Dr. Trostle was in class early when I arrived, being briefed by a couple of television producers.
“Both cameras will be in this corner, so we’re not shooting each--” one of them was saying before he stopped when I walked into the room. “Wow, I knew what we were here to shoot, but I guess I didn’t actually believe it until seeing you in person. You must be Danielle.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I’m Shane from Stellium Productions,” he said.
“And I’m Darren from Fox,” the other one said.
“As I was saying,” Shane continued to both Dr. Trostle and me, “we’ll be shooting from over there in the corner. We’ll have Danielle come into the room along with any other students who sign a release to be on camera. And we’ll take just a few minutes of you lecturing in front of the class before we clear out.”
“OK,” Dr. Trostle said. I was surprised that she was going along with this given how serious she was when conducting the class and talking about the works we were reading.
“What is Stellium Productions?” I asked.
“We’re independent, so we work for whoever hires us. Today’s job is for a possible revival of an old Showtime series, if it gets picked up.”
“What series?”
Shane smiled. “Not really supposed to say. But think about a particular Vegas magic act and the letters BS.”
Great, I thought. I had seen several episodes of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, and they did not shy away from showing nudity whenever possible.
The two cameramen who had been shooting my profile during the walk over lumbered into the room, and Shane pointed them over to the front corner, away from the door. I took my regular seat, and watched the other students file in, all of them talking to each other about the news crews on campus. Before they were all seated, Shane addressed the class.
“Could I have everybody’s attention? Thank you. Your professor, Dr. Trostle, has graciously given us the first ten minutes of your class to get video footage for a couple of stories we are doing for different network programs. The main subject of these pieces is, of course, your classmate Miss Keaton. I realize that some of you may not want to appear on television, and if that’s the case, you can stay where you are and your faces will be obscured when the show airs. But if you do want to be shown, I have releases here on the desk that I would need each of you to look at and sign. There are blanks for your signature and your printed name. It’s a simple release and shouldn’t take too long to read. It just gives the network permission to use your face. And since we want to get footage of you entering class, you can come up, sign the release, and wait in the hall.”
Almost everyone in the class rose and began crowding around the instructor’s desk. I stayed in my seat, not wanting to push my naked body into the crowd. When the last two signed and started out into the corridor, I got up and went out with them. I figured that I didn’t have to sign, but Shane called me over and pushed a release toward me. I wondered briefly if they would just all pack up and go if I refused, but I picked the pen up and filled out my name and signature.
Shane and Darren followed me out into the hall and picked four people to walk into class first. “Start shooting,” Shane called to the camera guys before releasing the four students, telling them not to look directly at the cameras. Dr. Trostle sat at the instructor’s desk, making the scene seem more like high school than a university. I walked in after those first four students, naked and carrying my binder at my hip. My nipples tingled when I stepped over the threshold and realized that I was being recorded for network TV. Of course, I had been recorded for a week by the university’s security system, with, from what Sylvia had told me, its ultra-high definition video cameras, so I wasn’t sure why this felt different. Maybe it was because two men were being paid to point the cameras specifically at me. I took my regular seat, discreetly plopping one of my little black towels into the chair. The rest of the students filed in, and Shane called “Cut!” from the hall.
“All right,” he said to Dr. Trostle as he and Darren walked in, “go ahead and start into your lecture like you usually do. We just need about a minute or two of that.”
Dr. Trostle stood up, looking at Shane and Darren. When they nodded, she started speaking. “Good morning class. Today we are starting on The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, who, as most of you know, was actually a woman writing under a male pen name. Now why would she do such a thing? The main reason was to differentiate herself from other female writers of the day. One of her last essays before she started writing novels was called “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists.”
Dr. Trostle went on for another minute before Darren stopped her. “Thank you very much, all of you,” he said. “I think we got some great footage.”
The four men cleared out of the room, and Dr. Trostle went on with her lecture as if she had never been interrupted. I had trouble paying attention to her. My mind was on what I was going to say when the reporters interviewed me on camera. Still, I managed to take a few notes in the Kindle before class was dismissed.
“I know, that was wild,” I heard one student say to another.
“You are becoming quite the celebrity,” the girl next to me said.
“Yeah. This isn’t quite what I had in mind though.”
“Well, what did you expect when you just suddenly stopped wearing clothes? That’s not something that falls under normal behavior.”
For some reason, that hurt. She must have seen it in my face because she shoved her books into her backpack and left in a hurry. I knew it wasn’t normal behavior, but I hadn’t had a choice in the matter. But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell anyone that. I had to go on pretending that this was all my idea, that running around naked all the time was something I had decided to do on my own. I zipped up my binder and walked outside where Sylvia and a hoard of media people awaited me.
They had decided to set me up in the Commons, right in front of the library, rather than going all the way back to my dorm. Sylvia walked me over to the chosen area where the camera men were already set up. Cables were strewn across the walkway as technicians and on-air reporters tested their sound equipment. And everyone, no matter how busy, kept stealing glances at me.
