i.

“Last stop, Richistan.” Trelle balled up their fists and stuck them in the small of their back and stretched. They took a big breath and let it out. “Smell the fascism.”

Bunny dropped her knapsack onto the parking-lot asphalt. “I think that’s pine,” she drawled.

Thirty hours, give or take. Five of them camped on the linoleum in some dingy transfer station in bumfuck Kansas, feigning sleep; the rest all bus. Both of them cloaking the whole time.

“Surprised they even allow strip malls up here,” Trelle groused. “This is some proletarian shit.”

“Maybe we’re just on the outskirts.” Bunny was gazing around as if she’d just now realized they were in hill country. “Have you ever been in a place with so much vertical,” she said gauzily. “Hey.” She snapped back into focus. “We got any money left? I need me some electrolytes.”

“We need a vehicle, man,” Trelle said. They unkinked some more. The mall was eighty percent grocery, and the parking was midmorning sparse: clump here, clump there, a few solos. “Find a room, shower …” They shook their head. “I’m not sure I could boost a one of these.”

“Oh I can take care of that,” Bunny said.

Trelle looked at her askance. “You don’t even drive, where do you know how to wire a late—” They gestured up at the lot. “Look, that’s a literal fuckin Bentley. Where do you know—”

“Nerd.” Bunny put on her stern face. “I don’t gotta wire shit. Ah have always depended upon the kahndness of strangehs.” She smirked, hoisted her knapsack back to her shoulder, and sashayed off.

“That’s one of your fuckin movie quotes, aint it,” Trelle muttered to themself, hauling their own bag up and lugging along after.

Like everything around them the parking lot was pitched steep, and Trelle being in no kind of shape to enjoy verticality, was huffing by the time they caught up inside the entrance. Bunny, casing the joint, had paused just long enough to spot a fruit stand. “Banana,” she declared, and marched off as if possessed.

A trim hard-faced white woman in slacks, plastic-surgery thirty, came from somewhere to sniff the mangos. While Trelle recovered their breath they watched Bunny from behind saying something to the woman and the woman answering. She was a put-together brunette with expensive highlights a full head taller than Bunny, whose hoodie was still up. Bunny clapped both hands over her face suddenly, like a kid trying to play peek-a-boo with her mom. The woman looked slightly concerned, then a second later Bunny brushed her hands aside and cast her hoodie from her head and shook out her bright yellow hair.

A flash went through the store. It was like nothing Trelle had ever seen: literally, because it was nothing they had seen. Nothing visibly had happened. To Trelle it was like there was a nanosecond in which the entire atmosphere had vanished and been replaced, molecule for molecule. Mango Bitch had seen though. Mango Bitch was staring down slack-jawed and brim-eyed at Bunny as if she’d received the Beatific Vision.

Trelle quick-walked up to them. “What the fuck was that?” they hissed at Bunny.

Bunny was looking stunned herself. “It’s never done that before,” she said wonderingly.

Light as the store was on shoppers, Trelle caught the stink of attention turning their way. “I think we best be off,” they said in Bunny’s ear.

“Right. Um.” Bunny blinked a couple of times, and stared hard at the woman. “You, uh, Gladys, whatever your name is, you’re giving us a ride.”

The woman went from blank to full simper without transition. “Oh absolutely, oh I’d be just thrilled!” she gushed. She let the mango she was holding drop splat to the floor and stuck her hand in her purse. “Only actually it’s,—” she got a distant look in her eye, paused a moment, then said through a self-conscious giggle “well it’s certainly not Gladys, I know that!”

“Now, maybe?” Trelle fumed. “Let’s go doll,” Bunny said, “take us out to your car. Move it.”

“Glennys!” the woman said over her shoulder, the pair following her through the autodoor. “I mean Glennyn!” She pulled her keys out and waved them at the pair. “It’s Glennyn.”

ii.

“Man, rich people TV is boss,” Bunny said, flipping screens. “They got everything. They got subscriptions I never even heard of on here.”

First thing Bunny’d done was call dibs on the chaise, where she was stretched out in three-quarters with her back against a cushion, making herself regal. Trelle, still in hoodie mode, fiddled with the controls on the high-tech recliner, trying to fine-tune the chair’s pitch.

“Can’t believe I didn’t even grab a fucking banana. Oh hey look they got this on,” Bunny said half to herself. She flipped up a guide. “Huh. Ingrid Bergman day looks like.”

“You and them old black-and-white movies,” Trelle said.

“Yeah well, them old black-and-white movies have actual human behavior in em.”

