“Wanna know why I like guns?” Jared shouted. “Because I pull the trigger here, and something happens over there.”

Kevin thumbed fat copper cartridges into the throat of the chubby black magazine. The men both wore large ear protectors that made them resemble ’70s radio DJs.

“Kind of like a remote control,” Jared said. “Greatest invention since the blow job.”

Kevin handed him the mag.

Jared slapped it home and emptied it rapid fire, hitting nothing. “Whoo! You ever get a blow job while shooting? It’s awesome.”

“Can’t say I have.”

“I did in Reno. Fired a minigun at a remote control glider while this hooker went to town on my meat whistle,” Jared said. “Best day of my life. They got you in this gunner chair, in front of a rotating cannon like the guy has in Predator. They merged with a brothel, but the gun range name shows on the receipts.” He laughed his machine-gun laugh.

Kevin loaded the last mag and took measured shots at the chunks of wood hanging at the fifty yard mark.

“Don’t tell the wife, okay?” Jared laughed, punctuating with harsh slaps to Kevin’s shoulder, making him miss.

Kevin didn’t tell Jared’s wife. He told his own, while her hip length blond hair tickled his thighs.

“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” Samantha said. “You couldn’t concentrate on either, really.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Kevin said. He gripped the pillows tight while Sammy ground away.

They’d removed the front sight of their Smith & Wesson Model 29, and fitted it to her strap-on harness. The woodgrain grip rubbed her just right, and the eight inch barrel scratched an itch Kevin felt deep inside.

“That’s it baby. Push back. I’m feelin’ right percolated.”

When Sammy finished it was Kevin’s turn. Because of what Jared had said, he cleared their 9mm Luger, and asked Sammy to dress up in her Nazi stormtrooper coat and hat. She put him in her mouth and the gun in his. She pulled the trigger as he came, looking up into his eyes, his lips pursed around the barrel. They never felt closer.

Over dinner, Sammy asked him. “You think Jared and Wendy would like to play with us?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t like my boss knowing our private life.”

“Let’s invite them for dinner. He’s your boss. That’s just polite.”

“Okay.”

It took a few weeks to schedule it. Jared and Wendy brought a carrot cake for dessert, and a bottle of merlot.

Samantha had made her specialty, chicken pepperoni.

“This is really good,” Wendy. “Good and spicy.”

While the coffee pot burbled, they finished their glasses of wine.

Jared said, “You gotta come with me to Reno, Kevin. You can shoot anything.”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “These boys and their guns. What do you think, Samantha?”

“Oh, I was raised around guns. They don’t bother me none. Let me give you a tour of the house. We have lots to talk about.”

“I’d love that. Once my husband starts talking guns, he never stops.”

Samantha led her into the kitchen.

Jared stood, bouncing like a puppy. “Show me your stuff, Kev. Where do you keep them, in the den?”

“No, downstairs.” Kevin walked him to the cellar door, and paused before unlocking it. “I kept a secret for you. I have some things, let’s say, they come from Reno.”

Jared winked. “I gotcha. These gun laws are too restrictive. I’d buy a minigun and keep it in my backyard, if they let me.” Again, the laugh. And the punch on the arm.

They creaked down the basement steps and rounded the corner.

“Kinda dark in here, Kevvo.”

“It’s mood lighting,” Kevin said.

Kevin and Sammy had spent all afternoon cleaning up the gun room, but the heart-shaped bed couldn’t be hidden. Dozens of rifles and pistols were mounted on hooks on the peg board walls, empty spaces where the sex toys had been. The industrial tub of Astroglide was too big to roll under the bed, so Kevin had spray painted it black. The floor was concrete, adorned with a bearskin rug.

“Did you kill that bear?”

“Sammy did.”

“Your girl’s a real pistol. I wish Wendy liked guns. She’s afraid of them.”

“We should bring them to the range. Maybe she’ll feel more comfortable with Sammy showing her the ropes.”

