CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day, luckily, wasn't quite so hectic.

It started off on the cool and cloudy side. I woke up when the breakfast gong sounded and went out onto the porch, but came scuttling back inside at once. It was around fifty degrees out there, and breezy. I woke Meehan up and we went to breakfast in clothing that would have passed muster at any resort. Nearly everybody else was well covered, too, both top and bottom. Lorraine and Harriet wore sweaters and little aprons as they served breakfast. I had an extra portion of hot cereal, to take off some of the chill. Harriet served me, favoring me with a little knowing smile. As for Bonnie, she was away at the other end of the long table, and I tried not to look in her direction. Hell hath no fury, etc. I wanted to keep far away from her.

The sun was just beginning to fight its way through the clouds as we returned to our cabin after breakfast. But there was still a nip in the air. It wasn't exactly an outdoorsy kind of morning. We got the cabin in order, and then Jack left. He said he was heading up front, to the colony library. He wanted to consult the back files of the nudist journals they had there, to get some historical info for the book he would be writing eventually. As soon as he was gone, I set up the typewriter in the cabin and dragged out my manuscript.

I read through the outline again and decided I was heading in the right direction. Rolling a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter, I began to type. This time, I was doing an expansion of the original outline, filling in the small details—character names, background data, chronology, and such. It was an exciting thing to see the texture of the imaginary world I was creating become more solid with each tap of the keys. Pretty soon I would be able to move around in the world of my characters as easily as though it were my own. Then I would be ready to begin writing the book.

I hardly noticed the time going by. After a while I became thirsty, and on my way to the sink I noticed that the time was eleven o'clock. So I had been working about two hours. It seemed like a lot less. And in those two hours I had turned three pages of my old outline into about ten pages of the new one. I had been typing along at full speed, hardly able to keep up with the flow of my ideas.

Deciding it was time for a little break, I walked out onto the front porch. The sun was definitely out, now, and the temperature was rising at a fast clip—it was at least in the middle sixties by now, and by the afternoon the sun would be fierce again. I was still wearing the clothes I had worn to breakfast, and I began to get uncomfortable in them.

I looked out at the big lawn, surrounded by the wide semi-circle of cabins. Nude men and women were lolling on blankets in the grass. A naked boy of about eleven was playing catch with young Janey Bryan. Further down, a volleyball game was going on, with about five people on each side. They were really banging the ball back and forth enthusiastically.

It was the most peaceful sight you could imagine. It looked like a scene out of an old painting. This was the Elysian Field, the Happy Hunting-Ground.

I decided that I had been a little harsh the night before. Most of these people weren't cranks or lunatics. In fact, they were mostly a hell of a lot saner than the people outside.

There were exceptions, like Bonnie, like Harriet—people with problems. But most of the nudists here were a different breed. Utterly relaxed, utterly without the silly clutter of inhibitions that most of us drag around with us. Most of the nudists were people like Ernie Bryan, I realized. Sane, healthy, uncomplicated. I was willing to bet Ernie Bryan was faithful to his wife, had always been, would always be. Why shouldn't he? He had no filthy little repressed curiosities about other women. Everything was right out in the open.

And these nudist kids, I thought. They wouldn't grow into teenage sex addicts. They wouldn't hover around trying to peep into the girls' washroom. They wouldn't be customers for the sleazy unshaven characters who hang around high schools trying to sell the kids packets of little glossy prints of naked men and women. They wouldn't have any interest in burlesque shows, strippers, nightclub comics. They wouldn't turn into rapists or peeping Toms.

Why should they? Nothing was hidden from them. They weren't throttled with censorship at every step of the way—and so they didn't react to censorship in an exaggerated swing toward the other direction.

I watched the volleyball players for a while, their tanned bodies glistening in the sun, and I envied them for their many years of this sort of lazy life, this complete freedom. And I thought about all the people in the outside world—the ones who said that nudists were crazy cranks—and I wondered who the crazy ones really were. These unfettered naked people, or the ones who crept around the hellish murk of summertime Chicago swathed in underwear and shirts and suits and neckties?

Turning, I went back into the cabin and peeled off my clothes. I dragged the typing table out on the front porch to soak up some sunlight while I worked.

I put in another half hour's worth, two more pages, and then I decided to call it a morning. I was starting to get tired of working, and I resolved to quit whenever the book became a chore instead of a pleasure. I carefully put the new pages in the folder and closed everything up. Then I went for a stroll, reveling in my nudity.

