Madeleine, her feet not quite reaching the bottom rung of the pub chair, kicked her heels stochastically against the rails. She was on her elbows and so far forward over the kitchen island she might as well have been lying down on it. In her running shorts and t-shirt, her face pink and her blonde hair shiny with sweat, she looked a decade younger than her age.

“One more minute on this.” Danisa glanced back at Maddie from her coffee station. “Look at you!” she said. “You look like some girl I coulda ran track against back in high school.”

Maddie grinned, and her face got pinker. “I was a cheerleader actually, if you can believe it,” she said.

“No.” Danisa stood with her hands skeptically on her hips. “I did not know this about you. Brainy girl like you?” She made a rueful pout. “Betcha you even fit in your old uniform still. Wish I could say that.”

“Oh hush, you’re gorgeous,” Maddie said. “Have you on my cheer squad any time.” The blush deepened another degree. She pushed herself up into a near-sitting position. “Hey speaking of, you know I saw that weird girl again?”

Danisa brought the coffees over. “Hey you want sugar?” she asked. She sipped hers before sitting down and made a face, saying “Yeah, you want sugar, I aint got this new machine dialed all the way in. What weird girl?” she asked from inside the pantry.

“Any granola in there?” Maddie said. “Suddenly I’m starving.”

“Granola?” Danisa paused at the pantry door, turbinado in hand. “Wasn’t you telling me awhile go you and Daniel had some kinda fight over granola?”

“He kept snarfing it right out the box,” Maddie said. She chortled. “Funny thing, now I’m the one doing it. Nonstop. Never even liked that shit before.”

“Yeah, I don’t keep it.” Danisa set the sugar on the island. “What weird girl?” she asked again.

Maddie had her phone out and was peering into it like that was where the girl lived. “The one at the bus stop the other day. Told you bout her?”

“Spoons,” Danisa admonished herself, and went to fetch them. “I don’t know girl, this the first time I’ve seen you all week. Bus stop?”

“Huh,” Maddie said. “Who was I talking to?” She pulled out a packet and tore it open. Danisa aimed a spoon at her across the island, but she already had one. “Down the hill by Truman, you know, place I usually start my run? Called me Sugar Tits.”

Danisa, reunited with her cup, paused it in front of her mouth. “She did what now?”

“Out of the blue. Loud, from across the street. Nobody around thank god. Asked me did I know what MILF spelled.” Maddie chuckled. “Anyway I almost ran over her just now.”

“What the actual fuck.” Danisa furrowed her brow. “What’d you say to her?”

“At the time? Asked her back for coffee.” Maddie reached for another sugar. “Nah, I mean what are you gonna say? Pimply sad-eyed goth chick hiding herself under her clothes. I just never knew incels came in lesbian before.”

Danisa sputtered around her drink. “You’re too much,” she said. She shook her head sourly. “Takes that bus, I bet she’s down in one a them rentals down by the creek. Swear somebody needs to just clear that patch out. Two transfers out to some shitty retail job, you being able to run during the day probably oppresses her or some shit.”

“Uh huh,” Maddie said absently. She was texting something. Danisa tapped her coffee spoon in front of her. “You worried she might be some kinda stalker? What’s Daniel say?” she asked.

“What who?—” Maddie said, glancing up. “Oh Daniel. Oh. No I didn’t tell him.” Danisa looked at her askance. “He’d just get weird about it. Use his ‘little lady let me tell you about threat assessment’ voice. Plus he’s a man so, you know, weird and possessive.”

“Well, true that, but—” Danisa started, then the screen on Maddie’s phone flashed. “Hold up,” she told Danisa, with a raised finger.

