by Chuck Austen
Waboombas was also clearly more in her element. She strutted proudly, pulling her suitcase full of comics, costumes, and body-paint behind her like an adoring puppy on a leash, and I was certain she could have sold the entire print run of War Woman right there to every male in line before even entering the convention center, provided it came with her phone number, or at least the first four digits of it.
Wisper wore one of my shirts, but remained pantsless and barefoot. She refused to wear either my slacks or my shoes after I’d laughed upon seeing her in them. If anyone asked, we intended to explain she was doing a scene from X-Men 174. I have no idea if there was a girl wearing nothing but a man’s shirt in X-Men 174, but interestingly, at cons people will generally buy whatever you tell them if it means the girl can continue walking around with no pants on.
I was woozy just thinking about it.
Myself, I was carrying my suitcase full of comics, wearing my ordinary, everyday clothes, and feeling oddly constrained by them. I kept pulling at the fabric and adjusting the folds for better comfort that just didn’t seem available. Wisper noticed my weird Dance Of The Uncomfortable, and it amused her no end.
“Only one day,” she said, “and already you’re a genuine nudist.”
“Believe me, if I could have gotten away with it, I’d be dressed more like you,” I said, smiling at her.
“That would be more fun for me too. Just tell me we won’t have to wear these things for long,” she sulked.
“We won’t,” I told her. “I’ve got only one destination, and then we’re right back to Nekkid Bottoms.”
“Nikkid Bottoms,” she corrected.
“Uuuh, right.”
“It’s an ‘i’ not an ‘e’.”
“I knew that.”
“What’s your one destination?” she asked.
“High Plant Comics. They buy old, rare comic books, and they’re going to want what I have to sell.”
“Oh, Corky!” she said, stunned. “All those comics that used to be on your walls? But you must love those!”
I stopped and turned to her. Unlike Mindie, she wasn’t offended by my collection, and would never force me to sell my comics. And so—for her—I would.
“Some things are more important,” I said simply.
She smiled warmly at me and took my hand again. “You’re sweet. How much will you be able to get for them?”
“Enough to pay what I bid for you and a little extra.”
“You’re kidding me! For comic books?”
“For comic books.”
“And how will you turn what you get into money from my world?”
I stopped in my tracks. I looked at her. My heart stopped in its tracks.
“Money…for…money from your…what?” I stammered.
“Our money is different.”
“How different?”
“Well, Benjamin Franklin is still on the hundred…”
“But he’s naked.”
“He was a nudist,” she said, as if everyone knew it. “Even on your world.”
“Well, apparently he kept a pretty good lid on it here and never posed for portraits that way.”
“The other bills are pretty much the same as yours,” she said, trying to be helpful.
I reached into my pants and pulled out the remaining bill Helena had given me. It had a woman on it. She looked like Queen Victoria, or someone very like her, and she was topless.
I turned my attention from the thing in my hand to Wisper and just stared at her.
“Well, maybe not quite,” she said sadly.
I considered it. My mind raced. Then got tired and lay down.
“So what now?” I asked no one in particular.
“Well…” she said. “We could sell the comics, then buy something that would have value on my world.”
“Which means we’d lose even more of the value of the comics. As it is, to sell them fast, I’m going to have to offer them at about fifty percent of what they’re worth.”
I chewed my lip and thought some more.
“It might still be enough,” I said.
“How much are those comics worth?”
“About seven million to the right collector.”
“Oh, my God!” she gasped. “I should collect comics!”
“They’re not worth anything anymore, though most fans don’t understand that. There’s too many in bags and boards. Thousands. The ones I have are valuable because there are only a few of them left in the world—especially in this condition—and the characters are iconic. Everyone knows Superman, Batman, Captain America,” I held one up to show her “Nuderman number one? Perfect, mint condition? Worthless.”
She took the comic from me and looked at it with strange curiosity. As she did, several members of an extremely overweight Green Lantern Corps walked by, and River grimaced. You just haven’t lived until you’ve seen six or seven fat people in tight black spandex, pale green gloves and boots.
“That is just so wrong,” he said.
I started to agree with him, then choked on the words when Wisper—who was still studying Nuderman—asked, “Why do we always ridicule what we don’t understand? Even when the thing we deride brings pleasure to others?”
I kept my eyes intent on the jiggling backsides of the Corps as they receded happily into the distance, enjoying one another’s company and companionship, oblivious to what others might think of them, and held my comments.
“Lots of reasons,” I said quietly, almost to myself. “Fear. Jealousy. To feel better about ourselves by making less of others.”
“So, is this is a good sign or a bad sign?” she asked, distantly, still looking at the naked superhero on the cover of my comic. “This makes fun of the perceived oddity of my lifestyle. And you found it interesting.”
I took her hand back. “Nuderman is a hero,” I said softly. “And I loved this comic.”
“Oh,” she said, and smiled. “The judges will accept that answer.”
I turned to the others and told them, “I’m heading to High Plant comics. You can come with me if you want, or we can meet later.”
