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"New York’s home, but it ain’t mine no more--"

"I Am, I Said" -- Neil Diamond

I couldn’t move. The room was too bright, large overhead lamps in my eyes. I was afraid to squeeze my eyes shut as I wanted to, because then I wouldn’t see what they would do to me. And I needed to see; not knowing always made it worse. But I wouldn’t cry; I clamped my lips together tight. Then they were there, one very tall figure looming over me, the cold expression on his dark face keeping the regular features from being handsome, the two others smaller and somehow misshapen, ancient looking, the man with wispy white hair on his large round skull, dark eyes fixing me with an eager expression, the woman’s hair bound back from her skeletal face, greasy strands straggling across her forehead, a cruel smile on her thin lips. The old man reached out, and something gleamed in one hand, the shine of pointed metal. I flinched away, but the straps held me tight. "It’s all right, Univa, I promise it won’t hurt this time--."

I sat up suddenly, drenched in a chill sweat, the word "No!" unuttered on my tongue. Realizing where and when I was, I took a deep breath, lay back in the dim light from the window, and pulled the blankets back up to my chest.

"You all right, Evan?"

"Yeah, I’m okay, Grace. Sorry if I woke you - just another dream." He settled back with a yawn, putting one long arm protectively around my waist. I sighed. It was always easier when someone was there with me. I hadn’t had nightmares in years, not since I was a little boy on the farm, right after I first arrived on Earth. Maybe it was seeing the kids growing up that brought it all back. I had been like them once, and now they had to cope with Suria. At least they weren’t alone.

Henry Grayson, "Grace," owned the Camelot bar on forty-second Street in Manhattan and lived in one of the comfortable apartments above it. The bar catered to a non-exclusive clientele, but Grace himself was exclusively gay. We’d been friends for years, and it only seemed logical to get in touch with him when I finally went back to seriously try and find Dan, my former lover. According to Grace and everyone else I’d talked to, on and off the street, Dan had left for parts unknown, about six months after I went in search of Star.

I felt bad that I hadn’t sought Dan out earlier, attempted some sort of explanation for my abrupt desertion, but it was too late now. I just hoped he was happy, wherever he was.

Grace was between lovers at the moment, and I had gotten in the habit of spending the occasional weekend with him. He was pushing forty now, a lanky scarecrow of a man but still attractive, with sandy blond hair, twinkling blue eyes, and an engaging smile. I’d sung in the Camelot before, and Grace always asked me to sing when I was there, though I wouldn’t take money for it now and donated any tips to charity. Because of that, Grace wouldn’t let me pay for food or drinks or anything else. "Singing for your supper," he called our arrangement, "with fringe benefits."

I frequently found myself singing that hit tune by Neil Diamond, the one called "I Am, I Said." New York was no longer my home, and Star had left California. Was the answer for being "lost between two shores" to be found in Denver? The part about the frog fit me pretty well, too-- in reverse.

But I kept busy. When not traveling to New York or somewhere else on my own errands, I was going to school at DU and singing in several bars and clubs in Denver as well as continuing to "work" for Star. That job gave me a chance to hang out with him now and then, even though we were seldom alone any more. He’d send me off on some mission, I’d come back and write things up, talk it over with him, then we’d go our separate ways. Mostly, I saw him when I visited the kids, and then I took the chance of having to make nice not only with Vai, but also her buddy Kelly.

I couldn’t forget all the closeness Star and I had shared in the past, and I missed it-- I missed it a lot. But I had plenty of good things going in my life, good friends, nothing at all to complain about, really. I tried to pretend to myself that I was content, and sometimes I even succeeded.

"Evan?" I heard the sound of Star’s voice and footsteps coming down the hall to his office, and I stood up suddenly - narrowly missing hitting my head on the shelf above the desk. I steadied myself. Why was it that just being around him always made me feel and act like such a klutz?

I was glad for the break. I didn’t mind doing the fieldwork he’d assigned me, this time some in-depth research on the Martian environment, but recording my findings, even via computer, was less than thrilling. And being at Star’s office, I always worried I’d run into Suria.