I wandered over to the volleyball court first, and stood watching the game. Joanie Baker was the captain of one team, Ernie Bryan of the other. They faced each other across the net, faces set in grim determination as though this were the World Series with twenty million people glued to their television sets to watch. Bess Olin served from backcourt. Norman Keyes tapped the ball forward, a soft high lob, and Joanie went high, her breasts rising steeply and every muscle in her spectacular body standing out in sharp relief as she slammed the ball across the net and straight down. Everybody on both teams cheered as the ball touched ground for the point.

Then Keyes served. Don Riemann set it up for Ernie Bryan, who spiked it, but some chap I didn't know made a miraculous save. He popped it up in the air; Joanie knocked it over the net, but Ernie took it and spiked it again, this time slamming it down with a fierce leap. The ball caromed off Joanie's back and bounced off the court for a point. While they chased it, Joanie asked me if I wanted to play. But I begged off; the sides were even and evenly matched, and the offer had obviously been made only for the sake of politeness.

Instead I drifted on toward the lake. The only one swimming was Margaret, Meehan's amour of the night before, who was going round and round in a solemn breast-stroke. She waved to me as I trotted out onto the dock.

"Hi! Where's Jack?"

"In the library," I told her. "He's doing some research for his article."

"He's missing a good swim," she said. "The water's grand."

I dove in and surfaced next to Margaret. She was floating on her back, now, and her big, soft breasts seemed to hold her up like water wings. She had a pale, pasty look that no amount of exposure to the sun would ever erase. There was something cow-like about her. But she was a sweet sort, and I could tell she had long since resigned herself to spinsterhood and was determined to grab whatever adventure she could before subsiding into middle age. Hence her foray into nudism, and hence her willingness to be slept with. There wasn't much point in a girl like that saving her virginity for the wedding night everyone knew would never come.

I swam around for a while, until the distant tinkling of the lunch gong brought the swim to an end. Margaret clambered out of the water first. She paused for breath on the ladder, and I resisted the impulse to shove my hands against her buttocks and push. Instead I waited beneath her in a gentlemanly way, modestly averting my eyes from the enormous expanse of derriere looming above me.

I toweled dry and started up the road. Another good thing about nudist life is that you can just pop in and out of the water any time you feel like it, without going to any bother about changing in or out of swimsuits. You just kicked your sandals off and jumped in, and toweled dry when you came out.

And at the athletic fields you didn't have to worry about getting sweated up and needing a change of clothing before lunch. There were outdoor showers mounted at every game area. When the lunch-gong rang, you simply stepped under the shower, rinsed off the sweat of your exertions, and headed up front to the mess hall. Simple and efficient, all right.

The volleyball players were queuing up at their shower now. Margaret went into her cabin to rearrange her hair before eating. Alone, I strolled up toward the mess hall, feeling completely relaxed, completely uninhibited, completely at home in the nudist world. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be walking around without any clothes on. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine why anyone in the outside world would have any hesitations at all about nudism.

The sun was warm. My skin was tanning rapidly, and seemed to tingle with vitality. I felt more completely alive than I had in decades. I whistled a little tune as I walked.

And then, in a moment, I was plunged into complete confusion again.

There is a little rise in the road midway between the cabin area and the mess hall. A person coming up from the cabins is partially hidden from someone coming the other way, until they both get to the top of the rise. I was walking along without paying any particular attention to the road in front of me. All of a sudden I heard a deep but youthful feminine voice call out, "Hello, there."

I looked up in surprise from my relaxed reveries. "Hello," I said automatically.

And then I felt like making a dash for the underbrush.

Sandra Richards stood in front of me. She was fully dressed. She wore a tight sweater through which her breasts protruded like two burgeoning hills, and a skirt that molded the lush contours of her hips and buttocks. She was wearing lipstick and earrings and stockings. She looked like she was on her way downtown for a shopping expedition at one of the big stores.

And she was staring at my midsection with frank and intimate curiosity.

It was one thing to wander around in a camp full of equally nude people. You get used to the idea quickly that way. Nobody has any advantages over anyone else, and so there's no sense of embarassment.

But it's a totally different thing to find yourself confronted suddenly with a full-breasted young lady, herself dressed to kill and yourself mother-bare. That's when you discover the difference between being nude and naked. A nude man was what I had been a moment before, strolling along in cheerful unencumberedness. A naked man was what I had abruptly become—with the overwhelming desire to crouch down and shield my loins with my hands, to keep them hidden from this girl's inquiring gaze.

