The Volunteer

by D. H Jonathan

  There were several double takes when I walked into the Physical Education building, but I walked past everyone, ignoring the people who called to me, wanting to know why I was naked. I hurried to my space in the women’s locker room, quickly dialed in my combination, and opened the metal door. My swimsuit was hanging on the hook inside. I had used the mechanical ringer to squeeze all of the water out of it after class that last Friday before swim break, but after more than a week, it didn’t smell that great. The good thing was that I didn’t have to wear it. In fact, I was prohibited from wearing it. I put my binder in the locker and grabbed my cap and goggles. As I went to put them on my head, my hands brushed by the necklace, and I remembered that there was a microphone inside.

  “Hey,” I said, ignoring the looks I got from some of the other girls in the locker room. I talked in a quieter voice and said, “whoever the RA is, I have swimming. Can I get this necklace wet, or should I take it off?”

  I looked around and realized that there was no speaker included with the microphone, and that if the RA happened to be male, he wouldn’t be walking into the women’s locker room.

  “Meet me just outside the locker room,” I said.

  I closed my locker, leaving it unlocked for the moment, and walked out through the double doors and into the main corridor. I saw one of the girls from Dr. Slater’s office that morning running up.

  “Sorry,” she said, out of breath. “I was over by the pool. Dr. Slater says to take it off, just to be safe.”

  “OK,” I said.

  I didn’t have time to chat, so I turned around and went back into the locker room, stopping to drop the necklace with my other stuff and to lock up everything. I made it to the outdoor pool at 2:58.

  “Holy shit, Dani,” Rick, who was usually in the lane next to mine, said as I walked over. The other six swimmers just stared. The pool only had eight lanes, so each section of swimming for fitness had been limited to that number.

  “What?” I replied to Rick, feigning ignorance, as I dropped into the pool.

  “So you’re the campus naked girl that I keep hearing about,” Rick said after I came back up.

  “Yep. Makes getting ready for swim class a lot easier.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Just then, Ms. Martin, our blonde, six-foot-tall swimming coach, strode into the pool area, blew her whistle, and shouted, “Warm up, 200 yard freestyle.”

  “You look great, by the way,” Rick said before we all kicked off across the pool.

  Swimming naked felt wonderful. I had full range of movement without the swimsuit binding me. And in the water, I felt somewhat covered. Ms. Martin didn't even notice that I was swimming naked. Unfortunately, skipping lunch on a swim day had been a very bad idea, especially after taking the week off for spring break and not sleeping much the night before. Just the 200 yard warm-up drained me. I did somehow manage to avoid being the last swimmer to finish the warm-up, although just barely.

  "Get your kick boards," Ms. Martin said.

  We all pushed ourselves up and out of the pool. Everyone's eyes immediately turned to me. I took a glance down and was amazed at how my body looked when wet and glistening in the sun. When I looked back up, Ms. Martin was staring at me in amazement. The kickboards were in a bin right next to where she stood.

  "Keaton, is there something wrong with your suit?" she asked as I grabbed a board.

  "No ma'am," I said. "I just decided that there wasn't anything wrong with my body and that I didn't need to keep covering it up."

  “Well, all right,” Rick said.

  Ms. Martin looked like she wanted to say something else, but she stopped. I suspect that she had received the same email that Dr. Finfrock got. I took my board back to the pool and dropped back in. The next thirty minutes were spent exhaustively kicking from one end of the pool to another. I didn’t count how many laps I did, but I know Rick passed me at least three times. Ms. Martin usually had us swim laps doing different strokes: butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke, etc., but today, she kept us on the kick boards working legs the entire time. I was so relieved when she finally called an end to class.

  My first attempt at getting out of the pool failed as my foot slipped off the edge, and I fell backward into the water. Laughter erupted from the other side of the fence surrounding the pool. I looked and saw a group of about fifteen guys and a couple of girls watching my comedic show. The research assistant was right there among them, recording them, I’m sure. I wondered if she was able to get audio since I didn’t have my necklace on. I tried getting out of the pool again, this time using my knee to push myself out, something that was uncomfortable on the rough concrete around the pool.

  “We’ll get back to our regular routine on Friday,” Ms. Martin said to the class.

  I staggered on wobbly legs over to the bin, put my board up, and made my way back to the locker room, trying to listen to the people watching from the other side of the fence. The guys in the swim class stood by the pool until I got through the door; I’m sure enjoying the view of my wet naked body. As I got to my locker and exchanged my swim cap and goggles for my binder and my microphone necklace, I could sense several girls from another class whispering among themselves. I stood by my locker for a moment, trying to ignore the whispers, thinking that there had to be something else for me to do there. I usually showered after swim class, but my legs felt too weak to stand that long. With nothing to change into, I closed my locker and went to the mirror to do something with my hair, wishing I had put a brush in my binder. There were two girls at the mirror when I arrived, and both of them gave me a quick look and scattered.

  The RA should have been there, recording the reactions of the girls in the locker room. I almost had to laugh as I thought that, in the one place where it is somewhat customary to be naked, I was being shunned by just about everyone. Once I got my hair looking somewhat reasonable, I grabbed my binder and walked out. The guys who had been watching me from beyond the fence were standing in a group near the main door of the Phys Ed building.

