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Sabrina slams the door, huffs in, bangs her bag onto the counter. She sighs and rolls her eyes as she slumps into her spot at the table.Zelda, who has been translating a Hebrew spellbook, looks up from her references, but not at her niece. Hilda, who is inventorying the pantry, looks up from her jars, but not at her niece. They look instead at each other and make the tacit agreement to convene at their own spots at the table.They sit. Zelda lights a cigarette and nods. Hilda waits for and understands this sign, says,“Something the matter, love?”Sabrina sighs again,“I’m going to have to take PE again next semester!”“I told you you should’ve taken ROTC instead,” Zelda says as Hilda says,“Why is that, opossum?”Sabrina looks at them both in turn, then turns to Hilda,“The gym teacher refuses to vaccinate her kids, so they all have measles, and now no one can teach us CPR, and that’s three weeks of the semester, and—”“Red Cross or Heart Association?” Zelda says. Hilda smiles, and Sabrina’s head whips to look at her other aunt.“Huh?” Sabrina says.“Plenty of organizations outsource. If Greendale Public is set on American Red Cross, I’m sure your Aunt Hilda will be happy to step in. And if it’s American Heart Association, I could probably be persuaded,” Zelda says evenly. Sabrina gapes.xxx Greendale Junior High’s 7th graders try not to gape as Zelda Spellman in an immaculate black crepe skirt suit makes scathing comments throughout the generic Heart Association PowerPoint and then drops to her knees to model movements.xxxGreendale Junior High’s 8th graders try not to gape as Hilda Spellman in her modest red one-piece bathing suit shows them the basics of water safety in the YMCA pool.xxxBaxter High’s 9th graders try not to gape as Zelda Spellman in her grey tweed skirt suit clinically gives them the rules of food handling for the masses.xxxBaxter High’s 10th graders try not to gape as Hilda Spellman in an ostentatious sweater quizzes them on traffic regulations.xxxThey’re all in the parlor. Hilda and Zelda are good-naturedly bickering over a puzzle laid out on the coffee table, and Sabrina is pretending to read The Great Gatsby, and Ambrose is cross-referencing Satanic verses in records played backward in a tidy chart of his own making. Suddenly, Sabrina grabs Hilda’s arm,“You’re teaching driver’s ed now. But. Just how many certifications do you have?”Ambrose laughs.Hilda and Zelda look at each other.Hilda says,“Do you mean certifications, certificates, degrees, permits, or licensures?”Sabrina blinks.“All of the above,” Sabrina says.“We’ve lived long lives,” Zelda says, but Sabrina’s gaze doesn’t waver. She keeps looking at Hilda, who says,“Many.”The room falls silent.And then Hilda says,“Fun fact: The county coroner is an elected position. And because your Aunt Zelda holds a certification in mortuary science and because she is so beautiful, she won the election. She can declare anyone she chooses dead.”The room is still silent. For a different, tense reason.“I’d need a notary,” Zelda says.“How fortunate for you that I have that certification,” Hilda says.They look at each other, and it’s as if there’s no one else in the room, but Sabrina breaks the illusion, says,“But really. Can you just do anything?”Again, Hilda and Zelda look at each other and then back at their niece. Zelda says,“Yes.”Hilda grimaces. Sabrina sees that grimace, addresses her,“But you can’t?”Ambrose laughs. Zelda laughs. Hilda says shyly,“That’s not exactly accurate.”Sabrina looks around her, analyzes, realizes, says,“Unholy shit! You’re the most powerful out of all of them!”Zelda and Ambrose smirk. Hilda blushes.“That’s not exactly accurate,” Hilda says.“But it’s not not accurate,” Sabrina says.“Your auntie is more than she thinks she is,” Zelda says.They all look at each other at that. Zelda clears her throat, continues:“We’ve lived so long. She holds so many certificates.”
