by Chuck Austen
“We don’t have reservations,” I said. “Do you have anything available?”
“We do!” Bounce! “You’re in luck!” Bounce! The clerk was as enthusiastic as if we had just struck gold in a diamond mine full of million-dollar bills. “We have two rooms left!” Bounce! “Fortunately for you, since it’s the busy season!” Bounce, bounce!
I looked around at an empty lobby that contained only one, naked, bellman sleeping in a corner. If this was the busy season, I couldn’t imagine what the slow season must be like.
“Do you have smoking rooms?” Ms. Waboombas asked.
“Only nonsmoking, I’m afraid!” Bounce! She said it as if there couldn’t be anything better, even for smokers! “But there are designated smoking sections in several small buildings along the beach—all within easy biking distance!” Bounce!
Ms. Waboombas looked as if she wanted to strangle the poor woman—something that would undoubtedly thrill them both—but instead the stripper simply grinned an irritated smile and retreated.
“Is everyone okay with sharing rooms?” I asked.
There were general moans that told me ‘no’, but they’d do it anyway.
“We’ll take both rooms,” I said, handing over a credit card. “And we have a of couple bags here as well.”
“All right, Mister Wopple-see-down…”
“Wopplesdown. Whoop-uls-dun. Cock-ran Whoop-uls-dun.”
“Really? I’m so sorry. But…it is spelled Cor-CAR-an Wopple-seeDOWN.”
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She bit a lip and looked devastated. “Terribly sorry, Mister Wopple-less-duhn.”
I sighed. “Not at all.”
She made an interesting face, then shrugged and smiled, and slid the card through her machine, punched some buttons, and waited. After a moment, everything seemed fine, no matter how my name was pronounced. She bounced delightedly, then slammed a bell on the desk so hard it rang like Westminster Abbey in my ear. The naked bellhop awoke slowly, and looked around, bleary-eyed. He adjusted his hat (how did you think I knew he was a bellhop?), stood and walked towards us.
One couldn’t help but notice that the elderly gentleman would have given Woodruff some heated competition in the testicular Olympics. His enormous family jewels hung so low, they bounced around between his shins like a pendulum as he walked. It was like watching a human grandfather clock hobble our way. Here was a man who clearly needed pants for his protection, and the protection of those around him. Imagine if he had to run! Nudity could be a hazard for anyone within striking distance.
“What car are you driving?” the perky clerk asked, bouncily.
“A Duesenberg. Old-style car. But we had to leave it at…er…Nuckeby’s.”
“Well, let me give you a parking pass anyway!” she said, handing it over as if I were Augustus Gloop and it allowed me entrance to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory and all the wonders contained therein.
I handed the old man what little of our luggage we actually had, and he tottered off to grab one of those luggage rolley-things, his legs spread wide to avoid tripping himself. The clerk handed me our room key-cards, a receipt, an actual key to the minibar, and a questionnaire to be filled out upon our departure. I looked at the first question.
1) How could we have served you better?
With pants.
The rooms were beautiful. Tastefully decorated with a fireplace in each, immense beds, comfortable seating, lots of space, and balconies overlooking the ocean. I stepped over and absorbed the view, along with a cool, ocean breeze. It was impressive, deeply relaxing, and really quite lovely.
“What a dump,” Mindie said.
I turned and glared at her.
“What?” she asked. “Think of all the naked people who have
been in here before us.”
“People are always naked in hotel rooms. At least occasionally.” The thought seemed to horrify her, and she looked around with
newfound revulsion at the room, the bathroom, the amenities, and the tub—which could be opened to the main room by swinging aside louvered shutters—the chairs, the beds…
“Eeeeewwww,” she said, finally.
I looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. She sneered her way through the little apartment, lifting her shirt as she did so she could scratch her stomach like some hillbilly farmer. I wondered—not for the first time that day—if marrying Mindie was really preferable to being single. Ms. Nuckeby might be an impossibility for me, but was Mindie really a necessary part of my future? With her, or alone— either way, the foundation of my sex life would largely be masturbation. Did she really bring anything else to the relationship table?
