I had to imagine the look on the guys’ face as we made off on his bike.  I likened it unto being a pirate.  In fact, I began singing, “A Pirate’s Life For Meeeeee,” into the wind as I held onto Doloise’s waist.  I was actually slightly surprised to find that she knew how to ride a bike.  I almost argued my position, but then realized, she didn’t HAVE to do this for me.  One of those things about getting what you ask for and finding out it was exactly what you didn’t want.  She could have transported me a number of different ways, all much more uncomfortable.  If I didn’t mind being bumped, bruised, soaked, and humiliated, I could have…you know… complained.

We moved into the wind, and in some ways, into the light.  While I’m not one of those “ride into the sunset” types, I could appreciate the poetic image.  This was more one of those “points of light” kinds of trips.  I made my peace with motion sickness realizing that, “miles per hour” was not a faerie concept.

I gulped.  Neither, exactly, was inertia.

I made a guess that this was what the sunglasses were for, but instead I kept myself amused with Blues Brothers quotes once the pirate theme grew stale.  As we sailed on the Dauntless…ahem.  There wasn’t much opportunity for shouting a conversation against the wind.

My hands were wrapped exactly in the position around her waist that she had determined prior to allowing me to, ahem, mount up behind her.  I am sure there was a better way to put that, but my seven seconds was up.  I moved around occasionally to try to see in front of us.  The screech of the air around us sometimes sounded more like gibbering than banshee, I told myself.  Usually just as we slowed into a turn…and before that “sped up out of it” part.

Next time, I was going to be on top.  I meant, a man.  I meant I was going to drive, and nevermind that I didn’t know where we were going, I would just ask the Questor if we turned left at Albuquerque or not.  He’d get the joke, I bet.  He’d probably even know about how the towels were so warm and fluffy.

Civilization embraced us and then rejected us.  I knew intellectually that at some point the machine failed and magic picked up because we didn’t stop and refuel.  We passed cars like they were fleeting ghosts, barely visible or even tangible at this speed.  After some time I made the effort to calm down enough to reach out with my senses to confirm that yes, what was under my hands was certainly feminine, and, by the way, she was in some level gating us.  I wondered how much longer she could put out this kind of magical effort; there had to be some kind of limit to her facilities.  Or was she…

That was it.  That’s why she had to check with her family. They were invested in this.  She wasn’t just acting as an individual, she was an ambassador.  And no, I wasn’t going to get to see her eyes.  “She” as an individual might not even exist.  If I said my flesh crawled, it was just that I’d never been this close to… a realm personified.  It wasn’t personal, but the idea that I’d been looking at the legs of a small community made me feel kind of weird.  Sex with such a being…

OK, that was ridiculously hot in a really, really weird way.

I really needed to check my wiring.  Invite a nice, normal girl to look under my hood.  Look, I had a lot of things I was trying to avoid thinking of, so of course my mind fixated on what I couldn’t have but wasn’t necessarily going to kill me, right?   Good thing she didn’t let me sit too close.  I could still smell her, and it made sense, now.  She smelled like a meadow, a combination of different flowers and flora of a field.

I was impressed. It wasn’t like it was hard.  I mean, to impress me.  They had pulled out the stops.  Which meant that it was definitely political, and I was in a world of trouble.  But it was good looking trouble, which was, if you had to be in trouble, at least the kind of trouble I liked.

Boy, did that explain my dating life.