Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms

by Chuck Austen

  Of course, we immediately passed an elderly man whose skin looked as if it had once held three or four extra people inside it and now had no idea what to do with itself other than sulk. He was apparently distantly related to the Shar Pei family. Honestly, though, clothing wouldn’t have made him much more appealing to look at. So—other than him—most people were more attractive than expected in all their various, unadorned glory.

  “Wow,” Morgan said, visibly impressed with the increased quantity of feminine nudity. “I wonder if it’s okay to whack off in public, here?”

  ”Not if you’re anywhere near me, it isn’t,” I told him.

  “How do we get to the beach?” Morgan asked me without taking his eyes off the women around us.

  “Bike would be the easiest I imagine. I saw, out front, that the hotel rents them by the hour.”

  “I wonder if that cute receptionist gives tours?”

  He insisted on stopping to ask, and so, needing directions and not wanting to seem as though I had someplace to be, urgently, I stopped with him, fidgeting nervously and continually checking my watch as the minutes raced away.

  The receptionist did not ordinarily give tours, but bouncily said she’d be happy to make an exception for us if we wanted to come back when her shift ended at six. Morgan convinced me that that was a fabulous plan of action.

  “Do you know anything about a giant head on the beach?” I asked her.

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. The giant one.”

  “There’s a big giant one, and a little giant one.”

  “Oh,” I consulted my note. “The little giant one, I guess. You know where it is?”

  “Sure!” she bounced. “Take the main path in front of the hotel toward the beach. There’s a fork about a half a mile down that leads to the right. Follow that fork until it ends. You can’t miss it!”

  Bounce!

  “The head?” I asked.

  Ba-Bounce!

  “The head.”

  “It’s a little giant head?”

  “Right next to the medium-sized giant head. Both made of stone and left by aliens. The Big Giant Head is in Shining Fields on the other side of town.”

  I smiled thanks and moved off. Then I stopped short and slowly turned back to her.

  “Left by aliens?”

  “That’s the story!” Bounce! “Some guy wrote a book about it once. Scientists dispute his ideas, of course, but they don’t live here!” Ba-bounce! “Personally, I believe it.”

  And I have no doubt that she did.

  Outside in the valet area I went up to the concierge—a cheerful, rosy-cheeked, naked man wearing golf shoes and a colorful beanie— and asked about bike rentals. He had two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and several types of pedal-carts. I noticed his member, and was pleased to see that not everyone around here was hung like a rogue elephant during mating season.

  “Like to take a little ride?” he asked cheerfully.

  “I think I would,” I responded with equal brightness. “Down to the Little Giant Head.”

  “Oh, of course. That’s quite the tourist attraction around here. But keep in mind that to get there, you have to go through a part of town that’s primarily for the locals, and they prefer that visitors stay away. It’s the one place where we natives can avoid being ogled by the clothey types,” he said, and glanced meaningfully at Morgan, who was drooling over a lovely young brunette in sunglasses and tennis shoes with low-slung breasts who was naked to her deeply tanned and flawless skin, waiting near her car for a valet.

  “I understand,” I said, signing off on the receipt with a substantial tip. “I understand completely.” Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going anyway.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, eyeing the tip with surprised eyes. “Thank you very much.”

  “My pleasure,” I said, mounting up.

  Morgan climbed onto his bike but wouldn’t stop looking at the brunette long enough to pay attention to what he was doing and fell over the concierge’s collection of vehicles. As my clueless friend flopped around like a dying fish desperately trying to return to the sea, he knocked over every rental vehicle in the man’s arsenal as if they were dominoes set up for just that purpose.

  I put my kickstand down, walked over to the concierge, gently took the receipt, and doubled the tip.

  “Thank YOU, sir,” he said to me.

  Then—as Morgan and I finally pedaled away toward the beach— he told someone else to pick up the bikes.

  Along the way, we kept passing naked people. I suppose you’d think one might get used to it eventually, but not really. Morgan had several near fatal accidents by continually turning to look behind him at the fronts, or behinds, of various attractive women we passed.

  “Is it just me,” he asked, “or are there a lot more people here now?”

  I had noticed it, too. When we’d arrived, the town seemed deserted. Now it was beginning to overflow with people—and contrary to what the concierge had seemed to imply—Morgan and I were the only two even remotely clothed. There weren’t too many ‘gawkers’ other than us. Everyone else was very naked, and comfortably so. One or two wore partial clothing—belts, knapsacks, bikini bottoms, or small shorts. But no one was as completely clothed as we were—even without my shoes and shirt.

  “Getting toward the end of the workday,” I said. “They must all be arriving for the Summertime Soiree.”

  I noticed more banners and festive displays—several with the dancing, burning, cartoon Pilgrim, and I wondered absently what that signified.

  “Yeah. I guess so,” Morgan said, staring at everything but the road ahead. “It’s just so weird. We’re a couple hours out of the city, and I’ve never even heard of this place.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I agreed.

  “It should be legendary.”

  True. Jokes about it should be rampant, Fire Island-like.