“Do you have more sunscreen?” Sylvia asked me.
I nodded, zipped my binder open, and pulled out a fresh bottle. Sylvia took it and commenced spraying me from head to toe, pausing only to allow me to set my binder down. A large crowd of students had gathered around and behind all the media crews. Campus police were keeping the area between my spot and the library free from onlookers.
“They want the background behind you to show activity,” Sylvia explained when she noticed what I was looking at. “They want people moving, walking into and out of the library, not standing around and watching. If they want to watch, they can get behind the cameras like everyone else.”
I nodded and didn’t say anything. My mouth felt dry, and I had a sudden fear that I wouldn’t be able to speak whenever the first reporter asked me a question and stuck a microphone in front of my face.
“Do you have any water?” I whispered to Sylvia.
“Of course, darling. Anything you need.”
She turned and grabbed a bottle of water from someone and handed it to me. I screwed off the lid and took a long slow drink. When I finished, Sylvia stood in front of me and took a long look at my face and hair. She brushed at my bangs with her fingers, pushing hair back from my temples.
“How do I look?” I said.
“Gorgeous. Remember, be yourself, but say good things about the university.”
I nodded. Sylvia took me by my shoulders and guided me over a couple of steps to just the right spot, then turned me so that I was facing the reporters, the cameramen, and the crowd. My nipples tingled at the sight of so many people looking at me. And I was naked. That word flashed through my consciousness, NAKED, NAKED, NAKED… I was acutely aware of the delicate and sensitive folds of skin and tissu
e between my legs, devoid of hair, visible now to hundreds of people. I didn’t dare look, but I could feel the breeze caress the little bit of inner labia peeking out from the fleshier parts of my vulva. My knees shuddered and almost buckled. That little bit of pink labia tissue probably glistened from my wetness; my only saving grace was that my entire body also glistened from the sunscreen Sylvia had just sprayed on me.
I can’t remember much of what I said to the reporters and their cameras. The questions all seemed to be a rehash of the ones Clarissa from the school newspaper had asked me, and my answers were paraphrases of what I had already said. I do remember seeing Clarissa in the crowd, taking notes, probably for another story in the school paper, this one about all the media here to talk to me and how she had gotten to me first.
Each station wanted its camera set up with a different angle than the one before, trying to get a different look exclusive to its own news show. I thought each interview was going to drag on and on, but Sylvia kept tight control over the proceedings. When the final reporter had asked his final question, I was ready to collapse, but I still had three classes left to attend, one of which was the exhausting swimming for fitness.
“What time is it?” I asked Sylvia.
She handed me a tuna salad sandwich from the deli and said, “12:50. Just in time to make your next class.”
I tore into the clear plastic container to get at the sandwich, scarfing it down as the media circus dispersed all around me. Two of the camera men stayed put though, I assumed to get more footage of me.
“I won’t have to talk to anyone this afternoon at the dorm?” I asked Sylvia between bites.
“Oh no, this was it.”
“Good. I have a feeling swimming is going to wear me out.”
I finished the sandwich as Sylvia carried my binder and walked with me to class. The two cameramen followed us. I saw Dr. Slater from a distance, standing just outside of Carlisle Hall, which housed the sociology department. She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign. I turned away without acknowledging her and took my binder from Sylvia.
“Thank you,” she said. “You were magnificent. Beautiful. Wonderful.”
I sighed, thinking that the entire world had gone crazy right along with me. Sylvia stopped just outside the door to the History Building. She took the empty plastic sandwich container from me.
“I’ll throw this away for you. And I’ll see you soon. We may have a network doing a live show here on campus in another week or two. I’ll keep you posted.”
I nodded to her and stood in front of the entrance of the building watching her bound away, only going inside when I felt the two cameras and the eyes of about thirty other students on me.
Chapter Twelve – Uncensored
My memories of those first ten or so days of nudity are so vivid, every encounter and conversation, each little milestone, the first time being seen naked, the first time going to class naked, my first time naked in the dining hall, etc., that it seems strange how most of my memories of the subsequent days seem to merge together. There are, however, several events that stand out and that I will never forget as long as I live.
The day of those multiple media interviews still seems surreal when I think about it. I did go to all my afternoon classes after the reporters dispersed, with the remaining two cameramen following me from class to class until I got back to my dorm. In swimming, Rick came out in his regular swimsuit. I think the television cameras frightened him out of doing the class naked again. When I got back to the dorm, I didn’t look to see what the cameramen did after I went inside; I rode the elevator straight up to my room and took a nap. I got up that evening to see that my Facebook had exploded. The local affiliates had aired their stories, of course, but the NBC Nightly News also ended their national broadcast with the local channel’s report. Parts of my body were pixelated, of course, but my full name and hometown were both mentioned. When I logged onto Facebook, I had over one hundred new friend requests from people I had never heard of, most of them men. Sunday’s status update, the one I had typed right after reactivating my account, had been shared several dozen times and now included over two hundred comments. It was all too much, and I logged out of Facebook and went to dinner. Later, after returning to my room, Diane made several comments both to me and to whomever she was talking to on her phone that her naked roommate was now famous.