“World’s lousy with human behavior,” Trelle groused. Then the heated lumbar support kicked in, and they sighed heavily and melted into the chair.

“Speaking of,” Bunny craned her head back toward the entry, “where’d this bitch get to any— Ah.”

Glennyn wandered in, looking befogged, and without seeming to notice Trelle sat down on the couch opposite Bunny, who nodded to her. “Startin to wonder maybe you forgot how to work the car doors.”

“I’m having such a strange morning,” the woman sighed. “I have no idea where the time has gone.”

Bunny gave her a searching look. “You got any fruit around here?” she asked.

“That’s exactly it.” Glennyn gaped at her in blank wonder. “I went to the grocery store special for fruit this morning and I didn’t come back with any at all!” She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. ”But I know I remember being in the parking lot. Did I just, forget to go in?”

Bunny was fiddling with the remote, trying to bring the sound up. Glennyn noticed, picked up a second, smaller remote, and then there was Movie, in seven-channel mono. She thumbed down the volume. “I know this one,” she said, “that’s a Hitchcock. He’s the one that does cameos.” She turned to Bunny, blushing. “I took a class.”

“How bout cereal,” Trelle intoned from the depths of the armchair.

“Cereal!” The word seemed to banish the enigma of the fruit. “Oh my yes, my Ed can’t get enough of the stuff!” Glennyn beamed at Bunny. “We have to have multiple boxes of his favorites on hand at all times or he practically has a conniption.” The woman stared down at her hands covering her knees as if she was unsure whose they were, or was trying to recall how legs worked. “I’ll just—” She glanced towards the entryway at the farther end of the room. “I, I just have to go and uh …” and she rose gingerly and walked out of sight past a big fern, muttering instructions to herself.

Trelle dropped the chair back another notch and closed their eyes. Bunny watched their host recede, then rearranged herself for an optimized angle on the TV.

“So who’s that,” Trelle said after a bit.

“Her? That’s Ingrid.” Bunny pushed herself a bit more upright. “You oughta like this one, T, she’s fighting the Nazis.”

“Not in that dress she ain’t.”

“From within. She’s a double agent.” Bunny yawned, readjusted the cushion. Another small stretch of movie passed in silence.

“Look okay, I wasn’t thinking.” Bunny turned away from the TV long enough to catch Trelle’s eye. “I bum rides like that all the time, I dunno. I’ve never had to cloak that long before. Maybe something got like, bottled up or something.”

Trelle watched Ingrid Bergman’s face fill the screen in closeup. “What do they see, d’ya think. When you glam em like that.”

“Fuck if I know.” A restless impulse brought Bunny up off the chaise and she looked around for a moment, uncertain of her intention. She crossed over and sat on the couch. “I mean, I don’t think they think I’m somebody in particular,— you know to where you could put a name. That business with the hands? It’s a prestige, right, it’s just a way to psyche em out. I dunno it’s cheesy, I wish you hadn’t seen it. But I’m not like, projecting anything. Do it all themselves; they all got that Celebrity machine in their heads. All that built-in eagerness to please. You know it’s there, you just gotta kinda—” she made an illustrative squirm with her shoulders— “work your way in there a little, jam it up. And then you’re whoever they need you to be to be the girl they go out of their way for.”

“First time we met, I had this idea you were some like e-girl or something. Kept wondering where I coulda seen you.”

“Yeah, exactly, it’s always something like small and vague like that,” Bunny said. “They recognize you but they don’t. Course you with Talent, I couldn’t a pushed you if I tried.”

From behind the fern came a discreet cough. “Finally,” Trelle sighed. “What did you have to grow the wheat?” Bunny quipped.

Glennyn poked her head and a tray of variously colored cereal bowls out of the foliage. “I sure hope I’m not disturbing,” she said in a throaty tone, and stepped forward.

Trelle and Bunny shared an are you seeing what I’m seeing look. Their host had made a wardrobe change. Impractically high heels for tray-carrying, sheer hose under a wide floofy skirt landing just above the knee; the blouse was the same but she’d added a pearl necklace and generally rearranged her upstairs situation for heightened display. Even had time to do her eyes and darken her lipstick. The TV area was sunken a step; she posed on the verge with the tray and made a mini curtsey. “Damn Gladys get a load a you,” Bunny said, “you look like a slutty fifties housewife.”

“It’s Gla— Glennys.” Blushing, the woman ducked her head and looked pensive, then immediately brightened. “I put together a little assortment.” She held the tray up and stepped gingerly down with it. “I know how much you young on-the-go college girls love your cereals! There’s, let’s see we got Cocoa Puffs, these here are Sugar Crisps, …” she said as she brought the tray forward.

