The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head (6 page)

“How do you keep your clothes so clean?”
Fiona asked.

“I have these incredible machines that do it
for me,” Gieo snarled. “I’m thinking of calling them a washing
machine and a dryer.” Gieo rolled onto her side, facing the wall,
with her back to Fiona.

Fiona couldn’t keep from staring at the
delicate curve of Gieo’s hips, the slender waist hugged by the
jacket, and the artistic line where her shapely, slender legs met
the round swell of her ass. Something long dormant tried to claw
its way out of the darkest recesses that Fiona had banished it to;
she wanted Gieo, not just sexually, although, at the moment, carnal
lust dominated her thoughts about the purple-haired pilot, but
wanted to be around her, to listen to her talk, to have Gieo’s hand
resting on her thigh when she drove. It was difficult to admit how
lonely she’d been, and even more difficult considering the first
person who might quell the loneliness was exotic, intriguing, and
hotter than the Arizona sun.

“Do you want to make out?” Fiona asked and
nearly pistol-whipped herself immediately after for how
astoundingly stupid and childish the words sounded when left to
hang in the air.

Gieo rolled over onto her back with a grin
that looked to be comprised of equal parts delight, disbelief, and
sarcasm. Fiona felt her cheeks warm with a furious blush. She
couldn’t remember the last time anyone or anything had made her
blush, let alone something as innocuous as a grin. Every second
Gieo went without actually saying yes or no to the request
compounded the embarrassment until Fiona was on the edge of jumping
out of her own skin.

“Sure,” Gieo finally said. She reached up
with both hands, grabbed the front of Fiona’s denim jacket, and
pulled her down until their lips met.

What Fiona perceived as her relative sexual
inexperience, compounded by six years of rust, left her breathless
and stunned by the pilot’s verve. Her primary concern, aside from
figuring out how to breathe effectively without actually letting
her lips part from Gieo’s for one second, was to get more
skin-on-skin contact. Gieo seemed to sense Fiona’s desire, and
teased to stoke the fire. She squirmed coquettishly away from
Fiona’s touches, refused to relinquish her hold on the jacket Fiona
desperately wanted to be rid of, and put her own weight into the
balancing act required of Fiona’s arms to maintain the kiss.

Without another option left to her, Fiona
broke the kiss long enough to hiss the single word on her mind,
“Evil.” In a surprisingly strong move, Gieo used Fiona’s bodyweight
against her, knocked out one of her support arms, and flipped the
much taller woman onto her back, rolling easily on top to pin
her.

Gieo’s bare leg thrust its way up between
Fiona’s, rubbing her knee meaningfully into the crotch of Fiona’s
leather pants. “You passed on fucking me,” Gieo whispered, her lips
flickering over the tip of Fiona’s nose as she spoke, “but you can
dry hump my leg since you’ve clearly changed your mind.”

Fiona hated the change in power dynamic. She
held stock still, refusing to give an inch. She couldn’t shoot the
pilot, which was usually how she brought power struggles to a
close, but she couldn’t give in either. Gieo made Fiona’s decision
not to accept the offer all the more difficult by leaning down to
begin kissing her again. Fiona closed her eyes, thrilling at the
sensation of the pilot’s insanely soft lips, the teasing of the
talented, darting tongue against hers, and the tickle of Gieo’s
braids along the sides of her face. With little more thought than
is given to breathing, Fiona’s body responded of its own accord,
and she began writhing against Gieo’s leg in slow gyrations.

Chapter 5:
A spiritual
education.

Nearly a week’s
time passed in a strange haze of what might be considered a
courtship in the peculiar terms Fiona understood. They shared a
bed, shared meals, and shared free time talking about everything
under the sun. Gieo only ever let Fiona do as she’d done the first
night with heavy making out until Gieo allowed Fiona the chance to
rub herself lewdly on the pilot’s leg, always to climax, and never
with skin against skin contact. The good news, if there was any,
was that Fiona was getting exceptionally good at the dry humping
act; the bad news, which was all Fiona could focus on, was that
Gieo had taken complete sexual control of her.

Every morning Ramen flitted away to Gieo’s
workshop to retrieve an item or two until the roof of the saloon
looked like a proper tent-city workshop. While Fiona hunted, Gieo
busied herself on converting Mitch’s truck to the new power source
with the help of the items retrieved by Ramen. Every evening when
Fiona returned, Gieo took her up to their shared room for another
leg rubbing. In a strange, Pavlovian twist, Fiona began finding
herself aroused at just seeing or thinking about Gieo’s right
leg.

Fiona considered this peculiar conditioning
she’d undergone on Sunday morning as she watched Gieo get dressed
before breakfast. The pilot wore a brown, leather pencil skirt,
matching knee-high boots, and a white, lace Lolita blouse. Fiona
couldn’t help but watch Gieo’s legs hungrily when she planted one
foot on the desk chair to zip up the back of one of her boots.

“I’m sick of eating in the room,” Gieo said.
“Let’s go downstairs for breakfast.”

Fiona was in no position to argue or
otherwise find fault with the plan. She followed the pilot
downstairs to the busy saloon floor; two dozen of the rougher
looking customers of Tombstone gathered around the tables. The
grizzled men sat hunched over their respective plates, shoveling
food into open mouths with forks or bare hands. When they spotted
Gieo and Fiona at the top of the stairs, table manners suddenly
rippled through the room, straightening backs and adjusting utensil
use. Mitch cleared a table as a group of three bikers left.

Once they were settled at the table, Mitch
brought two metallic plates of what had likely been eggs, potatoes,
bacon grease, and tomatoes before it was all stewed together. “The
truck’s looking great, Gieo,” Mitch said.

