Chapter 3: Magic Circle

31 December 2014

If you think that all the sex adventures would start as soon as we camped in a nudist area, you really don’t understand naturism. The one thing above all about nudist resorts and naturists is that it isn’t about sex. That’s especially true about an encampment like Quartzite’s Magic Circle.

When you think about who can take off for the winter, or even a couple of weeks, to camp out and enjoy the mild weather of western Arizona, you have to come to the immediate conclusion of retirees. Occasionally, I’ve been witness to an influx of young people at a resort over a weekend in the summer, but most of the men and women who are skin to the wind for an extended period of time are over sixty and overweight.

I was acutely aware, however, that Alice would be a naked nineteen-year-old goddess. No one would overtly stare at her, but she would be such a surprise to the majority of the denizens that they wouldn’t be able to help taking a second look. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. After I’d backed the trailer into the spot we cornered for ourselves and parked the truck just far enough over that we could move it for Cassie and Andy, I took Alice into the trailer to have a talk. We’d seen plenty of naked people wandering around. It was nearly seventy degrees and they were all enjoying the weather.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she said. “Are you going to get me naked now?”

“Doll, you know I love you naked. This is different, though,” I said.

“I know. Nudity isn’t about sex. I can still lust after you, though, can’t I?”

“I hope so.” I kissed her and helped her out of her clothes. Like usual, we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. Those touches weren’t necessarily sexual, but we liked to touch each other. I held her and stroked from her shoulder to her butt and just squeezed her against me. “But, you are nineteen years old and the most beautiful woman within a hundred miles. Even as respectful as people will try to be, they will notice.”

“That’s kind of freaky.”

“That’s why I bought you a little present. Don’t get too excited, I bought one for Cassie, too. I’m betting she’ll have second thoughts about the time she steps out of her motorhome.” I handed her a huge square of cloth.

“What is it?”

“It’s called a pareo. They are very popular in both nudist resorts and as beach wear. Not only does it cover your tits, it can keep you warm when we’re waiting for the sun to heat things up.” I demonstrated by wrapping the fabric behind her back and under her arms, then tying it loosely behind her neck.

“Um ... Ari, let me get this straight. This just hangs down and covers my tits, right?”

“Yes, love.”

“But it doesn’t cover my pussy,” she said. I laughed.

“Now why would I ever want to cover this?” I asked, stroking up the length of her slit.

“But that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

“Honey, look in the mirror. What do you see?”

“This very pretty fabric—which also feels luscious, by the way—drops from my shoulders to my knees. In the middle is my little slit.”

“Yes. How does your little slit compare in this view to any other little slit you might just happen to see?”

“Pretty much the same, I guess. It’s just a little line that goes down between my thighs.”

“And unless a guy is between your thighs looking up at it—like I was the other night—he can’t really see anything of interest. But look at this,” I said. I stood behind her and pulled the fabric back so her breasts were fully exposed.

“God! I feel so naked when you do that!”

“Of course. There is nothing about the front view of your shaved pussy that distinguishes it from any other pussy out there. But these are definitely nineteen-year-old breasts with perky hard nipples. I can’t look at them without wanting to run my hands over them. I want to hold them and lick them. Do you see what I mean?”

“You mean that guys could look at my pussy all day long and not get aroused, but would want to touch my breasts? Are they freaky here?”

“No, honey. There isn’t a soul in the Magic Circle who would make an inappropriate pass at you. If there was a freak here, he’d get banned. He’d lose his membership in the association and would probably be refused admittance to most of the nudist resorts in the country. Nudist areas are probably the safest places for women in the country. It’s all about how comfortable you feel. The only thing that really differentiates you from any other woman in the campground is that your nipples point up and theirs point down.”

“Why do I bother to take my G-string off in the club? All-nude is a waste of time!” she said.

“Except that in the club, guys don’t just see this view. They all sit there waiting for you to lean back and spread your legs. There is nothing from this angle for them to see. I told you about the club in Massachusetts, didn’t I?” I said.

