<blockquote>“Okay!” says Wei Ying, already taking another customer’s order. “I’ll find you later! Remember, though, you have to be nice about my act – I thrive on praise!”
Wangji finds a table for three. He sits down, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on what remains of his virgin pina colada. He stares at it, morose and – for the first time in his life – unbearably horny. I am also a virgin, he thinks, as though a non-alcoholic beverage is in any way capable of reciprocating his sudden kinship with it, and tries not to think about other, considerably more naked contexts in which Wei Ying might be said to thrive on praise.</blockquote>
