When I walked out of the Fine Arts Building, I stomped across the Commons back toward my dorm. Two guys walked past me, looking awestruck as everyone does lately, and one of them said, “Nice! I love the bare look.” I didn’t know if he was referring to my bare body or my freshly shaven pubic area, and I realized that I hadn’t been using my binder to block anyone’s view of my most intimate body part. Either way, I felt embarrassed and moved the binder back in front of me. But the thought of both guys looking at me, at my bare vulva, was also stimulating. That constantly tingling sensation kicked into a higher gear, and I felt even more embarrassed that I was turned on by their seeing me. What was wrong with me? After a few steps away from the two guys, I shifted the binder again so that it was under my arm, making my breasts and pubic area visible to any oncoming foot traffic. I felt a slight shudder whenever I saw guys’ eyes look down toward my pelvis, and I sincerely hoped that Diane was not in the room when I got there. I couldn’t believe how much I liked this, especially after the experience with Dr. Biden last night. I really was turning into a shameless exhibitionist. Maybe I deserved to be kicked out of my church.
The path from the Commons to Holcombe Hall passes by the edge of the university campus at one point, and it was there that I saw the first news van. It was from Channel 3, the local Palm Springs ABC affiliate. A cameraman stood beside the van, a shoulder mounted camera pointed right at me as I walked. A lady dressed in a nice skirt suit and with a heavy layer of make up on her face stood beside the path and smiled at me as I approached. I recognized her from the little local news I had watched in my almost two years as a student at CVU.
“Dani?” she said as I walked by. I didn’t slow down, but she fell in beside me. “My name is Kristen Davis, from KESQ. Could I ask you a few questions?”
“No, I’d rather not,” I said, feeling panicked. The newspaper and website were bad enough. I did not want to be on TV.
“I loved your story in the school paper, and my station would like to get you on camera.”
“I’m not really dressed for TV,” I said. “Maybe some other time.”
I turned away from her and from the news van, cutting across the lawn to the front door of the dorm. The reporter stayed on the path, not following, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the front door and walked into Holcombe Hall. After the door closed, I stood by it, looking out the window as Kristen Davis turned and scampered back to the van. She and the cameraman talked for a minute or two before they both got back into the van. It still sat there at the curb though. I turned away and saw three guys and a girl sitting at the little coffee table in the foyer in the middle of a game of Settlers of Catan. Their game had stopped with all four of them just staring at me.
“Hi,” I said, smiling and probably blushing.
They all smiled. “Hi,” one of the guys said. “Would you like to play?”
Their game, as it was laid out on the table, appeared to be fairly well along. I shook my head. “No, I have homework to do. You all go ahead.”
I walked past them, marveling that I never even got the urge to try to cover myself with my binder, and scurried to the elevator. The breezes from the air conditioner vents tickled all over, and I hoped once again that I would have the room to myself when I got there. The elevator was empty, and I had to resist the temptation to touch myself. That ride up to the third floor was far too brief to really get anywhere. I rushed to my room, not bothering with the room key. The door was locked, which was a good sign. Once I got the key out of the binder, I let myself in, saw no sign of Diane or James, locked the door, and threw myself onto the bed. My fingers went to work right away.
Three orgasms later, I was spent and out of breath. I hurried to the bathroom to pee and scampered back to my room. Now that my sexual urges had been satisfied for the moment, I could think more clearly. That TV reporter concerned me. I didn’t want to be on the news, even if it was just the local Coachella Valley newscast. Had Dr. Slater planned for something like this? I knew from the reading she’d had me do before our meeting that Andrew Martinez, the Berkeley naked guy, had been interviewed several times and had even appeared naked on a few talk shows. Unlike Martinez, I wasn’t looking for attention, and I didn’t care about any statement about anyone’s right to be nude or not. I just wanted to get through this semester and keep my college degree hopes intact.
I knew though that anything could go viral and be seen by millions all over the world. A news story about a permanently naked girl on a college campus was just unusual enough to be one of those viral stories, even if it had started as a local item. What would I say if my parents found out what I was doing?
Thinking of my parents reminded me that I had never returned my mother’s voice mail from the other day. I took my phone out of my binder and called her.
“Well, it’s about time you called your mother,” Mom answered without even saying hello.
“I know,” I said, “I’m sorry. School has been so busy lately.”
“Are you OK? You sound stressed. And I wanted to tag you on something on Facebook the other day, and I couldn’t find you.”
“I know. I deactivated my Facebook.”
“Why on earth would you do that? It’s so easy to keep up with you that way.”
“I know. I was spending way too much time on it though. It was distracting me from my school work.” I hoped this was an acceptable excuse.
“Is that all? You don’t have anybody bothering you?”
“Oh no,” I said, probably too quickly. “Nothing like that.”
“Oh, I wish you’d reactivate it.”
