Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms

by Chuck Austen

  Now he understood her meaning.

  Mindie slapped at Waboombas, shrieking.

  “Get away from him! GET AWAY!” Mindie continued striking at the taller woman with anything handy—napkins, menus, salt, and pepper shakers—trapping the unfortunate pastor between Waboombas and her flurry of attacks, apparently unaware that she had now drawn the attention of the entire restaurant.

  “Sit on this side!” Mindie demanded. “Now!” She shoved Morgan. “Morgan, trade with her!” Morgan hesitated, and Mindie swatted at him too. “Move! Move! MOVE!”

  Smiling, apparently satisfied that she had achieved whatever perverse goal she had set out to, Ms. Waboombas stood—regally— stretching herself out like a cat that won’t get off your lap, and then moved—with interminable slowness—toward the opposite side of the booth, and the spot Morgan had already vacated. Waboombas lay her hands on the table, pivoting on them so she could more easily swing her behind out and up, unhurriedly, toward the seat opposite her, thus putting it on full display for the roomful of intrigued patrons. As she did so, she took a few quick glances around, apparently satisfied that now—at last—all eyes were upon her. Or at least an important part of her.

  Morgan—lost in the show—had to be reminded by Mindie with a saltshaker to the head that he needed to take the seat Waboombas had just risen from. He dropped into it, apparently weak in the knees, then slowly looked down at the seat beneath him, smiling drunkenly.

  “It’s warm,” he said, as if orgasm were imminent.

  Meanwhile, Waboombas placed herself gently beside Mindie, smiling and staring at her, reopening her bill-of-fare, and again pretending to read. Incredibly, she could make even that seem sexual.

  With a huff, Mindie shook open her own menu and glared into it, her eyes darting around as if they were lasers trying to burn patterns through the plastic-coated paper. Then she remembered she was naked, slapped the menu back onto her breasts and scowled around, apparently certain that at least one of us had tried to steal a look at them, maybe even photograph them for distribution on the Internet. Unfortunately, I had stolen a look, and earned a peppershaker to the head for my foolishness. Brains spilled out the opposite side of my skull.

  Really. Brains.

  Wishing for an aspirin, I watched as the others also began to scan their menus. Quiet settled over the table.

  Now was the time.

  “When our waitress gets here,” I told Morgan. “I’ll have the tunamelt and fries.”

  “Where are you going?” Mindie asked. This would have been so much easier if she had stayed in the car. Which is probably why God hadn’t made her.

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  “Which is near the storage room,” Waboombas said.

  I shot her a look. I wanted to hit her. But only if she couldn’t hit me back.

  Mindie goggled at me, disgusted. “You’re going to use the restroom? Here?”

  “I’m certainly not going to hold it in until Aunt Helena arrives and takes us somewhere else.”

  The realization that she, too, might not be able to hold out that long clearly horrified Mindie.

  “Dear God,” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

  “Use the restroom,” I said and turned to run away.

  “I’d rather explode,” she said, defiantly.

  “There are plenty of towels to clean up afterward,” I said over my shoulder.

  “That’s not funny!” she snarled. “Corky! WAIT!”

  Knowing I really shouldn’t, I stopped and turned back to her.

  “You were getting awfully friendly with that waitress, person,” she said intently.

  “Hostess.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Just being polite,” I laughed. “You catch more flies with honey…”

  “Why would you want to catch flies?”

  “It’s just a figure of sp…”

  “They’re disgusting. They carry germs.”

  “I was just trying to say…”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I have to use the rest…”

  “You’re not going off to see her, are you?”

  My face flushed, and I cursed the genetics that gave me excellent blood flow. I glanced at Waboombas, who smiled, but remarkably said nothing.

  “Of course not,” I lied. “Why would I want to see…?”

  “You were awfully familiar with her, up front, and she seemed to know your Aunt Helena, which doesn’t surprise me, but...”

  “Know my aunt? Noooo. She was just being fresh. Smart-alecky. Pretending she knew her. Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t that surprise you? What…”

  “Were you attracted to her?”

  “Who? The hostess?”

  “No, your Aunt Helena. Yes, the hostess, dim-bulb. This is why father throws darts at you!”

  “Mindie!”

  “Did you find her attractive? I saw you looking at her breasts you know. You think I didn’t see that?”

  “Not in a sexual way. That was merely a curiosity thing.”

  Waboombas laughed. Or burped. I ignored her.

  “I mean,” I continued, “they were right there. Exposed!”

  “I know,” Mindie agreed. Calming a bit. “It’s so revolting. How people can allow themselves to be seen that way in public is beyond me.”

  Each of us glanced over at her nakedness, but said nothing.

  “I suppose you can’t help yourself. You are a man after all. But I don’t want you becoming—you know—aroused. You know how I feel about that kind of thing. We’ve discussed it.” She glanced down at my crotch and scowled warningly.

  Waboombas smiled sinisterly, and started to say something. I prayed for her to be struck mute. God visited all kinds of nasty wrath upon Job, and he was a good person. Was a little laryngitis so much to call down on a stripper/pornographer with implants?

