Summer of '09
Elsa spent the first two weeks of her summer break watching videos of scruffy bearded men talking about cars. She'd stay up late at night—more often than not with Anna sprawled and snoring next to her in bed—as she studied everything she could about a subject she'd never been interested in before. But watching men tweak a car as they discuss exhaust pipes and headers was one thing; standing before an engine bay covered in grime and gunk that had gone over six years unused, was another. Elsa could do nothing but stare: she had no idea where to start.
"Fuck."
"Fuck what?"
Startled, Elsa whipped her head around. Her sister was standing at the door that led back to the house, large hoodie on and gym shorts that barely reached mid-thigh. A smirk adorned her face. She enjoyed startling her a little too much.
"Knock, maybe?"
Anna snorted. She skipped down the steps and into the garage uncle Kai didn't use but for the sole purpose of storing objects everyone often forgot about—a broken mower he was supposed to have fixed two years ago, boxes of academic textbooks from Anna and Elsa's high school years meant to be donated to the public library, an old golf bag, a turn-of-the-century-looking stereo, aunt Gerda's sewing machine used only for a few weeks, back when she thought she'd found herself a new hobby.
Their father's metallic navy blue C5 Corvette was one of those objects, too. Forgotten, accumulating dust for the past six years, and time like the childhood memories Elsa sometimes tried to cling to.
"What are you doing?" Anna asked her when she'd gone back to lamenting the fact that knowing shit about engines required practice and not theory.
"Uncle Kai told me that if I could fix this car it could be mine."
"Isn't it technically yours?"
"It is, but you know how he likes to piss on things and pretend they're his. And anyway, I do need to fix it if I want it to go farther than the end of the block." Part of her thought that he didn't believe she could fix it; that this is why he made that deal with her to begin with. But while Kai had a penchant for underestimating her, Elsa had a penchant for proving him wrong. This was no exception.
Anna went around the car and settled herself next to Elsa. Her hair was up in a bun, messy and carelessly done; endearing just like the whole of her. "What are you supposed to be fixing?" she asked.
Taking her eyes away from Anna, she turned back to the engine. "Clean the air filter," she said, "change that leaky battery, fix this water leak and get rid of all that grime."
"Are you really gonna be able to handle that all by yourself?"
"I don't know but I'm going to try."
Her sister left after that to make herself some breakfast. Uncle Kai had been at work since early in the morning and aunt Gerda was living the life at the country club. There was nothing new about either of those things. Elsa and Anna were often by themselves during the summer, which is why Elsa preferred them over any other time of the year.
Anna came back to the garage by the time she'd started working on scrubbing the thickest layer of gunk off the engine bay. She struggled to take the head covers off while Anna stood by, observing her, nursing a mug in her hands. "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"
"I'm figuring it out as I go," said Elsa.
She hummed, walked all the way over to where Elsa stood with her hands on her hips, breathing heavily, strands of hair already sticking to the back of her neck. She stopped behind her, rested her chin on her shoulder and mumbled, "Want me to call Hans?"
"And have to put up with his puppy eyes and his lame questions about why you broke up with him? No thanks." Further considering it, Elsa turned around to face her. She eyed the tea in the mug before she ruffled Anna's fringe to the side. "Why did you break up with him?"
"I already told you, I just wasn't feeling it."
"You don't date someone for a year and then one day wake up and realize you're not feeling it."
A shrug. "He's nice and I care about him, but I wasn't in love. Then I got to a point where I was convinced I never would so I broke up with him."
"He didn't deserve you," Elsa said after a pause.
Anna looked at her from under her lashes. "You think no one deserves me," she said lowly.
"Can you blame me?"
"I don't know," Anna chuckled. "Can I?"
"No. I'm your sister. You can't blame me for anything."
"I can and will blame you for many things."
"Not if I can help it." She draped a rag over Anna's head. "Help me with this, yeah?"
"I know less about cars than you do," she argued, throwing the rag on the ground.
"Look, if you help me I promise to take you out on a ride when we're done."
They regarded each other for a moment. Anna narrowing her eyes, taking a sip of tea and she, leaning back against the car, with arms crossed and an arched eyebrow. The two remained quiet until Elsa caught her sister's gaze flicker down to her lips. "I want you to teach me how to drive too," came in an unexpectedly low voice.