And then he was there, a smile turning up the corners of his cupid’s-bow mouth. My eyes took inventory, like they always did when I saw him again - even after an absence of five minutes. Pale short hair, equally pale and thick brows and lashes, made more visible by the dark copper-brown of his skin, large, liquid, ink-black eyes that always appeared to see more into me than I wanted them to. Regular features, well-proportioned body.

People said we were almost exactly the same height and build, but my hair was true black, skin pale, and eyes gray. Kind of like looking at a photographic negative of myself, I suppose.

I smiled back as he reached out, laying slender brown fingers on my pale forearm, and asked: "Are you busy?"

I started to turn away and get the latest computer printout to show him, but his hand tightened on my wrist and I was frozen in place. It was all I could do not to embarrass myself whenever he touched me. I was always sure that, unless I was careful, I would just stand and stare at him with some sort of stupid expression, like a starving man looking through a bakery window.

"Uh--." I usually shut down my telepathic circuits around Star, to keep from being altogether distracted by the surface flow of his thoughts and emotions. But today there was no mistaking his thought probe, delicately touching the edges of my shielded awareness. I opened up the door a little, and the message was right there, clearer than words could ever be-- an invitation.

My eyes widened. It had been so long since Star and I had been really-- together. The last few times, his wife had been included-- which wasn’t all bad, to be sure, but--.

I realized I’d been holding my breath, and though technically I didn’t need to breathe, I was used to breathing, and it felt strange. I sucked in some air. Not much - I seemed to have forgotten how - but plenty for the only word I wanted to say: "Where?"

It was as simple as that, if he wanted me, I was willing and ready. Privacy was the only concern. Vaira seemed to have no ESP abilities of any sort, but the kids--. With their "gifts" I was sure they knew it all already, even at the tender ages of five and seven. However, I had no desire to personally add to their educations.

Star’s eyes twinkled mischievously. Uh oh, what was he thinking?

Mind you, I didn’t really care. I wanted him so much that I would go wherever he wanted, including staying right there, in his office, on my desk-- though the furniture, being quite ordinary, would undoubtedly not survive the encounter.

The first time we’d ever been together sexually there had been a suspiciously coincidental earthquake.

I grinned at the memory, then caught his eye.

"Come with me."

Gods, his voice was sexy, low and just slightly rough with-- desire? I certainly hoped so; I didn’t want to be the only one.

He held out a hand to me and, unhesitating, I took it. Star smiled and jumped, taking me with him.

Everything around us was suddenly white except for the sky, and that was cloudless and bluer than blue. My body dutifully told me about the cold, but I was not uncomfortable. There were snowdrifts across the rolling plains, and the mountains that rose in the distance showed facets of that special blue peculiar only to glaciers.

Obviously, the issue of privacy had occurred to Star as well. I knew we stood on a virgin arctic plain, about as far from other people as you could get and still be on Earth.

Star, as usual, was dressed in white, and his clothes almost blended with the landscape. Unbelievably rational for an instant, I thought to myself that we’d have to be careful not to impact our surroundings with our higher-than-human-normal body heat, lest we cause a localized meltdown.

He still held my hand. I grasped his tighter as he pulled me to him.

"I don’t think the children will sense us here."

At that moment, I couldn’t have cared less if they did.

He closed his eyes, but just held me tight. When I realized he wasn’t going to take the lead, I did - gladly. Our lips came together and my skin was on fire. He was so-- perfect.

The first time we’d made love (I couldn’t think of being with Star as anything less than that), he’d been the aggressor, changing his body to that of a female and then forcing me to return to my male shape. Thanks to that encounter, I was no longer exclusively a gay man. Recently, I’d made another change, now maintaining my body in the shape of a Muiran median most of the time. It was quite simple, really. Outwardly, I suppose I looked female, from the waist down. But my penis was still there, just sheathed neatly inside until it was needed. When I was with a straight guy, my male parts stayed in, and when I was with a woman - presto - instant hard-on. It was a neat package, and for some reason it felt very natural to me.