I fought back the impulse to hide myself. I stood my ground and even put my hands on my hips and widened my stance, as though ready for conversation. While within I trembled with embarrassment and shame.

Sandra said, "We just got here five minutes ago. I was on my way down to my cabin to get undressed. Do you want to come with me?"

I scowled. "Think it'll take long? I don't want to be late for lunch."

"Oh, it'll just be a minute. Come on, walk along with me," she ordered petulantly, once again giving my body that brazen once-over with her eyes.

I decided to see it through. I did an about-face and headed back toward the cabin area with her, walking at her side. I was tremendously uncomfortable about the whole thing. Her body, masked by her clothing, had a sensuous appeal that not even Joanie Baker could arouse in me. It was the element of mystery that was responsible. A fully dressed woman in a nudist colony is practically an invitation to rape. It's on the same order—maybe even worse—than a naked woman in outside society, walking down the street or getting on a bus.

Sandra said, "Are you having a good time here so far?"

"Fine," I said, "It's a wonderful life."

"Yes, we think so too. Where's your friend Mr. Meehan?"

"In the library doing research," I said. I kept my eyes straight ahead, wishing that this insufferably voluptuous and amoral teenager would do the same. But she kept looking at me.

We began to pass the volleyball players as they headed up for lunch. Sandra smiled and greeted everybody by name. Nobody seemed perturbed at the fact that I was with Sandra, or that she was fully dressed while no one else was. After the volleyball group came Bonnie Carter and a youngish man I didn't know. Seeing the two of us together, Bonnie gave me a look of black hatred.

The Richardses lived in Cabin One, which was at the exact center of the semi-circle, by the flag-pole. It was slightly larger than the other cabins, since it belonged to the director and was a kind of meeting-place as well as a dwelling. We went up on the porch. I hesitated there. Sandra looked at me, pouting.

"Come on in, silly."

"Maybe I'd better wait out here."

"I won't bite," she told me. "Come on."

Shrugging, I went inside. Sandra led me into the left-hand bedroom. I leaned against the door, taking care to keep it open that way. Sandra might have bedtime ideas and I wasn't in a mood to get entangled in another romance so fast. Especially with jailbait.

But apparently all that was on Sandra's mind right now was a bit of exhibitionism. She knew full well that mere nudity couldn't get a man worked up to anything like the degree that disrobing did.

So she disrobed. I leaned back, trying to be casual, as she pulled her sweater up over her head and tossed it on a chair.

"You don't look like you're thirty-four," she remarked, as she reached around back to unhook her bra. "You look a lot younger."

"I owe it all to clean living," I said. "How did you know my age, anyway?"

"I looked at your questionnaire, of course. But don't tell Daddy. He thinks he keeps them hidden." She had the fastening of her bra open now. Taking her time about it, she eased the straps over her shoulders and let the cups fall away from her breasts. The round heavy globes of flesh thrust forward, maintaining their position without any real opposition from gravity, which spoke of superb pectoral muscles of the Joanie Baker class. Sandra turned, aiming those spectacular breasts straight at me and giving me a full view. The nipples were tiny, but they were standing up stiffly. Her skin was dark, almost olive, and she had a kind of Near Eastern duskiness about her. She was the sort of girl who would be an ornament to someone's harem, I thought.

The sight of a girl fully dressed but with bare breasts is a stimulating one, especially when you've had the numbing exposure to total nudity that I had been having for the past forty-eight hours. Sandra paused devilishly, making silly conversation, and then her hands went to her waist and she started to unzip her skirt.

I felt a slow, steady crawling of lust across my belly. I clenched my jaws. No. I told myself, I will not let myself be aroused by this little slut, I will not, I will not, I will not, I will NOT!

But I was. It happened slowly, despite my inner objections. Sandra saw it, and a sly smile appeared on her face as she shimmied the skirt over her full hips. She was wearing a half-slip underneath, and that came off too, leaving her clad only in a garter-belt, nylons, and a pair of filmy panties. The panties hid nothing at all. They might just as well have been transparent, because I could plainly see her navel, and, when she turned, the cleft of her full buttocks. She raised one knee and elegantly unhooked her stocking from the garter-belt. The nylon-encased leg was lovely. I felt myself turning red all over at this infuriating strip-tease. I wanted to turn and leave, to get out of here, but I couldn't. I was held fast by the hypnotic sexual magnetism of this lushly-constructed teenager.

"Hurry it up," I barked irritably. "I don't want to be late for lunch."

"We've still got plenty of time. Don't you like to watch me undress, Al?"

