by Chuck Austen
“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.”
“I am nothing like you.”
“Okay, you’re right. I’m honest about what I am. But I know a user when I see one, bitch. You feel a little neglected, or a might peckish…”
“I was starving!”
“…and the clothes just flyyyy off.”
“Corky!” Mindie yelled, apparently feeling lonely in hell. “Get us out of here!”
“I told you…” I began.
“We can leave her here.”
“What?”
“Morgan, too. Maybe there’s a way to get out, if it’s just the two of us. And the reverend.” She paused, glancing at him. He was lost in his good book. Clearly it was a real page-turner. He couldn’t wait to see how it came out. “Maybe the reverend.”
“There’s no way,” I said.
“THERE HAS TO BE!” Mindie squealed. She moved over to me and actually touched me with some exposed boob-flesh. Little Corky perked up. God, I was easy.
Mindie, of course, noticed and waved at it like it gave off an odor.
“Stop doing that!”
“It’s not intentional!”
“It’s this place! We have to get out of here!”
“How?”
“I don’t knooooow!” she whined, her face scrunched up like wet laundry. Suddenly it softened and lit up as an idea struck. “Bicycles!”
“What?”
“Bicycles! That tramp in the restaurant said there was a bicycle shop!”
Hearing Ms. Nuckeby called a tramp set something off in me.
“You’re on your own,” I told Mindie.
“What?”
“Buy a bike and go. Have a safe trip.”
“But you have to come with me.”
“Why?”
“We have to get to the chapel!”
“The chapel? Whatever else happens, we definitely won’t make it to the chapel.”
“But we were supposed to get married!”
I stared at her, amazed. “Who says?” I asked flatly.
Mindie snarled. “I made plans!”
“Plans you never discussed with me.” I snarled back, showing a surprising amount of backbone. Someone must have slipped me some when I wasn’t looking.
Mindie was devastated. She scratched an armpit, and I thought she might cry. I was convinced her apparent emotion wasn’t real—I’d never seen her cry, nor heard of anyone who had—but it softened me, nonetheless.
“Listen,” I said. “Let’s just all calm down, all right? What I’ll do is get you a room at the hotel.” I looked around at everyone. “All of you. Nudist hotel or not, I’m sure you can each have a private room where you can relax and be clothed—get away from each other and all these naked people—at least until Aunt Helena arrives.”
That seemed to perk everyone up. The pastor even stopped reading and looked at me, puppy-dog-like, a tiny, hopeful smile dancing across his lips.
“Think about it, Mindie,” I continued. “You can take a nice, hot bath, and get that itchy, muddy ditch water off you, order some food. Pastor—you can sit in—I don’t know—silent contemplation or something, while the rest of you just unwind over room service. And while you do, I’ll make some calls and get this thing sorted out.”
Everyone looked at me with tiny smiles and calm relief.
“That sounds reasonable,�
� Mindie said, clearly wondering how I’d managed it. I suppose she was complimenting me, as best as she could. It didn’t seem to cause her any pain, but inside I’m certain blood vessels were rupturing left and right.
“I want a bath too,” Ms. Waboombas said as if she were expecting company. My company.
“We could order room service,” Morgan realized, as though I hadn’t just said that. He was still lying across Ms. Waboombas, who suddenly remembered he was there and shoved him off onto the floor of the Duesenberg with a thud.
“Ow!”
“I am still hungry,” Mindie said pathetically.
“Great,” I said. “Then we’re all agreed.”
Everyone seemed pleased with a definitive plan of action, a potential bath, and the growing realization that we could be in a room where we wouldn’t have to look at anyone—naked or otherwise.
We gathered what few personal items and pieces of luggage we had originally piled beside Morgan in the back seat at the beginning of our journey, as Ms. Waboombas stood to get out of the car and stretched in a way that was apparently intended to elicit a ‘rise’ out of the men. We were all too worn and too used to her by now to react, and she slumped, dejected from the lack of response.
