followed the subconscious communications in her body language. At times he gave it a shot at reckoning location of tattoos in privet nooks of her anatomy, for intimate exposure. If it was a millennial, the waitress. For ladies from the capital-lettered generations—fretted with wear and worries—there also was a soft spot in his heart, and even for baby boomers he might casually rewind 60 years back and empathize her scamper to the date in her sleek nylon stockings and silly brimless hat.

He always was a ladies man and a good-humored sociopath, V was. And for the rest of the more and more diversified spectrum of those in quest for preferences emancipation, found he a sympathetic shrug, yes, over dramatic they are yet tolerable crowd.

There are no tastes but from Nature and whatever is is right. Right? Still, you can’t but feel sorry for a guy in possession of a choice vintage car, neglected and locked up in the garage, because the fucking Nature makes them drive some shit of a vehicle.

Can you love artificial dildos better than a partner fitting readily, thanks to the blissful tweaks sweated over and out by Nature for eons?.

But now we have a thriving industry branch with production lines, retail chains, managerial pundits that diligently secure accruement and steady growth of numbers of targeted consumers, the working places and a not negligible share in GOP.

V was not sure about trade unions at the work shop level but you may bet your bottom dollar that the national economy will not let emancipation down. Too late. Neither would medical care spurn the gold-eggs-laying hen of transvestism. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the thing’s arrived for good to satisfy the needs of the gourmets turning their genitals inside out every other season. Come to feel the change! The process easier than switching from the Microsoft to Linux or vice versa.

‘How do you dig it, babe? When I was a male this particular position was my fave.’

As for 2ic, he presently was far away from any badges on any breasts were them even of a topless top model taking his order. Not now! Nah! On reaching that particular point in ante-dinner preliminaries, all the badges and stuff in the world would be able to evoke neither frivolous thoughts nor fleeting day dreams in him, not of the most momentarily duration. Nope. Because 2ic was a straight, devoted, and stalwart foodman which made him blind to most gorgeous mantraps and bulletproof exempt from any side trips and unconditionally reflective flirting when he anticipated a dinner pending shortly.

At this particular preliminary point 2ic turned a lightheaded misty-eyed blob of lust up to his ears in his mind-blowing foreplay. The nervously jerky tongue flicked out an back between his working lips. The eager fingers slightly tapped and tickled his mouth corners, full of heated restlessness, both fingers and corners. Then the pudenda of menu was grabbed and his kindled gaze plunged into, tenderly attentive, dipping in ever deeper, flipping the beans of lines in the list. Oh, joyous moment of bliss! Let him choose the most succulent and yummiest bite from this here treasure trove. A life-long honey-moon has a foodman…

Sally went off after the ordered meal. 2ic sat back relaxed yet retaining his happy alertness.

‘Watch me and learn,’ instructed he V, ‘In the moments before you consummate the very juice of pleasure it’s worth to bring up some dismal thought, you know. A kinda skeleton at those hedonistic orgies in Old time Rome. To sharpen the feel of gratification.’

‘My groom-gift at you wedding will be a Skeletal System Atlas. And thank you for sharing the trick.’

‘Any time. That’s what friends are for, V, to make you radiantly illuminated, buddy. For a starter, contemplate the Malthusian Catastrophe we’re heading to.’

‘The guy who predicted imminent food shortages because of the population growth? I don’t buy spooky prophecies. The history most optimistically proves that knife-edge balancing had become the mankind's specialty and from each and every next-day plague or plight we always safely leap into a deeper shit. So keep the boogeyman for your grand-kids as a night bed story and stuff.’

‘He proved it mathematically!’

‘At the turn of 20th century mathematicians proved that 50 years later life in all major cities of the world would come to a crunching halt because of no riddance to droppings of all the horse needed for intercity transportation. Smart eggheads! Your pessimistic Fellow of the Royal Society, from the world populated by less than 1 billion, omitted taking in consideration the human race inbred mechanisms of self-preservation like mass shootings at the kindergartens and campuses, ethnic cleansing, slaughterhouse world wars, extermination camps and other suicidal means to whet your appetite.’

‘It’s the art of spicing that makes a chef from a regular cowpoke cook. Don’t dump the whole sack into one meal.’

In a slow melancholic move reached 2ic for his jacket to angle a pinkish pack of chewing gum. He extracted one stick, unwrapped it and, ruminating musefully, dropped the pack into the breast pocket in his shirt. Then 2ic shed off his muse and meaningfully winked at V.

‘Oops! Excuse my manners! Here you are!’

He glibly took from the same pocket a separate stick of chewing gum and outstretched his arm with offering to V.

‘The story is…’

‘Alec Taylor Jr.?’ Sounded close by.

2ic dropped the proffered stick next to the salt shaker on the tabletop while staring intently at the two muscled up jocks in official wear.

‘It’s me,’ said he.

The badge of 3 block letters flashed in a hefty hand.

‘Will you follow us, sir?’

‘What the…’ started V emphatically when the second of the artificially tanned body-builders interrupted, ‘Keep to order in the public place, sir.’ His left armpit was obviously more developed than the right.

‘Don’t, V,’ said 2ic, grabbed his jacket from the seat and followed the men.

V mutely glared after the short