So when I’d been with Star and his wife, I’d made love to her like a man, but Star had made love to me in my new state, and - I gotta tell you - it felt spectacular. I had been thinking that was what we would do again today, but my body seemed to be thinking otherwise. After one kiss I was completely erect and as hard as I’d ever been.

Lust or not, I had to use my brain to consider that fact. Star looked the way he always did outwardly-- completely male. What did he want or expect from me? Was I just confused?

I stopped kissing him, unable and unwilling to let him go but needing to know what was happening. After all, this had been his idea - not that I hadn’t been one hundred percent willing today and any other day from the first time I met him. Our bodies were pressed so close that he had to feel my erection-- and, come to think of it, I couldn’t feel his.

"Star?" It was a one-word question, and I projected it carefully in his direction. To my amazement, he blushed, rich color further darkening the skin of his cheeks and throat.

"I-- Evan-- I--." I’d never known Star to stammer before. "I-- changed my body too - to be like yours."

What? I’d been so busy I hadn’t noticed, but when I thought of it-- he had! Just like mine - except that his penis wasn’t erect, and his "feminine" area was becoming moist and ready. Geez-- he must want me to make love to him like that, and my body had known it before I did.

I had thought that I was as excited as possible, but this new fact proved me wrong. My cock throbbed against him, requiring all the self-control I could muster not to shoot right then and there.

"Star, I--." Mentally or aloud, I could think of nothing to say. He was there in my arms, a literal dream come true, and he wanted me. No matter how much he loved her, Vai couldn’t do this for him. But I could!

All of a sudden, I couldn’t stand the idea of clothes. Our garments were a few millimeters thick at best, but they had to go. Using every ounce of control I had, I wished them off and into fairly neat piles on a nearby snowdrift. Their warmth started a small meltdown, reminding me of my earlier realization. I looked at Star, but his eyes were dreamy, and he pressed his hips against me once and sighed. That sensation was again almost too much for my shaky self-control.

But someone had to do something, didn’t they? Suddenly I had an idea. Using a power I only vaguely remembered from childhood, I created a bubble of stasis around us. The insubstantial but impenetrable wall increased our privacy and effectively removed us from our surroundings. We were really alone now. The world was outside and we were in. Could I hold the bubble while I made love with Star? I didn’t know, and I was having a difficult time caring. If the bubble failed and the two of us melted down into the ice, right on through the Earth’s core, and ended up in Antarctica with the penguins, it was officially all right with me.

Floating now, a tiny bit removed from everything but each other, I kissed him again. He clung tighter, wanting something more from me but not sure how to get it. I knew that feeling. The first time I’d had sex in this body, I’d wished there were an owner’s manual. But I was experienced now, and I knew how these things worked.

I let him float, running my hands down his sides and back. His skin felt like the finest velvet, warm and fragrant with that natural apricot scent, firm yet yielding. Gods, I’d wanted this forever. I kissed his throat, hearing him moan softly. I swallowed hard. Star almost always seemed controlled during sex. Sure, it was obvious he enjoyed it, but I’d never seen him like this, not even the time we were alone on Mars. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back, and everything I did to him seemed to please him beyond words. It was almost scary. Was I really doing the right things? I opened my mind a little more, and his feelings washed over me in a rush. He did like what I was doing! He wanted more! He could barely contain himself! Star? That close to losing control completely? Wow! And it was because of me--.

My heart rate was in the hundreds, and I was panting like a steam engine. Star’s body quivered against me. Sure, we were both about as strong as it’s possible to imagine, but I didn’t think either one of us could take much more waiting.

Gravity was almost meaningless inside our space, except as it pulled our bodies together. I slid a knee between his legs, and he parted them wide for me. With a last look at his sweet flushed face, I closed my eyes and moved my organ to his entrance. He wrapped his legs around my waist, and with that, I was home. The orgasm was almost instantaneous. Even though my senses were on ultimate overload, I felt all the sensations as his hot tunnel clenched around me. From my center, the joy spread outward ’til my toenails were coming. Star held me impossibly tight, with legs and arms that crushed me to him. For a blissful time I thought our bodies would blend, becoming one being. My only regret at that would be that we couldn’t do this again.

Oh, it was sweet. I’d waited my whole life to be with him like this.

