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“Porn?”

“NAKED! HUGE BOOBS! CARTOON PORN! END OF DISCUSSION!”

Everyone turned to look our way, and I stood, red, silent, and embarrassed.

“They’re not… ” I began, then glanced at the pile, and saw an Adam Hughes Wonder Woman cover on top, which depicted the heroine colored red and blue, with enormous, squishing-out breasts. I quickly slipped it to the bottom of the pile.

“Mindie,” I tried again, not wanting to lose this battle, “these are extremely valuable.”

As an example, without looking closely enough, I mistakenly held up the next book in my stack, a copy of Nuderman number one, a parody of Superman number 1. The cover was nearly identical to that of its satirical source material, only the hero was—well—nude. Hence my error.

Unfortunately, as should be obvious by now, it was exactly the wrong thing to use for driving home my point because of—not only the nude thing—but because the comic in question was essentially worthless to anyone but me. I had laughed myself silly reading it, and so, had paid handsomely to have it graded by the Certified Guaranty Company, professional comic book inspectors, as 10.0, perfect mint, and sealed forever in a plastic box so that I could never read it again.

Don’t ask. It’s a collector’s thing.

“This one alone, is…” I repeated.

“Naked,” she said, covering herself with her hands as if Nuderman, a.k.a. Dork Bent, might leap off the cover and ravage her.

I looked at the comic and rolled my eyes.

“Oh,” I said, and quickly shuffled through the others until I found an actual, valuable comic with a male character on the cover who was mostly clothed, Captain America Comics number one. “This one alone,” I tried again, “is worth two hundred thousand dollars.”

She scrunched up her face in a magnificent combination of disgust and disbelief. “Why?”

“Because it is extremely rare—especially in this grade—and coveted by collectors… ”

“…who apparently have too much money and too little brains,” she said, finishing my sentence in a way nature had not intended. “Wonderful,” she continued. “So when you sell it, you can afford a nice down payment on a decent engagement ring.”

Done with me, she turned and sprinted giddily off toward Ms. Waboombas.

“Oh, Wendyyyyy…” she said.

I watched her go, horrified at the changes I now saw coming in my life, then was startled a bit as Morgan suddenly appeared beside me, licking another lollipop, and ogling my collection.

“Can I have those?” he asked.

The four of us, Mindie, Wendy, Morgan, and myself, discussed all the particulars with Aunt Helena, and given Mindie’s giddy belief that she was soon to be a major motion-picture star working beside Steven Spielberg, she was more cooperative than I ever could have hoped.

We would all drive down in the Duesy, make the quick trip to have it repaired, then head to the chapel for the inspection. Aunt Helena would meet us there with her husband, Pjuter, later that evening after their ‘thing’. We planned to have a nice dinner at the restaurant (on me) where the reception might be held (dependent upon food quality, atmosphere, and cleanliness of toilets—or lack thereof). ‘Nice dinner’ being a somewhat optimistic hope in my view. Mindie did not yet know Ms. Waboombas well enough to be in any way concerned about Tourette’s-like outbreaks of sexual gesticulation in public places, and once she found out there would likely be hell to pay—a payment Mindie would undoubtedly be charging to my account.

After dining, Helena and Pjuter would return home in the Duesenberg with Mindie, and the pastor, and Mindie would allow me to spend four nights away at the comics convention with Morgan and Ms. Waboombas, clearly still unaware that Ms. Waboombas planned to spend the entire trip fucking me raw. Mindie could be profoundly generous when distracted by good news that was all about her.

As Morgan, Wendy, Mindie, and the pastor positioned themselves in Helena’s classic automobile, my quirky aunt pulled me to one side and handed