Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (21 page)

“Sooooo… ” I said, suddenly even more nervous, if that was physically possible, “he’s not joining us, is he? On the trip down? This Natural Born Killer artist?”

“No. He’ll meet us there. And he’ll have his own room. He won’t be sharing ours.”

My eyes widened. “Ours? Sharing…sharing ours…sharing…”

“Yeah. Morgan invited me to stay with you. Fun, huh?” I would have to re-check the definition of the word ‘fun’. But I was already fairly certain this wasn’t it.

“Your hotel sounded nicer than mine,” Waboombas continued, examining a piece of flesh she had removed from her mouth and now hung off the end of an impossibly long fingernail. “So I cancelled my reservation. I hope the beds are more comfortable than this place, though.” She rubbed her back, smearing paint. “No offense. You should change the mattresses once every hundred years.”

“Change the what? The mattresses? You…” I turned to Morgan. “
You
stayed
here?
”

“It was late, and she lives on the other side of town,” Morgan said, laughing heartily and hoping that would encourage me to see the ‘lighter’ side of it and not murder him with any nearby kitchen implements. “We wanted to get an early start on the drive, right? And she already had her costume with her at the club, so…”

“Don’t worry,” she said, seeming a bit annoyed with my apparent distress. “I didn’t leave
stains,
or nothin’. Your roommate made me be careful.”

“Careful?” I jerked my head toward Morgan, who had developed a sudden, intense interest in the floor tiles. I couldn’t seem to speak. “My roo…my roo…my rooooommuh-muh-muh…”

“Yeah, well, like I told you,” he mumbled, speaking more to her than his future death-dealer, “
he
pays most of the rent, so I try to keep things clean.”

I looked back and forth from one to the other, my mouth working rapidly with very little actual sound being emitted. “You…you…I…you…”

“This a problem?” Ms. Waboombas asked, still sounding irritated, and potentially homicidal.

“No! No, no, no,” I said, trying to do damage control before she could—well—do damage. “I was just thinking, had I
known
you were here last night, I would have made you more comfortable.” I paused. “Last night.”

She stared.

“In my…” I caught myself and corrected, mid-sentence, “…in
our
…spare bed.”

“Yeah?” she asked, grinning, and taking a break from the endless tooth-picking. “Like maybe you would have tucked me in?”

“Orrrrrrr—gotten you
drinks
!”

“We had drinks. I needed to be tucked in.”

“You
had
drinks,” I said, becoming less surprised by the second. Clearly, what was mine was Morgan’s, and hers.

“
I
would have tucked you in,” Morgan offered, with a whine. She ignored him.

“Oh!” I said, partially relieved. Partially. “Oh—you slept
separately
then?”

She looked positively revolted. “I wasn’t gonna sleep with
him
. Guy wouldn’t even buy a pity dance from me on a slow night. I don’t spread ‘em for a guy won’t even pay for a
pity
dance.” She leaned back a bit and waved absently at her body. “Come on! This is worth
something
.”

“Of
course
it is.
Absolutely
it is. No
question
,” I agreed, to Morgan’s obvious annoyance. “Without a doubt. A good deal, I should imagine, on the…em…open market.”

“There are
different
kinds of payment, though,” she said, leaning in, again on her bumper cushions, and returning to the offensive. “Sometimes a pretty face on top...that’s enough. Especially if it’s
rich
.”

“Ah. Good to know. Good to know. Lock that away in the old ‘reference file’ for later, if I see…if I come across…if there’s…
so you slept well?”

She shrugged blankly.

“Oh. Right. The mattress. And now you’ll be sharing our hotel room which will—I’m certain—have a
better
mattress.” I laughed like a giddy piece of electrified Jell-O. “Of course
there
, they’ll turn down our beds at night. And speaking of ‘our’ beds, and who’s sleeping where…”

“Woodruff turned my bed down,” she said.

