Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (35 page)

Ms. Waboombas looked at the towel, then around the room at everyone seated at their tables. Each person sat with a towel between their naked bottoms and their seat cushion. It was like some perverse,
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
moment. I checked around for a twoheaded president of the universe, but supposed he was in the men’s room negotiating a peace treaty with the toilet. Waboombas scrunched up her face, as did the rest of us, and we
all
grabbed for a towel, frantically placing them over our own prospective seats.

“The specials are on the inside front cover of the menu,” Ms. Nuckeby said as we sat, then grinned at me. “I recommend the sauerkraut dogs.” I returned her smile. “One note,” she continued, “we’re all out of vanilla ice cream. There’s been a run for some reason. Hope that’s okay.”

“Damn,” Ms. Waboombas said, rubbing a hand on my buttocks. “And you promised to spread vanilla
aaaaall
over me.”

“We still have chocolate,” Ms. Nuckeby offered, seemingly unaffected and ever helpful. A woman had grabbed my ass, and she didn’t seem the least perturbed. Was that a clue to the local etiquette, or just her knowing it was all a joke. My head spun.

“Chocolate’s always better,” Waboombas said delightedly, and sat beside the pastor, who squeaked in fear.

“Your server will be along shortly,” Wisper said. “Her name is Petal.”

“Petal Nuckeby?” I asked.

“Family business,” Wisper smiled. “She’ll take your drink orders.“ She looked pointedly at me. “Though I assume
you’ll
be wanting milk?” she asked me, rather seductively. “Not in overabundant quantities or anything.” She glanced down meaningfully at her perfectly proportioned breasts, then back up to me. “But
normal
amounts of milk.” She paused, staring at me a moment to see if steam exited any of my pores. “Just enough, and no more.”

Pssssssss…

“Just enough, and no more,” I repeated, breathily, suddenly overwhelmed by her.

“I’ll be happy to get that for you,” she said, almost as breathily.

“Oh, happy day,” Waboombas stuck in, scowling a bit into her menu. Her expression made me nervous.

“So,” Ms. Nuckeby said. “If you’ll excuse me.” Then she spoke more to me than the others, “I have some things to do in the storage room.”

She paused.

“Which is just beside the restrooms,” she added.

Another pause.

“Customers often go in there by accident,” she continued. “And we understand. It’s not a problem. It happens.” She paused again and looked meaningfully at me. “Because it’s right next to the restrooms, so it’s very easy to make that mistake. Thinking the storage room— right next door to the restrooms—is
also
a restroom. Which it’s not. It’s a storage room. So that’s where I’ll be.” She paused. “In the storage room.”

“Which is right next to the restrooms,” Waboombas said with sinister intent, still staring at her menu but seemingly seeing something else.

“If anyone needs me,” Ms. Nuckeby said. “Right.”

Ms. Nuckeby stared at me for a moment longer, then smiled, shifted once nervously, and darted off.

I watched her go, feeling warmer all-of-a-sudden, and began to vibrate anxiously in my chair.

Ms. Waboombas grinned at me darkly.

“So, uh…” she said, “you gonna be heading to the restroom, then? I hear it’s next to the storage room.”

“In a minute,” I said, avoiding her taunt.

She looked momentarily disappointed, then regained her smile and suddenly wiggled closer to the pastor than she needed to. He scrunched over as far as he could toward the wall, extremely put out by the thought of being in contact with her bare, black skin, though he tried not to show it. I sat opposite him, and Morgan was sitting next to me, staring at Ms. Nuckeby’s ass again as she hurried away. He was about to fall from our booth while leaning out to catch the last possible fleeting glimpse of her before she rounded the corner. I shoved him to make sure he did.

“Heeeey!”
he said, after hitting the carpet.

I stood up beside him and prepared to follow Ms. Nuckeby.

“What’s with you?” Morgan demanded, climbing back into his seat. “She walks around like that—she’s gonna get ogled! It’s part of the deal!”