Elsa swallowed. "Deal," she muttered, not without a tinge of curiosity taking root inside her mind.
.
Working with Anna meant working with music. It was distracting, but not for the reasons one would expect. She did more dancing than she did actual work, but the thing was, Elsa found herself having a hard time minding.
During the following weeks they spent almost every afternoon at the garage, blasting music from the stereo that only looked old but wasn't, sipping ice-cold drinks, doing the bare minimum when it came to actually fixing their father's Corvette. Elsa managed to memorize the lyrics to each song in Madonna's Celebration album while Anna managed to come up with two impromptu choreographies in the middle of scrubbing engine parts and handing over the wrong tools.
Working with Anna wasn't hard; it was borderline impossible. Still, Elsa couldn't have cared less. Her playful exuberance took over the entire space, changing its energy for the better without fail. It was amusing, the way she always beckoned Elsa away from the car so that she would dance with her. And she did, each and every time. She danced until she was breathless and her tank top was sticking to the sweaty skin on her back. But the talent had always belonged to Anna and not Elsa, and at some point she always stopped just so that she could watch her dance. The confidence and ease in her movements were enthralling, so much so that Elsa often had a hard time focusing on anything for a while afterwards.
She kept wondering what it was about Anna that kept commanding her attention lately. What was so different about her body, her face, her laugh that had Elsa feeling as though she were witnessing them for the first time. Why Anna had to be her first thought in the morning and the last one at night. Why she was unable to understand the weight that her own gaze carried as she looked at her sister when she wasn't looking, or the way she would catch herself blushing when Anna's hugs lasted a little too long.
The problem was, Elsa wasn't dumb. Being unable to understand something didn't keep her from giving it a name. She knew what it was; this thing that was both foreign, unspoken and forbidden, but not terrifying enough to force her to push Anna away.
Because the only thing worse than living with this was to live without her.
"Okay," Anna breathed as she handed over a wrench so that Elsa could remove the battery—and hopefully not get herself killed in the process. "If you could live in anyone's head for fifteen minutes, who would you choose?"
"You."
She looked disappointed. "But you already kind of do."
"Okay, fine." Elsa did not dare explain that the only reason she would have liked to be in there for fifteen minutes was to see if Anna could tell there was something iffy going on with her. "I'd choose... RBG."
"Hell yeah."
"What about you?" she asked, stalling. She did not want to touch that battery just yet.
"Madonna."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know what it's like being at the top. And because she has an army of gays at her disposal that she's been snoozing on."
"What exactly would you do with an army of gays?"
"I'd rule this country."
Elsa laughed. "Yeah, okay. I can see that happening. You're bossy enough."
Anna nodded proudly while she finally got started on the battery. She was taking care of the negative terminal just as her sister asked, "If you were a stripper what name would you pick?"
She snorted. "Where do you come up with these kinds of things?"
"I saw a quiz online and I got curious."
"I don't see myself ever becoming a stripper," she said.
From the other side of the car Anna rolled her eyes. "And I don't see myself becoming a fruit, yet it seems like hypothetically speaking I'd be a strawberry."
"Of course you'd be a strawberry."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Elsa pointed at her face with the wrench. "The freckles, pretty girl."
Anna blushed. "Right. That makes sense actually."
She suppressed a smirk before she looked back down at the battery and started disconnecting the positive terminal. Her heart was leaping at her throat. She'd watched too many videos of people getting electrocuted. "What name would you get?" she asked Anna.
"Tell me yours first."
"I don't know. What are my options?"
"You look like a Crystal kinda girl."
The terminal was disconnected. She straightened back up with a stretch. "There was a girl at school named Crystal and she was a jerk."
"Oh yeah, I remember. I always thought she had a crush on you."
It was her turn to blush. "She didn't have a crush on me."
"But what if she did? Would you have dated her?"
Elsa stood still, thrown off and bewildered. "Uh... I don't think so? I don't tend to go for unkind people."
Anna was regarding her with a curiously serious expression. Elsa could not discern what lay behind her eyes. "It's not like it matters anymore though, right?"
"... Right," she breathed.
A wide smile appeared on Anna's face the next second. "My stripper name would be Rey," she said at last. "It means king in Spanish."
