7. Lindsey and Karen

Lindsey Appleton arrived at Yankee Joe’s Water Park shortly after noon. She was early for her life-guarding shift, earlier than usual actually, but had finished her errands quicker than expected so had come on to work. She had worked here for two years. The water park, open year around, had provided her work while she attended J.G. Cherry. She enjoyed working there, finding the work not too difficult and her coworkers pleasant enough to be around. She usually supervised the children’s pool and she got in all the swimming and sunning she could want. She considered Karen Cahill a good boss, even though she sometimes wondered if her boss was more interested in her than a straight boss would have been.

She chatted a bit with Crystal White who was working the cashier booth until some customers came up to the booth, then she went on to the female staff changing area.

Nobody was there, so she slowly removed her street clothes, grabbed a towel, and went to the shower. As she was leaving the shower, she noticed that Karen had entered the room. She said hello and proceeded to her locker. She reached for her park-issued uniform, a high-cut, one-piece bright yellow swimsuit with light blue trim, and a matching cap. Dropping the towel she noticed again that the uniform swimsuit had left her with clear tan lines, her abdomen being much lighter than her legs and arms. She had often wondered whether she should try tanning on her own time in a skimpier suit to allow her middle to become darker, but had never seen much point to it, since she felt that she spent enough time in the sun the way it was and she seldom wore midriff-revealing clothing.

As she was pulling the swimsuit on, Karen came over to her.

“I don’t know if we will be doing this or not. It’s a little too early to tell, but would you be available to work late evenings some, like until midnight or so,” the manager asked.

“I suppose I could. What’s up?”

“Well, we’re working on how to adapt to the changes coming statewide Thursday. We think we’ll be having late night swims for adults who want to skinnydip. The lawyers are still working on the details, but we figure that we will have a few hours in the late evening for that purpose.”

Lindsey had wondered what changes might be coming to the water park because of the recent court ruling, but had not spent a lot of time dwelling on the subject. She figured that the park would probably make clients wear their suits, and even if they didn’t, well she was a big girl and had seen it all before.

“Just adults? This has always been a family place.”

“Well, we need to adapt to new rules,” her boss answered, “and this may be what we have to do to allow the adult nude swims. I would just as soon have it all ages and the lawyers are looking at it. They are concerned that there may be some problem with minors being coerced into nudity. I certainly understand that, but I’m concerned with what might happen if people misconstrue what ‘adults only’ means. We think there is a market out there for people interested in social nudity. We really don’t want to make it a sexual thing, to have swingers here. That’s not the market we are looking for and it would be illegal to pander or provide anyway.

‘Well, I guess I can work that late, at least most nights, if we do the schedule right. I’ve seen naked people before. That shouldn’t be a problem. But I would hope that you have signage or something to remind the customers what the rules are. I suspect that most of the staff, especially us girls, would appreciate that. Some guy who wants to hit on me because he’s naked and thinks that gives him permission might bother me a bit, but he might be a real problem for some of the others here. After all, I’m up above. I have a whistle and a horn. Some of the others like Crystal or Georgia are more vulnerable. After all, they’re down there on the same level and they don’t have my horn.”

“Right. I will make sure that we get some kind of added security, maybe a bouncer or even an off-duty cop for the CO hours. We won’t put up with anything funny. Also, we’re going to keep staff dressed. The only one who will go naked might be me and I’m only going to do it when I want to.”

“You’re going to run around naked? Why would you want to do that? Not that you wouldn’t look good, I mean, but why you?”

“Well, some people can do it and others cannot. I can. I’ve had some exposure, if that’s the word, to social nudity and I think that it would be good to have somebody working here who is naked and think I can handle it. I think it would be more welcoming.”

She reached into a locker and pulled out two strips of fabric, bright yellow with a light blue trim, the same colors as employee uniforms.

“See these?” she asked. “I’m going to sew these up and they will be my uniform. One on my left arm. One on my left thigh.”

“Well, I’m sure you would look good and stunning in them. But if you’re doing the naked thing, aren’t you going to expect us to do it too.”

“No, I won’t. I’m not even comfortable with any of you who work here, female or male, doing that even if you want to. I do think it would make clients feel more welcome, but I think it would be an untenable position from a management point of view.

“How’s that?”

“If people think that being nude is a job requirement, they won’t want to work here. And if they somehow see it as a help for promotion, there would be dissention among the employees. And most of you are young. You may be legally old enough to make the choice yourself, but not old enough that you can really be sure that you might not regret it later, especially if your picture gets around and it will.”

“Yeah, I know how that can happen. An old boyfriend of mine has put naked pix of me on the internet and I wasn’t even naked. We never took things that far, but he found some pictures. What he found weren’t nude pictures, so he had to make them nude. I don’t think he is that talented with the software, but his bitch sister is and she never did like me.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a small note pad and scribbled something down. She tore off the slip and handed it to Karen. “There, that’s the URL, at least one URL that he has put them up on. I talked to an attorney but she didn’t think there was much we could do so the whole world can think they have seen me nude. It really isn’t a bad job of photo editing, except my boobs aren’t that big and I don’t have that tattoo. But I can’t prove that I don’t have that tattoo unless I show more of me than I would be comfortable showing.”

“He must have been a real bastard.”

“Still is.”

“Isn’t there anything much you can do about him? After all, that’s pretty shitty.”

“We’ll, I’m working on something. But it’s too early to talk about it."

“Well, good luck. I’ll be going. And it’s almost time for you to get to work.”

Lindsey looked at the clock on the wall and acknowledged that she would need to be moving and thanked Karen for giving her an update on what was going on. At one o’clock she ascended the steps to the lifeguard station wearing her swimsuit uniform, the matching cap, and carrying a whistle on a lanyard and began to watch the children romping in the water.