“I will,” I said, “once I get through this rough patch.” I stopped, took a breath, and asked how she and Daddy were doing. From there, the conversation went like most of my calls with Mom. She gossiped about the women in the neighborhood and at church, complained about Daddy’s working too many hours, and detailed her latest ailments, telling me that she thought she was getting arthritis even though she was only 53 years old. She finally told me that she had to meet a friend for lunch, reminding me that she was in a time zone two hours later.
After hanging up with Mom, I worked on my various school assignments and got completely caught up. In fact, I was so absorbed in my work that I almost missed lunch again. I rushed down to the dining hall and hit the serving line at 12:50. As usual, my entrance was noticed by everyone. Instead of cringing in embarrassment, the tingling sensation just intensified, especially when I realized that I had left my binder upstairs. I had nothing to use to block anyone’s view of my shaved pubic area. And after my frantic masturbation of a couple of hours before, my labia minora were poking out even further than usual from my already pink outer folds. The embarrassment was a turn on, but being so turned on by it was embarrassing. I felt like I was in some kind of an infinite loop.
I got my tray of food and, remembering that I had wanted to try to sit at my old table, I made my way over. The table was full, but almost everyone was finished eating. In the past, someone would get up and offer me a seat if I came late with a loaded tray. Today, they all just stared at me with dumbfounded looks. I felt unwelcome, outcast.
“Dani!” Liz called to me from three tables over. She motioned to the seat next to her and Bruce, so I made my way over.
“Nice,” Liz said as I pulled some extra napkins from the dispenser to use to sit on since I didn’t have a little towel with me. “Shave or wax?”
I know I blushed when I said, “Shaved.”
“Looks good. Does it make you feel more naked?”
“Yes,” I said and realized that I liked that more naked feeling, especially when an air vent or a breeze hit it just right. I knew then that I was going to keep shaving.
The movie theater in the Student Union was playing a matinee of Citizen Kane, and during lunch it was suggested that the five of us should see it. All I knew about it was that it had the reputation as the greatest movie ever made, so I agreed to go, especially since I was caugh
t up with all my assignments.
After the movie, we talked about Rosebud and deep camera focus as we played pool in the SU lounge for a couple of hours, with me getting all kinds of looks from people walking in and out. I ignored them as much as I could just so I wouldn’t need to go excuse myself to somewhere private. When we finally got back to the dorm, it was time to eat again, so we went straight to the dining hall.
After dinner, I checked my cell phone, which had been set on silent and tucked away in my hand purse, for the first time since my conversation with Mom. It showed three missed calls and one voice mail, all from the same number.
“Hi,” a female voice said when I checked the voice mail, “this is Sylvia Smith, and I am a publicist for the university, which makes me, in a way, your publicist. I’ve been contacted by two local television stations and one national network about your current state of dress, or undress. They all want to interview you in some form, and I wanted to get together and talk with you about it.”
She recited her number, but it was already after seven o’clock. I sighed, wondering what to do. I went to Channel Three’s website to look at the stories they had aired on their five and six o’clock telecasts. I had declined to talk to the reporter, so surely, they wouldn’t have a story on me. But there I was, right at the top of the page. I clicked play on the video and watched in horror as the anchor talked over a pixelated image of me walking back to the dorm this morning.
“The naked girl has been identified as sophomore Danielle Keaton from North Richland Hills, Texas,” the anchor said.
“NOOOO!” I screamed.
The anchor went on to quote from Clarissa’s newspaper article, about my cousin and my going nude to promote positive body image.
“No, no, no,” I repeated throughout the two and a half minute video, which looped the footage of my walk three times as the anchor talked.
As the video ended, I uttered the f-word for one of the few times in my life. What could I do? That story had already aired, and I couldn’t get them to take it back. What could they even do, issue a retraction? How would I even get them to do that, march my naked ass into their TV studio? I sat and thought for a long time. My name was now out there, and I was sure that it would become at least as well-known as Andrew Martinez’s had. Martinez didn’t even have the World Wide Web back in 1992, so I was sure my story would spread faster and farther than his. Outside of blowing the lid off of Dr. Slater’s sociology experiment, which wasn’t an option since I knew doing so would cost me my scholarship, there was only one thing to do: I had to take ownership of this. I picked up my phone and returned that publicist’s phone call.
“Sylvia Smith,” she answered, surprising me since I had figured that she would have gone home by now.
“Uh, hi. This is Danielle Keaton.”
“Danielle. Yes! How are you?”
“I don’t know. I just saw that channel three aired a story about me.”
“Yes, I saw that,” Sylivia replied. “They are not supposed to come onto the campus without prior approval from our department.”
“Well, I told her that I didn’t want to talk to her, but they took footage of me anyway.”
“I know. Why didn’t you want to talk with Kristen?”
“Well,” I said, not knowing how to explain this without saying too much, “I’m not really doing this for publicity.”
“You’re not? I thought you were trying to make a statement about body acceptance. I figured publicity would be something you would want."
