Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (31 page)

“CORKY! STOP
DAWDLING!
” Mindie screeched. “
GOD!
YOU ARE SO
ANNOYING
, SOMETIMES!” Her face was twisted with irritation and rage, and flushed red with hot, asexual blood. It was a face that—within hours—would be staring at me day in and day out as my beloved, my companion, my one-and-only wife.

I threw myself over the edge.

Next to the hairless monkey, this may have been the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. The idea had been to ‘pretend’ to fall, then right myself and race for the bottom. Unfortunately, the pretending part very quickly took on a life of its own.

Mindie screamed. Amazingly, I could hear
her
wails of horror even over my own.

Fortunately for me, the shock left me with very few memories of the incident, which I will share with you here for posterity, just in case—for reasons, either of stupidity or love, which often seem to be interchangeable I’ll grant you—you feel the need to attempt such Jackass-like lunacy at home.

My first memory is of me taking flight, then impacting that first stairway landing and sailing from those—relatively—painless planks of wood out into nature’s harsher punishments.

That part was kind of fun.

The second memory is of broken branches, twigs, and pointy leaves stabbing enthusiastically into pretty much every one of my body’s most tender tissues.

That I didn’t enjoy so much.

The fourth memory was of a particularly large and rugged bit of stone attempting to remove one side of my skull, and the brain matter contained therein without sufficient anesthesia.

Not gonna do that again ever in my lifetime if I can help it.

Fifth: random, flickering images of a bird which somehow became entangled in my hair, and really seemed quite put out by it, as if I’d done it on purpose. Kind of an Alfred Hitchcock moment, and not many of you would want to experience Alfred Hitchcock in real life, trust me. The pecking, flapping, clawing little beast did, however, keep my mind off some of the other more painful moments during the remainder of my fall. So for that, I thank him. Or her. It.

Whatever.

Eventually I bounced repeatedly to a stop, somewhere—oh—ten or so feet above the beach, and only a few yards from certain death on a fallen tree stake. I lay for a long moment, staring up at the sun, and trees, and sky…and just hurt.

Eventually, my eyes closed, unconsciousness licking at the corners of my brain like a lonely Labrador until I heard the voices and movements of people all around me, some up near the top of the hill and a few closer by, down toward the beach.

The voices on the beach were approaching, and eventually came very close to me. Each was tinged with gentle sympathy.

The ones above were like nails on a chalkboard, and were hard to distinguish from the screeching bird still struggling in my hair. Inwardly, I hoped for the sources of the lower voices to reach me first, and I was surprised when they actually did. The god who spends his days ruining my life (bastard) must have been too busy laughing his ass off over my fall to intervene negatively, at that particular moment.

Tender hands gently freed the bird, then lifted my head from the anthill I had landed on and brushed away a few of the stinging insects as they were making a concerted effort to pull me into their hole. I suppose they would get some considerable street cred around the colony if they succeeded in feeding me to their queen. In my delirium I somehow missed them when they were gone.

“Mister Wopplesdown?” a voice asked. A lovely, mellifluous voice. “Mister Wopplesdown, are you okay?”

Slowly, I opened my eyes. The exceedingly naked Ms. Nuckeby and her handsome sunhat held me in their arms. I was in heaven. A heaven with stinging ants, but never mind.

“Ms. Nuckeby,” I wheezed, managing a smile. “How lovely to see you again.”

“Are you all right, Mister Wopplesdown? My God, the way you flew down that hill—like someone had thrown you. Are you hurt?”

“No. No. I feel quite wonderful actually.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never had sex.”

There was some laughter behind her, and I noticed naked body parts of various other individuals just beyond hers. Was
everyone
naked? What had I interrupted?

“I’m not worried about that,” Ms. Nuckeby said. “I’m just concerned that you’re okay.”

“You have no idea how perfectly okay I am.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

“
Me?”
Her expression melted, and she sounded deeply and genuinely pleased. My heart jumped.

“CORKY?”

It was Mindie’s voice, digging into the chalkboard of my brain and scraping its way down the hill. My heart stopped jumping with pleasure and fell over, curling itself into a fetal position.

“CAN ANYONE SEE HIM THROUGH THE TREES? OH, MY
GOD
, CORKY, ARE YOU
ALL RIGHT?”

Other voices joined her, calling my name in faulty harmony as they raced down the stairs towards us. Ms. Nuckeby looked up, trying to see through the foliage herself.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Um—why, that’s
Mindie
,” I said, my voice rising, trying to make her sound
fun
, and
exciting
, and
welcome
—as if she were bringing gifts, food, and champagne for the needy.

Ms. Nuckeby’s expression darkened. “The one from last night. The girl with the giant bazoombas who made you stiffen up.”

“And not in a good way. Yes. That would be her.”