Shortly after 2:30 Karen came by and shouted up to her, “I looked that up. You really do look good. But you can tell that they’re fakes. Good fakes, but fakes.”

Lindsey glanced down quickly, smiled at her boss, and turned her head back to her job.

6. Donald and Gordon

Donald Mays was sitting in his office at Mays Machinery. He enjoyed the Saturday solitude the office provided. There had been a lot of overtime work for the employees in the shop in the next building lately, but this Saturday was not one of them and outside of a guard and a watchman [actually a watchwoman] there was nobody else there.

He was wearing a pair of loose denim cutoffs and a golf shirt. He had slipped his sandals off and was puffing his pipe and leaning back in his chair reading a report on inventory management by his young, new plant manager with some recent inventory reports stretched across his lap for cross-referencing when his cell phone sounded.

It was John Kennedy, his uncle by marriage with whom he had shared indictment in the previous decade, calling from his retirement home in Italy. John and his wife, Sarah, were generally included in memos and emails but they no longer paid a lot of attention to the details of the Family businesses.

“You and Connor still thinking that you can pull this thing off and make the public want clothes freedom?” he asked.

Donald chuckled to himself at the omission of Edna’s name.

“We sure hope so. It looks like it will go one of two ways and this would sure be the better choice.”

“That’s the way I’ve been reading it too. My Don and Brenda both seem to agree, but Brenda wonders about Simon. I know you’ve probably got the votes and proxies to quash him on almost anything these days, but we hope he can be brought into agreement. Do you think Sarah should call him?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Donald noted. “Simon’s keeping his opinion to himself, so fat, it seems, but nobody wants to hurt him, even if we don’t agree.”

“Yeah, even I don’t want to hurt him even though I know he detests me.”

“Well, he seems to tolerate me these days and we got into that together and we’re the ones who paid.”

‘But you’re blood.”

“I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s because I’m here and he thinks you are hiding in shame. You know he has always said that people who hide usually have a reason.”

‘Yeah, I know. But I was retirement age already when that all came down and I sure didn’t feel like starting again. He knows that and you do too. And Sarah likes it here so much. I promised her thirty years ago that we would retire here. But you know all that.”

“Well, Aunt Sarah might want to call him. Like I said, it couldn’t hurt. And tell her that whatever happens we won’t be hard on Simon. And he has been invited for tomorrow night. I don’t imagine that he’ll come, but he is invited.”

They talked a bit more about Italian summer and old times and hung up. About a minute later, his cell phone rang again.

It was Gordon. “I’ve got the preliminary general report here – fresh. Bill just gave it his imprimatur. The more specific stuff for specific clients who have hired us is still being fixed up a bit. It is pretty much as we figured it would be. Do you want me to email it or fax it to you?”

“Just email it, I guess. I’m here at the office and can print it out if I need to. Who else is seeing this?”

“Well, I’ll send copies to others in the Family. I think Edna wants to see it right away, and I guess Connor wants the quick peek, too. But this is the one that you and Edna wanted us to prepare for the general use of the community and I guess we’ll send it out to just about anybody with all the proper disclaimers pretty quick, unless you or she disagrees.”

“If Bill has signed off on it, that’s fine with me. I suspect it is fine with Edna too, but you better ask her. You know how she gets sometimes.”

“Well, you decided what you’re going to do at the machine shop?

“I’m not sure what I can do. Even if I can, I don’t think I’d ask the office staff to do go around naked and I really can’t with the shop people. I assume that if a naked person came to the office to discuss whatever we won’t stop them. What I’m not really sure about is what I suspect that a lot of employers are wondering about, is voluntary staff nudity. How do we establish that it is voluntary?”

“Well, I suspect that somebody can draw up a Harrison form for the case, but it does seem a little extreme. It might be necessary. The water park might be tricky that way.

“What about the water park?”

“Well, we’ll have to discuss this a little more, but I think we’ll do pretty much what Karen has suggested, a mixed approach. This is one of the things where the new rules can really help this town. She knows that place is a pretty good draw, but thinks it could become a really big one, but she’s afraid of totally turning off the traditional crowd in case Bear rights don’t last. I’m not sure about the exact hours, but I guess that they’ll allow naked in the morning, keep it traditional afternoon and evening, and allow naked again -- actually I think she wants to make it mandatory nude in the late evening.. I guess we’re kind of hoping that they can pump up the hospitality business by people who want to be here for the morning coming the night before or don’t want to go back home after late night skinnydipping. We’ll keep the staff dressed up, I guess, except for the late evenings, although if there were any place of work where staff might want to take it off, t would think a water park would be the place. But I’m not sure I can go with the mandatory staff nudity and I wonder if they have the staff to carry it off. But I’m not their lawyer and I’m not sure they have a final legal opinion to work from yet.”

“Well, of course, but you and I both are stockholders and we’re concerned. We can’t make a ruling ourselves. I’ll be surprised if Karen isn’t figuring on getting in the mood herself. I’ll bet that niece of yours has made her suggestions. She’s really is a slut. She’s damned smart one and I really do like her, but she doesn’t really believe in social nudity. She’s just a slut who likes to be naked. But we have discussed it before, how the way she makes that boyfriend of hers shave and strip is scandalous and how we wonder why he continues to let her boss him like that. He seems so hard-working and he’s going to college the hard way. I’ve offered him a job a couple of times because I like his dedication, but he has turned me down, I think because he figures that I am only offering to hire him because he is Christina’s boyfriend. He’s partly right, of course since I probably would not know him if she wasn’t bringing him around, but he has somehow still has some pride, I guess. But, back to Karen. You know that she really is pretty good looking, even if she isn’t much interested in men. I’ve never actually seen the product, but the package looks good.”

