Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [100]
Mindie walked past me, still trying to hide her naked self while savagely scratching her stomach. It had become red and raw from all her endless itching. On the plus side, she had color at last.
“What did you do in there?” she screamed at me as she moved to the Duesenberg. “Why did they throw us out?”
Still holding herself, she began searching through the car, possibly for clothes. More probably a weapon.
I had been trying to think of an excuse to give her and the others—Mindie in particular—ever since I’d been kicked to the curb, knowing with certainty I’d need one. I wasn’t sure that what I’d come up with would work, but it was better than telling the truth. That would be like feeding meat to hungry lions with my face as the plate.
“I told them their treatment of you was abominable,” I said, “and that they shouldn’t have forced you to come in there naked just to get food.”
“What?” Mindie asked, sounding horrified rather than proud. I wondered for a moment if I’d suffered brain damage and was speaking in a foreign tongue.
“I told them their treatment of you…”
Waboombas snorted a laugh. Or burped. Mindie looked at her for a moment, confused, then turned back to me.
“Are you insane?” she snarled. “The damage was done! I was already naked! At least you could have waited until I had eaten!”
She was rooting through the Duesenberg more furiously now, turning things over and looking under car seats.
“Obviously,” I said, “I didn’t think th…”
“You never do,” she snapped. “Where are my clothes?” She glared at Waboombas. “Are you sitting on my clothes?”
“No,” Waboombas said, neither moving nor opening her eyes. She swatted at Morgan, who wasn’t doing anything. Preemptory, I suppose.
Mindie put a fist on her hip, momentarily revealing her pubic area, then remembered and re-covered herself.
“Can you move so I can look?” She snarled.
“No.”
Mindie seemed prepared to start another argument, when Waboombas opened her eyes—just a crack—and threatened to release the boogieman.
“Corky,” Mindie said tersely, turning to me. “Give me your pants.”
“What?” I dropped the towel and looked at her, in amazement. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am your fiancée. Are you saying you’re going to just make me stand here—naked—in public—with everything I own exposed to God, and everyone?”
The pastor coughed and turned a page.
“You exposed it in the first place,” I said, taunting the monkey in the gorilla cage; stupid, I know.
“CORKY!”
“My suitcase is in the trunk,” I said. “Feel free to help yourself to whatever’s in there.”
“Get something for me.”
I groaned, losing patience, but stood anyway and stepped toward the car, reaching into my pants pocket for the keys.
Which were gone.
I checked the other pocket.
Nothing.
Back pockets. Wallet.
No keys.
I patted my chest, but I doubted they were in my lungs. I still wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Then I remembered the jingling sound as I was being dragged out. I looked toward the doors of Nuckeby’s, and saw the naked-man assault squad standing there watching, arms folded, just daring me. Something told me they weren’t going to let me back inside to look for personal effects.
Slowly I turned to the others.
“I’ve lost my keys,” I told them.
“WHAT?” Mindie shrieked.
Ms. Waboombas opened her eyes.
“My comics are in the trunk,” she said, clearly with differing priorities than the rest of us.
“I…uh…” I glanced at the door. Naked men still stood guard there. One shook his head as if to say ‘I’ll eat your brains.’
I slowly turned back to the others and smiled weakly.
“Aunt Helena will likely have a spare,” I told them, hopefully.
“But I need clothes!” Mindie yelled. “NOW!”
“Mindie,” I said, losing patience again, “it’s a nudist colony. People only stare at people who are wearing clothes. No one cares that you’re naked but you.”
Right at that specific