Consider the panther well and truly teased.Raven had been with many “progressive” men since she first “went online.” They had all been sleek, hip and wicked funny – more than a few, in fact, with genius-level intellects – and her soul ached to be a dancer in their mad, noble, intoxicating dream. But, no matter how much that ache ached, and no matter how failed and dishonest her trembling weakness made her feel, she had always selfishly withheld a small, secret part of herself, even from her blog-leader, Hillaire. A part she had protected and nurtured like the pearl in an akoya ever since the day she found out Rock Hudson was gay. The part called “sex.”
Hillaire, whose proud. idealistic mind was yet no stranger to empathy, detected the subtle tremor in her embrace. “Is everything all right, Raven?”
“Of course,” she said, lyingly, as she brushed her flowing hippie-hair back from a face that fiercely bespoke generations of benignly-enforced social diversity. “Will I see you tonight at the blog-slam?”