“That was so weird. But I see your point. You have a point here, don’t you?” she asked while reaching behind her to stroke my cock. Looking at her in the mirror as I pulled back the fabric had definitely had an effect. I sighed and kissed her shoulders.

“You know I do,” I said. “There’s a little card here that shows a dozen different ways to tie the pareo.” I untied it and crossed the corners in front of her before retying them behind her neck. “Voila! Now you have a dress. You could wear this out to a club at night.”

“Wow!” Alice turned in my arms to face me. “I love you, Ari. This was so thoughtful, even though I know you really did it for Cassie. Are we going to have a bunch of visitors now or can we just take off our clothes and hold each other?”

“It’s pretty rare for someone you don’t know to come and knock on your door out here,” I said. “They’ll wait until they see us outside. Inside is private space.” Alice untied her dress and draped it on the dining bench. Then she pushed me back to the bed. We didn’t make love, but just held each other as we settled into the bed. I noticed that Alice did as much petting of me as I did of her and it felt just as good. I just wanted to touch her all over and she seemed of like mind. Eventually, we fell asleep for an hour.

Cassie and Andy arrived on New Year’s Eve. I moved my truck and Andy pulled their motorhome into the space. With our RVs facing opposite directions, our front doors faced each other. Their rig was higher than ours, so when they extended their canopy, it went just above ours and overlapped by about a foot. We had a completely sheltered area between the two units with my little gas firepit between us.

Alice had gotten used to the environment and the people around us, so she’d become pretty casual about whether she was wearing her pareo or not. I pulled on my short sweats when they arrived so as not to be too blatant as I helped them set up. Cassie was gracious and absolutely gushed over Alice. That’s one thing I always appreciated about Cassie. I don’t remember her ever having an unkind word about anyone. She was simply always nice.

Alice held a quick whispered conversation with her and gave her the pareo, letting her examine how Alice had hers tied. Cassie gave my girlfriend a big hug and Andy followed her into the motorhome.

I’d planned dinner for the four of us on this first night and included a couple bottles of my favorite red wine. Trader Joe’s in Phoenix had a Grand Cru St. Emilion on sale and I’d splurged on a case. It was a step above the box wine I usually had in the trailer. Before I went out to start cooking, Alice tugged at my sweats and pulled them off.

“I’m not sure I should...”

“She’s gonna see it sometime,” Alice said. “Might as well show her what she’s been missing.”

“You, squirrelly girl, are going to get me in trouble one day. Really, Andy might be hung like a horse. Cassie isn’t missing anything she can’t have elsewhere.”

“No. But we promised each other we’d have our men naked for dinner,” Alice laughed.

“As long as you didn’t promise you’d have your naked men for dinner,” I sighed. Well, in for a penny ... I hadn’t had pants on except for this afternoon since we camped.

I went outside and lit the fire in the gas firepit and then started the grill. I’d found some time ago that I loved having a campfire. But most places I’d been over the past year had burn bans in effect. The West was in drought and no one wanted to start a wildfire. So I picked up a gas pit at Costco. It was pretty efficient, too. I could buy gas for a lot less than firewood.

Andy came out of his motorhome with a martini shaker, rattling the ice inside. He handed me a plastic cup and poured a liquid libation for each of us. We toasted to life on the road and took a sip of our drinks. I was going to like this guy. Dry gin, possibly Tanqueray, slightly dirty with a whisper of vermouth. Two queen olives were on a toothpick in the glass.

“How can I help?” he asked.

“Relax. Grill is hot and I’ve got steaks ready to go when the ladies say it’s time.”

“That’s what we’re always waiting for, isn’t it? Can you believe it takes women so long to get ready for dinner? I mean, all they have to do is take their clothes off. How long can it take?” We laughed. It might be Andy’s first time in a nudist park, but he seemed pretty relaxed about it. Alice came out with the tray of steaks and tinfoil wrapped asparagus. I gave her a quick kiss. “Martini, Alice?” Andy asked as he retrieved another glass.