“Holy shit, is that Dirty Harry’s gun?”

“The Model 29?”

“It looks just like it, except the sight’s missing.”

They always cleaned the play guns well, but Samantha’s scent had impregnated the wood grip.

Jared picked it up without asking. “Whoa, it weighs a ton!”

“That’s a very special gun. Family heirloom. Mind if you put it back?”

” I’m not gonna drop it or anything. It’s not loaded, is it?”

“Let me check,” Kevin said, and cupped his hands around Jared’s, easing the weapon from him. Of course it was loaded. It wasn’t exciting, when Kevin knew it was empty.

“What’s that smell? It’s familiar.”

“Gun oil,” Kevin said.

“You sure? Smells kind of tangy.”

They were interrupted by their wives’ heels clicking down the steps.

“Hello girls, you find something to talk about?”

“Oh we sure did. We have a lot in common,” Samantha said. “Hope you don’t mind, honey, I told Wendy about the fun we have down here. After she heard about Reno, she couldn’t get enough.”

Jared’s eyes went wide. “What–“

Wendy glared as the girls rounded the corner. Samantha had her stormtrooper coat on, boots, latex panties and black electrical tape X’d over her nipples. Wendy wore a pair of Kevin’s cowboy boots, a Stetson and gun belts over her pink granny panties and cross-your-heart bra.

“She told me all about Reno, Jared. And I have to say I was surprised. All you had to do was ask.”

“Really, baby?”

“But you were naughty, and now it’s my turn.”

Samantha reached beneath the bed and pulled out the harness, and a ball gag. “Wendy said you just love playing with guns. Now it’s time for Wendy to try some. You’re gonna want the gag at first, Jared.”

“What? I thought you girls were gonna play with each other.”

Samantha laughed, then Wendy joined in. “Kevin and I ain’t swingers. We just like our guns. I thought you wanted Wendy here to like ’em.”

“I do, but-“

Kevin handed his wife the magnum, and she holstered Wendy up, slicking the gun with lube.

“I don’t know,” Jared said. “You let her do this, Kevin?”

“Baby, tell him how much you like it,” Samantha said. “It loosens my boy right up.”

“I used to be afraid of everything,” Kevin said. “Not anymore.

“That thing’s not going in me!”

“Oh, I’ll just poke you a little,” Wendy said. “Think of Reno. You owe me.”

Wendy popped the ball gag into her husband’s mouth and tightened it up. Pushed him toward the bed, jabbing him with her shiny chrome member.

“Get those pants down, Reno boy.”

“Just relax now, Jared,” Kevin said. “Trust me, if you don’t, it’s a lot worse.”

Wendy made tentative jabs, but as she reached around and found her husband had become excited despite himself, she let loose. Jared squirmed and tried to crawl away, until his face hit the headboard.

“You big baby! It’s hardly in there at all.” Wendy began to shudder, and clutched the magnum as she climaxed.

The shot sounded like a bomb went off in the tiny, soundproofed room. The recoil knocked Wendy off balance and she tumbled back onto her behind, the bloody pistol waggling from her crotch.

The three of them stared, ears ringing, Jared’s muffled screams sounded far and distant. The tang of spent powder hung in the air.

Wendy hooted and laughed. “Well, we can’t say we were cleaning it and went off,” she said.

*

Thomas Pluck writes unflinching fiction with heart. His story “Black-Eyed Susan” won the 1st place Bullet Award in September 2011.

His stories have appeared in Plots with Guns, Pulp Modern, Crimespree Magazine, Beat to a Pulp, Shotgun Honey, McSweeney’s Internet

Tendency, The Utne Reader and elsewhere. His work will appear soon in Hardboiled, Needle: A Magazine of Noir and Crimefactory. He is working on his first novel, and he is co-editor of Lost Children: A Charity Anthology. His home on the web is www.pluckyoutoo.com