by Forest, Will
Angela offered Christopher her hand. They walked a few paces.
“Well, maybe it’s not a bigger part of me but it’s growing.”
“That’s rather forward of you, don’t you think?” Angela asked, laughing, before running ahead, leaving Christopher to chase her again, which he did, with difficulty, all the way to the Humanities Building.
Christopher saw that his clothes were the only ones left in the trunk. “Here, shirt for you—hope you don’t mind.” He held it out with the sleeves open for Angela to put on. “And pants for me.”
“How generous!” The button-down oxford hung just low enough to cover Angela’s rear.
“My car’s on the north side. Let’s go get your clothes.”
As they walked to the only vehicle left in the huge vacant lot, Christopher noticed that Angela had not bothered to button his shirt. “Angela, are you always this, uh, open?”
“I try to be. I think things go best for me when I’m open.”
“Open to new ideas, new experiences, new beliefs…”
“And new relationships.”
“Me too,” said Dr. Ross as he opened the passenger door for his colleague.
When they drove back to the hedge near the library, they had to take an extra spin around the block because there was a patrol car behind them in traffic. On the second time around, Christopher stopped the car and retrieved Angela’s bag and her clothes: a blouse, a bra, a skirt, panties, shoes and her purse, all wound up in her jacket. Angela simply held them on her lap, in no hurry to get dressed.
“Where do you live? Why don’t I take you home?”
“That would be great, because I rode the bus in this morning.”
It was a short trip to Angela’s house, an older home in a nice neighborhood not far from campus. They drove with the car windows down, enjoying the cool night air.
“By the way, I like your bones.”
Christopher grinned. “What did you say…?”
“Bones. The bones painted on your arms and legs. I wish I had known about the streak beforehand. I could have painted myself too.”
“What would you have painted?”
“When I was a girl, I always wanted to be a witch for Halloween.”
“That’s more of a clothing costume, though, right? The pointy hat, the dress…How would you paint that?”
“I’d paint a broom running down one side of me, down one of my legs. No, that wouldn’t work because there wouldn’t be room on my ankle to paint the bristles!” Angela’s hands moved over her anatomy as she spoke. “I’d paint it upside down, the handle running up my right leg, across my abdomen, and the bushy part of the broom on my right breast, and on my left breast, let’s see…maybe I’d paint a hexagram.”
“Black magic?”
“Sexual magic,” she specified. “The magic of reproduction, energy and creation.”
They arrived at Dr. Saucedo’s house. She collected her things and opened the car door. “Okay, so it wasn’t a blind date, it was fate. But sometimes fate is blind, you know.” She paused. “Whatever it was, I’m very glad to have met you.”
“I want to see you again. Soon! How about dinner tomorrow? Casa Toscana?”
“7:00. I can’t wait.”
Angela closed the door and began to traverse her sidewalk festooned with smiling jack-o’lanterns. The wind picked up, scraping some leaves across her sidewalk. Angela turned quickly, the unbuttoned oxford billowing around her shoulders. “Your shirt!” she called out, sliding it off her arms as she walked back around to his side of the car.
“I was gonna say, ‘just keep it,’ but on second thought…” Christopher trailed off,
Angela’s breasts perched just above his eyes. She handed him his shirt through the open window.
“Kiss?” he rasped.
“Well, just a peck on the cheek.” Angela began to lower her face to the car window, then turned around to thrust out her, other, cheeks. But just as Christopher was about to kiss them wholeheartedly, she turned around again. “Just kidding.”
She held Christopher’s mouth in a long kiss.
Then she asked, “Trick, or treat?”
“Both!” came his reply.
“Hasta mañana,” she whispered.
“Sweet dreams.” Christopher watched her walk to her door, drinking in her wide hips, strong legs, prominent buttocks—he had almost kissed them!—and long, full, dark amber hair trailing down her back. Her whole body emanated an orange aura, as if the jack-o’lanterns had extinguished only because she had absorbed their flaming essence. She shone golden, healthy, radiant even at this late hour.
He waited a few minutes, to make sure she found her keys and opened the door, but also to see if his heart would eventually slow to its normal rate. Turning in the doorframe, she smiled and waved.
He drove home ecstatic, and had the hardest time getting to sleep.
At two in the morning, the wind came back for more leaves.
3
NOVEMBER
November
Hooked
“Wow! I had no idea how sexy you are with your clothes on.”
Angela wore her fashion-requisite little black dress. “I probably look a lot thinner, too.”
“Do you feel thinner with your clothes on?”
“Somehow, yes, I do.” Angela smiled but looked down at the table. She removed her colorful, woven shawl and draped it over the back of her chair before sitting down. “I feel like I’ve stuffed my flesh into a sausage casing. But let’s not talk about that. I know men feel trapped when they have to comment on a woman’s weight.”
Christopher smiled on the left side of his mouth and tugged at his shirt collar. “So, Dr. Saucedo, B.A. University of Southern California, M.A. and Ed.D. University of Texas, would you claim to know a lot about men?”