“Well, I saw her a few years ago when she was brand new in town and Emily had her over for dinner and asked me if I would stop by. Karen had just come to town and I really don’t think that Emily knew about her orientation. She just wanted to get better acquainted with the new manager of one of the businesses and I think maybe she thought that Karen was younger than she is and she could play matchmaker. She asked Christina if she would mind dressing for the company, but you can guess how well that went over. Anyway, Emily ended up explaining the Compound’s policy with her and after some challenge from Christina about her swimming ability they all ended up swimming in Edna’s pool. Christina pretended to be drowning and made Karen get her out. But you’re right. She does look pretty good. Firm body, boobs that don’t sag, nice trim.”

Donald cut him off and asked, “Yeah, I’m sure she looks real great. Too bad for the men of the area that she’s not straight. But let’s get back to business. Is Davis doing their legal work on this?”

“No, Bill owns a piece of the park, indirectly, so he sent the matter off to Polson in Elmerton. Jane was helping them on it, but doesn’t have the file.”

Polson, Polson, and Andrews was a law firm in Elmerton which was headquartered in the same building as the law office of Gordon’s stepmother, Jane Alpek. They sometimes farmed work to her.

“That how we usually do the legal for Yankee’s?” Donald asked.

“Yeah. It’s ethically sounder.”

“What’s your guess? They going to say it’s all right to have nudity required for late night?”

“Well, I don’t know. From the review of the laws as they are being brought out, I don’t think it would be worth the hassle to do it, even if it could be constructed that way.”

“How about staff nudity?”

“Well, I want to see the advice of counsel, but I don’t think I’d allow it at all if it were up to me. If a staff person really wants to take it off, maybe, but I’d insist on a Harrison. I think a CO water park will be draw enough for a while and you would rather wait until somebody else fights the legal battles first.”

“Grandpa would be proud of you. He never wanted to have our necks out legally speaking.”

“Thanks. We’ll all be talking later.”

“Has Edna called you yet about tomorrow night?”

“Well, I know that she wanted to have a family business meeting, but I haven’t heard the details, although it might be on some unchecked voice mail.”

“I guess 7:00 at Adams. If not there, Jackson.”

“Well, I’ll see you then.”

Donald put his phone back into his pocket and returned to his reports.

5. Laura's Saturday (II)

After she had left Lee off, Laura Lyon proceeded to her coffee shop, Java Juba Lee, arriving at her usual Saturday arrival time of 5:45. There was a bundle of newpapers sitting at her door and Lontrell Phillips was waiting for her. Lontrell was a student at J.G. Cherry College who had not left town for the summer, having obtained employment from the college for the summer and supplementing that work with part-time work with Laura.

Lontrell was a young, short, and small black man, an obviously gifted student who wanted to study classical Greek history and literature. She had seen his ID before hiring him and knew that he was nineteen years old, but his size, hairless face, and nonmuscular build made him look four or five years younger, she thought.

Laura had forgotten that Twyla had convinced Lontrell to cover this shift for her. Laura had noted that this was a request almost certain to be granted, that Lontrell seemed eager to get as much work as he could get and that he seemed to be infatuated with Twyla. Laura suspected that Twyla was taking advantage of the young man, but figured that as long as the work was done by somebody she could work with that it was not any of her concern. He might as well learn that women will take advantage of men whenever they can while he was still young, she thought to herself.

Lontrell was early, also, she noted. He wasn’t supposed to be there until six, but she knew that he was never late. At first she thought that his earliness was from a desire to suck up to her, but lately she was beginning to think that he just had a good work ethic and a good sense of timing. One of his professors had told her that the young man was also early to every class and once had apologized for being less early than usual when a previous class had run overtime.

She unlocked the door and entered, putting her purse in her locker. She went back to pick up the bundle of newspapers which had been delivered by a news agency out of Blacksburg, containing one or two copies of several regional and national newspapers for her customers’ reading, but saw that Lontrell had already picked it up. She thanked him and went about the business of setting the coffee shop up for its 6:30 opening. Even though it was not yet 6:00, Lontrell started helping her.

With pastries having been delivered shortly after six and the kitchen cleaned and prepared, she unlocked the front door about two minutes early. Clyde was waiting to enter.

Clyde was always the first customer every Saturday. Nobody seemed to know exactly where he lived, what he did, or what his last name was or even if Clyde was really his first name. He was tall and always wore the same red flannel shirt and overalls which often seemed unlaundered and were sometimes quite offensive. He always ordered the largest espresso and sat at the same booth, reading the newspapers provided. He never tipped. If anybody chose to engage him in conversation, he would always give his input into any topic he was an expert in and that seemed to be whatever topic was brought up.

“Good morning, Laura,” he said as he entered. After he receiced his coffee, he grabbed his seat and began reading. He looked up at Lontrell and asked Laura where Twyla was.

“Don’t know,” Laura answered. “She’s off today.” She was sure that Clyde was disappointed, that he would rather look at Twyla than at Lontrell.

Customers were arriving slower than usual and Clyde, finding nobody else to talk to, spoke across the room to Laura, asking, “You going to have your staff working naked next week?”

Laura felt like answering, “NO! No, you creep,” but kept her cool.

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “I’m pretty sure not. There are too many legal things not worked out yet and, besides, I want people to come here for the coffee and the food.”

“You might want to think about it again. You’d bring in a lot more people if you weren’t covered up in that uniform. And if a couple of your girls went along, it would help you too.”

“Well, as I said, I don’t want the staff to be the attraction.”

“What about the customers, then? You gonna let us in naked?”

Laura started to blanch a bit at the thought of a naked Clyde. “I don’t know. I want to learn some more and think it over. It may be that I don’t have any choice, but I think I do.”

