Minktales

Issue 13

"Beautiful Beach Bash"

It was a beautiful day at the beach. The sun shone down on the many kids, parents and teens having fun in the sand, laying on beach towels, swimming in the ocean or playing games, building sandcastles, flying kites, pretending to chase seagulls, or climbing rocks at either end of the beach.

Many noticed the strange figure stepping out onto the beach, and although some were afraid, and a few knew what was about to happen, and rushed with their wives or girlfriends toward the exit, the figure showed no outward evidence that it might not, in fact, be a robot, or a statue, or even just thin air under the long, all-concealing robe and hood it was covered by.

The figure drifted down the beach, then pulled from its robes a long, thin beach towel and a picnic basket, which it laid neatly on the ground, before, in a single, sweeping motion, casting aside the robe and hood, laying it on the end of the beach blanket. Instantly, over fifty pairs of male eyes were fixed helplessly upon Minerva Mink in her new, blue bathing suit, as she twisted around and seated herself on the towel with both hands on her knees.

It wasn't that Minerva was trying to be cruel. If anything, she sympathized with the dilemma of the men and boys present, which was why she'd used the cloak to give them all a few extra seconds of emotional stability. Every little bit, she thought, aught to count. The problem was that people generally went to the beach to relax, so whenever Minerva Mink showed up in a place like that, people were naturally unprepared to defend themselves from the chain of emotions that the sight of her inflicted upon them.

Turning to the picnic basket, Minerva opened it with one hand, and pulled a bottle of sunscreen from inside. Popping it open with her left thumb, she began to slowly pour some into her right hand, then started rubbing it on her arms and legs in slow, gentle motions. Those men present who were weak of heart had been unconscious since she'd opened the basket. The rest were reacting in a variety of ways.

Frank couldn't stop himself from staring, and the longer he stared, the larger his eyes grew. When she'd opened the sunscreen bottle, he'd started to sweat and pant, out of breath, and when she started putting it on, Frank leaded forward in her direction, his eyes bugging out like binoculars, and his tongue hanging out like a window blind. His girlfriend, who sat right next to him, frowned at the sight, and grabbed his tongue from the bottom, then let go, causing it to fold up just like the aforementioned window blind. Then she dropped her iced cream cone on his head and left. In moments, the ice cream had melted, then evaporated, or burned to ash on Frank's noggin as the sensations became too intense, and he collapsed back onto the ground. Staring right up into the sky, even on a cloudless, bright day was easier than trying to stare at Minerva Mink for a prolonged period.

Frank, it seemed, was the lucky one.

Most of the men and boys on the beach had either left or collapsed by the time Minerva had finished applying sunscreen to her arms, legs, neck and stomach, but two brave souls approached her at that point, one from each side.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" asked a lady named Nancy, whose husband was lying unconscious in the sand not far off.

"Ohhh...enjoying the summer sun." Minerva replied in a half yawn as she turned to look right into the eyes of the other person who approached; a handsome lifeguard.

"Excuse me," she said to the lifeguard, "but I always have a hard time with this. Could you put some sunscreen on my back, please?"

Instantly, the lifeguard's hat and whistle flew into the air of their own accord, and he started to get closer, the intense sensations of nervousness giving way to attraction, happiness and love, as he spread sunscreen all over his hands, but the moment he put his hands on her back, something seemed to snap in his mind, and he keeled over, his face as red as a tomato.

"Oh, shoot." Minerva muttered as she looked at the swirly-eyed lifeguard, laying in the sand, senseless, "Sometimes, the big, tough-looking ones can be the weakest of all. Well, I suppose it'll have to do. I'll see you later, Nancy. Good luck with that... um... What was it again?"

"Counseling." Nancy muttered as she stormed back to her spot on the beach, and started dragging her husband back to their car.

"Uh, right. That." Minerva said as she got back up, into a kneeling position, to sit back on her blanket, with both arms behind her. Quickly, she turned onto one side, to reach into the picnic basket again, and retrieve a pair of sunglasses, when she saw something that caught her attention in the water. A man with very large muscles was playing with a beach ball, with some of his friends, all of them submerged up to their knees in the water. One of the man's friends was male, and three female, but the man's male friend was clearly distracted by something in Minerva's direction, and wasn't playing the game very well.

"E-excuse me, miss," came a voice from nearby, "but did you say you neede..."

"Not now!" Minerva exclaimed, leaping to her feet, and rushing forward into the ocean, her legs turning into a motorboat engine past a certain point, as she propelled herself towards the hunky guy she'd seen.

"Ohmanohmanohman!" Minerva exclaimed as she leapt seven feet through the air, to land in the big man's arms, much to his surprise, and his friend's chagrin. "I'm never letting you go, you big dreamy boat guy!"

In an instant, Minerva's eyes were the size of dinner plates, which didn't make it any easier on them when she fell from his grip, into the stinging salt water below.

"Look, Miss." the man said, "I mean, you're kind of cute and all that, but my heart's sort of someplace else. Sorry to have to disappoint you."

