"It's a . . . vice that deserves a lot of attention," he allows, and then poorly conceals his reaction to the sex thing, which was just going to keep coming up, no matter what he did, wasn't it? To his credit, he did not flush, or at least not any more than could be blamed on the liquor.

He tried out various responses in his head and finally settled on, "Oh," which, he was quite sure, was not the right one. At least he hadn't spilled his drink this time. He was improving? Sort of?