After my lit class the following day, I got to model again. I was more comfortable the second time, and I think I held the poses better. Matt booked me for two more classes over the next two weeks. I was feeling great until Mom called that evening. By the sound of her voice, I could tell that she was still feeling down. When I asked her how the weekend with Daddy at the Riviera had gone, she said it had been tense. Daddy was still very upset.
“To make things worse,” Mom said, “there was a nudist resort right across the street. Right in the middle of town. And they weren’t secretive or anything. ‘Desert Sun Resort and Spa: Enjoy Palm Springs Au Naturale’ it said right on the sign facing a busy intersection. You father was just appalled. We don’t understand what this world is coming to.”
“It’s just California,” I said for lack of anything better. I’d never even heard of the Desert Sun Resort & Spa, but then again, I had spent very little time in Palm Springs during my time in the Valley. But Mom did say that they made it back home OK. I didn’t ask if either of them had seen me on the news again.
During that first week and a half, I had been so intent on counting down the days until I could wear clothes again that I had almost forgotten the other countdown on my calendar. Luckily and maybe subconsciously, I included a couple of tampons in my binder Wednesday morning and wound up needing one after Spanish class that afternoon.
Everyone knows that women menstruate, and in theory it is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. But I still didn’t want people who saw me to know that I was on my period right then. So I tried tucking the string in those first few times, but it kept slipping out. Walking around campus naked with a tampon in my vagina added a new level of embarrassment to my situation. I was also suffering from cramps periodically, so I was already not feeling great.
I finally took to cutting the tampon strings off before inserting the tampons, but that made getting them out problematic. A couple of times I just had to push them out while on the commode. I know flushing them is one of the worst things one can do to bathroom plumbing, but I wasn’t about to stick my fingers into toilet water filled with urine and blood to get them out. Luckily, I never heard anything about any stopped up toilets in the dorm, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I mean, representatives of the university were practically forcing me to go naked everywhere I went, so if the result of that was a backed up toilet, then they could just spring for the plumber. I did wind up skipping my swimming class that Friday because of my period, cramping, etc. We were given two free absences for the semester without affecting our grade, and I hadn’t used one yet. By the time the following Monday rolled around, my period had ended along with, thankfully, the cramping.
That Monday, day fifteen of my constant nudity, was also the day that Sylvia called my cell phone while I was at lunch in the dining hall with Liz and Audrey. Even though my Facebook continued to go wild with friend requests and comments until I had gone in and set my profile to private, the number of calls to my cell phone had decreased. The number was known only to my family and friends back home and just a very few people here in Coachella Valley. I had finished eating by the time the phone rang, so I picked it up and answered it as I piled my trash on the tray and picked it up to take it to the conveyor.
“Hello Sylvia,” I said.
“Hi Danielle, how are you?”
“I’m OK. Just finishing lunch and about to head to my history class.”
“Good. I do have some news for you.”
“I figured you did,” I said.
I was walking out of the dining hall and back toward the women’s dorm. People passing by
me smiled and said, “Hi Dani.” Since I had gained celebrity status, everyone called me by name whether I knew them or not. I wondered how Dr. Slater accounted for that in her study. As for myself, I was feeling more confident and more comfortable in my own skin. Everywhere I went, I was noticed by practically everyone, and the number of hostile or disdainful looks seemed to be decreasing all the time. Even some of the people I used to hang out with before the nudity study were talking to me again.
“I just heard from the producer of the show Stossel,” Sylvia said over the phone. “John Stossel wants to do a live show, but they’ve had issues with the network. They want to show you without pixelating any of you. And of course, doing the show live would make it easier to do that. There is a seven second delay of course, which allows them to bleep out any bad words, but pixelating out any nudity is a little difficult.”
“Did anyone there think to ask me? I mean, what if I don’t want to do the show?”
“Oh Danielle, you have to do the show,” Sylvia said. “Our new student applications are up 32 percent just from last week’s news stories.”
“Is that what I am? A marketing tool?”
“No, no, of course not. It’s just that this is such a rare thing, a very special time in your life. You should take advantage of it.”
I walked into the foyer of the dorm. Quite a few people were sitting around studying, but of course, they all looked up when I appeared.
“Take advantage of it?” I said, turning and stepping outside through the front door and out of earshot of anybody. “Ha! I feel like I’m being taken advantage of. Dr. Slater makes me run around naked all the time, and I mean ALL the time, and I have to let people take pictures and video of me for TV. It’s all -- I don’t know. When I really think about it, I still can’t believe it.”
The Volunteer Page 16