“Well, you’re just about out of time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Laura sighed as she stepped into the back room. She really did not wish to continue the discussion.

She looked out a few minutes later as Alicia Bowman was coming in and watched as Lontrell took and filled her order and Alicia took a seat at a table far removed from Clyde. She decided to come back out and greeted Alicia,

“Morning, Alicia? Tim coming in this morning?”

“Don’t think so. He’s got a store to run and Harley’s not around. Had to go to Michigan. His sister’s pretty sick. He’s supposed to be back tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry. I thought he went back there a couple of years ago because she had passed away.”

“This is another sister. I’m not sure how many he had, but I guess he has at least one left in Michigan and I know he has a brother in Indiana. Some families were a lot bigger back then, you know?”

“Who’s watching the kids?”

“Well, Deanna’s with Tim. She likes to help out and I guess he has something she can do there. Derek slept over with Ron over at Carla’s. Brittany stayed with us and is going to the store with Tim until Carla picks her up. I’m sure glad that we were able to get our kids the same gender and so close to the same age and that they get along so well. This is just Mom’s morning off. But I’ll have to get the groceries before long. After all, a woman’s work is never done.”

“Good point.”

“Tell me, Laura, what are you going to do on Thursday? The TV and papers are starting to call it N-Day, you know.”

Laura noticed that Clyde was starting to leave and hoped he had not heard that question, that she wanted him out of earshot before starting this discussion and did not want him lingering. She told Alicia in a soft voice that she would be back in a minute and made a quick trip to the back. The maneuver worked and when Clyde was gone she returned and grabbed a seat across from Alicia.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m darned certain that I’m keeping my clothes on and I expect my crew to do so too. Edna and Donald have suggested that some nudes in hospitality businesses might help the city’s economy, but if I was working for somebody else, I would not want my employer to ask me, even politely, to take my clothes off, so I won’t ask anybody to do it. Besides, I’m not sure that I would want any of them to do it anyway. You work for Davis and Mays. What have you heard?”

“Well, I’m not really in the loop. But I know that Bill had the paras and a couple of the attorneys working on the angles, of course the laws are still in process and that makes it tricky. I understand what you said about what Donald and Edna want. But if they want me to sit behind that desk naked they’re kidding.”

“Well, Gordon said that it would certainly not be allowed for an employer to require employee nudity and I kind of imagine that they wouldn’t even want to do anything which could remotely put themselves in jeopardy, but they sure seem to have their hints to us.”

“That is a relief, you know. I just wish it was one of the partners saying that. You know, I’m not really a prude,” Alicia replied. “I may make use of this new freedom, my Bear rights, even though I didn’t ask for it, but I’m certainly not go to go around naked as a condition of employment. It is too close to prostitution for me. It certainly would be pandering. I know it’s not quite the same, but it’s too close. Besides, I’m chubby enough that I won’t help anybody’s business, anyway.”

“You know how many times I’ve heard ‘I’m not a prude, but . . .’ said in the last few weeks?” Laura asked, proceeding to reply to her own question, “I don’t have a count, but it happens a lot, and a lot of times with just those words. There is no doubt that the court got a lot of people talking.”

“Do you hear a lot of answers?” Alicia asked.

“Well, I am surprised by how many people indicate that they might want to try it once, but still think it’s not all that good of an idea. I suspect that we all have a bit of an exhibitionist tendency somewhere in our heads, but that most of us lack security to actually do it and that we are insecure in several ways.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I suspect that most people are not secure about how they look. Men, women, probably children too – maybe even especially older children, but I don’t hear them most of the places I am, nobody really feels all that secure about their looks. And even those who do feel that good about their looks aren’t all that sure that they want their bare flesh and all their warts and strange bumps and pockets of cellulite observed by anybody and everybody. They’d like some control over the audience. And they are scared that their nudity will be perceived as an invitation to sexual overtures. Most people get horny and start looking once in a while, but they want to control who they advertise to. We all want control.”

Alicia had heard a few things about her hostess and wondered how many men in the area could testify about the truth of the last part of that comment.

Speaking in a softer tone as to indicate that she was discussing something which was best not generally circulated, she said to Laura, “You know, when Deanna was a baby, we left her and Derek with Susan for a few days and went camping in Illinois and there was this nice, clear stream so isolated from everything else around there that we actually went skinnydipping a couple of nights after it got late. It was fun. Tim compared it with going to Anderson’s Beach with your brother, but said it was more fun looking at me than at Albert.”

“I bet you thanked him for that compliment.”

“Well, I appreciated the comment, although it really didn’t tell me much. If I had of thought he was the kind of guy who figured that Albert was better looking than me, I never would have married him. You know, part of the fun was the unconventionality of the whole thing, but part of it was that it just felt so good, so sensual. We went back on the third night, but others had found the place that night and we just went back to our tent. They were older and somehow we just didn’t want to join them. We didn’t know what kind of people they were and didn’t want to take a chance.”

“You didn’t ask them if they minded your joining them?”

“Never spoke to them. We don’t even know if they knew we had come by.”

“If you could have passed by them and they didn’t notice, wouldn’t it be possible that somebody came by while you were there and you didn’t notice?”

“Yeah, we’ve wondered about that sometimes, but I guess there’s not a lot to do about it now. But we’ve wondered if they were wife-swappers or something like that and we weren’t into that. Still aren’t.”

4. Laura's Saturday

Laura’s alarm clock aroused her at it usual ten minutes before five o’clock on Saturday morning. She reached over and turned it off, sliding her body to the edge of the bed and looking over to the naked body next to hers, now only partly covered by a sheet.

