The Volunteer

by D. H Jonathan

  Dr. Barker was the well-known chairman of the university’s film department and was very active in promoting his department. This was southern California, film capital of the world, after all.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I saw Citizen Kane there a couple of weeks ago. What’s playing today?”

  “Double Indemnity.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said. “But I’d love to go.”

  Sylvia gave my elbow another impatient tug. I smiled at Greg as he said, “OK. See you in a bit.”

  I turned and followed Sylvia into the green room; my regret vanished as I felt the lightness of having been asked on a date by Greg. The worst was over, I told myself. I had made it through the media gauntlet, school newspaper, local stations, and a live national broadcast. And I was proud of myself for negotiating a chance to date Greg. Life was good.

  Chapter 14 – Festival

  A replay of the Stossel episode started on the monitor in the green room while one of the girls used some kind of cream to take the make-up off my face. I was anxious to see just how much of me had been shown, especially during my walk to the stage. I listened to Stossel’s introduction and opening monologue and had the girl stop wiping my face when I heard him say my name. On the monitor, I walked out fully naked, with side and rear views as I stepped up and shook hands with Stossel, cringing at the sight of my round bubble butt. I gasped when I saw myself turn and face the audience. The camera had captured everything from my head to my feet, my body glistening in the stage lights, my nipples hard, my shaven and bare vulva looking swollen and wet. That image had gone out on the broadcast to millions.

  “Oh my God!” I said, wanting to cry.

  How could I have allowed myself to be seen so naked like this by a national television audience? It had felt exciting when I was on the set, turning and letting everyone in the audience see me, but now that it was done, now that I was off that adrenaline kick and could think clearly, I was mortified. How could I ever face any of my friends and family again? Maybe I should just run away and become a hermit.

  The make-up girl continued cleaning me up as I listened to myself on the TV tell my partly made up story. When the girl proclaimed my face clean, I looked at the screen again, dismayed that my full breasts and nipples were exposed in each shot. Couldn’t they have zoomed in just a bit more so that just my head and shoulders were visible?

  I couldn’t watch the rest of it. All I wanted to do was go back to my room and hide under the covers of my bed, but I had just made a date with Greg. Going to eat in public, even if it was on campus, and then watching an old movie in the SU theater suddenly did not appeal to me. People on campus were used to seeing me out and about naked, but I wondered what their opinion of me would be after seeing me on a regular network TV show exposing myself to millions. Still, I would be with Greg. If I heard anything negative, I could just get him to walk me back to my room. He would understand, I told myself.

  He was waiting for me just outside the back door of the Radio and Television Building. Stossel’s people were going in and out, carrying equipment and parts of the set to the two trucks that were parked in the side lot. Greg saw me and smiled, but his smile seemed to fade when he saw my expression.

  “Did you see any of the show?” I asked him as we walked toward the Student Union.

  “It was on the monitor next to the set during the taping. I kept looking over to see how much the camera was showing.”

  “My God, they showed everything.”

  “You didn’t think they would?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.”

  “This was all part of Dr. Slater’s idea,” Greg said. “She thought whoever volunteered for this – you -- would make a bigger splash in today’s media than the naked guy at Berkeley did. You’re an attractive female for one thing. And everyone is more connected now than they were back then. News spreads so much faster with the Internet.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I said, thinking of how my parents had found out after less than a week.

  Greg took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “What’s done is done. Try to relax and have fun, OK?”

  “OK.”

  We had a nice but quick meal at the deli and just made it into the theater in time for the start of the movie. When I read that Double Indemnity was made way back in 1944, I didn’t think I would like it, but it turned out to be one of the most riveting films I had ever seen. The actor who played Keyes, Edward G. Robinson, stole every scene he was in. Greg took a series program, and over the next few weeks we saw three other movies on the list, Singin’ in the Rain from 1952, The Searchers from 1956, and Network from 1976.

  We never talked about my nudity during that first date or any of the other subsequent ones. I learned that Greg was from the Seattle area originally and was still a big Seahawks and Mariners fan, but that he had also lived in the Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver areas due to his dad’s job while he was growing up. As a result of that, he had never developed any close friends and still had trouble relating to people.

  “That’s kind of why I went into sociology,” he said at one point, “to learn how people relate and interact with each other. I never stayed in one place long enough to figure that out for myself.”

  The physical relationship between us developed very slowly. After watching Double Indemnity on that first date, he walked me to the door of the dormitory and ended the evening with a quick kiss on my mouth. We went out once a week after that, usually to the film department’s Thursday series since Greg couldn’t very well take me to a theater playing any new movies. Those good night kisses gradually got longer and more open mouthed. Greg’s hands on my back during these lingering kisses got lower and lower until he was caressing the tops of my buttocks. In the theater during a particularly harrowing scene in The Searchers, Greg put his hand on my knee, as if to try to comfort me. I put my hand over his, holding it there before he could take it away. For the rest of the movie, I kept pulling his hand slowly up my thigh toward my crotch. I could sense the change in his breathing with each little move upward and knew that he was feeling something. If I hadn’t been so afraid of him removing his hand from my leg, I would have reached over and caressed his.