Suddenly she turned to me with unexpected kindness in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to complain.”
Smiling slightly, she took my hand and squeezed it for a brief
instant, then let go. I softened a bit, and realized everyone needed contact of some kind, even if it was only cold, distant Mindie. It really did beat the hell out of being alone. At least lots of people had told me it did. Usually people who were alone and desperate.
“It’s not your fault this place is disgusting,” she said, artfully killing the moment.
“There’s a con-ti-nen-tal breakfast every mornin’ at ten,” the bellman said, startling me, and reminding me he was still there, swinging wild and free. He moved over toward the minibar—which Mindie happened to be standing next to —his immense testicles bobbling. Mindie dove out of his way as if he were on fire. He took hold of the minibar’s handle and opened its genuine, oak-veneer door. There were cokes and cookies, and various other allegedly edible items inside. I noticed a bag of mixed nuts, and felt as though it described the situation perfectly. Mister Peanut was even dressed much like Ms. Nuckeby had been—hat, bowtie, and shoes. Fortunately, peanuts were apparently sexless. Or perhaps unfortunately if you were Mrs. Peanut.
“Minibar,” the bellman said, quite unnecessarily. He said ‘bah’ instead of ‘bar’ with some sort of New England accent. I supposed naked people came from all over. “Take ennything, and it chah-ges yo room au-to-matic-ally, even if yo-ah just lookin’ ‘round in there.” ‘There’ was pronounced, ‘they-uh’. “So don’t take items out to refrigerate things of yo own, figurin’ you can just put it back, unless you want to pay for owah stuff ennyway.”
He moved toward the desk, and Mindie—who was again everywhere he wanted to be—had to leap aside to avoid touching any of the air molecules that might have come in contact with his wellhung nakedness.
“Compu-tah hook-up,” he said, pointing to it. “Fo the Inta-net.” He smiled and revealed crooked teeth in his cauliflower face. “In case you want to download pick-chas of nekkid people,” he said, and laughed—or kind of barked actually, then fell into a coughing fit, which did startling things to his clock pendulum.
After a moment’s hacking, he slowly recovered, leaning on the desk, red-faced and taking several wheezing, deep breaths. When next he spoke, his voice had gone faint and high-pitched, and sentences were clearly difficult to complete.
“Over he-ah…” he wheezed, “we hahve…” wheeze, “…we hahve…yo-ah telephone…” his voice faded, his face reddened, and I feared he might collapse, which meant I would have to perform mouth-to-mouth in order to save him, and the poor man would die.
Fortunately for all concerned, his face color quickly returned to normal, he recovered, smiled crookedly, and continued moving around the room, pendulating slowly, showing off the other amenities—thermostat, extra blankets, map to the fire escape, his saggy ass—and each time Mindie was directly in his path, which forced her to leap around the room like a thick-legged frog escaping a French chef—bounding over chairs, up on the desk, rolling over the bed. Eventually she settled behind me, using my body as some kind of antiballistic, naked-man defense system.
At last the bellman finished his tour of the room, I tipped him, and with a nod and a grin, he turned
and wobbled out. Once he had closed the door behind him, Mindie let out the breath she’d been holding since we’d entered and walked into the bathroom to run water.
I sat down and grabbed a phone, as somewhere behind me curtains were drawn, faucets cranked, and water splashed. I began to dial, and Mindie stuck her head through the bathroom doorway.
“You’re not staying in here, are you?” she asked, rather pointedly.
“I was going to call…”
“You can do that later. I want some privacy.”
“But…I’ll be out here.”
“I’m not going to be naked in the same hotel room with you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You were just naked with me in a restaurant.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Yes you…”
“That story never leaves this town, you understand?”
