It was a shocking question, but Fift couldn’t lie. Shria moaning, and the soft blue fronds, and the electric feeling of connection, as if ze was making vem real, shaping vem with zir hands like the Trickster crafting vir lesser selves. As if ve was making zir real. Ze had never felt so powerful, or so vulnerable, or so close to someone . . . like they were under each other’s skin.

Ze nodded.

“What do Staids do?”

Fift frowned.

“Come on, I know you do something. I’m not talking about the Long Conversation, either. You have bodies. You . . .”

Fift shrugged. “We snuggle. It’s not the same thing.”

“But surely it’s kind of . . . ?”

“No,” Fift said, “it’s really not.”

“Show me,” Shria said.

“You know how to snuggle,” Fift said. “It’s nothing new. It’s how they carried you as a baby. Staids are just babies . . .”

“Now you’re being ridiculous. Show me.”

Fift frowned. Shria, lanky and fiery and beautiful and dangerous, snuggled up like an egg in a nest? It occurred to zir that ve was trying to even things out, trying to put vemself in a situation at least half as bizarre as that of a staidchild having sex.

“I don’t—”

Ve took zir hand, pulled zir closer. “Show me.”

Fift wrapped zir arms around Shria, scooted nearer, zir hip pressed against virs. Ze leaned down, put the side of zir head against vir chest, zir cheek on the softness of vir breasts. They were little breasts, firm, four of them in a row. Shria wrapped Fift up in vir arms. Ze rested against vem. Ze closed zir eyes.

Shria smelled good, fresh and mellow and rich, like something from the surface, or some newly invented spice.

Had Fift done something horrible? Was it horrible, what ze had done?

In the supper garden, weariness was sinking into zir arms, zir legs. Ze walked among the vines, reaching out to touch their velvety surfaces, the harder ridges at the edges of the cuts where the spice-gnats swarmed. Green light filtered through the leaves. The ceiling of the garden disappeared in a tangle of vegetation.

Zir agents were prodding zir, in the supper garden: homework, news, invitations, drab Long Conversation rankings gossip from zir not-really-friends in the local prep group. Ze pushed them away.

Shria stroked zir rough, stubbled scalp. Ze nestled against vem. Ze wanted to be closer still, to flow into vem, to merge, to be sheltered somewhere deep and safe inside vir fiery storm, but ze could not. There was an indissoluble border of skin and bone between them. Ze was trapped on this side of it.

Shria breathed deep. Fift could feel the muscles of vir back relaxing, one by one, under zir arms.

“It’s not so different at first,” Shria said. “This snuggling. From just embracing, I mean. But then if you wait, it actually—”

“Shria,” Fift said. “Hush.”

“Oh,” Shria said. “Okay.”