Slaughterhouse High

The pain having at last subsided in her crotch, Pim's sexy slink was back. She wore fishnet stockings, a tight black killer dress that ended a hand's breadth above her knees, and a face whose frail wounded wince burned deep in Altoona's heart.

"Your mom's not all that bad."

Scrunch about the eyes: "Give me a break." A cleaver dangled beside the Futterware on Pim's hip.

"Uh, sure, sweets," said Altoona.

"On second thought, give me a hug."

Leather brushed against leather as Pim cozied into her arms and angled up, engulfing in sweet lip-warmth Altoona's friendship lobe.

People said the lobes weren't connected. But she'd be damned if, every time her girlfriend's mouth closed on her right lobe, she didn't feel heat tingle in the left.

"You're walking just fine, hon."

Pim shrugged. "I took longer to heal than you, I guess. Last night helped."

Altoona remembered wet slides of niobium cathedraling at either side of her mouth as she softly dug for the love nub between. "Yum. You were okay a week ago, from what I could see."

"Yeah, possibly. But I didn't want to tear anything before Cabrille checked me out one last time."

Altoona laughed. "She was really coming on to us."

"Again!" Eyes wide for emphasis.

"Right."

"Cabrille's good. You can tell when she touches you, when she slips the needle in and explains how to clean the piercings and put on the Polysporin. But man, the way she looked at us that night…"

"Yeah, it was pretty sick."

Altoona had held Pim, comforted her, wiping drops of sweat from her brow, and knowing as the woman proceeded upward-left right, left right, like a saleswoman threading bootlace-that she would be next.

Cabrille, thirty miles away in Topeka, showed, even that night, a glimmer of interest beyond professionalism. But years and a life (Altoona suspected) too weird to contemplate had put the bag-breasted, crow-footed piercer beyond the reach of desire.

Besides, she was a woman, and a female threesome was illegal, not to mention yucky even to contemplate.

"She must've thought we were pervies."

"Yeah," Altoona said, "or potential ones."

"Some folks don't listen," said Pim, taking Altoona's hand and leading her out into the cool quiet night. "I told her about Condor and Blayne, how we thought their mouths were way cool when they showed up all swollen and pus-y from Christmas break."

" They sure took a razzing."

"Kids and teachers both." Pimlico opened the passenger door. "But folks changed their tune when everything healed up and Blayne started to work his zipper, slow and idle, right there in history class."

Altoona settled behind the wheel. "He kissed me, you know."

"The heck he did." Pim peered over to test her. "Oh bullshit! You're such a bullshitter!"

"He did! "

"Yeah, right." She slid closer. "Was it like this?" Pim's feisty bod overlaid hers, her fingers up under Altoona's lobes, her lips coming down to pillow against her mouth.

Pim broke the kiss, smiling, her right hand drifting down to grope Altoona's leather-mounded left breast.

"More metal in it," said Altoona. "More tentative, but real sexy. We were between classes."

"The fuck he kissed you. Did he really?"

"You'll see." She fired up the rattletrap, giving it extra pedal to make to vroom. "I wanted to surprise you. They're in a receptive mood. I got 'em horny for the big fourway."

" Both of 'em? Oh bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!" She hit the seat with the flat of her hand. "Come on Altoona, I don't like it when you tease."

"It's not a tease. We set it up. During the search for the dead couple, in the costume shop behind the stage. All you've gotta do is bring along your enthusiasm and your killer bod."

Pim countered with a renewed volley of bullshits, but it was clear she was starting to buy in. Altoona hoped Blayne had been able to persuade Condor, and that what both she and Pim longed for might begin tonight.

She flashed again upon their piercer, on Cabrille's calculated ramblings about the delights of female threesomes. No, they weren't pervies by that standard, but Altoona guessed more than a few prudish eyebrows would be raised-and the law brought thundering down-were word to leak that a foursome was in the offing amongst those who had bought big-time into the zipper craze.

Well fuck 'em, she thought, zooming backward into the street from the driveway. Love was love, whatever shape it took. Praise be to God for a world that could produce Pimlico, and praise abounding for the possibility of digging their talons into two super guys like Condor Plasch and Blayne Coom, brilliant, weird, dark, brooding sons of their mamas' most bizarre and urgent dreams.

"Hang on, hon," Altoona said. She pushed on into the promise of night, her brain radiant with possibility.

5. High School Secured

There was a split focus in the cabinet room: the video screen that covered an entire wall, and President Hargill Windfucker's asinine comments.