A/N: Please remember that this story sits firmly in the 'M' rating. Enjoy!

Chapter 3: Don't Think About Her

By the time Sal stepped into Holy Spirits, his brain had fixated on sex. Sliding Karima's skirt up to reveal creamy thighs and lacy panties and then pressing his fingers at the junction there replayed behind his eyes. His muscles were no longer tense; they were wound tight, a spring gathered with potential energy. Somehow, he had to ignore it, subdue it, kill it before it became an uncontrollable beast that would rampage through quiet streets and innocent bystanders.

Axton sat at the bar among a cluster of fawning lady fans. By the looks of it, he was in the middle of one of his war-hero stories. They giggled and shrieked as he did an impersonation of a grenade blowing apart a building. Sal slid in on a quieter side. He needed to wipe clean his mind. He hoped an enormous quantity of alcohol would do the trick. An average-sized man wearing a green bowler attended him, shamrock prominent on his vest.

"What can I getcha, laddie?" he asked.

"Strongest whatever you got."

"Right-oh."

In a few efficient movements, the barkeep set a glass with some clear liquor on the counter. One whiff and Sal's nosehairs curled- -heh, his kind of drink. He took the glass between two fingers and bolted it back. It burned the lining of his throat like skag bile and had a kick like a Medovian donkey. Whoa. That would fuck him up. Just what he wanted.

"Dame otro!" he called to the barkeep. "Line 'em up!"

"Just as you please."

And line 'em up the barkeep did. No other drink hammered Sal as fast as whatever was put in front of him. At some point his sensory perception stopped. When he regained consciousness, he at first tried to push away whoever pounded a fist into his head. After several attempts, his brain absorbed the idea that maybe no one was there and that perhaps he should open his eyes. The problem was his eyes were glued shut. Finally, on the third attempt, he forced them open.

Where the hell was he?

Alone, on the floor, in a tin shack. The air was close, stuffy, and the floor was covered with silt. An open door let in a broad stroke of sunlight that stabbed at his brain. He covered his eyes, but the massive throb would not abate. He remembered nothing. Sourness stank up the shack, and fur grew on his tongue.

He staggered to his feet- -still drunk as a skunk- -and was dangerously close to puking, controlled his gorge, and veered toward the open doorway. The heat outside was a million and one degrees, and it looked to be early afternoon. Large, flat spears of brown rock dominated the sand-swept landscape. The Dust, then. A collection of lean-tos and shacks clustered around a smoldering fire pit. People slumped against walls or dirt mounds, slept in tangled pairs or heaped together in piles.

As the heat soaked into his skin, he belatedly realized he was naked. Not a stitch of clothing, not his ECHO unit, not his digiholster, nada. Tacky red stuff was smeared over his chest, arms, legs, everywhere on him. It seemed to be dried blood, but not his. Least, not that he could tell. Clothes were not as important as his guns or maybe a bottle of aspirin. He'd definitely slept wrong on his neck. Plus, the headache worsened with the sun's blaze and that thick heat rising from the ground.

Wandering around, he noticed a lot of the snoozing people were in a debauched state. Lots of bare breasts and pale moony buttocks littered the area. They must've had a helluva party last night. In the back of his mind, a recent memory nagged him. He ignored it. He found some pants hanging over a mailbox, and as luck would have it, they were his. He pulled them on and buckled the belt. Then he continued the search for his guns.

In the center of the huts was a tall electricity pole. Slung at the top was his holster. He was not someone who climbed, but his precious guns were up there, alone, needing him. And he needed them. Foot by foot, hand by hand, he mounted the electricity pole's rungs and freed his holster.

Then he headed towards the eastern side of the community where a large corral enclosed an enormous skag corpse. Blood had gushed out to stain the ground and had dried there. A hole gaped where its heart had been. There was a harness over the skag's mouth and a riding saddle on its back. "Lucky Shamrock" had been stamped on the leather saddle. Near the beast's flank, he noticed a brown boot with a glinting spur. His gold glinting spur. When he reached down, he noticed some odd mechanical bits and pieces- -a crushed ECHO device.

