James reached across the table, stole a napkin neatly out of the stack by Mort's elbow - the ones not yet covered in scribbled calculations and diagrams, as opposed to the scattered ones Mort and Joy were still chattering avidly about - and started folding it neatly into an origami crane, looking at his hands instead of Aaron's face.

"You know, Aaron," he said slowly, "feel free to smack me down, but I get the impression you might like to know that I'm practically impossible to embarrass." He chuckled. He wasn't going to mention the time he'd spent exploring the San Francisco kink scene, at least not till he knew more about Aaron's embarrassment thresholds. "And I do know how to keep my mouth shut, contrary to appearances. If you want to talk about, y'know, whoever gave you a hard time or whatever..." Now he did look up. "I'm listening."