Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (17 page)

Upon seeing the ring, Mindie gasped with excitement, fully appraising its full-market value to within a few cents, and quickly assessing its potential for being upgraded to a more appropriate style and design. Then one thing led to another and Mindie—apparently swept up in the emotion of the moment I was not actually present for—decided to come over and surprise me by accepting.

She called Pastor Winterly and, given that her family donates considerable wads of cash to his church, was apparently able to ‘twist his arm’ to come by and begin the arrangements
immediately
.

Taking this in slowly, letting it percolate, I took several minutes to absorb Mindie with the others. Elegant. Well-dressed. Laughing. Massive breasts. Fitting in cleanly, not as Ms. Nuckeby likely would. Or wouldn’t. Would? I hate English.

My father stepped over to me with Rupert and Henderton, my older brothers, and they all smiled vacantly for a disturbingly long time before saying anything. The silence became a bit uncomfortable, and I glanced down to make sure my fly was zipped and nothing was swinging free.

“So,” my father asked. “Did’ja fuck her?”

“What? Dad! Isn’t that between Mindie and me?”

“Not jugs—
no one’s
fucked
her
. She keeps her legs together so tight it’s a wonder she can walk. I meant the hottie in the closet with no tan lines? Did’ja fuck her, or was she just for show?”

Henderton was giggling like an idiot and nodding—waiting for an answer he hoped was going to be detailed and sordid. Rupert, eating some chocolate crispies that hadn’t been crispy when I first put them in a bowl on my desk at least five years ago, was only slightly more reserved.

“Just for show?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah,” Rupert nodded. “I’ve got a bet this was all staged to try and ‘prove’ you’re not a fag.”

I was stunned. How many times did I have to explain this?

“I had no idea you were coming. So why would I stage it? And I am not, as you so eloquently put it, a…”

“
E-lo-quent-ly
…’” Rupert mocked.

“What a snot,” Henderton sneered, turning to dad. “Why’d you send him to Oxnard?”

“Ox
ford
,” I corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even remotely.”

“
Re-mote-ly.
Whatever.”

“I think that’s what turned him queer,” Rupert sniffed. “The English.”

“You wish,” I said.

Rupert took a moment to realize I was accusing him of wanting to have sex with me, and when it finally sunk in, he exploded and leaped for my throat. Henderton and my father had to hold him back. “
You’re the fag! I’m not the fag!”
Rupert spat. After a moment he finally calmed, withdrew, and contented himself with sneering at me while speaking to the others. “He didn’t fuck her. She hasn’t got a beard.”

“I fucked her,” I said, shocking myself and throwing a silence over them like a rug. Woolen. Made from sheep.

They studied me intently for a moment, not entirely sure if they could believe me. It annoyed me that they might think I was lying, even though I was.

“She tight?” my father asked hopefully.

“Nearly squeezed it off,” I said, grinning as though there was nothing better than having your penis sheared away. At least that wasn’t entirely a lie. She had quite a grip, Ms. Nuckeby. Surprisingly, the fact that I’d led them to believe more about her than she’d actually done bothered me very little. If there was one thing I’d learned in this family, it was how to devolve rapidly into classlessness.

They stared a beat longer, waiting to see if I would burst out with a ‘Just kidding!’, and when I didn’t, they hooted and laughed as if they’d been in there with me. In the closet, I mean. Or maybe in Ms. Nuckeby. Where illicit sex was concerned, they were highly imaginative.

Finally, my father slapped me on the shoulder. Hard. The way ‘men’ do when they share ‘manly’ things like degrading the women dearest to them.

“What an ass,” father said, giggling. He was marveling at Ms. Nuckeby’s behind, not insulting me, though I’m sure he’d get to that eventually. “It was all I could do to keep from reaching out and grabbing a piece a that myself.”

Then he winked and took my brothers by the shoulders back to stand with his new wife and stepdaughter. Through the rest of the evening he continually glanced back at me, winking with obvious pleasure. ‘My son is not a fag.’ I could hear him think. ‘My son is
not
a fag.’

It was then that I noticed the striking similarity between Dad’s wife, Faunita, and my seemingly impending wife, Mindie. Two tall, slightly heavy women, both very made up and overly dressed for the occasion, each enjoying themselves more than the situation seemed to require. They wore snugly fitting designer dresses with chaste necklines that still revealed, with pride, significant amounts of mammarian overload—something I noted had been passed on genetically to my stepsister, Ynadia. From all appearances, I was marrying a woman just like the woman who married dear old Dad. Though without the illegitimate offspring.

That should have been my first warning. Or maybe my thirtyseventh. Only instead of being terrified out of my mind, I found myself thinking that maybe this wasn’t a bad thing. The family liked it. Mindie already belonged. Plus, she had her own money. There was no
question
she had to be interested in me because of
me
.

Incredibly, I found myself warming to the idea. Twelve hours ago I would have killed for this opportunity. Mindie and I engaged. The family gathered proudly around me. No one being sexually harassed. This could be a very comfortable existence. It might be exactly what I needed in my life.

Might be.