Without bothering to cover herself she shook the bed and woke him up. Feeling certain that she had obtained his attention and that he would know what to do, she headed for her shower. Somehow a shower, even a quick one like this one was destined to be, seemed to provide a symbolic cleaning from the previous night’s indulgences as well as providing well-needed cleansing for her body. Somehow she knew that having Lee over was not the best thing she could do, that she was now old enough and mature enough that she should have developed more permanent and better arrangements, but somehow she had never been able to get around to that. Lee was always available and willing to be called at her whim, it seemed, and he was pretty good at taking care of her urges, so once or twice a month she found herself entertaining him in her bedroom.

Lee did not rise immediately. He had been through this drill with Laura enough times to know how it played out. He had given her what she had wanted and was now just surplus protoplasm to her. He knew that she would be maintain an air of civility and after giving him a bagel and coffee, take him to his car and let him go away. He pulled the sheet off and spun his legs off his side of the bed. He saw a used condom somehow indiscreetly lying on the fitted sheet and unceremoniously tossed it into the waste basket. He thought of going to the shower with her to see if he could interest her in further liaison, but experience told him that once Laura was up, that getting to work was the only thing on her mind. So he just sat there and waited for Laura to came out

“Clean up if you want,” he heard her say as she left the shower, still naked and rubbing her towel over her still damp body. “I’ll get the coffee ready.”

He followed the cue and got up. He did not really like Laura’s shower that much. The nozzle sat a little low and the environment seemed just a little too feminine. While Laura’s bedroom somehow seemed genderless, something about the bathroom and shower just reeked of estrogen. Maybe it was the pink décor, perhaps the pink of the towels, or perhaps the bath and shower items from lines of merchandise obviously never marketed to people with Y chromosomes.

He knew where the guest towels were and grabbed one and quickly dried himself up. He left the bathroom and returned to the bedroom to retrieve his clothes at the same time that Laura was coming in from the kitchen to grab hers. They talked little as they dressed.

Lee had known Laura for the six years he had been in Conway Corners and enjoyed looking at the short blonde whose baseball-sized breasts seemed quite perky for a woman of her age. He knew that the two of them could never have a future together and that she knew that too and he appreciated the no-strings attitude of their liaisons. He knew that they were different kind of people. Laura’s coffee shop was undoubtedly profitable, but he couldn’t imagine that no matter how many hours she put into it that it could ever make her more than slightly independent, but it demonstrated a drive and ambition which he had never really for himself.

“You know, you really should try running that place nude some time,” he told her. “You do look quite good. You could make yourself quite a tourist attraction and you could raise the price to ten bucks a cup.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Laura commented. She really did not think he was an Adonis, but he didn’t look so bad for a thirty-something American Literature teacher. “but it really is a shame that your best-looking parts are never in public view. I don’t suppose that your students will ever get to see that.”

“Well, we all got an email from the union Thursday that advised us to keep our clothes on even when this change comes about, at least when around our own communities. Their attorneys fear that community standards clauses in our contracts which might be construed to say that we have broken our contracts if we aren’t careful.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you’d ever have the fortitude to do it anyway. Some men are exhibitionists, almost, actually in many cases, pervertedly so. But I suppose that most of you are more comfortable keeping it all covered up. You probably will not mind that there are other guys who do strut things, but it seems that you all seem to think yourselves so vulnerable to have their units unprotected and on display. You guys all have a subconscious fear of having yourselves unprotected as if somebody or something is going to come up and do something to them. And none of you think that you are big enough and you’re all afraid that everybody else will learn what you have always considered a personal shortcoming or embarrassment. As for me, I am not sure that I really give a fuck about how much of me people see. I’m planning on going to Edna’s meeting on Monday and maybe on skinnydipping in her pool if somebody else is doing it, but I don’t want to be strutting my stuff at my shop and I don’t expect anybody who works for me to. I have worked hard to make the coffee and food the attraction, the magnet which draws customers and I don’t want to become the attraction myself. And I don’t want to pimp my staff which is what I think Donald and Edna want me to do. I imagine that that old pervert Donald would like me to shave too.”

“You look fine. Shaving would be just a gimmick. And it might be illegal if it seemed that there was a commercial reason for it. You go to Judy’s in Elmerton when they have the strippers and you can see that the ones who don’t have the rest of the act right -- the looks, the talent, the charisma – are the ones who are smooth.”

“I was there once when I was at Cherry,” Laura noted. “Some of us girls got brave once. I think that was back when they brought the dancers in only once a week, but I remember the smoke and the smell of stale beer which somehow seemed worse than in other bars and I remember the guys with the hard hats trying to get us to join the act and the way they looked at us. Some of the other girls got scared. I don’t remember feeling scared, but I do remember feeling very uncomfortable. And I started to wonder if the women who were working there were really happy doing it. A few years later I met a former dancer who had worked out of someplace in Indiana who told me that when she was dancing she felt powerful, that she was exploiting the suckers who were paying out good money just to look at her body, but I’m not sure I follow that. She might of believed it and maybe it was true for her, but it seems that the ones we saw were being exploited, not exploiting.”

By now they were both dressed and Lee had gobbled down his bagel and swallowed some coffee. He always wondered how somebody who ran a coffee shop would use Maxwell House at home, but he never brought the matter up. He was sure that it was indeed what she generally used when she was at home and not some way of slighting him.

They left her kitchen and entered the enclosed garage, getting into Laura’s five-year-old Toyota sedan. Laura hit the door opener button and they left and went to the place near downtown where Lee had left his car. This was the way Laura always wanted it when she brought Lee in for what she called “late night exercises.” She wasn’t particularly embarrassed to have him over, she told herself, but she didn’t want to advertise it, either. Lee accepted the arrangement as part of the process of being laid.

As he left her car she said, “Stop over for breakfast if you wish.”