.
Winter of '18
It was nothing new that the thought of Christmas had slipped off her mind completely. What was new was the fact that she was trying to do something for a change.
Elsa had decided not to come back the day after, but on Sunday, the night of Christmas Eve. It was not a premeditated decision so much as a last minute course of action. A swerving between the should and the shouldn't that resulted in Elsa finding herself greeting a bouncer that only acknowledged her with a glance and standing in the middle of a strip club that was busier than expected.
She'd envisioned a rather depressing image (as she searched through her closet and ignored the fact that she was putting too much effort into her outfit) of a lonely girl dancing on stage for the gazes of a few. Of a decadent air, stripped of its beckoning neon lights and sensual low beats. Of an empty bar and one bartender who had nothing else to do but to wipe clean glass after glass.
What Elsa found instead was a club thronged by patrons and an air stagnant with the scent of cologne and perfume. The faint smell of liquor and carpeted floor that tried too hard to stay clean. On the stage and bathed in warm hues, a girl in a white-laced bodysuit was climbing the pole. She moved and twisted with smooth ease until she was hanging upside down, hooking a leg around the pole. Her body arched slowly, her curly hair cascaded down to the floor. Dollar bills rained on the stage as she twirled her hands, welcoming them with gusto. The heavy beat went on as she straightened back up and slid down, her long legs spreading into a split.
Elsa searched for her sister as she wet her lips with the white wine she'd ordered and wondered if all Anna did was give lap dances. The thought brought along with it a queasy sensation that had her clenching her jaw and twisting her face in displeasure. Anna shouldn't be dancing here in the first place; showing off her body and having it up for grabs.
She observed the dancer get off the stage and make her way to the bar while Elsa mulled over whether she should ask her some questions, which made her feel like a detective from some TV drama, which made her feel like an absolute idiot.
Why couldn't Anna just talk to her?
She approached with awkward caution. The girl sensed her and turned to her with an easy, flirtatious smile.
"Hi," Elsa said, actively avoiding looking anywhere that wasn't her face. She felt like a teenage boy on a bad day. "Can I ask you something?"
The girl tilted her head. Elsa caught her scanning her body in a quick glance. "Aren't you gonna buy me a drink first?" she asked back. Her voice had the tilt of an accent. South African. Rich and deep.
Elsa opened and closed her mouth, said, "Sure," and ended up paying sixteen dollars for a cranberry vodka. It wasn't until the girl had started sipping that she dared talk again. "So... what's your name?"
The dancer tried to hide an amused smile. "You're pretty new at this, aren't you?"
"I'm not sure what this is, to be honest with you. I'm just trying to find someone."
"Oh," she said. "Boyfriend? Girlfriend?"
Her stomach churned at the last word. "Just... someone."
"Just... someone," the girl repeated with a low voice. Her smooth brown skin glinted under the lights. Her plump dark lips smirked. "So what's so special about this someone?"
Everything.
Elsa gulped. She knew she would stammer if she opened her mouth, so she decided to take a large sip of wine instead. She inhaled through her nose and let the alcohol burn down her throat.
"Do you know Rey?" she finally asked.
"Everyone here knows Rey," came the response.
She did not find that answer a gratifying one. "What do you mean?"
"That she's one of our best dancers," the girl said, not without a hint of jealousy. "Is she your someone?"
"You could say that," Elsa said with a humorless, dry laugh. How long had it been since Anna was truly her someone? "I just stopped by to see if she was here today."
The girl hummed as she weaved a hand through her curly blondish hair. "Sure she is." Elsa's heart leapt at this. "Papi only gave the mamas the night off. Most everyone else is here tonight."
"It's busy," Elsa noted.
"It always is."
"On Christmas Eve?"
She smiled wickedly. "You'd be surprised at how many of these men are supposed to be on business trips right now."
"That's kinda messed up."
Fingers tickled the back of Elsa's hand. "It is what it is, babe."
The term caught her off-guard. It did not sit well with her. Not quite. But neither did the ghost of a touch trailing up her forearm, nor the perfume that emanated off the girl's curvaceous body. The problem wasn't hers, however. It was Elsa's. It was the nauseating dread that made such a word sound wrong to her ears, and the bitter helplessness that made the sweetness of her perfume so sickening. It was the fact that so many things in life posed a question and so little of them held an answer, and that the only way she could ever understand the path that led her sister to this place was to have spent the last nine years by her side.