Mimsi, my sister, pulled away from Mindie and Faunita and made her way over to me as I stood alone to one side, watching them plan our wedding at some little chapel by the sea that had everything, according to Faunita, including impoverished locals who would wait on us hand and foot for less than minimum wage.

Mimsi smiled and stared at me with curious eyes, as if studying me for lice.

“What?” I asked.

“Sooooo,” she asked. “Did’ja fuck her?”

“Mims!”

“Just kidding. I know that’s what Dad asked you. I’m really just trying to figure out what
you
think of all this. You seem
kind
of happy. But it hasn’t escaped me that you never actually
asked
Mindie, or that you were, mere moments ago, bumping nasties with another woman.”

“Let’s not forget Woodruff.”

“Contrary to what everyone else may think, I
know
you have no interest in bumping nasties with Woodruff.”

It’s true. She always understood that the Mervin Wosserman incident had been a horrible, drunken disaster, not unlike the Exxon Valdez, and nearly as damaging. Like recognizes like, I suppose. Or recognizes when like
isn’t
like. Or, like…something like that anyway.

“Bumping nasties,” I said, tasting the words. “An interesting expression.”

“And inappropriate now that I think about it,” she said. She’d been to Oxford too. “There was nothing nasty about her. Woof. She was quite a hottie.”

Mimsi would know. She had dated some stunners. She was what I think they referred to as (‘They’ again. Someday someone was going to have to track ‘Them’ down and kick them in the nuts. They obviously have too much free time in their lives to just stand around and
say
things that deeply affected other people). At any rate, Mims was what’s called a ‘lipstick lesbian’. Not that she sold cosmetics for Ronco or anything, but that she was somehow more feminine and attractive than your average lesbian, but still liked girls. As such, Mims could tell a good-looking female as easily as any heterosexual lesbian. I mean woman. Heterosexual woman. She could tell any heterosexual man too, I supposed. Heterosexual,
period
. Human being? Come to think of it, pretty much
anyone
could recognize a good-looking woman. Why could men never recognize a handsome man unless they were gay? Maybe ‘They’ would know.

Sorry. I’m easily distracted.

“Soooo…” Mims asked, studying me for any sign of falsehood, “you’re okay with this? The Mindie thing? That girl in the closet was just a poke-n-grope or something?”

I stared at her silently for a moment, trying to hide it and failing.

“Or something,” I said finally.

Her quizzical look faded and understanding filled her face. “Gold-digger?” she said. Mims had run into a heaping helping of those as well. There’s something about being rich and single that attracts pretty, insincere,
poor
, and single people who want your checkbook more than your heart.

“Apparently,” I said, a bit curtly.

Mims studied me. “You sure? Because she seemed into you. And the way she stood up to Grandfather…well…”

“I’m sure,” I said sharply, mostly because I really didn’t want to believe it and was trusting Grandfather’s loud and angry assessment over my own. Volume often makes another’s point seem more right. Or yours more wrong.

I saw her surprised look, softened, and looked away from her sadly. She lifted my chin with her thumb and forefinger and smiled at me, almost as sadly, then pulled me to her, giving me a hug I needed more than I would have realized.

“Do you ever miss England?” I asked as she held me tightly. “I liked it there. Everyone seemed nicer, and I felt more comfortable with the people.”

“That’s because you’re repressed,” she said, grinning. “And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

After an insufficient amount of welcome human warmth, she reluctantly let go of me, smiled one last time, and without another word wandered back into the crowd, leaving an opening for Morgan.

“Things seem to be wrapping up here,” he said. “Wanna bust loose and go strip-clubbing? I’m thinking we should maybe ask that red-hot stepsister of yours if she wants to go. Maybe we could convince her to get up on a table.”

He smiled and sucked another lollipop. I looked at him with murder in my eyes, imagining cartoon axes flying from my pupils into his heart.

“What?” he asked, a little frightened. “You’re not related!”

I continued to glare at him, and he eventually took the hint, wandering off, drooling.

The rest of the evening was a bit of a whirlwind, and I vaguely remember some of it. But I can’t remember what.

As everyone splintered off and began heading home, Mindie found her way back to me and wrapped an arm in mine as she helped me guide her to the door.

“So we’ll head down the coast tomorrow to that little chapel Pastor Winterly mentioned and see if it meets with our approval,” she told me. “A small wedding would be so lovely. Just a thousand or so. I hope this place isn’t one of those rattletrap shanties that look good in the pictures, but then you get there and you can actually smell the sea. I suppose that can be overcome with sufficient flowers, but—you’ll drive. That way I can talk with the pastor about my needs on the way down. Make sure you bring your checkbook for the deposit.”

She stopped and held me out at arm’s length as if examining a disheveled child to make sure he was presentable for the family photo. After a moment’s study, she brushed my hair off my forehead. Apparently I wasn’t. There followed more, vigorous adjusting before she finally stopped and looked around to see if anyone was nearby. No one was. They were all on the porch or already gone. Satisfied we were alone, she turned back to me and grinned, darkly, as though she were considering which side of my throat to rip out first.