Donald had just finished supper and retired to his den. He had grabbed a cold Michelob, lit a pipe, reclined in his easy chair, and was starting to watch an old movie, The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman and Ann Bancroft. It had been one of his favorites for a long time, but he hadn’t watched it for a year or two and after occupying himself with his business and with the community response to Bear all day he just felt like relaxing for an evening.
His cell phone sang to him at about the time that Hoffman was ready to say, “Mrs. Robinson, I think you’re trying to seduce me.” He hit the freeze button and answered it. It was Jane Alpek, his uncle’s widow.
“Can we talk this evening?” she was asking. “Do want to come over or can I come there for a few minutes?”
Donald was impressed that she asked. Most of the residents of the Compound would come first and ask later. But he knew that Jane still sometimes seemed to think of herself as an outsider, despite more than two decades having passed since she had married his uncle and the fact that she continued to live at the Complex.
“Why don’t you come on over?” he answered. “I’ll put some coffee on.”
“Thank you. Ten minutes too soon?”
“No, fine. Come on over.”
He turned the movie off, went to his kitchen and made some coffee. In a few minutes he looked out his back window and saw Jane pulling up on a cart. He went to the door and asked her in. He handed her a large mug of coffee with cream and suggested that they sit on the patio.
“What’s up?” he asked her after they had been seated.
‘I just want to know what’s going on in preparation for the Bear decision? I’ve been hearing so much and some of the work I have done has me wondering.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Well, specifically, I need to know what you and Edna and whoever else here – Brenda or Connor or Barb -- have in mind for me. Gordon tells me some, but I know that you and Edna don’t put him in the loop much and I would like to hear it from somebody more in charge which I assume means you or Edna or maybe Connor.”
“Well, we keep Gordon in on everything, but none of us knows it all. Things have been moving pretty fast and so far most of this has been committee work. Connor hasn’t been as involved as Edna and I have. But tell me what Gordon has told you and I can maybe add to it.”
“Well, he has indicated that it seems to be the family’s position that Conway Corners can profit economically by having its people embrace their new rights and encouraging others to come here to exercise them, that you and Edna seem to be determined that this is a good course. And I’m wondering what input Brenda may have had. I’m sure that you must have her reports of how the legislature was mishandling things, but did we have any role in their mishandling of this?”
“Not to my knowledge. I’m sure the neither Edna nor I suggested that she try to see if she could gum things up there and Brenda’s clients are her business and Davis and Mays’ business, but I don’t think that she has any clients who thought they had any major interest one way or another. But, remember, all lobbyists go to the capital for special sessions even when their clients’ interests aren’t involved in the subject for the session, hoping to sneak in something for their clients or to make sure that somebody else doesn’t slip something in that they don't want. She does lobby for Connor and I know that Connor and Edna and I all asked her to keep an eye out while she was there to get an idea of the atmosphere about this Bear thing there, but I don’t think that she has given us anything a person couldn’t get from the conventional media and the blogs.”
“You don’t really think that I’m going to go naked at Central Park on Thursday, do you?”
“No, I hadn’t, but of course we would all like to see you. I don’t know who will. Edna and I have committed to it and I am sure that Christina will be there, bringing Justin along. Karen Cahill probably is willing, but I suspect that most of those who will go nude there will do it spontaneously and the idea may not catch on at all. If it doesn’t catch on, well, . . . I guess there’s no guarantee on anything. That’s why we’re still having meetings and why we are having that barbecue on Monday. It won’t fly if our business community balks, but I really think we can make it go.”
“You’re sounding enthusiastic, like you really want a clothing-optional town and state. I don’t remember ever seeing you this gung-ho on anything. You’re the staid, laid-back guy who manages the numbers and keeps the businesses running, analyzing possibilities including the ones not desired, not the cheerleader you seem to be now. You know me. I just try to do my business and live my life, to do my duty to my employers and my family, especially Gordon. I know he is grown and doesn’t need me so much these days, but I still feel a bit maternal, I guess.”
They stopped long enough to exchange waves with Bill Bullingworth and his young sons passing by the inner ring path on a cart. They were carrying towels but none of them was dressed, so Donald and Jane both knew that they were headed to Edna’s pool.
“Don’t they look so happy there, father and sons going swimming on a nice, warm, summer evening?” Donald asked Jane.
Jane agreed that they did.
“That’s what I want for everybody,” Donald told her. “We are fortunate. We can live without clothing up here all the time. Most people never get the choice, have never had it. Now the courts are giving them the chance and I want them to be able to keep it before the narrow minds take the choice away and unless we can get a significant number of people, a critical mass, to start using this right, it will be taken away, maybe next year, maybe a year later, but it will go. And if we can get the businesses of this area to find it profitable, we probably have a better chance of resisting the retraction we know people will try to get.”