“Ooh, Cap’n Crunch.” Trelle reached out in passing to snag a bowl.

“… and the one with the red and blue bits, that’s uh …” Coming to the foot of the couch, her line of cereal patter faltered and ran out. Gladys set the tray on the coffee table and moved her eyes mechanically for a moment from chaise to armchair to couch and back. “What on earth kind of hostess am I,” she said quietly. “Look at me, no napkins, I didn’t even ask if you wanted milk, Miss—” She straightened and blinked down at Bunny almost as if she was seeing her for the first time. “Well goodness. Well if this isn’t just …” She laughed to cover her embarrassment and pressed her fingers to her chest, “I’m Guh,— um—”

Bunny glanced side-eye at the arm chair. “T, we’re bein rude. You’re Gladys,” she nodded to the woman, “you can call me Bunny.” The woman’s face went slack with relief. “I’m Gladys,” she agreed. Smiling, she curtsied again, more deliberately. “Pleasure to know you Miss Bunny,” then fell back onto the chaise as if her knees had given out. “You know my daughter’s in college, isn’t that a coincidence,” she said in a wispy voice. ”Stepdaughter. Will be I mean. Right now she’s in Europe, on her gap year.”

Trophy wife, Trelle mouthed at Bunny. Bunny smirked and nodded in their direction. “That there’s my buddy Trelle. T’s head of security.”

Trelle stretched the back of their hand in the air as if to be kissed. “Chan-ter-elle, short for,” they said, anglicizing it to a turn. “Momma wanted me to come out classy.”

Behind Gladys’s perfect junior-league comportment a kind of reverie seemed to seize her. She mouthed “chant” to herself, and then again. “Enchanting,” she said to Trelle, as if she were echoing something she’d heard in a dream. She turned to Bunny, her eyes smoldering. “Enchanted to make your acquaintance,” she gasped, absently stroking up and down her cleavage.

“Hey T?” Bunny and Gladys found themselves locked in a gaze. She tilted her head in the direction Gladys had just come from. “Didn’t you want to, uhhh … whatever, freshen up, somethin …”

Trelle, not halfway through their Cap’n Crunch, sighed meaningfully. They looked for a convenient place to set the bowl down, despaired, and struggled up out of the armchair to deliver it to the coffee table. “I’m gonna remember how much was in there,” Trelle said. They made Gladys a mock salute and headed off.

“Oh, is she—” Gladys rose half out of her seat. “There’s a shower just up those stairs,” she called to Trelle, who waved and disappeared. She sat back down. “My daughter’s bedroom,” she told Bunny. “Not as if she’s gonna mind.” Then some caution occurred to her. “Oh but she mustn’t—” She was on the verge of getting up again but Bunny reached out to take her hand and her urgency lost its fizz. “No worries,” Bunny said. “They’re perfectly at home here. They can make theirself perfectly at home.”

“Make yourself perfectly at home dear,” Gladys sang out.

Bunny turned the woman’s hand palm up and began stroking with her fingernails up and down her forearm. Gladys watched the goose bumps rise, looking every bit as dumb and rapt as she had in the fruit section.

“Now go on tell me all about that daughter of yours,” Bunny said.

“Stepdaughter,” Gladys purred.

iii.

Trelle came downstairs with their hoodie draped from one hand, wearing a pair of shapeless too-long jeans and a baggy black t-shirt with the arms cut out. They’d done nothing whatever with their hair post-shower, with the effect of making them seem more toadstool-shaped than usual.

From their voices, Bunny and Gladys were still in the TV room. “Hey Missuz,” Trelle announced as they came around the big fern, “I ganked a couple things outta your daughter’s—”

Bunny reclined on the chaise, bare feet up on the coffee table amid cereal bowls. Sprawled in a half-sit on the floor next to her, Gladys had stripped down to her bra and panties and hose. When she saw Trelle come in she made a polite squeal and threw an arm across her impressively round breasts.

Bunny made a “zzhhhh” noise and patted the air at Gladys with her hand. “Down girl, I toldja; Trelle’s got clearance.” She reached awkwardly down in front of her and came up hoisting a half-full glass of red. “We’re drinking WINE!” she exclaimed to Trelle.

“WINE!” Gladys echoed. She reached behind her for her own empty glass and fell over onto her back, giggling. “Where’s the bottle?” she asked abruptly, and when she spotted it under the coffee table rolled onto her side to retrieve it.

