by Chuck Austen
There wasn’t a day gone by that he hadn’t at least once remembered with some regret both his decision to not join her, to not be with her in every way she wanted, but instead insult her and cause her pain. His feelings of remorse were usually followed by vigorous prayer and self-recrimination, fervent pleas to the Lord that He remove the shameful memories and ugly desires from His loyal servant’s heart.
And yet, to this very moment, God had still not answered any of those prayers; perhaps it was his cross to bear.
In point of fact, God seemed now to be taunting Winterly— outright laughing at his requests even—by dumping him in this place; the stern pet owner reaching down and holding the scruff of His puppy’s neck, rubbing the animal’s nose in its own filthy thoughts and needs.
“If we don’t attend to the little things as if God were watching,” Pastor Winterly said, quietly to himself as he checked the time on the town clock now so far behind him, “He will eventually remind us…that we have fallen short…in His eyes.”
Winterly had not gotten over the girl from Toulon, and so God had brought him here. With some purpose. For some lesson. To test him.
Was he passing? Was he failing?
He looked around at the few people near him. A man gardening the flowers near the edge of the creek. A woman carrying groceries from her car. Two small children playing near their thatch roofed home.
Surely these children could not be damned for their sins.
He thought about their shamelessness. Or more correctly he thought about their lack of shame rather than some intentional flaunting of what they knew to be wicked. He wondered if he’d ever been so comfortable in his own skin as these innocent children were now, playing delightedly unencumbered in the gentle pleasures of warm sun and cool grass. He tried to remember a time when he was so unconcerned with the looks and the size and the shape of God’s first, true gift to the souls He calls His children—their very form and substance—and felt suddenly saddened that he could not.
His mother would never have allowed such memories to exist. She would never have permitted him to feel anything but shame about his nakedness. She didn’t even like the possibility of accidentally seeing him—or rather parts of him—in the tub. To avoid it, she had sat on a stool near the bathroom door, averting her eyes and scrubbing him with a sponge on the end of a long stick. Beyond that, she made the infant Winterly cover himself with a washcloth whenever she had to bathe him, which was once a day, every day, until he was old enough to be trusted in the tub alone.
And even then, isolated and unobserved, knowing his mother’s distaste for what existed between his legs, he still carefully covered it.
Winterly watched the woman unloading her groceries for a moment and only looked away when he realized he was making her nervous with his stares. Why should she be nervous? He was obviously a chaste man of the cloth. She was the one parading herself in an unacceptable manner, wasn’t she?
As if in answer to his unspoken question a small, wind-up airplane smacked Winterly in the side of the head and snapped him back into the moment. A bit shocked, he looked over as one of the children—a small girl—ran toward him to retrieve the errant, balsawood projectile.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry.” Then she paused, waiting for the minister’s reaction. When Winterly said nothing, she quickly pointed to her friend standing near a tree. “He did it.”
The pastor smiled warmly at the child and kneeled down to pick up the now slightly skewed toy as the girl continued to apologize. Winterly unbent the wing of the little, rubber-band-powered Cessna and shushed her gently.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It just surprised me. Didn’t hurt at all, really. Here.” He fished in his pocket for the candy he usually kept there for the children of his parishioners and found one still there from last week’s sermon buried under some change.
“Here,” he repeated, offering her the sweet. “See? I’m not mad, in fact…”
Suddenly a woman began screaming.
“NOOOOOOO! LEAVE MY GIRL ALONE!”
Winterly looked over and saw a terrified woman, nude save for an apron and some slippers, racing toward him as fast as her fluffy, baby-blue feet could carry her. He furrowed his brow and wondered what could possibly have upset the woman so severely, then abruptly realized.
He was the outsider. A ‘clothist’.
Offering candy.
To a naked little girl.
“No,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, and then turned to the distraught mother. “No! You don’t understand!”
Then he saw the man who’d been gardening moving quickly toward him with an open pair of shears.
“No, I’m not…” Winterly began, then thought better of it, leaped to his feet, and ran.
“Stop him!” Yelled the gardening man. “STOP THAT CLOTHED PERVERT!”
Morgan and I fought our way through shrubs, weeds, and undergrowth, over hills, and fences, and yards, to eventually stumble—exhausted—back to our hotel. Quietly slipping around the building and in through a side door, we finally allowed ourselves to relax for a few minutes and catch our breath.
Morgan used his valuable breathing time to whine about being half-naked. All along the way he was so afraid someone would see him pantsless, he just wouldn’t shut up about it, and I couldn’t muster the breath, or energy, to make him understand that this was the one place where nobody would ever care.
I guess I really couldn’t blame him. Plainly, I hadn’t entirely grasped the concept myself.
With things now obviously, and distressingly, ended between Ms. Nuckeby and me—whether I understood the reasons or not—I was eager to get out of this town and back to my world, as Wisper was always referring to it, as if it were—literally—some alternate dimension. I suppose in many ways it was.
Something deep inside me ached, savagely, for Wisper, and I figured distance was the first step toward killing the sensation before it killed me.
