Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [18]
“Becaaaaaaaaause…?” he asked.
“Because I’m taking some time off.”
“Why?”
“Grandfather thinks I need a vacation.”
“Vacation? Dude. Your job is a vacation!”
“I’m sure you see it that way.”
“Any normal guy would see it that way. Hey, maybe the old man would let me do your job!”
“He’d sooner feed alligators wearing a duck suit.”
“You could put in a good word for me.”
“No, I really couldn’t.”
“Maybe I’ll just call him myself and ask.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Maybe I will.”
We both chewed and walked a moment in zucchini bread silence.
“Well,” he finally said around liquefied brown that had gathered around the rim of his mouth. “If you’re not coming in to work, then you have to come to the convention with me.” He read my expression. “Come on! I’m going to invite Madelyn. Now that I think of it, she’d look perfect in a Phoenix costume. Duh. Why didn’t I think of that before? Madelyn. Like in Pryor?”
The Phoenix’s real name. In the comic, not the movies. Or one of the Phoenix’s. See, a long time ago, in another dimension…
Sorry. Nearly geeked out there for a second. Then I realized that it’s a long, complicated story, and no one cares.
“I should have realized sooner,” he said, glancing at me as I chewed silently, not at all getting that my own semi-clad superheroine still mentally distracted me. “Why don’t you invite Mindie?”
My brain froze. All erotic thoughts of Ms. Nuckeby ceased their attack on my exhausted libido.
“Invite Mindie?” I asked.
Morgan knew, of course, that I had been in love with Mindie Butterwycke since the dawn of hormonal time. She was a childhood friend of my sister’s; one I had longed deeply and unrequitedly for as the first girl who could—simply by entering a room—make my penis swell. Mindie had been—since my crossing the threshold of sexual, if not mental, maturity—an object of perpetual personal desire; the kind of woman whose image you carried off into sleep then dreamt of fitfully—probably because you had wanked off while imagining her jumping naked on a trampoline. I’d considered marrying her at one point, but she wouldn’t go out with me.
Since my first encounter with Mindie, I’d thought of her at least once daily. But I suddenly realized that since sexually assaulting that water bottle in the presence of the semi-nude Ms. Nuckeby, Mindie hadn’t even crossed my mind. Naked trampolining or otherwise. Not once! It was a startling revelation, and might have told me something significant were I more than just marginally sharper than Morgan.
“I think she’d be less interested in the convention than I would,” I said, not actually ‘thinking’—more ‘knowing full well’.
“Yeah,” he said, clearly irritated, but accepting the truth. Then he brightened a bit. “So, fine. Come without her.”
“No. I have to convince my grandfather I should come back to work.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Work. How many naked girls did you have to ‘work’ with today, Corky?”
“Just one. One was enough.”
Visions of Ms. Nuckeby danced in my head again. Before long I needed ice. I moved the anti-harassment tape to obscure things; unfortunately, Morgan noticed anyway.
“Dude,” he said, looking disgusted. “I hope that’s because of the zucchini bread and not me.”
“I’m straight!”
“I’ve seen the video.”
“You took the video!”
“Yeah. It was pretty funny. I can’t believe you bought it when I told you he was Mindie.” He glanced down. “Is that because I mentioned her?”
“No, it’s, um… ” I looked around nervously. “Something happened in the Garment Viewing Room. I…uh…I really can’t really talk about it, here. ”
Morgan looked surprised, then leaned toward me and whispered in a voice that sounded almost afraid. “Holy crap. Did you really fuck a water bottle?”
“No!” I lied and wondered if I looked as guilty as I felt. His smile said I did.
“Dude. I gotta hear this.”
I sagged and gave up. “Maybe I shouldn’t come in to work, tomorrow.”
“And maybe you should go to a comic book convention?”
Since you are undoubtedly noticing that our friendship seems a bit unlikely, this would be as good a place as any to explain