“Gracious,” Gladys said. She sat herself back up, looking nonplussed. “It’s empty,” she told Trelle, lofting it to confirm. “Miss Bunny, you want I should open another—”

“Not on my account,” Trelle said. “Not into wine,” Bunny stage-whispered. Gladys said “awww,” dropped the bottle and made Trelle a sympathetic moue.

Trelle stepped into the room and headed to the armchair, but paused when they approached that end of the coffee table. “Fuck happened to my Cap’n Crunch?” they said, looking direly at the cereal’s last known location.

“OPE!” Bunny produced a bright red bowl, obscured behind her thigh on the chaise. “Sorry T, I forgot.” “We were playing a game,” Gladys said.

“Called, uhh, Find the Cap’n’s Gold,” Bunny said, and Gladys chimed in, “FIND THE CAP’N’S GOLD!” Bunny plucked a single yellow nugget out of the bowl, and while she held it to her eye Gladys rose up on her knees, opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. The missile plunked off the bridge of her nose and over on the other side of the room.

“You’re a bad aimer,” Gladys told Bunny solemnly. She paused for a blank moment, then perked up. “Welp, don’t wanna get ants!” she said, dropped onto her knees and elbows with her face to the floor, and scuffled off towards a pair of ornamental marble urns to hunt the stray.

“Hey Bun,” Trelle said in a low voice. They flipped the hand draping the hoodie quickly outward to show Bunny a gold-plated bolt-action pistol. Bunny furrowed her brows and nodded a question out towards the corridor. “Office,” Trelle said. They slid the piece into their knapsack. Bunny silently asked Loaded? at them and they shook their head. “Not any more.”

“Gotcha, you bugger!” Gladys crowed. Trelle reclaimed the Cap’n Crunch from Bunny and sat down. Gladys popped up beside the urn to show Bunny the prize on her tongue before swallowing it, which she did with a flourish.

“What’s the girl’s room like?” Bunny asked. Trelle shrugged. “Like the room of a teen girl.” Gladys having crawled back over crooked an arm onto the seat next to Bunny and dropped her head on her shoulder. “Sashes and whatnot. I guess she’s been in pageants.”

“Oh but she’s much more of an Actor you know,” Bunny said, picking up her glass. “Actor/Model,” Gladys chimed in. She raised her head, beaming. “Sarah-Kate starts UCLA next fall!”

“Hollywood, baby!” Bunny swirled the last of the red around and tipped it into her mouth.

“Gladys, lookee!” Trelle picked up a Cap’n Crunch, and as Gladys knelt up to receive it sailed it well over her head in the direction of the fern. “You didn’t even try to aim,” Gladys pouted. But then she spun about and dropped as she had before and toddled off ass-up to go fetch.

“I, uh …” Trelle stood back up. “I think I oughta do a little more recon. See what other kinda foolishness they mighta got lying around.” They gave the knapsack a signifying tap. “Given whatshisname still in the wind I mean, the husband.”

Bunny’s eyes got wide and her face contorted. For a dumbfounded second Trelle thought she was about to cry, then she collapsed onto her side on the chaise shaking with laughter.

Gladys paused to look, a confused but hopeful smile on her face. Bunny lifted an arm over her head and pointed past the urns towards an open doorway at the end of the room. “Go—” she said, scarcely able to speak. “That’s Ed’s game room,” Gladys volunteered.

“Go look—” Bunny tried again, wheezing.

Puzzled and annoyed, Trelle strode to the game room and stepped inside. After only the briefest interval they stepped back out.

“What. the actual. fuck,” Trelle announced.

Before Bunny could gain breath to respond Ed had followed Trelle out. He shuffled through the game room door naked in plaid socks, an angry boner preceding him that looked like it had staying power. The only way he could move was to prop it from below, a clumsy job given the underside of the shaft was festooned with a collection of small binder clips. When Trelle noticed him they grunted “Hoah!” involuntarily and skipped out of range, and Bunny collapsed again.

“Edward!” Gladys screamed, scandalized. “Oh my goodness Edward we have talked about this!”

Trelle looked at Bunny and spread their palms in mute query.

“On my honor I didn’t know about the clips T, I swear.” Bunny hadn’t quit laughing. ”He just, he barged right in on us. No warning! What was I gonna do?”

“Wait so another—” Trelle made a yanking-their-hands-from-their-eyes gesture.

“Well yeah, but normal. No kaboom. Gladys honey?” Bunny beckoned her over. “It’s just,— he’s a man,” Bunny said to Trelle, “this is why I don’t like doin em, it always gets weird. Maybe not dick clips weird. Plus he caught me off guard! He’ll sleep it off, it’ll be fine.”

