Mansplaining went right along with chefdom, and lacked the rigor of a fricassee, jus lié, or vol-au-vent.

On the screen, the nun was a bowl filling and emptying. She had a self, but the self seemed harmoniously folded into her surroundings. There was no grasping, no bitterness, no regret, no impatience as she turned the fermented beans that would not be ready for another forty days.

Yes, I still longed to be a lesbian separatist nun, pressing my face to ancient stone floors instead of facing subway riders who didn’t even want to kill me for being trans in public because they hadn’t yet looked up from their phones.

A few minutes later, the nun was going into Seoul on a subway train. Hah. So she wasn’t a complete purist. I was thinking about the prospect of letting myself be when there was another knock on the door. I didn’t answer at first because I figured it was another Rhiz messenger. The knocks turned to pounding.

I went to the door, and there was Aiden. I made a sweeping gesture to welcome him into my apartment. I believe he subtly grimaced at the bone-scent.

“First of all,” he said, his voice squeaking with anger, “don’t ever fuck with my Gram again. It’s my sacred space and you defiled it. Second, your hex didn’t work on me because I’ve already been through the Shadowlands.”

My mouth opened. “Are you serious? But you walk around drinking crystal juice all day.”

What I really wanted to ask was, Where are they? Didn’t the Shadowlands leave an imprint on your person? Did anyone ever really get out?

“You don’t know shit about me.”

I didn’t know shit about him, and yet I wanted to dive into it. That was my job, after all, handling dog shit so that other people could go to work or travel.

“I would try to sabotage you less if I knew more about your smelly parts.” That came out cruder than I wanted. Or exactly right.

He scoffed.

“Hey, I’m Minna,” Minna said from the other room.

Aiden crossed from the kitchen into the living room to extend his hand. He was trying to play the “good guy.” He walked back over to me, only a few steps in our tiny apartment.

“The Operatrix told me what you did,” he said.

“Yes, and now Blithe needs our help,” I replied.

“I find you sketchy as hell, but we need to get the narrative report going. I started a rough draft.”

“I thought you wanted to drench me in muscular love and light?”

He laughed. “That’s Gram-Aiden.”

He was a sophisticate.

He handed me his pad. He’d made a text box for each day and started organizing a timeline of events correlated to Blithe’s feelings and substances and receipts.

8:30am

Wake up. Exercise high *

Latte. Orange/banana/strawberry smoothie

Object (phone)–centered anxiety

Work-related daze *

This went on and on, hour by hour.