Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [43]
She called Pastor Winterly and, given that her family donates considerable wads of cash to his church, was apparently able to ‘twist his arm’ to come by and begin the arrangements immediately.
Taking this in slowly, letting it percolate, I took several minutes to absorb Mindie with the others. Elegant. Well-dressed. Laughing. Massive breasts. Fitting in cleanly, not as Ms. Nuckeby likely would. Or wouldn’t. Would? I hate English.
My father stepped over to me with Rupert and Henderton, my older brothers, and they all smiled vacantly for a disturbingly long time before saying anything. The silence became a bit uncomfortable, and I glanced down to make sure my fly was zipped and nothing was swinging free.
“So,” my father asked. “Did’ja fuck her?”
“What? Dad! Isn’t that between Mindie and me?”
“Not jugs—no one’s fucked her. She keeps her legs together so tight it’s a wonder she can walk. I meant the hottie in the closet with no tan lines? Did’ja fuck her, or was she just for show?”
Henderton was giggling like an idiot and nodding—waiting for an answer he hoped was going to be detailed and sordid. Rupert, eating some chocolate crispies that hadn’t been crispy when I first put them in a bowl on my desk at least five years ago, was only slightly more reserved.
“Just for show?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah,” Rupert nodded. “I’ve got a bet this was all staged to try and ‘prove’ you’re not a fag.”
I was stunned. How many times did I have to explain this?
“I had no idea you were coming. So why would I stage it? And I am not, as you so eloquently put it, a…”
“E-lo-quent-ly…’” Rupert mocked.
“What a snot,” Henderton sneered, turning to dad. “Why’d you send him to Oxnard?”
“Oxford,” I corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Not even remotely.”
“Re-mote-ly. Whatever.”
“I think that’s what turned him queer,” Rupert sniffed. “The English.”
“You wish,” I said.
Rupert took a moment to realize I was accusing him of wanting to have sex with me, and when it finally sunk in, he exploded and leaped for my throat. Henderton and my father had to hold him back. “You’re the fag! I’m not the fag!” Rupert spat. After a moment he finally calmed, withdrew, and contented himself with sneering at me while speaking to the others. “He didn’t fuck her. She hasn’t got a beard.”
“I fucked her,” I said, shocking myself and throwing a silence over them like a rug. Woolen. Made from sheep.
They studied me intently for a moment, not entirely sure if they could believe me. It annoyed me that they might think I was lying, even though I was.
“She tight?” my father asked hopefully.
“Nearly squeezed it off,” I said, grinning as though there was nothing better than having your penis sheared away. At least that wasn’t entirely a lie. She had quite a grip, Ms. Nuckeby. Surprisingly, the fact that I’d led them to believe more about her than she’d actually done bothered me very little. If there was one thing I’d learned in this family, it was how to devolve rapidly into classlessness.
They stared a beat longer, waiting to see if I would burst out with a ‘Just kidding!’, and when I didn’t, they hooted and laughed as if they’d been in there with me. In the closet, I mean. Or maybe in Ms. Nuckeby. Where illicit sex was concerned, they were highly imaginative.
Finally, my father slapped me on the shoulder. Hard. The way ‘men’ do when they share ‘manly’ things like degrading the women dearest to them.
“What an ass,” father said, giggling. He was marveling at Ms. Nuckeby’s behind, not insulting me, though I’m sure he’d get to that eventually. “It was all I could do to keep from reaching out and grabbing a piece a that myself.”
Then he winked and took my brothers by the shoulders back to stand with his new wife and stepdaughter. Through the rest of the evening he continually glanced back at me, winking with obvious pleasure. ‘My son is not a fag.’ I could hear him think. ‘My son is not a fag.’
It was then that I noticed the striking similarity between Dad’s wife, Faunita, and my seemingly impending wife, Mindie. Two tall, slightly heavy women, both very