by Forest, Will
“Ready to go?”
“Hi! Yeah, just give me a minute to get my tips.”
While Daphne headed over to the manager at the cash register, it occurred to Greg that an objective observer would think he had come to pick her up to go out to a club or a late movie or something: a date, an opportunity to act on the frisson that had blossomed from their mutual flirting. The idea excited him even thought he knew it was only a study date, a mandated meeting to work on the partner research project for Dr. Ross’s class.
Daphne came back. “We’re going to the library, right?”
Greg hesitated. “That’s what we said. But I already have the books we need.” He gestured toward his backpack. “Let’s go to my place. It’s just down the street, near the post office.”
Daphne smiled, intrigued. “My place is closer. Come on.”
As they walked the two blocks to Daphne’s apartment, they talked about whether she got free food at The Dive. Greg realized they were both hungry, and proposed a detour to the grocery store. “Let’s get something…Mesoamerican. You know, to inspire us for our project.”
“You mean Mexican?”
“Yeah,” Greg said, “Let’s get some tomatoes, chilies and avocados and make a salsa. And some beans.”
“Sounds good! Don’t forget the chips.”
***
“How was your day?” the provost’s wife asked him over dinner.
The dining room walls displayed photographed memories of family vacations. Before answering, Brad scrutinized a photo taken on a beach in Greece, his eyebrows raised at the younger, much slimmer, version of himself, sporting long swimming trunks and standing with his arm around his wife in her one-piece swimsuit.
“Remember that time we stumbled onto a nude beach?”
“What?”
“You know, in Crete. Naked folks on the beach.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. There were a lot of naked people. What does that have to do with how your day went?”
Brad swallowed his chicken and vegetables. “What do you remember about it? Just tell me.”
“I remember we ran away.” Lynne paused, turning her head to the left and squinting through her mascara, recalling the sun-soaked sky of that day, the waves rushing over their feet as they walked along, the eerie sense of something out of place as they passed into nudist territory unknowingly, with people—it seemed so sudden—nude and completely unselfconscious of the fact. And their voices! These people had spoken and shouted while nude, shamelessly, in a language she could not understand.
Lynne closed her eyes and sighed. “Thinking about it now, I wish we had joined them.”
Brad grunted and chewed some more chicken.
Like Taking a Bath
Daphne and Greg stepped into her apartment together. While she started emptying the grocery bags, he started taking off his clothes.
“Oh!” Daphne said, alarmed. “Greg, please…”
“Daphne, don’t get the wrong idea. I feel comfortable around you, and we’re here together to do class work, right?”
“My son is in the next room.”
Greg stopped unbuttoning. “Oh.”
Daphne smiled awkwardly.
Greg returned the smile and started unbuttoning again. “So?”
“He’s four years old.”
Greg stopped again. “Never seen a man naked, huh?”
“I don’t think he’s even seen me naked.”
“Maybe it’s not my place, but, you know, for me this whole naturism idea has exploded way beyond Dr. Ross’s class or the Humanities Building or even the ‘Nude-Out.’ I want to embrace it as a way of life. I’ve never felt this kind of freedom before! Now, clothes make me feel trapped.”
“You’re right, I know. I agree with you. And Dr. Ross is certainly very persuasive. I just don’t know how to deal with Adam.”
Greg kicked his shoes off. “In a lot of ways, I’d say. How come you don’t let people in class know you’re a mom? How come you don’t let your son see you naked?”
Daphne placed a few cans of beans on the countertop and sighed. “Don’t judge me. I’m lucky to be in class this semester at all, because it’s much more difficult than you could ever imagine to balance classes and my job at The Dive with daycare and the pediatrician…”
“I’m sorry. I’m not even going to ask.” Greg pulled the tomatoes and avocadoes from their bags. “But I really need to know how…”
“Don’t, Greg,” Daphne interrupted.
“Okay, okay.”
“Let’s just…make some nachos and prepare our presentation.”
“Mmmm…fresh cilantro,” Greg enthused.