“Are you going back to the nudist place?” Waboombas wanted to know.
“Once I’ve sold these,” I said. “Yeah.”
“Well, good luck,” she said. “I guess we can say goodbye here then. May as well get back to the real world.”
I looked around as a Darth Maul passed on my left and a Batman on my right.
“Right,” I said. “The real world.”
“I got comics of my own to sell,” Waboombas reminded me, indicating her suitcase.
She smiled at me, and I felt a twinge of sadness. She was someone I would have made fun of—did make fun of—and here I was already missing her. Funny how life is changed by experience, isn’t it? At least when you’re paying attention and open to it.
“Thanks for everything,” I said, moving in and hugging her tightly. She responded with warmth as sincere as my own.
“Remember the tar baby,” she said and squeezed me tighter, melting around me.
As we finally separated, Wisper reached out and took Waboombas’ hand, smiling at the taller woman sweetly.
“And thanks especially, Wendy, for helping Corky and me,” Wisper said.
“Heeeeey,” Waboombas replied, clearly feeling awkward. “No worries. Corky’s never been anything but good to me in all the twenty-four hours we’ve known each other, even if it was mostly because he was afraid of my ass.”
“More than just your ass,” I said.
“She don’t treat you right,” she said, smiling at me. “You know I got the goods.”
“I do know,” I said.
“I’ll treat him right,” Wisper promised.
“I’m sure you will,” Waboombas laughed. “Unfortunately.”
Then she leaned in and whispered to my Ms. Nuckeby so everyone could hear. “Be sure to give him head once in a while. He’ll never leave.”
“I will,” Wisper
promised, and I felt my pants become even more uncomfortable.
“Come visit us sometime,” I said, shifting and adjusting.
“Suuuuure,” Wendy said, not meaning it. “Well, I’m off then.” And she gave more quick hugs all around. Then she moved to River and wrapped him up completely in her arms; they seemed to hold one another a lot longer than necessary.
“I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” she said softly.
Eventually, after a long, interesting pause, she reached down, grabbed his ass, and squeezed. “Damn, boy. I could do gymnastics on that thing. We’re both gonna be sorry I skipped on the two days of slave thing.”
River said nothing, apparently embarrassed, though he did seem genuinely disappointed that a long, hard ride on the Waboombas express wasn’t in his future. The rising front of his loincloth was a dead giveaway.
“Dude,” Morgan said to him. “Put that thing away.”
“Mmm,” Waboombas purred and gave it one last tweak.
Then, smiling a final, sad grin at River’s actual face, she silently backed away, melting into the crowd of wildly dressed, fantastically colored fellow conventioneers.
Morgan and Sophie had decided to wander a bit while I did my business. Morgan said he couldn’t bear to see me sell my comics anyway. They had become like old, dear friends to us both, and I’m sure, for him, it was akin to a dog lover having a favorite pet put to sleep. He would miss them, and he might cry when I sold them.
Morgan also seemed anxious to be seen with Sophie in all her sartorial splendor, delighted as hell that the woman on his arm was drawing so many stares. For him, that was the height of status: a hot chick drawing attention to herself, and parts of him.
So Wisper, River, and I toured around looking for High Plant, and fortunately for River’s state of mind, found it more quickly than I had expected. Just as we were about to step into their booth, I saw a place selling videos—the kind that has everything, both legal and illegal—when something caught my eye.
Me.
Me and Mervin Wosserman.
Kissing on the cover of something called ’Boys Gone Wild’.
“You’re not allowed to sell this!” I yelled at the guy in the booth.
“I just work here,” the guy said.
“You cannot sell this!”
“It’s not my area,” he whined, stepping to another side of the booth and pretending not to see me any longer.
“Take them off the table!” I screeched, my voice getting louder and more hamster-like as people turned to stare, Wisper included.
“Oh, my GOD!” she said.
“What?” I gasped. “What?”
“It’s true. You and that guy from Men’s Briefs…?”
“Sssh! You’ve seen the video. Manschingloss said he showed it to you!”
“I never saw this!”
“Oh, my God.”
But now the onlookers were starting to glance back and forth from me to the cover of the box, and were—I had to hope—having difficulty noticing the resemblance between myself and the grainy cover photo that had been captured from the video. On the cover, my face was all puffy, sweaty, and reddened from excessive alcohol and misdirected lust, whereas live, and in person, my face was all puffy, sweaty, and reddened for entirely different reasons.
I stopped wheezing in anguish and saw that Wisper was also glancing back and forth from the cover to me, uncomfortably.
“So what?” I demanded. “You’re a nudist!”
Her eyes snapped wide and she threw on a look of horror, hurt, and astonishment. But she quickly returned that look to the ‘expression closet’, and tried on something more in the winter family—something sterner and darker, and delicately laced with a bit of the angry reds.
“Yes,” she said. “I am. But I’ve never made love to a member of my own gender before…”
“There was no lovemaking.”
“…and would understand my companion’s discomfort at seeing a picture of me doing so!”
“There was no lovemaking!” I said definitely. “I’m pretty sure!”