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The next weekend, they’re eating lunch on a lazy Saturday, debating about going bowling or to the zoo—Ambrose votes for bowling because he hates bowling and will therefore be less salty if they do that without him—when they hear the whine of air brakes outside. And then a moment later the doorbell. They all look at each other.“Nose goes,” Hilda says, already touching hers.Zelda rolls her eyes and takes her napkin from her lap, tries to slam it on the table, but it’s linen and merely drapes itself dramatically over her butter knife.She returns with a burly man who’s taking off his ball cap and putting it under his arm. She is not smiling. But he is, and so is Hilda at seeing him.“Hi, Bob!” Hilda says, getting up. She forgets her napkin, and it drifts to the floor.“Hi, babe!” Zelda cuts him a glance. “I mean, Mrs. Spellman.” Hilda starts toward him to take his coat.“Oh I’ve told you a hundred times: I’m not married—” he cuts Zelda a glance “—and anyway call me Hilda.” She helps him out of the coat, hangs it on the rack. “We’re just having lunch. Care to join?” He’s chastened enough to say,“No, thank you, ma’am.”“Robert,” Zelda says. “Get on with it. What do you need?”“I haven’t seen him in ages! Let me live!” Hilda says. Zelda raises her eyebrows, shrugs disdainfully.“Fine.” She returns to the table. Hilda and Bob continue to conference near the entrance to the dining room.Sabrina says,“Who’s that man?”“A business associate,” Zelda says. “Pass the caprese salad, please.”“Does he deliver the coffins or something?” Sabrina says. Ambrose laughs:“You ought to be eavesdropping. You’ll enjoy that reveal more.”So she does. She swallows, puts down her fork, settles in with her ear cocked. Zelda looks at her with a little distaste, which melts quickly into affection.Hilda’s saying,“Oh that does sound like a bad one. I’ll take a look. Well, actually, I believe your gut on it. I’ll just get changed. Quick like bunnies.” She takes a step away and pauses. “Bob, please eat. Zelda made caprese salad.”“Yes, ma’am,” he says and ambles shyly toward the table. Hilda runs up the stairs, and Sabrina pretends she wasn’t rather unsuccessfully eavesdropping and takes up a bite of eggplant.Zelda stiffens but nods at him. He sits and starts a plate, says,“Hello again. Hi, Ambrose. And you must be Sabrina?”“Yes. And—who are you?” Sabrina says, sounding a touch too much like Zelda for anyone’s taste.“Uh Bob.”“And what’s your business here, exactly?”“Uh. The rig’s broke.” She narrows her eyes, asks without asking. “I’m on a four-day run. Gotta get back on the road sooner rather than later.” He laughs a nervous little laugh. Her eyes narrow further, and Ambrose is about to spit out his salami from holding in his giggle. Bob continues, “Uh, and uh Hilda’s the best diesel mechanic in the county, so…” Sabrina drops her fork, looks at Zelda accusingly:“That’s also a certification! Just how many—” Zelda gives her a stern look, says,“We’ll discuss this later.”Hilda re-emerges in worn old coveralls, patched with an appliqué flower at one knee. She has a toolbox with her.“Keys still in it?” Hilda says.He throws them to her, and she does not fumble the catch.xxxThey do not go bowling or to the zoo. They spend a lot of the afternoon watching Hilda do something or other with a timing chain and something else or other with a crankshaft. As Hilda sends Zelda and Sabrina for a very specific written list of parts, Sabrina says,“So what’s all this about?”“Darling, why do you think so many witches are midwives?” Sabrina shrugs, says,“Only career available for women when they were originally the age to be trained in a trade?”“That’s a factor,” Zelda says. “But one way to ensure your safety in a community that may be suspicious of you is to make yourself invaluable to that community, have a skill not many people possess, a skill that’s integral to a community’s function.”“Ok yeah I get that. But. It seems like you and Auntie Hilda have gone a little overboard?” Zelda laughs:“Full disclosure: It turned into a sort of competition.”“Who’s winning?” Zelda hums in thought, then,“I think you’re asking the wrong woman if you want someone to admit defeat.”
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It’s about one am on a Tuesday. No, it’s Wednesday now, technically.Sabrina is still working on a project due tomorrow, no today, and Hilda had said she would sit up with her, as it hadn’t been her fault her randomly assigned group members hadn’t delivered their portions to her on schedule.