I closed my eyes and imagined my parents, my friends at home, and my pastor seeing the video of me walking naked across campus, first pixelated and then not. It was not inconceivable that HBO or some other cable channel could air a story about me with my naked body shown uncensored. The idea was both frightening and arousing. That tingling sensation was pressing in on me again at the thought that the entire world could be seeing my bare breasts and shaven vulva. What was wrong with me?
“I know,” I said as I came up with a decent sounding answer, “but I wanted the focus to be on body image and not on me. I’m not doing this to get famous.”
“Well, I think we should talk about this. The local Fox and ABC affiliates want to talk with you. And just this afternoon, I got a call from the Fox Business network. John Stossel is interested in doing a story on you. Do you know who he is?”
“No.”
“He used to be on 20/20, that ABC news magazine show, but he now has his own nationally televised talk show. He’s a big libertarian, so I’m sure he would be in favor of your right to go naked in public, especially if you have a message behind it.”
“National TV,” I said and gulped.
“Yes. It’s not a done deal of course. They have just expressed an interest. What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”
“Um, I have classes from ten until 3:30.”
“How about lunch?”
“I have a break from 11:00 until 12:30.”
“Perfect,” Sylvia said. “I’ll buy. Where do you want to go?”
“Um, somewhere on campus?”
“Well, of course. How about we meet in the deli in the Student Union at 11:15?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to picture where the deli was.
“Great. Dress casual.” She laughed at her own joke and said, “See you tomorrow.”
I disconnected and collapsed onto my bed. Could this week get any stranger? As I lay there looking at the ceiling, my eyes moved over to the calendar on the wall. This was the fourth day. I only had 56 to go. Eight weeks. Naked. Constantly naked. How was I going to get through this with any shred of dignity intact?
Chapter Ten – The Visit
Not having any idea what Sylvia Smith looked like, I walked into the deli after my British lit class ended and waited for her to spot me. Of course, every other person in the place also spotted me. I was greeted with that deafening eruption of dead silence that seemed to fall upon every noisy place I had entered since Monday. That tingling sensation in my gut and groin was in high gear, just knowing that every eye in the place was taking in all of my exposed body, when a tall woman in a Coachella Valley University t-shirt and blue jeans scampered over and introduced herself as Sylvia. She led me to her table, and we both sat down.
“I just love casual Fridays,” she said, I guess to explain her casual attire.
“Me too,” I said with a shrug.
“I’m sorry. I guess every day is casual for you lately.”
“I guess.” I looked away from her and up at the menu board above the counter.
“Let me know what you want, and I’ll get up and go order it,” Sylvia said.
I decided on a tuna salad sandwich, and I stayed in my seat while Sylvia got up to order. More than half the people in the place were looking at me. Feeling self-conscious, I clenched my thighs together, thinking that it would hold the tingling at bay. The deli was open to the main entrance hall of the Student Union Building, one of the busiest places on campus. It seemed like everyone walking by took a long look at me. I felt out of breath. Maybe I was hyperventilating. At day five, I should have been getting used to this, but at times like this, I didn’t think so. Here I was, the one lone naked person, sitting among more than a dozen people with many others walking past. The foot traffic was something like twenty people per minute. How could people not look at me? The thought gave me a goofy idea for a picture book.
Sylvia brought our drinks from the self-service fountain and sat back down.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip of Diet Coke from my straw.
“No problem. Thank you for coming.”
“I just had an idea,” I told her. “We could publish a book with pictures of me in the middle of hundreds of other people, and we could challenge readers to spot me. Instead of ‘Where’s Waldo?’ it could be ‘Where’s Naked Dani?’”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Sylvia said, smiling. “Although we might run into copyright issues with the ‘Where
’s Waldo?’ people.”
I shrugged and glanced out into the hall. Two guys bumped into each other while looking at me. I smiled and almost laughed out loud at them.
“That was a great cover story you gave for The Clarion,” Sylvia said.
“What?”
“Your cousin and the whole body image thing. That was great.” She stopped and noticed the questioning look I was giving her. “Yes, I know about Lorraine’s ‘project,’” she said, using air quotes on the word project.
“You do?”
“Oh yeah. Lorraine knew that the media would be involved, so she brought me on a couple of years ago.”
“Two years ago?”
Sylvia shrugged. “Give or take. It took a while to get all the infrastructure in place. The cameras mainly. Those are not standard security cameras. They take very detailed ultra-high definition video.” Sylvia shook her head. “I don’t know how she does it. She must be a fund raising genius. The people who sponsored this study foot the bill for those cameras. I think that’s why the university was so willing to go along with the nudity part of it. They got the best security surveillance system of any school in the country out of the deal.”
I gulped at the thought of such ultra-clear high definition video of me naked and in public being watched by members of the university police and the sociology department faculty. I wondered who else would see it. The people who paid for those cameras and who were specifically interested in this project would undoubtedly be getting copies. Who were these people?
“Of course, Lorraine’s idea all along is to observe how the world at large, and not just those at this university, reacts to a permanently naked person. She just has to keep you here on campus to keep you safe from arrest and attack. She would have you going naked anywhere and everywhere if she could.”
The Volunteer Page 12