Jay read the next sign.

"What about the ‘Southern bush pig’?" he asked. "That’s sexier, right?"

"You really don’t know the answer to that question, do you?"

Jay blushed the color of raw meat. Doug had to look away. An awkward moment passed between them like a cripple.

"At home you feed on cows," said Jay finally. "Cows are sexy?"

"No, it’s all…In my head the blood drinking is about either romance or food. It’s complicated. The perfect animal…would be, like, a real pretty doe."

"Or a unicorn," said Jay.

"Don’t be stup—" Doug began. "Okay, yes. Or a unicorn. But this zoo doesn’t have any unicorns, and I don’t know if a doe weighs enough. I might kill it."

"A tiger?"

"It might kill me."

"Um," said Jay, casting about for an idea. "Ooh! This way."

"A panda?"

"Sure," said Jay. "It’s at least sexier than those pigs, right? And it’s big and gentle. They’re like huge babies."

"Huge bear-shaped babies." Huge, endangered bear-shaped babies, Doug realized with a pang. But what with all the bamboo-eating and never-mating-in-captivity, he thought they might be endangered because they were just kind of stupid.

"Yeah, but they’re not really bears, are they? I think they’re more closely related to the raccoon or something," said Jay, but he didn’t look sure.

The raccoon comment was undoubtedly meant to reassure Doug, but it only made him think of rabies and bandit faces and those sharply determined little hands. He leaned forward, his stomach against the railing, and searched the enclosure.

"I don’t see it," he said.

"They probably have someplace in there where she stays at night," Jay said, pointing to a sort of cave opening in the back wall.