Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (22 page)

Waboombas stopped before him on the upper landing, took the towel he offered and brushed a fluorescent, painted fingernail across the poor old man’s cheek as she jogged off, bouncily, down the hall to where he had indicated a pre-warmed shower awaited her. It wasn’t the only thing already turned on. Once she was out of sight, his breath exhaled, his knees buckled, and he had to steady himself on the banister. I laughed so hard I dropped a very heavy suitcase on my foot.

Outside, we finished loading the Beemer. With Ms. Waboombas still close enough at only two floors away to make me jumpy, I couldn’t help thinking that this is what my life could have been like had things continued with Ms. Nuckeby. She obviously had similar boundary issues to Waboombas, and would surely have devolved, eventually, into similar types of outrageous public behavior.

I shook my head. What a narrow escape I’d made. As fun and tingly as it might be in a darkened closet, the thrill would, no doubt, fade very rapidly in the bright light of life’s foyer. I realized I might actually have to thank Morgan for bringing Ms. Waboombas along, if for no other reason than that fortuitous lesson learned.

I sighed. Suddenly, I felt very relieved to be saddled with Mindie. She was publicly cold, deeply reserved, and devoutly prudish. A real catch.

As Morgan and I packed, gravel crunched behind us in the driveway and, as if on cue, we turned to see Mindie’s car driving our way.

What an odd coincidence. What was she doing here?

I paused.

I remembered.

I slapped myself for being an idiot.

Dear,
God
, I was supposed to be going to that damned chapel with Mindie, and Pastor Winterly today! The same day I was supposed to be driving down to the comics convention! The same day Wendy Waboombas was naked all over my house!

Damn my college-destroyed brain cells! The warnings on alcohol bottles should be in much larger type!

As Mindie’s car (complete with Mindie, and pastor figures included) drove toward me, I fidgeted nervously, trying to put on a false air of confidence that said loudly and clearly, ‘there isn’t any naked stripper in
my
shower.’ The car crunched to a stop on the gravel driveway beside me, and Mindie essentially burst from within, vibrant, full of life, and ready to chastise me for—I don’t know—the rising of the sun probably. She wore a very matronly outfit that did its level best to hide the gifts God had lavished upon her and strained at the seams with the effort. You could practically hear the stitching screaming for release from their tight-fitting agonies like that creepy little man-bug at the end of The Fly. The original one with Vincent Price.

“What’s
he
still doing here?” she asked, waving dismissively at Morgan.

“Well,” I laughed, “you’re not going to believe this, but…”

“He’s not coming with us?” she said, not so much a question as a declaration of fact with an accidental question mark at the end.

“No, he’s not actually coming with
us
…”

“So, you
did
invite Mindie,” Morgan said enthusiastically. “Perfect.”

He rubbed his hands together, obviously believing this
greatly
improved his chances with Ms. Waboombas—not understanding that simply having an active bank account greatly improved his chances with Ms. Waboombas.

“What,” Mindie asked, her voice rising toward shrill, “is he talking about?”

“You see,” I laughed again, “there’s a really funny story here…”

“Funny, ‘Ha Ha’, or funny, ‘no sex on our wedding night?’” Mindie asked, apparently sussing things out at a much faster rate than I gave her credit for.

“Mindie… ” I said, sounding upsettingly like I was about to begin begging. I was. But I didn’t want to
sound
like I was.

“You got any bags?” Morgan asked her, not helping in the slightest.

“
Bags?”
Mindie asked. It was amazing how she could—with a small adjustment in tonal inflection—make you feel as if you smelled like old, wet goat fur.

“Yeah,” Morgan said, beginning to recoil. “Aren’t you—staying the whole time?”

“Staying
where
?” she asked, adjusting her tone further and turning up his stink factor to ‘sun-heated garbage dump’.

She stared at him a moment, and he withered under her glare, saying nothing. Then, slowly, she turned on me.

To
me. Turned
to
me. This was my beloved fiancée, after all, not some vicious animal in Armani.

“Are you two idiots
going
somewhere?” she asked, cranking the ‘you stink’ level right past ‘cat vomit’, ‘baby diapers’, and all the way to ‘scorching summer in a New York sewer’ with a simple tilt of her head.

Morgan—finally getting wise to the fact that he was an idiot who talked too much—mumbled something about getting biscuits for the fish and quickly skittered off. Mindie folded her arms across her enormous chest, and put her weight on one leg as if to suggest— silently—‘You’re stupid, and I’m not.’

Some of you may be wondering why I would tolerate this kind of treatment from Mindie. Why I would put up with this kind of rude, controlling, angry behavior when just yesterday an attractive—and what you might call
naked
—woman was being so nice to me in a darkened, confined space. At this particular moment the thought was kicking
me,
rather hard, in the mental testicles as well.

