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wine. “I’ll just have a beer,” I say to our exotic waiter. “What do you have on tap that’s cool and amber?”
    “I’ve got just the thing,” he says, smiling mysteriously. “Let me surprise you.”
    “Surprise away.” As he hustles off, I turn to Jonas. “Okay, now’s your chance.”
    “To do what? Watch you getting off on someone who’s mastered Nuevo Imagina fashion? Any fool can do that.”
    A small smile creeps up my face. “Jealous?”
    “No!” he says quickly. “Of a gender bender? Hardly.”
    “Good. I was thinking more you could even the playing field by telling me what’s bothering you.”
    “Even the playing field as in that topic we’re not talking about? I spill because you spilled?”
    “One and the same. And yes. You spill next. Take the heat off of me.” I smile.
    “Oh, it’s nothing. I just had words with Jenner before I left.”
    “What kind of words?”
    “Sharp and angry words. The kind that slice and dice.”
    “Who stabbed first?”
    “She did. She told me I haven’t been paying enough attention to her.”
    “Haven’t you?”
    “I always pay the same amount of attention to Jenner. How can you not? She demands it.”
    “Yeah, but is it ever unasked-for, spontaneous bursts of affection?” I pick up a fork and twirl it between my fingers.
    He blows his breath out between pursed lips. “Not for a long time.”
    “Well, I’m no expert in LTRs but I know they can go up and down—sometimes easy, sometimes work.”
    “Ours is all work. It’s like a construction project. Not only that, it’s so damn fragile that I have to wear gloves and whisper all the time. Some days I get it right and she’s kind. Some days I don’t and she’s a bitch. I just never know what’s going to set her off.”
    “You’re such a good guy, Jonas. I hate to see you getting yanked around by her. I feel protective of you, like a lioness.”
    “That makes me think I’m a child, V. Not what I was going for tonight.”
    “Sorry. You know I’m as loyal a friend as there is.”
    He flashes me a grateful expression. “That I do. We’ve been friends a long time. How’s the counseling job going, by the way? Is this the kind of thing you do with your clients? Get them to leak their innermost thoughts?”
    “Oh, sure,” I say, a little too quickly. “Exactly right. You got it.”
    “How long have you been doing it?”
    “Six months.” I scan for our waiter.
    “It beats the last job, huh?”
    “Yeah.” Come on waiter dude, come on !“Selling clothes to the rich and entitled wasn’t my cup of tea. I had a bad attitude. Good thing I quit first or else I’d have been fired.”
    “You make good money doing what you do?”
    “You could say that.” I’ve already pulled six figures. “I manage.”
    “Tell me again—where’d you get the training to do that kind of thing? Don’t you have to have a degree or something?”
    I’ve been so vague with details, Jonas seems to have endless question whenever we see each other. It’s getting harder and harder to keep the secret. Plus, I can never remember what I told him last time. “Oh, you know.” I wave my hand breezily in the air. “You can get any degree you want via contextual computing platforms.”
    He scoffs. “You got that right. The other day, I was reading about up and coming technologies. The newer chips are the size of a human cell. They can be inserted into your skin with nary a pinprick of sensation. My phone chip hurt like a mother when I got it inserted.”
    “Yeah, mine, too.” I finger the place behind my ear where mine is, remembering how long it took to heal.
    “Anyway, these new ones are connected to your home’s mainframe and they monitor all your habits. Once embedded, they surround your body with electrical impulses. And get this,” he says, sitting up excitedly. “The damn things reproduce inside of you. Once they’ve been planted, they grow like little invading weeds.”
    I shudder. “Why would