“Thank you.” Gieo settled a scrap of cloth
over her lap as a napkin. “It’s going to run even better.”

Fiona paid little attention to Mitch, keeping
her eyes roving across the room as she carefully brought tiny bites
to her mouth.

“It looks…good,” Gieo said of the food before
Mitch took his leave.

They ate in silence for a short time before
Gieo pieced together what was oddly mechanical about Fiona’s fork
use—she was eating left-handed. Craning her neck to see around to
Fiona’s right side, Gieo spotted the reason: Fiona had her right
hand on the butt of her pistol.

“So…did your mom ever cook you breakfast?”
Gieo asked. “I had a tiger mom. She would make me breakfast, but
then would drill me on differential equations the entire time until
I didn’t feel hungry anymore.”

“My mom was a fame whore who tried to take my
success for her own,” Fiona said without pulling her eyes from the
room. “She used to call me her chubby little sister and seldom woke
up before noon, so, no, breakfast wasn’t really a priority growing
up.”

“Wow, that’s fucked up,” Gieo said. “Where
was your dad?”

“Sperm donor,” Fiona corrected her. “Dad
would imply he did something beyond shoot his genes into my mom and
then start sending child support payments through an
intermediary.”

“Yeah, well my dad was a robot,” Gieo said.
“He was only programmed with three English statements: Stacy, do
homework! Stacy, practice piano, now! Stacy, stop all you being
weird! And volume was stuck at eleven. He was a little more
articulate in Korean, but only a little.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty…wait, who is
Stacy?”

“Me,” Gieo said. “I never liked it though, so
I changed it to Gieo when everyone who knew my real name was killed
by the Slark.”

“I kind of like Stacy,” Fiona muttered.

“Aw, I kind of like you too, sugar.” Gieo
leaned over and kissed Fiona on the nose.

“Why Gieo?” Fiona asked, a little flustered
by the public display of affection.

“It’s Korean for…”

A loud throat clearing on the other side of
the table cut Gieo’s explanation short. They both looked over to
find an enormous rectangle of a man, right down to his flattop hair
cut, standing with a plate of food in hand and expectant expression
painted across his moon pie face. What looked like baby fat had
followed the man into adulthood, giving him a youthful appearance
along with something of a doughy physique despite his obvious
attempts at building as much muscle as possible. The man’s affected
jovial demeanor came complete with a grin that gave him something
of a simple quality.

“What do you want, Rawlins?” Fiona
snarled.

“Officer Rawlins.” The man offered the meaty
palm not holding a plate of food to Gieo as if to shake.

“Officer of what?” Gieo asked, shaking the
offered hand.

“California Highway Patrol,” Rawlins
explained, his chest puffing out in the process.

“Like Paunch and John?” Gieo asked.

“Nope,” Fiona said, returning her attention
to her food. “He was the car kind.”

“This seat taken?” Rawlins asked, pointing to
one of the empty chairs.

Fiona stretched her long legs out under the
table and gave the chair a hard enough kick to send it tumbling
backward at Rawlins’ feet. “Take it,” she said.

Rawlins carefully righted the chair and sat
in it, scooting up to the table.

“No, I meant pick the thing up and take it to
your own fucking table,” Fiona said.

“There aren’t any more tables,” Rawlins
explained.

“Then shove it up your…” Fiona began.

“What do you do now, Officer Rawlins?” Gieo
interrupted.

“I’m Zeke’s executive officer,” Rawlins
explained, “which is why I kept the title.”

“He means secretary,” Fiona said.

“Say, are you a church going lady?” Rawlins
asked of Gieo, although it was clear Fiona’s barb had found a soft
spot from the flash of anger in his blue eyes.

“I’m a Buddhist,” Gieo said. “Are you talking
about the Hawkins House church?”

“No, not those heretics,” Rawlins said.
“We’ve got a little congregation that meets in the old credit
union. We’re nice folk with a little singing of hymns and bible
study most Sunday afternoons. You should come by and check it out,
both of you.”

“What part of Buddhist didn’t you
understand?” Fiona snapped.

“She’s a rattlesnake, isn’t she?” Gieo leaned
over, wrapped an arm around Fiona’s shoulder, and gave her a soft
kiss on the cheek.

“Could you stop that?” Rawlins jovial
demeanor dropped to a stern attempt at authoritarian.

Fiona’s eyes flashed with trouble, catching
on the opportunity. “Stop what? Oh, you mean stop
this
?”
Fiona took Gieo’s face in her hands and kissed her deeply. The
pilot allowed herself to be drawn into the kiss, playing an equal
role in the making out. Officer Rawlins stormed out of the saloon
in a huff, leaving his steaming plate of food untouched at their
table. Gieo broke the kiss and gave Fiona a hard slap across the
face.

“Whoa, what was that for?” Fiona asked.

“Using me to make that guy jealous.”

“Okay, firstly, it’s not like you weren’t
enjoying yourself; secondly, I wasn’t using you to make him
jealous; and thirdly, ouch.” Fiona reluctantly turned her attention
back to her food with her left cheek still stinging.

“What was his deal anyway?”

“He’s asked me to marry him a half-dozen
times,” Fiona said.

“And you told him?”

“Go away or I’ll shoot you.”

Gieo gave her a look that just screamed,
aaaaaaannnd
?

“How much more evidence do you need that I’m
a lesbian?” Fiona dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud
clank. The entire saloon quieted around them.

“I’m going to church this afternoon,” Gieo
said.

“Fine, I’m going hunting.” Fiona stood, put
on her cowboy hat, and walked to the door. “If you get lynched for
being a scientist, Buddhist, lesbian, witch, don’t blame me.”