  “Where’s this beach you wanted to see?” he asked.

  “Down that cobblestone path. We just keep heading to the right.”

  “Why do you want to go to this particular beach?”

  I considered telling him, then decided against it. It’s not that I didn’t trust Morgan, it’s just that I…

  No. It’s that I didn’t trust him.

  “I overheard a hot girl in the restaurant say she was heading down that way to meet some of her friends.”

  “Aaah. Good plan then,” Morgan said, getting visibly excited, his bike wobbling as we turned down the indicated path. “Hey. Maybe that hot hostess with the incredible ass will be there.”

  I checked my watch and sighed.

  For at least one more minute.

  As I pedaled like a madman down toward the beach, the pastor was trying to walk through the town center of ‘Nekkid Bottoms’ with his Bible attached to his face, and not having much luck with it. The increased number of people made it quite hazardous for him to be anywhere outdoors, and he bumped into more naked flesh than he likely had in his entire life.

  After a few minutes of pointless pinball-like wandering, he stumbled across a church and decided it had to be a safe haven for a man of God trying to avoid temptation and obscenity. He bounded up the stairs two at a time, then had to swerve wide right to avoid any kind of contact with a naked couple exiting the building and coming down the stairs toward him. Trying not to glance at them as they hurried by—and failing—‘I am weak, Lord, give me strength’—he skittered to the church door and pulled it open.

  Immediately upon stepping through, the brown tones and colorful stained glass on all sides greeted him warmly, invitingly, like a dear, beloved old friend, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief (apparently catching my habit). The place was empty and, for all he could tell, looked exactly like any other old church he had ever seen— though perhaps a bit more friendly somehow. Maybe because here, for the first time in these past hours of nudist hell, there was no one running around distracting him with their sinfully exposed priva
tes.

  Simple wooden pews lead up to a wooden altar, religious icons, Bibles, and statues of Mary, Jesus, and others he would recognize, even if I wouldn’t. Statues that were in no way false idols. He knelt at the head of the aisle and lowered his head in brief prayer. After he’d finished, he sat in a pew and breathed out the grateful thanks of the reprieved.

  “Thank you, Lord, for this simple haven.”

  “Hello?” a female voice asked, echoing through the chamber. He glanced around and saw a woman’s head pop up from behind the lectern on the dais. She was an older woman, blonde, in her fifties perhaps, but with a young feel to her. She wore a minister’s collar with black tunic, and smiled when she saw him.

  “Oh, hello, Father,” she said pleasantly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I’m not a priest. I’m a minister,” he said, only mildly annoyed. “Sorry to disturb you. I was just looking for a little refuge from the outside world.”

  “Oh, of course, of course,” she said, ducking back down to pound nosily on something obstinate. “Take as long as you need and don’t mind me. I’m just trying to fix my audio system. I never installed it properly the first time, and now I’m paying for my haste.”

  “If we don’t attend to the little things as if God were watching,” Pastor Winterly said, “he will eventually remind us that we have fallen short in His eyes.”

  She popped her head back up and looked at him blankly. After a moment, she smiled, then returned to her work. “I suppose that’s true. Hadn’t thought of it that way. I tend to think the Lord has better things to do than make my speaker wires come loose and annoy my parishioners with feedback. But perhaps I’m not thinking it through completely.”

  Pastor Winterly stood and walked toward the lectern where the lady minister continued to pound.

  “I find God’s message rather consistent,” he said. “If you’ve failed at something, He will remind you to be more diligent.”

  “I tend to think of God in more positive terms. More as a rewarding kind of God than a punishing kind.”

  “But that would be only half the story.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You disagree?”

  “I’ve known a lot of criminals who get away with it,” she said, straining at something.

  “Only in this life.”

  “But if God has time to pull my wires free, then why can’t he drop a dime to the cops about where to find the crooks?”

  “He works in mysterious ways.”

  “That I’ll give you.”

  “Like, for instance,” the pastor said, looking around, “how he brought us both to this place and why.”

  She didn’t reply. He heard her grunting again as she pulled hard at something.

  “What punishment are we suffering by our being stuck here?” he continued.

  “Punishment?” she asked. Her tone became tense and less pleasant. “What do you mean, ‘stuck’ here?”

  “Stuck here. Abandoned in this sin-filled place of nudists and…”

  She stood up, and Pastor Winterly gasped.

  The woman’s collar and ‘tunic’ only covered her neck and shoulders. Everything else about her was as God had made it.

  “I don’t feel abandoned. I feel privileged,” the female pastor said indignantly—absently brushing dirt away from her bare breasts. “I happen to love this place.”

  The cobblestones were smooth and well worn, and made for a surprisingly pleasant ride down to the sea. All along the shore dozens of naked people spanning every age were enjoying the evening sun, still full, warm, and comforting. With the mild temperature, gentle breeze, and sounds of the ocean, the whole experience was deeply relaxing right up until Morgan rode into a tree.

