Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (14 page)

“That’s a side of you I hoped never to see, sir,” he said.

“Makes two of us.”

“This may be beyond the realm of my job description.”

“It’s not for you, Woodruff. This is the only safe place to put it at the moment.”

“Says you,” Ms. Nuckeby trilled, and reached around me, taking a firm grip on things.

“Oh!” I said.

“Oh!” she mocked, using my designer’s handle to pull herself closer, pressing her bare breasts against my back.

“Oops,” she said. “I fell.”

“You did
not
.”

She laughed, breasts jiggling against me, and I felt everything going dark. And it was already dark enough.

“The pants, Woodruff,” I wheezed weakly, my voice growing faint. “Give me the pants.”

“If I must, sir.”

“I’m trying to show you,” Ms. Nuckeby purred, and squeezed, “that there’s an easier solution, here, than all this ridiculous clothes swapping.”

“There is?” I asked.

“There is,” she said. “Have Woodruff tell everyone you’ve unexpectedly left the building, Elvis-like, and he doesn’t expect you back. Then just stay in here with
me
.” Leaning close, Wisper whispered the rest of her idea into my ear. “And fuck me till I walk funny.”

“Oh, dear God,” I said.

“I know, sir,” Woodruff said, sadly. “The lady’s brazenness is taking its toll on me as well.”

“Oh, dear,
GOD!”
I said, realizing he had removed his underwear and only
appeared
to have three legs. The middle one looked as though it should be climbing trees in the Amazon and swallowing monkeys
whole
.

“I get it from my father’s side,” he said, sadly. “It’s why I’m an only child and unmarried.”

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, Daniel, Mindie, Grandfather, and standing in the now open doorway some new arrivals: my aunt and uncle (the Struts of Wopplesdown Struts), my father, his new wife, and stepdaughter, my older brothers, and— of all people—the leader of the family church I never attended, Pastor Berthram Winterly, were all there, and alternately amused, stunned, or deeply horrified.

The sight that greeted what amounted to my entire family, and then some, was a naked Ms. Nuckeby, who had managed to find an old package of Christmas bows, and was holding a few over one or two of her unmentionables. A naked me, holding a small cardboard Santa face over my crotch with a word-balloon saying ‘Presents Inside!’ as well as a few ribbons and garlands thrown gaily over my shoulders, and Woodruff in his boxers—pants still around his ankles—standing stiffly and waiting to serve.

“I’ve found Mister Wopplesdown,” he announced helpfully.

As you can imagine, reactions were somewhat mixed.

Morgan and most of the males stared in awe at Ms. Nuckeby. My sister snorted a laugh. My little brother, Daniel, goggled with wide eyes, and open-mouthed at everything. My Aunt Helena stood to one side, alone, watching and smiling, seemingly amused by the whole thing. Her husband, Pjuter, had—likely to avoid being caught by his wife ogling Ms. Nuckeby—disappeared somewhere, possibly to the same darkened corner Mindie had vanished into when she had— inexplicably—run crying from the room.

Grandfather was the first to speak.

“Jesus Christ on a fucking
BIKE
!”

An excellent way to get the conversation going I thought.

As everyone stood in a circle around us, apparently too stunned by the events to bother getting us some clothes, I decided now was a good time for a vacation.

Ms. Nuckeby, though nervous, was obviously far more comfortable being naked to the world than I. She stood rather calmly beside me, hands at her sides, gift bows still adhering to various parts of her body through no effort on her part, while I still held the cardboard Santa as if my life depended on it. Woodruff had returned his trousers to their rightful position and slunk away someplace, undoubtedly to laugh his ass off.

On the plus side, I was no longer fighting an erection.

Morgan sucked on a lollipop as he stared at Ms. Nuckeby like a partially opened Christmas present he longed to finish unwrapping. He was drooling puddles of colored spit onto my inlaid, Italian marble floor and making odd, moaning sounds as if his engines were overheating—which I suppose they were.

Eventually, Grandfather stopped pacing and screaming, screaming and pacing, and stared me right in the eyes.

“Apparently you’re not even a homosexual.”

For the life of me, he sounded disappointed.

“There’s a simple explanation… ” I began.

“The explanation is rather
clear
,”
he snarled, glancing over at Ms. Nuckeby’s exposed everything.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, wading into the deep end of the shark infested waters.

“Excuse me?” Grandfather goggled, apparently startled that she could do more than just stand there and be naked.

“I said: ‘he didn’t do anything wrong.’ It was all a crazy misunderstanding, and the more we tried to fix it…”

“Are you aware that just by
being
here, let alone in your obvious situation, you are in violation of your contract with us, and the morals clause your agency has you sign before…”

“The situation may be obvious to
you
, but in reality…”

“Madam—you are
naked
.
He
is naked.
I can’t believe you’re still
talking
.” He glared her to silence, then turned to me. “And you…”

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” she interrupted again, utterly unfazed by Grandfather’s anger or strength of will. She certainly had one up on me.

And then, in what could have been a magnificent act of heartfelt defiance, she did something so small, so very simple, and so beautifully touching; she reached out to take my hand.

And in an act equally small, massively cowardly, and stupendously insensitive, I did something I would regret until my dying day.

I pulled my hand away.

The act shook her, and she glanced up at me with hurt and surprise. Then, without ever looking at her, I felt her expression change and was immediately chilled as the room temperature dropped at least a hundred and thirty-two degrees.

She took her hand back and folded her arms across her stomach, lowering her head to hide her embarrassment. The silence that suddenly filled the room was deafening.

“I’m sorry, Grandfather,” I said, completing the defeat.

He stared at me intently, then glanced briefly at Ms. Nuckeby, who kept her eyes on her painted toenails—and had, to his personal amusement—lost her edge.

My dear Aunt Helena stepped forward with Ms. Nuckeby’s clothes and kindly handed them to her.

“Here you go, dear,” my aunt said, putting a gentle arm around Wisper’s shoulders.

Ms. Nuckeby took the clothes wordlessly and held them to her chest. Aunt Helena handed me a pair of trousers, then guided the silent Ms. Nuckeby away, head still down and silent as a tomb, into an adjoining room and away from prying eyes.

I didn’t even turn to watch her go.