“What?” I said, shocked. That comment so completely derailed my train of thought that even Harvey the Happy Crane Engine would have had a hard time getting it back on the tracks. Woodruff
did
something? For a guest?
This
guest? With no monetary requirement or threats of violence necessary?

I furrowed my brow as it slowly sunk in. Could he have expected something
more
than just
verbal
appreciation from Ms. Waboombas?

“Left a little chocolate on the pillow and everything.”

Sex! That randy bastard! Clearly Woodruff hoped for a little Waboombas
nooky!
He never put chocolates on
my
pillow. I would have to speak to him about the appropriateness of doing things for people. I looked around, wondering why he wasn’t here—
now
— waiting on her every whim, spoon-feeding her cereal, wiping her chin—please, GOD,
someone
wipe her
chin
!

Through the pocket door I saw the foyer closet open—just a crack, Stephen King Boogie-Man-like—and wondered if Woodruff might be in there
right this minute
, watching Ms. Waboombas and choking his anaconda.

“I’m…” I fumbled like a man who’s been water-boarded one time too many, “…delighted—I suppose would be the word—that he…made you feel…welcome? He made you feel welcome?” I asked, an injection-molded smile embedding itself into my face.

She shrugged. “Most guys do.”

“Yes. Well. I imagine so,” I said, grinning, Joker-like, and clinging to sanity with my fingernails. “Now, as to our sharing a hotel, and who’s sleeping where…”

“We were all going,” Morgan interjected. “So I figured we could just split the cost, you know. Save us all a little money.”

I turned my smiling death mask toward Morgan, showing him I knew ‘cost’ to be the last thing on his mind when he offered her our room to our resident sex machine. My unspoken message hit him directly between the eyes, and he actually flinched.

Ms. Waboombas glanced around at the opulence of my home. Mine and Morgan’s to her understanding. “’Course, it’s not like you
need
to save or anything. You
could
afford to pay for the whole thing. You were going to
anyway
, even if I didn’t come.” She paused. Waiting. Then getting nothing, she looked around again—very slowly—at the posh surroundings to emphasize her point. Finally, she fixed her attentions on me again.

“Me?” she told me. “I’m on a variable income.”

“Well… ” I said, not sure what to say, which shows how dense I am. I glanced down at the comic book cover, pictured my own severed head flying from the bad man’s body and shuddered deeply. “Well…” I repeated uselessly.

Finally I managed to find the necessary words, which had to be forced out one word at a time, staccato-like. “I’d-consider-it-an—
insult
—if-you-didn’t-let-us-take-care-of-the—
entire
—trip-Ms. Waboombas. Your part—as—well—as—
ours
.”

She barely reacted, apparently never uncertain of this particular outcome. “Meals and everything?”

After a brief pause, and a menacing look at Morgan, I nodded slowly in agreement.

“Hot,” she said. “Thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do,” I said. “As a wealthy man who is
not
on a variable income.”

“And it really is the
least
he can do,” Morgan agreed.

I evil-eyed him again, but he was becoming immune. I slowly turned back to Ms. Waboombas. “Now. As to the sleeping arrangements…”

Abruptly, her smile collapsed. Her eyes squinched, and moved slowly back and forth between us, studying us carefully. Anger seemed to rise quickly within her. Her skin visibly bristling.

“You pay, so you expect me to fuck you? Is that it?” she asked. “Just because I take my clothes off for a living, you think I’m an easy lay?”

I was stunned. Of course I thought she was an easy lay. Especially when she appeared to be repeatedly
offering
to be an easy lay smothered in butter right there on the sausage plate. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be the lay
ee
. The thought had never exposed itself. Hadn’t even opened its raincoat and flashed a brain cell or two; well, maybe it had done that in my subconscious, but my subconscious is a pervert with no sense of personal consequences, and never even uses contraception.

I shook my head ‘no’ almost as rapidly as Morgan nodded his ‘yes’.