“It it were your own fault, you’d be on your own, girl,” Hilda had said, but there had been something in her agitation at each creak of the old house’s settling, each brush of branch against a window that had told Sabrina she had been telling a half-truth.It’s past reruns of an ancient black-and-white game show—on which Hilda could’ve sworn one of the panelists had been an old lover of Zelda’s—and now onto a long-winded paid spot for a local bail bonds company, and Hilda’s clacking her knitting needles quite aggressively and distractingly as Sabrina’s trying to find the right synonyms for overused words written by her incompetent classmates she never would’ve chosen for herself.And finally Zelda walks in the front door. Hilda’s needles relax, and so does she. But Sabrina’s hackles raise at that. Zelda’s sometimes gone in the evenings. At the Church of Night, at a club meeting, at an event, at a morticians conference, at the Dark Library, just out. It’s not unusual, and Hilda isn’t weird about it. But she’s being weird about it tonight. Sabrina prepares to turn and say something, but she remembers Ambrose’s advice about eavesdropping and figures she has a better chance at getting that right tonight.Zelda slumps off her wool overcoat, hangs it heavily in the hall, trudges half-asleep to the parlor, kicks off her heels at the threshold.Hilda throws her knitting haphazardly into her bag, clears a space on the divan and her lap, and Zelda falls into that space. Hilda’s hands are immediately in Zelda’s hair, palpating her scalp.Zelda is dirty. Her black poplin dress has gray streaks of something on it, her face is blackened with that same something, her hands are unrecognizable as hers for their dirtiness, and she smells. She smells like sulfur and chemicals and sweat.“Well, love, what was the accelerant this time?” Hilda says gently, combing through Zelda’s hair with her fingers, extracting particles and depositing the larger pieces onto the end table as she goes.“Nothing as exciting as that, I’m afraid,” Zelda says. Her eyes are closed, and her body is languid and still softening. “Just an electrical fire, as it turns out,” she says, her voice low and indistinct in her repose.Sabrina can’t stand to be silent any longer.“Excuse me, what?!” Sabrina says, too loud for the occasion.Zelda doesn’t flinch, doesn’t open her eyes, keeps being ministered to. Hilda says,“Your Auntie Zee is a certified arson investigator.”Sabrina throws her head back and groans,“I swear! You two!”“Shush. She’s had a long night,” Hilda says, low and soft. She looks at Zelda draped on her lap and then up at Sabrina at her laptop. “And so have you. Wrap it up and get to bed. I’ll have espresso for both of you in the morning.”
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It was 1976. Zelda remembered the incident so well because she had spent most of the year being annoyed about how excited Hilda was it was the Bicentennial, and on this particular day she was wearing a white polyester pantsuit with a giant blue vinyl belt and a red and white rayon paisley blouse and a red, white, and blue rayon scarf headband. She had worn red, white, and blue consistently throughout the year, of course, but this was secretly Zelda’s favorite of Hilda’s cloyingly patriotic outfits. She pretended it was because it wasn’t as obvious as a lot of the others, but deep down she knew it was because it had been tailored very snugly.So on this particular morning, she was annoyed with Hilda for her Americana bullshit, annoyed at herself for feeling an ache of desire every time Hilda turned or bent or moved, and now she was annoyed that she couldn’t surreptitiously stare lustfully and shamefully at her own sister in her own home without this terrible little man with a tiny mustache and cheap cologne looking at her funny.He was sitting across the desk from her in the office, and Hilda was just coming back in with a tray of coffee and cookies. Zelda was sure to get her line out before Hilda finished with the coffee. She knew from experience she’d lose her train of thought when Hilda would inevitably sidle in beside her on the little bench behind the desk.“And who did you say you were again?” Zelda said, just in time. Hilda’s flesh inside the synthetic fabric felt so warm as it slid against her to take her seat. She was wearing wool and still felt it. Polyester was like that, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to curse it or bless it for that.“Zimmerman. From the National Funeral Directors Association.” He produced a card from his inside pocket and slid it across the desk. Zelda couldn’t grab for it because she was too busy clenching her fists to get herself under control. Hilda took the card, looked at it, placed it in front of Zelda, said,“Welcome, sir. And what’s your business here? Would you like a tour of our facilities? To inspect our equipment?” He shook his head, blew his nose into a handkerchief.And now Zelda was even more annoyed. He was here in some official capacity, and she felt dread and rage welling up in equal measure.