by Chuck Austen
“Indeed,” she agreed. “If you read it the right way, the Bible’s full of great stuff like that.”
The two continued talking, smiling and laughing, lost in one another in a way that seemed more than just two professionals sharing common wisdom. I would have been fascinated to stay and learn more about this turn of events in my pastor’s life, particularly if it meant they might have sex in public, but there was an urgent mission at hand.
“Morgan,” I said, finally remembering he was there. You forgot too, didn’t you? “We have to find Wendy.”
“Sure,” he said, seemingly incapable of tearing his eyes away from the female minister’s ample bosom. “Why?”
“Morgan!” someone called, interrupting his focus and mine, and we each scanned around looking for the source of the voice.
It was Sophie, our bouncy hotel receptionist, and she was obviously delighted to see both Morgan and myself. Perhaps we should go on a crime spree together. After skipping from The Headless Horseman with the intent of not paying, we were sort of on our way to that promising new career anyway.
Sophie bounced up to us and took Morgan’s hand. He was as surprised as I was.
“I didn’t miss it, did I?” she asked. “I got here as soon as I could.”
“I don’t think it’s even started yet,” I said.
“Oh, grand!” she squealed. People use the word ‘grand’? “Then let’s get something to eat. I’m starved!”
Morgan hesitated, and she pulled him along with some force. Apparently ‘let’s’, which is the contraction for ‘let us’, didn’t include the singular ‘me’.
“Come on,” Sophie demanded of Morgan, bouncily. “I’ll pay. I know you’re broke.”
A smile spread rapidly across Morgan’s face. A girl who was touching him and intending to pay. He was in heaven. This could work out after all.
“You two go ahead,” I told them unnecessarily. “I need to find Wendy.”
“Is she going to bid on River?” Sophie asked.
“Er…yes,” I said, nervous that she was apparently better versed in the plan than Morgan was.
“Try check-in,” she offered. “Everyone who bids is supposed to register first.”
Morgan wandered off at the giddy urging of Sophie, she clearly delighted to have the interest of a boy—any boy—even if it was only Morgan, and he clearly delighted at the faintest glimmer of getting laid.
Meanwhile, I headed the other way. I saw Petal working a small sign-up table near the stage and Play-Doh’ed myself through the crowd toward her.
“Hi, Petal,” I said pleasantly. “Is your sister around?”
Petal looked up at me with an expression that told me I had stepped in dog shit, and would I please go somewhere far away and wipe it off. With my tongue.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Petal said. “And I can understand why. A lot of guys would kill for a girl like her, and here you come along and treat her like you could find three more better than she is next week, which you could not, so don’t sashay over to me with all that mister charming, rich guy, isn’t my penis cute, malarkey, and try to cozy up to me like I should still think you’d make a fun brother-inlaw or something, because you wouldn’t…”
“I know I could never find another like her, Petal,” I said, cutting in. “That’s why I came here. To bid on her, so she has to listen to me. Unfortunately…”
“Don’t,” a voice said from somewhere over my shoulder.
I turned and saw Wisper standing halfway up the stairs to the stage, glaring at me with more-or-less the same expression Petal had. Though with Wisper, I could practically taste the dog shit.
“Don’t even think about bidding on me,” she said. “I wouldn’t come with you, even if you won.”
She continued up the stairs without another word, or a second look.
“I thought this was for charity!” I called out to her magnificent bare back. “I think you should be more open to making money for a worthy cause!”
“So write a check and donate,” she said without turning around. “Then go home.”
I felt like I’d been stabbed in the hart. Or deer.
Pretty women dismiss men all the time. But there’s something profoundly devastating about having someone so incredible show she cares for you first, then rip that interest away. It makes you want to fight for it. To do anything within your power to reverse the situation and put it back like it was. Like it should be, and I started to tell her that.
“Do what she says,” an unusually high-pitched voice said from behind me, stopping me before I could speak again. It was a voice that sounded eerily familiar, like I’d heard it somewhere before.
I turned around and found myself staring directly into the eyes of ‘pants-hater’ from Nuckeby’s Bar and Grill. The voice that had told ‘Vincent’ to ‘drop’ me. The man who had kicked me in the temple when I was down.
Washburne. It had to be.
“Why?” I asked. “Afraid you might lose?”
“To you?” He almost laughed. “You’re too afraid to even take your pants off. I can’t imagine you’d have the guts to stick it out in a bidding war against me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said, more confidently than I felt.
He stared at me for a long moment, then appeared to reach some sort of conclusion that might be very painful for me indeed.
“Fine,” he said, still stifling a laugh. “Feel free to waste your time. It’s only money.” He began to walk away. “And you’ve already lost, no matter how courageously you bid.”
I glared at the back of his head and tried to explode his brain, but I didn’t have any superpowers. After a moment of desperately trying to ignite his hairline, I turned to Petal, hoping for support. She offered none. Not for me anyway.
“Never thought I’d see the day that I was rooting for Washburne Boone,” she said harshly.
“What do I have to do to bid?” I asked.
“Register,” Petal said dismissively. “Then call out amounts when the time comes. You never done an auction before?”
