Co-ed Naked Philosophy

by Forest, Will

  The president grimaced. “GCU needs nude slave auctions like chickens need suspenders.”

  “Yeah,” Christopher laughed, pulling off his underwear. “Or like swimmers need swimsuits!”

  “On the other hand,” the president continued, “we could really appreciate some positive publicity, say in the way that this no-clothes classroom experiment ties into Dr. Saucedo’s high-profile grant. And even though you’re keeping sex out of the picture, as you should, it’s still a ‘sexy’ story from a media standpoint, because nudity appeals to people’s baser interests. I think just the announcement naked people! pulls a greater punch than actually seeing naked people. But nudity almost always makes good copy.”

  The president finished pulling up his pants, buckled his belt, and sat down to put on his socks as he continued on this point. “Maybe you don’t like to acknowledge that from your perspective, but it’s true. They say any publicity is good publicity, although it’s a fine line. I don’t mean that a sex scandal would be good publicity. But innovative teaching, and enthusiastic philosophy students, saving the department’s state-mandated viability: that would be terrific publicity. I think you’re on the way there already. If you make it there, then I can support you publicly.”

  Christopher draped his towel around his neck. “I understand. Can I mention that we’ve talked about this?”

  “I think it would be best for both of us to keep this conversation off the record,” the president said as he slipped on his shoes. “Private.”

  “Right,” said Dr. Ross. “Well, thanks again! It was good to talk with you.”

  The naked, malodorous philosophy professor and the clean, freshly dressed president shook hands.

  “Good night, Christopher. Remember: Keep a steady course. Stick to your script. Exercise caution and good judgment. Think how your audacious experiment can benefit the university.”

  As soon as the locker room door closed behind the president, Christopher yelled into his towel.

  The Olympians

  Clutching the lyre to his bare chest, Christopher thought about that untrusting poet god Orpheus, peering back over his shoulder into the shadows of his hell, only to forfeit his love to the shadow of a doubt. Orpheus, the disembodied voice, released from trunk and limbs torn asunder and washed away by the current. Christopher felt the laurel wreath slide slowly to one side of his head as he gazed up through the tops of the implausibly tall loblollies, marveling at how the sun imbued the sapphire sky and the emerald pine needles with a sparkling golden sheen. The breeze swept the perspiration from his back and thighs.

  “Hey, Apollo! Can you move your left foot up one step?”

  “Of course.”

  It’s Apollo they want, not Orpheus. He planted his left foot on the next step of the marble platform, and heaved his chest out and his stomach in, trying not to squint into the sun. Although he had voluntarily removed his glasses, he wouldn’t have removed his watch if the production crew hadn’t reminded him. He supported the lyre in the crook of his left arm and perched his right hand over the strings, in what he imagined to be the correct strumming position.

  “You can relax, Dr. Ross. I’ll tell you when we’re ready to shoot.”

  Christopher relaxed, smiling. Behind the photographers he saw Angela, who had finished her photo session the night before. Dr. Liang’s team of student photographers wanted to take advantage of the full moon for Angela’s pose, and Christopher had watched as she planted her feet apart on the hillside, legs crouched slightly, Artemis with her bow strung, arrow ready, framed by the round moon’s light casting her skin paler than usual. With her right leg stretched behind, and her left leg bent in front, the curve of Angela’s buttocks mirrored the arc of the bow. Facing to her left, she held the bow out taut with her left arm and drew the arrow back with her right, her breasts gracefully rounded into the trajectory, their shape repeated in the moon above.

  It was a terrific idea, one more of so many that the CRM group had spawned. Dr. Liang, who in February had begun supporting the CRM and doffing her clothes to attend the meetings, came up with the notion of a fund-raiser calendar that would feature locales on campus and nearby. At first, it was going to be another one of these frequently produced calendars with photos strategically planned to hide breasts, buttocks or genitals. But the group decided that such camera sleight-of-hand did not match their objectives.