“Ladies.” He looked at both of them and then decided to speak mostly to Hilda, as she was smiling amiably instead of gritting her teeth and shooting daggers from her eyes. “We know this is a family establishment, passed down from generation to generation. There’s no doubt in my mind that you have the skills and knowledge and empathy to run a very good business that is very crucial to your community because you learned the trade from your parents, who learned from theirs. But the fact remains, neither of you have a license to do so. And in this day and age, that is not how things work. If it did, any Joe Blow could be pumping corpses with formaldehyde in his garage. We’ve done some digging—excuse the pun—and no one is anything less than highly satisfied with your work, and we don’t want to shut you down. But we will shut you down if you don’t take the necessary steps to become licensed and thoroughly up to code.”“And what are those steps?” Hilda said, still smiling, still amiable. Zelda was still clenching her fists, now for this bureaucratic reason, growing more and more angry with each new word from the man’s mouth.“We’re going to issue you both a provisional license based on your experience—on the condition that you pursue the proper schooling and take and pass the exams required for licensure.”Hilda knew Zelda was boiling and put a hand on her knee to try to calm her. That backfired. Zelda shot up and was about to say something very cutting to one or both of them, but Hilda shot up, too, said quickly,“That’s very reasonable of you, Mr. Zimmerman. Thank you. Looks like we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us; you best be going so we can get to it.” She placed her body between Zimmerman and Zelda, protected him the whole way out. She returned to the office, where Zelda was pacing and furiously smoking. Their eyes met, and Zelda began ranting:“The audacity! The naked, blind, idiotic audacity! You used to be able to do just anything you set your mind to. No regulations whatsoever. All innate skill and hubris.” She poured a drink and downed it. “Medical doctors barely had to pass a six-month, completely unstandardized program; pharmacists weren’t more than alcoholic alchemists. And dentists?! Sadistic barbers at best! And now they have the nerve to come into our home and tell us we need to take courses at a technical college filled with 18-year-old mortal buffoons not smart enough to attend university and not athletic enough to play football for a community college in order to be qualified to do something we’ve been doing—very well, I might add, by their own admission—for a hundred years?!”Hilda shrugged off her blazer, began unbuttoning her blouse.“What in hell’s half acre are you doing?” Zelda said.“It’ll make you feel better to kill me. But this is my favorite outfit, and I don’t think it will survive the Cain pit.”xxxIt had been as Zelda predicted.A collection of ugly cement buildings and a lot of strange young men learning how to weld.As they walked together to their first class, a group of four or five whistled at them.“Too bad technical colleges don’t have homecoming. You’d certainly be crowned queen,” Hilda said. Zelda rolled her eyes. Hilda thought she’d said it quietly enough, but one of the passing boys said,“Nah! We were whistling at you, hot stuff!” She was offended but blushed anyway.xxxHilda and Zelda aced all their courses, passed all their exams, met all their licensure requirements.But after.But after, they’d realized.So they attended and attended. Watched faculty retire, move away, move on, die.They came to love that technical college for all its certifications available and all its stupid young men.All its young men who were intimidated by Zelda and wanted to bang Hilda.Hilda was humble but flattered about it; Zelda was jealous about it. And they both just kept getting more and more certifications.
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“I’ve been thinking,” Sabrina says.Here it is, then.Hilda is planting potatoes and generally pruning and weeding, getting her garden in tip-top shape for the season, and Sabrina had offered to help, and she had been suspicious there had been some underlying reason for that. Everyone likes the rewards of her labors, but no one but she herself likes the labors. Sometimes when she gets in a mood about it, Zelda scoffs and calls her The Little Red Hen. She secretly likes that, keeps the sentiment in her apron pocket to smile at later.