“I know it’s difficult,” Sylvia said. “I can’t imagine having to do what you are doing. But you have done so well. You’ve come so far, and I can’t imagine you stopping now. What I was trying to tell you is that the producers ironed out everything with the network. They’re shooting here on Thursday evening, in Studio A in the Radio and TV Building.”
I had started walking away from the dorm and away from the Commons and was now at the very edge of campus. I stopped and looked across the street at a strip shopping center with a couple of fast food restaurants in front. They were far enough away that I didn’t think people could see me clearly, but I jumped when a car honked as it went by. I turned around and walked back toward the dorm, the small group of guys who had followed me at a distance dispersing at my sudden change of direction.
“No,” I said to Sylvia. “I’m not going to do it.”
I had thought a lot about my media day and about the video that had been taken by Stellium Productions. Nobody knew how many months it would take Penn & Teller’s Bullshit to come back on, if it ever did. And if it didn’t, what would happen to that footage of me? I imagined the production company selling it to some other less than savory late night cable show. My unease at all of this was so heavy that I wanted to resist anything that would add to it.
“You won’t do it?” Sylvia asked.
“No, I won’t. I have to draw the line somewhere. This whole thing has been crazy. I’ve been naked for two weeks and had my name thrown out there with all kinds of pictures and video. Seriously, thousands of people have seen parts of me that only my doctor had ever seen. I still have to live after this, find a job and a husband and raise a family.”
“What do I tell the Stossel producers?”
“I don’t know. You’ll figure something out.”
“Well,” Sylvia said, sounding subdued and defeated, “I’ll have to tell Lorraine. She may have something to say about it.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “I’m sorry.”
“If you change your mind, call me.”
I ended the call and hurried back into the dorm to get my binder and head to Dr. Finfrock’s history class.
Swimming class that afternoon was more interesting than usual, with Rick going back to swimming naked. One of the other guys swam naked too, and seeing them walk out of the men’s locker room together, their penises swinging with each step toward the pool, one of them circumcised and one not, was highly entertaining. My nudity was definitely having an effect on the rest of the student body. I had seen a group of streakers out early in the evening on the previous Wednesday night, two days after media day. At the time, I had thought it was a fraternity initiation, but it might have just been a group of fans. About eight naked guys ran past me, clapping and singing at eight in the evening after I had taken a study break and gone for a walk. I’d had to stop and laugh while watching their bright white untanned buttocks zip past me.
The swimming exercises were exhausting, and I dragged as I made my way up the elevator to my room. When I opened the door, I was so shocked to see Dr. Slater sitting on the side of my bed that I dropped my binder.
“Hello Danielle,” she said with a smile.
“Uh, hi,” I said, bending to pick my binder up off the floor.
“Why don’t you close the door?”
“How did you get in my room?” I asked as I stood back up and shut the door, locking it. The lock wouldn’t keep Diane out for long if she came back, but we would hear her try to get in before having to find her key.
Dr. Slater waved her hand as if to say that her getting into my room wasn’t important. “Let’s talk about the project. We’re two weeks in. How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine,” I said, my voice becoming tentative with the last word as I noticed a copy of the contract I had signed lying on my computer desk.
“Good! I have to say that you have, so far, done very well. The data that we are getting back regarding your interactions here at the university has been beyond expectations.”
“I’m glad.” I said, as I pulled my desk chair out and sat down.
“However, there is a bigger picture to this, beyond the microcosm of the university, and that is how the world in general reacts to you. You were so brilliant when you did the interviews with those local stations. How did it feel, being the center of attention?”
“I don’t know. Surreal, I guess. Uncomfortable. But at least I knew they couldn’t show everything. People watching would know I was naked, but they wouldn’t be able to actually see it because of the blurring.”
“You didn’t look uncomfortable. You looked like a natural, answering every question they asked you with confidence, even though you and I both know that most of your answers had to be lies.”
“There were parts that were true,” I said. “Like when I said that I felt that seeing regular people naked was actually healthy.”
“Yes, that was especially brilliant. I’m glad that you’ve come to that viewpoint. And yet, you told Sylvia that you don’t want to do the Stossel show. Do you understand what a monumental landmark this episode would be?”
I had known why Dr. Slater was here the instant I saw her, of course, but I sighed when she finally got to it. “I know what it means to me. There’s a difference between my friends and family back home knowing that I’m running around naked out here in California and actually seeing it for themselves on their TVs.”
“Do you know what the producers had to go through to get the network to OK this broadcast, with the lawyers and the FCC regulations, looking for loopholes, fine amounts, etc.? But in the end, they agreed to it! It’s unprecedented. A regular cable news channel is going to show full nudity on a prime time telecast.”
“How could they even get away with that?” I said.
“Because it’s news. The nudity is the story, and Stossel feels that the people watching should see what everyone here on campus sees. And because of the episode’s theme, he thinks it would be hypocritical to censor the nudity. I don’t think you understand what a huge step forward this is, and it’s all because of you and this project. It’s what I dreamed of when I first outlined this proposal years ago.”
