Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (3 page)

I was moving my chair around the varying bits of discarded fabric and thread that had become glued to the tile floor, trying to situate myself in such a way that any . . . em . . . ‘unexpected stiffening of the joints’, as it were, could easily be hidden with a simple and nonchalant flourish of the legs, and a subtle movement of my clipboard, when our newest model, Wisper Nuckeby, stepped in wearing only the bottom half of ‘Satin-Lace-Babydoll # 43’ and nearly blew out the front of my trousers.

Panicked by this instant…em…eruption of embarrassingly obvious sexual attraction, I flourished my legs rather
too
‘chalantly’ and fell over into the water cooler. Most of its contents sloshed over my groin area as if Moses himself had ordered them to do so, before I could fumble the thing off myself and onto Mrs.
Abrososa’s
lap.

She, as you can imagine, screamed at the top of her sixty-year-old lungs and with the strength of ten Mrs. Abrososas managed to grasp the gurgling tank, Hulk-like, and hurl it and its furiously flowing contents, several feet mind you, back onto me. With a precision born no doubt of many years playing lawn-darts in the backyard with the grandkiddies, the elderly woman corked a ringer, and for one seemingly infinite and utterly horrifying moment I sat there staring at the bottle as the thing pointed down into my lap, its remaining contents now ‘plugged’, as it were.

Ms. Nuckeby seemed, surprisingly, to approve.

“Nice save,” she said.

“Yes…wuh…well,” I stammered efficiently, dropping my voice an octave in an effort to sound more in control of the situation than a man with a sopping wet erection stuck in a water cooler bottle could ever possibly sound. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Really?” she asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

“Um…no. I’m kidding.”

“I knew that. I was
also
kidding.”

“Oh.” She was good. “Well, I knew
that
.”

We both chuckled slightly at one another and the loveliness of her smile helped tighten the fit of my newly acquired codpiece. I looked at my lap and considered removing the blue plastic container from my whatsit. But the image of said whatsit exposed to the air—soaked, bolt-upright, clingy, silken Natazzi slacks revealing its every swell and curve as they gripped the thing more tightly than a sailor’s wife greeting a husband who’s returned home on leave—possibly her own—froze me into immobility. After assessing various rapidly considered options, I simply laid my arms across the bottle as if I’d planned for the thing to end up there all along and smiled at the seminude Ms. Nuckeby.

“Get…what? You want to…?” she asked, amazed, as I struggled desperately to make it seem as though every high-powered executive must, from time to time, conduct business with a water cooler bottle clamped tightly to his mighty manhood. “Get
what
started?”

“The posing. The modeling.”

“Oh!”

“Showing us your…what is that you’re wearing?” I said, trying to sound nothing-more-than-curious while crossing my legs, leaning on the water bottle, and rubbing my chin with my best author’s-photoon-dust-jacket contemplative expression.

A rather large bubble ‘blooped’ up around my ‘cork’.

Ms. Nuckeby, her lovely mouth hanging open, watched the bubble in stunned amazement, and only after considerable effort managed to shake her brain and loosen its stranglehold of horrified interest on my nether regions.

“You want me to continue posing?” she asked incredulously.

“These designs are behind schedule, and the fashion show won’t wait I’m afraid.” I smiled, attempting to be firm. Mentally that is. “Time
is
short.”

“That’s about all that is.”

The red of my cheeks flushed even redder, and I moved the clipboard to block her view. She continued to look there as if she could still see it anyway. Perhaps she was yet another of the many sole survivors from the planet Krypton.

“Um…sir?” she asked. “Are you sure you don’t want to…”

“Nope.”

“Maybe just take a minute to…”

“No. Thank you.”

“But there’s a bathroom right out…”

“No time, Ms. Nuckeby.”

And besides that,
little
Corky would…

Hah! I just got that. Little ‘Corky’. Kind of a pun, if you…

Never mind.

Ms. Nuckeby paused and stared at me as if my head were three sizes too big, and not because it had extra brains. Mrs. Abrososa did the same.

“Well, all right,” said Ms. Nuckeby finally. “As long as you’re comfortable.”

“I’m good.”

“I’m sure the water bottle thinks so too.”

I flushed again.

“What is it you’re modeling for us, today?” I asked, gesturing toward the fluff that dangled before her fertile crescent.

“This?” she asked, surprised, while turning her magnificent hazel eyes downward to examine her own—in my obvious opinion— flawless womanhood. It clearly did not have the same debilitating effect on her that it had upon me. “I don’t know. This is just what they gave me.” She turned to look at it from all her many fabulous sides and another bubble blooped.