“More than most women, yes.” Her eyes lit up. “And definitely more than most men know about women, even when they look up school records.”
“Been around the block a few times?”
“I was engaged to a man named Jim. But Jim didn’t ever seem to be engaged with me, you know what I mean? He said he loved me but I just didn’t feel it.”
“Did you love him?”
“I really did. Except as soon as I realized he didn’t feel the same way about me, he stopped being a man and became only the idea of a man. It made it easier to move on. I wanted a new idea.”
Christopher hesitated only a moment. “Have you found one?”
“Oh, I never stop looking, and yet I never really look, either. Sometimes I’ve started to feel something strong for someone, but nothing has played out until…recently.”
“I’ll bet a lot of men are afraid of you.”
Angela grinned. “No need to wager. I think you’re right.”
“You’re attractive and intelligent, witty and caring...”
“Thanks. I’m just a real woman. Real men shouldn’t be afraid of real women. Do I scare you?”
“Nope. You fascinate me. And you remind me of my mom!”
They both laughed.
After the waitress took their orders, Angela began her inquisition. “And you, surely you maintain an entire harem of interested women?”
Christopher looked at her stone-faced.
“I see,” she said. “Maybe a whole platoon of interested men?”
Christopher flared his nostrils and stared at the glass of wine in front of him. “I had a bad experience with a girlfriend in grad school. Since then I’ve funneled my energy into my research and writing.”
Angela cleared her throat.
“But I’ve had flings, here and there, you know,” he added hastily.
“Oh.” Angela tried to get him to lighten up. “Well, I’d hope you know how to please yourself well.”
Christopher raised his eyebrows, nodding. “You are as perceptive as you are frank.”
Angela was enchanted that Christopher had not blushed. But he did change the topic: “How did you beco
me interested in nudism? Or should I say naturism?”
“Actually, I prefer nudism,” Angela said loudly and definitively as the startled waitress set down their salads. “Short and sweet. Naturism has other implications, although I guess it’s close to the same thing.
“I grew up in southern California,” she continued, “and my family would go to the beach for vacation. One time my Dad decided we should try a nude beach, and I was hooked! No sand in your suit! Full-body tan! Feel the waves and the sun and the breeze all over! No sitting in a wet suit on a towel all the way home! Oh, but my mom was so upset with my dad! My parents are both Mexican-American, but she comes from a more traditional family than he does. My brothers and I, we all had a great time, and I think my mom did too, she just didn’t want anyone to know we had gone to a playa de pelados, as she called it. Anyway, you can imagine when I moved here one of the first things I wanted to do was go get to know La Rioja.”
“Do you know Tucker Bierson?” asked Christopher.
“Of course! I know all the regulars. I probably would have met you there if I hadn’t been in Sweden.”
“Sweden…” Christopher mused. “What were you doing there? Did you win a grant?”
“I did!”
“Congratulations! Is it from an organization I’d know?”
“I applied to the Institute for the Study of Cognitive Development, and they were impressed with my proposal and my background research at the American Nudist Research Library in Kissimmee.”
“So what’s the proposal?”
“My proposal was to evaluate student’s ideas about body image and self-confidence at a nude school in Stockholm. I learned much more than I thought I would! But, now that I’m back, I have to use the rest of my sabbatical to finish the evaluative report I owe to the Institute, plus I’m working on the first draft of an article based on my findings.”
“Impressive! You successfully wedded your interest in nudism to the pursuit of academic research. In a nutshell,” Christopher pressed, “nudism at school works?”
“It can work. But no nutshells, please. Let’s have an unbound seed, a gymnosperm.”
Christopher laughed. “That’s a tough nut to crack, coming from an Angela-sperm like you…”
Angela caught her breath and looked Christopher straight in the eyes for a moment. She felt so…comfortable, especially for being wrapped in the tight little dress. “What was I saying? I love puns…Oh yes, yes, definitely, nudism can work at school, and it’s a much more positive correlation then I had even suspected. I supplemented my initial classroom observations and surveys with student interviews, and the interviews really bring home the point. Those students, vulnerable as they are as adolescents, learn that clothes, accessories…trappings…are only shells. They learn to value their own limits and those of their peers. They have a very high level of trust among themselves and of themselves.”
“Ah, but the US is no Sweden. The US is no Brazil, even,” ventured Christopher. “Are there any practical pedagogical applications for US schools?”
“Certainly the evidence speaks for itself. But go figure: what school district is going to risk the inevitable PTA mutiny and media scandal? Who would even suggest that kids go around in the nude at school? Maybe—maybe—somewhere along the East or West Coast, but not here on the Gulf Coast. In fact the ISCD has requested that I lay low for a while. They fear, as I do, that I risk ostracism from my colleagues in the field if my research isn’t successfully contextualized. So they want to wait and see if they can introduce my results into a somewhat radical report on school reform they’ll publish next year.”