  Though we never talked about it, I do think that he was slow to initiate any physical contact between us because I was so exposed and vulnerable. I think we would have progressed much further and faster if I hadn’t been naked all the time, but his gentlemanliness and gallantry in this regard made me like him, and want him, even more. There was also that little thing about my virginity, which I had proclaimed on national television. He never asked me about it, and I took that to mean that he never doubted me.

  We saw Liz and Audrey out on campus during a couple of our dates. Greg already knew about them from listening to my audio feed in his capacity as one of Dr. Slater’s research assistants, but everyone seemed to get along when I introduced the girls to him. But still, I was surprised when, on our walk back toward the dorm after seeing Network, he said, “I talked to Liz this morning.”

  “Really? What about?”

  “The Festival.”

  By far, the largest event in the area was the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, held each year during consecutive weekends in April. Not many university students went since the tickets were expensive and usually sold out the summer before. The first weekend of the festival had already passed, with the second weekend starting tomorrow.

  “She had two extra passes for this Saturday and wanted to know if we were interested,” Greg said.

  “Ha! I’d love to, but I don’t think I could get in.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Greg said, smiling sheepishly. “I talked to Dr. Slater about you going.”

  “Really? She’s going to let me put clothes on so I can go?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.”

  I stopped walking and let go of his hand. “What does that mean?”

  Greg stopped and
turned toward me. “What do you think?”

  “I can’t go there like this! I’d get arrested!”

  “Dr. Slater has some contacts in the Indio Police Department, and she has talked to whoever it is that’s in charge of the festival. She thinks that you are now enough of a celebrity that you can get away with certain things that others can’t.”

  I thought of clips I had seen from the festival on news reports, both last week and last year while I was here at Coachella Valley University. The stated attendance for past festivals was somewhere in the neighborhood of 90,000 people. I had, of course, read the reviews and the ratings of my Stossel appearance. The average episode of Stossel drew 250,000 to 300,000 viewers. My episode had over two million viewers during that live show, and the subsequent airings drew higher than average ratings. Of course, all of those subsequent airings happened after ten PM so that they could air uncensored without drawing more fines from the FCC. That first live broadcast was the most watched hour of television in the history of Fox Business Network.

  But all of those millions of people watching me had been spread out all over the country. These 90,000 people would be seeing me in person, in the flesh. The idea was terrifying, and yet, I felt that tingling sensation again.

  “You seem to like the idea,” Greg said, making it obvious that he was looking at my erect nipples.

  “Shut up,” I said, putting my hands over my breasts. I snatched them quickly away as my nipples were almost too sensitive to touch and resumed walking toward the dorm.

  “It’ll be fine,” Greg said, taking my hand again as we walked. “Aren’t you tired of being cooped up here on campus?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, thinking that my taxi ride from the Palm Springs airport after flying back from spring break was the last time I had been off campus. And that was five weeks ago. “But back when I agreed to do this, Dr. Slater said I had to stay on campus.”

  “She just said that because on campus was the only place where she could guarantee your safety, that you wouldn’t be arrested. It’s actually not in the contract you signed.” He glanced over at me and saw my doubting look. “I’ve already talked to her about it. She really wants you to go. She thinks it would be good for the project. More data. And you’ll have me with you the whole time. Liz and Audrey too. And some of the other RAs will be tailing us with camcorders.”

  “That figures,” I said.

  As much as I was afraid of going off campus in my naked state, the prospect of adventure was too exciting. And besides that, everything I had heard about the Coachella Music Festival indicated that it was a truly amazing event with some of the top music acts in the world.

  “Okay,” I said, stopping at the side entrance to the dorm. “I’ll go.”

  “Awesome!” Greg said, smiling and hugging me. The sensation of my nipples against his t-shirt sent shivers up and down my spine. I turned my face up to him, and we kissed. He had an erection; I could feel it through his blue jeans against my belly. I wanted to take it out of his pants and touch it, see it, to give him both pleasure and release. I was, as I had claimed on the Stossel episode, a virgin when it came to intercourse, but I did have some experience with past boyfriends, satisfying them with my hands and, on a couple of occasions, my mouth. I wanted to do that -- at least that -- for Greg. But part of our problem was that he lived off campus where I had always assumed I couldn’t go, and my dorm room wasn’t private. If Diane wasn’t actually in the room, there was always the threat of her coming in.

  Greg broke the kiss and pulled back, looking down at me as I tried to catch my breath, his hand still on my hip and curving around to my butt.

  “We’ll leave right after lunch on Saturday. Sound good?”

  I nodded wordlessly, hating that we were having to part.

  “I’ll see you then.” He smiled and gave me another kiss, just a quick peck, before taking off.

  I walked into the dorm and climbed the steps to the third floor. The room was empty, and I wanted to pull my phone out, call Greg and tell him to come as I raced back down the stairs to let him into the building, but I didn’t. I looked out my dorm room window and saw that he was already out of sight, past the Commons. I locked the room door and took care of myself, relieving my frustrations, at least for a little while.

