Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (38 page)

I had been trying to think of an excuse to give her and the others—Mindie in particular—ever since I’d been kicked to the curb, knowing with certainty I’d need one. I wasn’t sure that what I’d come up with would work, but it was better than telling the truth. That would be like feeding meat to hungry lions with my face as the plate.

“I told them their treatment of you was abominable,” I said, “and that they shouldn’t have forced you to come in there naked just to get food.”

“
What?
” Mindie asked, sounding horrified rather than proud. I wondered for a moment if I’d suffered brain damage and was speaking in a foreign tongue.

“I told them their treatment of you…”

Waboombas snorted a laugh. Or burped. Mindie looked at her for a moment, confused, then turned back to me.

“Are you
insane?
” she snarled. “The damage was
done!
I was already
naked! At least you could have waited until I had
eaten!
”

She was rooting through the Duesenberg more furiously now, turning things over and looking under car seats.

“Obviously,” I said, “I didn’t think th…”

“You never do,”
she snapped. “
Where are my clothes?
” She glared at Waboombas. “Are you sitting on my clothes?”

“No,” Waboombas said, neither moving nor opening her eyes. She swatted at Morgan, who wasn’t doing anything. Preemptory, I suppose.

Mindie put a fist on her hip, momentarily revealing her pubic area, then remembered and re-covered herself.

“Can you move so I can look?” She snarled.

“No.”

Mindie seemed prepared to start another argument, when Waboombas opened her eyes—just a crack—and threatened to release the boogieman.

“Corky,” Mindie said tersely, turning to me. “Give me your pants.”

“What?” I dropped the towel and looked at her, in amazement. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am your
fiancée
. Are you saying you’re going to just make me stand here
—naked
—
in
public
—with everything I own exposed to
God, and
everyone?
”

The pastor coughed and turned a page.

“You exposed it in the first place,” I said, taunting the monkey in the gorilla cage; stupid, I know.

“CORKY!”

“My suitcase is in the trunk,” I said. “Feel free to help yourself to whatever’s in there.”

“Get something
for
me.”

I groaned, losing patience, but stood anyway and stepped toward the car, reaching into my pants pocket for the keys.

Which were gone.

I checked the other pocket.

Nothing.

Back pockets. Wallet.

No keys.

I patted my chest, but I doubted they were in my lungs. I still wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Then I remembered the jingling sound as I was being dragged out. I looked toward the doors of Nuckeby’s, and saw the naked-man assault squad standing there watching, arms folded, just daring me. Something told me they weren’t going to let me back inside to look for personal effects.

Slowly I turned to the others.

“I’ve lost my keys,” I told them.

“WHAT?” Mindie shrieked.

Ms. Waboombas opened her eyes.

“My comics are in the trunk,” she said, clearly with differing priorities than the rest of us.

“I…uh…” I glanced at the door. Naked men still stood guard there. One shook his head as if to say ‘I’ll eat your brains.’

I slowly turned back to the others and smiled weakly.

“Aunt Helena will likely have a spare,” I told them, hopefully.

“But I need
clothes
!”
Mindie yelled.
“NOW!”

“Mindie,” I said, losing patience again, “it’s a
nudist
colony. People only stare at people who are
wearing
clothes. No one cares that you’re naked but you.”

Right at that specific instant, Iran’s nuclear capability endangered far fewer lives than Mindie did. My life flashed before my eyes. If I survived this, I would never again say anything forceful to Mindie in a language she could understand.

“Give-me-your
pants
,”
she said between locked teeth, her lips not quivering even slightly. After we got out of this, she should consider ventriloquism as a career. There was obvious aptitude.

“Mindie…”

Sparks ignited from the pressure between her upper and lower canines.

“It’s-a
nudist
-colony, Corky. No-one
cares
-if
you’re
-naked.”

Hoisted on my own petard. Whatever a petard was.

Petard. Pshaw. Irony. Add it to the list.