  “Let the man use the toilet,” she said. Which shocked me.

  “Butt out,” Mindie said.

  “You said ‘butt’,” Waboombas snickered in an excellent Beavis impersonation. Or was it Butt-Head?

  “Are you going to see her?” Mindie asked me again, ignoring the stripper, her eyes now squinting at my face and studying me.

  Suddenly her eyes jerked again down to my crotch, as if she would catch my penis off-guard trying to sneak itself erect.

  “See her? Mindie! Why would I want to see anyone else when you’re here? Your breasts are larger, and…and you’re naked, I might add!”

  That caught her off-guard. I think she had forgotten she had stripped for her meal. She pulled the menu tighter against her breasts, and nodded once slowly as if to say, ‘excellent point’.

  “I mean, look at you,” I said. “You’re…”

  “Don’t be common,” she sniffed, then waved a hand. “We don’t want your-you-know-what—becoming all…you know again at the thought of me. Remember what happened to the car.” She paused a bit, staring at me like a child you just can’t make behave no matter how hard you try. “All right. Go on, then,” she continued. “Just be sure to use several of those paper ring thingies for the toilet seat. One could never be enough in this place.”

  I smiled, nodded agreement, and turned away without another word. The last thing I needed was for my poor language skills to get me into deeper trouble.

  “While you’re in there, think of ways to get us OUT of here!” Mindie called to my back. “CORKY?”

  I didn’t acknowledge. No time for any more delays. Ms. Nuckeby beckoned.

  I rounded the corner, out of sight of the others, and ran into our waitress. I know this because the nametag hanging from her chokerbowtie said ‘Petal’.

  “Oh! Petal!” I said, startled and trying not to let on that I had been able to read her nametag in the first place because I’d been looking at her breasts. “Hello. I’m sitting at one of your tables.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” Petal said, smiling and chirpy—if a bit harried. “I’l
l be there for your drink orders as fast as I can. We’re a bit busy today. We have this festival thing all weekend, you know, and people actually came for it. Are you here for the Summertime Soiree?” “No, I…”

  “It’s a lot of fun, but it turns into a zoo here with so many people—though, I suppose you’d think we’d be used to it by now, we get quite a run every year, but this year—whoo! I can’t remember when we’ve had so many people—except of course when we had the summer Olympics that one year, and all those athletes, they just ate so much—I guess they need their nutrition, so who can blame them— and it’s only the first day, though I guess that’s good for the community, but on the whole—my God! I’ll need a week to recover—I was just talking to the cook—Jeraldo—and he can’t remember a time when they were this busy—except, as I said, for those Olympics— which I wouldn’t know because I haven’t worked here as long as he has, and I know what you’re thinking—it’s a family business—but I only started two years ago when I turned seventeen because my parents wanted better things for me than to be a waitress at first because they felt it might become a bit of a trap for their kids, and they—like most parents, I suppose—had bigger plans for us—but in the end…”

  “I was looking for the restroom!” I yelled, feeling certain it was the only way to get a word in edgewise.

  “You don’t have to snap,” she said, visibly hurt and making me feel like I’d just kicked a puppy. A naked puppy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just have to go rather badly.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, not meaning it. “I understand.” Also not meaning it.

  She pointed, I glanced that way and saw the universal symbol for man-with-full-bladder.

  “Down the hall, and to the left,” she said unnecessarily. Then added, even more unnecessarily: “It used to be out back when they first built this place, but we got a lot of complaints over the years, especially when it was cold because you had to go out front first then out and around to the back of the entire building to use the toilet, and sometimes the seats would freeze—only in the winter, of course— which—as I’m sure you can imagine, would cause problems—the toilet seats freezing, not the entire season, itself—especially when you’re in a hurry, though it’s more a problem for women than men because we have to sit down for everything, you know, which can be awfully irritating, how you men just have it so much easier in that way, and you have no idea how I envy that, how I often think about how nice it would be to just stop and go like you do—hang something out there and let it fly—I mean, it’s so much quicker and simpler, and you don’t have to check to see if some other guy has left the seat up first, or peed all over it, which is totally disgusting how some people can just leave it like that, isn’t it? And imagine if it gets frozen, which was part of the problem, especially when you’re rushing—and who isn’t rushing these days, because time is so short, and there are always so many people wanting something now, now, now…”

  As I knew all too well. With Wisper waiting, and Mindie already suspicious, I had to get away. But Petal continued on, oblivious to the existence of periods. So I just smiled and nodded while backing away, looking for a break. Any break. Any break at all.

  “…that was before we even had a paved road down the main street, if you can imagine…”

  “Hard to believe!” I said, then turned and ran.

  I dove between tables, tripped over a chair, recovered, and headed for the storage room.

  “Like I said: People these days are in such a hurry,” I heard Petal say as I zoomed off. “Don’t rush so much you leave pee on the seat!”