I had, but I said nothing and reached for the form in front of her. She abruptly got up from the table.
“Miss Kent will help you,” Petal said, indicating the pretty blonde beside her as she walked away. “I’m taking a break.”
The lovely Miss Kent, her face beautifully framed under an explosion of wild, wavy, golden hair, smiled at me sweetly and slid over a pen. “You can call me Prudence,” Prudence said.
“Call her Miss Kent!” Petal said angrily, as she stormed away.
We both looked at the Nuckeby sister, surprised, then turned back to one another and shrugged. Without another word, I began filling in the blanks on the sheet of paper.
The first question after name, address, and phone number?
Method of payment: ________________________
Excellent question. Glad you asked.
“You’re about to sign a binding contract,” someone said behind me.
I turned and found myself looking directly into the face of a doughy, older man with an explosive shock of white hair that radiated out from his centrally located bald spot like an electrically charged feather-duster. He was smiling broadly, charmingly, and his voice whistled as he spoke through a distinct gap in his front teeth.
“I hope you’re aware of that,” he said, completing his thought, then held out a hand like a marshmallow with fingers. “Pizeley M. Boone,” he told me. “The ‘M’ stands for Mayor.”
He chuckled heartily at his little joke, and I smiled along with him.
“Of course I’m aware it’s a binding contract,” I said, not having been aware of anything, nor given it a moment’s thought. I wondered idly why the town’s mayor might feel the need to warn me personally, when I noticed Washburne standing off to one side, listening intently to our conversation.
Ah. So that’s how it was.
Washburne Boone. Pizeley M. Boone. The Boone stood for jerk apparently.
I thanked the mayor for his kind reminder and moved away to get a good spot near the front of the stage.
But suddenly I became a bit more concerned that I was now intending to bid freely, and madly, with money I didn’t have. I felt somehow naked, and ironically I was the only one for miles wearing pants.
The number of people auctioning themselves off seemed endless, which only gave me more time to vacillate about what I should do. Bid. Not bid. I had no money, so the answer should seem rather obvious, but your mind clearly functions at a higher level than mine.
Contrary to what I had first thought, River wasn’t one of the first off the block. Instead there were a good ten others who went ahead of him, all of them auctioned off by the mistress of ceremonies, Wisper. Some of those offered went for no more than a few dollars, and a couple of laughs. Prudence Kent was one of the early auctionees, and she raised several hundred dollars for the Dickens Home. Personally, I thought she should have gone for a lot more. She was a lovely woman—though almost plain when unfairly compared to Wisper— and had seemed rather sharp, witty, and genuinely very sweet during our brief encounter. She appeared a bit disappointed that I hadn’t joined in the bidding for her, but was also plainly delighted with the young man who won her as a weekend companion.
It was when Prudence was onstage beside Wisper and some of the others that I finally noticed I had stopped registering people by their privates—penises, breasts, butts, pubic hair, whatever—and started returning to traditional modes of appraisal—face, height, hair color. I’d taken Prudence in as a whole and was entirely charmed by her. Not that I hadn’t noticed her beauty, the length of her legs, the small, cuteness of her breasts, her overall attractiveness—but no more than I would if she were clothed. Instead I had absorbed the entirety of her at once—her presence, her personality, the way she smiled and laughed—and not remained locked in on the things you couldn’t ordinarily see just because I wasn’t used to seeing them.
I could now recognize that there were very real advantages to this lifestyle. Everyone was on an equal footing, no one was able to hide their physical secrets, and you couldn’t be separated by the arbitrary distinctions of fashion—an odd thing to recognize for someone whose entire livelihood is based on that arbitrariness.
And from the purely animalistic side, I also preferred seeing women in the nude to seeing them in clothes. That may seem rather obvious to anyone of a hormonal age, but for me it was a revelation that not all women were Playboy models, yet were still quite enjoyable to look at. Not that women couldn’t be lovely in clothes, but after years of looking at them in tiny shreds of fabric designed to entice one to want more, I just wanted the more without all the teasing and falsity of enhancements. Honestly, there was nothing more appealing, or more attractive, than a human body—a female human body in particular—unadorned, and I was beginning to see no need to embellish it. And now, after only about a day here, public nudity did seem almost natural.
Almost.
Perhaps it was the fact that I was finally starting to see those around me as people rather than ‘nudists’, or perhaps I had just become overwhelmed with the endless sea of unmentionables. Whatever the case, it nonetheless surprised me that I was somehow becoming attuned with the environment around me. More comfortable, if not entirely comfortable.
I took another scan around the crowd looking for Ms. Waboombas, when a chorus of delighted female voices rose from those gathered near the stage, and I turned without much surprise to see that they were responding to River. He strutted before them, confident, and hung (I said I was not entirely comfortable), and took a turn around the platform to make sure anyone who hadn’t seen him before now would have their chance at a full, three-hundred-andsixty-degree view. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a woman in the crowd who wasn’t appreciative of his thoughtfulness.
“Isn’t he wonderful, folks?” Wisper called into the microphone, receiving a boisterous response. Then she turned to her other sibling, Petal, who smiled and shook her head in sisterly disbelief. “Our own, particular, little brother. Fortunately, its only two days, and you don’t have to live with him.”