Gently, Elsa pried her arm away from the girl's touch. "Can I... ask you something else?"
.
She had to wait for two more hours.
Expecting to see her sister perform at some point, she sat at the bar with her gaze glued to the stage. But the longer she went on watching girl after girl dancing to song after song, the more she entertained the idea that she would spend the rest of her time there picturing Anna grinding on strangers' laps.
She kept herself from drinking, however, all but two glasses of wine. Enough to keep her off the edge, where angry and guilt-ridden thoughts abounded and threatened to cloud her judgement more than she'd already done herself.
Elsa waited, with arms crossed, close to a door painted in black just like the rest of the building. It stood far from the main entrance, tucked just around the corner. She was told this would be it. That Anna—Rey—usually left thirty minutes after her shift ended, which was supposed to be four minutes ago already, which was only making things worse for the unwelcome fluttering going on inside her chest.
She noticed a car enter the nearly empty lot and squinted when its headlights fell on her. "Dick," she mumbled, looking away. Two minutes later and the heavy back door was being opened. A smiling brunette exited, followed by Anna. She wore a gray hoodie below a leather jacket, black leggins and Nike sneakers; a ponytail high over her head and a face free of make up. An imagine Elsa found more familiar; more pertaining to the memory she once had of her.
When Anna saw her she did not appear surprised. "What are you doing here?" she asked, detached.
Elsa eyed the girl next to her, hoping for some privacy. "I was waiting for you."
Her sister heard this but did not react. Instead, she paused to say goodbye to the brunette, smiling as she let herself be hugged and received a playful kiss on the cheek. "Say hi to Catso for me," Anna said.
"You know I will," the girl responded, walking past Elsa and connecting gazes with her for a brief moment before finally getting inside the dick-driven car.
Elsa turned back to Anna, who was staring at her: "How did you know what time I got off?"
"One of the girls told me."
"Who?"
Elsa paused. "Destiny."
Anna crossed her arms. "Really now? What did you have to give up in exchange?"
"Nothing."
She cocked an eyebrow.
"... Fifty bucks."
"You've got some nerve," Anna mumbled before she began to walk away.
Elsa leapt forward to reach for her wrist. "Wait—"
Anna pulled away. "Will you stop grabbing me like that? It's annoying."
"Will you stop being such a brat? It's never suited you."
"Fuck you," she spat.
Elsa bit the inside of her cheek as she watched her take a couple of steps across the parking lot. She glanced at the entrance, making sure there was no bouncer and no longer a valet around. She didn't feel like making a scene again.
But suddenly, Anna was making a quick turnaround with eyes ablaze. "By the way you're so stupid," she told her, "You paid fifty bucks for some knowledge that should have been common sense. So much for that lawyer degree."
Elsa's mouth went agape. It took her a moment to recuperate from the blatant truth, and by the time she'd stopped cursing Destiny and her own imbecility Anna was already throwing her duffel bag in the trunk of a Honda. She made a run to catch up, her high heels clattering desperately against the pavement.
"Wait," she begged again. She was growing to hate that word.
Anna got inside, shut the door with an angry slam. Elsa didn't think twice before planting herself in front of the car. She saw her sister hit the wheel.
"MOVE!" came the muffled demand.
"No!" she yelled back, "You're going to have to run over me!"
Anna pursed her lips, glaring back at her. There was a spark behind her eyes that briefly made Elsa hesitate and wonder if she was actually capable of doing it. What a fucking joke, she thought, to end up in a wheelchair this way. Still, she remained unmoved, recklessly daring Anna to move an inch.
The blaring honk of the car startled her. She slammed the hood with a fist. "Dammit, Anna! I just want to talk!"
Another honk pierced her ears, forcing her to cover them with her hands. Its length conveyed Anna's emotions. Loud and clear.
The moment it ceased, Elsa lifted her gaze to find Anna panting through the nose, shutting her eyes closed and leaning on the wheel to nestle her head in her arms. In her apparent defeat Elsa found the chance to take a few tentative steps around the car. She tried for the door and found it unlocked.
