Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (24 page)

Aunt Helena looked at me oddly. “Re-what?”

I shook my head to free it of any, and all, strange accents— especially ones that might be perceived as making fun of her husband.

“Pounded out and re
chromed
,” I said. “Did you say you wanted
me
to take it in? Why me? Why not you or Pjuter?”

“I have a…uh…thing…today
with
Pjuter in fact. So he has to be there and can’t do this. And neither can I. We’re doing something…that really needs to be done—today. While the car, also, really has to be repaired—today—as well. Because…” she hesitated and looked off into space, as if searching for the right words, or flying insects. “The repair place is only open…uh…once a…uh…month,” she said, not sounding at all sure.

“Once a
month
?”

“Ooooh, you know these specialty repair shops. They make so much money they only work one day a month and spend the rest of their time rolling around in Carnauba.”

“Aruba?”

“Or there. Anyway, it’s on the way to the chapel you’re visiting with Mindie—you’re still going with Mindie, right? You haven’t come to your sens…I mean…changed your plans or anything?”

I had no idea. I was waiting for someone to tell
me
. I’d have to check with the others. Ms. Waboombas, and Mindie, in particular.

I looked over at the lengthy stripper, who was lying on her back in the rear seat of the Duesy. I opened my mouth to ask her opinion, then closed it just as quickly when I realized she was putting her legs up, resting them on the doorframe and slowly spreading them eagle. She seemed to be trying to determine whether she could comfortably—and with what number of men simultaneously—have sex in the back seat.

As Aunt Helena and I watched her, she wrapped her arms around the empty space in front of her as if to rub the back and derriere of some imaginary—but undoubtedly physically attractive, and exceedingly well endowed—man. As we stared in awe, she began to slowly roll her hips, as if reacting to her invisible partner’s amorous, thrusting motions. Getting into it, she leaned back and pretended to moan and writhe with pleasure. After a bit of this, she stopped the fake moaning and looked to one side, reaching out to cup what I supposed were the imaginary testicles of a second individual. As she continued to be rounded seriously by her ‘not-there’ lover, she took the cupped object into her mouth, then reached over with the other hand to pull vigorously on something that belonged— presumably—to a third lucky gentleman.

I felt little Corky spring back to life, then turned away toward Aunt Helena and began to run feverishly through 1974 baseball stats. Aunt Helena had no such luck dragging her attention away from the lively motions of Ms. Waboombas, but didn’t seem at all disturbed— only fascinated—by what the leggy stripper was acting out in the back of her elegant, rare, and very expensive automobile.

“What is she doing?” Helena asked me quietly.

“
Joe Rudi led the league in total bases with 287, and doubles with 39, Billy North with 54 steals…
”

Suddenly Helena looked at me with concerned surprise. “Good Lord, Corky!” she shout-whispered. “You’re muttering baseball stats! You only do that when—does this mean that woman is doing something
sexual
?”

She looked at her more intently. “My word, she
is
, isn’t she? She’s pretending to…”

“So, you…uh,” I asked Helena, darting artlessly away from the subject and narrowly avoiding an aneurysm, “you want me to take the Duesy, and…”

“Get it repaired,” said Helena absently, looking over my shoulder at the imaginary sex show. “He said he can do it while you wait. The repairman. Fix the car, I mean. Goodness. She seems rather optimistic, doesn’t she?”

“I think I’d give her the benefit of the doubt—
Gene Tenace led the league with a hundred, and ten bases on balls
—I don’t think getting the Duesy repaired would be a problem. You want to take
my
car, then?”

“Oh, no. That’s all right. Pjuter will be here in a minute to pick me up. He’s probably obeying the speed limits, so he fell a little behind. Heavens, those men appear to be rather
lengthy
. Do you suppose she actually
knows
men like that, or is it all just her imagination?”

I flashed on Woodruff mounted atop Ms. Waboombas and immediately regretted it. “
Joe Rudi, 65 extra base hits…
”

“After our…uh…
thing
…is finished,” Helena continued, not taking her eyes from Ms. Waboombas, “we can meet you at the chapel later this evening.”

“What chapel?” Ms. Waboombas asked, still pretending to be madly humped and bumped.

“This place my, eh…
Reggie Jackson, 20 intentional walks
—my, eh, fiancée wants to see,” I said, not looking straight at her. “Just a quick side trip. Would you mind?”

“Sure,” she said, apparently missing the proper grammatical response and momentarily confusing me. “I’m okay with it.” She hadn’t missed a beat in her pretend hand-jobs to the imaginary friends of her enthusiastic, nonexistent lover.

