She reads the napkin. "Hello, Bar."

Hello.

"So, first drink's free? I'll take a recommendation."

Frothy pink thing!

She sips it. "Ooh."

I am so pleased you like it.

"Seems like a bit of a foregone conclusion." Sip.

"She has a knack."

"So if whether you're a sadist or masochist or not is private, how do you find someone to do something if you can't do it yourself?"

"There's venues. In person or online. Or it comes up among friends. And it's customary to attempt to flex a little on that sort of thing in a relationship - one person could take or leave a thing, other person wants it, they compromise."

"...I didn't mean for sex, I meant the magic."

"Interdimensional magic bar."

"Oh. Well, for us what magic a person has is dependent on whether they're a sadist or not and a masochist or not."

"Huh. Do the traits admit of self-modification or do they seem fixed?"

"Some level of self-modification. You can't just decide to be into something or not but there has been non-zero success at training it."

"Interesting. What does the magic do?"

"Sadists get plant biokinesis, masochists get animal biokinesis, and if you're neither you get null magic."

"Huh. In my world there's psions and mages, both are rare, and whether you are one and which are both random. Psions do things with mental and informational effects and mages do things with physical effects."

"Ooh. Comprehensive. I think masochists can sometimes manage mental stuff but it's rare."

"We're called eclipsed. Because we get our magic on lunar eclipses. Whichever one is nearest our twelfth birthday."

"Oh, that's a good name for a species."

"- no, the species is humans, it's just only some of us are magic."

"Oh huh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Eh. It's probably good there aren't that many of us, new eclipsed are dangerous."

"Oh?"