“No thanks, Andy. I don’t drink much. I’ll have a glass of wine with dinner.” She was wearing her pareo in the open front position and I saw Andy definitely glance at her middle before he turned away. He went over to his chair by the fire and sat with a towel across his lap. Just then Cassie came out of the motorhome.

“Salad is ready,” she said. I turned toward her and smiled. She’d chosen to wrap fully in the pareo, but in what I decided was a Cassie style, she had it tied over one shoulder with it hanging open down her side. Andy poured her a drink and I put the steaks on the grill.

New Year’s Eve at Quartzite—especially at the Magic Circle—is something you have to experience to fully appreciate. We’d polished off two bottles of wine and Andy had made another big shaker of martinis. Alice was being really careful and I tried not to overindulge. Cassie and Andy were out-drinking us two or three to one. At dusk the first fireworks went off. We saw several people headed to the party tent and decided to go see what was happening. I rummaged in a box of clothes in the back of the truck that I hadn’t opened in over a year and found two ties. I tossed one to Andy.

“This shindig is formal, buddy,” I said. “Have to wear a tie.”

“And nothing else?”

“And nothing else.” Alice retied her pareo so it was off one shoulder like Cassie’s and we headed to the party.

Quartzite has quiet time from ten p.m. till eight a.m. That means all generators have to be off and no loud parties after ten. Even on New Year’s Eve. The park ranger walks through the area to make sure we are all in compliance. In the tent, there was music and dancing starting at seven. At nine-thirty, they turned on a big-screen TV and tuned in to Times Square via someone’s borrowed satellite dish. Champagne was poured all around and we had our glasses raised for a toast as the ball dropped in New York City. Then everything went dark. We’d been standing close together and it took a couple minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. After I’d thoroughly kissed Alice, another set of lips found mine. It was a short but intense kiss and then a whispered, “Happy New Year, Ari.”

There was a general exodus from the party tent. There were plenty of flashlights bobbing along that were easy to follow to our campsite. I had an arm wrapped around Alice and was looking forward to settling into bed with her. There was an oof and squeal just behind us and we turned to find Andy and Cassie on the ground. Cell phone flashes went off all around us.

“Gravity burst,” someone nearby laughed. “Happens all the time. Never know when they’ll reach out and grab you!” Alice and I helped the two to their feet and brushed the dust off them. Then we linked up and walked the rest of the way with our arms around each other. I had Alice on my left and Cassie on my right. Cass leaned over to kiss her husband and in the process, flipped the open side of her pareo back. My hand slipped inside and I was holding naked Cassie Clinton’s ass in my hand. She used her arm to lock my hand in place as we walked the rest of the way back to our campsite. We made sure everything was secure and said goodnight.

A Long Time Ago: Bring Your Own Party

I was single that first New Year’s Eve of my PhD program. I still had a nearly empty apartment, which was perfect for a dancing party. I didn’t have much money, so I called it a ‘bring your own cocktail’ party. So much classier than BYOB. I would have bombed the party if it hadn’t been for Rose.

I was experienced with bombed parties. The first party I threw in high school was a disaster. I’d asked eleven guys and invited them to bring their dates for the first half of the party, then come back after they took their dates home to spend the night watching movies, playing ping pong, and eating junk food. I expected all of them, but I needed a date.

I hadn’t dated very much my sophomore year. Mostly, we just met up at school dances and had a group thing. But I hadn’t expected to be turned down flat by ten different girls when I invited them to my party. Then Rhiannon said she’d go. I liked Rhiannon, though she was a little shy. It was just a party and I even had games selected that we could all play without getting embarrassed.

It was a week before the party when Rhiannon told me she couldn’t attend. It was beginning to do some damage to my ego.

“You should ask Patty out. She should be your date,” Rhiannon said. “Everyone would come.” My class had just over sixty kids in it. I’d asked a third of the girls to my party. Now I found out that they’d all come if I asked Patty.

Hell, no! It wasn’t that I didn’t like Patty. She was one of the more religious girls in the class and was a talented singer. We said hi to each other in the hallways or class. She might even have been number twelve on my list. But my classmates had decided who I should date. I chose not to ask anyone else. Everyone else chose not to come to my party. At midnight, Jon and Craig showed up. Their dates said they didn’t want to go to the party, so they came over after they’d taken them home. We did a pretty good job of demolishing all the food I’d put in and played round-robin ping pong until sunrise.