“If we go in
this
car,” she said, “you can take all night as far as I’m concerned.” She glanced up at me meaningfully. “
All
night.” She winked. Apparently one of the penises she was servicing might have been mine.

“
In 1974 Catfish Hunter led the League with a 2.49 E.R.A.
”

By the time Mindie returned, Ms. Waboombas had finished, complete with mock orgasm (I supposed it was ‘mock’ anyway), and was recovering in the back seat of the Duesenberg, apparently quite satisfied with the car’s performance. Mindie trotted up happily toward me with one shoe still missing, carrying an armload of framed and sealed comics, and comic art, all of which had once been decorating my various walls.

“Here,” she said cheerily, handing me the priceless collection. “You can sell these at your comics convention.” Then she turned to the others and called out in shrill excitement. “
I sit next to Wendy!
”

“I can what?” I asked, trying not to drop my near mint copy of Superman number one, lost in the fog that seemed to have perpetually surrounded me since yesterday afternoon.

She stopped and looked at me as if I was something a cat had coughed up on her Manolo Blahniks.

“You can
sell
those,” she said, her cheeriness almost completely dissipated. “And the others I piled on the floor in there. I don’t want them around after I move in, so you may as well take the opportunity.”

“Why don’t you want them around?”

She looked down momentarily at them as if they were something
I
had coughed up. “That can’t be a serious question.”

“These are valuable… ”

“To retards.”

“This one alone,” I tried again, ignoring her.

“And perverts.”

“This one alo…what? Perverts?”

“Yes, perverts. All the people in those things are running around naked.”

“Naked?” I asked, barely able to hear her last word.

“Naked,” she repeated, clearly not wanting to even say the thing out loud.

“They’re not
naked
. They’re wearing super suits.”

“Please. You can see every detail. Even spandex doesn’t show off that much.”

“It’s not spandex. Superheroes don’t wear spandex, they wear a thin layer of unstable molecules… ”

“They’re not wearing anything! They’re
naked! Naked
, and colored blue, and red, and the girls all have enormous boobs, and bodies that are TOTALLY unrealistic, and I don’t want you looking at them—or any other kinds of porn—after we’re married!”

“Porn?”

“NAKED! HUGE BOOBS! CARTOON PORN! END OF DISCUSSION!”

Everyone turned to look our way, and I stood, red, silent, and embarrassed.

“They’re not… ” I began, then glanced at the pile, and saw an Adam Hughes Wonder Woman cover on top, which depicted the heroine colored red and blue, with enormous, squishing-out breasts. I quickly slipped it to the bottom of the pile.

“Mindie,” I tried again, not wanting to lose this battle, “these are extremely valuable.”

As an example, without looking closely enough, I mistakenly held up the next book in my stack, a copy of Nuderman number one, a parody of Superman number 1. The cover was nearly identical to that of its satirical source material, only the hero was—well—nude. Hence my error.

Unfortunately, as should be obvious by now, it was exactly the wrong thing to use for driving home my point because of—not only the nude thing—but because the comic in question was essentially worthless to anyone but me. I had laughed myself silly reading it, and so, had paid handsomely to have it graded by the Certified Guaranty Company, professional comic book inspectors, as 10.0, perfect mint, and sealed forever in a plastic box so that I could never read it again.

Don’t ask. It’s a collector’s thing.

“This one alone, is…” I repeated.

“Naked,” she said, covering herself with her hands as if Nuderman, a.k.a. Dork Bent, might leap off the cover and ravage her.

I looked at the comic and rolled my eyes.

“Oh,” I said, and quickly shuffled through the others until I found an actual, valuable comic with a male character on the cover who was mostly clothed, Captain America Comics number one. “This one alone,” I tried again, “is worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

She scrunched up her face in a magnificent combination of disgust and disbelief. “Why?”

“Because it is extremely rare—especially in this grade—and coveted by collectors… ”

“…who apparently have too much money and too little brains,” she said, finishing my sentence in a way nature had not intended. “Wonderful,” she continued. “So when you sell it, you can afford a nice down payment on a
decent
engagement ring.”

Done with me, she turned and sprinted giddily off toward Ms. Waboombas.

“Oh, Wendyyyyy…” she said.

I watched her go, horrified at the changes I now saw coming in my life, then was startled a bit as Morgan suddenly appeared beside me, licking another lollipop, and ogling my collection.

“Can I have those?” he asked.