As Morgan and I were sneaking through a hallway, undetected, heading for the stairs, I remembered Mindie’s chocolates and cursed to myself. It didn’t really matter to me if I made her happy or not, but I figured I should at least do everything in my power to prevent conflict. Lord knows I’d have enough of that for several lifetimes. And now, of course, she was the only other woman in the world who had ever even shown visible interest in me. Minimal interest, asexual interest, but interest nonetheless. I mean, there must be some reason she wanted to marry me. Best to keep things comfortable between us. Or at least less agonizing.
“Morgan. I need to go to that little store they have in the hotel lobby. I have to get chocolates for Mindie.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
“She won’t even have sex with you.”
“I’m not really sure I want her to.”
“Then why are you buying her chocolates?”
“Are you coming with me or not?”
“I haven’t got any pants!”
“Morgan. We’re in a nudist village, in a nudist hotel, surrounded by nudists who don’t fucking care!”
He hesitated, wounded by the anger in my voice, looking at me like a deer who’d suddenly realized that those bright things coming toward him are attached to a hood, a metal grill, a heavy engine, and eighteen deer-grinding wheels.
“I have a small dick,” he whined.
I stared at him, stunned, and, as tears moistened his eyes, sympathy gradually welled within me.
“People will see,” he whispered sadly.
“Oh, Morgan. It’s not that bad,” I lied.
“A girl laughed at it once. We were about to have sex. She asked if it belonged to Ant Man.”
Suddenly, the true story of the lost night with Nightcrawler-girl began to take shape.
“She called it a flea trying to escape the hair on a barbershop floor,” he said, almost breaking down.
“Wow. That’s really…um…even when it was�
�you know…erect?”
“It’s just small,” he said, a sob escaping his quivering lips.
“Oh,” I said. “Man. Well—you go ahead and go on up to the room then.”
“Wendy’s there.”
“I’m sure Ms. Waboombas will…”
“…laugh at it, too. Guaranteed.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. So what do you want to do?” “I don’t know. Buy me some pants.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” He bit a lip. “Let me have your pants.”
I looked down at them. I wouldn’t for Ms. Nuckeby; I sure as hell wouldn’t for Morgan.
Yet I had when ordered to by Mindie. Apparently fear and pride beat out love and lust as the overriding human emotions. How truly sad.
“We’re in a town full of nudists,” he prodded.
“Come with me to the shop,” I said, ignoring him. “Maybe they’ll have something there.”
With his hands and shirt remnants blocking all possible views of his crotch, we walked down the corridor, through the lobby, and into the little gifts/sundries shop near the entrance to the hotel. Morgan kept turning away from anyone who passed—girls in particular— spinning madly as he walked, as if his penis were magnetized, and everyone else had been charged with opposing polarity.
“Are you gonna tell me what you were doing with that waitress on the beach?” Morgan asked, rotating, top-like.
“What did you think I was doing?” I snarled.
“Wow,” he said, clearly amazed. “Yeah, that, actually. Man, right there on the beach too. Cool. Sorry I screwed the pooch, so to speak. But, dude, you can’t blame me for not knowing. You got your game on fast.”
“Not really. She was also the model in my closet last night.”
“Holy, SHIT, are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I’m not.”
“How did I not notice that?”
“Maybe because you never looked at her face.”
“Yeah. Maybe that’s it.” He thought about things for a minute. “Dude. What are you doing with that bitch Mindie if a hot piece like that waitress—model—whatever—wants to have actual sex with you?”
I stopped short in the hallway and turned to look at him.
“Morgan,” I said. “She’s from here. She’s a nudist.”
Morgan snorted, shocked at my apparent stupidity. “So?”
“My grandfather would disown me, I’d have no money, and her parents would never accept me because I could never live here naked all the time as they do.”
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding me? Live this lifestyle? And on top of that, I’d be broke. With no idea how to support myself, or her, and no family to help us.”
“Welcome to the club.”
I stared at him for a long minute as the shock slowly sunk in. I’d been whining endlessly about my fears, about the life I’d lose, the things I’d miss, the money I would no longer have, not realizing it was a life Morgan—and most people really—never even had to begin with. Everyone else had to find a way to survive in the world. So what if I had to as well? Welcome to the club indeed.
“At least you’d have her,” Morgan said, driving it home. “Someone who wants you. That’s more than I’ve ever had.”
He stepped past me, and through the doors into the hotel store.
Lost in my own fears, I hadn’t given any thought to what I’d gain, as Morgan just had. Something potentially so meaningful, so much deeper, and far more lasting than mere ‘things’.
I stood there a very long moment before entering, frozen with horror at the thoughtless choice I’d made.
Inside the shop, I felt feverish with loss and lunacy as thoughts of Ms. Nuckeby now began to obsess me more than ever. Somehow, still unable to let go of my fears and just race back to her, I vaguely wandered around the tiny store more-or-less looking for Mindie’s chocolates, but mostly just beating myself up with a mental stick.
Aggravating me all the more was the fact that there were far too many kinds of chocolate for such little a store. Decision making at this point was difficult at best, so I simply grumbled, picked up the smallest, least romantic box available, and stood staring at it, wondering if Ms. Nuckeby liked chocolates, and if she’d prefer eating them, rolling naked in them, or smashing them in my face.