Mindie looked at Waboombas with disdain as the large, nude, black woman climbed out of the car, then noticed some wadded fabric pressed flat on the seat where Waboombas had been sitting.
“My clothes!” Mindie called.
“Oh,” Waboombas said, mock-surprised. “I guess I was sitting on them.” She shrugged expansively. “Who knew?”
Mindie snatched the bits of fabric from the seat, and turned, holding them out to me. “Well, at least now you have something to wear.”
I looked at them as if they had been expelled from the anus of a wombat, then looked at her in much the same way.
“You wanted me nekkid? I’m nekkid. Get used to it.”
“I was forcing you to be chivalrous,” Mindie snipped. “Something you should have been without my prodding. Now take these wrinkly clothes…”
“No,” I said, turning and starting to walk in the direction of the hotel.
Mindie stood where she was, astonished, and put her fists on her hips indignantly. “I am not going anywhere with you until you show some common decency and put my pants on!”
“Okay. Then you’re not going anywhere with me.”
“CORKY!”
“MINDIE!”
She stomped a foot. “Don’t mock me!”
I ignored her and continued walking. The others seemed unsure what to do. Mindie huffed.
“At least wrap the shirt around yourself.”
I kept walking.
“All right! I’ll wear the wrinkly shirt, and you can have your damn pants! Just give me a minute to change.”
She thought this was because I didn’t want to be seen in a something with wrinkles?
I stopped and turned to her as she pulled on my Waboombas mangled Ralph Lauren shirt, stunned that she believed my response to her was more a fashion choice than a reaction to her as an alleged person.
With the cave-woman underwear-bra still in place, and the crinkly shirt/dress now sufficiently covering her nether regions, Mindie wriggled out of the slacks, gathered them up and walked over, holding them out to me.
“I hope you’re happy,” she said, annoyed. “I look like I slept in a hamper.”
I just stared at her. I had no idea what to say. I was angry, shocked, and amazed all at the same time. I looked at the others—as if for guidance—and really didn’t expect, or get, any. What should I do next?
A breeze flowed over my skin—over all of my skin—lingering in places no wind had ever touched in my short lifetime, and the feeling was wonderful. Very sensual. Pleasant. Nothing bound me. No stitching slipped into uncomfortable crevices. No underwear crept up where it shouldn’t. No fabric pressed hostilely into innocent, bended flesh. Nothing pinched, tugged, twisted, hung, chafed, itched, or blistered. I felt free. I felt comfortable.
I felt good.
I looked at Mindie, holding the wrinkled shirt before her, and noticed she also held out the panties she had been wearing earlier in the day. She probably expected me to put those on as well. Heaven forbid anything should be hanging loose.
Heaven forbid indeed.
My world was—entirely—upside down. I felt, in more ways than one, that I was somehow standing on another planet surrounded by aliens. I no longer liked Mindie, but I would probably still marry her because her attitudes toward life were ‘normal’. Wrinkled clothes, sensuality, and nudity annoyed her. I really liked Ms. Nuckeby, but I could never be with her because her attitudes toward life were ‘strange’. She would think wrinkled clothes were no problem because she wouldn’t go near them. Yet, here I was, naked in her world and wanting to stay that way—but out of spite, rather than pleasure or comfort. My world was wrinkly clothes, binding fabric, and snotty Mindie. Not comfort, and pleasure, and Ms. Nuckeby.
I took the pair of pants and began to slide them on.
“Finally,” Mindie said.
“Aaaaaaaww,” Waboombas pined, genuinely distressed.
“What about the underwear?” Mindie asked.
“I prefer to be unconfined,” I said, feeling a small, returning sense of victory, like the smell of napalm in the morning. I may have to live in my world, but I could retain some of what I’d learned here.
“That’s just disgusting.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
I stood with my pants around my thighs, taking a last moment to feel the warm breeze and lack of constraint, when someone called from near the restaurant.
“Mister Wopplesdown! Decided to come over to our way of thinking, I see!”
I turned and saw Petal running toward me, her lovely young flesh bouncing and rippling in indescribably magnificent ways. Suddenly, still exposed to the world, little Corky leaped embarrassingly to life, which caused Petal, and everyone else, to stop dead in their tracks.