“It’s still rude,” I warned him.

“Not when someone runs around
naked
. When they run around
naked
, there
is
no ‘rude’. That’s a neon invitation.” He looked at Waboombas. “Right?”

Wendy scooted the pastor into the wall. He groaned and placed his menu against it, reading intently as if every word counted.

“Sure,” Waboombas said finally.

“Right,” Morgan snapped, opening a menu, but not really seeing it. “And I am here to oblige. I’ll stare at that all day if I want to. And I
do
. What an
ass
!”

“It’s nothing special,” said Waboombas, annoyed. She turned a dark eye to me, and when I said nothing, she moved her gaze to Pastor Winterly, leaning closer to him. “What did
you
think, Reverend? About the hostess’ ass, I mean—compared to everyone else’s ass that is.”

He mumbled something about all God’s gifts being equal and hid deeper in his menu.

“Yeah,” Waboombas said, smiling at me. “See? Nothing special.”

“She was
not
equal,” Morgan said. “She was
HOT!
She could be a model, that girl was so hot.” He paused for a moment as if remembering something, and I froze. He looked skyward, as if reading something on the ceiling then shook his head and let it go. “She’d look
awesome
dressed like Supergirl.”

Morgan didn’t seem to make the connection he, himself, had just made, and I thought I’d skated past it, when suddenly his face contorted like a white grape becoming a raisin in time-lapse—as if a memory were struggling to be recognized for admittance into the ‘by invitation only’ area of his conscious mind, and he was asking for its ID.

I tensed and waited. But apparently the memory became annoyed and went looking for another party. He shook his head again and returned to looking at his menu.

“Yeah. Supergirl,” he said.

“I…uh….” I began.

“…need to use the restroom,” Waboombas blurted, finishing my sentence and glancing up at me from her menu with only her eyes. Slowly, she turned her attention back to the printed page and smiled. “It’s right next to the storage room from what I hear.”

“Yeah?” I said, and fidgeted nervously for a moment. “I hear that too.”

Everything was quiet as Waboombas continued smiling and pretending to look at her menu, occasionally glancing up at me. After a moment or two of silence, I began to realize she wasn’t going to rat me out and I backed away.

I was feeling home free and thrilled at the prospect of more confined spaces with Ms. Nuckeby, when suddenly Mindie bolted around the corner, completely naked and carrying a towel.

The amply endowed Ms. Butterwycke was running very fast, holding her largesse in her hands as best she could. But there was far too much loose, fleshy material to be contained, and it flopped everywhere with tremendous slapping sounds.

By the time she reached us, pale, white, fleshy things were sticking out between pressed hands, fingers, and arms. She stopped and stood beside me at the end of our booth, hopping around from foot to foot as if she were standing on hot coals. The overall effect was that of dancing, gelatinized mashed potatoes with legs. There were still blades of grass and splotches of mud stuck to her from the earlier freeway altercation with Waboombas, and they didn’t do much in the way of making her look less pale, or less naked. Incredibly, the lack of eroticism was mind-boggling.

The rest of us stared at her with stunned expressions. Morgan smiled a bit and stared right at the shaggy fur of her crotch, for which she smacked his head.

“OW!” Morgan cried, covering himself to avoid further attacks.

“Let me in,”
Mindie demanded, glaring at Ms. Waboombas.

Waboombas sneered at her as if she were a fly trying to land on her shit.

“Whattaya mean ‘let me in’?” Waboombas asked, nodding to an empty spot beside her. “Sit there.”

“I want to sit on the
inside
!”
Mindie screeched, apparently very near to losing it.

“Fuck you. Sit there.”

Mindie, still hopping, turned to Morgan and slapped his head again.

“Stop staring at that and let me in,”
she demanded.