  He fell to the ground, his face so covered in tree bark that he looked like a raisin with teeth, and I leaped off my bike to help him.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine. Just feel like an idiot is all. But did you see those tits?”

  “No. I must have missed them.”

  “Jesus, are you blind? I wanted to do laps on them!”

  As I tried to help him up, I noticed laughter coming from very near us over toward the shore. A group of college-age kids and teenagers were playing football and had stopped to watch Morgan’s humiliating display. They were all laughing hysterically. It made me a bit angry; then one of the girls—a pretty little thing with auburn hair who wasn’t laughing—shushed them with a scowl and ran over to us.

  “That‘s the one,” Morgan whispered excitedly. “Look at ‘em. Her tits are perfect. And did you see her ass? Like the Bowen statue of Marvel’s Black Widow, only flesh-colored.”

  As we watched the pretty girl hurry toward us, let me just say this: men were never intended to see women—especially pretty ones—run naked anywhere, except maybe on television with all the lights dimmed and the shades drawn, in the privacy of their own bedrooms. The overall effect of watching a very attractive woman bounce and bobble her way toward you is like having someone autoinflate your penis with a leaf-blower. Both Morgan and I had to shift about rapidly so as to avoid painful pinching and embarrassing exposure for even more, hilarious, teenage amusement.

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked, finally reaching us.

  “I don’t know,” Morgan said, sounding far more pathetic than when I was the one offering support. “I think I may have broken my nose.”

  She knelt beside him and leaned his head back giving him gentle, soothing attention. He soaked up the sympathy like a disposable diaper soaking up—what disposable diapers usually soak up—when she asked him to show her where it hurt. I noticed he made a point of moving both hands to show her the exact location, and ‘accidentally’ brushed her breasts in doing so. She didn’t seem to notice, and he did it again on the way down.

  “Did that make your hands feel better?” she asked.

  Oops. Apparently she had noticed.

  He looked only mildly embarrassed. “Made everything feel better.”

  “I have been told my breasts have miraculous, healing powers.”

  “I bet they’d work great on blind men.”

  “Only if they asked permission first.”

  She dropped his head on a rock, and stood up rather abruptly as he squealed in pain. She turned and spoke to her no-longer laughing friends.

  “He groped me!” she said, jabbing a finger at him. “I come over here to help him, and he gropes me!”

  Her friends all scowled and sneered, then a wave of angry, naked flesh rapidly descended on us. I knew I had to think of something fast, or both Morgan and I would be pummeled senseless by this angry mob of bare-assed attackers. The muddled mind kicked into violent overdrive as I sussed out our situation and a solution presented itself almost immediately.

  I jumped on my bike and rode off.

  Not looking back, I heard the sounds of Morgan howling, naked fists raining down upon him, and the slapping of bare feet pursuing on the path behind me—which fortunately receded quickly as I pedaled like a man possessed.

  Come to think of it, I was a man possessed. Possessed by Ms. Nuckeby.

  “Corky!” Morgan called after me. “CORKY, HELP!”

  Ignoring his pleas and desperate cries, I checked my watch and continued on without looking back. Sorry, Morgan. Ms. Nuckeby awaited; her siren’s call, and my need to bash myself against her rocks, were simply too intoxicating for me to ignore.

  Pastor Winterly stared, open-mouthed and horrified at the lady minister before him. He had been wrong on first glance. She wasn’t completely naked save for the ministerial collar. She also wore simple, black, canvas, slip-on shoes.

  But other than that she was most definitely naked, and so, the pastor averted his eyes.

  “Madam…” he began.

  “I’ve been here twenty-five years,” she said, annoyed, “and I’ve never been happier. If that’s punishment, please, God, give me more.”

  “Madam. You’re naked.”
>
  “You’re kidding!” she said and looked down at herself, as if stunned. “Goodness. I’m getting so absentminded in my old age. I was in such a hurry to get to work this morning.” She looked up at him and smiled pleasantly. Not that he could see her, since he was studying the filigree work on a nearby statue of Mary who people sometimes pray to for guidance but was not, in any way, a false idol. “Thank you for pointing that out to me.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  She looked sternly up at the older man, amazed that he hadn’t recognized the sarcasm. For a long moment she said nothing—simply stared and waited, figuring it would eventually sink in. But he continued on merrily, not getting it.

  “Would you like to go put something on? I’ll be happy to wait.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “Madam,” he said, turning to her and sounding as if he were speaking to a small child. “It is highly inappropriate for you to be seen without clothing, especially in a house of God. The United Methodist Church would never condone such behavior.”

  “Why should they have a problem with it? God didn’t seem to mind when He made me this way.”

  “If God had meant for us to wander around in the nude, madam, He…”

  The pastor hesitated and rolled his eyes heavenward, suddenly realizing he had trapped himself.

  “‘He would have made us this way?’” she finished for him.

  “Madam…”

  “Reverend.”

  “Yes, madam?”

  “Not you. Me. Reverend. I have an official title. I earned it. I would appreciate being addressed by it.”

  “You cannot possibly be a legitimate…”