Christopher spread some butter on a slice of warm bread and offered it to Angela. “Are the students nude all day, or just for certain classes?”
“Everything. Even phys.ed.”
“Teachers too?”
“Teachers too.”
“Is everything co-ed?”
“Everything.”
“The whole idea just seems…unprecedented.”
“Yes, but in fact there were precedents, like Summerhill, for example. It was a nudist school for both boys and girls in early twentieth-century England.”
“Amazing! But, so, who are the parents who enroll their children at this school? Did you interview any parents?”
“Good question. No, but I confirmed in the student interviews that family members come to school assemblies in the nude.”
“No kidding.”
“I should clarify that they come to the Fri Skola dressed, and there are changing rooms inside where they can keep their clothes until they leave, just like the students.”
“No parents object to this?”
“No, because it’s voluntary, like what we’d call a magnet school. The school has a strong curriculum, great teachers, and an excellent reputation. Due to the small size of the facilities, they have to turn some students away every year.”
Christopher gazed off into the air above Angela’s left shoulder. “So they can afford to become selective…”
“Exactly. Prospective students have to take an entrance exam, write an essay, get recommendations. I learned, just as I was leaving, that another school in the system is going to adopt the nude curriculum as well, starting next year, to meet the demand.”
Christopher sipped his wine wide-eyed. “Do you happen to know in which part of Stockholm this other school is located?”
“No. Why?”
“If it’s in a middle-class area, or an upper middle-class area, you know, it would show that the demand comes from people who are more affluent, and probably better educated, for example.”
Angela squinted. “That’s a very good point. I’ll investigate and get back to you.”
Christopher grinned, unabashedly looking Angela over. “I’ll say it again: I hadn’t imagined how sexy you’d look with your clothes on.”
“So, you’re saying I’m not sexy with my clothes off?”
“Ahh, I don’t know,” Christopher pretended to doubt, tugging at his collar. “I think I’d have to get another look. Just to be sure.”
Angela feigned insult before asking demurely, “Your place or mine?”
Expose Your Thoughts
Christopher leaned back against the wall of Angela’s hot tub and took a steaming sip of chai in the chilly air. The hot tub, on the deck of her house with a cozy view of a wooded area behind, had been Angela’s post-tenure present to herself. A smart idea, Christopher thought. She’s a wise woman. The evening with her had been so easy: the flirting, the kissing after dessert, the shedding of their clothes the minute they entered her house. But Angela hadn’t wanted to rush, so she sent him off to soak with a warm drink. Christopher took another sip.
“I’m disgusted.”
Angela approached with her mug of chai. “What’s the matter?”
“I almost don’t even want to talk about it.”
“Is the chai cold?” Angela tested her drink. When she didn’t get any answer, she peered into the water. “Is the tub dirty?”
“No, no—forgive me. The chai is delicious and your tub is spotless, and, well, a very sound investment in my opinion. I feel relaxed enough to loosen my tongue. I’m disgusted because, when we were at the restaurant and you were describing your research in Sweden—I’m disgusted that I would automatically think of the dangers of pedophiles.”
Angela eased herself into the moonlit bath, her breasts becoming buoyant. “I know what you mean. I had to fight against it too. Almost anybody would. We’re not accustomed to thinking about children and nudity that way, because our society has conditioned us to make the pedophile connection automatically. How couldn’t we think of it, when the only context for nudity and children that is ever presented in the media is pedophilia? And even though the citizens of Stockholm have dared to set up and support this school and its curriculum, their society is not exempt from the pernicious influence of pedophilia either.”
“How do they keep the school safe?”
“The spring concert?”
“I mean, you know, any event the parents attend. They undress at the school as well, remember.”
Christopher considered this information. “If the students put on a play, can they wear costumes?”
“Of course. I didn’t get to go to any plays but I heard about a couple of examples. There was a production of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ in which the children were nude but the actress playing the witch was excessively clothed. And some students played birds, nude except with wings. Then there was a production of Kipling’s The Jungle Book. The actor playing Mowgli appeared on stage nude, naturally, and the actors portraying the animal characters wore body paint and strap-on ears, noses, and tails.”
“That’s really creative. Did you see photos of the productions?”
“None were taken. The art teacher made some sketches, but she drew them beforehand, as concept design. However, one of the teachers told me that the administrators and parents were exploring the possibility of allowing an official photographer at future events. This person would place photos or video clips on a password-protected website, encoding them such that they couldn’t be downloaded.”
“That makes sense. But all of this precaution, again, just reinforces the learned association with pedophilia.”
“It’s true. Everybody involved with the school seems to have come to the same conclusion in one way or another. But their consolation is that they are working toward the goal of a future without that threat.”
Christopher took another sip of chai. “It reminds me of a bilingual elementary school I heard about once. They say that exposure to a foreign language as a child makes it much easier to learn than if you try to pick it up as an adult.”
“Tell me about it,” said Angela. “I certainly didn’t manage to master much Swedish.”