“I’m sorry, but there has to be some line drawn. I still have to carve out a life for myself after this.”
“This could be the foundation of that life. Fame is easy to capitalize on, especially with something as groundbreaking as this.”
“I just don’t think I can do it.” I expected to see a look of disappointment on her face, but instead, I saw her eyes narrow, her jaw set.
“You’ve come so far and done so well,” she said. “I would hate to see you throw it all away, your scholarship, your degree program, over this.”
“What do you mean?”
She took the contract off my desk and handed it to me. “When you signed this, you agreed to everything in it. I suggest you take another look at paragraph eight.”
I almost didn’t need to read it; her pointing it out to me told me everything I needed to know about what it said. But I read it anyway, how I was to fulfill every media request at the instruction of the university’s publicist to the best of my ability.
“So you see,” she said when I looked up, “refusing to do the Stossel show would be a violation and would render the contract null and void.”
If I backed out now, two weeks of constant nudity would have been for nothing. I would have humiliated myself and still not gotten my scholarships or my degree. And without the degree, I couldn’t go to law school. What was worse was that everyone already knew about my naked activities, and my parents had even seen it firsthand. I had to keep going. After these two weeks, what difference would another six make. I had already in my own mind committed myself to going nude for the rest of the semester. Dr. Slater had me, and I knew it. I had to do the show. I was going to expose my naked body to a national TV audience. Millions of people would see my exposed nipples and shaved vulva. No one else had ever done such a
thing on such a wide scale. I would be alone, naked, with an audience of millions. The thought should have made me sick, but instead I felt that tingling that seemed to draw my nipples inward, hardening them, and caused wetness down below. How could something so unthinkable arouse me so?
I was going to agree to do the show, but I also wanted to save face, to not let Dr. Slater feel like she had such complete control over me.
“OK, I’ll do the show if –“
“If what?” Dr. Slater said when I hesitated, and I still didn’t know what concession to ask for.
“Greg,” I finally blurted.
“What about Greg?”
“I want to be able to talk to him,” I said. “When I tried to approach him the other night, he waved me off, shook his head. I don’t know what you told him, or the rest of them.”
“Given the secretive nature of the project, I instructed the RAs not to be seen associating with you. It seemed implausible that a sophomore English major would have so many acquaintances in the graduate sociology program.”
“I’m the famous naked girl on campus. Everybody says hi to me, and I have so many people introducing themselves to me that I can’t keep track of them all. It’s not implausible that I would have acquaintances anywhere in the university. And, I’m just talking about Greg, not the whole team.”
Dr. Slater’s face softened into a sly grin. “So you like Greg, huh?”
“We talked some after that thing. With Dr. Biden. I’d like to continue talking to him.”
“Ok. I’ll talk to Greg, tell him that you are not ‘off limits’ anymore.”
She sat looking at me as if to say, “Anything else?” “OK,” I said, finally.
“Good. The Stossel shoot is Thursday evening at six o’clock, so be there at five. You know where the Radio and TV Building is?”
I nodded, feeling like I was on a runaway freight train and knowing that jumping off would hurt me worse than staying on would. Dr. Slater stood up and smoothed her skirt.
“All right then. I will be in the studio audience, so I will see you Thursday. Smile.”
I looked up at her and forced a smile.
“You know, you are the perfect person for this project, the perfect mix of beauty, naivety, purity, and worldliness. I wouldn’t have wanted the type of girl who would have readily volunteered for this. It would have been turned into something sexual, a ‘Let’s see what I can get away with’ type of thing.” She sighed as she looked down at me. “I do wish I could be in your place,” she mused, seemingly more to herself than to me. “But, I have responsibilities and expectations now. And besides that, I’m 51 years old and don’t look nearly as attractive as you do.”
I wanted to say something, suggest we switch places, but I didn’t. Of course, I did not believe her when she said that she wanted to be in my position. Why would anyone want to be in my place, practically forced to exhibit myself to anyone and everyone?
“Well, all right,” Dr. Slater said.
She walked out and closed the door behind her. I moved over to my bed, curled into a ball under the covers, and had a good cry, thinking of everyone back home, my parents, my friends, my old boyfriends, my pastor, all gathered around a TV watching me naked.
The next three days went by in a haze. Both the anticipation and dread of the TV show hung over everything I did. I found myself tuned out during class lectures, staring out the window of my dorm room when I should have been typing up a paper on my computer, and lying awake at night unable to go to sleep. I finally took a melatonin on Wednesday night to help me sleep, hoping that I would be well rested for the day of the TV show broadcast.
Chapter Thirteen – Live!