“Why is
she
here?” There was a tension in Ms, Nuckeby’s voice I’d never heard before. It startled me, and I wanted it to go away and let the nice voice come back to play.

“Well,” I said, smiling, “this is going to make you laugh, but…”

“Does
she
know you’re here to see me?”

An ant stung my eyeball. Twitching, I replied, “Em…no.” “Why does
she
think she’s here?”

I laughed. It didn’t even sound like a genuine laugh to me. “Well…see…that’s an
amazing
story. She…of all things…thinks she’s here to…em…”

She waited.

She stopped waiting.

“Yes?”

I swallowed. “Get…um…
married
.”

“Married,” she said flatly. She wasn’t seeing the amazing part. “To whom?” The ice in her voice said she already suspected that particular answer.

“Ummmm…” I said. “Excellent use of grammar there. Most people would say ‘to
who
?’ I like that you use…” She glowered at me, and I paused for far too long, making the answer blazingly obvious. “To…em…
me
.”

“To
you
.”

Her face hardened. I didn’t like it that way. I preferred it the way it had looked when she’d first heard I had come to see
her
. I wanted
that
face back. I tried thinking of amusing jokes I might tell her, but for some reason all I could think of was Opus.

“She thinks she’s here to marry
you
,” Ms. Nuckeby said, as if she were speaking to a three-year-old.

“See, that’s the fascinating part,” I said. “Last night, after you left…”

She dropped my head back into the anthill, stood and looked at me with disgust.

“Men and big tits,” she snarled, then turned instantly and walked away.

“What?
No!”

I sat up and called to her, but she wouldn’t turn around. Not that I minded looking at her from this angle, naked as she was, but I really wanted her to come back to me.

“Ms. Nuckeby!”

I considered calling out how great
her
tits were, that this had nothing to do with
Mindie’s
tits, but reconsidered for various reasons, none of which had anything to do with common sense, believe me.

Ignoring me completely, Ms. Nuckeby passed between the other nudists who had clustered behind her and headed back down through the bushes toward the beach. Her friends all looked at me sadly, some of them confused, then slowly pulled themselves away and turned to follow her. I tried to stand, but had some difficulty owing to the fact that I had a rather large tree branch stuck in my pants. By the time I removed it, Mindie had arrived with the others, and Ms. Nuckeby was long gone.

Mindie ran over to me, genuine concern in her voice.

“Dear,
God
, Corky!” she said. “What
happened?
”

“I…uh…I slipped on a…uh…rodent or something,” I lied.

She moved to help me up then recoiled when she got a good look at me, apparently fearing ants, disease—or ants
with
disease.

“Help him up,” she said, backing away and gesturing to Morgan and the Pastor, who had followed her down. Ms. Waboombas was actually the first one to reach me, and lifted me off the ground almost entirely by herself, though the others vaguely helped her as she supported me. They all brushed away ants, and I tested my limbs. Nothing broken, apparently, other than my will to live.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Well, that’s something,” Mindie said. “But you look horrid. You need to get cleaned up before anyone sees you.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Who’s going to see me?”

“People,” Mindie said, as if it were bad enough that
she
had seen me. “Besides. I want you to be presentable for the wedding.”

There was a sudden, sharp snarl from the bushes near the shore, and for a moment I thought I saw a woman’s face in the leaves. But it disappeared quickly into the shadows and went silent. Everyone in our group turned to look around for the source of the animalistic sound, and Mindie moved behind me for safety. I’m not sure how she thought I would provide any. Maybe she just hoped it wouldn’t be hungry for her once it had eaten me.

“We should be going,” Mindie said nervously. “Who knows what wild animals live in these woods.”

Suddenly, several ‘creatures’ with very human voices barked, and woofed, and growled from the shadows of the nearby foliage. Mindie and the others jumped and began hurrying back up the stairs toward the car, leaving Ms. Waboombas to lift and carry me by herself, which seemed to be no problem for her. I had to get the name of her personal trainer.

“In all honesty,” I said, turning to yell over Ms. Waboombas shoulder and into the bushes. “I
PREFER
WILD ANIMALS TO
DOMESTICATED BEASTS!”

Ms. Waboombas looked at me like beans had begun magically spilling from my nostrils, but she couldn’t deny that the bushes suddenly became very quiet and still.

“It’s why I came here,” I said, still more to the bushes than anyone near me. “Not because I’m a fan of…” I paused, considering, “…overabundant milk! I prefer
normal
amounts of milk, believe me! Just enough and no more!”

“Come on,” Waboombas said, glancing at the shrubs along the shore. “You must have hit your head harder than you think.”

“Hopefully I knocked some sense into it,” I said.

She stared at me for quite while, then shook her head, hefted me and began the journey up the long staircase, cradling me like a baby.

I continued to smile into the bushes all the way to the top.