He raised his eyebrows at her protest and shot her a look as if to say oh, really, you don't? He was just kidding, of course, and it came naturally to kid about such things. The little warning bell that this wasn't exactly the sort of thing friends usually talked about (or the sort of thing Zelda would be happy to hear about, if he were to tell her) didn't come until a few half-seconds later, and by then it was too late for inhibitions. Maybe he was a little less than sober, too, and that didn't help matters.

"I wouldn't say no reaction," he said. He was vaguely aware that this was a weird thing to be insecure about, how much of an erection he had or hadn't gotten when a woman he had no desire to sleep with undressed in front of him, but her dismissal felt vaguely like an assault on his manhood, which he felt obliged to correct. "And anyway, I was dying, so I had other things on my mind. But anyway — moot point," he concluded, as his brain finally caught up with his mouth and he realized he ought to shut up.