She clicked the screen off and put the phone down. For a second or two Maddie stared off into the middle distance like she was trying to remember something, or maybe forget it. Then she sighed, a sigh with some kind of resignation in it, and the lights came back on. She craned her upper body trying to see behind her and said, “That door, is that—” She gave her head an impatient little shake, saying “hang on,” and hopped off her perch. Danisa heard the deadbolt flip, and while she was still trying to process Maddie was already trotting back, a goofy big grin on her face. She took her seat and swigged down the last of her coffee. “It’s good with sugar,” she said.

Danisa gaped at her. “Excuse me,” she said, “did you just … unlock my door?”

Maddie used both hands to put her cup down and once more she was on pause. Her face was perfectly composed, perfectly expressionless. For a moment Danisa’s weird paranoia some kind of prank was happening warred with another feeling, that something might actually be wrong with the girl.

Then she heard a rattle at the back.

Instantly Maddie was Maddie again. “Ope! that was quick,” she said. She flashed Danisa a big bright smile. “Right in here, T,” she exclaimed. The smile turned wry, and she shrugged. “Insists on coming in the back. Always. Like she’s afraid of paparazzi.”

A lumpish twenty-something girl appeared in the kitchen archway, in hoodie, sweatpants and sneakers all in different and somehow clashing shades of gray. A gloom seemed to veil her, almost literally; in full light it was hard to make out her features. Danisa had the strange impression of her eyes being backlit, like a cat’s, which only made the rest of her that much more sequestered and inscrutable.

Maddie hopped down from her seat. “Trelle,” she said with a schoolgirl breathlessness, “this is Neesy. Danisa. Toldja bout her?”

The girl’s eyes glinted. “The coffee buddy,” she said. Maddie laughed, tinkly, as if she’d heard a witticism.

“Anyway I put the drugs in like you said,” Maddie told her. “It was easy.”

The girl looked down hard at Maddie. She was shorter by half a head, Neesy could see, but still somehow the direction was down. “Come in from a run, didn’t you?” she asked. “Sittin here all stinky, where’s your manners? Strip off now, go take yourself a shower.”

“Yes, Trelle!” Maddie said, already clawing down her shorts. In her eagerness she tried to kick her shoes off at the same time, and in the brief ensuing tangle Danisa found herself trying to process that she was staring straight at her friend’s pussy. Bald, which kind of surprised her. Far as Danisa was concerned, shaving was for strippers and porn stars.

“Short for Chanterelle.” The girl pronounced it like it was English. Trailer park-ass name, Danisa thought.

“Make it a bath,” the girl told Maddie. “Soak some. Give us a little get-acquainted time.”

“Sure thing Trelle!” Maddie called, her voice trailing behind as she danced, fully naked now, on her bare feet out of the room.

Danisa had barely had time to feel the deep awkwardness of being left alone with the girl, of having to turn and face her and what, make conversation?— when she realized she couldn’t move. Or didn’t want to try, she couldn’t think if there was a difference. She felt very chill about it at least. Like she’d gone zen all of a sudden. Neesy wondered, not uncomfortably, if that was the drugs affecting her.

She thought of being alone on a neighborhood street, the atmosphere gone sinister, even before the obscene shout. That prickly kind of precog feeling you got. And you’d be standing there in your running gear unnerved, warring with yourself: because it was morning, home was just up the hill, it was just some girl; trying to reason yourself out of your blood pumping crazy and your body all lit up with sexual alarm. That’s just how it would have gone too. Stand in the street just waiting for her. That was the problem with book-smart people, they couldn’t tell when it was time to listen to their instincts and for Jesus’ sake go.

She mighta misheard about the drugs. Maybe the girl didn’t need them. Maybe she just knew her prey, and how to trap them. I got my guard up though, Neesy told herself.

“Know the first thing I always ask somebody?” the girl said. “What teevee they watch. Lot you can get about people from talkin about their teevee.” She held out her hand. ”Betcha got a sweet-ass setup in there. Come on, let’s go see what’s on.”

Neesy was stretched out on the end of the big sectional, facing the TV. Her eyes, sluggish as the rest of her, were stuck on the empty screen. There was a show coming on. Or she’d just been watching a show. It was a little hard to be clear on the difference.

