Friendly wished they would shut their mouths so he could listen to Day’s counting. His cock was aching hard from listening to it. ‘One hundred and twelve . . . one hundred and thirteen . . .’ He let his eyes close, let his head fall back against the wall, one finger moving back and forth in time. ‘One hundred and eighty-two . . . one hundred and eighty-three . . .’
I know Friendly kinda fills the "autistic ace" stereotype (not that that's necessarily a bad thing), but something I love about Friendly is how his experience of sexuality actually feels nuanced beyond just "he has no concept of sex". Friendly's sex drive is explicitly shown to be separate from his attraction, which is something I don't think I've ever seen depicted anywhere else so sympathetically. Friendly, for all his violence, is a pretty likeable character by First Law standards, he's competent and badass and a good person when he isn't employed not to be. If you've only read Best Served Cold (2nd quote), I think you'd be forgiven for thinking he was attracted to women, but in Sharp Ends: Tough Times All Over (1st quote), it's clear he has the same lack of attraction to men and women, and so it's the numbers that he finds sexy, not Day herself. He relates to the world through his special interest, as we see in his POV, where he's always counting and finding meaning in the numbers, so it makes sense that he would also sometimes find sexual pleasure in numbers too. I really love that about him!
