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.
“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.
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