Sensations peaked, until all was like white noise, a blend of every ultimate possible perfection. When, at last, things began to subside a bit, I could distinguish his voice.

"Evan," the person of my wildest dreams was saying, "Oh, Evan."

I can’t even describe how I felt, hearing that. It was better than good-- better than I would ever have thought possible.

I refused to let him go, even a little. But I did begin to notice our surroundings again. The stasis bubble had sustained itself somehow, and outside, the landscape seemed unaffected. That was good, I decided. No need to blow up the planet unless you meant to--.

Star buried his face in my shoulder as we floated in our own private universe. My body was still part of his at that one important point. Though I wouldn’t have thought it possible to get any closer, he rocked his hips a little tighter into mine. Mmm--.

"More?" I suggested, hopefully.

He lifted his face, shining like the god of the sun he so resembled. Every care I’d ever had was gone. We began again. This time it took longer - and lasted longer too, if one eternity can be longer than another. Afterward I was lying back, enjoying the sun’s light on my face and everything else in the universe, when he spoke.

"I like this new body."

Holding him close, his back now resting against my front, I ran my hands over his smooth pecs, his lovely flat belly, and stroked my thumb down the furry trail that started below his navel and grew into his pubic triangle. "I like it too."

He gasped as I parted the fleshy lips that were now between his legs, probing until I felt the bump buried inside. It was positioned like a woman’s clit, though larger, the head of his male organ, now well lubricated with his own juices-- and some of mine. I rubbed it softly. He arched his back.

"Oh!"

I buried my face in his hair, breathing into one shell-like ear.

"My turn, lover," I whispered. I more than loved what we’d been doing, but I wanted to feel him buried inside me now. He flipped over in my grasp, like a lap swimmer making a fast turn, and we were face to face. That sweet, innocently sultry smile was back, and it still took my breath away.

"Now I know why you like being penetrated so much."

I smiled. He was right, I did like it. Ever since I could remember, I had longed to have a man’s organ inside me. Even at the age of nine, at the Palace, when I couldn’t bear to think of sex with my female playmate, I had wanted to be held and fucked by Chaldin - a man who had been kind to me when I was a child.

Now Star was comparing his feelings to mine. He had successfully made love to his childhood playmate when ordered to by the powers that were, when I hadn’t been able to, but now he was expressing the same sort of enjoyment and desire that I had always known. Had I, um, well-- rubbed off on him, somehow made him a pervert, like me? That was a disturbing thought. Star had always been my rock, the perfect example of what the future ruler of the Federation should be - not like me at all. I had always thought that he was made the way I should have been. Now, he was beginning to sound like me. That couldn’t be right. Gods, what had I done to him?

Almost frightened, I tried to pull away, but Star’s strength ignored my efforts, keeping us nose to nose and eye to eye. He held my gaze with a look of both sincerity and tenderness.

"Evan, I have been thinking." He smiled, and again I caught my breath. How could he do that to me with just a smile? I couldn’t imagine what he might say that would somehow make me feel less guilty, but I hoped-- and so I listened.

"You remember the Muirans, Ka Mero and his people?" Sure, I remembered them. As kids, Star and I both had been taught about the population of every planet that made up the Federation and quite a few that were outside it, like Earth. The Muirans were different, though - on every other planet I knew about, the people had two sexes, while the Muirans had-- oh, my God!

Star was still talking.

"You know that they have both male and female people there, but also medians. I think that the median’s body is much like the ones you and I are wearing today."

The encyclopedia in my head provided instant corroboration. Medians were built exactly as we were. Even though the Muirans had three sexes, all of them necessary for procreation, and the books I’d read said that medians only used their "male" type organ to help fertilize the female of the group, they also had a very "female" type area. I’d never heard of a median having a baby, or even having sex that way, but it all must be there for something! And Star wasn’t done with me yet. He made sure I was looking at him.

"Evan, I think that you were always meant to be a median - that’s why you started out wanting sex with males and not females."

My mouth was hanging open now. Star was challenging one of the major tenets of my existence - that I was gay because I was imperfect, flawed. But if he was right - and when hadn’t Star been right - then it might just always have been normal for me to be attracted to males like unbonded Muiran medians were.

