Bette leaned back and crossed her legs. She fingered her glass of wine, quietly thinking.

“Alice, I think you should go get that chimp! You’d make a good home for him. He liked you!” Bette said with a serious smile.

“Hmmm,” Alice thought. “He did stick his lips up to the bars and blew me a kiss when you went to find Angie and Hel.”

“Well, there you go,” Helena said. “I think Bette’s right. You’d make the monkey a good mate.”

Alice began to consider the idea. “I … I … I don’t know. He was kinda cute, wasn’t he?”

Bette and Helena smiled.

“Yes, sweetie, he was very cute,” Bette agreed.

“Great! You get the hot British girl, and I get the fucking chimp!” Alice said.

Helena blushed.

“Well, you are hot. And you are British. And Bette’s gotcha. Right?” Alice pointedly asked Helena.

Fluffy scurried through the living room.

“Kitty! Come backs here! Wanna kiss you!” Angelica screamed, running past the women, chasing her new kitten.

They all laughed.

When the laughter died down, Alice was quick to ask. “So?” She looked back and forth from Bette to Helena and back and forth again.

“What do you want to know, Alice?” Bette asked.

“I wanna know how you two hooked up! All you told me this morning was that you had spent the night with Helena Peabody,” Alice replied, hunching forward in her chair. “I thought you two hated each other. Wait! Oh, right! Passion. The passion of hatred. Disguising your long attraction to one another. Heheh. How could we all be so blind?” Alice said, plopping back in her chair and slapping her hand to her forehead.

Bette and Helena looked at one another quizzically.

“We didn’t hate one another,” Helena said, amused, her hand clasped to her chest.

“Hah! Of course you did!” Alice disagreed vehemently. “So what happened last night? Where were you? How did you meet up?

Bette and Helena exchanged quick glances, wondering who should answer the rapid-fire questions.

Bette began with a smile. “Well, I was having dinner with Helena’s mother.”

“And I came in while they were talking about my pussy.”

Everyone was smiling.

“And Helena bought me drinks and touched my hand.”

“And Bette looked sexy and inebriated.”

Then the conversation grew ugly.

“I did not! I was not intoxicated!” Bette refused Helena’s accusation.

“Yes, you were,” Helena objected.

“You smoothed your foot across my leg!” Bette exclaimed.

“I most certainly did not! I grabbed your hand, but I did not play with your leg!” Helena huffed.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Alice said, setting her glass down and patting the air to calm them.

Bette and Helena ignored her.

“You couldn’t wait to get me in your car alone!” Bette argued.

“You couldn’t wait for me to massage your shoulders!” Helena charged back. “And put my hand between your legs!”

“Jesus!” Alice screamed. She whistled loudly! “Gawd! Have I made my point!”

“What point?” Bette and Helena simultaneously.

Alice slumped back in her chair, exasperated, as Bette and Helena scooted to their far corners of the couch. They set their glasses on the end tables and crossed their arms.

Alice sat and watched them for several pensive seconds. Then she jumped up.

“Well, seeyalaterbye!”

“Where are you going?” Bette and Helena asked.

“I’ve had second thoughts.  To get my lover, Harry!” Alice grinned, turning the doorknob and making her exit.

Bette and Helena looked at one another.

A phone rang.

“That’s mine!” they both said, jumping for their purses.

“Helena?” a voice said.

“Yes,” Helena answered.

Bette closed the phone in her palm.

Then it rang.

She opened it and held it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Bette?”