by Chuck Austen
“You the one called her agency?” the older man with the doorstop asked.
“No.”
“Then how did you make her lose her job?” wondered Tarzan. I looked him up and down, drawing out all my reserves of manhood. It was a quick draw.
“By not defending her when she angered my grandfather,” I answered, hating his penis, “who did call her agency.”
He thought about that a second, then nodded, seeming to understand, and tilted his head as if waiting for more of an explanation. Everyone else waited too.
“You’re the one she liked,” Petal, the waitress, said, coming up from behind.
Liked. I had hoped this, of course, but it still sent a thrill through me to hear it confirmed. And a chill to hear it in the past tense.
“My grandfather thought she was a gold-digger,” I said.
Suddenly the room erupted in sneering laughter from everyone except pants-hater, who turned bright red. I looked around at them all, confused—which seemed to be my natural state of mind since arriving in Nikkid Bottoms.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You obviously don’t know Wisper!” Tarzan said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“If you don’t know, then you don’t belong in that closet with her.”
After a moment, I lowered my head, ashamed and distressed. Everyone sat silent, watching me. Waiting.
“I’d like to talk to her,” I said.
“Then why can’t you talk to her out here?” Doorstop asked.
“Because he’s got a fiancée who might see them together,” Tarzan said.
The room Ooooh’d and Aaaahh’d, and I felt about four inches tall—and shrinking fast.
The room fell quiet again, and I wasn’t sure anyone was going to say anything for the longest time.
“I think it’s best you just eat your food and leave,” Tarzan said finally.
“That’s not for you to decide, River,” Petal said, finally finding a great place to put a period.
“This is none of your concern, Petal.”
“It is my concern, River. You planning on running block on any guy wants to talk to me, too, because I think I got a say in that, and I’m pretty sure Wisper feels she’s got a say, as well, and she wouldn’t like it if she knew you were out here stepping on her love-life like a bug, which is what you always do no matter who’s showing interest, and anyway, on top of that, who do you think you are, selling my car like you own it, like you’re the boss of me…?”
He held up a hand to silence her, and it worked. Apparently he was the boss of her.
“I can get her modeling job back,” I threw in.
The very wide ‘River’ hesitated. “How?”
I had no idea. “I’ve got some ideas. My name is on the company too.”
“Can you really do that, or are you just trying to get past me so you can upset her more?”
Upset her more?
I sighed. I hadn’t considered she might have been upset. Being, primarily, a wealthy layabout, I had never had to think through how potentially devastating it might be for regular people to lose their jobs. For me, there was always the assumption that I’d have money to do— well—whatever I wanted. For others, I imagined, it was a lot like Grandfather making good on his threats to throw me in the gutter. I shuddered. Ms. Nuckeby must have been deeply hurt.
Whether I could or not—whether I could be with her or not—I had to at least get her job back for her.
“Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I’m not intending to upset her any more. I can get her a job, or at least I can offer her another option.”
“What kind of option?”
“I think I should discuss that with her.” Right after I figured it out for myself.
Petal urged him. “Let him talk to her, River. She’s a grown woman.”
But Tarzan wasn’t swinging with it. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Shouldn’t she decide that for herself?” I demanded.
“Probably. But she won’t.”
“You’re just going to let her think I never came to see her in that closet.”
“Bingo.”
“Screw you, Tarzan,” I said, my voice deepening and growing louder. This was apparently more important to me than even I realized.
He just stood there, refolded his arms, and smiled sternly. Large penises must give you confidence or something.
I moved forward and shoved him aside. Or, rather, pushed against him and wound up shoving myself aside. He was sturdier than he looked, and he looked pretty damn sturdy. I tried to get around him, but he just leaned to one side and pinned me against a wall, where I squirmed and flopped like a fish waiting to be gaffed.
All in all, kind of humiliating really.
“Let me through,” I squeaked.
“No.”
“I’ll get by you.”
“Not in your lifetime,” he laughed. “Which is looking pretty short.”
“Is that a threat?” It was hard to take threats seriously from a naked man. Even one who looked like several of the more formidable Greek gods bundled up into a handy value-pack.