  So eventually Christopher proposed the Greek context, thinking naturally of his ongoing research but also assuming that many people would excuse or tolerate nudity associated with ancient Greece. A half-hour of discussion produced the slate of Greek gods, the Olympians assigned by month and volunteer model. Everybody was very pleased with the multi-generational, multi-ethnic context they had created to support the “reclaim the image” slogan, but nobody had been able to propose a candidate for the June photo of Hera, the jealous matriarch, powerful—more so when spurned—and handsome if no longer beautiful. Christopher thought of Tabitha. No. What about…Roberta? Her husband would never let her do that. But Tabitha? If she were convinced, she could persuade her husband. No man, not even her spouse, seemed to ever contradict Tabitha’s wishes. Except me, Christopher thought. He had typed a quick email message, with the rather desperate line ‘I think this could be a tremendous personal experience for you.’

  “It’ll be a few minutes, Dr. Ross. I need to change the film.”

  Dr. Liang’s students, with her supervision, were directing all the photo sessions, and all participants—models as well as photographers—worked nude. They had planned a variety of settings remarkable for their minimal budget. Tucker’s and Renee’s poses had been filmed at La Rioja on the same day. For the November photo, Tucker patiently let the production crew weave some strands of seaweed into his beard. In the shot, he emerges from the afternoon sea as he lifts his trident majestically with his right arm, concealing his tattoo from view. With the afternoon sun behind his faux coral crown, made of egg carton and Sr. Espinoza’s popsicle sticks, Tucker strides from the ocean, a somehow believable Poseidon, the waves swirling around his thighs.

  The February shot revisited Boticelli’s Venus, with Renee posed on the sunset beach to match the famous painting, except that instead of rising from a huge open shell, she stands in a circle of cowrie shells strewn on the sand, mixing Aphrodite with Oxum. Her right hand, instead of partially covering her right breast as Boticelli’s Venus does, fingers her matching cowrie-shell necklace, and her left hand is raised away from her body with none of the original’s modesty. At her feet is a typical candomblé offering of candles, flowers and combs.

  There were no encounters with the military patrol that day, but the project organizers had not been careful to avoid a Sunday. The Children of the Lord our God Fundamentalist Congregation showed up to protest, punctuating the camera crew’s boombox soundtrack with their habitual shouts of “Demons,” and a new term for the occasion, “Pagans!”

  Lisa’s pose as Hestia, for December, was the only indoors shoot, in front of a stone fireplace—no stockings, no menorah, but evocative of winter holidays nonetheless. Lisa is seen from behind, kneeling, her head tilted back. She holds a large, lighted votive candle above her head. Her arms are raised just enough to let a crescent of breast show on either side of her torso, an effect requested by Dr. Liang to lead toward a greater understanding of the heft and movement of breasts. In the finished photo, the fire in the center of the dark hearth fades into shadow at the corners and edges of the image, while the candle flame overhead illuminates Lisa’s profusion of red hair as it tapers down her alabaster back, forming a point just over the cleft in her buttocks, which are perfectly rounded in her kneeling position and centered over the parallel arched soles of her feet.

  Dr. Liang’s own Demeter shot for April was captured in a flowery field. Under her daisy-chain wreath, Maggie’s eyes shine, her gaze centered on a daffodil in her left hand. She smiles. Her right hand rests contentedly on her swollen abdomen, her proud linea negra vis
ible through the outstretched fingers just beneath the darkened areolas of her enlarged breasts. Buttercups bloom all around her.

  The Apollo photo for July was being staged, appropriately enough, on the GCU campus’s replica of the Tholos at Delphi, site of Apollo’s oracle. Funded by the local Greek American Association, the replica had been built near the main street passing campus to give it high visibility. Because of the cars in the parking lot next to the Tholos, the art students positioned the camera low, almost on the ground, in order to feature more of the columns, frieze, treetops and sky. They needed extra volunteers, clothed, to sustain a twenty-yard long, five-foot high broadcloth around most of the Tholos perimeter, lest the many passers-by take offense at nude people moving equipment around.

  The crew set up Dr. Castellón Reyes’s shoot for January on a rock in the woody area of campus, from an even lower angle. It was a montage, with the sky behind him changed to show storm clouds, and a huge lightning bolt channeling through Jaime’s raised fist. In the final image, Jaime crouches, his right arm flung forward and his left arm behind him in balance, his feet planted wide as if supporting a great burden, his entire frame channeling a surprisingly nimble Zeus pouring out through the lightning bolt. A crown of laurels adorns his temples.

