"How about sex, or intercourse, those are nice technical terms."

"Alright," he said, "I thought you were having intercourse with both of them."

"Now you know different," I said.

"Yes," he said it, and his voice was softer, less angry.

I felt like I was missing something here. "What difference does it make whether I was having sex with one, or both?"

He looked down then, and wouldn't meet my eyes. "Could everybody leave us alone for a few minutes? Please."

Clair got up a little uncertainly. Dr. Lillian got up, and Fredo moved to follow her. Nathaniel had rolled out the dough enough that he was shaping the individual biscuits. The oven dinged, indicating it was preheated. He looked a question at me.

I wrapped my arms around Micah's arms, pulling him around me like a coat. "You can't kick Nathaniel out of his own kitchen, Richard, and I don't want Micah to go either."

"It's not his kitchen," Richard said, and he was angry again.

"Yes," I said, "it is."

Nathaniel turned back to his baking with a small smile on his lips. He'd already greased up the pans, so he began to arrange the thick doughy circles on them, ignoring us again.

Richard stood, and even though he had one arm bandaged up, I was suddenly aware of how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were. He was one of those men that never seemed as big as they are, until they got angry. "No, it isn't. It isn't even Micah's house. It's yours."

"They live with me, Richard."

He shook his head and grimaced, and made a low sound, not a growl, just frustration. "Micah is your Nimir-Raj, you had the same reaction to each other that Marcus and Raina had. Instantaneous melding, but Marcus didn't move into Raina's house. They couldn't help being attracted to each other, but Raina saw other people. They weren't a couple, not in that way."

"Raina wouldn't have known what monogamy was if it bit her on the ass," I said.

Dr. Lillian and Fredo were making for the door. Lillian grabbed Clair's arm as she went past, and took her with them. Richard didn't even seem to notice.

"Don't you dare talk about monogamy to me," Richard said.

"You may have gotten a peek inside my head, Richard, but I saw into yours, too. I'm not having sex with everyone you thought, but you're having sex with almost anyone that will have you."

"I'm looking for a new lupa," Richard said.

"Bullshit," I said.

Micah's arms were tense against my body. He laid his cheek against the side of my face, but he didn't say anything. He knew better.

"You always screw around when we aren't dating," I said.

"At least I wait until we aren't dating to do it. You always manage to fuck someone else while we're still an item."

I started to move away from Micah, but his arms tightened just enough. He was right. I didn't trust myself not to get more physical than was wise. Slapping Richard right that moment sounded so good. I stayed where I was, but it wasn't relaxing anymore.

"I can't argue that," I said.

"I don't mean Jean-Claude," he said.

"You broke up with me before I was with Micah the first time," I said.

He shook his head and then screamed, partly pain, and partly anger, I think. "Once I calmed down, I could have forgiven you about Micah. I'd seen it with Raina and Marcus, but you moved him in here. Even that, I would have let go, or tried to, but I thought you were screwing Nathaniel. I thought you were fucking him before you broke up with me."

"One, you broke up with me." I needed not to be held when I was this angry. "Let me go, Micah."

"Anita..."

"Let me go, I'll try not to do anything stupid."

He sighed, but he let his arms fall to his sides. I walked out just far enough not to be pressed to his body.

"Like I said, you broke up with me, Richard, not the other way around. You broke up with me, because, quote, you didn't want to love someone who was more comfortable with the monsters than you were, unquote."

He actually looked embarrassed. "That was really unfair of me, and I'm sorry."

He'd finally got me in the mood for a good fight, and he was apologizing, what kind of a fight was that? "Sorry about what, that you said it, or that you believe it?"

"I'd really rather this was just the two of us, Anita. Please."

I shook my head. "You had your chance to be alone with me, and you didn't want it. These are the hands that held me while I cried over you, they've earned the right to stay."

He nodded. "I guess fair is fair," he said, "but there are some things that you deserve to hear that they don't. If you ever let me be alone with you again, I have things you need to hear, but today in front of them, this is all you get. I thought you were cheating on me with Nathaniel before Micah ever came along. Now I know that wasn't true."

"What on God's green earth made you think I was doing Nathaniel that far back?"

"The way you looked at him. The way you reacted to him." He looked at me, and his expression asked, Why wouldn't I think that?

"I'm attracted to a lot of men, it doesn't mean I'm having sex with them." In my head, I added, just because you never pass up apiece of tail, doesn't mean I don't, but I didn't say it out loud. First, it wasn't entirely true, and second, the fight was winding down, I didn't want to wind it back up.

"I know that now, and I'm sorry." He glanced at Nathaniel, who must have put the biscuits in the oven while we were arguing, because he was starting to get plates down, and the pans of biscuits were nowhere in sight. "You asked me why if I'm having sex with Clair, I don't look at her the way you look at Nathaniel."

"I'm sorry, I had no right to say that, especially not in front of her."

"I started it," he said, "but the answer is simple. I don't feel for her what you feel for him."

I shook my head. "Why is everyone so determined that we're a couple?"

He smiled, and it was sort of sad, wistful, and bitter all at once. It reminded me of Micah's smile when he'd first come to me. "Because you're more of a couple right now without the sex than I have been with anyone that I've been sleeping with."

I didn't say, including Clair, because it was none of my business, and it would have been mean. I didn't want to be mean.

"Sex doesn't make you a couple, Richard, love makes you a couple." The moment it left my mouth, I would have taken it back. I was just sort of frozen there, afraid to look anywhere but at Richard's face, because I didn't know what my own face looked like, I didn't want to show shock to Nathaniel, but I didn't know what else to show. I hadn't meant to say it.

"You always do that," Richard said.

"What?" I asked in a small voice, that didn't sound like me at all.

"Fight, rail against it."

"Against what?"

"Love, Anita, you don't like being in love. I don't know why, but you don't."

I had no idea what to say to that.

"I'm going to check on Gregory. Either Damian's asleep, or he ate him." His words tried to make light of it, but his face and eyes couldn't pull it off. But he turned and left, vanishing into the dimness of the living room beyond.

The kitchen was suddenly very, very quiet. If Micah was still standing behind me, no noise betrayed it. I knew he was still there, but he must have been holding his breath, waiting for me to say something, do something. The trouble was I didn't know what to do.

Nathaniel walked past me without a word. He had an armful of plates, green glass, blue glass. He started laying them out on the table in front of the chairs. First a green, then a blue. He went around the table away from me, then laid the last one back at the head of the table within touching distance of me. I'd stayed like some kind of idiot, rooted to the spot, not sure what to say. I couldn't declare undying love, because it's not what I felt. It wasn't.