“Why do your friends flirt with me?” Tiernan asked me dryly.
“Because you're sexy,” I said back in the same tone. “Would you prefer to be ugly and have no one flirt with you?”
“No, I'm fine with the flirting,” he took another sip of his drink.
“I need to have a word with Brandon,” Karmen pursed his lips. “He shouldn't be using the word fag. Not in reference to gay men and certainly not in reference to straight. It's an offensive word.”
“Oh,” I blinked, surprised that he was so sensitive about it. “Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's a horrible word.”
“I mean there's so much more creative words for gays,” Karmen mused. “There's; puff, queer, jobby-jabber, butt pirate, lemon, Peter puffer, nellie, poofter, chickenhawk, bear, and my favorite... Twinkie. That's what I am,” he ran a hand down his slim physique, “a Twinkie.”
“I'm sorry,” Tiernan was staring at Karmen like he'd started speaking Chinese. “Did you just say that you're a Twinkie?”
“Yep,” Karmen smiled proudly.
“I think my understanding of what a Twinkie is must be incorrect,” Tiernan frowned.
“If you think it's a golden spongecake filled with cream, then you're not mistaken,” I said to Tiernan.
“Oh, then I fail to see the correlation,” he looked over Karmen.
“I'm slim, beautiful, and full of-”
“Okay, we get it,” I interrupted before Karmen could finish.
“So, about these witches...” Karmen's voice fell away as he stared at something over my shoulder.
I turned and saw Raza coming towards us with Cat. Cat bounded across the room, people parting for her like the sea for Moses. She had dropped her glamour and appeared as she was; a giant puka. Having a dragon-djinn in tow didn't help either. Karmen's hand shot out before I could stop him and the next thing I knew, Cat was levitating off the ground, her legs still pumping but getting her absolutely nowhere.
“Who the hell let a puka in here?” Karmen's voice lost it's gay melodic quality and dropped into commanding councilman tone. “And who is that?” He pointed to Raza.
“I let the puka in, you schmuck,” I smacked Karmen. “Can you put Cat down please?”
“Cat?” He gaped at me while Cat just gave up running and started to enjoy floating. She plopped herself down but ended up in a slow spin.
“Mytwilightpuka,” I waved towards her. “She protects me.”
“You named a puka Cat?” He asked in horror.
“After my mother,” I nodded.
“You named apukaafter yourmother?!” He nearly shrieked.
“You wanna tone it down? We're already attracting a lot of attention with your floating fairy dog trick,” I waved a hand towards Cat.
“Oh, sorry,” he let Cat down and she ran over to us and sat beside me. “Hello,” he said to her.
She nodded.
“She just nodded at me,” Karmen gaped at Cat.
“She's a fey animal,” I gave his shoulder a pat.
“But, Seren, a puka?”
“She's a twilight puka,” I said again. “A blend, like me. She's a little less violent than her cousins. Notice that she has gray fur instead of black.”
“Twilight?” Karmen lifted a brow. “So like a hybrid? Like a zebra?”