Anna did not move. She did not make a single show of acknowledgment. She went on clinging to the wheel and breathing harshly as Elsa squatted and took her in with nothing left but dejected love. Her hand curled inwards, steering away from the urge to reach out and provide comfort.
"Hey," she whispered.
No answer came.
"It's Christmas," she tried.
Anna's lips parted, letting out a sigh. It took her a few seconds to croak, "I know."
Elsa bit her lip. She kept encountering wall after wall. No way forward. But no way back, either.
"Can I take you to dinner?"
Her sister scoffed before she finally pushed herself away from the wheel and leaned back against the seat. Her eyes were dry and detached when she looked Elsa's way. "I don't think so," she said.
"Anna..."
"What did you think, Elsa? That you'd come in here and offer me a nice Christmas dinner, and that I'd say yes?" When Elsa averted her eyes in shame and frustration, she chuckled bitterly. "I never pegged you as the delusional type."
"No, that's always been your thing," she retaliated.
Teal blue eyes burned with disappointment while the rest of Anna's face remained unsurprised. "There you are," she murmured, "Just like I remember you."
"That's unfair, Anna."
"Is it?"
Elsa clenched her jaw. Her legs were starting to burn from being in a squatting position for so long. Her throat was beginning to close in on itself. "There's so much you don't know," she said.
"And I think you're nine years too late."
She stood up slowly, but held onto the door to keep Anna from closing it. "I'm not going to stop coming in here until you and I talk. You know that, right?"
Anna rolled her eyes. "And you realize how easy it would be for me to keep you away from this place, right?"
"Yes," she answered, not without regret, "but I'll leave that decision to you."
With one last look her way, Elsa stepped back and allowed her to finally close the door. It wasn't until Anna drove out and away from the parking lot that she heaved a sigh and finally allowed herself to break.
.
Elsa did not return until a week later.
She wanted to allow Anna the space and the time to remember that things had not always been this way. That there had been days where they couldn't stand being apart, where they made each other happy, where things didn't stop being simple regardless of the lines they crossed.
But if there was one thing Elsa had stopped being good at was keeping expectations. She did not expect Anna to use this time the way she wished she would. She did not expect that she would want to have a proper talk (although it didn't keep her from trying), nor did she expect—no matter how much she hoped—that she would be let inside the stupid fucking club.
She was ready, however, to throw a fit if she had to. Pull out the privileged white female card; the connections card; the my-friend-is-a-friend-of-the-owner card even though she had not spoken to Kristoff once during the holidays and found Johnny to be a distasteful person.
Still, Elsa had to keep herself from looking surprised when the same bouncer she'd met on the first night nodded her way and removed the velvet rope to let her in. As she trod down the hallway and arranged the lapels of her gray plaid blazer, it occurred to her that Anna must have made her decision by now. And that if this was the end result, then maybe those walls of hers weren't so thick after all.
Only glancing once at the stage, she made a beeline for the bar but stopped in her tracks when she found Anna leaning over one of its ends. Her sister was talking to the bartender, sipping clear liquid from a lowball glass. She did not notice her approach until Elsa was leaning over the bar as well, cutting the bartender short.
"Get me a Whiskey Sour, will you?"
The bartender nodded before he set about making it.
Anna acknowledged her with an aloof once-over. "Careful there," she said into the glass, "you don't want people to think you're becoming a regular."
Elsa looked onward, focused on the young man preparing her drink. "I don't care what people think."
"That's hard to believe."
She ignored this despite the irritation that clenched around her throat and nearly forced her to blurt out a retort. They'd gotten her nowhere so far, and Elsa was growing tired of that.
"Looks like you weren't so desperate to keep me away after all."
"I'm still debating."
When the bartender placed the drink in front of her she slammed a credit card down. "Get her another drink too," she ordered, wondering just where the fuck that confidence was coming from.
The bartender looked bewildered. "Uh—"
"It's fine," Anna jumped in, "Charge her a regular and give me the same thing."
He nodded before quickly grabbing the card and walking away.
"You scare him," Anna told her.
"Good."
