Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [44]
That should have been my first warning. Or maybe my thirtyseventh. Only instead of being terrified out of my mind, I found myself thinking that maybe this wasn’t a bad thing. The family liked it. Mindie already belonged. Plus, she had her own money. There was no question she had to be interested in me because of me.
Incredibly, I found myself warming to the idea. Twelve hours ago I would have killed for this opportunity. Mindie and I engaged. The family gathered proudly around me. No one being sexually harassed. This could be a very comfortable existence. It might be exactly what I needed in my life.
Might be.
Mimsi, my sister, pulled away from Mindie and Faunita and made her way over to me as I stood alone to one side, watching them plan our wedding at some little chapel by the sea that had everything, according to Faunita, including impoverished locals who would wait on us hand and foot for less than minimum wage.
Mimsi smiled and stared at me with curious eyes, as if studying me for lice.
“What?” I asked.
“Sooooo,” she asked. “Did’ja fuck her?”
“Mims!”
“Just kidding. I know that’s what Dad asked you. I’m really just trying to figure out what you think of all this. You seem kind of happy. But it hasn’t escaped me that you never actually asked Mindie, or that you were, mere moments ago, bumping nasties with another woman.”
“Let’s not forget Woodruff.”
“Contrary to what everyone else may think, I know you have no interest in bumping nasties with Woodruff.”
It’s true. She always understood that the Mervin Wosserman incident had been a horrible, drunken disaster, not unlike the Exxon Valdez, and nearly as damaging. Like recognizes like, I suppose. Or recognizes when like isn’t like. Or, like…something like that anyway.
“Bumping nasties,” I said, tasting the words. “An interesting expression.”
“And inappropriate now that I think about it,” she said. She’d been to Oxford too. “There was nothing nasty about her. Woof. She was quite a hottie.”
Mimsi would know. She had dated some stunners. She was what I think they referred to as (‘They’ again. Someday someone was going to have to track ‘Them’ down and kick them in the nuts. They obviously have too much free time in their lives to just stand around and say things that deeply affected other people). At any rate, Mims was what’s called a ‘lipstick lesbian’. Not that she sold cosmetics for Ronco or anything, but that she was somehow more feminine and attractive than your average lesbian, but still liked girls. As such, Mims could tell a good-looking female as easily as any heterosexual lesbian. I mean woman. Heterosexual woman. She could tell any heterosexual man too, I supposed. Heterosexual, period. Human being? Come to think of it, pretty much anyone could recognize a good-looking woman. Why could men never recognize a handsome man unless they were gay? Maybe ‘They’ would know.
Sorry. I’m easily distracted.
“Soooo…” Mims asked, studying me for any sign of falsehood, “you’re okay with this? The Mindie thing? That girl in the closet was just a poke-n-grope or something?”
I stared at her silently for a moment, trying to hide it and failing.
“Or something,” I said finally.
Her quizzical look faded and understanding filled her face. “Gold-digger?” she said. Mims had run into a heaping helping of those as well. There’s something about being rich and single that attracts pretty, insincere, poor, and single people who want your checkbook more than your heart.
“Apparently,” I said, a bit curtly.
Mims studied me. “You sure? Because she seemed into you. And the way she stood up to Grandfather…well…”
“I’m sure,” I