  I was almost there. I could almost see the light of Ms. Nuckeby as if she were some kind of personal homing beacon just for me. But as I approached the restroom, a tall, handsome man stepped in front of me. He was, of course, naked save for a bowtie and cuffs. Very Chippendale’s, completely devoid of pubic hair to—one assumed— more appealingly display a penis he was clearly quite proud of. And why shouldn’t he be? It could easily have been used to model sexual aids for very happy women. Not too big, but still pretty damn big! And as if that wasn’t enough, he looked like Tarzan. Or what Tarzan would look like if he were as staggeringly handsome and in shape as this guy.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I just need to get by to use the restroom.”

  “Restroom’s right there,” he said, pointing to the wrong door. Wrong for me anyway.

  “Right,” I said. “Right. See, the thing is, I need to get into that room.”

  He looked at the door I indicated, and it had a sign that said— quite plainly—‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’.

  “Not gonna happen,” he said flatly.

  “Look,” I said. “I know this seems unusual, but there’s someone in there I need to talk to.”

  “I know. Not gonna happen.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and stood defiantly before me, his penis swinging beneath him like Poe’s pendulum of death.

  Somewhere overhead, on a bust Pallas quoth a raven, “Nevermore.”

  I looked at Tarzan for a long moment, wondering what was going on. I felt as though I’d missed an important detail somewhere, and looked around to see if there was some kind of joke being played.

  No one seemed to be laughing.

  Most of the customers in the general proximity were looking at me; one in particular was an older, gray-haired gentleman sitting at a nearby table with what might have been an appendix scar above his very thick penis. Not long, just thick. Like a doorstop. Those gray, commercial ones that are fat, and small, and round, and can stop a heavy, metal fire door in its tracks. I’d never seen anything like it. His penis, I mean. Not even stopping doors—and it manhandled my ability to think clearly, as I suppose you’ve figured out by now.

  Beside him sat a younger man, perhaps my age or a bit older. A tad doughier than me, with a less noticeable penis—dinky, in Waboombas-speak—and anger in his face that made me physically flinch. For some reason, there was an almost pure kind of hatred in his eyes for me, yet I was positive I’d never seen him anywhere before now. What had I done to him? Was it just naked loathing for a clothed outsider? Did he have something personal against pants?

  Between all the unexpected attention, and the human roadblock, I was thoroughly confused.

  “Did I miss something?” I asked Tarzan. “I’m not planning to steal anything. I just need to get into that room so I can see…”

  “My sister,” Tarzan said.

  Oh.

  Which made Ms. Nuckeby—what—Sheena? Weird.

  “I know,” he continued. “I heard you at the front, and I heard you at your table. Let me repeat myself again for the hearing impaired. Not…gonna…happen.”

  Her brother. Things made a little more sense now.

  I noticed others near us had—like the gray-haired old doorstop, and angry ‘hates pants’ man—had stopped talking and begun paying very close attention to our conversation. This was a very small town. But was it possible Ms. Nuckeby’s business would be town business? Suddenly I remembered Wisper’s brother—or parts of him—as well as one or two of the others here from the bottom of the hill near the beach. They were the other naked people who had been standing behind my favorite waitress.

  Then it struck me that they must have all been heading here. Of course Wisper’s business was their business. I was standing in Nuckeby’s.

  Duh.

  “I know why you’re here,” Tarzan said.

  “You do?” I asked, surprised. Because I didn’t.

  “You extremist out-of-towners are always coming into Green Valley—horny and pushy—thinking the local girls are an easy mark just because they’re not repressed like you and wearing clothes.”

  Wait. I was the extremist?

  “Prudes like you think nudity means we’re all free and loose, and will just do it in a storage closet with anybody who comes along.”

  “No. You misunder
stand. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to…”

  What was I here for?

  I looked around and considered things. This answered some questions really. If this was her home—how she had grown up—it explained a lot about her behavior, and her comfort with being naked. But it also meant any relationship between us was utterly impossible. This was not my lifestyle, and I couldn’t imagine learning to be comfortable with someone for whom it was. I manufactured clothes for God’s sake. How could we reconcile such a chasm of difference? How would we raise the children? Where would we spend Christmas? Who would provide the towels?

  Was I just looking for some quick sex in a storage closet with his sister? If he thought I was, I guess I could understand his hostility— although I still resented him for it.

  “I’m just here to…“ I said, still trying to figure it out, “…apologize to her.”

  “In a storage closet.”

  “It was her idea. I thought you listened to our conversation.”

  “Why do you need to apologize? What did you do to her?”

  “So many things. But mostly…” I hesitated, fearing their reaction, “…it’s my fault she lost her job.”

  There were a couple of gasps around the room, and—oddly— pants-hater smiled.

  Smiled?

  I turned back to Tarzan. Whatever pleasantness may have been lingering around in him fell out of his face, and he glared at me more intently.

  “You Wopplesdown?”

  His anger carried, and two more men sitting at a nearby table stopped talking and listened in.

  “I’m a Wopplesdown.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There are several of us. I’m Corky.”

  He considered that for another moment. The two men listened more intently, the older one turning our way a bit and leaning out of his chair. Pants-hater really began to seethe.