“Both of you?” he blurted. Lust was back, impossible to disguise since he lay on his back. Incredulity came with it. Tarteshan women — even Tarteshan tarts — weren’t so brazen (he thought how Evillia had reminded him of smoothly moving bronze); nor were Tarteshan men. Not that Tarteshan men didn’t enjoy lewd imaginings, but they usually kept quiet about them.

The Highhead girls shook with more quiet laughter, as if his reserve were the funniest thing imaginable. “Why not?” Evillia said. “Three can do lots of interesting things two can’t.”

“But-” Radnal waved to the rest of the tour group. “What if they wake up?”

The girls laughed harder; their flesh shifted more alluringly. Lofosa answered, “They’ll learn something.”

Radnal learned quite a few things. One was that, being on the far side of thirty, his nights of keeping more than one woman happy were behind him, though he enjoyed trying. Another was that, what with sensual distractions, trying to make two women happy at once was harder than patting his head with one hand and rubbing his stomach with the other. Still another was that neither Lofosa nor Evillia carried an inhibition anywhere about her person.

He felt himself flagging, knew he’d be limp in more ways than one come morning. “Shall we have mercy on him?” Evillia asked — in Tarteshan, so he could understand her teasing.

“I suppose so,” Lofosa said. “This time.” She twisted like a snake, brushed her lips against Radnal’s. “Sleep well, freeman.” She and Evillia went back to their sleepsacks, leaving him to wonder if he’d dreamed they were with him but too worn to believe it.

This time, his drift toward sleep was more like a dive. But before he yielded, he saw Toglo zev Pamdal come back from the privy. For a moment, that meant nothing. But if she was coming back now, she must have gone before, when he was too occupied to notice… which meant she must have seen him so occupied.