YES!!! I FINALLY GOT THIS TYPED UP AFTER MONTHS! BWAHAHAAA!!!!! 

/-dances the macarena-/

Sorry about the delay, folks. I meant it to be, maybe, a week between installments. But, that's the trouble with writing it as you go. None of the old horrorshow violence yet, but it's coming.

~~+~~

The lake made a very satifying plop as the stone was slurped down into its belly. She could hear Nny cursing under his breath, something about the damn rock laughing at him.

"No… you gotta think frisbee." Devi said, picking up a flat piece of slate. She looked over the lake carefully, then snapped her wrist just right. The stone skipped 7 times with fat slaps before it sank. "You don't just chuck a frisbee, you have to aim it."

"Frisbee… frisbee…" he muttered as he picked up the mate to Devi's rock and made a couple frisbee aiming motions. Then he cocked his arm back as far as it would go and threw the stone as hard as he could. It skipped twice.

"Yeah!!! Take that! Booooyah!" he said, managing a few steps of a victory dance.

"Cool." Devi said. She was laughing. It felt good. She picked up another rock and skipped it 6 times. Rock-skipping was like riding a bicycle things, something you never forgot, you just didn't remember you could do for long stretches of time.

"You're good." He said as he sat down on the lake bed.

"Yeah. It's not really anything great." She skipped the last stone, wiped her hands on her pants and sat down. She made sure not to sit too close to him. "But it's neat, yeah."

They both nodded, and then looked out at the lake in silence for a bit. Small ripples gently cut across the glass-flat surface.

"Nice place." he said.

"Yeah, I've known about it for a while. Don't come here too often, it's kinda far from the city." Devi said.

"Yeah, I noticed." he said.

More silence

"Well… " he said, not looking at her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"…what the fook did you drag me out here to do?" he asked.

"Oh.." she said, deadpan.

"Well?" Nny asked, adding, "Nnh?"

"I just thought we could stand some time away from the city. The filthy, noisy, smelly habitrail of a city…."

"But why did we have to leave the thermostats? And the running water?" he asked, "Why not drive out to some hick town, and throw rocks at the locals?"

"I was thinking about that, but aside from the shotgun-to-human ratio, I thought someplace secluded might be better."

"Uhn." Johnny articulated. "Shotguns?"

"And here there's no one else around for miles." She said, stretching, "We're completely alone. Nice, no?"

"The part about being alone?"

"Well, yeah… Haven't you ever thought about being alone-?"

"I am alone." Nny interupted, in a spooky, John Malkovich voice, "So alone."

"…I meant with me." Devi finished, annoyed.

"Oh." Nny said. Then, as Devi was looking at him funny, "OH. Yeah. That. Yeah, that."

"You have no fucking clue what the fuck I'm talking about, do you?" Devi asked.

"Ummmnn…. no."

"Look…" Devi said, as gently as she could, "I thought we could spend some time alone. Together. With no one else around."

Nny was blinking at her.

"Geez… You went out with girls before me, right?"

He thought, squinty-eyed, for a second, then "Yyyyes."

"I was hoping to do what normal people do on nights out when they're alone." He kept squinting at her, so she went on, "Allright, we're not even approaching normal…but since you're here and I'm here, I thought we'd… make the most of the time."

"…Oh…how?" he asked.

"I'm open to suggestion." She gently covered his hands with one of hers and leaned in to kiss him.

 "Here?" he said, pulling back as far as he could, "I mean…uhn… RIGHT here?… (yeah)… you don't know we're all alone, do ya?! Evil gnomes could be watching us right now like hawks! Hawks with really good video equiptment! I mean fuck… what's to stop someone from walking up to us, laying down some severe poking on our brains and… and call the cops? HUH?"

"You've got a point." She said.

Nny nodded happily.

"Let's go back to the car." she said, getting up.

~~+~~

It was so odd. He was starting to panic.

He wasn't going to panic. No siree. NOT going to panic. Even as the car came into sight, he didn't panic. He knew Devi was probably going to do unspeakible things to-him… get all mushy and gropey and… stuff! But PANIC? No-sir-ee-he-wasn't-going-to-panic-this-time! Had to…

When they got to the car he stood, stairing out into space like an idiot, trying to restart his brain, as Devi began doing something in the backseat… The backseat? Oh shit.