Well, that explained it. He discovered the mate to his right boot upside down on a fencepost. Booted, panted, and armed, Sal hunted for another ECHO unit. The clusters of passed-out people relinquished one, which he synced. He saw he had 146 messages when the unit opened to Axton's voice.

"Salvador! Where the hell've you been?" Sal winced as Axton didn't wait for a response. "We've been trying your ECHO for hours! Maya's freaked out, we've got another job we need you for, and that leprechaun in Holy Spirits swears up and down you stole his lucky charms or something."

"The Dust," Sal said when Axton's tirade ended. Sunshine continued to throb through him. Dios mio, he had a headache.

"What?"

"I said, the Dust. You asked where I been. That's where. I'm there."

Axton sighed. "Fine. You're in the Dust. Can you get back to Overlook, like pronto?"

"I look for Fast Travel."

"Just get here. Daylight's burning."

Sal queued up the map on his ECHO to find and mark the nearest Fast Travel. It was a short walk through the heat and dirt away. Walking there was torture- -a white blaze blinded him, his mouth was thick, cottony, and his brain seemed to want to break open his skull. He didn't come across anything to kill which was a disappointment. The Fast Travel station warped him into Overlook. Dizziness swarmed him, so he leaned for a moment, didn't vomit everywhere, and when he was steadier, he tramped onwards.

Axton was in the town center, one foot propped on a bench. Maya stood in relaxed pose beside him, not freaked out in the least, and of course, Zer0 was elsewhere. Axton measured Sal with a slow look. "Wow. You look like shit. What skag's asshole did you crawl out of?"

"Eh." Sal didn't have the energy for banter.

"I have something for you." Axton gestured to the bench, where folded near his foot were Sal's shirts. "Thought you might need those."

"Gracias."

"No thanks needed. That hairy pelt of yours is a crime against humanity."

Maya sighed. "Axton. Give the man a break."

"What? He deserves it after making us wait down here for an eternity!"

"Three hours is not an eternity."

"I'll show you how three hours can be an eternity, sweetcheeks."

Maya opened her mouth, reconsidered her comment, and snapped it shut. She crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes into a mean glare. "You're disgusting."

Sal had since unbuckled his holster to shrug into his shirts. Blood and sweat stuck the cloth to his skin. "Chicas love the hair."

"Correction. Women love my hair," Axton continued in a smooth backtrack to where Sal's brain stopped, "And, if we're being honest, my rugged good looks. Anyway, Karima's recovered from her faint last night, and she's ready to join us in fighting Handsome Jack." Axton nodded his formidable chin to her home. "She said to throw some shields into the grinder so she can reconstruct a larger one for the town. I figure you would have some spares we could use. We need two more."

At Axton's mention of Karima, the sex-image gripped his mind in an unbreakable hold, even in his hung-over state. Not good. Not good at all. Worse, black-out drunkenness had not solved a thing. Obviously. All over, his skin prickled- -blood bubbled and thickened into lava in his veins. There was a reaction stirring in his loins, a tightness that needed immediate alleviation. He fumbled in his inventory for two spare shields and handed them to Axton, without speaking.

Axton took the shields. "Great. These'll do the trick."

He and Maya walked away, and Sal, uninterested in the proceedings, unsheathed the combat knife tucked in at his lower back. While they tossed the shields into the grinder and collected the parts, Sal cut across the underside of his forearm in deliberate, deep strokes. It took him half a dozen for the pain to conquer the lust, but it did. He freed a red bandana from his back pocket to bind his arm before the others noticed. The red did much to disguise the blood.

Over the ECHO, Karima spoke up. "Thanks for the gear, Hunters. I'm ready to build the shield now. Please bring the scrap to me."

