The Duke of Uranium

If it's not a sore subject, where does Myx fit into this?"

"She'd look light on a beach, toktru, but you can trust me this time: Myxenna Bonxiao and I are completely, totally, utterly, toktru through, masen? Never again. She's not my demmy and I'm not her mekko and we won't be again. All over."

"Weehu, I'm sorry to hear that," Jak said. He did not believe a word of what his tove was saying. After all, it had never been true in all the many times that Dujuv had said it before. But though he didn't believe it, he knew that right now his tove needed sympathy, and Jak had plenty of practice at extending sympathy in the circumstances.

"What happened?" Jak asked. This time, he thought.

"Oh, some of it's happened so often that you could almost just say 'the usual,' masen? She just won't leave other heets alone, and she's always very sorry and acts toktru sweet and does outrageously kind and considerate things, afterward, and then I go running back. But I've decided that this time I'm never, never, never going running back. We'll still be friends and be in touch all the time, masen, because we have a long history and I adore the girl and all, and if either of us needs it the other one will be there, that goes without saying, and so forth, of course, but I'm not going running back. It's just too far beneath any reasonable semblance of my dignity.

"But anyway, look, Jak, we were talking about my career choice, and I can tell you're biting your tongue trying to support me, which toktru I appreciate more than I can say, because none of my family and none of my other friends are doing that. So what I can admit to you is what I can't admit to them: I dak the odds are rotten, but-I'm ambitious. Furthermore, thanks for the compliment but I'm not very smart, not even for a panth. The genies made me to be an athlete, cop, or soldier, not any kind of great brain. The jobs I could get in the more conventional line would be the Army (and I already told you how I feel about that), or asteroid pioneering (which means being out in the void for most of my life), or being a pokheet-hassling teenagers to keep them from doing stuff that looks like harmless fun to me."

Jak shrugged. "You don't seem crazy to me, Duj." "Too small a sample for a valid poll!"

The boys started at the sudden voice outside the door. With a soft ping, the booth door went transparent and Sesh and Myx were standing there. Jak clicked the unlock, the girls slid in beside the boys, and the door closed, locked, and opaqued again. Sesh grabbed Jak and kissed him passionately; she was a great kisser, so Jak stopped thinking about anything else except how good her tongue felt in his mouth and how nice her body felt in his hands. When they came up for air, Sesh had that soft, damp-eyed smile that always made Jak's heart pound.

Sesh nodded to her left, grinning, and winked at Jak. Myxenna and Dujuv were kissing, or rather Myxenna was kissing and Dujuv was pinned to the wall, but she was doing enough kissing for both of them. Sesh breathed in Jak's ear, "He's been all jealous and cranky lately, so she's trying to get him out of it."

"Might be working," he muttered back. "Either that or he's about to pass out from hypoxia."

While they waited for Dujuv to give in or Myx to give up, Jak enjoyed looking at Sesh; he couldn't imagine ever having a demmy he liked better.