I asked her how many people she'd been with.

I asked it the way I asked her things I actually wanted to know — directly, on the couch, Sunday afternoon, nothing else going on. She had her phone. I had mine.

She put her phone down.

I hadn't planned it. It had been sitting in my head for a couple of weeks and Sunday gave it room to surface. Once it was up I said it before I had a reason not to.

"How many people," I said, in case the question needed clarification.

"I understood the question."

She looked at the ceiling. Running an actual count. It took longer than a normal person's count would take.

"Fourteen hundred and seven."

Fourteen hundred and seven.

Nine hundred years. The nature of what she was. The number tracked. It was still a number I needed a minute with.

"Distributed across nine centuries," I said.

"Yes."

"Average of one and a half a year."

"You're doing the math."

"I do the math."

"The distribution isn't even. Some decades were busier. The 1340s were a write-off. I was busy in Venice for most of the seventeenth century."

Fair.

"Was there anyone," I said, "where it felt like this?"

She knew what I meant. What had happened between us — the feed running between equals instead of predator to prey. Something matching instead of draining.

She was quiet for a long time. Longer than usual for her.

"No. Before you it had never happened."

I sat with that.

"In nine hundred years."

"In nine hundred years."

Something in me matched something in her. Close enough that the feed stopped being a draw and became something else. Nine hundred years of it never finding a match. Then it had.

"How many since me," I said.

She looked at me. She knew what I was asking.

"Zero. It's specific now."

Specific now. Oriented. Not available to run in any other direction.

"Okay."

She was watching me.

"That's all," she said. Checking whether I'd heard her.

"That's not all. That's a lot. Give me a minute."

She gave me a minute. Actual silence. She was good at that.

I thought about fourteen hundred and seven. I thought about zero. I thought about what those two numbers described, in that order.

"Nine hundred years," I said. "And it's never been specific before."

"No."

"And now it is."

"Yes."

"Okay," I said, but differently than the first one.

She had that expression. Warm and uncertain at the same time. She was usually certain about things. This was the face of someone who had said something true and hadn't decided yet what to do with it.

"Okay," she said back. The way she'd said it in the early weeks. Returning the word I'd given her.

I put my arm around her. She let me.

The B Line ran somewhere under the street. It was a Sunday afternoon.

---

That evening she came to bed the way she did when she'd already decided what she wanted.

She stood up from the couch and shifted to true form. Crimson skin, white hair, horns and wings. She took her clothes off slowly, one piece at a time, watching my face. Her tits heavy and round, the silver nipple rings catching the light. The tattoos curving under them, along her hips, trailing down toward her pussy. She turned around.

She bent over the edge of the bed. Hands flat on the mattress. Her ass round and firm, her tail swaying above it. She looked at me over her shoulder with the amber-gold eyes.

"I want you in my ass tonight. I've been thinking about it since this morning."

I got behind her. She reached back and spread her ass with both hands, showing me where she wanted me. Her pussy was wet, slick running down her inner thighs, but she was guiding me past it. Her ass was already slick too — she lubricated herself. One of the things about what she was.

I pressed the head of my cock against her and pushed in. Slow. Past the ring, the tight heat of it, and she pushed back to take more. I watched my cock slide into her ass inch by inch until my hips were against her.

"All the way," she said. Her voice dropped. "That's what I wanted."

I fucked her ass from behind. Long strokes, watching my cock go in and out of her, the crimson skin of her ass, the slick of it. Her tail curled around my wrist. The slap of my hips against her ass. She gripped the sheets and her wings spread and her sounds were raw. Not English, not anything, just sound.

She looked at me over her shoulder. "You're the only one who's ever made me feel this. In nine hundred years. You." She pushed back to meet my thrust. "Harder. Fuck me harder. I want to feel your cock in my stomach."

I went harder. She told me to keep going. She told me she was going to come from my cock in her ass and she wanted me to watch.

I flipped her onto her back. Legs up — ankles by her ears, gymnast-flexible, effortless. I pushed back into her ass and fucked her. Her tits moved with every thrust, heavy, the nipple rings swaying. She looked up at me with the amber-gold eyes and said my name. Not Owen-the-target, not Owen-the-anomaly. Just Owen, like it meant something she hadn't named yet. Her tail wrapped around my thigh and pulled me deeper.

She came hard. The old language — raw and long, her back arching, her wings spreading on the bed. I could feel her clenching around me.

I came inside her ass.

She didn't let me pull out right away. She held me there, her legs still up, her tail around my thigh, my cock softening inside her ass. Then she pushed me onto my back and moved between my legs. She took my cock in her mouth and licked me clean — her tongue working from the base to the head, slow and deliberate, tasting herself and my cum on me. She sucked the head gently, getting everything. She looked up at me while she did it with the amber-gold eyes.

"Fourteen hundred and seven," I said. "And none of them got this."

She didn't answer. Her tail settled against my ankle.

---

After, she stayed. Her head on my chest.

"Zero," she said, quiet, not quite to me.

Just that word. I said it back.

She moved slightly closer.

Outside, Koreatown on a Sunday evening. Inside, the apartment.

I thought about fourteen hundred and seven. I thought about one.

I fell asleep while I was still thinking about it.