A familiar twang interrupted. "Karima, you can't make us no techy shieldy thing…you's a woman! Now if the town needed someone to make us a big ole sandwich, then we'd call you."

"Your feedback is appreciated, David." Karima's tone was as close to saying 'Fuck off' as someone could come without being as rude.

Sal hung back as Axton and Maya carried the shield cores to the front door of the administration building. He both wanted to see her and didn't want to see her. When the ugly steel door slid open, she stood with pretty face and pretty hair and pretty flowers. Something like a fist clenched in his gut, and he couldn't help the grunt. The dried nastiness, which had been nothing before, seemed profane on his skin when her blue eyes flicked to him. Her cleanliness seemed to exaggerate his disgustingness by proportion. Never had he wished for a hot shower and fifty bars of soap more. Discomforted, he stepped aside to break her line of vision.

Between Axton and Maya, he watched as Karima accepted the shield cores. "Thank you, all of you. I'll send the payment within the hour. I should have the town's overshield ready in a few days. Come back then so that we may test it." Her smile beamed and that home-feeling, that sense of compassion for all creatures on the planet, exuded from her person.

He stared at the ground, face hot, and he couldn't shake the thought that under her gaze, he was a slimy, oozing slug, gross and repulsive. This could not be. He had never before felt so inferior, so monstrous. To remember who he was, he clamped a firm hand on his forearm. A throb radiated up to his shoulder, which eased the low opinion he had of himself, but not enough to eradicate it. He gripped harder until the whine became a scream of pain shrieking inside his arm.

"Oh, d-d-dear! Mr. Salvador, are you injured? P-please come inside, so I may bind your wounds."

A long pause ensued until Sal realized Karima addressed him and now everyone waited for him to respond. "Uh, no, senorita. Estoy bien. It is…it is nothing."

"What he means is, 'Yes, thank you,'" Maya said. "He'll be happy to accept your hospitality."

"Maya, don't you have spare-" Axton started, but Maya interrupted.

"No, I don't."

Axton said no more since Maya shared some weird look with him that was incomprehensible to Sal. Evidently, they came to an unspoken agreement when they both turned on Sal.

Sal waved them away, protesting half in Spanish, half in English, but Maya and Axton hooked hands under his arms and guided him into the doorway. Zer0, who had at last arrived, loomed behind him. He had no escape and could but go forward into feminine territory. Karima led them through the living area that, while cozy and tidy, remained shabby with a patched sofa and a threadbare rug, and into the kitchen. The chairs were mismatched, but the surfaces were sterile. His two teammates seated him, not gently.

"They rest of us will wait outside," Maya said, as she both shoved Axton and dragged Zer0 towards the front door. "You two take your time."

Then the door slammed shut and Sal was left to stare at the nicked tabletop. The overhead lights buzzed, but did not flicker. He listened as Karima rustled around in a cabinet and concentrated on the scratches and stains that spotted the metal table. She had placed a glass bottle of white-petal flowers with yellow centers in the middle. Abuela liked to decorate with flowers- -always a fresh bouquet every week if she could manage it.

"I know it's somewhere…back here…ah! Found it!" She came to the table and set to the side an emergency kit. As before, her small hands were quick and efficient as she unzipped the kit. "Please place your arm on the table." When he complied, she freed the bandana from his forearm. Blood had already clotted, and as she peeled back the cloth, blood oozed afresh. "Oh, my. These cuts seem to be very neat and even. At least," she continued, "they'll be easy to stitch."

Sal said nothing. He kept his eyes lowered and tried to repress the anger that his stink overpowered the lemon and floral scent in the kitchen. He hated his reek, hated his dirtying up her clean environment. He thought she would have to scrub the table and chairs and floors to remove the stench he left. A vision of her knelt on her bare knees, her breast swaying in time under a blouse to her movements, her lip caught between pearly teeth as she scrubbed the floor drove deep into his brain. Meanwhile, Karima inserted surgical silk into a needle and began even, neat stitches along his cuts. He did not feel the pricks.

