It wasn’t gorram fair. Only reason they’d gotten the best of the crooks… okay, the other crooks … on that puny moon was that his thrillin’ heroics has pulled Mal’s ass outta the fire. A-gain. And what did he have to show for it. A noisy stick. What did Mal get? A woman. And not just any woman… real hellcat by the looks of ‘er, for all her prissy ways. Heh. Jayne’d had some wild rides off’f more’n one prissy repressed female. Two of ‘em, that one time.

Speaking of prissy, only reason Mal hadn’t traded her for the rainstick was he already had a bigger one up his fundament. Probably why he was always wandering ‘round the ship, instead of sitting and taking it easy as a normal man like Jayne would if he were rutting in charge.

On this occasion, even the usually highlarious image of Mal buggered wasn’t enough to cheer up our hero. He lay there on his bunk a minute, cranky and horny, and realized he’d have to get out the big guns to return to his usual friendly self; yanking aside the curtain next to his bunk, his gaze slid over the number of weapons he had handily and secretly stowed. A hand followed his gaze. All his guns were named after women he’d had. Well… except for Dave. But that rifle had come with that name, didn’t mean nothing.

Hell, a gun was better than yer average woman. Maybe Mal could be convinced to trade. Surely even he could be reasonable sometimes. A gun could be more fun than a woman. Could be cleaner; man didn’t get ever get sick from no gun, lest you counted gettin’ shot. Pretty damn sight more dependable not to shoot off all random and damage some poor idgit without good reason, too. The right gun used right could give a man a lot of pleasure.

Damn Mal all to Hell, though. He’d probably get all high-n-mighty, about how the bitch was a person or something, and try to thusly bargain up. Jayne started to close the curtain, but thought about how Mal was even harder up for trim than he himself. And that was some damn hot little piece, and worth a solid try at her.