Voices of women off to the side. Maybe this was Neesy’s show. Maybe she was asleep, and dreaming herself into it. One of the voices sounded like Maddie, her coffee buddy. Maddie hadn’t been around much. Nobody’d been around. She would’ve liked to see, but that meant turning her head, and anyway if Neesy took her eyes off the screen it might make the show go away.

“Is that what I look like?” Maddie-voice asked. “When I’m getting brainwashed?”

“That’s what they all look like.” Unmistakably that was Neesy’s friend Trelle.

“All like, empty and shit. Fuckin hot.” Dream Maddie sounded a lot dumber and bimbo-ier than the real one. Like a highschool mean girl. “She even know she’s masturbating?”

“Do you?”

“What? Oh.” A lewd giggle. “Only cuz you said I should.”

How about a cheerleader show, Neesy thought, that’d really hit right now. Cheerslut Gangbang. Strapon Cheer Squad. Some of that platinum-access pussy. She could go for that.

“Can I go up to her?” the girl asked. Like she was trying to suppress an eagerness. Neesy felt the couch shift as she got herself up onto the other end of it.

The truth, simple and sorry as it was, was Neesy couldn’t keep a man. At some point it was no use fighting it. The divorce was just the last nail: it made her a confirmed failure, as a woman, as a wife, hell as a straight girl. Single in Couples Town, way past her sell-by date, nothing and no one but her alimony to keep her warm. And ok, so she was a little addicted to lesbian porn. But it was such a relief, knowing she could feel sexual without it having to be about a man. And all the baggage that came with. Lesbian porn was accepting porn, somebody said, and it was true, and Neesy needed that in her life. Acceptance. She needed to know there were randy teen sluts out there going crazy for middle-aged gash. It restored her will to live.

Trelle’s girl knee-walked towards her across the cushions. Neesy could hear her occasional gasps, the small wet noises her fingers were making between her legs. Her head swam to think of a live nude cheerleader masturbating right next to her, like you’d ordered her off the pay-per-view.

“She’s so wet,” the girl said in an awed half-whisper.

Trelle came over to join them, and Neesy decided it was time she got a look at her present. If she could have moved she’d have applauded, or wolf-whistled. Maddie to the T. Same unlined face, same blonde-girl skin; same pale high-nippled perky tits; they even got the crotch right. Most people wouldn’t have known Maddie shaved down there. Neesy’d heard about deepfakes before but they must have gotten really advanced now, this one was perfect.

Except for the eyes. The cheerleader’s eyes were vacant. Hollow with lust, the eyes of a girl, an un-Maddie, who would do anything, take anything, get herself off from anything. They were dark with the promise of depravity. The face was sweet but the eyes belonged to a whore who’d drag you into the pit with her, and you’d pray to all the angels she never let you go.

“Gonna help her out?” Trelle asked. The cheerleader, her face slack, kept gazing down at Neesy’s crotch. She licked her lips, and her eyes flicked back and forth, like she was searching for words.

“Brainwashed pussy is the sweetest pussy,” she said in a singsong.

“Uh huh,” Trelle said. “Aint the question though, is it?”

The cheerleader batted her lashes and sort of undulated at Trelle, her voice throaty, “I want to help you brainwash all the girls, T.”

“Yeah well, journey of a thousand miles,” Trelle scoffed. “Go on now get down there, breeder, quitcher stallin.” The cheerleader moaned, a quavery and defeated sound, and slumped in on herself like a folded pile of shirts; then collapsed sideways and dropped on her hands onto the floor.

Trelle patted Neesy’s head. “Show’s on,” she said lightly. Neesy sensed her legs being parted. She said thank you to someone, while Trelle started recapping the story in her ear, and the humid breath at Neesy’s slit turned liquid, and enveloping, and the screen caught fire.