“Yes, lamb?” Hilda says as she wipes sweat off her brow and dirt onto her brow in the same movement.Sabrina had cut a figure in her overalls with her little trowel, but she hadn’t done much other than that, and now she does even less as she sits up on her knees, says,“Well, colleges have been sending me a lot of information lately.” Hilda perks up but does not stop unkinking a wire on a tomato cage. She’s hoping for some Bryn Mawr-related news. Alas, Sabrina continues, “And I keep perusing the tech college’s catalogue, trying to find something for you so you can beat Auntie Zee—” Hilda does stop now and turns, says,“Beat Zelda? At what?”They stare at each other across the incipient rhubarb.“You know. Beat her. At your certification game.”Hilda scrunches up her face in confusion, then gets it, hums,“I guess I’d thought we were just having fun.”Sabrina looks at her thoughtfully, says,“But what’s fun for you? And what’s fun for Aunt Zelda?”xxx“Is there anything you truly enjoy doing?” Hilda says.She’s just snuggled into her bed and is on her side, staring at Zelda in the lamplight. Zelda is making a notation in her worn Satanic scriptures, and her pen hovers over the thin page as she turns her face and looks over her reading glasses at Hilda.“Excuse me?” Zelda says.“I mean, you do a lot of perfunctory tasks out of obligation and a sense of duty. But do you like anything?” Hilda says. Zelda takes off her reading glasses so she can glare properly. She glares for a few seconds, says,“What’s this about?” “I had an interesting conversation with Sabrina this afternoon that got me to thinking: I’ve known you so long. And I thought I knew you well. But I’m not sure I know what you think is fun.”“Fun,” Zelda says derisively, but she places her glasses and pen and book on her nightstand, folds her hands in her lap. “I don’t understand why that is any of your concern.”“Why shouldn’t it be?” Hilda says. “Hildegard. What are you actually asking?” Zelda says, even and low as a schoolmarm. Hilda weighs her options, says,“Why didn’t you inform me that we were trying to outdo each other?” Zelda’s glare turns a little icier.Hilda is still cozy in her own bed, although her cheeks are flushing a tad now that’s she knows she’s started an argument. But that heat only adds to her coziness. The warmth in her cheeks and chest suffuses, and she is overall toasty, comfortable. She can feel it in her fingers, toes, stomach. She likes the heat. She watches Zelda readjust. She likes watching that, too. Zelda is now reclined a little more, arms still atop her duvet but more languid. It’s a constructed casualness, and Hilda knows Zelda employs it in uncomfortable discussions. What she doesn’t know is why this should be uncomfortable. She herself certainly isn’t uncomfortable. She could fall asleep content any moment.“Do you really want to ask about my hobbies, or do you want to ask about the things about which I’m currently competing with you?” Zelda says.Hilda continues looking at, scrutinizing Zelda. She says,“Those don’t overlap?”Zelda closes her eyes, pauses, says,“They do.”There is a longer pause. And then Hilda says,“Why do we have to compete at all? You know I always let you win.”“I like to win on my own. I can do that more easily if you don’t know.”Hilda scans Zelda’s supine, suspiciously sedate body. She analyzes, comes to a conclusion.“You’re afraid I’ll win,” Hilda says.Zelda’s eyes shoot open, are boring into Hilda’s as she says,“Yes. I’m always afraid I’ll lose.”Hilda blinks.“My winning—whatever that means—is not contingent upon your losing,” Hilda says after a long moment. “You can have your own hobbies and interests just as I can have my own hobbies and interests. And we can support and encourage each other.”Zelda’s eyes are on her eyes for a long time and then drag down over her quilt-covered body, drag up again until they settle on her lips.“But I still lose,” Zelda says. Hilda fluffs her pillow so she can escape from Zelda’s unnervingly focused eyes for a moment. She resettles, and when she does, she finds Zelda has relaxed onto her side and is waiting to look at her again.“You’re quite caught up on this competition thing,” Hilda says. “Is that really all you like?”Zelda looks at her for a long time.“Yes,” Zelda says. “It’s one of my defining characteristics.” Hilda hums, says,“I suppose it is, isn’t it? But do you like it? Is it fun?”“It’s stimulating,” Zelda says finally. Hilda considers, says,“Like the newspapers you force yourself to read. An intellectual challenge in the translation. A moral challenge in the content. It’s all just stimulation for stimulation’s sake. There’s no end goal other than more of it. You win because the game never ends. You lose because the game never ends.” She wants to go on, follow the thought, talk the thought into existence, but Zelda’s voice has an edge of anger as she says,“Like the trashy erotica you indulge yourself in. Stimulation for stimulation’s sake. You’re turned on to be turned on, and you never have to sully yourself with an actual body.”