berenice, was at least a quarter Senegalese.

“To go on”, said Auntie, “you’re going to learn in that weird mash-up way. In old Hawai’i, before the missionaries came, kids learned about sex the way they learned about fishing and rope-making and sailing and everything else, which was to be with a more experienced person to learn. We can’t do that now. And even though there are books about sex, spirit knows reading about sex and having sex are quite different.” She twinkled. “We have a problem. We are pretty sure you need shaking up, you need to experiment with feeling and not have math face on so much. Instead of dressing for comfort, would you please dress for the picnic next Saturday to look good? We would love it if you were to put some effort into that. Just think about it for now, ok?” “Uh, yes, Auntie.” “And go get your tattle-tat, tomorrow, please.” “Yes, Auntie.”

She wrapped me up in a hug. It made no sense to say anything but “Yes, Auntie”.

Serge was sketching fast, he held up his hand in a “just a sec” gesture. He’s seventeen, a major, and his hands look older than my Dad’s because of climbing and working on his combustion car. And all kinds of his friends’ machinery. And the project for his demo year. They’re scarred and scraped and callused and gnarled, but they work fine for him. He looked up. “Glad you came, Ash.” “Of course I did. You asked.” “Thanks, take that zabuton?”, he pointed to the pillows that are everywhere in our house. He took another. “I’d meant to say something earlier, but now I -have- to do it. It was about the time I began sex play when Mom and Dad started trying to change my image a little. I was like you, same old floppy clothes, indifferent. Please consider letting them, they want you to enjoy this time, now. They’re trying to help. It matters, when you want to date, and Auntie says ‘you bait your hook for the fish you want to catch.’ How do you feel about Danni?” “It’s like always, Danni is just Danni. I’m pretty sure she wants to play with me, and if ... things don’t work...”.

“Ah. OK. It’s a good time for you to experiment. At least think about who you might want to play with besides Danni. Try to date a lot and ask me any time if you want to talk.” “OK, I’ll think about it. I won’t send questions while you’re diving or climbing, I don’t like the idea of interrupting.”

I showed him the integral I was wrestling with; he recalled the trick I was trying to do with it and together we reduced its difficulty by about an order of magnitude. Dr. Green was not going to be pleased, but I could hold him to his contract requirements and he knew it.

Serge smiled, we stood, he gave me a strong hug, and I left.