As he and his friends moved onto a different section of the beach, Minerva sighed, feeling very abandoned and cursed. Why, she wondered, was it always the cute guys who could resist her?

Still, she wasn't about to let one little instance of bad luck spoil her whole day, so she decided to go to the beach vendor, to get an ice cream cone. Swiftly regaining her composure as the spoken-for hunk left her range of vision, Minerva Mink moved, one leg after the other, towards the vendor cart, which had a line of only two people, one of which was a man, meaning that Minerva only had to wait for the woman to finish getting what she wanted, before the vendor caught sight of her, and started jabbering like an idiot, his eyes filling with little rings.

"Oh, I know how hard it is..." Minerva said as she walked forward, looking at him through half-closed eyes, "But can I have one of the chocolate shell vanilla cones?"

Still jabbering, the vendor clumsily grabbed the ingredients, knocking several things over onto the beach in the process, and then handed the cone to Minerva, who dropped the money on the vending counter.

"Thank you very much." Minerva said, turning to go back to her beach blanket as the vendor collapsed into the sand.

It was only a few moments that Minerva had been back at her beach blanket before she heard the same voice as before saying "M-miss? Did you say you wante..."

Minerva smiled, as she turned to face the young man, who was a freckled fellow with red hair and a goatee. After catching sight of him, though, she had to try hard to maintain her smile.

"Yes? Did you ask me something?"

"Well, did you say you... say you wanted h-help with the sun-sunscreen?"

For a moment, Minerva looked quizzical, placing her right finger on her chin, then cast a glance at the tall, muscular lifeguard still lying in the sand.

"Oh, what the heck? If you think you can last longer than him, you can go ahead and try. But I'm not going to try to wake you if you fail."

"Oh, thank you, Miss!" he exclaimed with much greater enthusiasm than would have seemed appropriate in dealing with anyone else, "Thank you!"

In moments, the boy had reached the sunscreen bottle, and had placed his hands on Minerva's back. The moment he did so, he could tell what had felled the lifeguard. As intense an emotional experience as it was to just look at Minerva Mink, the attacking emotions became at least fifty times more intense when one was touching her, even in the slightest, but the boy; Rupert by name, wasn't ready to give in. It was his chance to really impress her, and he didn't want to blow it.

Pushing ahead with the task, bit by bit, Rupert had to move slowly in what he was doing, even though it would have been easier to finish quickly, and a second or two into the task, Minerva let out a short hum and said "This isn't the first time you've done this for someone, is it?"

Rupert was already too far gone to actually respond to her question, but he pressed onward, until the sunscreen covered her back and shoulders, and withdrew his hands in relief, as the sensations moved back to their normal, emotionally-oppressive level.

"Nice job." Minerva said, as Rupert lay in the sand; panting, but still conscious, "You deserve a little something for that, I guess."

Minerva had a hard time with that. After all, she wasn't crazy about getting very close to less-than-attractive people all that much. Still, he'd done something the trained lifeguard hadn't been able to do, and he'd done it with courage and care. She closed her eyes tightly to keep from looking at him, as she descended on top of him like, he must have thought, a vulture, and planted a light kiss on his forehead.

All that time touching her back hadn't produced even one percent of the emotion that her kiss did, and Rupert was out like a light in only a moment, but that was when Minerva noticed something that terrified her, chilling her to the bone.

Rupert wasn't breathing.

"Does anybody around here know CPR?" Minerva asked, panicking in just such a way as to cause her hair to frizz up. Very few conscious men were left on the beach by that point, but many of the women who were there pointed in irritation at the unconscious lifeguard lying at Minerva's feet.

"Oh, perfect." the frazzled mink muttered in extreme sarcasm, as she tried to grab Rupert by the shoulders, and press her hands down on him, but when she did that, he started convulsing, so she stopped. In only a moment more, however, an idea occurred to her, and she grabbed her beach blanket, wrapping it around her hands, as she swiftly put on her robe, leaving the hood off. Then, she pushed down on Rupert's chest with the blanket, and that time, he did no convulsing. After doing that about five or six times, Rupert's breathing returned to normal, and Minerva Mink put her hood over her head, just in time to see him open his eyes.

"Sorry." Minerva said sincerely, "I've never actually come that close to killing someone before."

Rupert coughed, and seemed irritated at first, but at last, he just said "Don't blame yourself. I asked for it. Plus... on the whole, I'd say it was worth the trouble."

Underneath her hood, Minerva Mink blushed invisibly, even though she really had no desire to ever meet up with Rupert again. Flattery was flattery.

However, although the experience had been a singular one, which Minerva Mink would probably never try to repeat, her drive back home to her log house was delayed somewhat by a short trip to her local library, to pick up three books on CPR.

The End

Minerva: "Oh, my goodness! That was close! A girl like me shouldn't have to go through things like that, but fortunately, on the next Minktales, I'll be facing something far less strenuous. I'm going to buy a new pair of dress shoes. But, things are never quite so simple when the salesman is nervous and clumsy, and his manager is coming down on him for it. That poor kid. I hope he doesn't get fired because of me. I can't wait to find out, and I don't think you can either, so don't miss it!"