Daphne felt the dawn of a realization that Greg’s comments did not spring from antagonism but rather true concern. She relaxed, smiled coquettishly, and brandished an avocado. “Did you know the Nahuatl…the Aztec word for avocado also means testicle?”
“Scrumptious!” Greg couldn’t resist. “Makes me want to rub guacamole all over my…”
“Mom! I’m hungry!”
“Dinner’ll be ready soon, Adam!” Daphne stared bright-eyed at Greg’s flushed face. “Come meet my new friend Greg!”
“Just a minute, Mommy!”
They started preparing the guacamole. When Daphne wasn’t looking, Greg removed his shirt. She turned around and saw him but didn’t say anything. He removed the rest of his clothes and began chopping the vegetables, surprised to feel tiny splashes of onion juice on his abdomen and groin. Daphne’s son came into the living room, kicking his soccer ball. From the other side of the countertop, Adam couldn’t see that Greg was naked below his waist. Greg decided to speak first.
“Hey Adam, do you like Mexican food?”
“I guess so.”
After a pause, Adam asked, “Do you like soccer?”
“Me?” said Greg. “I love it! I played on my high school team.”
Adam kicked his ball into the kitchen, and Greg left the onions to retrieve the ball and dribble it out into the living room. He sent the ball to Adam, who kicked it back to him. Then they set up a goal between the coffee table and the couch, and were kicking and running and hollering for a few minutes until Daphne had to yell, “Boys! Don’t knock over the lamp!”
“Aw, Mom!”
“I gotta help your Mom finish our dinner. How about it?”
“Am I going to look like you when I grow up?”
Daphne stopped slicing.
“Sure, you’ll get bigger and taller, and hairier. And stronger, especially if you eat right and exercise.”
Daphne walked around out of the kitchen, smiling at Greg. She began to undress as she said to her son: “You can take your clothes off too, if you want.”
“Okay!” yelled Adam, out of his shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and underwear in no time.
“I’ll finish the food. Why don’t you two set the table?”
“Good idea.” Greg looked out the glass door that opened onto the balcony, and cracked the door open a bit. “Hey, it’s getting dark out, and there’s a warm breeze. Can we use your balcony table?”
“Uhm, just, you know, be discreet,” said Daphne. “And use these citronella candles to keep the bugs away.”
“A candlelit nude dinner. One of my top choices for something that should happen every day.”
“And don’t forget towels for us to sit on. They’re in the hall closet.”
The opaque balcony wall, about four feet high, formed a right angle to a partial wall separating Daphne’s side of the balcony from her neighbor’s. From the balcony Greg could see the parking area, a row of trees, and another apartment building. Daphne brought out the guacamole, quesadillas, and spicy ground beef with beans.
“It certainly is warm out here,” said Daphne.
“Feels nice,” said Greg. “And the food is terrific. ¡Estupendo!”
“I like tacos a lot,” said Adam. “Why are we eating with our clothes off?”
“Do you need to have your clothes on to e
at?” Greg asked him.
“It’s good and healthy to be naked when you can, indoors but also outside if it’s warm enough,” Daphne added.
“Okay!” Adam giggled. “I like not wearing clothes!”
“I’m not surprised,” said his Mom.
“Me too!” said Greg.
Halfway through his meal, Adam crinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”
“Cigarette smoke,” Daphne whispered. “One of our neighbors must be smoking on the balcony.”
“See, I think smoking is bad,” whispered Greg. “In the first place it just stinks. In the second place, it’s bad for you and for the people around you. And in the third place, it’s bad for the environment because…do you know what ‘environment’ means?”
“Yeah,” Adam nodded. Then he shook his head.
“It’s like the stuff around you,” Greg continued, “the area where you live, and not just you but plants and animals too. Anyway smoking is bad for the environment because lots of smokers just drop their used cigarettes on the ground.”
“That can start a fire!” Adam shouted.
“You’re right, son,” said Daphne. “Keep your voice down please.”
“Now, some people think not wearing clothes is bad,” Greg said.
“I like not wearing clothes!”
“It’s alright, honey,” said Daphne, reaching across the table to touch Adam’s arm but creasing her brow at Greg. “We’ll just let those people go on thinking that for right now.”