Panting like an ashma victim, Johnny quickly and quietly walked over to the driver's side, got it, and locked the door, buckling himself in.

"Uh… Johnny?" Devi asked, arching an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"

"Noooo. Just… felt unsafe without the seatbelt!" he said, frantically clutching at the fake leather of the seat, desperately trying to sound happy. "They save lives!"

He heard Devi groan.

"Hey! What if a semi full of drunk transvestite truckers came blazing through here and slammed into the back of the car? Then who'd be sorry?" he asked. He could hear his voice starting to crack. This wasn't going to work for very long. Had to find another way to stall. Fuck, he wished he knew for how long. Fuck, he shouldn't have put the duct tape in the trunk. "I mean, there are some times that you can't be too careful and…"

The door shut loudly, and Johnny's head snapped to the right. Devi was sitting in the passenger side front seat. All Smiling and shit. He watched her suspiciously as she started pulling off her muddy shoes. She was all close again. And whistling a tune he couldn't put a name to. Spooky.

"Ah hell," she said, "I knew I shouldn't have gotten too close to the lake bed. I'll have to scrape this off later…" she hiked up her pant leg, to strip off one of her stripy socks. She kept the cloth pulled back from her skin as she balled up the socks and stuffed them in her shoes. The skin on her leg was just as pale as the rest of her. Her toenails were painted a deep eggplant color that Nny found himself liking. He had made people's faces turned that color, he realized. He didn't know they made paint in that shade. Huh. He started to feel weird about looking at Devi's leg, but he couldn't make himself look away. It was just so damn… interesting. Fuck if he could understand why.

He knew Devi had legs, but he had never seen them outside pants or shoes. Just seeing her skin was a revelation. He understood, with sudden flash of clarity that she was naked under her clothes, just like he was… Just another hairless monkey parading around in cheap clothes…

mmm… nice monkey…

….

…WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??!?!

That was worse than the sound made by those assholes he had stapled to his basement! He could feel he was blushing like a fucking idiot. These woods were doing fucked up things to him. Damn lack of thermostats. Maybe she didn't see…

He looked up, and was startled to see her watching him. She was still smiling, but there was suddenly a cold, hungry edge to it…

She knew what he was thinking. She didn't care.

She had MADE him look.

Anger instantly surged through him and he fumbled with his seatbelt, trying to get it off.

"Nny, calm down." she said.

"No! You will not tempt me with heavenly ankles!" Wait… that wasn't good. "I mean I'm not going to sit around staring at your leg, legs going all the way up to… Yiig!… ah…" he trailed off, feeling his skin breeze jump into tempatures usually assosiated with nuclear reactions..

"Jezus, will you at least let me SHOW you-" Devi asked, drilling two fingers into her temples.

"You mean you aren't showing it to me already?!" Nny yelled. Shit, he was fucking screwed!

"Dammit… Nny…" Devi said, taking his hand again. She was speaking in soothing tones, but her fingers were starting to hurt him. "It's not like I'm going to tear off an arm, I just-"

"You're going to tear off my arm?!" he said, immediately frightened. "I need that arm! Not quite sure which one you're aiming for, but…"

Devi abruptly punched the dashboard. Hard. He could see the panneling splinter. For a while, she stayed in place, very still and eyes closed, except for the air that she was pumping in and out of her lungs.

"OK… OK… I think I know what's going wrong here." she said, "Listen… I'm not going to force you to anything. But if you don't make up your mind towards one way or another, I'm going to HURT you. Allright?!"

Nny couldn't think of anything to say. If he told her he wanted to go home, she'd just think up another, gooey-er way for him to pay her back. And she would, she was much better at the 'creative thinking' thing than most humans were.

"Look, either sit still and take it like a boy scout, or tell me to shove it, so we can both go home!" Devi said.

He blinked rapidly. Maybe if he sat reeeal still, she'd forget he was there.

There was a long silence in the car.

"Well?" Devi asked said.