River smirked at her, and the women who now crowded the stage mockingly booed her. Wisper laughed and stepped aside.
Satisfied with the reaction he had received, River glided over to stand proudly at the forefront of the stage, and in the back, Wisper held out a hand to accept bids.
“What am I…” she began, but was immediately cut off.
“ONE HUNDRED!”
“TWO HUNDRED!”
“TWO-FIFTY!”
The bidding raced on like that, uncontrolled, and unprompted, until a particularly loud voice cut through all the others…
“ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!”
…and was followed by silence.
Every head turned and looked around for the source of the bid, and every eye in the place came to rest on Ms. Waboombas. Tall, exotically brown-skinned, regal, Wendy stood near the center, back of the crowd, and it parted to allow the new gunslinger a clear aim so no one in her path might accidentally be shot. With one bid, and four words, she had contained the raging flow of River frenzy and drawn every eye in the town down upon her, and her alone.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t naked. She wore a stunning, red evening gown, matching shoes, and jewelry. Her dress was elegant and tasteful, and cut in a style that showed only what needed to be seen and nothing more. She smiled, supremely confident, as every man in the area with a clear view dropped a jaw and craned his neck for a better view.
Even I had to admit, she was ravishing. Her make-up appeared to have been done professionally, and showed enormous restraint. Colors blended, accented, and highlighted, rather than stood out. Her hair was pulled back stylishly in a tight bun, and her lips were parted in a slight, knowing smile.
She was, once again, in complete control, and loving it.
Unfortunately, she was in control with my money—or rather, my nonmoney.
I scampered in her direction and tried anxiously to wave her off, but, of course, it was far too late. There was a contract involved. Pizeley M. Boone had made that abundantly clear.
“We have a bid…” Wisper said quietly into the microphone, astonished, “…of one hundred thousand dollars.” She paused, not sure if she should even bother asking. “Do I have another?”
One woman started to raise her hand, then reconsidered. Another coughed. They all looked toward Wendy, surprised and deeply disappointed. Their fun had ended far too soon, and not with anyone they knew and could tease, admire, or joke with.
Who was this newcomer?
I moved over to Waboombas and stood beside her. Wisper caught sight of me and scowled. Knowing how smart she was, she had probably figured out that I was somehow behind this and was wondering what my game might be.
“Ms. Waboom—Wendy,” I said. “I’ve recently discovered that I…” I briefly hesitated, “…I don’t have any money.”
Wendy continued looking around at the wondering crowd, soaking up their attention, and didn’t bother turning to me.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m broke,” I said, more curtly. “In this dimension, my money is worthless.”
She turned directly to me this time, and her smile faltered.
“What?” she asked again, though her terrified tone told me plainly that this time she’d heard me perfectly.
I shrugged, not sure what else I could say.
“SOLD!” Wisper said firmly. “To the woman in the red dress.”
Waboombas looked as if she’d been shot.
“Corky,” she said quietly, her voice sounding desperate. “I don’t have any money either.”
“I know,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’ll find a way to get us out of this.”
“You sure?” she asked, clearly not buying it.
“I’m sure.”
“You positive?”
“I am positive,” I said, feeling nothin
g of the kind.
She didn’t look convinced. Damn. The woman was far too insightful.
“I swear to you, I will make good on this,” I said, not explaining that it might be through my physical incarceration. “If I have to sell everything I own, my home, my car—everything—we will work this out, and nothing will happen to you.”
Wendy smiled, still a bit nervously, then pulled herself up to her full height and walked off to claim her prize. Confidence was, apparently—justified or not—her natural state of being.
“Let’s go, handsome!” she called out to River. “Your ass is mine for two whole days, and I ain’t wastin’ a second of it.”
River, for the first time since I’d encountered him—maybe for the first time in his life—looked nervous and unsure of his future. Good, served him right.
I had finally crossed some kind of personal line, or barrier, or Joseph Campbell threshold into a hero’s journey. I was going to get to Wisper, and I was going to make this work somehow, even if I had to go to jail to do it.
And now was the time. Petal stepped up on the stage and took the microphone from her sister, and Wisper moved, shyly, toward center stage. She had her head down slightly, then folded her hands behind her back and raised that lovely head, confidently, chin up, eyes out, lips smiling. Everything about her nude figure radiated magnificence.
What a girl, I thought.
“All right,” Petal began “You all know my sister, Wisper. The waitress with a heart of gold who organized this thing, and I must say, did an absolutely fantastic job of it because even the little hors d’oeuvres—she made those herself, you know, and they are sooo good, so if you haven’t tried them, you really need to, especially the little chocolate mousses—because this isn’t just ordinary food, we’re talking about here, folks, this is something that was delivered from the kitchens of the gods, and shows just how multi-talented she is, and how good at time-management she can be since she did those in her frickin’ spare time between mod…her…uh…day job and organizing this whole auction thing because not only is she the prettiest thing in Nikkid Bottoms by far, she has talents you’ll never get a chance to discover in just two nights, and two days—not talents like sexual talents, so don’t get any ideas, although I’m sure if she was really into you or something, anything is possible, but…”