I didn’t date anyone from my school again until Deb and I started our project together senior year.

So, I didn’t have a great track record with parties and this New Year’s Eve would be the first time I attempted one without a wife helping organize it. I decided to not even try to find a date. I invited most of the people I knew, including several neighbors in the apartment complex. Including Rose.

I had no great expectations for the success of the party. I’d put in half a dozen bottles of cheap champagne in case there were people to toast the New Year. And I’d put in a bottle of The Glenlivet in case no one showed up. I spent most of the day cooking stuff that I figured I could freeze and eat for the first month of the New Year.

Much to my surprise, people started showing up about seven. Lots of people. It was a good thing I didn’t have any furniture because the house was full. I had a newly acquired stereo and a couple dozen albums. Several people not only brought their own cocktails, but music and food as well. People danced and, there being quite a few theater people, sang along with their favorites. A few people left because they were on a party circuit and had to get to the next one. Others arrived later. I was so busy acting as a host and moving food from kitchen to buffet that I wasn’t even sure I’d greeted everyone.

I was near the door at eight-thirty, though, when I heard a polite knock that might have been missed if I’d been any farther away. And at the door stood Rose.

“Happy New Year,” she said. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek.

Rose was the type of woman who was my weakness. Of course, I guess most women were my weakness. She was short—probably only about five-one. Blonde, curly hair framed her face and accented her electric blue eyes. She was curvaceous—not a skinny little thing. She had a smile that always looked a little surprised. I looked behind her to see who her date was. No one.

When I moved into this apartment with Paula, Rose lived across the hall with her boyfriend. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of months, so apparently he was gone.

“Happy New Year, Rose! It’s so nice to see you. Welcome.” As we walked around the room toward the kitchen I introduced her to several people, but she didn’t stick with any of them. She followed me right into the kitchen. People had stacked the kitchen counter with their bottles. I noticed that Rose hadn’t brought one. “No matter what it looks like, I don’t have a lot to offer you to drink,” I said. “Haven’t actually poured myself one yet. Can I get you a glass of scotch or champagne?”

“Just water for now. We’ll save the champagne for midnight, shall we?” she said. Well, sure we shall. Apparently, she planned to stay at this party. I poured her water and added ice from the chest by the back door.

“I’m surprised to see you alone,” I said. “Did you and Rick ... er, Rich split up?” Rose’s face fell and I was afraid I’d really stepped in it. Turns out I did, but not what I thought.

“I thought ... You mean ... Oh, god! I’m so embarrassed. Let me introduce you to Miss Social Grace. I suppose you have a girlfriend here. I should leave.”

“Wait! What?” There was the sparkle of a tear in her eye.

“Rich and I split months ago. I thought you ... Well, when I saw how many people had already arrived, I figured you just couldn’t get away to pick me up. Then I figured I’d misunderstood and of course you couldn’t leave your own party. So, I showed up anyway.”

“Pick you up?”

“I thought you asked me as your date,” she whispered. “I’ll leave now. I’m sorry.” Was it really that easy to have asked her out?

“Rose, please don’t go. I ... I love the misunderstanding. Will you be my date tonight, even though I’m a little late making it explicit? I’ve been single for about six months and was inviting people to a party just so I didn’t have to sit alone on New Year’s Eve. If you can stand the fact that I have to keep running from kitchen to buffet with food and talking to a bunch of people, I’d really like to be your date,” I said.

“You’re just feeling sorry for me.”

“No! The truth is, I was feeling sorry for myself.”

“Ari, are there any more of those egg rolls?” one of the guys called from the dining room. Rose looked at me and smiled. She stood on her tiptoes and gave me a kiss on the cheek again.

“Give me a tray of food and I’ll take it to the buffet,” she said.

I handed her a platter.