Truly, the wisp of a nothing she had entered wearing was barely cloth. The design was little more than a red, translucent, heart-shaped panty-like thing adorned with a few feathers and a bit of a fringe. The feathers were—presumably—for creating the illusion of potential flight, while the fringe was intended to obscure the view of her…em…

I made a note to have the fringe removed from the design immediately.

Three thin strands of alleged fabric connected this bit of gossamer fluff to something even more insubstantial in the rear, which wasn’t even really
trying
to cover what I considered to be her—and I’m sure others would have agreed with me on this point—glorious backside.

Gloop, bloop.

“Yes. Of course,” I said, ignoring the rising bubble, then creating another when I turned my attentions to the faint indications of neatly trimmed pubic hair through the shear weave of fabric. I turned away, flushing, and scribbled more notes on my clipboard, supposedly in English, but I’m not entirely sure.

“Of course,” I repeated, my voice cracking like a tree frog being devoured by a python, and subtly adjusted my clipboard in another pathetic attempt to cover my ten-gallon fish tank and it’s lone swimmer. I looked toward the ceiling and did my best to appear disinterested. “But isn’t there supposed to be…oh, I don’t know…a
top
of some kind?”

Ms. Nuckeby, now suddenly concerned, looked down at her clearly well maintained breasts and scowled a bit. She absently reached up and cupped them as if she needed to feel that there was, indeed, truly-and-honestly, nothing between them and me. Multiple bubbles gurgled, and more water splished to the floor. Finally she turned her large, liquid, doe-like eyes to mine, smiled, and shrugged, which did delightful things to the aforementioned boobs.

Bloop.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. This is all they gave me,” she said.

I turned—reluctantly I admit—away from Ms. Nuckeby and consulted my clipboard through the blue of the water bottle. “According to my notes, and the original drawing, this version of Satin-Lace-Babydoll # 43 is supposed to have a top. Corkscrew patterns with little hearts in the center to match the…uh…your…uh… ” Glurgle. “…the panties.” Creak, ribbet, gulp.

“This is all they gave me,” she repeated nervously, shrugging again as if that settled the matter. The shrugging made her now obviously natural and unaugmented breasts bobble yet again, and
that
settled the matter for me.

She smiled apprehensively and waited. I smiled stupidly and waited. What were we waiting for?

After an uncomfortable pause I realized my gaze had drifted down and I was staring, again, at Ms. Nuckeby where one should
never
stare at a woman one doesn’t know—semi-clothed or otherwise—especially when smiling, silent, and erect. Instantly embarrassed, I jerked my attention upwards back to her face and smiled even bigger and more pleasantly, as if reassuring her that this certainly could never be
her
fault.
She
wasn’t responsible for the missing bit of non-clothing.
I
wasn’t staring at her crotch. I was ‘working’. ‘Assessing the product
’
. ‘Contemplating the viability of sales’. And the conclusion I had reached was that if our customers looked half as good in this as Ms. Nuckeby did at that particular moment, we could cut our fabric costs in half and exceed every stock estimate for the next ten years.

“Manschingloss?”
I called out, suddenly enough that both Mrs. Abrososa and Ms. Nuckeby jumped a bit. I made a considered effort
not
to glance over to see how the abrupt movement had affected Ms. Nuckeby’s chest—but failed miserably.

Bloop.

After sufficient time, during which the room could preload Manschingloss’ silent irritation, the large, bear-shaped man strode into the room wearing lipstick, a floppy pink hat, a rainbow-colored scarf, and the kindly smile of an ogre whose every fiber screamed, ‘anything you might think, say, or do from this point forward can only aggravate me’.

“Manschingloss,” I asked. “Is there some reason Ms. Nuckeby here wasn’t given the top to her…em…
ensemble
?”

“Is there some reason you’re having sex with a Sparkletts bottle?” I blinked.

I saw his point. What was I thinking?
Was
I thinking? I believe the answer to that is patently obvious; so patently obvious that it cannot be tautologically over-expressed.

I stood, intending to exit, and in so doing proved my penis to be not only robust, but also filled with determination and resolve. The bottle remained suspended before me.

“We’ll postpone the viewing until the other half shows up, shall we?” I said, ignoring the fact that no one in the room was looking at my face.

“I have it right here,” Manschingloss said, holding out what looked more like a pair of comedy glasses than something an attractive woman might wear over her…em…

Gloop.

“I can put it on her now,” Manschingloss said. “If you, and your girlfriend there can just wait a moment.”

He began draping the bits of fabric over Ms. Nuckeby’s breasts, and I walked into a door.

“No. Necessary. Not. Later. What?” I said, and managed to get out on the third try.

After I had been gone a moment, I heard Manschingloss sniff. “Had I known all this time he could fill a ten-gallon bottle, I might have been nicer to him.”