"How long have you been on Pandora, Mr. Salvador?"

"Uh, yo naci aqui."

"I don't understand."

But the English side of his brain had ceased to work. "Mucho tiempo."

He dared not glance at her because surely her brow would be wrinkled with her confusion and she would think him ridiculous and he wanted nothing more than to sink into a hole in the floor and disappear from her presence forever. At the same time, he ached to touch her smooth skin, how he was on the point of desperation to bury his face between her legs. Still the needle and the silk worked an oblivious pattern through his skin.

"Let me try a different question. Were you born here?"

Sal could not answer. Nor could he could ignore the painful craving, the X-rated version of her in his head, the scent that hurtled him back through years to home and naïve youth and first love. No. No. Stop it, he didn't want to remember any of it. He didn't want to feel his heart roll in his chest. His honed instinct for self-preservation and procreation was too great to bear in her presence and he had to escape. Without warning, he stood straight and hurried across the living room to the front door. Thread and needle dangled from his arm, so he yanked it free and tossed it to the side.

"Mr. Salvador? Mr. Salvador, I didn't mean-"

He was already outside in blinding sunlight, fresh air, and lush green. Behind him the door slammed shut. He didn't care, didn't take notice of Karima calling him in his wake. In his peripheral, Maya, Axton, and Zer0 were gathered in the town center with an equal-sized group of other men, one of which wore a green bowler hat. He vaguely recognized the one with the hat.

"Hey, there he is now," Axton said. Sal didn't stop. "Bro, where're you going?"

As he rushed past them to the Fast Travel station, the one with the hat uttered a startled exclamation. By the time everyone caught up to him, some faces confused, some outraged, some hurt, Sal had input his destination to Sanctuary and was already three-quarters digistructed. He landed at the Sanctuary station, pushed his way to the exit and into the littered walkway that led to Moxxi's. He hadn't known where he was going until he saw the flickering neon lights over the entrance.

Dimness and lingering smoke did not deter him, rather the smell encouraged him. Karima's ghost haunted him, her feminine voice, delicate touch, slender legs, arms, all a seductive sensory overload he had to grapple with to control. Inside, he went straight to the counter where Moxxi cooed and poured drinks for Zed. Sal slapped a stack of cash smack in front of them. Zed jerked back with surprise, but Moxxi's painted red lips curved in a luscious smile.

"A girl. Now."

Her white hand extended to accept the excessive cash payment. "Any particular kind, sugar? You want your favorite?"

"No. Any."

"Are you sure you can't wait for Rosita? She'll only be ten more minutes."

"No. Now."

With how his hands gripped the counter, he feared he would crack it into pieces. Violence simmered under the surface. An explosion was eminent, or a bloody, turbulent digression in evolution which would not bode well for Sanctuary's inhabitants. Moxxi recognized animalism in him, because she dropped the coquettish act and gestured him to the end of the bar. There was a large, unassuming door in the wall there. She hit a buzzer; in response, the locks on the door released and the door swung open. On the other side was a hallway that extended back, luxurious, well-lighted, and lined with doors on either side. Behind a barred partition at the mouth of the hallway was a young girl with dark hair and eyes seated at a desk. She had a magazine open in her lap.

"Jocelyn, first available for Salvador, please."

"Yes, ma'am." Jocelyn typed into a computer, as Moxxi handed Sal's cash to her through the window of the partition. A drawer pinged open and Jocelyn locked the money away. She typed some more on the computer, ignoring Sal, who concentrated on not ripping the metal bars out of the wall in frustration.

Moxxi turned to him, her nails grazing his chin. "Have fun, lover."

Fun was the last thing on his mind.

"Sir, Amarra is available," Jocelyn said as Moxxi left. "She's in room five. Down this hall on the left."