He said thanks, but they both knew that he probably would not.

3. Edna talks to Christina

Edna had just finished a light supper and had retired to her living room to read some company memos while sipping a Manhattan she had just made herself. She had discharged Polly, her maid, for the day She was wearing a short, loose, wrap-around, denim skirt and a sleeveless shirt she had taken from her “old clothes” closet. She liked the skirt, but knew that it was not appropriate for going anyplace, because it could not be counted on to provide necessary coverage if she moved, stretched or displayed her legs wrong while sitting. But it was ideal for an evening by herself.

She heard a knock on her back door which she recognized as being that of her niece, Christina.

“Come in,: she shouted.

Two naked people entered the house, their nakedness emphasized by the fact that they both had shaved pubic areas. They were both twenty years old. The woman was Christina, Emily’s only child, who was from her second marriage. She was tall and had a figure that Edna would have envied at any age. The man was Justin Matheson, her boyfriend who stood about six feet tall with a moderately muscular build and was obviously, well-hung. Christina had chosen him to be her boyfriend shortly after her mother and she had returned to Conway Corners when she and Justin were both about ten and had held on to him since then even while she was at Princeton and he was attending a public university half an hour from Conway Corners. Justin did not belong to the same caste as the Family. His family was what is sometimes called “white trash.” His parents, like Christina’s were divorced, but neither had ever made much money and his father had not been heard from for several years. But Christina had held on to her Justin despite repeated suggestions from her mother and others in the family and had brought him around the Compound often. Edna noticed that Justin never seemed completely comfortable there, even when Christina let him be dressed, but he behaved himself well and was relatively well-adjusted in the Compound environment. Christina had shown distaste for clothes since she was a little girl and expected her boyfriend to exhibit the same attitude. Edna was not sure how much or whether Justin really enjoyed social nudity and suspected that being shaved was not his idea, but she had to admit that he kept his chin up.

“Grab some drinks,” Edna shouted into the next room where Christina was already reaching for the refrigerator and extracting two beers. She opened them both and handed one to Justin and they went into the living room.

“You look tight,” Christina said to her aunt. “Why not stretch out?”

Edna knew what Christina meant and although she did not feel especially tense or stressed did appreciate her niece’s concern so she got up, slipped her shirt off, and lay down on the floor in front of the couch. Christina reached into the side table and pulled out a bottle of scented oil.

As she knelt by her aunt, Justin knowingly grabbed a towel off a shelf and sat in a reclining chair nearby.

“How did your meeting go?” Christina asked as she started to rub her aunt’s shoulders.

“I guess it went all right,” Edna answered as her niece worked over her muscles. “You know it can take a while for this all to soak in all of us. I’ve been thinking of it for a few weeks now, but maybe I got to thinking about it so early because Donald got me to thinking about it. Most of our small business people stay busy enough just running their businesses to think of the long-term challenges and opportunities that are coming up. And, of course, a lot of them somehow thought the politicians would get this straightened out. But as of now it looks like you’ll be able to walk right through the center of town Thursday afternoon stark naked and I’m sure you will and perhaps you will find a welcome in Laura’s place or someplace else around there.”

“Laura’s going along?” the younger woman asked.

“I don’t know. I hope so, but I know she isn’t finding it easy.”

“She shouldn’t be so stuck up about it. She ain’t no virgin or nothing. I’ve heard things about her.”

“Well, we pretty much hear a lot about everybody. I’ve heard some things about Laura too. But even if they’re true, that’s really kind of irrelevant. She needs to run her business by making business decisions. And I think she could probably extend a better welcome to her new customers if she took things off, but I can see why she might not want to or ask Twyla or anybody else working there to. Remember, it’s not just what is on site. If she is nude in public, somebody will get her picture and the whole world will see it. I’ve made up my mind and I’m sure that by this time next week my naked self will be seen across the world. It’s part of my contribution to this community which has done many good things for our family and because I want to keep newly won rights for all of us. But Laura is younger so she will have longer to go with the consequences, whatever they are. And she’s a lot better looking and she’s in the public more than I am, so there will be more cameras pointed at her. And Twyla is younger still and will have the problem more.”

“Well, I suppose I can be a distraction and save her some of that,” Christina noted.

“I imagine that you will, although I don’t really think that you have thought it all out,” Edna answered. “And you wouldn’t spare her much. There are lots of cameras and lots of memory cards and sticks and film. We’ll all become freaks for a while and I suppose somewhere lonely teenage boys and old men alike will be getting off on us. Of course, they can do that when we’re dressed too, but this will aggravate their horninesses.”

“They get off on me all the time, even when they see me dressed,” Christina noted. “It’s a part of being a good-looking woman. Justin is the only one who gets off in me, but who knows how many get off on me. Or even on you, at your age.”

Edna thought that the last statement said a lot about her niece. Although she was very fond of her sister’s daughter, she did think Christina egotistical. And although she knew that she was no longer a young woman, she also did not appreciated the comment on her age. And she saw Justin turning a bit red at the comment on where he got off.

“Some day, my dear little niece,” she said, “you’ll be older. Those boobs won’t be so perky and that waist won’t be so tight. Age treats us all somewhat differently, but it doesn’t do any of us any favors. I never was bad looking but I was never a good-looker like you are when I was twenty. Time has treated me well. There are people I went to college with who now just wish they could keep up with me. Your waist will grow. Genes mean a lot. Your mother fights it and from the last time I saw your father he quit fighting. Your boobs will sag, not as bad as a lot of our more endowed sisters, but they’ll go down a bit. Even if legalized nakedness continues until you are approaching fifty – and I hope it does because I really believe in body freedom – you may want to cover yourself all the time so people won’t see your sagging boobs on your plump body. Enjoy it while you can, but you keep up the exercises to keep those muscles working. You know that I really think you need that bra when you’re going to be dressed anyway, but let’s get off of this subject. We’ve discussed this before and I’m sure we are really boring poor Justin here. And you’ve pretty much finished my back so I’ll get up and get myself another Manhattan and we’ll chat a bit more. I would like your help on Monday.”

