the men know that physical beauty is their most important asset. They dress in brightly colored clothes designed to display the body’s graceful motions, the rise and fall of each breath, thigh, bicep. Popular are the revealing silk blouses, left unbuttoned to display chest and abdominal muscles and the traditional tattoo of our native flowering vine that begins at the navel and twines below the belt where the flower rises when in bloom. (Sometimes the tattoo of a bird is chosen instead, with one wing reaching above the belly, it’s head diving below—or rising, depending on the occasion.) Some men, however, object to being seen as the second sex or as mere sex objects, and they refuse to dress in the revealing and colorful outfits most island-men wear. They choose instead the long dark skirts and gowns professional women wear. Walking down the sidewalks, trying to balance in women’s heels or pumps, these men look like large penguins waddling from side to side. Locals laugh when they walk past and whistle and call out names, but the men in dresses do not despair. They say it is only in dresses that they can enter the society of women and be treated as equals. Only in dresses can they speak with soft voices, think with gentle thoughts, and be respected in the work places. Only in dresses can they visit women’s salons and have their hair and nails done, share in the gossip and small-talk of the town, and enter their private world of female power and politics. They say someday they will break the gender barrier. Then they will earn as much as women earn, enjoy multiple orgasms, and no longer need to apologize at the end of a long day: I’m sorry, Honey. I have a headache, before rising from their beds to gaze at the stars overhead and ask the silent heavens, Why, God? Why?

On the island where I grew up, the cooks were the most revered members of society, admired alongside the priests, the painters, the architects of the governor’s mansion. Cooking, it was said, was a rare form of magic, transmitted from angels to women on earth. That is why my mother, a chef in her own right, was so renowned. My mother baked a special pastry in those days that she sold from a kiosk on the plaza in the middle of the town each day at noon. In the early mornings she woke before dawn and rolled out the dough made from rice flour mixed with wine. Her long black hair pulled back in a bun, her bare arms waving like wings, she swooped around the kitchen like a crazed bird, mixing and rolling the thin dough, brushing it with almond oil and a paste of nuts, fig syrup, and lychees—a white translucent fruit that tastes of music and summer rain. Sometimes, if the mood struck her, my mother would add a touch of cinnamon and a little something else. It was that something else everyone loved. No one knew what it was or why. (Only I, her son, was allowed to spy on her and see what it was, but to this day, I won’t tell a soul.) My mother would only say that everything has an essence without a name, that that is our special additive, our gift to life. But there were rumors that her pastries were enchanted. For certain men, it was said, her pastries would inspire such desire, that with each bite, they would feel greater and greater greed. Before these men could stop themselves, they would be down on their knees, weeping and begging for more. More! Please, please, more! they cried. You could hear their voices above the noisy crowds in the town like the moans of lonesome hounds. Some men had to be stopped from competing with the pigeons that pecked at the crumbs on the city streets. Others had to be taken away by police. Still others accused my mother of crimes, insisting she was a witch and part of the female conspiracy whose sole purpose was to keep the men hungry, desperate, deprived. But my mother said some men are just born with too much greed. They can never be satisfied. It is the curse of the male species. She was too busy to notice me then, crawling beneath her counter, licking the crumbs from the floor and my sticky fingers and knees. If I didn’t lick quickly enough, tiny yellow bees would swarm around me, nestling into the crevices of my skin, dancing their tiny feet up and down as if to an invisible beat before stinging me again and again.

1. Listening to the women laugh and chat at the end of the day, a man feels he is left out, alone, stranded. He is but an afterthought in her life, a period at the end of her day, or a mere after-dinner mint.

2. Whatever bliss a sufferer feels, he loses it too quickly, sometimes by tiny increments, often in a flash. His life, he fears, is meaningless.

3. You must learn to swim, a therapist suggests. But many who suffer from vagina envy are afraid of drowning. They dream of being pressed underwater, unable to surface, as sharks pursue them amid schools of shimmering fish.

4. Highly contagious, the disease spreads like bad news, starting in street corners and traveling quickly up and down neighborhoods before entering into bars and restaurants, schools and sanctuaries, and finally consuming entire towns.

5. A common cause: a man is left by a woman he loves. Every woman after reminds him of the first. She has the same hair color, eye color, the same giddy laugh. Every woman after reminds him of his failed attempts to win back the first, though he loved her only when she was leaving him forever, only when he knew he would never see her again.

6. The sickness gives off a distinct odor. It’s as if the air has been singed, and everyone should be wearing masks over the nose and mouth.

7. While most folks write of love and desire as blissful events, the men who experience vagina envy feel only resentment, sorrow and bitterness, as if there is an ongoing party of earthly delight to which they have never received an invitation.

8. There is no cure known by the traditional medical community, but the healers assure these men that they need not worry. Suffering is normal on Planet Earth. If they perform kind deeds, say their prayers, and accumulate good karma, they will be reborn as women in their next lives.