  Greg the track star proved a natural for month-of-May Hermes. The production crew wanted to show off the new campus track, so they decided on a stop-motion shot of Greg jumping over a hurdle. As they were setting up the shot, a campus tour group wandered into the otherwise empty track enclosure. The tour guide, walking backwards while reciting her spiel, fielded a prospective student’s father’s amused question about the 200-meter streak. The guide spun around and wheeled the reluctant group back out of the track enclosure. It took longer than Greg had imagined, and almost all of his energy, for the camera team to get just the right shot over the hurdle. They finally settled on the image with the greatest horizontal stretch between his winged sandals. Since the camera had been mounted high, Greg seemed to be floating over the hurdles, his right leg forward, his genitals slung away to the left, his chest thrust out, his right hand clutching a scroll and his head slightly upturned, a wing on either side of his helmet.

  The calendar organizers captured Terrence’s March pose for Ares against a deep orange sunset on a hill near campus, far enough from the road to avoid attention. He stands, scowling as best he could beneath his war helmet, his body forming an X with outstretched arms and legs. In his right hand he holds the oxé double-headed ax of Xangô, an Afro-Brazilian detail arranged with Renee’s help, and in his left hand, a theater-prop sword. Red paint trickles down his arms, pectorals and abdomen.

  Dr. Liang felt that the Athena image, to feature Daphne for October, would be the biggest aesthetic challenge to the calendar’s promotion of artistic nudity, since Athena was the one Greek deity who always, or almost always, had been depicted clothed. The production team’s decision supported the traditional helmet and robe, but with the condition that the robe be almost transparent. So they photographed Daphne seated on the dais of the Tholos, in profile facing left and leaning against one of the columns. Her right knee supports her right elbow, and her right hand her chin. Her left leg lies diagonally down the stairs and her left arm helps support the weight of her body against the marble floor. Daphne assumed the same posture at three different times of day so the camera crew could experiment with lighting effects through the robe on her skin.

  “Dr. Ross, we’re ready now. Tilt your head a little to the left please, and chin up. Hold the lyre away from your chest a bit. I know you’re looking into the sun but that’s the whole point. Open your eyes for a moment, just a moment, and…got it. One more just in case.”

  Alex requested that his session be one of the last ones, because he needed more preparation time for three reasons: to grow his beard as fully as possible; to convince the eponymous owner of the popular Giacomo’s Casa Toscana to allow the use of his expertly tended grape trellis for the shot; and to convince Dr. Liang that the new tattoo on his left pectoral, the three letters of his fraternity, was appropriate for the Greek-themed calendar, in contrast to Tucker’s Asian dragon tattoo. The art professor was mindful of the fact that Allover Tan Alex would be personifying the god of wine—and precisely for the month of September, which was the month of fraternity “rush” or recruitment, of all months—but her resistance shrank as Alex’s beard grew. As for Giacomo, his immediate and affirmative response sprang as much from his natural pride in things Mediterranean as from his ability to recognize good publicity. The team took the photo under the trellis at 4:15 in the afternoon (when there were no customers around), and Alex, tilting a full cup of wine near his lips, even managed to angle his chest to catch, right over his tattoo and pierced nipple, a ray of sunshine filtered through the grapevines. When assembling the final version of the calendar, Dr. Liang’s students pointed out appreciatively that the late-afternoon sunlight in the September photo cast Dionysus’s penis as a sundial. An impartial viewer of the photo successfully guessed the hour at which it had been taken, based on the difference in length between Alex’s penis and its extended shadow projected onto his right thigh.

  Three days later, there was still no word from Tabitha regarding the invitation to pose as the Queen of the Gods. Since the production crew had already captured all the other images, Christopher decided that no response meant rejection of his offer. It was time to call in the deus ex machina. One phone call and he would have his Hera, her photo session, and more.