  “You just made my day,” one of them said as I walked past.

  I smiled but kept walking. My legs felt barely able to support my weight, so I moved slowly. I expected the guys to follow me like that bunch this morning had, but they all stayed where they were. The concrete felt hotter than before, so I walked on the grass beside the walkway, enjoying the feeling of dampness on my feet. I felt light-headed, almost dizzy, and I thought about dinner. The dining hall opened at 4:30, and I planned on being first in line. And then I remembered that I had that interview at 5:00. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have scheduled that for tomorrow, not right after my swim class. Still, I thought I would have enough time to eat before the interview. If the pictures were for the school paper, they would be seen in a grainy black and white. I shouldn’t need make up or anything for that, I thought.

  I got the usual stares and heard the occasional comment on my walk back to the dorm, “Naked girl!” being the most common. Feeling too drained to walk around the dorm and take the side stairs, I decided to walk in the main entrance and go through to the dining hall. I was going to be in the lobby doing an interview soon anyway, so I couldn’t avoid the common areas forever.

  As soon as I walked in the door, I saw him: Brandon, the man of my dreams, my crush for the past month. Why was he here? And why was he sitting near the TV room talking with Kevin, the guy I didn’t care much about but who had been pursuing me relentlessly for the past few weeks? My first thought was to turn and run, go around the side of the building and drag my tired ass up that side stairwell. Then Brandon saw me, and I wanted to shrink into the floor. I clutched my binder to my chest, hiding my breasts, and covered my pubic area with my hand, feeling humiliated and ridiculous, as Brandon stood up and started walking toward me!

  Chapter Six: The Interview

  “Danielle?” Brandon said, and my knees almost buckled. He always used my full name, never “Dani,” and I always loved hearing it in his
baritone voice.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling myself continue to shrink.

  Stay confident, I thought, and I forced myself to stand up straight, my arms to my sides. Brandon stopped when he saw my breasts and my pubic mound fully exposed, his mouth falling open in astonishment. I felt that electric charge through my body, starting in what felt like the core of my vagina.

  “Wow,” he said, and my knees almost collapsed.

  I thought then that I would forever remember the look of pure desire in Brandon’s eyes. Knowing that I was the cause of that desire was the single most erotic moment of my life to that point. That electric charge I felt might have been a mini-orgasm.

  “Wow, are you cold?” Kevin said with a laugh, approaching from behind Brandon and looking straight at my almost painfully erect nipples. My sudden burst of arousal dissolved to shame as Kevin leered at me. Still, I resisted the urge to cover myself, but I did look down at the floor.

  “What are you doing Danielle?” Brandon asked. “Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”

  I couldn’t tell him the truth, of course, but the story I had come up with for everybody and for my impending interview with the school paper seemed inadequate for Brandon. “It’s a long story,” I wound up saying.

  He looked over at Kevin, and they both smiled. “Whatever it is,” Brandon said as he walked in a circle around me, “I like it.”

  Brandon slapped my butt, the sound reverberating throughout the room. “Ow,” I said, stepping forward, shocked at the sudden burst of pain from the spank. “Stop,” I said, rubbing the spot where his hand had landed.

  Kevin was laughing as Brandon said, “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  “That wasn’t funny,” I said, trying to get Kevin to stop laughing.

  “So when we finally do go out on that date, are you going to dress like that?” Kevin said, still laughing. “Or undress, I guess. It’s OK with me, but I might just want to stay in the room. Rather than go out.”

  Kevin and Brandon exchanged a look. “Not if I ask her out myself,” Brandon said with a mischievous smile.

  Only a few moments before, I would have been thrilled to hear Brandon say he wanted to ask me out, but now I just felt disgusted and degraded. They were thinking of me as their plaything. How could Brandon have suddenly turned into such an asshole? Or had he been an asshole all along, and I was just blinded by my schoolgirl crush?

  “Screw you,” I said to both of them and walked past them toward the dining hall.

  People were already sitting at tables, people I knew and had talked to regularly for the past year and a half. I stopped at the glass doors, feeling humiliated and embarrassed. I couldn’t just walk in there and let them, non-strangers that they were, see me naked, but I also couldn’t starve myself. Without an income, this was the only place I could get food. If I hadn’t taken Dr. Slater’s deal that morning, I told myself, I would never be seeing any of these people again anyway. I took a deep breath and pushed through the glass door.

  All conversation stopped as I walked in. I found a seat at an empty table near the exit, and set my binder down. I looked at my phone and saw that I still had fifteen minutes until the serving line opened. In one fluid movement, I slid the black butt towel from the outer pocket of the binder and dropped it onto the seat as I slipped in and sat down. I pulled my Kindle out of the binder, thinking I would get a jump on tomorrow’s Chemistry class, but I glanced up and saw everyone’s eyes still on me. How could I concentrate on chemistry with everyone watching me? My nipples hardened as the tingle of excitement coursed through my nerves. My buttock burned where Brandon had spanked me, and I shifted in my seat to take pressure off that side and felt the dampness on my butt towel against my inner thighs. What was wrong with me? How could something so humiliating be so stimulating?