Somehow the rest of the party turned into a blur. A little before midnight I opened bottles of champagne and the fifteen or so of us left toasted the New Year and kissed. Rose kissed me. It was no little peck on the cheek. It was a for real, ‘you are my date’ kiss and she made sure it stuck by repeating it again five minutes later.

“You know, they say the person you’re with when the year turns is the person you’ll be with the rest of the year,” she whispered after the last guest left. “I find that an attractive prospect.”

“I do, too. Rose, I ... um ... Well, not sure what’s appropriate right now. We’ve hardly gotten to know each other and I’d like to ... really. But...”

“Relax, Ari. I don’t sleep with a guy on the first date. I might consider it on the second date, though. There’ll be a second, won’t there?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, fair maiden. In fact, I have a tradition that I just started today of going to a movie on New Year’s Day. Would you like to join me?”

“What? No football games? I’d love to.” We kissed again and got lost in it for several minutes. “Maybe you should walk me home now since you didn’t pick me up this evening,” she giggled. It was a short trip across the hall. She turned to me once again. “I do kiss goodnight on first dates if I really like the guy,” she said.

“Do you like me enough for a goodnight kiss?” I asked.

“I think so.”

Back to Quartzite

With Arizona’s strange time zone and the park’s rule about ten o’clock quiet time, Alice and I were back in the trailer by ten-thirty. Alice seemed restless, pacing up and down the eight-foot floor of the trailer, looking at her e-reader, making a cup of cocoa. I sat on the bed in my usual position and had my laptop open. I was just getting into finally writing El Rancho del Corazón.

“What has you disturbed tonight, honey?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m just used to staying up later,” she sighed.

“Are you feeling lonely and isolated out here?”

“Yeah. A little. I guess,” she sighed. She sat on the edge of the bed and sipped from her cup. I petted her thigh next to me. She absently ran her fingers over my chest. “I love being with you and sharing your life for a while. But we really haven’t done anything and everyone is...”

“So old,” I finished for her.

“You’re not old like they are.”

“Well, thank you, but I think most of them would disagree.”

“Cassie and Andy seemed old when they got here. They don’t seem so old now. They remind me of my grandparents,” Alice said.

“Oh, they’ll love that,” I laughed. Then I got to thinking. “You know, actually, they probably would love that. Cassie has some liveliness and youth about her, but from what she was saying tonight, she loves being a grandmother. You know, every one of my sisters, even the one who is five years younger than me, is a grandmother? I’ve heard them say, ‘Oh just wait until you have grandbabies. You’ll see.’ Then I look at my little girl and I just can’t imagine it. She’s so young and fragile.”

“Does it bother you, Ari? That I’m younger than your daughter?”

That hit me like a rock. It was something I’d avoided thinking about ever since I met Alice. At the same time, I never really considered Alice that young. Not like Angie. And Angie was five years older. I looked at the tall sleek woman perched on the bed beside me.

“You don’t see me as old as the folks around us, even though I’m the same age. I don’t see you as young as my daughter, even though you’re younger. I think we found something that equalizes our ages. But, the more we hang out with people the other person’s age, the older or younger we’ll see each other. We need to balance things,” I said.

“That’s it. Like last week when we had Kim with us.” Alice set her cup aside and crawled into bed to cuddle up with me. I set aside the computer and welcomed her into my arms. “Did you feel old when it was two young women with you?”

“I did, a little. I enjoyed it a lot, but I thought about how you each lived in a completely different world than I do.”

“And being out here where I’m the youngest by half makes me feel really young. It’s not just that Cassie could be my grandmother, she makes me feel like I’m just a little girl.”

“Well, I think we’ve just found some common ground. We need to get out of here and mix it up a little more,” I said.

“I don’t want to leave Quartzite!”

“I’m not suggesting that we break camp, but there are places we can go, even as remote as this is,” I said. “Let’s go to Lake Havasu City for the weekend.”

“Really? You’ll take me to see London Bridge?” she giggled.

“Anywhere you want to go, honey.”

“You know, Ari, I believe that.”

We held each other, petting and kissing. It was such an incredible sensation to just lose myself in Alice’s eyes. I understood, though, why we would never actually be together forever. We could visit each other’s worlds, but we couldn’t really live there.