I goggled, silently for a moment, then sighed heavily and nodded toward the bathroom door. “Fine. Whatever. Just close the…”
“Is that going to prevent you from imagining me in here naked?”
I sat there, moon-faced, wondering what was going to start me imagining her naked. She took my silence for something else.
“No,” she said significantly. “I didn’t think so. Now that you’ve seen them, the temptation is simply going to be too much for you. You go find something to do. Maybe order the roll away.”
“Roll away?”
“Corky, there’s only one bed.”
“We’re engaged.”
“But not married. And may I remind you whose fault that is?”
Mine, apparently.
“And besides,” she said. “I’m still annoyed with you. Even if you didn’t sleep with that model in the closet, or that black tramp, I think a term of abstinence is still in order after all you’ve done.”
I continued to stare blankly.
“And for your attitude,” she snarled. “Which I must say isn’t improving as time goes on. Give me about an hour, then you can come back and do your phone things.”
I stood up.
“And bring me some chocolates when you do,” she said. “A good kind, like Godiva. Not whatever that crappy stuff is you keep around your house. It’s been a trying day, and I need some pampering.”
Outside in the hallway I stood silently and wondered what to do next. I sighed heavily (something I seem to do a lot), thinking hard, but came up with nothing, and in frustration I jammed my hands into my pockets.
The envelope crinkled.
I pulled it out and removed the keys Petal had braved the naked hit squad to return to me. I began to wad the thing up when I noticed something green still inside.
A note.
I slipped it out and unfolded it.
My heart jumped. Ms. Nuckeby. And her handwriting was terrible.
I looked at my watch. 1:45.
My heart jumped again in the other direction. It was doing calisthenics. I only had fifteen minutes to find out what the Little Giant Head was and get behind it.
Ms. Nuckeby.
Wisper.
The hounds were chasing my deer again!
But should I go? Did this have any chance of working? Ms. Nuckeby had been a model. Clothes couldn’t be entirely foreign to her. Maybe she could be comfortable living in my world. We could still be naked most of the time if we stayed in a lot.
Gloop.
But what about her brother, River the Roadblock?
Damn him. He really had my dander up. Whatever ‘dander’ might be. Add that to the list. I refused to be bullied…by man, or penis. I was going to see her in spite of him. It. Them.
I ran toward the exit, and within seconds I was far enough away that I could no longer hear Mindie’s voice.
“Corky?” she called from inside the bathroom. “Are you out there? I’m going to undress now, and I don’t want you anywhere nearby when I do. Your lack of self-restraint is appalling.”
She waited a moment, and then haltingly began removing my shirt/her dress as if afraid I might, at any moment, burst back into the room and unleash my erect penis on her.
By the time she got all her clothes off and saw the hideous thing behind her, I was too far away to hear her bloodcurdling scream.
Two floors down and still naked, Ms. Waboombas was jumping on the bed, and eating her drippy, room service food.
The pastor was sweating profusely and loosening his collar. He looked as if he might be diving headlong into a heart attack. Morgan was beside him, looking much the same, but happier about his own impending engine failure if it meant Waboombas might give him mouth-to-mouth, or mouth to…whatever.
The stately black woman inhaled the last of her meal, spilling juices all over her ample Pflemmels, leaped one last time high into the air, and flopped majestically down onto her back. Eventually all her jiggly stuff stopped moving, her drippy stuff stopped dripping, and the pastor collapsed on a chair, weak and spiritually challenged. Waboombas looked down the length of her body at him, then slowly spread her legs to give him a full-view of her internal reproductive organs. He gasped, flushed, and turned quickly away, choking on something. His chastity, no doubt.
Between chews, she asked, “Anyone want to take a bath?” Apparently hoping they all would. Together.
In Jell-o.
The pastor abruptly leaped from his chair and ran for the door, saying something about “God in His infinite wisdom....” was out in the hall, and through the lobby before anyone could ask him to speak up and repeat himself. Their room—fortunately for him—was very near an exit from the hotel.
