Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [35]
Unbidden and unwanted, I briefly flashed on Woodruff’s potential wedding night. He’d need to rent two honeymoon suites. He’d be in one, while his penis was having sex with his new bride in the other.
“Wow,” said Ms. Nuckeby. “That would hurt.”
“As I’ve heard many times, madam. Yes.”
Many times?
“Woodruff?” I asked. “Why have you removed your underwear?”
“When it gets like this,” he groaned, “it’s far more comfortable if things are unencumbered.”
“Far more comfortable for whom?”
“You can have the underwear along with the pants if it pleases you, sir. It will be some time before I can fit them back on anyway.”
“Thank you, no, Woodruff. I won’t be needing the underwear,” I said.
“No,” Ms Nuckeby said, squeezing, “you certainly won’t.”
Whereupon my voice hit a register only dogs can hear. “Never mind. I’ll take it all,” I said, bending and reaching for his trousers, feeling Ms. Nuckeby’s breasts slide down my back.
I paused and lost track of what I was doing. Why was I trying to get out of here, again?
Then I heard Grandfather’s voice.
Ah, yes. That’s why.
“Where the hell is Woodruff?” he bellowed, coming closer. Of course coming closer. There were six million square feet in this house. Why should he be using any of it but the four square feet I happened to occupy?
“And where’s Corky?”
Mindie’s voice. Undoubtedly also heading right for this closet. Life was just a vicious bitch with rabies and huge teeth. “I can’t wait!” she squealed. “I want to tell him our surprise!”
The doorbell rang.
“That must be the others.”
Dear God, there were still others? A door opened with a chorus of voices “ . . . hello . . . lovely to see you . . . how have you been . . . are you sure you want to do this . . . what’s that smoky smell?” And then the sentence from hell . . .
“What are our coats doing on the floor?”
Perceiving the obvious, even Ms. Nuckeby gasped and her libido seemed—at long last—to subside. She panicked right along with me and immediately began scrambling for her clothes. But amidst the boxes, objects, and clutter, all we found was the thong. Not really much help unless I wanted to floss my teeth, which I didn’t.
Woodruff—either because he didn’t feel the need, couldn’t fit them back on, or simply because he was Woodruff—took his time pulling on his boxers while we continued to search frantically. When the closet door finally began to crack open—as we all knew it had to— I stopped my search and tried desperately to pull it shut. But whoever was on the other side fought viciously and with the strength of ten men.
“It seems to be hung on something,” Mindie said.
Mindie? Mindie was the one pulling?
She’d been working out. Or I hadn’t.
As the door popped open with brief flashes of light, and views of the foyer from Mindie’s incessant yanking, it became abundantly clear I couldn’t hold the knob (the one on the door) forever. So, in what I imagine was an effort to help, Ms. Nuckeby began throwing stray bits of ribbon and Christmas decoration over me in an apparent effort—I supposed—to disguise me once the door ultimately slipped free of my hands.
“Never mind that,” I whispered. “Just help me hold this damn thing shut.”
She did, wrapping her hands over mine and pressing her breasts into my face—unintentionally I’m sure. But before long it had become a parlor game for those on the other side, and we were, without a doubt, about to be on the losing end of things. Judging by the amount of effort it took to hold the door closed, hundreds of people must have been in the foyer, all laughing and jerking us from our hiding place.
Creeeeak, SLAM, creeeeak, SLAM, creeeeak, SLAM.
After what seemed like hours of wrestling fun for the whole family, the handle at long last slipped from Ms. Nuckeby’s and my sweating fingertips and the closet door exploded open—flying nearly off its hinges—exposing us for the entire world to see.
Or, at least, for all those in the foyer to see. Which certainly seemed to us at the time like the entire world. Mimsi, Morgan,