I arrived at Studio A in the Radio and TV Building at 4:45, full of nervous energy. I had started the day off in a fog because of the after effects of the melatonin I had taken the night before, but by the time my American literature class ended, I was mostly awake. I modeled for an art class that afternoon, one pose for the duration of the three hour class, with periodic breaks to stretch my limbs. The long pose gave me a chance to meditate over what I wanted to say during the telecast. I had been exchanging emails over the previous two days with one of the show’s associate producers about the theme of the episode and the kind of questions John Stossel would ask me. This associate producer and I had even spent an hour on the phone the previous night, semi-rehearsing what both Stossel and I would say.
Sylvia, dressed in blue jeans and a western style button down shirt, was in the center of a hurricane of activity near the newly constructed set for Stossel when I was admitted into the studio by the campus policeman stationed at the door. He hadn’t asked me for any kind of identification, and I wondered if he would have let just any naked girl in. Sylvia and everyone else in the studio immediately stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
I had watched clips of past Stossel episodes on Youtube, recognizing both him and the show as something that my father had watched every once in a while. In the clips I had seen, John Stossel sat at the end of what looked like a large desk. I had hoped that I would be sitting behind the other end of that desk, where I could sink down and hide myself. This set looked much smaller than anything I had seen on Youtube, with three chairs and a small table between the right and middle chairs. I assumed that Stossel would sit in that right hand chair (the chair was on the left if standing on the stage facing the cameras) using the little table for his notes and that I would be in the middle, completely uncovered and exposed. There were two large cameras on wheels and another medium sized shoulder mounted camera, all of which were being worked on and adjusted by crewmembers, or at least they had been before I walked into the room. The studio itself was smaller than I expected it to be, with seating for no more than fifty people in chairs on three tiered levels along one side of the room opposite the stage. The ceiling and everything suspended from it, rails and lights and cables, were all painted black.
“Dani!” Sylvia exclaimed, rushing toward me. “We have so much to do.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into what looked like a dressing room while everyone in the studio resumed what they had been doing.
The dressing room was actually a green room with about a dozen people inside, along with a rack of clothes on hangers, a long table upon which sat three well-lit makeup stations, and an office desk.
“Give me your necklace,” Sylvia said. “They’ve got a microphone of their own for you. We don’t want to have any conflicts.”
“OK,” I said, reaching behind my neck and unsnapping it. She took it and slipped it into her pocket.
We started at the desk where Sylvia and a lawyer-type guy from the production company had me sign a few legal releases. Sylvia then took me to the makeup station, bypassing wardrobe of course, and sat me down. A technician fitted a small device over my ear which had a little microphone tube that extended halfway across my cheek, taking short glances down at my breasts and pubic area as he worked. When he finished, he tested it, listening for the sound of my voice on his headphones. He gave Sylvia the thumbs up and moved on. A girl spent twenty minutes wetting, drying, and styling my hair, using a liberal amount of hair spray on it, while another girl applied theatrical make up to my face. I could hear the buzz and bustle of activity outside the room as the girls worked, and I figured that the studio audience was being admitted. A well-dressed fortyish woman sat at one of the other make-up stations, and another pair of girls put a barber’s drape over her, protecting her clothes, and went to work on her hair and make-up. I heard a warm-up comedian begin to work the crowd. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could hear the laughter from the audience. My foot started tapping, my leg bouncing. I tried to stop it, to take a deep breath and try to relax as the make-up girl urged me to keep my head still, but the leg kept jumping. Just as the girls were finishing up with me, John Stossel himself, in his regular suit and tie, walked into the room, smiling and greeting everyone. I stood up and moved away from the chair, feeling more naked than
usual with so many well-dressed people around.
“And you must be Danielle,” Stossel said.
“Yes,” I said. We shook hands, and I searched for something to say.
“Or do you go by Dani?” he asked.
“Either. But Dani is fine.”
“OK, good. I’ll introduce you as Danielle Keaton, but I’ll call you Dani for the rest of show.”
“Sounds good.”
Sylvia introduced herself to Stossel as he continued making his way around the room. The make-up girl took my hand and asked me to stand in the far corner away from everyone else.
“This will give your skin a nice sheen to it for the camera,” she said as she pointed an aerosol can of something at me and started spraying it all over me, motioning for me to turn around when she finished with the front of me. When she finished spraying, she set the bottle down and began spreading the stuff on me with her hands. “OK, stand here for about five minutes and let that dry,” she said when she finished. Then with a giggle, she said, “We don’t get many naked people on the show.”
I was left to stand by myself, naked. The good thing was that everyone else seemed too busy to look at me. Or was that a bad thing? I had gotten so used to being looked at all the time that I thought I was beginning to like it, maybe even crave it. The make-up girl’s hands on me had given me a little flutter, especially when her fingers had glazed over my nipples. Being naked around normally dressed people seemed to keep me always at the edge of arousal, and the make-up girl had just tipped me over that edge.
John Stossel had left the room, and I heard a loud burst of applause from the audience outside. Sylvia ran over to me and grabbed my hand.
“OK, you’re up,” she said.
“What, the show is starting?” I asked, not nearly ready to speak on live TV.
“No not yet. They just want to introduce you to the audience and show you where to go on the set.”
The Volunteer Page 17
