"Do not do this tonight, Asher. I ask this as your friend, and as your mas- ter. When our guests are gone, then we will continue this discussion."

"Your word on that," Asher said.

"My word."

I nodded. "When we're not ass-deep in alligators, and I've had a few days to digest the news."

"Is this news to you, that I want him as my lover?" Asher asked.

I shook my head. "Truthfully, I thought you guys were doing it like bunnies behind my back. You know, the whole don't ask, don't tell policy. It never occurred to me that all the touching you did was with me."

"I thought you would see it as cheating," Jean-Claude said.

"With another woman, yeah, but I don't have the same equipment. I mean if guys do it for you, I don't have those parts. But it wasn't guys I thought I was sharing you with, it was Asher. He's not just one of the guys to us."

"Are you saying that Asher is your exception to the rule?"

"I'm not sure I had a rule, but I won't share you casually with anyone, any more than I'd expect you to share me. But I assumed that you and Asher were lovers, without me." There, that was the truth.

"Why did you assume it?"

I motioned at Asher. "Look at him. Look at the way he watches you."

Asher laughed. "Are you saying I am so adorable, how could anyone turn me down?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I am."

His face softened, and he came to stand beside me. "Oh, Anita, you make     my heart young again."

I took his hand in mine. "And sometimes you make me feel like such a baby."

"Pourquoi?"

"That I can take you both to bed, but I assumed you were doing each other behind my back, to save my sensibilities. It was a neat, clean solution, I thought. I didn't have to decide how I felt about you two being a couple, but we all got what we needed. Instead, Jean-Claude has been a very, very good boy, and you've felt neglected."

"Rejected," he said, and gave Jean-Claude a dark look.

I touched his face, turned him back to face me. "That was my fault, not his. He's right, Asher. You know me. I can ignore the elephant in the living room until I'm eyeball-deep in shit, but if you make me look at something before it's that big, sometimes I take it badly. If I'd walked in on you guys to-