Vesic took a second sip of her Riesling while she waited. Shego’s was busy tonight and she had been lucky to get a table. Then again, attractive elven women with plenty of nuyen often got lucky that way.

Cleo arrived at the table and slid into her seat. The Asian elf was dressed in her typical hunting clothes, this time a revealing semitransparent dress with strategically placed nanofibre patches whose clarity could probably be changed on the fly.  Clearly she wasn’t planning to spend a lot of time at the table talking. Vesic could already see the dark eyes wandering across the dance floor, searching for likely prey.

Cleo looked at the white wine and made a face, “Still have a taste for the old country, hey?  You should really try to branch out into some new experiences, Vesic.”

The dark-skinned woman shrugged and took another sip. “Old love dies hard, Cleo.”

The Asian woman focused her attention on her friend’s face and a knowing smile played across her lips. “I hear someone has a new love these days.”

Vesic sighed inwardly. This was not a conversation she wanted to have now. “We’re just old friends.  No-one you would know.”

“Pretty different from your usual type”, remarked Cleo.  "Short.  Round ears.  He’s nothing like Rodr…."

Vesic interrupted by grabbing her friend’s hand and squeezing hard. “We’re not going there, Cleo!  That part of my life is over and I’m not going to talk about it.”

“Fine, whatever.  So what’s the deal? Is he rich or something?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Cleo.”

“Not rich, huh?  Powerful?  Knows the right people?”

Vesic sighed again, this time out loud.  "Cleo…"

“What?  Is he good in bed then?”

Vesic could see that her friend was not going to be derailed from this. Better to play along before her questions got too uncomfortable. “Well…”

“Hah! I knew something was up.  But, Japanese guys are usually… under endowed.”

“The size of the rifle is not as important as where you aim it.” Vesic added a sly smile for good effect.

Cleo grinned knowingly and once again scanned the dance floor and obviously saw something she liked.  She rose, excusing herself, and headed off looking like a dark-haired, fair-skinned cat on the prowl.

Vesic had another sip of wine. Cleo would never understand that there were other things to get out of a relationship besides sex, and no amount of explaining was going to help.

As she watched the other woman enthrall a young man, Vesic calmly placed a call. Her friend would be occupied for the evening, and she wasn’t about to waste a perfectly good wine buzz.

Might as well get in some target practice too.