Chapter 39: Slippery Session

They spent twenty minutes soaking in the spa, luxuriating in the pulsing hot water of the jets. Then they left it, and passing the pool and seeing a few teens batting a volleyball around in it, decided that spending more time in the water would be nice.

“Hey,” one of the teens called. “If you guys all join us, we can get a volleyball game going!”

“Sure!” Terence called back.

The kid called, “Marcia, Theresa! Get your butts over here! We got ten to play now!”

Two girls appeared from behind an umbrella and rushed to the showers, giggling, where the four friends joined them to wash off from the spa.

“Who’s who?” Peter asked. “Which of you is Marcia? And Theresa? You’re new here, I haven’t seen you guys before.”

“I’m Marcia,” the blond said.

“And I’m Theresa,” the redhead answered. “We just began coming. Our families were here for a weekend once last month, but we only just moved to Maryland this June. Dad got a job at an Army lab about an hour from here. Marcia lives near D.C.”

Marcia said, “This is my family’s first year coming here, though. We’re cousins. Our brothers are in the pool. Mine’s Jack; he’s also a blond.”

“And my bro’s a redhead like me,” Theresa said. “His name’s Toby. It’s really Curtis but he hates that name, so we call him Toby.”

Theresa continued as they walked to the pool, “The other guys are...”

Peter interrupted, “Yeah, we know them. Gary and Herb. Hi there, guys, how long you here for this time?”

One of them answered, “Me ‘n Herb’re here through next weekend. Um, nine more days.”

“Us too,” Jack said.

“Um, this may be a strange question,” Barbara asked Theresa as they were getting into the pool; Peter and Terence had just cannonballed in at the deep end. “How did you get from ‘Curtis’ to ‘Toby’?”

Theresa giggled. “For some reason he hates ‘Curtis,’ and one day he complained to Dad with, ‘I’m glad you guys didn’t pick a name that could be either a boy’s or girl’s like, um, Toby or something.’ So that’s when we began calling him Toby.”

Tamara and Barbara laughed.

Everyone was in the pool now and introduced themselves. There were four girls and six guys, so they divided themselves up evenly and began to play. While they were playing, they shared a little about themselves. Tamara learned that Gary and Herb came from long-time member families and were starting their high-school senior year. The other four were new to club nudism but had visited nude beaches when their families had been on trips to Europe. Last summer, both families had taken a six-week trip to the Adriatic coast and Greek islands. Apparently Croatia and some of the Greek islands had some really great beaches where nudity was common.

So of course the topic of the Program came up—as it always did with teens. Gary and Herb both attended a parochial high school and hadn’t been in the Program. Jack was just going to start high school, as would be Toby, and Marcia was going into the eighth grade. Theresa would be a junior. They were all very happy that their high schools had dropped the Program the year before.

It became a spirited game; Tamara and Terence were on the same team and his height and power and Tamara’s speed, reflexes, and accuracy dominated the play, so much so that after a few games, the others demanded that they be split up. Peter was completely amazed at how good Tamara was. After their last game, they grabbed some loungers and sat; he spoke to her about her playing.

“Shit, Tamara, you never told me that you were an athlete too,” he said, accusingly.

“Really? Well, you know that I run most mornings. And I learned volleyball in high school and got pretty good at it. But when the coach came sniffing around and wanted me to be on the school team, I turned her down. She also wanted me on the track team. When I said no to her, she became the biggest bully, so I had to ... you remember my ‘pushing’?”

“Yeah...”

“So I made her feel a bit nauseous every time she looked at me.”

Peter laughed. “Crazy, that’s a great trick. I could have used you in my school. It would have really helped Amy...”

“You still really feel for her, don’t you?” Tamara asked gently.

“I do, but ... you know, they never were romantic feelings, like the way I feel about you. She was more to me like a sister—or a very close friend, but not a girlfriend. Being with you now, I see the difference.”

About twenty minutes later, Barbara suggested getting lunch from their stock at the cabin. When they got back to the cabin, Peter and Barbara found several text messages on their phones. They opened the apps.

“From the folks,” Barbara said. “Mom got delayed at the Academy and couldn’t get off this afternoon, so they’ll be out tomorrow morning.”

“I got that one and one from the Gibsons,” Peter said. “They also can’t get here this evening. So it looks like the whole bunch will be coming in tomorrow morning.”

“Who all’s comin’, anyway?” Terence asked.

“Okay, here goes,” Peter said. “Our folks, they’re Scott and Claire. Shelly and Dave Gibson, our aunt and uncle, and their kids, Mike and Janice. Mike’s a junior in high school this fall and Janice’ll be a college senior like us. They live over in Frederick. Another aunt and uncle, Wendy and Larry Winsberg, and the kids, Susan, JoAnne, and Frank. They live in York, Pennsylvania. Susan’ll be a college senior and JoAnne and Frank are in high school, a senior and soph this fall. Oh, and Susan has a serious boyfriend, David Carter. He’s probably coming. He’s starting grad school.

