The Kingmaker

“You know, I actually have had quite a bit of sex, occasionally with virgins, and I’ve never found a flower down there.”

I punch his arm lightly and he laughs, draws me into his side, into the warmth of his body, and kisses the top of my head.

“Also, I’m hurt,” he says. “Here I was thinking I’m the first guy you’ve offered your virginity to only to find out you’ve been trying to get rid of it forever and all these idiots have been so freaked out by an imaginary flower between your legs that they wouldn’t take it. Now I just feel like sloppy seconds.”

I laugh-growl and turn my head to playfully bite the inside of his arm. Even through his sweater, the muscle is dense and unyielding.

“I haven’t, you know,” I tell him. “Haven’t offered it . . . myself to anyone else, I mean.”

I sneak a sideways glance at him only to find him assessing me from the side, too. He still doesn’t voice the question, but I want him to know.

“When I was thirteen years old, I became a woman. I know it sounds early, but we have a tradition, a rite of passage for young girls, called the Sunrise Dance. It’s extremely important. For years, the government actually outlawed it, and we had to perform it in secret.”

“Damn colonizers,” he mutters.

“Um, your ancestors were probably some of those damn colonizers,” I say, but give him the slightest smile to remove some sting from the truth.

“My ancestors were Welshmen who didn’t come over until the late 1800s.”

“And what did they do when they came over?” Before he can answer, I answer for him. “Settled. And I bet they settled on land that was stolen from Natives. And they instantly assumed their position higher on the American totem pole because believe me, we’re always at the bottom.”

“Touché. I’m sorry. Am I being terribly white and ignorant?”

“No, it’s not that. And as much as I typically enjoy a good lecture on colonialism and its disastrous effects on . . . well, everything, not tonight.”

I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts and spill them into the quiet and the time we have left before reaching his place.

“The Sunrise Dance is four grueling days of stages that are part of the journey from being a girl to being a woman. It’s complicated and maybe one day I’ll tell you everything if you want to know—”

“I’d love to know.”

I pause, glance up at him and smile. “Another time then, yeah. I’ll tell you everything, but tonight I’ll just say that near the end, we believe something remarkable, maybe even miraculous occurs. Everybody has some way of explaining how things happen to make the world make sense. Adam and Eve. Roman gods. Greek mythology. Whatever. Well, for us we have origin stories, and a pivotal figure is the first woman, the Changing Woman. Near the end of the Sunrise Dance, we believe her spirit inhabits the girl. Like is inside of her for just a little sacred while. And when that’s happening, the girl becoming a woman is a blessing.”

“How is she a blessing?”

“She’s empowered. Sick people come to be touched by her. Parents ask her to bless their babies. The whole community is part of the preparation for the ceremony and all it entails, and then the whole community is also blessed.”

“Did you feel any of this during your ceremony?”

I love that he isn’t looking at me like I’m crazy or disparaging it as some weird tradition, but taking it seriously. Like he’ll believe whatever I tell him.

“I did,” I answer, trusting him with the truth. “I felt like I could do anything, and I decided I didn’t ever want to take anything, anyone inside my body that made me feel less than that. I wouldn’t waste it. And I don’t have any prudish expectations I impose on anyone. It’s not like that at all.”

“I get that.”

“Do you?” I stop, turning to face him in the middle of the cobbled street, searching the stark planes of his face in the lamplight. “I don’t think I’m some goddess who no man has been worthy of. I don’t think my vagina is a holy prize. I just . . . felt something in those moments, felt like my body was part of something great. All my friends talked about losing their virginity. The word ‘lose’ felt careless to me. And I think that was what I felt that day. Not just about sex, but about everything. I felt intentional. Like every second, every decision, every person I share myself with—counts. And to be honest, I just haven’t met anyone I trusted with that.”

“Wow.” A white puff of breath swells in the chilly night air when he chuckles. “That should probably feel like a lot to live up to. Like a lot of pressure.”

“Does it?”

His brows bend, like he’s concentrating, checking. “It doesn’t. I’ve been drawn to you since I first I saw you on that hill with stars and stripes on your face. You cried, and there was such conviction in every word you spoke. I didn’t know you were seventeen, but I knew you wer

e young. And I wondered, what made her this way? What shaped her into this remarkable person already? Now I know. That girl, the girl who drew me in that day, I would never expect things to be simple or typical with her.”

For a moment, I’m stunned by his vision of me—of how he saw me so clearly. There are few things more affirming than someone seeing you exactly as you aspire to be—for them to say I see that in you.

“I thought you were so hot.” I laugh and shake my head. “In the midst of tear gas and Dobermans, I was like, oh my gosh, he’s really cute. So I think there was more of the typical teenager in me than you might have guessed.”