"Ugh." Shakira thumped her hand on the steering wheel. "It's not enough to be on a stupid reality show every moment we're home, but now they track us down when we're trying to have our pre-breakfast coffee." She made a right turn and accelerated. "I hope none of 'em spotted us."

"Well, we're in a fifty-year-old Humvee that's painted hot pink. I don't see how that could stand out at all."

"Haha." She rolled her eyes. "Okay, change of plan. We'll run by the nearest convenience store and see if they've got any Jolt in. I ran out a couple days ago and I need my fix."

"Cool. I'm always lookin' to keep a wide variety of caffeine delivery systems on hand."

She drove to the store, glancing into the rearview mirrors every few seconds, and parked in the lot beside it. She got out, looked around, and set off for the front door at a brisk pace. Otto followed her through the door, admiring the perfect curves of her ass and thighs, and both headed for the cooler in the back.

"There it is." Otto opened the cooler and grabbed a case.

Shakira chuckled as she picked up a case for herself. "I'm such an addict."

"There are worse things to be addicted to." Otto headed for the counter, then he changed direction abruptly. "Oops, almost forgot another necessity." He walked to the pharmacy section, grabbed a box of condoms, and returned to the counter.

Shakira arched an eyebrow and he shrugged.

"Just in case."

"That's not the kind of ride I offered you, kid." Shakira chuckled and shook her head.

"Well, one never knows." He grinned and placed the rubbers and the Jolt on the counter. "Even if my one true love never reciprocates, there's always the possibility that I might find another lovely lady to share a little passion with every now and then."

The clerk scanned both items. The cola produced a shrill beep, but the condom box didn't. The clerk tried it again and got the same result. He frowned and smirked at the same time. "Huh. For some reason, this isn't scanning."

Otto watched him try a third time and raised an eyebrow. That's because you're holding your finger over part of the barcode, dipshit.

"I think I'm gonna have to page somebody for a price check." Still smirking, the clerk picked up the phone hanging beside the register and reached out to the page button.

"Seriously?" Otto sighed and shook his head. "You're really gonna pull that one? There are still people who think that just because I'm thirteen, I'm embarrassed to be seen buying rubbers? Seriously?"

The clerk's smug grin faded.

"Yes, I'm buying condoms. So what?" Otto took his wallet out and raised his voice to be sure all the customers nearby could hear him. "And y'know what? Even if I don't actually have sex any time soon, I can always masturbate. These make it a lot easier to clean up the mess afterward." He fired off a shit-eating grin. "Because I produce a lot of jizz. Like, enough to inflate one of these like a goddamn water balloon."

The clerk's jaw dropped and Shakira released a sound like a spit-take mutating into a burst of laughter. She gasped and turned away quickly.

"Eww!"

Otto pulled his debit card from his wallet. "Okay, give me the total so we can both move on with our lives."

"Um," Shakira muttered, "Otto, would you grab a box of tissues, please? Or napkins or paper towels or whatever?"

"Uh, sure." Otto frowned, shrugged, and glanced at the clerk. "Hold on a second." He hurried off, returned with a box of tissues, and handed it to her.

"Thanks." She took the box without turning to face him, and waved it at the clerk. "I'll pay for these. I just need one right away."

"Are you okay?" Otto moved closer to her and held his hand out. "You don't have, like, a nosebleed or anything, I hope?"

"No, nothing like that." She opened the box, yanked a tissue out, and grumbled. "When you made me laugh, I …" She lowered her voice to a mumble. "I blew a huge snot rocket onto my shirt."

Oh. Oops. Otto struggled to hold in a laugh. "Sorry." He returned to the counter and slid his debit card through the reader.

The door opened and a guy in a dark green trenchcoat walked past the corner of Otto's eye. Otto tapped his PIN into the console and ignored the new arrival until he realized the guy had stopped a few feet away. He looked up just as the man flipped his coat open and grinned at Shakira.

Other than the coat, socks, and shoes, the bastard didn't have a single piece of clothing on.

Shakira turned, dropped her jaw and let out a sharp squeak.

Otto looked at her, shook his head, and turned back to the flasher. Shit. He's still there. He looked back at Shakira. "Did that really just happen? Are you seeing this, too?"

"Unfortunately." She turned away, took her glasses off, and rubbed her hand wearily over her face. "What the hell? When did I become a pervert magnet?"

"Seriously, dude?" Otto scowled at the flasher. "Seriously?"

The flasher's grin faltered as he realized he wasn't going to get the reaction he wanted. Otto rolled his eyes and smirked.

"Mine's bigger."

The guy stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Otto shrugged, unzipped his pants, and hauled his wang out.

"See?"

Shakira slumped forward slightly but kept her back toward him and the flasher. "Oh, no," she muttered, "you didn't." She shook her head, put her glasses back on, and froze, staring at one of the end caps.

Otto glanced in the direction she was staring and found a rack of sunglasses -- with a mirror above them.

Uh-oh. He put it away, plucked his receipt from the register, and turned back to the flasher. "Get lost, Pee-Wee." He stepped aside and waved a hand at Shakira. "Okay, you're up."

She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. "Oh, holy hell! I -- just -- bad! Wrong! That was so wrong!"

"I know." Otto glared at the flasher as he blushed and ran out the door. "There's no unseeing that."

"No shit. And I got a double dose of it." She trudged over to the counter and plunked the tissues and Jolt down. "There's something wrong with you, kid."

"Okay, I'll concede that point." He shrugged and waited for her to pay for her stuff.

"I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to gouge my eyes out." She shuddered, took the receipt, and strode out the door. "But it's already too late."

"Sorry. I didn't intend for you to see it."

She twitched again and headed for her Humvee. "I need to find a way to expunge that from my memory."

"Oh, come on, it couldn't have been that bad!"

In the corner of his eye, a hand reached out and clamped onto Shakira's shoulder.

"Into the alley," an unfamiliar voice hissed. "Now!"

Before Otto could turn his head, Shakira spun and rammed her left elbow into something, forcing a startled grunt from the voice's owner.

What ...? Otto caught a glimpse of a guy in a black hoodie and sunglasses snapping his head back and toppling over. Blood poured from his nose and a knife slipped from his right hand and clinked onto the sidewalk.

Shakira dropped the cola and drove her right fist into the guy's chin, channeling the weight of her entire body into the blow, and the guy dropped like a sack of wet shit.

...the hell? Otto stared at him, only barely able to comprehend what had just happened.

Shakira stared at the guy for several seconds before looking at the knife and backing away, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes opened wider and her whole body shook.

"Oh, shit! I can't believe I just … that guy had a knife! I -- I -- I gotta sit down." She staggered over to her Humvee, opened the door, and half sat, half collapsed into the seat. She fumbled in her pocket, pulled her phone out, and almost dropped it. "Gotta … gotta call the cops," she muttered.

Otto turned back to the guy she'd dropped and found him still flat on his back. Passersby stopped nearby, flicking their eyes back and forth between him and Shakira.

"Whoa. You knocked him the fuck out." Otto grinned at her. "That was awesome! Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"Growing up with two older brothers." She tried to dial the police and the phone slipped from her trembling fingers. "Had to learn how to fight so they couldn't keep pinning me down and beating the piss out of me."

Otto glanced at the knife guy, turned back to Shakira, and let a slow breath out. "That was the hottest thing I've ever seen. You've just become, like, a million times sexier!"

She grimaced as she picked up her phone and tried to dial again. "Ugh. I should've let the bastard mug me."