"That's not—look, guys like you don't get interested in guys like me, and they definitely don't get emotionally interested in guys like me."

"This one does," Ari shrugs. "You're too hard on yourself. You're cute, you're smart... You could get plenty of guys. If you downloaded Grindr you'd probably be drowning in it. I'm just the first guy who got to you. And I feel lucky as hell."

"Well but the thing is, Grindr isn't..." He wrings his hands and decides to take a bite of his neglected breakfast as a way to find time for his thoughts. "I didn't get with you just because of the sex? Or, it was just the sex but you just sort of showed up and shoved it in my face and I suppose I was weak." He shrugs. "But that's not, not really that interesting."

Ari nods. "I don't just like you because of the sex, either. You're smart and you're interesting and you have low self-esteem that I want to raise until you're downright obnoxious. You deserve more than you give yourself."

"Gee, thanks, Mr. Kaltmann, I'm sure being obnoxious is exactly what I need right now."

He's blushing slightly, though.

"Hey, you're gonna be an author. Comes with the territory."

"I'm sure J. K. Rowling is a lovely woman."

"But very self-confident."

"I've never met her, I wouldn't know." He shrugs again. "I suppose my life is in your hands now, anyway. What an eventful two days."

"Eventful's one word for it." Ari ponders. "I'm still curious about that Natural Sexuality Movement thing. I wonder if the quest will accept a Google search?"

"You probably won't find enough information on Google," he predicts.

"Yeah, but maybe I'll find a Vancouver location to find out more, or something. I'm going for it."

He takes out his phone and Googles natural sexuality movement Vancouver.

The first few hits are absolutely useless: Wikipedia hits for the sex-positive movement and the sexual revolution, some stuff about how pedophilia is a natural sexuality, a couple feminism papers...

He might have to go to page two.

He tries page two, not expecting much. There's nothing good on the second page of a Google search.

The Erogame is probably playing a prank on him, because page two does in fact contain a page on the "Natural Sexuality Movement"! The little blurb talks about a trans sex working woman of color called Talia Arrow, who became paraplegic on a racially-motivated confrontation with the police and created the movement after that.

Fascinating.

Ari reads with interest. Is there a base of operations of some kind in Vancouver? Or a meetup, or something?

The website is actually pretty crap and doesn't have much info. It says she was a student of Norville University, in California, and has a mission statement: to liberate peoples of all sexualities, genders, races, religions, ideologies, and social statuses from the shackles of society's smothering beliefs about sexuality and self-expression.

Ari gives up. "Looks like it's time to interrogate the owner of this fine establishment."

"No luck?"

"No luck," Ari confirms. "I found out that it's a movement dedicated to liberating people from society's views of sexuality, and it was started by a woman named Talia Arrow, but nothing about how to join or if there's a Vancouver chapter or anything."

"Shame. It's a very convenient place for you to have found, given that it's not even widespread enough to have an obvious chapter here."

"Isn't it just," Ari grins. "Excuse me, ma'am?" he says to their waitress.

Eric nearly jumps, and pushes his boner down to hide it between his legs.

The waitress walks over to them and—since from this angle she can see Eric's nudity—blushes heavily, but decides to not let that stop her. "Yes, how can I help?"

"I was wondering if I could speak to your manager about this Natural Sexuality movement? I'm interested in becoming a part of it, but I can't seem to find any information about its organizational structure, or if there's meetings, or anything."

"O-oh! Yes, I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about it. He really, really likes talking about it," she says, sighing longsufferingly.