Christina got up and let her aunt rise. As Edna went to refill her drink, Christina grabbed a seat on Justin’s lap.

“Can I get you two anything?” Edna shouted out.

“Justin looks a little dry,” Christina answered. “I’m OK though.”

Edna returned with a beer for Justin and a Manhattan for herself. She threw a towel over the back and fell back into the chair she had previously occupied. She did not bother to put her shirt back on and she carefully adjusted her short skirt as she sat. Justin and Christina had both seen her body many times, but somehow instinct told her to adjust the skirt so her niece and her niece’s boyfriend could not look up it.

“You know about the barbecue Monday night?” she asked her guests.

“We’ve heard about it, but I don’t know the details,” Christina answered. “Mom said that you were going to have some of the city’s business leaders over some kind of emergency powwow. I suppose your red flag will be up.”

Every house in the compound had flagpoles. While some of them flew American flags from poles in front of their homes, they all had poles in back on which they flew various other banners. A plain red flag indicated that somebody was hosting people who might be offended by nudity. A red and white striped flag indicated that something scheduled for the next couple of days would require a red flag.

“Oh, no,” Edna answered. “Definitely not. Donald is the brain behind this, but we have decided to have it here because we might do a pig and I’ve got the bigger fire pit and I’ve got the pool. But we want to get business people here to discuss next Thursday and what follows when we will have better information on what the special session has done. We’ll have a barbecue to start out before the meeting. And we want to allow people to see social nudity and maybe try it themselves. That’s why the pool may be important. Nothing makes more people nudists than swimming.”

“What can we do?” Christina asked.

“Well, if you are willing to be nude –“

“You’ve already heard me say that I’m looking to be downtown at noon on Thursday to be the first. Justin will be with me.”

Edna thought she saw a grimace on the young man’s face.

“Well, I know that and it’s your choice and I do wonder about whether your zeal may be misplaced, but what I was saying was that if you are willing to be nude while our guests are here, it might help set the mood. It won’t be public. It’ll be right here. Your mother’s coming. I don’t know if she’ll be dressed or not. Somehow I suspect that if Ashley’s here that she’ll find a reason to be naked before the evening’s over. Even if you’re just swimming while the guests arrive, it could help to make the mood. After we eat we will adjourn for a meeting to discuss the new situation. If we don’t get too many we’ll use my drawing room. If we get more, we’ll use your mother’s or Donald’s. We really haven’t worked that out yet. And I imagine that when the meeting is over, that if anybody wants a late-night dip or left-over snack, that we’ll have some of that.”

Edna looked at the couple sitting across the room. Christina was still sitting on Justin and their hands were making extensive contact with each other’s body surface. She added one moiré comment, “But if you come, please lay off of each other. We want to make people comfortable with social nudity, not sexual nudity.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Edna,” Christina answered. “We’ll behave ourselves, at least until after they’ve gone home.”

“Thank you.” Edna still had her doubts but figured that she needed their presence enough that she would have to take the risk. Beside, with Christina’s mother coming and their living next door it would be hard to keep her from coming over.

Christina got up off of Justin and stood up. Justin stood up too. Edna was amazed that he did not seem erect.

‘Well, we should be going,” Christina said. “We’ll figure on being here. Of course, we’ll see you in the meantime.”

“Fine,” Edna answered as she rose herself to take her guests to the sliding door in back through which they had entered.

Edna bid them farewell, grabbed a diet cola, and returned to her chair, picking up a Malloy Northern company memo and commenting to herself that outside of his brief comments when coming and going that she had not heard Justin say anything. “When will that girl allow him to speak,” she said to her self softly. “And when will he get the nerve to say something?”

2. Discussion at Java Juba Lee

Laura Lyon was sitting in a rear corner booth in her coffee shop, Java Juba Lee with Phil Eaton and Tim Bowman, the owner of A.L. Bowman Hardware a block away. It was almost five in the evening after Edna Malloy’s noontime meeting. Tim had not been to the meeting and Laura and Phil were discussing it with him.

“Well, I had done a little thought about what I’ll do when a naked person comes in the first time,” Tim was saying. “Somehow, it just doesn’t seem respectful. Of course, nobody else seems to want to be respectful these days. Maybe a naked person won’t be that much different, might even be better than a barely clothed fat person with a cell phone to shout into. I’m not sure I’ll have the right to keep them out even if I decide to. But I know that I’m going to want the staff clothed. There are too many things around a hardware store which are just too dirty. But I guess I’ve been kind of waiting to hear exactly what will be happening and what the legal deal will really be and what others around here are going to do. If allowing for naked customers seems to be the community norm, I suppose that I’ll go along. But I don’t see any business advantage for my business one way or the other. I’m sure that the big boys will match whatever we’re doing here pretty quick.”

Twyla Morris, one of Laura’s barristas came over with refills for them all. Phil noticed the way that Tim looked at her as she walked away.

“You know, Laura, if she could do that nude, you’d really draw them in,” he told the hostess. “I understand that it would have to be her choice, but you can tell by looking that Tim here would be here every night she was working.”

Tim protested. “She looks good and I was looking at her, I admit. And I imagine that she probably would look good even with that uniform off, but I don’t know that I would come by more often and I certainly don’t want to get Laura into any trouble by suggesting that she exploit her staff’s nudity.”