She began to pick her teeth again—
slowly
—looking at Morgan with grave intent. There seemed to be blood in her eyes, and I shifted nervously, trying to think of an out, nudging Morgan under the table and fearing an incident. Finally Morgan stopped nodding and shifted direction to indicate ‘no, not at all, never in a million years, even if you offered.’

After a long beat, Ms. Waboombas laughed once, sharply (or burped), then smiled broadly, again vastly amused.

“Just kidding. I’ll fuck you.”

She returned to leering at me. “From you, I might even take it up the ass.” She turned the toothpick around in her mouth, apparently thinking I was enticed. “You got a big dick?”

I laughed like a dying man. “I don’t know, I suppose it’s…”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re fun to look at, and you’re payin’. I’ll fuck ya even if it’s dinky.”

I laughed again, tried to look appreciative, and then wet myself.

It took us some time, and a change of pants, but we finally convinced Ms. Waboombas to remove the body paint—at least for the drive down. To achieve this goal, I first had to convince Morgan. He was rather petulant about her washing away all his hard work. But when I reminded him that he’d have to do the hand application again once we’d arrived, he brightened rather enthusiastically. It was, truly, the only answer. The oily colors couldn’t be removed from my dining room chair, and the thought of Ms. Waboombas bare behind imprinting the back seat of my Beemer in some permanent kind of way left me weak in the knees. At least I think it was the thought of the paint that made me weak and not her bare behind. Best not to dwell too long on that subject.

Soooo—Morgan and I loaded while Wendy showered. She, of course, invited me to join her and bring my loofa, dinky, or otherwise. But I declined, citing the time crunch to reach the convention center and hotel—of which there really was none. But I knew it would give her pause to think she’d be missing valuable comic-selling time, or valuable ‘parading around a crowded convention floor in colored skin’, time, depending on your point of view.

As she reluctantly walked away she told me she really meant what she’d said: It was okay if my dick was tiny. I assured her it wasn’t. Tiny, I meant, not ‘okay’. She didn’t seem to believe me, then paused, thinking it through.

“Is it deformed?”

“No!” I said, maybe too emphatically, a bit overly neurotic about that odd bend to the left, and last night’s thrashing about in the pool tube. “I just need to get packed. I’ll show you later. Promise.” I said, smiling. “No deformities.” I assumed that by the time ‘later’ arrived, I’d have figured out a way to get through some kind of inexpensive Russian astronautics program and rocket myself to the moon.

Morgan sneered at me. He apparently believed I really
wanted
to show my penis to her. We’d known each other quite a while, he and I, but evidently, most of that time he hadn’t been paying attention. If there was one thing I was
not
, it was adventurous enough to hand over my most prized possession to a volatile, horny bump-and-meatgrinder.

Ms. Waboombas stared at me as if I were tenderized flank-steak and smiled, unabashedly leering at my crotch as she backed away, heading up the staircase to where Woodruff waited with a towel. He claimed to have gone back to sleep after waking me this morning, owing to his nocturnal adventures entertaining my ‘roommate’ and his well-developed guest. Morgan and Ms. Waboombas had apparently arrived at four a.m., or thereabouts, likely near the time Woodruff was just getting around to removing his shirt. I forgave him, mostly because he kept getting between Ms. Waboombas and myself, and I really needed the shield. He was obviously smitten, the old pervert. As well worn as Ms. Waboombas appeared, he likely assumed his monstrosity would fit, unimpeded. I had to imagine he was right. Slow, constant wear could do wonders for enlarging things. Just look at the Grand Canyon.

Ms. Waboombas finally tore her attention from my hidden member and bounded up the steps two at a time, jiggling wildly due to the fact that she was, essentially, naked. As she neared the top, I swore I could see one of Woodruff’s pant legs fill out like an inflating balloon. Apparently he dressed right. I studied closer, and yes, he
was
visibly pale and faint. Served him right. Chocolates on the pillow, I ask you.