Finished with changing, I went down the horse-riding equipment aisle. Pal was much better able to fight at his current size, so there was no point in asking him to shrink himself down to a size that would fit in the van. I’d probably be riding him the rest of the way to the university; having my butt wedged between his vertebrae was surely not that comfortable for him. Clearly he found my libido horrifying—hell, I was finding it fairly horrifying—and if I was going to get all juiced up the moment a stiff wind blew across my nipples, well, some extra padding between my muff and his fur would help us both maintain what was left of our dignity.
None of the saddles would accommodate his alien physiology, so I took a look at the saddle pads. I found a moss-colored SMx Heavy-Duty Air Ride pad that seemed flexible enough to conform to Pal’s back and that promised breathability and shock absorption. Farther down, I found their stock of saddlebags; I picked out a glossy leather model with spacious panniers deep enough to temporarily hold a rifle stuck in catty-corner. They had several types of leather gun scabbards, but since I couldn’t use an actual saddle there wouldn’t be any good way to secure one to Pal short of probably disastrous experiments with braiding his fur. Remembering the sting of the airborne grasshopper collision, I went to their riding helmet section and picked out a visored Troxel Cheyenne covered with embroidered chocolate leather. With a little luck, the padded fabric lining would keep most of the unpleasant memories from the leather at bay.
I slung the saddlebag over my shoulder and tucked the pad under my arm and headed for the front door.
“I’m going out to the van for a little bit,” I told Charlie and the Warlock in passing.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m going to drop all this in there for safekeeping until Pal gets back, and I’m going see if you have anything with a little more oomph than this Glock. And then I’m going to shut my eyes for a little while, because I’m tired.”
Charlie looked impatient. “We really need to—”
“Leave. I know. Gimme fifteen minutes of quiet time, okay? And then I’ll start looking for Cooper and Pal.”
I carried the tack out to the van. My fire went out halfway there. I got in the passenger side, shut the door, and climbed into the backseat. It was like an oven in there, even with the vent windows cracked. I tossed my backpack into the seat beside me, piled the tack on the floor between the seats, pulled one of the Mossberg shotguns I’d coveted out of its rack, and laid it on top of the saddle pad.
And then I sat there in the sweltering dimness, eyes closed, and focused on contacting Pal, hoping that the extra fifty yards would somehow make a difference.
Are you there? I thought. Hey, Pal, are you there?
Still nothing.
Keeping my eyes shut, I started trying to clear my head of the building panic and carnal thoughts that threatened to wreck my strained nerves. Breathed in, breathed out, slowly, rhythmically, just like my hapkido instructor taught us in concentration exercises. I pictured my mind as a smooth ocean wave rolling out to sea … and promptly imagined myself going down on the Warlock in the warm sand and foamy surf. Dammit.
There was nothing to do for it but take matters into my own hands. Hand, anyway. I unbuckled my gun belt and loosened the drawstring on my dragonskin pants so I could slip my fingers into my underwear. It was a hot mess down there, and I regretted bringing only a single change of underwear in my backpack. Buddha in a biscuit. At the rate I was going, someone might as well tattoo NO SELF-CONTROL right across my face and be done with it.
Everything was so slippery it was hard to get much satisfying friction going at first, but I leaned into it and bore down and pretty soon I was coming hard enough that I was pounding my head against the back of the seat in front of me to keep from crying out. I fell back, sweating, forehead hurting, stomach roiling again, legs sprawled. And suddenly aware that I stank of tang, and the moment I went back into the store the Warlock would know that I’d been pathetically jilling off in the van. Charlie would probably know, too. And so