His conversation was now being punctuated with the sounds of splashing and the exuberance of children.
“Hear that?” he asked Jane. “Don’t they sound like they’re having fun.”
“I know what you’re getting at, Donald, but those boys would be just as exuberant if they were wearing suits, had always worn them. But now that they have been spoiled, when they grow up and move away, they’ll be disappointed every time they have to put trunks on.”
Donald was fairly sure that although Jane had been part of the family for more than two decades that she had never been entirely comfortable with the clothing-optional aspect of life in the Compound. She had swum without a suit, but otherwise he didn’t think that he had ever seen her undressed.
Jane went on, “Well, I don’t think it will work in the general public. I think Bear is going to take a lot of control from a lot of people. For too many people, it will take away more freedom than it will give. We’re pretty isolated here and we can control who comes and who goes and we’re all family, more or less. I’m Jane Alpek, the widow of John Mays, and I have the perks which go with having picked him as my husband or having him pick me for his wife, however you look at it. Jane Smith, the young, single mother in town, doesn’t have much choice. And if she wants to shelter and feed her kids, her freedoms and choices may disappear. I can go skinnydipping when I want to. You can sit out on this patio in the nice summer evenings with your pants off. Christina can even flaunt her shaved snatch in all of our faces and we all know that we all have choices and that is hers. I know how we are reading the law today, but if we make clothes freedom the standard of our society, that it won’t be long before Jane Smith will find herself voluntarily serving drinks naked in joints, maybe even dives like Jim’s or the Conway Tap when she didn’t volunteer at all. A Harrison form will not help her. It will become an instrument of intimidation and enslavement.”
“Well, every opportunity has risks. You’re a lawyer. You know that. I guess I am hoping that we can secure this new right and that we can all make sure that we don’t let it be abused, but I do know that there are uncertainties. But you are certainly right. Vigilance is going to be needed.”
“Let me get back to why I’m here. I just want you to know that I won’t be at your picnic Thursday, and I will not be taking my clothes off in public. I don’t strut my stuff a lot even here, but it’s not that I wouldn’t strip if I thought it could help a good cause and I couldn’t help in a better way. I really do hope that you are right and that this all will work out, but I cannot conscientiously join you now. I just think that there are too many uncertainties. You and I, we’re covered so to speak. We will maintain the opportunity to have our choices be free ones. Most people will not be so fortunate.”
“I appreciate your coming by on this. For neighbors and family and owners of some of the same properties, we really don’t talk much. And feel free to stop over at Adams for Monday’s barbecue or at the meeting tomorrow night. It may give you a better perspective.”
They talked for a few minutes more about other things. At about the same times as they saw William Bullingworth and his sons returning home from their dip,
Donald waved, “Bye, Bill. Bye, John. Bye, Derrick.”
They waved back, the boys saying. “Bye-bye, Uncle Donald.
Jane got on her cart and went home. Donald went back inside and watched Ann Bancroft seduce Dustin Hoffman.
Welcome
I have been intrigued with how society handles the freedoms and opportunities it has and how various rights and responsibilities can sometimes conflict with others’ rights and responsibilities.
I came up with the idea of a place like Conway Corners and the choices it is facing, perhaps because I have also spent more of my life naked than most women my age. The situation that Conway Corners is in seems bizarre, yet it is not so implausible as to seem totally impossible.
The state's Supreme Court has just given everybody a new right, one few had asked for or ever expected to be granted, the right to go about undressed, and now society is transitioning to becoming clothing optional. This story examines how people adjust to that right, how it might be used and abused, and how people who have been seeking other rights or who would prefer to reduce existing freedoms adjust to the changes. It also looks at the ways that families and people interact with each other.
The story does involve a fair amount of nudity, but if you are looking for pornography you are in the wrong place. (However, with a little searching, you can probably find a porn site if you try hard enough [or even if you don't]). There are no lingering descriptions of the naked bodies or body parts and the specifics of any undressing are not lingered on. The most explicit reference to a sexual activity (in the initial story, at least) is one in which a couple wakes up in bed and a used condom is thrown into a waste basket.
The large, initial story (Conway Corners approaches N-Day) covers a lot of ground and introduces many people and situations. It is intended to provide a “universe” in which other stories, short or long, can be added. Reader suggestions or input for more stories will be accepted and I have established a moderated Google Group (Conway Corners -- discussions of choices and consequences) for this. Feedback is welcomed.
The chapters are posted in reverse format. I guess blogs work that way. However, links to individual chapters are on the left and you may find them helpful in navigating the story.
Enjoy this story and maybe let it make you think.
Leelee
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Do not post anything from here on any other site. You may feel free to link to this site from your free, non-porn site, but it would be nice to learn if you do.