But the simple truth is: this had
always
been my relationship with Mindie. It was the reason I felt comfortable with her and had asked her to marry me. Or considered asking until I was beaten up. She was, clearly, the domineering mother figure, and
I
the disobedient son who needed ‘shaping’. One might suppose it was because my mother had left me at a tender developmental age, and I was looking for a psychological substitute.
I
think it’s just because I’m a wuss, and Mindie has big tits. Never underestimate the power of big tits over a man who’s never touched them.

Actually, the real reason is—more honestly—because I’m a shy person with little social life who has not been allowed to date the women he worked with—whatever their breast size. Consequently, since I spend all my days either at work or at home, my options are severely limited. As you can imagine, very few available women just happen to wander through my living room looking for snacks. This means the only females of any kind I ever meet are coworkers or refugees from the occasional daring foray into online dating (from which I have been banned for the hairless chimpanzee incident— which I will not talk about since no video exists). This leaves me with almost no dating options, and a lot of time for masturbation.

In this kind of isolated social situation, men often rely on the kindness of female siblings to introduce them to their friends. However, being of the homosexual persuasion, my sister was usually already too interested in her
own
female friends to share them with me. Mindie was the one exception, because—through some strange quirk of fate—my sister isn’t attracted to large breasts—which I
do not
understand, and never will. The homosexuality I can ride with. But the breast thing…? Really. What’s that all about?

So anyway—for me—Mindie became a bird-in-the-hand kind of thing. Or maybe a not
in
-the-hand, but certainly within
-reach
-of-thehand kind of thing. In my entire adult life Mindie had been pretty much ‘it’ as far as available female companionship, and when it’s all you’ve experienced other than Mervin Wosserman, and the hairless chimp, you begin to feel no one else will ever be interested—ever— and you damn well better take what you can get while it’s right in front of you—especially if it’s got big tits.

I’m telling you:
never
underestimate big tits.

Because Mindie had accepted my sister’s homosexuality with kindness, understanding, and true friendship, I often hoped she might someday show me the same kind of tenderness—while letting me put my hands in her bra.

Said possibility was looking more and more remote.

“Mindie, I…”

“You made other plans, didn’t you?”

“I…”

“You forgot we were going to the chapel, didn’t you?”

“We…”

“You screwed up
again
.
Didn’t
you?”

“Actually, Mindie, these plans were made before last night, and everything was happening so fast…”

She stopped me with a look. You know the look. The sort of look that says, ‘You’re wearing your underwear on the
outside,
and they have skid marks.’

I glanced down at the pastor, who still sat in the passenger seat of Mindie’s car pretending the buttons on his jacket were the most fascinating mechanical invention ever.

“What am I going to do with you, Corky?” Mindie asked. Not me. God, perhaps. “Tell him you can’t go, then get into the car with Pastor Winterly,” she said, turning to walk into the house. “You ride in back. I’ve decided
I’ll
drive.”

“But Mindie…”

She stopped and turned to me, letting me know in the gentlest of all possible ways that I was stupid and ugly. She pointed quickly to a breast and made a ‘cutting’ motion as if to indicate: ‘not in your lifetime’. Of course, she might have been saying, ‘I’m going to the kitchen for a knife to slice them off so you can’t even
look
at them.’ But the former seemed somehow more likely.

“I’m going to use the ladies room,” she said, settling the kitchen/knife question. “Be in the car when I get back.”

She turned to walk into the house and ran straight into Ms. Waboombas. Fortunately they were both well cushioned, and bounced harmlessly off one another.

“Oh. Hey,” Ms. Waboombas said, looking down at the much shorter Mindie. “How’s it goin’?”

Waboombas had obviously finished her shower and—now dressed—looked far more naked than when she had actually been naked. Her hair was wet and wild, and she had on a pair of filmy shorts and matching tank top that were sheer enough, and small enough, that they looked, not so much like clothes, as free-floating electrons.

Mindie goggled at her like a fish being reeled in by a bass master. For a moment, my fiancée looked frightened, then with a sudden inrush of breath, valiantly regrouped as anger rose within her and rejuvenated her like Popeye swallowing spinach.

“Who are
you
?” she demanded.

“Wendy,” Ms. Waboombas said. “Who are you?”

“Mindie Butterwycke. Mister Wopplesdown’s fiancée.”

“Ooooh, riiiiiight. Morgan mentioned you.”

Ms. Waboombas studied Mindie up and down, then
tsked
. “Yeah. I can see you being kind of a tight-ass.”

Mindie gasped as Wendy sized up her opponent’s ‘Waboombas’ and apparently decided she, Wendy, rated marginally higher in overall size, shape, and appearance.

“Nice,” Ms. Waboombas said. “Doctor Pflemmel?”

“What?”

“The implants. Pflemmel or Hoovascotia?”

“I’ll have you know these are natural in every way.”

“Suuuure they are. So whattya do? You a dancer?”