Aaron shrugged. "Well, yeah, I'm fairly involved in AVEN, and my last boyfriend was ace, too." He paused, struck by another pang of regret, and shook his head. "Anyway, no, I don't mind at all. It's... nice to talk about it with people who get it, you know? I get really stupid questions all the time, and people who don't listen to the answers."

Beside him, Joy, looking fascinated, scooted closer to Mort and began a conversation about slide rules that... well, frankly Aaron couldn't imagine what was interesting about slide rules but she seemed to like it, so whatever. He shrugged, and turned back to James.

"So, yeah, I have a lot of ace friends, and a good chunk of them are just as physically affectionate as you. Hell, I like... with my last boyfriend, and Joy, sometimes we'd just cuddle naked, because it felt nice, you know?"