Suddenly, a couple of other diners were on either side of me.
“Need some help there, River?” One of the surprisingly tall, surprisingly muscular, not-so-surprisingly naked people asked.
“This gentleman was looking for the door,” River said, pressing me flat between his stone-like shoulders and the drywall that was still several feet shy of Wisper.
My eyes flicked back and forth between both of my attackers— my head jammed into immobility—and I sneered, remembering their exposed ‘soft-targets’. “Listen,” I said, confidently. “I don’t want to hurt you, but—WISPER!”
“Drop him, Vincent!” a voice said. One of them popped me in the side of the head, and I went down like my ears were made of iron and there were magnets in the floor. Petal gasped and yelled at Tarzan, the Penis Man.
“River! Was that really necessary?” she demanded.
“We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” River said, smiling.
As I lay there contemplating unconsciousness as a concept, the nude-man assault squad dragged me out by my heels. I forced my eyes open, and through a haze saw pants-hater laughing, and he kicked me in the temple. As I jerked with the pain, I heard a jingling sound like the faraway ringing of tiny bells, and thought briefly of Paris. I love Paris. They have bells there. A door opened and there was more jingling. They had doors in Paris too. Pretty-pretty doors, and bells.
As I struggled with time, space, and reality, the nudist antidefamation league tossed me out into the parking lot, then returned inside to—I’m sure—laugh at my expense.
“Oy,” I said through the gravel of the parking lot. Are you allowed to say that if you’re not Jewish? “Oy,” I repeated.
It was a good word. I grokked its usefulness.
“Oooooyyyyyy.”
Humiliated, I sat on the curb holding my throbbing head in a towel.
Behind me, I could hear the sounds of Mindie and the others being shown their way out of the restaurant with only a tad more gentleness than I had been afforded. Apparently they had all been asked to leave as well after my brief, and misguided, foray into the wonderful land of courage.
“Let go of me!” Mindie yelled. “LET GO OF ME!”
As a naked man shoved her away from him and toward the street, the others exited behind them more-or-less under their own power. Mindie, covering herself as best she could manage, shrieked at them in a voice that could shatter glass.
“You have no right to lay hands on me! Do you know who my father is? MALLIKIN BUTTERWYCKE, that’s who!”
Her naked ejector turned and walked back into the restaurant, apparently not an avid Fortune 500 reader.
“He won’t appreciate that you’ve degraded his daughter in this way! DO YOU HEAR ME?”
Neighboring planets could hear her. I returned my head to the towel and
counted throbs.
“I took my clothes off for FOOD, and I didn’t even GET ANY!”
Ms. Waboombas moved over to the Duesenberg, climbed into a back seat, and—still naked save for the shoes—dropped, sulking, onto the cushioned upholstery without a word, and without deploying a towel. She put her head back, closed her eyes, and set her feet upon the seat in front of her. Morgan was trying to talk to her, but she was mostly ignoring him, which he seemed to have gotten used to by now. He kept touching her leg as he spoke, and she continually swatted at him, like he was a bothersome insect that spends most of its day dining in landfills.
Pastor Winterly moved a discrete distance away from us all and began vigorously reading his Bible as though his life depended on it. Perhaps it did. At the very least he believed it had answers to the test for getting through the pearly gates afterwards. I imagined the man’s intense study was mostly to keep his eyes from wandering to and fro, and accidentally seeing naked people—of whom there were now many more wandering up and down the street—likely having arrived for the festival. I supposed ardent Bible reading beat plucking out thine eyes, no matter how much they offend thee.
Mindie walked past me, still trying to hide her naked self while savagely scratching her stomach. It had become red and raw from all her endless itching. On the plus side, she had color at last.
“What did you do in there?” she screamed at me as she moved to the Duesenberg. “Why did they throw us out?”
Still holding herself, she began searching through the car, possibly for clothes. More probably a weapon.
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-yourpants,” 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-anudist-colony, Corky. No-onecares-ifyou’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 f
ront 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!”