But hadn’t I been designed male? Hadn’t our creators thought that, for some galaxy-spanning chauvinistic reason, a male would make the best possible ruler? That was the party line I’d always heard. Why, if Star was right, had I grown up wearing a male body if I truly wasn’t male?

There was one way to know for sure if he was right, and I’d never even thought to check before. Why would I? Star and I shared that insight, quick as thought, and we both focused on my body, deeper and in more detail that I’d ever gone before. Deeper and smaller, our perception zeroed in on the tiniest possible parts of what made me, me. And there it was - the answer I didn’t know I’d been looking for all my life - I was a median.

I knew what the Muiran chromosome patterns looked like from memory. For naming convenience, there was a female, X pattern, a male, Y pattern, and a median pattern different enough that it might be called a Z. Except for the fact that my DNA was much denser than ordinary, the median pattern matched mine perfectly. To say I was stunned wouldn’t cover it.

In Muiran society, a young median ordinarily bonded with a young female during, or even before, adolescence. After a suitable age was reached, the bonded pair joined with a male to form a triumveric group. Though Muirans considered this whole subject unmentionable and almost pornographic, it was known that an unbonded median was almost irresistibly attracted to males and vice-versa. The female/median bond protected medians from such unseemly affections because the female partner was not attracted to males until after the three were officially joined. At least, this was the story from Muir, and all the official knowledge on the subject that I had-- the Muirans were a very private people.

No wonder I couldn’t have sex with my female playmate. My median self thought of her as my bondmate, and those young pairings were never sexual. Somewhere, deep inside me, a knot of tension that I hadn’t even known I had began to relax. Could it really be that I was somehow "normal"?

I felt like crying, or maybe screaming. How long had I hated myself for just being what I was? And now I needed to learn to stop hating myself. That might not be as easy as it sounded.

Obviously, given my genetic makeup, the male body type I’d grown up with had only been an overlay, something my designers had coded into my subconscious mind, probably from day one. No matter how I felt inside, I’d never thought to question that outward programming.

I questioned it now. Was this the body I’d always been meant to have? I knew that Muiran medians were often smaller than the males, and there might be other differences too. I shook myself internally, waiting with interest to see how things might rearrange themselves.

But nothing changed. I felt entirely comfortable, just the way I was. Odd as it might seem, this had to be the real "me."

Somehow, without really thinking about it, I had let myself assume my proper body type, almost by accident. It was the perfect body for sex with males or females and, thanks to Star, I swung both ways now.

Star was hugging me. The mental floodgates had been thrown open between us, and he couldn’t help but know what I was feeling. And a big part of it was gratitude to him. Without his insight, I'd probably never have thought to check my own DNA. I hugged him back, glad once more that we were so much alike in strength and durability. With anyone else I would have had to be careful, but with Star-- he could take anything I had to give, and give it back in kind. Which reminded me--.

"Star, I still want you-- make love to me now?"

He smiled sweetly and moved in my arms. I could feel the head of his penis, extending out until the shaft was at full length against my belly. It felt sooo good. And then I had another thought.

Was this the only reason Star had invited me away today, so he could enlighten me about my real makeup? Was our encounter just his way of giving me another dose of "therapy"? I found myself getting angry--.

And Star laughed. "Evan, I am not as altruistic as you seem to think. Has it not occurred to you that I’ve been enjoying this as much as you? Can I not want to try other ways, experience sex from a different perspective?" He hugged me tighter, pressing his cheek against mine. "And who could I do this with except you, my friend and brother? In all the universe, we are the only two."

I swallowed hard, and Star’s gaze was suddenly sober. Whatever else life might bring us, whoever else we found to love, we were unique, and we needed each other.

I brought his palm to my mouth and kissed it. "And I am yours," I said. "Always." And then he made love to me.

With the help of the stasis bubble, we left the Arctic snowfield just the way we had found it, except for one small ice patch that had formed under our folded clothing. But that minute change made no overall difference in the environment.

Don’t even think about blaming me for global warming.