  When I finished, I ran to the restroom to pee and wash my hands. I checked my Facebook when I got back to the room. I had several ongoing message threads with friends back home who had seen me on Stossel. Most of them couldn’t believe what I was doing, and I felt like I was constantly defending myself in my replies to them. But I couldn’t just stop talking to them. I would be going home in a little over three weeks, and I knew I would eventually have to see them in person.

  Of course, that meant that I only had to be naked for another 26 days. I had managed to go 33 days without wearing clothes. That had to be some kind of record for a person living and functioning in modern civilized society. I wondered if Guinness might want to talk to me about it for their next Book of World Records. Looking at my calendar also reminded me that I was almost due for my period. Maybe that was why I had been feeling hornier than usual around Greg. Just wonderful, I thought. I get to go to the Coachella Festival, but I have to be both naked and on my period when I go.

  The next day was Friday, and just like last month, my period started right after Spanish class. This meant skipping my swimming class, which was too bad since I enjoyed watching the naked guys walking to and from the pool. There were now three of them swimming naked, but I was still the only nude girl. It was nice not being the only naked person though. Maybe I should start skipping Spanish class near my period, thinking that there had to be something about Ms. Castillo, the teacher, that made my body want to start expelling excess blood. I did work on my tampon though, tying a knot high up on the string and cutting the excess off. I didn’t have to worry about the string showing, and when it was time to pull the tampon out, I could grab that knot with my fingernails.

  Sylvia called me that afternoon, just when I would have been arriving back to the dorm if I hadn’t skipped swimming. She and I had talked often since the Stossel show, and she had been very good at issuing statements on my behalf and keeping the media off my back so that I could concentrate on my school work. That Stossel episode had itself made the news, and everyone from Barbara Walters to Britt Hume wanted to talk to me.

  “I heard on the grapevine that you are going to the music festival tomorrow,” Sylvia said.

  “Can you believe it?”

  “No. But it gives me a chance to expense a ticket for myself since there will be media there. As your agent, you are going to need me.”

  “Um, OK,” I said, wondering how the five of us were going to get to the festival grounds. Liz drove a Volkswagen Beetle, and Greg had an eight year old Prius.

  “Is that OK?” she asked.

  “I guess. How much is parking?”

  Sylvia laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll drive all of you. I have a mini-van.”

  “Oh cool!” I said.

  We talked a bit more about a story on me in Time magazine before ending the call. I went to dinner and sat with Liz and Audrey. Bruce and Zack were highly jealous of the rest of us for getting to go to the music festival, but Liz only had the two extra tickets. She wouldn’t say where she got them or how much she had paid, and it made me wonder if Dr. Slater or her backers weren’t behind the whole thing. I would have thought Liz would have offered those extra tickets to the guys before Greg and me.

  Liz, Audrey, and I met Greg in the dormitory foyer at 12:30 the next day, right after eating lunch. I was the only person not wearing shorts and a polo shirt. Greg greeted me with a kiss, prompting Liz and Audrey to both say, “Awe” in unison.

  “Sylvia’s got her van right outside,” he said, “so let’s go.”

  We all walked outside into the bright sunlight. I had put on a thick coat of SPF 90 sunblock and had brought a fresh bottle along as well, giving it to Liz to carry in h
er purse since it wouldn’t fit in my little hand bag. The high temperature was supposed to soar to over 95 degrees, and one weather forecast had us possibly hitting 100. A dark blue Honda Odyssey was sitting at the curb, the motor running and Sylvia behind the wheel. As we all piled in, I couldn’t help but feel the strangeness of getting into a van naked. Greg and I took the back seat, with Audrey by herself in the middle and Liz riding shotgun.

  Greg made idle conversation as I looked out the window. It had been so long since I had been off campus that the real world seemed strange. Sylvia followed the signs to a place called the Empire Polo Club, stopped at the gate, and then parked the van on a grass and dirt field with thousands of other vehicles.

  “We’ll have to walk a bit,” she said cheerfully.

  I had started wearing the sandals within the past couple of weeks since the afternoon temperatures had been getting consistently hotter. Those concrete walkways were too hot for bare feet, and the grass didn’t feel much better. Everyone climbed out of the van, but I stopped at the side door, looking around at all the cars in the parking lot, the dozens of people walking toward the gates of the festival.

  “Are we sure this is OK?” I asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Greg said, offering his hand.

  I took it and stepped out into the sunlight, naked in public, away from the campus yet still forbidden to wear clothing. Audrey slid the side door shut as Sylvia opened the back and asked Greg to lift the cooler out and onto the ground. After closing that back door, I winced at the click when Sylvia locked it with her key fob. I was naked in an unknown place, entrusting myself to four people I had known for less than six weeks. The feeling of vulnerability I had felt when I first left Dr. Slater’s office had returned. Greg handed me a bottle of water from the cooler.

  “Better stay hydrated,” he said.