Probably the latter.
As I stared blankly, unable to think or move, Morgan—in another part of the store—continued looking for anything that might even marginally be considered pants, or could in any way cover a man’s crotch unobtrusively. That’s when he noticed a comic book spin-rack in a corner.
“Hey!” he said. “Comics!”
Suddenly he was happier than I’d seen him at any point during the entire trip.
“Get some,” I said. “As many as you want. I’ll buy. You can hold them low, and when we’re back in the room, read them in your lap.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s a good idea.”
He went over to the rack and began spinning it, carefully checking grade, cover gloss, and spine-damage.
“Morgan! Just grab some! They don’t have to be in mint condition to hide your dick!”
“Oh, yeah. That’s true,” he said and pulled a bunch from the wire holders—making sure not to get duplicates—then noticed the regular racks nearby. “Hey. Can I get some magazines, too?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
I saw him grab Playboy, Perfect 10, and other breast-related glossies. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Morgan. You can go sit out on the street corner, and watch naked girls for free.”
He glanced at the door, then at the magazine, and finally back to me.
“Yeah,” he said, holding up some glossy porn, “but the girls in here aren’t supposed to be naked. That makes it—I don’t know—more fun somehow.”
I remembered Ms. Nuckeby’s comments about my erection on the beach, and I wondered if clothing actually did more to feed lust than nudity. If I were a scientist, that would be a great way to spend lots of government research money.
“All right,” I said, “whatever. Bring them here.”
I put my chocolates on the counter, and Morgan dropped his collection of magazines on top of them. A short, round woman with large, pendulous breasts glided over to us, rosy cheeked and perky. She seemed a genuinely happy person, and given my experience with Sophie, the receptionist, and the bellman, I supposed that’s what the hotel strove for in the hiring of their employees. A nametag stuck just below her collarbone, far above her dangling left nipple read ‘SANDY’.
“Will that be all?” she asked pleasantly. Her smile was sincere and quite catching.
“I think so. Can you put that on a room charge?”
“Of course!” she said, bouncing. Sandy must be related to Sophie. “You folks are in town for the Soiree, I imagine?”
“No. We’re here for…um…other reasons.”
“Oh. Well, you can still enjoy it anyway, as long as you’re in town, right?” She laughed and patted my hand sweetly as she took our things, and I found myself taking an immediate liking to her.
“There’s a dance and party tonight, you know,” she said, bouncing again, her voice lilting as she grinned at us, knowingly. “Lots of pretty girls.”
She glanced down at Morgan’s pet flea. “There’s even a few won’t mind a guy with a little one.”
Morgan gasped and moved a comic to cover his minimal groin. She hadn’t meant it as an insult, but for a man, it’s hard to take that kind of comment any other way.
“We also have the auction,” she said, “and that’s always a lot of fun. But you know about that already I imagine.”
“Actually, no, we don’t,” Morgan said, sounding hopeful. “What kind of auction? Like toys? Comics?”
“No, people,” she said. “It’s one of those charity things. Some of the locals and a few out-of-town regulars auction themselves off to the highest bidder, and th
ey have to stay with the winner, and do whatever that person says throughout the rest of the weekend.”
“Oh, right,” I said, wincing, remembering painfully how I’d done that once myself. My sister finally bought me when no one else would. Seven bucks.
“Some of the out-of-towners even get up on stage for a laugh, and go for at least a few bucks. Especially if they’re cute.” She grinned at me with significance, and I worried that maybe she was bidding on me already.
“I don’t know if that kind of thing appeals to you,” she continued, “but it is for charity, and it can be a lot of fun. My kids are doing it this year, although I wish my oldest wouldn’t. It’s only going to stir up trouble. But she’s so headstrong, that one.”
I wondered if Sophie was the oldest, or if that might be one of Sandy’s other children, Biffy, Miffy, or Rex.
“Why’s it going to stir up trouble?” I asked.
“Because she’s pretty, and a lot of men like her, and one in particular is going to bid up the price until only he can afford her. Then he’ll make her miserable for two whole nights, and days.”
“So, why does she do it?” Somehow other people’s personal drama was always so fascinating when it took your mind off your own.
“Because she knows he’ll bid up the price, and she’s willing to suffer because she believes in the charity.”
“What’s the charity?”
“Dickens Home for Abandoned Children.”
“Ah. Sounds like a worthy cause. Very generous of her.”
“It is. She’s a wonderful girl, and I don’t want to see her suffer.”
“I understand,” I said, honestly. “I’m sorry.”
She smiled at me and patted my hand again. “Oh, it’s all right. I’m just being a nervous mother. It’s not like it’ll kill her. And anyway, I should probably feel more sorry for Washburne. She’ll make him suffer in the end. I told you, she’s headstrong.”
“Well, good for her.”
She looked at me, surprised. “Not many men like a strong-willed woman.”
“Their loss.”
“Well, aren’t you the rarity. That’ll be forty-seven fifty.”