Greg caught her look and debated changing the topic. “Someday we can go skinny-dipping. You’ll think that’s great!”
“Skinny-dipping?” Adam smiled. “What’s that?”
“It’s just swimming, but you don’t wear a swimsuit.”
“Like taking a bath!”
“Yep, like taking a bath,” Daphne said. “Now let’s finish up. It’s already late and you have school tomorrow, you know.”
Daphne let Adam blow out the candles. Greg cleared the table and washed the dishes while Daphne led Adam to his room to get ready for bed.
Ten minutes later, Daphne returned to the living room.
“Did you let him sleep in the nude?”
“Of course!”
Greg gazed at Daphne. “I’m really proud of you.”
“You know, you really don’t even know me that well.”
“Maybe not. But I know you’re a loving mother, and that you’re feeling more comfortable with your body and around other people’s bodies, and that you want your son to feel that way too. Those are some very important things to know!”
Daphne smiled. “And I know that you are a caring and attentive young man. But I’m worried about the way people automatically associate nudity with sex or with perversion. What’s Adam going to think when he tells somebody about being naked at home, and then that person talks him down, all angry and offended?”
“That’s a real good question. I think you just have to be proactive. Anticipate that he might—no, that he will—run into people like that. As long as he understands that not everybody feels the same way about nudity, then he should be able to sort things out.”
“What about sex?”
Greg licked his lips. “I’m ready!”
“Yeah, right, you wiseass! What I mean is, what if, a few years from now when he’s an adolescent, he confuses being nude with being sexual?”
“I don’t think Adam is going to get that confused. If you raise him with the idea that nudity is a positive and even common state to be in, he’s going to have the enlightened view, against the grain of the confusion that our society creates between nudity and sex. Adam will learn, someday, that being nude can have the same potential for sex as being clothed does.”
Daphne looked into Greg’s green eyes and smiled. Greg reached out to her arms and pulled her into a hug. “Thanks for caring,” Daphne said. “You’re a wonderful guy.”
“Why thank you! Now, don’t think I don’t care about our project,” Greg said. “After all, these are my ancestors we’re talking about here – you know, my grandma who lives in Mexico speaks Nahuatl.”
They draped their towels over the kitchen table chairs and sat down.
“I went to the library,” Greg continued, “but there wasn’t much information on nudity in ancient Mesoamerica. The most interesting aspect I could find is their communal sweat lodges called temazcalli. They were used by just about everybody, nude—sometimes many people at a time—and they were built in such a way that the bath attendant could control both heat and humidity. And they’d vary the wood for the fire based on which kind of smoky fragrance they wanted, whether it was a cleansing bath, or a curing, or a remembrance, or whatever.”
“Hmmm… maybe the different smokes had medicinal properties, like say oak was best if you had cramps, for example,” Daphne mused. “Well what I found out about modern Mexico is that there are a handful of nude beaches, according to the Internet. I found one on the Pacific coast that’s not official, and another three or four official ones on the Caribbean coast south of Cancún. One of them is an all-inclusive resort.”
“Wow! Wouldn’t it be great to go? I’m always looking for reasons to go to Mexico…you could come with me and meet my relatives!”
“Sure! But I could never afford…Anyway, we’ve got our own deal going on here, you know? Jacob set up a CRM website, and he says he gets email from student groups at other universities asking for specifics. We need to set up a blog, now that I think of it…”
“Why didn’t anybody think of a clothes-free college earlier? I mean, the ancient Greeks had the gymnasium, of course, but it wasn’t coed. I bet most college students today would agree with Adam when he said, ‘I like not wearing clothes!’” Greg laughed.
“He’s a great little guy, isn’t he?” Daphne went to check on him and then tiptoed back to the table, her breasts jiggling gracefully.
“Is he asleep?”
“Konked out. Now, about that leftover guacamole,” Daphne said mischievously.
“What did you say avocado means in Nahuatl?” Greg pretended not to remember.
Daphne kissed Greg. “Let me show you.”
