“Tonilicious, my man!”
They did a complicated handshake, then embraced with much grunting and back-slapping. Rusty wrinkled his nose, whiskers twitching, and Cya made a noise of disgust.
“Absolutely no taste,” they said.
“You can say that again,” Rusty agreed.
“Whatever,” Dex drawled dismissively. “You wouldn’t know peak cinema if it—”
“Gobbled your dick?” Cya finished before they’d thought better of it.
“The fuck?” Rusty cried.
“Well, that was vividly descriptive, but not in a good way,” Toni lamented.
Dex’s eyes grew huge as a grin broke across his face. “Alright, alright! Gobbling dick is catching on. High-five.”
“No,” Cya said, and Dex dropped his hand, looking crestfallen.
“Am I really that old that I’ve lost touch with the new generation’s slang?” Toni asked no one in particular.
“Who actually says that?” Rusty demanded.
Cya waved a hand wildly at the Lupyn. “Dex did!”
“I did,” Dex chirped cheerily at the same time. “Because I realized, like, a month ago that I’m maybe a little gay.”
“Really?” Toni placed a hand on Dex’s shoulder and squeezed. “You doing okay with the revelation? I know it ain’t always easy.”
“I still don’t think a gay revelation is reason enough to use the wordgobblein relation to anyone’s junk,” Rusty said.
“Agreed,” Zef—the Mantodea who worked in the kitchen with Toni, Glyma, and Willow—said miserably from the doorway, their antennas drooping. “I wish I had stayed in the kitchen so I could have avoided this conversation.”
“You think this is bad? He blurted it out on a busy train where everyone could hear,” Cya said with a hint of a whine. “It was horrible.”
Dex shrugged, tail wagging when Toni’s hand moved through his blond fur to cup the side of his neck. “Yeah, I’m cool with it. I just like pretty, femme people, I guess, even if they aren’t girls.”
“Dude, me too,” Toni beamed, giving Dex a good-natured shake. “You’re potsexual!”
Rusty sighed. “Pansexual, Toni.”
“Technically, attraction to femininity, regardless of gender identity, is considered gynesexual,” Zef added as they inspected the end of their long, white braid.
Dex made a face. “That makes me think of the gynecologist. I think I like pansexual better.”
“Oh, then that ain’t me because I’m into everybody.” Lips spreading to reveal his sharp teeth, Toni listed off on his fingers. “Short kings, tall queens, and all the in-betweens, baby.”
“I’m just into Gem,” Rusty said with a small smile, fingering the hem of hisFuck The Mancut-off.
“Or was it finsexual?” Zef cocked their head, milky, compound eyes staring off into the distance like they were thinking hard about something. “I do not remember. I must ask Bryce to help me search the internet to find out for sure. I no longer trust the search algorithm to provide porn-free results.”
Interest piqued, Toni pointed at Zef. “There’s a story there, and I wanna hear it.”
Zef’s gaze darted to Rusty, then quickly away. “Trust me, Toni, you do not.”
“You know, porn actually helped cement the gay stuff for me. I watched a femme dude in lingerie jerk off, and I was pretty into it,” Dex admitted. Out loud. Where other people could hear him.
Sometimes, Cya regretted ever changing to the day shift. “Oh my gods.”