“Trashy erotica is fun and I like it. You wish you had such an outlet.”Zelda reacts to that as if Hilda had slapped her face.“Don’t I just?” Zelda says. She clicks off the lamp, and they’re lying there in the dark.Hilda flips through their conversation. She doesn’t exactly know where she’d gone wrong, so she searches. Her memory hitches on the image of Zelda staring at her lips and saying she still loses.Hilda whispers in the dark,“Have you ever considered a partner game? Like bridge? That way you could compete and win but through cooperation and connection?”There are so many breaths and heartbeats. Hilda thinks maybe Zelda hadn’t heard, that maybe Zelda’s asleep. But then there’s a rustle of sheets, and Zelda says,“There’s only one person I’m interested in cooperating and connecting with. But she also happens to be the person I’m most interested in competing with.”A few more heartbeats and a few fewer breaths as Hilda holds hers then says,“Have you ever thought about telling her this?”Zelda huffs a humorless laugh.“I’ve certainly thought about it,” Zelda says.“Then you’ve also thought about the kind of cooperation and connection you’d ideally prefer.” Hilda wouldn’t say such things in the light. But in the velvet night she’s a little bolder, a little more curious. “You don’t want to ask the question you’re trying to ask,” Zelda says. Hilda ignores the admonishment. “There are a lot of very satisfying games that require a partner. Pictionary. Charades. Doubles tennis. Sex.”Silence. Dark. “Finding the perfect partner is the hard part,” Hilda continues. “Someone who knows you and anticipates you and understands you, who can help you win.”More silence. Darker dark.“What would you know about it?” Zelda rasps.“I like things for what they are. Enjoy people for who they are. Compete when necessary. Why wouldn’t I be good at partner games?” Hilda says.“It’s time for bed, Hidegard,” Zelda says.“Whose bed?” Hilda says.More heartbeats, more breaths.“Don’t tease me.”“I’m nothing if I’m not earnest,” Hilda says.“Don’t waste that on me, sister.”Hilda wouldn’t if it weren’t dark, but it is, and so she does. She blindly makes her way to Zelda’s bed, slips under the covers. Zelda shivers and stiffens. But Hilda’s hands are on her neck, pulling them close to each other.“It’s not a waste. It will be recycled,” Hilda whispers just before she kisses her. It’s not a chaste peck but a full tongue event. Zelda sighs into it and then pulls back,“You’re just doing this to win.”“I’m not particularly competitive,” Hilda says. “But if you’d like to win this round, you ought to show me you can cooperate.”
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Massachusetts currently does not require crematory operator certifications.But over half of Spellman Mortuary’s clients—like over half of the mortuary clients nationwide—are requesting cremations rather than traditional burials these days. The Spellman sisters have the equipment, and they very well know how to use it. But they know better than most that anything that gets popular soon enough gets regulated. And anyway, they can’t resist a good certification.Ambrose brings the post today.Hilda’s frying eggs and trying not to look too much at Zelda.Zelda is uninterested in her Slovakian newspaper and trying not to look too much at Hilda.They’ve been intermittently sleeping together for three months. And even more intermittently fucking.Most times they just lie together, touching and teasing and talking. But sometimes—infrequently, tentatively, accidentally, fatefully—they do more than that. A lot more. And neither has quite processed any of these types of occurrences. They both go about their business and secretly hope that tonight will be the night they figure it out once and for all.“Hmm,” Ambrose says, riffling through an unsolicited catalogue.“What?” Hilda, Zelda, and Sabrina all say. He looks up from the mail he’s sort of sorting, grins, says,“Auntie Zee, you've got a flier here from the Cremation Association of North America.”