gym that became a big silver dome, a giant ketchup bottle at the intersection. At one point a topless woman with magnificent anti-gravity breasts walked by and smiled at him and he remembered to wave just in time.
And everywhere always the distinctive dry powdery smell of alkali flats.
Late in the afternoon he went back to his tent to get some more sunscreen and came around the corner of the truck to see Treasure standing close to Doctor Awesome, one leg rising to entwine with his as she curled up into him to kiss him, his hand on the back of her neck, and Nate felt a sick twist of envy shoot through his gut.
The air was hard and hot, his mouth was dry, and even the steamboat churning up the 4:30 spoke no longer felt magical.
***
“I was shirt-cunting today,” she said.
Doctor Awesome hung a headlamp on a hook by the side door of their van. “I noticed. What was that about?”
“I don’t know, I guess I wanted to be naked but I didn’t want to burn my shoulders.”
“Or put sunscreen on.”
“Ahhh, that takes too long.” Treasure walked on her knees across the bed that filled the back of the van. “Did you see Nate? Sarah’s little brother? His eyes were like saucers when he saw me. I thought they were going to fall out of his head.”
Doc chuckled. “I bet he doesn’t see much shirt-cunting in Ohio.” “I don’t know if he’s ever seen pussy before. He’s such a sweet innocent kid.” She sighed, then tugged to adjust one of the wine-colored curtains that surrounded the bed on three sides.
The Doctor glanced over from where he was organizing the contents of his utility belt. “You seem nervous. Is something on your mind?”
“No. Maybe …” she added in a guilty little-girl voice, eyes averted. He watched her, recognizing the beginning of the Game.
“Are you being a naughty girl again?”
“No,” she said, this time playing her part to the hilt.
He gripped her by the back of the neck and stretched her length along the bed, face down. She was wearing fur-trimmed shorts now, but he yanked them down, revealing the smooth globes of her ass. She gasped and he gave one cheek a firm smack with his hand.
“Now I know you are, you little tramp. What are you thinking about?” he asked as he squeezed and stroked the injured cheek.
“I was just thinking … about him being here for his first time, and …”
“Yes?”
“Out exploring the playa, all innocent and inexperienced, and what it would be like if some woman …”
His hand stopped circling, hovered. “What woman?”
“Some woman who was not so innocent or inexperienced were to seduce him, and take him back to her tent and have her way with him, and give him something to really remember …”
He smiled, though she couldn’t see his face. “Would you like to be that woman?”
She was quiet for a moment. She could feel his cock pressing against her upper thigh.
“Maybe,” she said in a very small voice.
He slapped her ass hard and she jumped under him. “Yes, sir,” she said with a gasp.
“Yes, sir, what?” Stroking again.
“Yes, sir, I’d like to be that woman,” she admitted, and turned to look up him through her lashes.
“And do what?”
His tone was steady, probing. She watched his face as she went on. “If I ran into him on an art car, or out dancing, I’d come up to him and start flirting with him, maybe stroke his arm or his shoulder, tease him a little, dance really close to him …”
“He’d be embarrassed and wouldn’t know how to react.”
She smirked. “I’d whisper in his ear and ask him if he wanted me to leave him alone.”
“And if he said no?”
“Then I’d sit on his lap, or back into him while we were dancing, rub my ass against him, feel him getting hard …”
“You’d torture that poor kid until he exploded,” Doc said, his fingers fluttering on the insides of her thighs.
“Oh, you know I would,” she grinned, squirming under him, demonstrating how she would grind