“Thank you,” Laura said. “I am not going to ask anybody to work naked. I don’t think I’ll do it myself and I don’t know how I could ask anybody else to do it either. And Twyla’s so young. That certainly wouldn’t seem right.”

Phil noted that he had not heard that anything in the court ruling mentioned a minimum age for nudity. After all, he noted, there wasn’t a minimum age in the law which was struck down.

Tim had ten- and fourteen-year-old children. He sat up straighter and commented, “Well, Twyla has to be of legal age, but if legal age is irrelevant, does that include my kids? I guess I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t think I want them running around town naked. I don’t think they would want to, but sometimes kids that age do strange things under peer pressure.”

“Like the time you and Albert went midnight skinnydipping at Anderson’s beach?” Laura asked.

“That was a long time ago. How did you know about that? Albert tell you?’ Tim asked. Albert was Laura’s older brother who was Tim’s age and was once his best friend. He now lived elsewhere.

“I knew about it the night it happened,” Laura assured him. “Our dad figured it out. Albert came home late with wet hair and dry clothes. He jumped all over him for it and I heard it. Then when Albert had gone away, he started chuckling. I guess he knew that boys would be boys. And neither one knew that I had come down for some water and had heard it all. I went back upstairs and stayed quiet.”

“You were just a kid then,: Tim noted.

“Well, I was about eight and I thought it was the funniest thing. I told my girlfriends and it was a long time before they could quit giggling whenever they saw either of you. But I have never told Albert that I heard all of that.”

“Well, that was fun, skinnydipping there. Part of the fun was probably the thrill of the risk, but it felt nice too. Maybe after it’s been legal for a while, I’ll go back there and do it again. And, just for the record, that probably wasn’t the first time we had been there.”

“We’re getting off topic, but I went skinnydipping there with some friends when I was about the same age. You are right. But back to your topic. I don’t have kids and you do and you don’t know how you’ll react to the fact that there won’t be a law requiring them to stay dressed. They must know the basics of human anatomy, don’t they? And if they don’t they’ll be seeing it soon, like it or not.”

“I suppose you’re right. We’re not like some families. We don’t run around without our clothes on but we insist on using the right names for body parts and we do try not to be too prudish. But I really don’t want them to be running around town without their clothes on. Actually, I don’t think they’d be comfortable that way, anyway. Derek is a little late maturing anyway and feels awkward about that. I suspect that Alicia and I better have a long talk, with each other and with him and Deanna.”

“Well, the legislature went home a couple of hours ago,” Laura noted. “Maybe there is something in whatever they did that involves minors. I guess we’ll know soon.”

A tall, muscular, well-tanned woman of about forty, who looked a little butch entered the coffee shop and approached the booth where they were sitting. She was Karen Cahill, the manager and part owner of Yankee Joe’s Water Park. She was wearing yellow shorts and a yellow and blue Yankee Joe’s Water Park t-shirt.

“May I join you?” she asked.

“Sit down,” Laura said. Turning to Twyla, she instructed the younger woman to bring the new guest an espresso with sugar, the drink which she knew to be Karen’s regular choice.

Laura went on, “Well, I sort of asked you here to see what your business is going to do when nakedness becomes legal. We’re trying to see what other people are doing.”

Karen answered, “Well, I’ve been talking to the partners and I think we have it worked out. We want to welcome as many new people as we can, but we want to be family-friendly also and we really aren’t sure what our families will take to be family-friendly. So we’re going to try a divided schedule. Until late morning or noon, we will be clothing-optional. Then we will require suits until about nine at night and then stay open until midnight for those who want to use the facilities naked again. And I think that we’re going to require that minors who don’t have their parents with them will need a permission slip if they aren’t going to wear suits. We’re having a lawyer look into that for us. In fact for the late night session we may just limit it to adults.”

“Interesting,” Phil observed. “It seems that you have given it some thought and any thought is more than a lot of us have done. Can you give us an idea why you split the day the way you did?”

“Well, being for nude use only in the early morning and late evening might encourage some people to come the night before or stay the night after which can help our community’s hotel business. Remember that one of our partners owns the inn next door. The family hours are at the times that families are most apt to come so it inconveniences them as little as we can do it and still make these changes. And the late evening is when the kiddies should be home anyway. We have usually closed at nine, ten on weekends, so it will mean increasing our hours a bit. We hope that we will get enough new clientele to make this work out. If we don’t, the late hours will go.”

“You going to chase everybody out at noon so that the people with suits can come in?” Phil asked.

“I don’t think so. We’ve always sold our tickets for the day so far and I don’t think we’ll change it. But if you’re undressed when it’s time to switch, you’ll be reminded of the policy and asked to dress or leave. One of the partners thinks that there is a customer base who would like using the place naked but don’t want to be nude among clothed people and suggested making the late night hours nudity required, but we don’t think we can do that without getting an Adult Entertainment license and we aren’t sure it’s a paying idea anyway, so it doesn’t look like we will. Have any of you figured out what you’ll do?”

“I don’t think so,” Laura said. “Sometimes I think I’m living in some really strange dream and just want to wake up. But I know that whatever choices I make will probably not make a lot of difference in the big scope of things.

“I haven’t decided,” Phil answered. “I think though that I’ll just allow people to come in the same way they are on the street. I really cannot see that doing that would be bad business. People who are against this whole thing likely won’t single me out for what the society as a whole is doing and I am not seeing myself as some great kind of social crusader on this thing one way or the other. But I think I’ll keep my pants on and I certainly won’t expect my staff to do otherwise. I haven’t talked to either of them about it and I don’t know what either of them is thinking, but I guess I’ll play it by ear a bit.”

They went on talking about the upcoming changes a while longer until Karen said she had to get back to work and Tim’s cell phone reminded him that his wife was expecting him home to look after the kids while she took care of some things.