He grabbed her wrist, and said, "No."

She jerked away from him. "Why is it no? Because she's here?" She pointed at me.

I hadn't known that Jason and Meng Die had had sex. It must have shown on my face, because she said, "You didn't know?"

I shook my head.

"We had a lot of fun, until you fucked him. Until you fed the ardeur off him."

I stood up, and Micah and Nathaniel moved with me. "I didn't know he was your boyfriend," I said.

"Meng Die doesn't have boyfriends," Jason said, "just people she racks."

"And what's wrong with that?" she asked.

"Not wrong, just not my thing."

"You enjoyed it, Jason, I know you did."

"You're good at fucking," he said.

"So are you," and she made it a purr. Not a cat purr, but that alto, sultry sound that some women can make. I've never been able to do it.

Jason grinned at her. "But sometimes I prefer to make love, not just fuck. I couldn't explain the difference to you."

She frowned at him, the sultry look slipping around the edges. "Making love, it's all just pretty words for fucking."

I glanced at Jean-Claude. "You couldn't teach her the difference?"

He gave an elegant shrug. "Some lessons come too late. She was much abused by the time I found her."

"No," Meng Die said, "no, my story is not for her. I want no one's pity, least of all hers."

Jean-Claude gave that Gallic shrug again, that meant yes, no, everything, and nothing. "As you like," he said.

"You just fuck Anita, too." She'd turned back to Jason.

He smiled, but gender this time. "Anita makes it impossible to just fuck her."

"What does that mean?" Meng Die asked.

"She was my friend, my good friend, before we ever had sex. You can't just fuck someone that's important to you. Because if you screw it up, you lose more than potential sex, you lose your friend. Her friendship was more important to me than the sex, so it had to be making love, not just racking."

"I don't understand you," she said.

Requiem's voice then. "Because sex is almost never casual for Anita, it makes sex with Anita almost never casual."

Meng Die shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I know you do not," he said, "and for that I am sorry."