I sighed heavily and gave in.

Slowly, I unbuckled my pants. Ms. Waboombas whistled porn music as I slid the zipper down. After a beat glaring at Mindie, I quickly dropped the trousers to my ankles, revealing my maroon ‘tightie-whities’.

“Haines?” Morgan sniffed.

“I like them better than ours,” I said.

“Come on!” Waboombas cheered.
“All of it!”

“She only needs the pants,” I said, and started to pull the slacks over my shoes, but then Mindie—for the first time since the turn of events on the freeway—smiled and agreed with Ms. Waboombas.

“I need
all
of it,” she said sadistically.

“What do you mean,
all
of it?” I asked.

“All of it. Pants, shoes, underwear. I can’t cover my top with just the slacks.”

“You can’t cover
your
top with tents and parachutes.” Morgan said, chuckling, apparently very amused by his ability to recklessly stick his tongue up death’s nose.

Mindie glared at him, and he jumped back as if her eyes had physically struck him. I thought I heard his skin sizzle from the heat of her withering gaze, and he whimpered. Then she returned her loving attentions to me.

“I want
all
of it,” she said, and smiled again, darkly. “Even your
socks
.”

I stared at her for a long time, but her expression never changed. This was clearly intended to humiliate me. Apparently I had dialed some dark button in Mindie that governs deeper, human behavior, and ratchets up one’s true nature, Lord of the Flies-like. I wondered how long before one of us finished life like poor Piggy, broken and dead on the rocks, or worse, with our head on a pike. This was a side of Mindie that was very unattractive, as opposed to the normal side of her, which was…um…very unattractive, also, but not to the point of making me strip in public.

I reached for the front of my underwear and gripped firmly as Mindie smiled her evil little smile.

Refusing to be ‘gotten to’ I confidently ripped down the Haines, then kicked them off with the shoes and pants as if I had been doing this all my life. I had, but usually alone, and getting into the pool or shower. So now I was in the largest, co-ed shower in the world, right? Big deal. Who cares?

“Oh, no, that ain’t dinky,” purred Waboombas. “Not the biggest I’ve ever seen, but definitely a filling meal,
that’s
for sure.”

Mindie seemed to tense at her words, but held in any comment. This had been her idea after all.

“Get your own,” she finally said under her breath.

Unaffected, I removed the wallet, and cell phone from my pants, folded everything neatly, and—like treasured pieces of art—carried my clothes over to Mindie, handing them to her with a deep bow. Hungrily, she snatched the items from my hands and dove into them as if she were a starving Terrier set loose on the all-you-can-eat bar at Sizzler. I suppose she had SPF concerns given the glaring sun. At least I hoped so.

Once dressed, she looked as if she belonged center ring at the circus. The pants were saggy and baggy, the shoes three sizes too big, and she had ripped my tightie-whities, and squeezed them around her capacious boobs like some makeshift bra of the damned. It looked as though it belonged on one of those cave women in the Jean Auel books, Mammary Hunters, or whatever. But this ‘brassiere’ clearly belonged on someone with far more modest proportions. Mindie’s over-ample breast tissue leaked through various gaps and holes as if being forced out by an X-rated Play-Doh machine, and her nipples were hardly obscured given the severe limits the tensile strength of the fabric had been pushed to. Nevertheless, Mindie smiled, relaxed, and seemed like a new woman.

“Now,” she said, turning to me, “tell me you’ve got something more than one of your usual,
useless
ideas for getting us out of this mess.”

Nope. Same old woman.

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to look as if I wasn’t naked, or was at least indifferent to the fact. “I tried my cell phone but couldn’t get a line out. We’ll just have to wait until Aunt Helena arrives.”

“Corky! We can’t just
stand
here in the middle of a
nudist
colony!”

“Where else can we go? Even if we had keys, which we don’t, the car won’t make it a mile, and we’re
at least
thirty from the nearest anything.”

“
Thirty?
Miles?
Are you
sure?”