As soon as Jocelyn unlocked the barred door for him, Sal rushed to room five and pounded on the door. It shook in protest under his heavy blows. A beast howled to be released, clawed and scratched his insides, panted in exertion. Only an experienced girl would understand, would satiate his carnal hunger. Amarra swung it open, and without seeing her, he plunged into the shadows of the room without a second thought, filled his hands with curved, smooth flesh and pressed his mouth on a sensitive throat.

Much later, Sal came up for air. Everything had settled after his sudden descent into madness. Amarra had done an exquisite job of putting him into a tranquil state of mind and body. Everything had loosened, melted into contentment, and his mind had cleared. He wished upon leaving her room that he could hide out there for awhile longer, but his other instincts- -hunger, killing- -had risen in place of sexual appetite.

He no sooner stepped into the crowded bar then Axton yanked his arm. "Sal, you have some s'plaining to do."

Despite a struggle, Sal was then dragged out a side door into a piss-smelling alley. "Hey! Let go!"

"Not until you tell me what is going on! That Zaford thing is hysterical with rage about a shamrock that you allegedly killed. I've just kept him on this side of sending a hit squad after you! Then Karima's been bawling out her eyes, Maya is failing miserably at comforting her, Zer0's laughing his ass off, and you've disappeared for twelve hours straight! So, tell me, this instant, what is happening, please, because I'm ready to tear out my hair and you know how much I love my hair."

"Uh, I guess I killed Lucky Shamrock."

"And Lucky Shamrock is…?"

"A riding skag."

"Ah, that makes sense." Axton rubbed his chin as he thought. "Zaford was going on and on that he wanted his property replaced. Had a lot of money invested in her, etcetera. We can find another skag easily enough. And why did you run out on Karima? She was only being nice."

"It was…uncomfortable."

"Her being nice was uncomfortable."

"Si."

"Sal, she thinks you hate her. Do you hate her?"

"No."

"But she makes you uncomfortable?"

"Si."

A slow smile warmed Axton's face. "Do you, y'know, like her?"

"No comprende, senor. Habla espanol."

"Nuh-uh, short stuff. You're not getting away with that. You know perfectly well what I mean. Do you have a boner for Karima?"

"No, not anymore. Muy bien."

Axton examined him for a moment with respect. "Fair enough. Twelve hours in a brothel will do that. Now. Let's discuss solutions. First, talk to Karima and make it clear that you do not, I repeat, do not hate her. That'll free up Maya. Second, we'll rustle up a skag to replace Lucky Shamrock and not get murdered in our sleep."

"Skag first, amigo. Por favor."

"Cute. But no, you'll talk to Karima first. Then the skag. C'mon," Axton said, putting a conciliatory hand on Sal's shoulder. "The sooner you clear everything up with Karima, the better."

"Uh...lunch first?"

Axton chuckled. "After." Then he touched a finger to his ECHO unit. "Maya, I've got Sal here. You still with Karima?"

"Yes. She's…coping. Just get down here."

"On our way." Axton grinned at Sal. "You heard the lady. Let's go."

It was as they walked to the Fast Travel station that Sal's stomach sunk to his toes. He had not had much experience with nervousness or anxiety, but the clammy palms and the heart palpitations seemed to indicate that he was, indeed, jittery. Ugh. He felt nauseous, not unlike the first time he'd been killed. Why? Was it because with each step he came closer to seeing Karima? She was hurt with his abrupt departure yesterday, but how would she view him today? He didn't want to know.

At the Fast Travel, Sal stalled as best he could. "Amigo, let's forget the whole thing. Can't I send a card? Flowers? Maybe, uh, chocolates? One of my guns?"

Axton didn't care. "Stop fretting and get your gorilla ass in there."

Seconds later, they stood on the green facing the administration building and therein Karima.

A/N: Heh. Sal can't catch a break, lol! Thanks for reading, dear readers and lurkers. I'll see you soon in the next chapter.