She swiveled on the stool to face her squarely, giving Elsa a view of her chest clad in a silver bodysuit with a split in the middle that traveled all the way down to her belly button. She wore a sheer robe on top; her hair, long and lush, falling down the side. "Is that what you've become?" she asked, "Some scary-looking lawyer who stutters at the sight of a stripper?"
"I never stuttered," Elsa argued.
"Right, my bad. You only acted like a whimpering Chihuahua when I was dancing on your lap."
"Will you quit it with the name calling?"
Anna responded with silence and a sip of her drink.
Their defying stares were broken off by the bartender coming back once more with Elsa's credit card, a receipt and a pen, and whatever Anna had been drinking as easily as if it had been water. She smiled sweetly at the bartender, which irked Elsa more than she cared to admit.
"Are you ever going to give us the chance to talk?" she asked with sudden seriousness.
Anna traced a fingertip over the rim of the empty glass. "This is us talking."
"You know what I mean," Elsa insisted.
"Not sure what exactly you want us to be talking about." She picked up the drink that was just bought, took a large gulp, and set it back down on the bar. "I have to get back up there anyway, so better luck next time."
Elsa shook her head in disbelief. "You're infuriating."
Anna's piercing eyes connected with hers as she got off the stool and took one step closer, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You used to love that about me," she reminded in a murmur, robbing Elsa of the ability to speak until she was cheekily pushing the credit card and the receipt towards her: "Thanks for the water by the way."
Her jaw went slack. "Fuck you."
But Anna was already walking away; already waving her off with swaying hips. "You wish," she threw over her shoulder.
Flushing with anger, Elsa's eyes followed Anna all the way to the stage. The spotlights turned from purple to pink hues as she was introduced by a hoarse, enthusiastic voice booming from the speakers. A round of whistles, applause and calls from men already pulling more singles out of their thick wallets followed. Soon, she was making her slow, sensuous way to the pole while Elsa continued to fume, furious arousal stewing deep and hot in her core.
Anna gave her back to the audience and let the sheer robe trail down her body at the first blaring notes of Pour Some Sugar On Me, revealing the strings that criss-crossed over her skin, the thong that left little to the imagination. She held onto the pole, then teased the roaring crowd by moving her hips to the rhythm of the drum beat. She made a dip turn until her chest was flush against the pole and she began to rock her body suggestively while money fell at her feet and the men went on cheering for more.
Elsa could not recognize the woman dancing on that stage, performing with exquisite dexterity. She was a whole different person; another version of her sister she had never met. But the more Anna did—the more she trailed her hands over her breasts, her navel and her inner thighs, and danced for those desperate to touch even if it was just to tuck a handful under the strings that made up her bodysuit—the more Elsa realized that she could not stand being just another spectator.
She pushed herself away from the bar and strutted towards the stage with a crawling sense of stubborn resolution. She pushed through the throng, snatched a few dollar bills from the dumbest, most entranced guy she could find, and waited. It was hard not to witness with rapture the allure in Anna's movements; how she threaded her fingers through her hair, how she arched and waved her body as she knelt on the floor. Not an ounce of confidence had been lost in her throughout the years. She still owned every bit of it.
There was a brief, faltering pause the moment Anna saw her while she moved on all fours across a stage covered in dollar bills. A misstep so slight it was hard to notice unless someone was paying close attention. Elsa took a step forward and with a glare still plastered on her face, she showed her the money like a jester shows his last card. She knew that Anna would not react with hostility, too proud to let in on the fact that such an action coming from Elsa was vexing.
It caught her off guard that Anna would glare back with eyes that appeared to be sexually charged as they partially hid behind a curtain of luscious copper hair. It fueled Elsa's frustration to a boiling point, and as soon as Anna was in front of her, she reached a hand out and, in a matter of seconds, had it placed securely behind her sister's warm, damp neck. She pulled her in slowly as if she, too, were performing, until her lips were so close to Anna's ear that they brushed over it and sent a shock down her body with every word she spoke.
"I'll show you the person I've become."
She let her go, not without noticing the shift in her expression; there one second and gone the next. Anna went back to her performance and Elsa went back to leaving.
A man who had been watching from a few feet away was shaking his head at her. "Not cool, bro," he said.
She ignored him and left without looking back. If Anna wanted to do this the hard way then so be it.
Two could play this game.