Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms (41 page)

“Roll away?”

“Corky, there’s only one bed.”

“We’re engaged.”

“But not
married
. And may I remind you whose fault
that
is?”

Mine, apparently.

“And besides,” she said. “I’m still annoyed with you. Even if you didn’t sleep with that model in the closet, or that black tramp, I think a term of abstinence is still in order after all you’ve done.”

I continued to stare blankly.

“And for your
attitude
,” she snarled. “Which I must say isn’t improving as time goes on. Give me about an hour, then you can come back and do your phone things.”

I stood up.

“And bring me some chocolates when you do,” she said. “A good kind, like Godiva. Not whatever that crappy stuff is you keep around your house. It’s been a trying day, and I need some pampering.”

Outside in the hallway I stood silently and wondered what to do next. I sighed heavily (something I seem to do a lot), thinking hard, but came up with nothing, and in frustration I jammed my hands into my pockets.

The envelope crinkled.

I pulled it out and removed the keys Petal had braved the naked hit squad to return to me. I began to wad the thing up when I noticed something green still inside.

A note.

I slipped it out and unfolded it.

My heart jumped. Ms. Nuckeby. And her handwriting was terrible.

I looked at my watch. 1:45.

My heart jumped again in the other direction. It was doing calisthenics. I only had fifteen minutes to find out what the Little Giant Head was and get behind it.

Ms. Nuckeby.

Wisper
.

The hounds were chasing my deer again!

But should I go? Did this have any chance of working? Ms. Nuckeby had been a model. Clothes couldn’t be
entirely
foreign to her. Maybe she could be comfortable living in
my
world. We could still be naked most of the time if we stayed in a lot.

Gloop.

But what about her brother, River the Roadblock?

Damn him. He really had my dander up. Whatever ‘dander’ might be. Add that to the list. I refused to be bullied…by man, or penis. I was going to see her in spite of him. It. Them.

I ran toward the exit, and within seconds I was far enough away that I could no longer hear Mindie’s voice.

“Corky?” she called from inside the bathroom. “Are you out there? I’m going to undress now, and I don’t want you anywhere nearby when I do. Your lack of self-restraint is appalling.”

She waited a moment, and then haltingly began removing my shirt/her dress as if afraid I might, at any moment, burst back into the room and unleash my erect penis on her.

By the time she got all her clothes off and saw the hideous thing behind her, I was too far away to hear her bloodcurdling scream.

Two floors down and still naked, Ms. Waboombas was jumping on the bed, and eating her drippy, room service food.

The pastor was sweating profusely and loosening his collar. He looked as if he might be diving headlong into a heart attack. Morgan was beside him, looking much the same, but happier about his own impending engine failure if it meant Waboombas might give him mouth-to-mouth, or mouth to…whatever.

The stately black woman inhaled the last of her meal, spilling juices all over her ample Pflemmels, leaped one last time high into the air, and flopped majestically down onto her back. Eventually all her jiggly stuff stopped moving, her drippy stuff stopped dripping, and the pastor collapsed on a chair, weak and spiritually challenged. Waboombas looked down the length of her body at him, then slowly spread her legs to give him a full-view of her internal reproductive organs. He gasped, flushed, and turned quickly away, choking on something. His chastity, no doubt.

Between chews, she asked, “Anyone want to take a bath?” Apparently hoping they
all
would.
Together
.

In Jell-o.

The pastor abruptly leaped from his chair and ran for the door, saying something about “God in His infinite wisdom....” was out in the hall, and through the lobby before anyone could ask him to speak up and repeat himself. Their room—fortunately for him—was very near an exit from the hotel.

In his mad rush, the poor man of God had left the door open, and Waboombas looked up at Morgan expectantly. Morgan smiled down at her.

“Close the door,” she said, and Morgan practically flew to it.

“
Yes, ma’am!
”

“From the
outside
,” she amended.

“What?”

“I’m gonna take a bath.”

“But you just said…”

“I asked if anyone
else
was going to take a bath.”

“That’s not what you said. You said…”

“Get out.”

“Let me stay and watch.”

“Not happenin’, little man.”

“But why can’t I…”

She threw the television remote at him. That’s how I nearly ran into him as he stepped out into the hall to dodge the thing, while still calling back inside to Ms. Waboombas.

“At least let me stay and read comics. It’s my room too.”

“You just want to leer at me in the tub.”

“Can’t I do both?”

“
Fuck
no!”
she yelled.

“You’ve been naked since we got here! What difference does it make if I…”

“Get
lost!
”

“I bet you’d let
Corky
watch.”

I backed away from him and stopped short, just out of sight of the door.

“He’s cute,” Waboombas purred.

“
I’m
not a bad-looking guy.”

“But you ain’t
rich. CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!”

Reluctantly, he did, mumbling something incoherent about ‘not being fair’, and ‘I deserve a little something’.

As I tried to slip past him he finally noticed me.

Drat. Foiled again.

“Hey, Corky.”

“Hey, Morgan,” I said, once the door was safely shut and Waboombas couldn’t see or hear me. Skittish and jumpy, I glanced at my watch. Thirteen minutes.

“What are you doing down here?” Morgan asked. “I figured you’d be up there banging Mindie left, right and center.”

I studied him to see if he might be blind. But no, his face simply held that gentle innocence one usually finds on the faces of the very young, or the recently deceased, or the completely stupid. Facts rarely made it all the way through his senses and into the cognitive areas of his brain. Morgan’s world was that of a perpetual teenager, where all his thoughts were sense-oriented, and all his motivations were hormonal. He thought Mindie’s surliness was ‘foreplay’ as he would have thought any woman’s actions—negative, positive, or lethally violent—were ‘foreplay’.

“Hardly,” I answered simply.

“Damn,” he said. “Too bad. If you’re anything like me—after that road trip—I could fuck holes through sheetrock.”

It was a disturbing visual, all the more so because I could actually imagine Morgan trying it.

“I’m gonna wander around a bit,” I said, and moved off.

“Okay,” he said, following.

I stopped and looked at him. He stopped and looked at me. “I, uh…” I paused. What could I say?

“What?” he asked.

“I was thinking of going down to the beach,” I said. “Alone.” “Okay. Why?”