“Yeah, I talked to the Witch about it, and she agreed, as long as she could bless the nontoxic cleaning products,” Aiden said.

“Wow.” I hadn’t known she was willing to compromise in any direction. I went into the bathroom to pee. The sludge was gone. Aiden had stuck bamboo caddies onto the wall, bursting with the Witch’s glass tinctures, Blithe’s fancy men’s elixirs, my low-brow natural products, the S-H’s normie shampoo and conditioner, and Aiden’s sample-size bottles from his sponsors, along with a large Head and Shoulders. Next to the toilet, there was a stainless-steel box with Aiden’s and my hormone vials and needles and alcohol wipes in sealed pouches. Blithe had his hormones delivered in implant form. He was a man of the future, while Aiden and I signaled to the Rhiz with our phones, which were almost parts of our body.

Blithe had dragged the air mattress into my room and fallen asleep on the floor. Inside my pillowcase, I found a lavender sachet.

When I needed to take a break from the domestic situation, I went back to the pool, a beleaguered parent finally getting some downtime. I swam behind a slow older man with a white ponytail hanging out of his swimming cap. It moved through the water like a furry eel.

Aching and breathless, I decided to return to the sauna and ask for another appointment.

“Hi. I had to go out of town to help someone and I missed my appointment with the Grandmeister,” I told the new gatekeeper, who was reading a book in the humid anteroom.

“Was he a brother?”

“Like biologically?”

“A brother is any man you would share half of a sandwich with.”

“Sure, yes.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

“Can I make another one? I told the last guy that I would be happy to give myself a shot and celebrate masculinity.”

“It’s a slow day. You can come in now.”

I was not prepared for my entrée.

“Just repeat after me: No bitches here. No bitches here. No bitches here.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Well, yes, it makes our brotherhood more potent when we cast out any bitches.”

“Fuck that.”

At other, more cowardly junctures of my life, I might have calculated: Is it worthwhile to say something you don’t believe in to gain access to a pore-opening spot?

No longer.

I took a chartreuse car, and when I got home, the Witch had burnt something and dumped it into the newly cleaned shower, Blithe was nonverbal in my bed, and Aiden was out in the backyard posing—again—against the plastic textile art on the fence.

Wanna get a drink? I texted Minna.

Can’t 2nite. Sorry! she wrote back.

I thought about calling Sid in L.A., but it would take a lot to explain the situation here. Plus, I felt like I was cheating on him in terms of intimate trans friendship. I texted Jillian Whatsup and she said Hiii back, and I left it at that. Finally, I reached out to R, not expecting anything, and she told me to come over.