Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [107]
1) How could we have served you better?
With pants.
The rooms were beautiful. Tastefully decorated with a fireplace in each, immense beds, comfortable seating, lots of space, and balconies overlooking the ocean. I stepped over and absorbed the view, along with a cool, ocean breeze. It was impressive, deeply relaxing, and really quite lovely.
“What a dump,” Mindie said.
I turned and glared at her.
“What?” she asked. “Think of all the naked people who have
been in here before us.”
“People are always naked in hotel rooms. At least occasionally.” The thought seemed to horrify her, and she looked around with
newfound revulsion at the room, the bathroom, the amenities, and the tub—which could be opened to the main room by swinging aside louvered shutters—the chairs, the beds…
“Eeeeewwww,” she said, finally.
I looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. She sneered her way through the little apartment, lifting her shirt as she did so she could scratch her stomach like some hillbilly farmer. I wondered—not for the first time that day—if marrying Mindie was really preferable to being single. Ms. Nuckeby might be an impossibility for me, but was Mindie really a necessary part of my future? With her, or alone— either way, the foundation of my sex life would largely be masturbation. Did she really bring anything else to the relationship table?
Suddenly she turned to me with unexpected kindness in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to complain.”
Smiling slightly, she took my hand and squeezed it for a brief
instant, then let go. I softened a bit, and realized everyone needed contact of some kind, even if it was only cold, distant Mindie. It really did beat the hell out of being alone. At least lots of people had told me it did. Usually people who were alone and desperate.
“It’s not your fault this place is disgusting,” she said, artfully killing the moment.
“There’s a con-ti-nen-tal breakfast every mornin’ at ten,” the bellman said, startling me, and reminding me he was still there, swinging wild and free. He moved over toward the minibar—which Mindie happened to be standing next to —his immense testicles bobbling. Mindie dove out of his way as if he were on fire. He took hold of the minibar’s handle and opened its genuine, oak-veneer door. There were cokes and cookies, and various other allegedly edible items inside. I noticed a bag of mixed nuts, and felt as though it described the situation perfectly. Mister Peanut was even dressed much like Ms. Nuckeby had been—hat, bowtie, and shoes. Fortunately, peanuts were apparently sexless. Or perhaps unfortunately if you were Mrs. Peanut.
“Minibar,” the bellman said, quite unnecessarily. He said ‘bah’ instead of ‘bar’ with some sort of New England accent. I supposed naked people came from all over. “Take ennything, and it chah-ges yo room au-to-matic-ally, even if yo-ah just lookin’ ‘round in there.” ‘There’ was pronounced, ‘they-uh’. “So don’t take items out to refrigerate things of yo own, figurin’ you can just put it back, unless you want to pay for owah stuff ennyway.”
He moved toward the desk, and Mindie—who was again everywhere he wanted to be—had to leap aside to avoid touching any of the air molecules that might have come in contact with his wellhung nakedness.
“Compu-tah hook-up,” he said, pointing to it. “Fo the Inta-net.” He smiled and revealed crooked teeth in his cauliflower face. “In case you want to download pick-chas of nekkid people,” he said, and laughed—or kind of barked actually, then fell into a coughing fit, which did startling things to his clock pendulum.
After a moment’s hacking, he slowly recovered, leaning on the desk, red-faced and taking several wheezing, deep breaths. When next he spoke, his voice had gone faint and high-pitched, and sentences were clearly difficult to complete.
“Over he-ah…” he wheezed, “we hahve…” wheeze, “…we hahve…yo-ah