“Positive.”

“I am
not
walking thirty miles.”

“I never asked you to.”

“That’s too far.”

“And it may be farther. Thirty is just a conservative estimate.”

“Walking thirty miles is like
exercise
.”

“Very similar.”

“There’s nothing closer? Not
one place
we can get to easily?”

“Wisper said the hotel is nice.”

“
Wisper?
” she asked, her voice becoming an acid-bath for naked fools. “Is that a
name?
”

“The
hostess.
The
hostess
said the hotel is nice.”

“You said
‘Wisper’.
Do you
know
her?”

“I thought we went through this. I know her as well as you do. It was on her nametag.
I just met her! You were there!
”

“Why was she talking to you about a hotel?”

“She talked to us
all
about a hotel.”

“What hotel?”

“The one down the street.”

“A
nudist
hotel?”

“I don’t know if it’s a
nudist
…”

“We’re stuck here?” Morgan asked, apparently just catching up. The hamster running his brain must have finally awakened and stumbled, drunkenly, into the wheel. “What about the comic convention?”

“Priorities, you
idiot!”
Mindie snarled. “Who cares about a stupid
funnybook
convention?”

“They’re not ‘
funnybooks’
.” Morgan, Wendy, and I said simultaneously. Morgan sounded genuinely hurt.

“Comics,” he began, “are a legitimate form of artistic expression…”

“To
MORONS!”
Mindie snapped.
“
We are
trapped
in a
nudist
colony. There are naked
weirdoes
as
far as the
eye can see!
” A few of them scowled at her as they passed. For some strange reason, they seemed to not like being called ‘weirdoes’. Imagine that. “It is
disgusting!”
Mindie shrilled. “We
have
to get
out of here! Funnybooks have no place in this conversation!
”

“They’re not ‘
funnybooks’
,” Morgan said petulantly.

Mindie rushed over and punched him—hard. Groaning, he fell backward into the Duesenberg and onto Ms. Waboombas’ lap. The stripper looked at him as if he were a leaf that had fluttered down from a nearby tree that she couldn’t be bothered to brush away. I heard Morgan whimper. I wasn’t sure if he was crying or—lying on a naked Waboombas without even having to stuff a fiver in her gstring—delirious with joy.

“Being here doesn’t bother some of us as much as it does
you
,” Waboombas snipped at Mindie. “And, besides. Corky’s hot Aunt will be here in a few hours. Show a little patience, tight-ass.”

“Naked
slut
,” Mindie growled. “Easy for you to say. Someone like you
belongs
in a place like this.”

“I feel pretty comfortable so far,” Waboombas said, smiling and settling in.

“I’m surprised you’re not spreading yourself far and wide— having sex with every man you see.”

“The thought
had
occurred to me.”

“I’m sure it had.”

“It often does.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know if it’s legal.”

“Ha!”

“Just ‘cause they’re naked doesn’t mean they fuck in public,” Waboombas told her, sagely.

“That’s
rich!”
Mindie scoffed. “A
prostitute
worried about what’s
legal!
”

A tense silence fell—and hurt itself.

“Was that supposed to insult me?” Waboombas finally asked, and smiled, though not at all sincerely. “I’m proud of my moneymaking skills. Some of us have to earn our cash. As opposed to
your
fat lazy-ass being birthed out onto a bed full of money.”

“At least my money was acquired
legally
.”

“Not by you.”

“
Your
particular form of income earning happens to be against the law.”

“And yet—you were considering it.”

“I was not!”

“Were too. I think you were even
liking
the idea.”

“That is a
lie!
” Mindie screeched.

“You play the prude, but inside—you’re a hornier slut than me, sister.”

“
I am nothing of the kind!
”

“You popped that bra pretty easy back on the freeway there. Right in front of the reverend too.”

“I was proving a point!”

“That you’re a slut.”

“
That I’m better than you.
”

“We’re exactly the same.”