Page 51 of Back in the Saddle

“Spanking,” Luna cut in. “Him by a her.”

“You think?” Raye asked her.

Luna shot her a look.

“I see that,” Raye mumbled.

The clerk meandered to the porn display.

“All you have, uh…in the spanking genre,” Raye called to her. “And throw in something else, just for shits and grins.”

She grabbed five magazines, walked back to us and plopped them on the counter.

She rang us up. We had a five-minute, highly irritating conversation about who was going to pay, seeing as we all knew Arthur would eventually reimburse the expense. I ended this by shouldering them out of the way and handing over some cash. I dropped the change in the tip jar. The clerk stared into the distance, dismissing us.

Luna grabbed the mags and we walked out.

We were in the Sportage, Luna and Raye in the back, Harlow beside me in the front, when Harlow remarked, “I feel like I need a shower.”

“I’m at odds about porn,” Luna put in. “I mean, I think there’s some that’s empowering. It’s consensual. The women do it because they want to. But I also think there’s an element that’s very bad. How do you know which is which?”

“My guess is, that’s why you buy comics,” Raye drawled.

I didn’t bite.

“Well?” Harlow pressed me.

What the hell.

“The dudes have massive cocks, they fuck each other, the positions are wild, it’s not real, so even if it gets rough, which it almost always does, no one gets hurt. Oh, and it’s totallyhot,” I said.

“You read gay porn comics?” Luna asked.

“I’ll lend you one. You can thank me later,” I told her.

“You’re on,” Luna said.

The cab lapsed into silence, all of us considering my gay comic porn fetish, I was sure, as we drove the rest of the way to Sun Valley Lodge.

The bad news: Jinx wasn’t on her patch.

The good-ish news: Mr. Shithead was behind the reception desk.

The ish part of that was, when he saw us fold out of the Sportage, even from across the parking lot, we could see him roll his eyes.

He then stood and pretended to shoot himself under his chin. He did a dramatic flourish with his hands behind his head to mimic his brains blowing out and collapsed to the floor.

“He’s upped the ante on drama,” Luna noted.

“I think I might be starting to like him,” Raye replied.

We pushed in.

“Get up, my man,” Luna called, leaning way over the counter to get eyes on the guy still on the floor. “We’re not going away and we bring gifts.”

I peered over too and saw he’d pried one eye open.

“Spank porn,” I supplied, then took the mags from Luna and sifted through them before I added, “And school marm, naughty boy shit.”

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