Flirt(8)

“We got tired of him bitching,” I said.

Jason grinned. “He does like to bitch, O Leopard Queen.”

I was queen to Micah’s king, but I was still technically human and didn’t change shapes. Blood tests had proved I carried several different kinds of lycanthropy inside me, but I stayed human. The lycanthropy virus protected its host from all disease, which should have meant that I couldn’t catch a second kind once I caught the first, but my body seemed able to collect them. I was one of about forty people worldwide who had managed to be carriers of multi-strains but not shapeshift. We’d been the inspiration for the lycanthropy vaccine that had begun to be used worldwide. My bit for medical science. With every new animal, there was the potential that I could call that animal to me like a vampire. I was really trying not to do that again.

I turned to Nathaniel. “You recognized Bennington’s wife, didn’t you?”

He nodded, face serious. “She was a fur-fucker.”

“A what?” I asked.

Jason explained, “They’re like badge bunnies for cops, or group ies for bands. They just want to fuck us because we turn furry once a month.”

Nathaniel said, “She had money so she got private dances, but she was like most of the fur-fuckers. She seemed to think that we were animals and wouldn’t be able to resist our baser urges, as if because we have a beast inside us we can’t say no, or don’t have the right to say no.”

Jason frowned. “I used to do it after work, never for money, but just because a woman was hot, and she wanted me. But after a while it was as if they’d fuck the tiger in the zoo if it wouldn’t eat them, and they didn’t think of me as much different from that.”

I hugged Nathaniel with one arm and put my other arm past to draw Jason into the hug. “I’m sorry that people are so stupid.”

Micah leaned in at my back, and we did our best to do a group hug in the booth, which didn’t quite work, but still got the job done. Nathaniel and Jason were smiling when we pulled back, and that was the goal.

“Did anyone at the club cross the line with the wife?” I asked.

Nathaniel shook his head. “Jean-Claude’s really strict about that, so no. There are a few dancers and bouncers that will do the fur-fuckers, but she wanted one of us to do it in the private dance area right then. That was her fantasy and she wasn’t settling for fucking one of us later in a hotel room, or so she informed Graham, after he offered to meet her after work.”

Graham was a werewolf and a bouncer, not a dancer, but he was cute enough.

“A blow to his ego,” I said.

“Not as bad a hit as the fact that you keep refusing him,” Jason said, and he grinned, knowing it was a sore point with me.

I frowned at him, and then got back on point. “Did she get kicked out?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Security had to escort her outside, because she wouldn’t take no from us, and she just kept trying to up the price as if we were whores.”

I leaned my face in against his, not sure what to say, because when I’d first met him he had been a prostitute. He’d been a high-priced one catering to an elite clientele, but in the end there had been too many clients who wanted him because a wereanimal could take a lot of damage and still survive. It was too much rough trade, even for someone who enjoyed pain the way Nathaniel did.

“A lot of people think that about strippers,” Jason said.

“I know,” Nathaniel said.

“I thought we were supposed to cheer up Anita,” Micah said, “not be the gloomy ones.”

They both looked up, exchanged a glance, then Jason grinned at me. “I think we promised to flirt outrageously.”

“You said that, and just assumed I’d go along,” Nathaniel said.

Jason aimed the grin at him. “Won’t you?”

Nathaniel smiled, shrugged, and nodded.

“Then let the flirting begin,” Jason said.

I was a little nervous about what outrageously might mean, but I’d take silly and a little embarrassing over them being sad. But as usual the flirting confused me.

When Jason had said he and Nathaniel would flirt outrageously, I thought they’d meant flirting within our little group, but when the waiter came to our booth, the plans changed. The waiter started out very sure of himself: “I’m sorry that no one’s been to your table.” I was sitting beside Nathaniel, so I got a very good look at what happened to the waiter’s face when Nathaniel looked up at him. That’s all he did, just raise that face, and those eyes, and stare directly at the waiter—who went from reasonably intelligent and competent to stammering. No, I’m not joking. The waiter began to stammer, a lot of uhs , and hmms , and words not in their right order. Nathaniel, having noticed the reaction, smiled at him, which didn’t help at all. The waiter finally, in desperation, said, “Drinks, drinks, can I bring you drinks?”