“And finally, there’s Aunt Jo and Uncle Mark Winsberg. They have two kids, twins, Ernie and Audrey. They’re both gonna be high school juniors and live outside Wilmington, Delaware.”

“Man, y’all got a big family,” Terence commented.

“Oh, there’s more,” Peter told him. “Dad’s parents are in Europe. Mom’s parents are at some kinda meeting out west. And another family that couldn’t come; Mom’s brother’s family. We went to see them in Richmond, Virginia, end of July. I won’t overload you with their names now, but you’ll probably hear them mentioned by our cousins.”

They had finished lunch now and Peter texted his parents, aunts, and uncles, telling them that the cabins were all opened now, aired out, and ready for them. Then Tamara went over to him.

“Barbara got a text and told me that she needed to stop by the office; something to do with your family’s visit, and Terence went with her. I’d like to go for a run ... I missed doing it for two days and I need it. But I need to wait for a half hour to let my lunch settle.”

“Oh, good. Can we run together?” Peter asked.

“Sure, That’ll be nice. If you can keep up,” she laughed. “Hey, while we wait, let me tell you about the ‘mischief’ I got into when I was in Miami. You need to know that part of me—the part that wants to protect kids, or really anyone who’s defenseless.”

“Nice. With your superpowers, I’ll bet you did a good protecting job,” Peter chuckled.

“Yep. That and using some hi-tech stuff I made,” she answered.

Hmm. I’ll tell him about the school stuff but not the Vanessa stuff. Or how I used the compulsion ability defensively. He doesn’t need to know about that yet, Tamara thought.

She went on to describe how she had made her first zapper in response to seeing the naked kids at school and how her work on improving the zapper, together with her MRI work, led to her developing a device which had possible military uses. Then she told him about how she had thwarted the startup of the Naked in School Program in her school—the auditorium lockout and the fiery floors.

“Holy shit, Tamara!” Peter exclaimed. “This is sounding more and more like a science-fiction story. It’s crazy!”

“Well, remember that I had the help and approval of the lwa or else I couldn’t have done most of those things.”

“Yeah, and that’s the part I have the most difficulty wrapping my mind around. Not that I doubt you, but still...”

“I know. That’s the most difficult part to understand, since you weren’t raised in my traditions. I’m still in the process of trying to understand how what appears to be supernatural fits into the natural world.”

Tamara continued her story, describing her uses of the spirit voices and her maser and how she played on the superstitions and beliefs of the students and teachers in the school. When she got to her description of how she had gotten the teachers to strip. Peter was enthralled.

“That’s so fuckin’ awesome!” he exclaimed. “And you’ve never bragged about that? About how you turned the tables on the teachers?”

“Um, no, why would I need to brag?” she answered. “I was just righting a power imbalance situation. I was showing the people who wanted to hurt kids just what it felt like to be forced to be naked. And it so worked, too. After I did that, over 90 percent of the school’s teachers came over to the kids’ side and refused to have anything to do with the Program. I even got to show the officials at the school district office that I meant business.”

She described how she had staged the stripping of the district officials.

“Damn, sweetie, you’re just awesome, you know? I wish you had been at my school; all that nastiness could have been avoided.”

“But, apart from the pain you had, it all did finally work out, right?” she reminded him. “And you learned a lot of important things about yourself. Especially your resilience. Don’t you agree?”

“Ha. There you go again, sounding just like my shrinks. Sweetie, I’d bet that whatever field you went into, you’d be a star. The depth of knowledge you have, it’s astounding.”

“All because of my parents, Peter. Mom is a social-science genius and taught me about people and relationships, and Dad is one of the most practical people I ever met. He has the most steady, grounded, and analytical mind that I’ve ever encountered. And he’s a mechanical genius too. They’re great people to emulate. Hey, let’s go run now. Okay?”

Tamara decided that she wanted some breast support for her run. Although her breasts were not large, being on the upper side of a “B” cup, she had still experienced uncomfortable movement when she ran in a bra with less support.

“Peter, I need to wear a sport bra to run. Is that okay here?”

“Um, I would think so. Some women wear bottoms when they need to wear pads, so sure.”

“Good. You need any support yourself?”

“Nah. I’ve run nude plenty of times. I think the package all tends to shrink in and tuck up for protection—never thought much about it. I love running totally nude, anyway; it feels so open and free with everything exposed. Except I do need sneakers.”