  “Danielle,” a soft voice said.

  Two freshmen girls, both of them tall and athletic, approached from behind me. One was named Liz; I couldn’t remember who the other one was.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “Can we sit with you?” Liz asked in a timid voice.

  “Sure,” I replied, fearful that they would do something to try to further embarrass me, as if I could be any more embarrassed.

  “I like your solution to the heat,” the other girl said as they both sat across the table from me. “I wish I had the courage to do that.”

  I shrugged, not feeling particularly courageous. For the next fifteen minutes, we talked about what we did on spring break, classes they were taking that I had had the previous year, and even the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. They both played on the Coachella Valley University team, which had been eliminated early in our conference tournament. It was nice to be included in a conversation that didn’t involve how naked I was. Even though Brandon and I had never been on a date, the end of my crush felt like the end of a relationship. The sadness and anger kept me from really engaging in the conversation with Liz and her friend. I caught them both taking cursory glances at my bare breasts a couple of times, but for the most part, they looked me in the eyes.

  When the serving line opened, I jumped up, my meal card in my hand, and got my tray first. The ladies running the line frowned at me as they gazed and served a plate of beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes, and green beans to me, but none of them said anything. I wondered if they had gotten the same email that my professors received. Liz and her friend, whose name I still hadn’t managed to catch, went through the line beside me, whispering and giggling between themselves when they thought I couldn’t hear. When we all reclaimed our seats, I ate fast, knowing that I was supposed to meet Clarissa from the paper at 5:00.

  They both talked while I scarfed down my food, and I managed to figure out that the other girl was named Audrey. I tried not to notice the procession of students entering the dining hall. Soon, the line was long enough that three guys at the back were standing right by our table. I felt their eyes on me, looking straight down my breasts to my naked lap. I sat with my legs tightly together as I shoveled one bite after another into my mouth. Swimming had built up a huge appetite, and I could have eaten an entire second dinner. But I had someplace to be.

  “You got a hot date or something?” Liz asked when I had finished and was gathering all my trash onto my tray.

  “I’m meeting someone at five.”

  “A guy?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Well. Audrey?”

  “There’s a dance this Friday at Mary Ellen’s,” Audrey said. “Do you want to go with us?”

  “What’s Mary Ellen’s?” I asked.

  “A bar,” Audrey replied. “We go there every weekend.”

  “Is it on campus?”

  They both laughed. “No, silly,” Liz said.

  “I can’t go. I have to stay here.”

  “They would let you in like that, I think,” Liz said. “In fact, you would be a big hit.”

  “Sorry,” I said. They looked disappointed as I stood up, slipped my butt towel into my binder, tucked the binder under my arm, and grabbed my tray. “Thanks for the company.”

  “Any time,” Liz said.

  I set my tray on the conveyer belt back to the dishwashers and hurried out. I tried not to look at everyone in the dining hall, but I could feel their gazes on my naked body. That exciting tingling sensation in my gut and down between my legs just would not go away. I glanced at my phone and saw that it was eight minutes until 5:00. I ran up the stairs to my room. It was empty, thankfully. Diane usually spent her afternoons and evenings away with her boyfriend or wherever she went. I really didn’t care. I threw my binder on the bed and grabbed my cell phone, a fresh butt towel, my room key, and the small hand purse the Sociology Department had given me. In the shared bathroom, I brushed my hair in front of the mirror and put on a tiny bit of makeup from the compact in my purse. At least I didn’t have to worry about what to wear to the interview, I thought and almost laughed out loud.

  I made it down to the Holcombe Hall
foyer at 5:02. Clarissa was sitting on a love seat waiting for me, with a small microphone attached to her phone. Blake was standing across from her, checking the camera that hung from the strap around his neck.

  "Hey Dani," she said as soon as she saw me.

  "Hi," I replied.

  Now that I was here, I didn't think I could do the interview. Sure, doing this project, spending an entire two months naked in front of everyone, was going to save my college degree, but what was going to happen after that? People had already been taking photos of me. There were fancy new video cameras all over campus. And now Blake was about to take some shots of me. How many of those photos and videos were going to wind up on the Internet? And when they did, would my name be attached to them? Would simple Google searches of my name return those photos? How could I possibly hope to pass a pre-employment background investigation with my naked body all over cyberspace? I felt a sudden urge to turn and run. But I knew that once the study was over, I could divulge the real reason for my nudity. Perhaps the study would become an important landmark in the sociology field.

  "Come on and sit down," Clarissa said.

  I stepped forward, pulling my black towel from my handbag and setting it down on the open end of the love seat, and took my place.

  "Before we start," I said, "could you not use my last name in the article?"

  Clarissa's eyebrows furrowed in a look of surprise. "Oh. OK. I guess so."

  "I mean, I can't stop my photos from appearing everywhere, but I'd rather not have my name attached to them."

  "OK. I don't know how long you can prevent that from happening, especially if you keep up the public nudity. This could be national news, which is why I wanted to break the story first."