Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [170]
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