“And what have they got to say?” Zelda says as dismissively as she can manage although she’s actually intrigued. She knows Zimmerman has long since died. But his son’s still in the business as far as she knows. Mortal bureaucracy is a chore, but she can respect a good bureaucrat on principle.Hilda looks at Zelda not really looking at the newspaper. She turns off the burner and moves to stand at Ambrose’s shoulder, also looking over the advertisement. Ambrose says,“Annual conference and certification is in Chicago next month.”Zelda’s eyes raise, meet Hilda’s.“We could take the train,” Hilda says. Zelda nods deliberately noncommittally, and her eyes return to the paper she doesn’t care about. There’s a beat, and then Zelda says from her safe place behind her newspaper,“You’ll have no trouble booking it online for us, yes?”Hilda grunts a strangled yes in reply.xxxThey hadn’t actually touched each other—had sex, made love, fucked, or whatever—since a few days before the brochure had come in the mail.And that time had been an anomaly in and of itself.Zelda had just undressed for a shower when Hilda had barged in to brush her teeth. They’d looked at each other for a moment in the mirror. And then Zelda had said,“If you wanted to see me naked, you could’ve just asked.” Hilda had scoffed, said,“If I were so desperate to see you naked, I might’ve worked some different angles.” Even so, Hilda’s eyes had traveled Zelda’s body ravenously. “But here I am just flossing.”Zelda’s eyes had also ravenously traveled Hilda’s body, especially her triceps contracting and her breasts swinging as Hilda flossed. Hilda did not typically floss naked.When Hilda had deposited the used floss into the trash can, Zelda had approached. She’d pressed her nude body flush against Hilda’s nude body.The neglected shower had sprayed hot steaming water into a yawning basin. Zelda had taken Hilda against the master bath door. Had been taken on the cool, damp tile of the master bath floor. They’d both enjoyed each other in the hot shower afterward.They hadn’t spoken a word about it since.xxxThey haven’t spoken a word about it since.In the moment of it, they often talk, but not about anything. They talk around and on top of. There is no intellectual or emotional penetration. It’s easier and harder this way. It’s actions taken in the dark. It’s feelings expressed through innuendo and caresses. It is what is and always at night, however much they might separately and secretly think about it during the day.xxxAnd now here they are in a hotel room in Chicago.Hilda’s unpacking. She’s the kind of person who uses the chest of drawers in a hotel.Zelda’s leafing through an advertisement about local entertainment. She’s the kind of person who keeps her clothes in her suitcase except for the items that absolutely must be hung up.“Early day tomorrow,” Hilda says.“Very,” Zelda says. She begins undressing. Hilda turns away, says,“I’ll just. Go brush my teeth now.”xxxThree days of conferences. They both take a lot of notes. They both pass tests. They’re both certified.But also.They play a lot of couples tennis. Can be convinced to join a heated round of Pictionary or charades. Morticians generally like partner games, apparently. And they can do partner games. Are especially suited to partner games.xxxZelda shares her ice cream cone on Navy Pier.“I don’t want to take the train back,” Zelda says.“Why not?” Hilda says.“It’s not quick enough,” Zelda says. “I need you at home as soon as possible.”“Oh? Why is that?” Hilda says around the cherry-almond-chocolate scoop.“Don’t lie to yourself. And don’t lie to me,” Zelda says.A beat. It may be the closest they’ve come to talking about it in the full sun light.“I’ll absolutely expire if I lose my mustard cardigan in the shuffle,” Hilda says. Zelda rolls her eyes.But they hold hands as they take the water taxi back to their hotel to gather their belongings.And then they teleport.xxxBut once they’re in their own room, it’s still and silent.They both still taste the ice cream.“You said—” Hilda says.“I know,” Zelda says.They stand staring at each other in the middle of the room, their luggage haphazardly abandoned at their feet. Until Zelda turns down her sheets. She looks at her bed and then looks at Hilda. Hilda looks at Zelda and then the bed. Zelda turns her back to Hilda.“Unzip me?” Zelda says.Hilda does so.Zelda turns again to face Hilda and does not slink out of the dress. It’s a shyer thing than that. She watches Hilda watching her, and her chest is very red about it.Hilda begins undressing, too, and she’s no less red.They’re both embarrassed, and they’re both disrobing.“Is this what you wanted?” Hilda says, almost a whisper.