“What’s the big deal, Mindie?” Morgan asked. “Just sit…”

With the strength of ten Mindies, she grabbed him and yanked him out of the booth, throwing him to the floor and nearly ripping his shirt off in the process. I was beginning to think she really should be tested for steroid abuse.

Taking the hint, I moved aside before she could try any World Wrestling Federation moves on me. But she, apparently, couldn’t wait for me to get clear. She shoved me aside, hopped up on the seat and walked across it, dropping down into the spot I had just vacated moments earlier. She then positioned herself precariously with her towel in her lap, clamped her legs together and hunkered in against the wall as if she needed protection from an imminent nuclear blast.

She glanced around nervously, continuing to scrunch down, seemingly afraid someone she knew might come by and see her, apparently not realizing that people she knew already had. Morgan was looking at her with undisguised lust, and even the pastor—still pinned against the wall by Waboombas—couldn’t help glancing her way rather frequently.

We were in a room full of naked people—men and women—one already sitting at our table—but even I had to admit there was something transfixing about seeing someone publicly naked who would ordinarily never be seen without shoes, let alone clothes, someone who still desperately wanted to remain hidden. As long as I’d known Mindie, she hadn’t so much as exposed more than a little cleavage and her legs below the knees. What had possessed her to get completely naked here—now—in front of Morgan of all people, and the pastor of her family church?

“I refuse to starve to death out in that car,” she snarled, piercing us with a terrifying glare, “while the rest of you stuff yourselves sick and talk about me.”

She acted as if we had all, personally, locked her in a cage and poked her with sharp sticks.

She grabbed a menu and tucked it in around her like a bra, then stretched her face out, oddly, attempting to read the food choices trapped between the laminated plastic, and her voluminous breast tissue.

“And there’s no way I was going to leave you in here all alone with that chatty, brazen, food-service person, Corky. You were entirely too friendly with her.” She snapped a nasty look up at me, then returned to looking at the top edge of her menu.

“I’ll have a salad,” Mindie said suddenly, and looked up at the others as if they were all losers for taking so long.

I swallowed hard, and choked a bit. She’d picked up on the attraction between Ms. Nuckeby and myself. Was I being too transparent? Did it matter?

“Soooo…” Ms Waboombas said in that tone that bespoke the coming of unspeakable horrors, “What are
you
going to get, Reverend?” I
knew
there must have been a reason she wanted to sit next to him, one that likely involved considerable pain and suffering for us all. “I was thinking I’d take the waitress’
hot dog
recommendation,” she continued. The way she said hot dog, it clearly meant ‘pastor’s penis’. “Nothing like a good, old-fashioned
wiener
to fill you up and make you feel all
warm
inside.” She smiled at him meaningfully—though I’m not sure he
understood
that meaning. After all, he didn’t run screaming for the nearest exit. Then I saw one of her hands disappear under the table, and the pastor suddenly jumped.

Now
he understood her meaning.

Mindie slapped at Waboombas, shrieking.

“Get away from him! GET AWAY!” Mindie continued striking at the taller woman with anything handy—napkins, menus, salt, and pepper shakers—trapping the unfortunate pastor between Waboombas and her flurry of attacks, apparently unaware that she had now drawn the attention of the entire restaurant.

“Sit on
this
side!” Mindie demanded. “Now!” She shoved Morgan. “Morgan, trade with her!” Morgan hesitated, and Mindie swatted at him too. “Move!
Move! MOVE!”

Smiling, apparently satisfied that she had achieved whatever perverse goal she had set out to, Ms. Waboombas stood—regally— stretching herself out like a cat that won’t get off your lap, and then moved—with interminable slowness—toward the opposite side of the booth, and the spot Morgan had already vacated. Waboombas lay her hands on the table, pivoting on them so she could more easily swing her behind out and up, unhurriedly, toward the seat opposite her, thus putting it on full display for the roomful of intrigued patrons. As she did so, she took a few quick glances around, apparently satisfied that now—at last—all eyes
were
upon her. Or at least an important part of her.