Soon they were licking the smooth, spicy sauce off each other’s bodies, and neither of them felt the slightest confusion about the difference between nudity and sex.
Journal Entries
I stand up because I hear the professor call my name. I pick up my binder from the folding desk arm, make my way to the aisle, and walk to the front of the full auditorium with the sense that I’m being haunted, that all of this has happened before, maybe many times before. I sense the other students’ whispers and gazes directed at me as I pass them. I walk onto the dais and set down my binder on the podium. I adjust the microphone and begin to speak. I have no idea what I’m talking about up there and it doesn’t seem to matter. I hear, vaguely at first and then more clearly, a voice from the audience: She’s hiding. And another: Step out from behind the podium. And even as I realize: this is my dream, I’ve dreamt this so many times, I’m naked and I’m about to turn red because I discover…even as I realize this, I stop, and suddenly my perspective switches and I see myself from above, and I see myself step out from behind the podium and yell: “You’re all wearing clothes!” And that’s when I woke up, but not before glimpsing some blushing students in the front row desperately tearing their clothes off.
This is how the tables have turned for me, Dr. Ross. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised on that first day of the semester when you came to class undressed. You had already described for me your vision of the Palace of Fine Arts. But, I couldn’t help it: I was surprised. I did take my clothes off, you may recall, but I didn’t want to put the desks in a circle. It was just overwhelming. But now, I feel ‘comfortable in my skin.’ I’m enjoying the course, my partner project with Greg on Mexico is going well, and I’ve even been elected the CRM president.
After years of dreaming that old I’m-naked-at-school scenario,
I really did have the dream in my first paragraph. What more can I say?
Daphne Baldwin
***
About aesthetics: I think, and not only that but I feel, that art appreciation is projecting yourself into the role of the painter’s implied viewer, the musician’s implied listener, the author’s implied reader. This means you understand, perhaps even anticipate, the contrasting elements—the dialogue—of the artwork, thereby confirming the artistic experience in another human, in humanity. Of course, you grow into this and you can always appreciate in new ways. The value of re-reading or re-viewing or re-listening is critical analysis.
By the way my partner is Renee and our topic is nudism in Brazil. She chose the topic because she went to Brazil once. Since I’m an artist she told me about this mural she saw in Rio of a naked man and a naked woman dancing in the waves under some palm trees. The man and woman are black gods. She asked me to do my own version of this mural and use her and me as the models. Did you know she does life modeling? Will you accept my sketches as journal entries?
Terrence Jameson
***
Epiphany
I walk along the sidewalk
as slowly as possible for being so indignant
and for being so hot.
But the traffic doesn’t move.
But the lights keep changing.
When I see that the cause of the hold-up
is that everyone is watching an old woman
who is pissing on the corner,
interminably,
ignoring the flashing PISS and DONT PISS signs,
I rip my clothes off
and jump onto the hood of the nearest car.
I throw my clothes down
on the parallel yellow unbrokens
and piss on them, laughing and choking,
while the people in their air-conditioned cars freeze,
turning into complacent polar bears.
Brian Chapman
***
My research topic is the nudist resort/vacation industry in the United States. I get a lot of funny looks at the library! So far I’ve found only a couple books. Most of my sources are on the Internet. There are some very good sources – it seems like the industry is growing. There are nude cruises now, even nude flights to clothes-free locations. These resorts tend to be all-inclusive, so the vacationers don’t have to carry their wallets around with them. That’s especially good for nudists – no pockets! The traditional holiday destinations for nudists, like California beaches or Florida spas, are still popular, but there are more and more options now, like housing developments, bed & breakfasts, nude races, and nude getaway weekend packages. There are still old-style “nudist colony” trailer parks, which are fine for some people, but the colonies give a bad name to nudism according to other more progressive folks. But I think that the problem comes down to who’s got the money. If you can afford a nude cruise through the Greek isles, why not? But if you can’t, maybe a nudist camp is for you. I met a woman whose husband dragged her to a nudist camp and they ended up living there permanently. Except when they’re out on the Bay in their boat. Well, this is what I’ve got so far, Dr. Ross. I’m still working on it.