They went on the run and did five miles; Peter led her on the trails which paralleled the nearby river. He told her that the only direct access to those trails was through the resort, which owned much of that land, the rest was a flood-plain natural area. The remainder of the afternoon was spent at the pool and then, after dinner, it was time for their nuru massage class. As the directions requested, they took showers before going to the studio room in the clubhouse.

When they walked in, they saw a number of pillar candles set out in the room, about a dozen of them. Soft music was playing, and there were a few incense sticks burning in various locations. There were queen or twin-sized air mattresses randomly arranged on the floor and a couple, a man and a woman—the yoga instructor—were carrying bowls of water to place near the mattresses. The friends had been the first to arrive and noticed that they were ten minutes early.

“Hi, guys,” the man said. “I’m Robert and that’s Renee. Can you give us a hand? We’d appreciate it.”

Peter answered, “Sure. What should we do?”

“Baskets over there have towels,” he said, pointing. “Put five towels at each mattress near the water bowls there. That’s the head of each mattress. Then take one towel, fold it over in half, and lay it on the mattress at the head. And in those boxes are spray bottles with water; put one in each water bowl. Thanks.”

They noticed that the water in the bowls was quite warm and watched the couple as they poured packets of a powder into additional bowls and slowly added water.

“If you’re done with the towels,” Richard said, “could you carry these bowls of mixed gel over and put one next to each water bowl? These are on the hot side but not too hot, just so you’re not surprised. By the time we begin, the gel will be nice and warm. Thanks.”

They carried the bowls over to the mattresses as more people began to arrive. Soon there were sixteen in the room, eight couples.

“Welcome to our class. I’m Robert and my partner is Renee. As we said in our announcing it, this class is for couples and we’ll be teaching a form of erotic massage. So if this isn’t what you expected, you’re either welcome to stay or go, whichever is your preference. All staying? Good.

“Now you all read the description in the flyer, I assume, or else you probably wouldn’t be here. Unless you were curious and just dropped in.”

Laughs.

“Okay. Grab a mattress and sit down. We’ll do an intro first.”

Renee began speaking. “Nuru massage is a sensual and erotic massage technique,” she began. “It’s a great way to connect with your partner and increase your intimacy. The sense of touch in nuru works both ways; it heightens the feelings of both the giver and receiver, but in regular massage, the giver’s sense of touch is limited to the hands; and in some other massage techniques, the forearms and elbows, or even feet, can be used. In nuru massage, the entire body is used by both giver and receiver, and this heightens your mutual pleasure.

“As you explore your partner’s body with your hands and glide your body along their skin, your gentle and sensuous movements will transport both of you to heights of tantric fantasy. This ignites the fires of desire and brings greater excitement and passion into your romance. You will also learn what touches and stimuli most please your partner. When a sensual massage becomes erotic, the passion and desire of both partners builds until you both are lost in the heights of sensuality.

“Nuru massage is one of the more difficult massage techniques to do in the home because it can be messy. This class is designed to show you how you can overcome some of the technical problems in getting set up to do it. We’re actually all properly dressed for this class,” she indicated everyone’s nudity and they chuckled, “and you have all showered before coming here, as the directions mentioned. Right?”

There was a murmured “yes” and a few head nods.

“Good. It’s important to have the skin slightly damp to begin; it helps in spreading on the gel. When we start the hands-on ... oops, I should say body-on, part...”

More chuckles.

“ ... we have some spray bottles of warmed water to use to refresh your skin’s moisture. Let’s start out with the preparations you’ll need to begin with. I don’t need to go over the background about the nuru massage, where the term comes from, and about its objectives, since the flyer covers that. As I said before, the basic purpose of nuru massage is to enhance the eroticism within couples.”

Richard resumed the instructions. “But it’s the mechanical trappings about the massage setup that make it more complicated to set up to do in a home. First, there’s the mood setting. You can use candles, incense, and soft music like we’ve done here to set the mood and stimulate three of the senses before the massage stimulates a fourth, the touch sense. You’ll need to prepare the massage surface—be it on a bed or the floor—to protect both the massage and floor surfaces. There are nuru sheets available that you can buy but those can be expensive. We’ve provided these thin plastic air mattresses for your class today. See, the surfaces have a slight texture so the gel will tend not to run off by itself. And their plastic surface allows for easy cleanup.

“You can also put a plastic or rubber sheet on a bed, but be sure you take precautions to keep the gel from sliding off onto the floor. It’s very slippery, as you’ll find out. You could, for example, put pillows or rolled-up towels or blankets along the edges of the bed, underneath the sheet, making kind of a bowl in the bed’s center. That will create a barrier that keeps the gel pooled in the center of the bed, rather than having it sliding off. And, hey, it’ll also keep you from sliding off! That’s known to have happened before and can happen to you too, folks!”