“I’m just that embarrassed about Ed, Miss Bunny, I’m so sorry,” Gladys said as she crawled over. “He knows he’s not allowed those things down—”

“Gladys,” Bunny said. Gladys cut herself off and knelt up. “Something tells me y’all are sleeping-pill people, am I right? Ed ever take sleeping pills?”

“Oooh!” Gladys got a look in her eye. “Oh that’d keep him out of our hair.” Immediately she hoisted herself up and walked to the threshold of the game room, where Ed stood unmoving, clipped dick in hand, off on some private island of his own.

Bunny gave Trelle a look. “Okay,” she told Gladys, “but just like a normal amount, yeah? Like no more than normal.”

“Edward! Come along now,” Gladys said. He turned as she approached, a little too close, and Gladys swatted the air in front of her thigh. “Keep that nasty old thing offa me,” she growled. “You look ridiculous.” Ed trailed her back through the game room and on into the further removes of the house.

“And bring back wine!” Bunny yelled in their wake. She put her feet up on the coffee table again and re-reclined.

“Fuck me,” Trelle said, coming around the coffee table. “Did she not say he worked? What’s he doing home at this hour?”

“He—” Bunny had to stop herself falling out laughing again. “He skipped out for a nooner! A scheduled nooner! Which they do once a month she says, you know to build in spontaneity.”

“Ho shit you don’t think that’s what the fruit was about,” Trelle said, shuddering.

“That’s why she got all dolled up before!” Bunny gestured excitedly towards the fern. “Wasn’t me at all.”

Trelle looked back the way Gladys had gone. “I’d say it’s you now, though.”

“How’d this thing get turned off anyway?” Bunny sighed and scanned for the TV remote. “I want my Ingrid back,” she commanded the blank screen.

Trelle picked up their hoodie and took a seat at the other end of the chaise. Bunny paused her search. “Listen,” Trelle said, “you remember them contacts in the city I was telling you about? with the warehouse project? Anyways, I let em know I landed.” “Butchie …” Bunny said warningly. Trelle made an apologetic grimace. “It just, it sounds like they could really use a hand.”

Bunny went limp with disbelief. “Come on, maaan,” she whined. “I thought we were gonna hang out. I mean, okay the vibe’s been off; but Jesus it’s one day. It’ll smooth out.” She spread her arms. “Look around you kid, we landed in the lap of fuckin luxury here! Whaddaya wanna bet they got a Jacuzzi?”

Trelle, having turtled their way back into the hoodie, sat with their elbows on their knees, hands folded, eyes front. “It’s just not my scene,” they said quietly.

“Not your scene.” Bunny rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “Hey.” She turned her gaze on Trelle and waited for it to be returned. “This is not the other thing. Alright? Not at all.” Trelle shook their head. “I know that, B,” they said. “I didn’t say it was.”

“I know what got fucked up there, I told you.” Bunny sighed and put her head on the back of the chaise. “This has nothing to do with that. That’s behind me. Put it out of your mind.”

“Honest, Bun,” Trelle said, “right now you’re just that much less visible if we separate, you know? And you’re right, where better to lay low for awhile? Plus if there’s any smoke coming your way, which I doubt, believe me I’ll smell it a lot sooner if I’m posted up in the city than from out here.”

Bunny gave her a look like Ophelia sliding under the waves. “A couple days even? Till I’m settled? Not even a night?”

Trelle shrugged and stood up. “Plus side, you don’t have to wrestle me for dibs on the girly bedroom.”

Bunny snickered. “There ya go. Who’s pageant queen now, bitch?” Thinking to toast Sarah-Kate she reached for her glass again, then remembered it was empty.

“There’s some kind of scenic overlook or something a couple blocks downhill from here, I guess it’s a good spot for a pickup.” Trelle hoisted their knapsack. “Outside the gate, no cams— anyway no worries about transpo, I just gotta text my dude. Oh, and—” they twitched their shoulder against the bag— “when Gladys comes back make her show you where they keep this one’s friends. Promise me.”

“Well fuck, Butchie,” Bunny sighed.

“I’m an hour away. Rest up. Watch your movies. Buy some shit. Hell buy me some shit, I’ll send you a list.”

“Hey,” Bunny said. “Little known fact? Gladys and Ed here are huge backers of queer underground performance spaces.” She put two stiff fingers up to her eyebrow, slightly mashing her eye closed. “COMRADES,” she shouted, and broke off a salute. “Comrades,” Trelle said, answering it.

“Well fuck Butchie at least take some cereal,” Bunny whined, but she was so low on the chaise she couldn’t figure how to get upright, and flailing her legs for leverage ended up scattering most of the remaining bowls to the floor.