Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [102]
“Now,” she said, turning to me, “tell me you’ve got something more than one of your usual, useless ideas for getting us out of this mess.”
Nope. Same old woman.
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to look as if I wasn’t naked, or was at least indifferent to the fact. “I tried my cell phone but couldn’t get a line out. We’ll just have to wait until Aunt Helena arrives.”
“Corky! We can’t just stand here in the middle of a nudist colony!”
“Where else can we go? Even if we had keys, which we don’t, the car won’t make it a mile, and we’re at least thirty from the nearest anything.”
“Thirty? Miles? Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I am not walking thirty miles.”
“I never asked you to.”
“That’s too far.”
“And it may be farther. Thirty is just a conservative estimate.”
“Walking thirty miles is like exercise.”
“Very similar.”
“There’s nothing closer? Not one place we can get to easily?”
“Wisper said the hotel is nice.”
“Wisper?” she asked, her voice becoming an acid-bath for naked fools. “Is that a name?”
“The hostess. The hostess said the hotel is nice.”
“You said ‘Wisper’. Do you know her?”
“I thought we went through this. I know her as well as you do. It was on her nametag. I just met her! You were there!”
“Why was she talking to you about a hotel?”
“She talked to us all about a hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“The one down the street.”
“A nudist hotel?”
“I don’t know if it’s a nudist…”
“We’re stuck here?” Morgan asked, apparently just catching up. The hamster running his brain must have finally awakened and stumbled, drunkenly, into the wheel. “What about the comic convention?”
“Priorities, you idiot!” Mindie snarled. “Who cares about a stupid funnybook convention?”
“They’re not ‘funnybooks’.” Morgan, Wendy, and I said simultaneously. Morgan sounded genuinely hurt.
“Comics,” he began, “are a legitimate form of artistic expression…”
“To MORONS!” Mindie snapped. “We are trapped in a nudist colony. There are naked weirdoes as far as the eye can see!” A few of them scowled at her as they passed. For some strange reason, they seemed to not like being called ‘weirdoes’. Imagine that. “It is disgusting!” Mindie shrilled. “We have to get out of here! Funnybooks have no place in this conversation!”
“They’re not ‘funnybooks’,” Morgan said petulantly.
Mindie rushed over and punched him—hard. Groaning, he fell backward into the Duesenberg and onto Ms. Waboombas’ lap. The stripper looked at him as if he were a leaf that had fluttered down from a nearby tree that she couldn’t be bothered to brush away. I heard Morgan whimper. I wasn’t sure if he was crying or—lying on a naked Waboombas without even having to stuff a fiver in her gstring—delirious with joy.
“Being here doesn’t bother some of us as much as it does you,” Waboombas snipped at Mindie. “And, besides. Corky’s hot Aunt will be here in a few hours. Show a little patience, tight-ass.”
“Naked slut,” Mindie growled. “Easy for you to say. Someone like you belongs in a place like this.”
“I feel pretty comfortable so far,” Waboombas said, smiling and settling in.
“I’m surprised you’re not spreading yourself far and wide— having sex with every man you see.”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
“I’m sure it had.”
“It often does.”
“So what’s stopping you?”
“I don’t know if it’s legal.”
“Ha!”
“Just ‘cause they’re naked doesn’t mean they fuck in public,” Waboombas told her, sagely.
“That’s rich!” Mindie scoffed. “A prostitute worried about what’s legal!”
A tense silence fell—and hurt itself.
“Was that supposed to insult me?” Waboombas finally asked, and smiled, though not at all sincerely. “I’m proud of my moneymaking skills. Some of us have to earn our cash. As opposed to your fat lazy-ass being birthed out onto a bed full of money.”
“At least my money was acquired legally.”
“Not by you.”
“Your particular form of income earning happens to be against the law.”
“And yet—you were considering it.”
“I was not!”
“Were