  Turned to Stone

  From the half-dozen cars and trucks lining the familiar curvy stretch of Bayview Court, Christopher guessed that he was not the first to arrive. He parked about three houses away and walked, once again, up the stone path to the contemporary-style home, but this time he continued past the front door and on around to the gate in the six-foot-high wooden fence that enclosed the backyard. He unlatched the gate confidently and crossed the threshold to Olympus, where he beheld all the gods and goddesses, posing nude among the roses, the fountain, the statuary, and the seamless pool in the stunning garden overlooking the bay. From the number of people in the garden, the newly arrived guest knew that the hostess must have invited a score of minor deities along with the twelve Olympians, who were now, with his arrival, all present: Ares flirting with Aphrodite, as usual; Dionysus knocking back a draft even as Demeter and Hestia playfully urged restraint; Athena debating with Poseidon; Artemis and Hermes racing among the hedges; and Zeus holding forth among a bevy of adoring nymphs. It was Hera herself who came forward to greet him: “Welcome, winsome Apollo.”

  “Radiant is thy countenance, fairest Hera.”

  “Shed thy raiment upon this pedestal. Thou shalt find the elements pleasing to thy skin on this marvelous afternoon.”

  Christopher laughed, already removing his clothes. “This is truly one of the most spectacular ideas I’ve ever had. But I couldn’t have done it without you!”

  “Whence comes this coarse speech I recognize not? Get thee forth to the nectar tent, so thy tongue will match with wit what the sky has graced us with clime this day. Come with me, bend here thy arm, and I will show you the quickest way.”

  Enchanted, Christopher bowed and followed his hostess, who only reluctantly fell back into her native Southern dialect of American English as they passed by some yellow rosebushes.

  “These roses formed the backdrop for my shot. They’re my favorite flowers, you know!”

  “Because you’re from Texas, and because… oh yeah, you’re a yellow-dog Democrat!”

  Christopher learned that in the final calendar shot, Florence holds a peacock-plume fan at her side, away from her right thigh, the royal blue of the feathers contrasting with the lemon-yellow of the blooms behind her. In her gray coif rests a costume tiara of sapphire and silver. She holds the fingers of her left hand to her throat, where lays a sapphire necklace, and she holds her gaze steady into the camera.

  If Florence had not spoken so well of all the C
RMers she had welcomed into her home, Christopher might not have thought to ask her impression. But since she did, and with such great amount of specific detail regarding his students and colleagues, Dr. Ross’s immense gratitude could only grow further. He realized, of course, what a practiced hostess she was, making it all seem utterly effortless as they conversed over stuffed mushrooms, miniature quiches, and nectar punch. Angela and Karl joined them, although Karl excused himself with a broad wink when the doorbell rang.

  “Oh! It’s time,” said Florence. “I forgot to tell you, Christopher! You arrived so late you almost missed our surprise guest.”

  Christopher looked to Angela for a clue but she shrugged her shoulders. All the Olympians continued talking and laughing, showing no knowledge of any surprise. So he put his arm around her and fed her a chocolate-dipped strawberry.

  Moments later, silence overtook the scene. Christopher turned to the door to see Karl, dressed, leading Tabitha Lasseter-Peebles from the house out onto the terraza. Just as she was crossing the doorframe she looked into the garden and stopped. She cut a commanding figure in one of her customary power outfits, but the purposeful stride of what would have been a grand entrance became merely the involuntary force of gravity as her foot fell with a leaden inertia antithetical to the high-heeled shoe that arched it.

  Angela surmised the circumstances and whispered in Christopher’s ear: “Poor Tabitha has just stepped into a trap.”

  “Please, Tabitha, have a seat here on the terraza and I’ll bring you something to drink,” said Karl, hopping back inside while averting his gaze from Tabitha’s frown of betrayal and disbelief. In a chair near the door, she sat as if turned to stone by the gaze of so many Greek statues, as if infused by the essence of marble that flowed out from them and into her suddenly heavy body, burdening her with their shocked immobility and consequently leaving the gods free to embody movement once again. And move they did. She observed them running and swimming and eating and walking, nude, joyful. She stayed still, too defeated to even ponder the incongruity of her shrouded presence among these beings of light.