A Long Time Ago: Office Romance

I was pretending to be a brilliant technologist who understood all about the publishing industry and was plotting the future of reading. At night I struggled to be an author. Times had changed since my first foray into office work. We’d been alerted to issues of workplace harassment, discrimination, and sexism. There were lines in the workplace that were not to be crossed.

What a difference from the real estate office I’d been in that functioned as a mating ground for just about any kind of activity!

It was whispered that one V.P. had cost the company a million dollars in settlements for the passes he’d made over the years. If any of us peons got caught in something like that, we’d just be dismissed.

Of course, the company continued to have disparity in pay for men and women. It continued to promote men to management positions and to hire women as administrative assistants. There was a huge diversity program that showed how the company hired from all races and genders. It only took a walk around the company campus to see the evidence. All the groundskeepers were Hispanic men. All the kitchen workers were Hispanic women. A huge number of the engineers were Chinese and many of their managers were Indian. Most of the marketing team were white and/or European. Software design and specification came from Mediterranean countries, especially Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. And most of the admins were young, blonde women. We were diverse. I’d never seen a black person in the company, but they were pretty scarce in the Pacific Northwest anyway.

For every problem, there is a solution. The workplace had once been a prime location for men and women to meet and develop an interest in each other. But now there was a barrier to developing anything further than a working relationship. Into the breach came an Internet solution. Office Romance.

I opened my email one typical boring Monday and found a message from an online dating service. It said simply that a co-worker was interested in me. If I was open to being approached, I should go to their website.

I wasn’t sure, but I was intrigued. I walked up and down the halls, trying to guess which of the women might have sent the message. They weren’t all secretaries, no matter what I might have led you to believe. There were a couple female programmers, marketing managers, designers, and even a couple baristas I was friendly with. I figured there were at least ten women that I could I identify whom I would be interested in getting to know better. I registered on the website, paid my membership fee, waded through all their promotional material about how I could find the love of my life in the office next door, and eventually got to my inbox. There was one message.

“I’m sorry I have to use this method to talk to you, but I’d like to get to know you better. If you are interested, maybe we could go to lunch. Colette.”

As Greg, back in the real estate company, used to say, “I’ll be go to hell.”

Colette was a fox and not one I had ever imagined would have an interest in me, a guy who was at least ten years older. At the same time, I began to piece together little hints. It was Colette who had cut through my disgust at lattes and brought me a straight espresso when I complained of not liking milk. “It’s a latte without the milk,” she’d said. After I’d fallen and cracked a rib on the stairs the previous fall, she’d kindly offered to let me lean on her as a group of us were walking across the lawn to the cafeteria. She was always bright and smiling in the office, but I’d never considered her as a potential date. Wow!

“Would love to have lunch with you. Why don’t we go out for Sushi on Wednesday? -Ari.” I sent the message and ten seconds later a response came in.

“Yes.”

We didn’t take the rest of the day off to go fuck.

In fact, things developed rather slowly, but we managed to have lunch off-campus together at least once a week. You couldn’t really have told that we were interested in anything deeper than any other coworkers. Though maybe our conversations were less restrained than was proper in the workplace.

“I’m never going to get promoted,” she complained one day after annual reviews.

“Why not? You’re smart. You do good work. You get along well with your coworkers—even those who don’t have lunch with you every week,” I laughed.

“Ari, you are so innocent. I’ve got these.” She put her hands firmly under her breasts and hefted them to draw my attention. Well, I’d noticed them. It was hard not to. Colette was stacked. Since she was holding them up for me, though, I took the opportunity to stare. She made a subtle gesture of pinching her nipples before she let them go and the points stayed out there for me to observe long after her hands left them.

“Um...”

“Can I have your attention up here again, Ari?” she laughed.

“Um ... They are nice.” I didn’t know why I was the one blushing.

“Oh, believe me, I like them, too,” she said. “But they are a solid disqualifier for a management position. I can’t be good enough for management as long as these lead the way into a meeting.”