In his mad rush, the poor man of God had left the door open, and Waboombas looked up at Morgan expectantly. Morgan smiled down at her.
“Close the door,” she said, and Morgan practically flew to it.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“From the outside,” she amended.
“What?”
“I’m gonna take a bath.”
“But you just said…”
“I asked if anyone else was going to take a bath.”
“That’s not what you said. You said…”
“Get out.”
“Let me stay and watch.”
“Not happenin’, little man.”
“But why can’t I…”
She threw the television remote at him. That’s how I nearly ran into him as he stepped out into the hall to dodge the thing, while still calling back inside to Ms. Waboombas.
“At least let me stay and read comics. It’s my room too.”
“You just want to leer at me in the tub.”
“Can’t I do both?”
“Fuck no!” she yelled.
“You’ve been naked since we got here! What difference does it make if I…”
“Get lost!”
“I bet you’d let Corky watch.”
I backed away from him and stopped short, just out of sight of the door.
“He’s cute,” Waboombas purred.
“I’m not a bad-looking guy.”
“But you ain’t rich. CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!”
Reluctantly, he did, mumbling something incoherent about ‘not being fair’, and ‘I deserve a little something’.
As I tried to slip past him he finally noticed me.
Drat. Foiled again.
“Hey, Corky.”
“Hey, Morgan,” I said, once the door was safely shut and Waboombas couldn’t see or hear me. Skittish and jumpy, I glanced at my watch. Thirteen minutes.
“What are you doing down here?” Morgan asked. “I figured you’d be up there banging Mindie left, right and center.”
I studied him to see if he might be blind. But no, his face simply held that gentle innocence one usually finds on the faces of the very young, or the recently deceased, or the completely stupid. Facts rarely made it all the way through his senses and into the cognitive areas of his brain. Morgan’s world was that of a perpetual teenager, where all his thoughts were sense-orie
nted, and all his motivations were hormonal. He thought Mindie’s surliness was ‘foreplay’ as he would have thought any woman’s actions—negative, positive, or lethally violent—were ‘foreplay’.
“Hardly,” I answered simply.
“Damn,” he said. “Too bad. If you’re anything like me—after that road trip—I could fuck holes through sheetrock.”
It was a disturbing visual, all the more so because I could actually imagine Morgan trying it.
“I’m gonna wander around a bit,” I said, and moved off.
“Okay,” he said, following.
I stopped and looked at him. He stopped and looked at me. “I, uh…” I paused. What could I say?
“What?” he asked.
“I was thinking of going down to the beach,” I said. “Alone.” “Okay. Why?”
I paused. Should I just tell him?
“Naked girls.”
That was sort of the truth.
He looked at me as if the thought had never occurred to him. His face brightened more than when we’d watched the girls fight. Which was considerable.
“That’s right,” he said. “I forgot about that.”
“How could you forget about that?” I asked, checking my watch and hurrying toward the lobby. He turned and paced me.
“I don’t know,” he said, lost in the thought. “It’s just such a strange thing. It hasn’t really sunk in yet, I guess.” He slowed down to consider it. “Wow. Naked girls everywhere. It’s like the Playboy mansion.”
Not quite.
Though, I have to admit, I was surprised at the general attractiveness of everyone we saw. Being naked all the time apparently made people want to take greater physical care of themselves. But still, the bodies were wide (and by that, I mean the range, not the actual bodies) and varied, and very few of them were actual centerfold caliber, though—interestingly—still largely attractive in their own way. Somehow clothes make you think the worst of what’s under them. But mostly, a little extra weight and bit of natural sag—not really all that unpleasant. And if it was on a woman, and you’re a heterosexual (as I keep telling you I am), it could be quite appealing indeed. And often surprising. People whose faces wouldn’t have given you pause back home, often had bodies that would stop you in your tracks. And people with amazing looks sometimes had bodies that were somewhat lacking.
