He rolled his shoulders in a shrug.

“Ah, I’m afraid the urge has mostly pittered out. Starting a new hobby is difficult, after all. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Nisa struggled to keep her expression unchanged. "It isn't easy to do something so difficult. I suppose it takes inspiration. But do not touch Briar. I'm serious. If you do, I'll touch your lover, but first I'll start with her uncle, that boarding house woman. Any one else I feel will upset her." This wasn't her usual thing, she rarely made it personal. It's what made it so hard for people to connect her to the crimes.

There had been flickers, just the slightest hints of defensiveness sprinkled through Nisa’s latest toying with destroying all he cared about and then telling him that was how he preferred it.

But for the briefest of moments, he turned his head back to her with a look of utter, teeth-baring rage. He managed to reign it in to a lip curled in disapproval, but not immediately.

“Suit yourself,” he said, in what he hoped sounded like a boring resignation.

Nisa's eyes widened in surprise. "You're actually angry? You must really like her. Tell me what made you fall for her, she seems nice but very average."

Aslan didn’t bother to cover his groan of disappointment in himself.

“Sometimes, Nisa,” he started in a monotonous drone, “when a bird and a bee do things they’re not supposed to do together…”

He shrugged and glanced to the houses they were passing. Ugh, they had a few minutes yet of walking.

“She’s clever. Well-spoken.”

Hm. He should probably speak far less about things he liked, and the things about actual Nettie that Nisa might.

“Very … doting. Well-bred, knows how to handle herself in public.”

Nisa actually rolled her eyes. "Oh, brother.. I've been married. I know what sex is." She shook her head. "So you two do weird things together." She knew more about things along those lines than she wanted to say or remember.

Nisa nodded slightly as they walked. "Well, she can't be that great at handling herself in public seeing how she was today and that you possibly discovered her in a brothel. But over all she isn't that bad. You could have done worse. But what made you like her? Those aren't the things you tend to lean to from what I've seen."

Aslan shot Nisa a flat look. If under some sort of parallel circumstances, Aslan had been in Nisa’s position and Baba had thrown her husband at him? Hey. Aslan would have kept him. If Nisa had thrown her husband to him second-hand, all things given plus a requited attraction – he still would have kept him. The guy had a nice ass.

Profane things together, he was smart enough not to correct.

Didn’t raise to her defense, lest he draw attention to who she had been fretting over in public.

“And what do I normally lean toward, my sharp-eyed sister?”

Nisa rose her brow at the look, seeming to be confused by his reaction. She then shrugged. "You seemed to like people who weren't perfectly polite and didn't seem to care about breeding though I can understand you want someone to make things easier on you. At least that is how it seemed from my position, I could easily have misjudged. I also do not know if that is what you would have fallen for. But perhaps you are more superficial in your desires than I thought. Or perhaps she is far better in bed than I could imagine."

If she had known what he was thinking, she'd have glared at him and would have wished her old husband upon him, and everything that went along with him.

Three more blocks. Only three more blocks of this excruciating evaluation.

“There was a cross involved,” he offered offhandedly. “A rosary might have come into play, too, the first time?”

She looked exasperated and placed a hand to her face as she closed her eyes. "Enough!" She glared at him. "I don't want to hear the details on that. If you continue, I'll give you details of my first time and trust me, you can never clear your mind of the mental image that will remain with you forever."