Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [45]
I saw her surprised look, softened, and looked away from her sadly. She lifted my chin with her thumb and forefinger and smiled at me, almost as sadly, then pulled me to her, giving me a hug I needed more than I would have realized.
“Do you ever miss England?” I asked as she held me tightly. “I liked it there. Everyone seemed nicer, and I felt more comfortable with the people.”
“That’s because you’re repressed,” she said, grinning. “And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
After an insufficient amount of welcome human warmth, she reluctantly let go of me, smiled one last time, and without another word wandered back into the crowd, leaving an opening for Morgan.
“Things seem to be wrapping up here,” he said. “Wanna bust loose and go strip-clubbing? I’m thinking we should maybe ask that red-hot stepsister of yours if she wants to go. Maybe we could convince her to get up on a table.”
He smiled and sucked another lollipop. I looked at him with murder in my eyes, imagining cartoon axes flying from my pupils into his heart.
“What?” he asked, a little frightened. “You’re not related!”
I continued to glare at him, and he eventually took the hint, wandering off, drooling.
The rest of the evening was a bit of a whirlwind, and I vaguely remember some of it. But I can’t remember what.
As everyone splintered off and began heading home, Mindie found her way back to me and wrapped an arm in mine as she helped me guide her to the door.
“So we’ll head down the coast tomorrow to that little chapel Pastor Winterly mentioned and see if it meets with our approval,” she told me. “A small wedding would be so lovely. Just a thousand or so. I hope this place isn’t one of those rattletrap shanties that look good in the pictures, but then you get there and you can actually smell the sea. I suppose that can be overcome with sufficient flowers, but—you’ll drive. That way I can talk with the pastor about my needs on the way down. Make sure you bring your checkbook for the deposit.”
She stopped and held me out at arm’s length as if examining a disheveled child to make sure he was presentable for the family photo. After a moment’s study, she brushed my hair off my forehead. Apparently I wasn’t. There followed more, vigorous adjusting before she finally stopped and looked around to see if anyone was nearby. No one was. They were all on the porch or already gone. Satisfied we were alone, she turned back to me and grinned, darkly, as though she were considering which side of my throat to rip out first.
“I hope you understand, I won’t be staying tonight. I figure you should at least take a shower after rutting around with that little hooker in the broom closet.”
It was like she’d backhanded me in the forehead. I said nothing. But my teeth still felt loose.
“And I’ll expect an AIDS test of course. And a venereal screening. And even then, we’ll only do it with a condom for the first two or three years, if at all. Children will just have to wait. They would have had to anyway, I want to travel, but after your little lapse…”
Lapse? Apparently since she had accepted a proposal I didn’t know I’d offered, I’d nearly shattered our commitment. My mouth opened to say something, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what.
“And during sex?” she said, and adjusted my hair the other way, until—still not liking it—she sighed heavily and gave up. “And during sex?” she repeated, taking hold of her breasts, one in each hand and hefting them toward me. They took some hefting. She was quite well endowed. “Off limits. At least until you’ve shown me you can behave. That’ll be your punishment.”
She continued staring directly into my eyes, thinking—I imagine—how divinely they would taste with butter if I expressed any upset over her pronouncement. Following a tense moment where I considered screaming and running away, she continued.
“These could have been