“Pretty sure?”
“Well…I never actually watched the tape all the way through.”
“Ooooh, there’s lovemaking,” the dealer said, showing a sexual predilection that hadn’t been quite clear till that point.
I glared at him, trying to explode his brain. But I still hadn’t developed that particular superpower, or any others come to think of it.
“But that’s not my area,” he said, frightened by the murder in my eyes, and backed away.
As he moved off, I realized I could solve this whole, thorny problem, easily, and began snatching tapes off the table.
“Hey,” he said. “You can’t do that!”
“Yes, I can. And I am.”
“That’s one of our most popular sellers!”
“What? It’s what?”
“It’s one of our…”
“It was one of your most popular sellers,” I seethed. “Was!”
I took all the tapes I could find and started to walk away, then noticed a copy of the never-aired pilot episode for a live-action Justice League TV series made sometime in the early nineties.
“Oooh,” I said. “Is this the one with David Ogden Stiers as Martian Manhunter?”
“Yes,” the vendor said.
“I always wanted to see that,” I informed him, then grabbed one, walking off with it, and all the other videos, in hand.
“You can’t take that one!”
“Oh!” I asked. “Do you have the rights to sell this one, too? Either, I mean.” I shook my head. “I think. Are you paying the network royalties for this? I somehow doubt it!”
“You’re a jerk!” he snarled.
“I’m a…” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This man was selling illegal merchandise, committing crimes in broad daylight, and he was calling me a… “Kiss my ass, you little wanker!”
“I’m calling security!”
“You do that! We’ll see who has legal right here to do what!” He pulled out a cell phone, and flipped it open like an arrogant Captain Kirk—which may be a redundancy—and feeling suddenly uncertain of what really was and wasn’t legal, I bravely turned and ran.
“Corky, stop!” Wisper called after me.
In my sudden rush of fear, I had forgotten her, for a moment.
“I have to get these out of here!” I told her.
“It doesn’t matter!” she said. “Will you please, stop? You left your comics behind!”
I quit running and looked around. She was right. Millions of dollars worth of comics, and I’d forgotten them entirely. How could I…?
“This is illegal,” I told her, clearly more upset than I realized and unable to focus on the more important matters at hand. “We had distribution of this video legally blocked in the United States…”
“It doesn’t matter, Corky. You can’t really stop that stuff anyway these days. And who cares? You did something stupid in your youth! You can’t undo it. So what? Welcome to the real world.” “I am not gay!”
“I believe that,” she said sincerely.
“Morgan tricked me! I thought Wosserman was a woman!” I said meekly.
She looked at me as if I’d just smacked her in the face with a fish.
“He has a beard!” she said.
“I thought he was Mindie!”
“Oh,” Wisper said, as if a tiny light had dawned. Somehow that seemed almost plausible to her. “She is a bit on the mannish side.”
“And I was really drunk! Look at the picture!” I held one out. “See?”
“I’d rather not,” she said, glancing away. “Corky, as long as you genuinely go for women, and not men, we have no problem.”
I stopped vibrating emotionally, and just stared at her in shock. How could she be so calm? Especially—I looked down at the videos— especially…
“Everyone makes mistakes, Corky,” she said. “And with technology the way it is now
, more and more people are making them on YouTube.”
Slowly, I began to relax. Wisper had an amazing way about her. She could make something like this seem almost normal.
Almost.
“Which is what makes the damn thing so horrible!” I whined, holding out one of the DVD’s with commentary and extras. “It’s like this thing is alive! Mutating! Spreading like a disease!”
“Only to people who go out without protection,” she said, laughing and apparently trying to defuse my anxiety. It wasn’t working.
“I don’t care, Corky,” she said, “so why should you? These things only have power if you let them.”
Again, I settled down a bit, though I just couldn’t get to complete calm. She obviously wasn’t really able to relate. How can someone who hasn’t been through something like this possibly understand what it means when humiliation, that is bad enough in private, suddenly becomes a bestseller on a table that several hundred thousand people walk past in a weekend? When strangers you meet for the first time say: ‘Hey, I’ve seen your video’, then laugh?
Then something stepped on my head. Figuratively.
“You said welcome to the…” I, choked, but had to ask. I didn’t want to know, was terrified to know, but I had to ask. “…welcome to the real world.” I finished. “Did you mean my real world, or our real world?”
“What?”
I swallowed, and tried to be clearer, which was difficult. “What have you done to be ashamed about?”
“I wore lingerie in public for money,” she said flatly.
“What?” I gasped. “That’s nothing! That’s less than nothing. In many circles, that’s something to be proud of. Especially male circles. Males who are in no way homosexual.”
“Yeah, here!” she said. “In your dimension! But it’s something where I come from. Believe me!”
“I just don’t think you’re taking in the whole picture,” I said, annoyed.
“Corky. Who’s the only person you need to worry about that might be upset with your past, right now? Right this moment?”
I paused, thinking about it for a little too long. “You?” I asked, hoping that was the right answer.