“I could hardly wait 15 minutes for it, let alone 15 hours,” Zelda says, more nearly a whisper yet.Hilda pauses, a middle finger under a bra strap, a thumb in the waistband of her panties. Zelda pauses at Hilda’s pause, fore and middle finger rolling down her second stocking but stopping at the knee.“But. We don’t— Would you rather— Um.” Hilda sits on the edge of her own bed, bra and panties firmly in place, hands firmly on the comforter on either sides of her (shapely, perfect, pale, smooth, ample, lush) thighs. Zelda takes in the sight, swallows, ultimately divests herself of her last nylon so she can stand straight in her own remaining lingerie and say,“What are you blathering about, Hildegard?”Hilda bites her lip, turns her face away. Zelda continues:“What kind of fool do you take me for? I had to watch you receive higher marks than me on a standardized test for a certification we don’t even need. I had to watch you retrieve your clothes from a two-star hotel’s bargain-bin bureau on a three-night’s stay. I willingly subjected myself to watching your sensual tongue lapping at the ice cream I picked and paid for. We don’t? We don’t what?! Would I rather? I wouldn’t rather. And you very well know it. You very well know it!”Zelda’s so red now and panting besides.“It’s just—” Hilda starts.“It’s just what? You were dicking me around this whole time? It was a lark, an intellectual exercise, a psychological experiment? It’s just testing how far my infatuation with you extends?”Hilda tries to interject, but Zelda’s still rolling:“Well! Have I got news for you, babe! I’ve had a hard on for you since before I knew that was an ironic witticism.”“Please stop,” Hilda says.Zelda does stop, hands on jutting, barely silk-draped hips.“I just. Wanted to make sure,” Hilda says. They look at each other. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t your last choice.”Zelda throws her head back in a derisive laugh, and then they’re looking at each other again.“Hildie. You’re my first choice. Don’t you know you’re the only choice I’ve ever wanted to make?”“Why would I know that?” Hilda says.Zelda scoffs but then her gaze is so piercing.“I’d always thought I was so obvious. I actively worked against it enough that I fooled even you. Oh my love,” Zelda says as her hands fly to Hilda’s face, her tongue insistent in Hilda’s mouth.They kiss. And Hilda bucks up into Zelda’s body. Zelda grinds down. Zelda had prepared her own bed for this event, but she doesn’t care as long as it’s happening.“Zelds,” Hilda moans beneath her. “I can’t do this unless we’re—”“We are,” Zelda says against Hilda’s neck. She snakes an arm between them. “We are,” Zelda says as a finger circles Hilda’s clit over her cotton panties.Hilda moans again—longer, louder. But then her fingers encircle Zelda’s wrist and squeeze as she says,“You’re not just trying to win some competition, then?”“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to win,” Zelda pants less than an inch above Hilda’s face. She dips to kiss Hilda’s nose and then eyebrows and then buries herself in Hilda’s neck, kissing and sucking and sighing and saying, “But what does winning even mean? I’ve already won. Many times over.”They kiss and writhe and moan. And then Hilda says,“I guess I just don’t believe—”“Believe whatever you want,” Zelda says. She grinds down onto Hilda’s thigh and whispers into her mouth, “I know what I believe.”Hilda lets Zelda push her shoulders onto her mattress.Zelda’s tongue and hips indulge in the same rhythm, her hands now clutching Hilda’s hair. Zelda kisses her, undulates against her, finds a willing mouth, answering hips.“I know what I believe, too,” Hilda pants, hips thrusting up, attempting more contact.“It’s not a competition. I want to give you what you want,” Zelda says. “But you’ve got to tell me.”“There’s the competition, then. If I tell you, you win.”Zelda stills above her, considers, says,“Would you rather I guess?”“You’d certainly rather guess correctly than be told,” Hilda says.Zelda descends. She reaches around and unclasps Hilda’s bra, takes a newly exposed nipple in her mouth. She suckles, grinds her teeth lightly, then bites down hard.Hilda cries out sharply and thrusts her hips.Zelda drags her tongue over Hilda’s nipple, says,“It’s a hypothesis rather than a guess.”Hilda laughs, but the laugh dies in her throat, metamorphosizes into a moan as Zelda slides a finger inside her. Zelda again takes a nipple—the other one this time—between her teeth. Hilda gyrates. Zelda gyrates. They both sigh.“I’d rather we were naked,” Hilda says.Zelda adds her middle finger, and Hilda thrusts against her and moans.“Aren’t we, though?” Zelda says.