“Oh, my,” the waitress said, looking down at it, surprised.
“Corky!” Waboombas purred.
“CORKY!” Mindie howled. “I warned you about that!” And she slapped my Pechanga Indian Casino so hard I thought for a minute it had come off.
“Eeewww!” she shrieked. “I touched it!” Then she ran away to wipe her hand. “There’s something wet on my fingers!”
My penis—and everything it was attached to dropped like a rock. I lie there on the ground, and through hazy vision began counting pebbles in the parking lot. I hoped it might take my mind off the pain. Instead it just reminded me how bad I was at math. What comes after twelve?
As I lay there, Petal knelt beside me and gently touched my arm.
“Are you all right?” she asked, seeming genuinely concerned.
“Fine,” I gasped, smiling at her with my eyes closed. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s the woman you’re going to marry?”
“Isn’t she lovely?” I said, my voice partially returning to normal.
“You could do better,” Petal said and leaned closer, speaking low enough so no one but me could hear. “Like Wisper, for instance.”
I opened my eyes, and the pain seemed, miraculously, to fade. “What?” I asked.
In answer, she handed me an envelope. I could feel something jingle inside.
“You forgot your keys,” she whispered, and winked.
I looked down at my hand and realized all our luggage, and clothes, and comic books were now within immediate reach. Mindie was wiping her hands on the Duesenberg seat, and no one else was looking at me, or had seemed to notice Petal’s gift. Defiantly, I slipped the envelope into my pocket and said nothing.
Petal stood and helped me to my feet. After seeing that all my various exposed parts were okay—if startlingly red—she smiled again at me, then turned away intending to return to the restaurant. But before she did, she shot one, last, angry glance at Mindie, who had finished wiping her
hand and returned Petal’s sneer with equal, or greater, contempt. Petal then turned and walked off, shoes clicking, apron flapping, ass bouncing.
I keep telling you—I am a man!
Mindie looked at me, then quickly down at little Corky—who was very angry about being punished—to make sure he remained lifeless.
“It better not,” she said.
“It couldn’t possibly,” I said furiously, and pulled my pants up to refasten them. Mindie smiled menacingly at me, and shook her head in disbelief.
“How you could find that woman in any way appealing is beyond me,” she sniffed derisively, and tucked a breast back inside her wrinkled shirt and shredded underwear-bra. She looked like a dried apricot that had burst open in the sun.
“She looks just ridiculous in that outfit.”
Possibly because I held out some distant hope of being able to see Wisper again, but more likely for reasons centered more around some form of passive-aggression, I said nothing about the keys.
Consequently, we only had the things from the back seat to bring with us: the pastor’s briefcase, the cooler full of snacks, and Mindie’s purse. Once in hand, we moved our way across the hot asphalt parking lot and toward the main entrance of the hotel.
Before long, I had to hop from tuft of grass, to brick, to anything even resembling shade, since I was still barefoot and because the ground couldn’t have been any hotter if it had open flame under it. After several minutes of bounding, ‘ooching’, and ‘ouching’, I finally just gave up and ran ahead of the others, past the concierge, under the awning, and into the air-conditioned lobby of the rustic little lodge. I stood in the cozy foyer and breathed a silent thank you to the god of cool for providing soothing, hardwood floors.
After a moment of relief, I shook my head at the insanity of recent events. This had been quite a wearing day, and it was barely half over.
As the others staggered out of the growing afternoon heat to join me, I shuffled up to the counter, where waited a spunky, blonde, female clerk—naked as the day she was born—smiling cheerily as she asked for our reservation numbers. She had a nametag stuck to her chest just above one of her smallish breasts—don’t ask me how—that read: ‘SOPHIE’. She had two. Breasts that is. And every time she spoke, she bounced a bit on her heels, which made them jiggle delightfully. Little Corky thought seriously about springing to life, throbbed a moment, painfully, then reluctantly gave up and went back to sleep.