I didn't answer. I watched with interest and annoyance as she drew the stockings off, rolled the panties down over her hips and buttocks, and, finally, unhooked the garter-belt. She was nude. And I knew that the photo of her that I had seen was out of date, at least a year old and maybe more, because her body had come much more to maturity now. Her heavy breasts promised excitement; her hips and buttocks beckoned.

"Let's go," I said.

"Don't you want to stay a while?"

I backed out the door. "Nix, Sandra. I'm hungry."

"Oh, all right," she said, obviously disgusted with me. She slipped into a pair of sandals and we stepped outside. The moment I was outdoors again, I felt the pressure ease off. My sexual excitement subsided abruptly and I knew I was safe from Sandra, for a while, anyway.

We had gone about thirty yards when we encountered Dr. Richards and his wife, fully dressed, heading for the cabin. Once again I felt the discomfort of being naked in front of people who were dressed—and there was the additional complication that, walking naked at my side, there was the nubile daughter of the man and woman coming toward me. But the Richardses hardly seemed disturbed to meet their daughter naked in the road with a naked man.

Instead they gave us a warm greeting, asked me how I was finding life in Sunland Health Colony, and hurried on to their cabin to get undressed themselves in time for lunch.

When they were gone, Sandra said, "Race you to the mess hall."

Suddenly she was a siren no more, just a bobby-soxer. She broke into a dash, catching me by surprise. I stood flatfooted, watching her buttocks bob as she ran. After she had gone about ten paces she turned, running still, only with her torso twisted to face me, and yelled, "Come on, slowpoke, chase me!"

I remained still, absorbed in the endless miracle of a woman's bouncing breasts, and then I started to run. She set a good pace, but I felt as healthy as a young satyr, and despite her head start I soon caught up with her. I passed her near the big apple tree where I had kissed Harriet the afternoon before. I came to a dead stop just in front of the mess hall. Sandra ran up behind me, and—probably deliberately—collided with me as I stood there. She wrapped her arms about me to steady herself, and the points of her young breasts stabbed the flesh of my back. I shrugged myself away from her and we went in for lunch.

The mess hall was crowded. There had been at least fifteen new arrivals during the morning, and the long table was completely filled. It had been moved to one side and a second table set up parallel to it. I found a seat at this less occupied table. Sandra slipped in next to me and introduced me to the people sitting there. They were a family group who had just arrived, but who evidently were regular campers here. Ted and Cindy Nichols, they were. Ted Nichols was a cleancut, healthy, Ernie Bryan-like fellow of about thirty, with an open and guileless expression. His wife Cindy was about twenty-five. She had an attractive face and big, elongated breasts which showed signs of having been used for nursing. They had two children, a little girl of just under three and a boy of four and a half.

A new waitress had arrived, too, to handle some of the newcomers. She was a thin, flat-chested girl of eighteen or so, heavily freckled and a bit bucktoothy. Her name was Doris, and she seemed like a nice kid.

Dr. and Mrs. Richards arrived and took seats at our table. Everyone who hadn't seen them before waved to them now, and they waved back, like the King and Queen at a royal reception.

The meal was simple but good, like all those so far at the colony. My appetite was enormous. I found myself putting away endless slices of delicious brown bread, heavily buttered, and gulping mug after mug of cold fresh milk. It was quite a switch from my usual lunchtime routine, which involved beginning every meal with two martinis, and sometimes not bothering to have anything else.

After lunch Meehan caught up with me. "I see the Richards kid is here," he said.

I nodded. "She already tried to give me the business. Dragged me down to her cabin for a strip-tease, but she couldn't get me into the sack."

Meehan laughed. "Man, are you living it up!"

"Yeah," I told him. I guess in Meehan's eyes I was rapidly taking on the character of a woman-hungry satyr. Bonnie, Lorraine, Harriet, Joanie, now Sandra—all in two days. I didn't see the sense of explaining that most of these women were chasing me. All except Joanie, who was the one I really wanted.

But somehow I didn't feel like discussing my private life with Meehan. We wandered back to the cabin together, and he told me all about what he had discovered about organized nudism—the conventions, the squabbles between different national bodies, and all the rest. I listened politely, because I knew Jack was only talking this stuff out in order to get it better organized in his mind for the article he would do later.

I sprawled out in the grass in front of the cabin and got some sun while I was digesting my lunch. I guess I dozed off for a few minutes. I had an odd sort of dream. Women were dancing in a circle around me. Not naked women, though. These babes were covered right up to their chins. It's funny what a couple of days in a nudist camp can do to your subconscious.