Chapter 1

Saturday

"It's me." The voice on the other end of the line was a warm contralto that I knew better than my own. I smiled at her usual greeting.

"Hello you." She giggled, I loved to make her laugh; her laugh was cute - hell, she was cute. I loved everything about her. I loved her.

"Guess." It was going to be one of those calls. I sighed in mock exasperation.

"I may be a near genius, but I need more of a clue than 'guess'." The sound of a raspberry being blown down the 'phone was all the extra information I was going to get. "I swear someone has reversed your entropy arrow and you're getting younger instead of older. Okay, okay I'm guessing." More laughter. "Let's see now, what are the available clues?" I ticked them off one by one, it was a short list, "A strange girl rings me up, says 'it's me' and then 'guess'," I paused dramatically, "oh yes and then blows a raspberry down the 'phone. Nope, I can't guess; you've stumped me."

I'm Mark, by the way, and the mad girl on the other end of the line is Debbie, the love of my life. She's also my very best friend and I'd like to think that she loves me as more than a friend, but I'm too scared to find out for certain. For now I'm content with what we have, and what we have is a fantastic friendship. Perhaps part of the reason I'm afraid to tell her how I really feel, is that I'm frightened of losing the friendship.

"Oh all right then, since you're going to be mean about it, I'll tell you." It was her turn to do the dramatic pause thing. "The Programme is coming to our school."

"The Programme? You mean, like, 'the Archers'?" I knew what she was talking about, now it was my turn to be obtuse and teasing. There were the forms to be observed, after all: tease and tease about.

"Har bloody har! It's coming to school and it starts next week."

"Are you sure?"

"Is the Pope catholic?"

"So, you're not that certain then?"

More giggles. "Don't be mean. I have it on the highest authority."

"Oh, you mean Andrea told you? Why didn't you say so?" Andrea was her older sister and she was the PA to some sort of trouble-shooter type in the Local Education Authority. I had a question. "Why us? Did she say anything about that?"

"The usual reasons: we're a magnet school, get all the best equipment and so on. The same old bullshit." Our school was always the first to have the latest fads and fancies in education thrust upon us. Now, it seemed, we were going to try another, albeit more interesting, one. I asked an obvious question.

"I wonder who will be first?"

"First to get naked?"

"Sharon..."

"... McAlister would be a..."

"... popular choice."

We laughed, most of our conversations degenerated into a sort of monologue in two voices. We rarely argued about anything; one more reason to love her.

"So that's the boys taken care of..."

"... the heterosexual ones anyway..."

"... what's the girl's vote going to be?"

The line went suddenly quiet and I wondered if we'd been cut off, and then Debbie spoke quietly.

"Well this girl's vote is for you."

To say I was surprised is to say that Everest was tall, true, but not quite getting the scale of the thing across.

"Why me?"

She ignored the question and asked one of her own.

"How would you feel about it?"

"I don't know. After I got over the initial embarrassment I'd probably be OK. Mum and dad have never made a big thing about being or not being dressed. Half the time I'm at home one or more of us is naked. I guess I'd be okay about it. What about you?"

"We're a bit more prudish, underwear is all right, and some of ours is a bit risqué, but outright nudity never seems to happen somehow. I think I'd be okay about it. Actually the thought of it is quite a turn on." I groaned to myself, Debbie in a bikini was awesome. One of the reasons that I went swimming every Sunday was that occasionally she and her family would go too. Debbie in her red bikini made my heart stop, the thought of seeing her naked was mind-blowing. I tried to get the conversation back on track.

"Hey! No fair, you can't just put images of you, naked, into my mind without warning me. How will I sleep tonight?"

"If you saw me naked, it would only be fair," she giggled nervously, "I've seen you a couple of times. When I've been waiting for you to get ready."

"You never said."

"I didn't want you to be embarrassed." Her voice became quieter, "you have nothing to be ashamed of, you know."

I looked at the clock; it was getting late.

"Are we still on for tomorrow?"

"Of course."

"Shall I come to you, or do you want another shot at seeing me naked?"

"Hmmm, decisions, decisions. I'll take another shot at you, I think."

"See you about ten-ish?"

"Yeah. Good night."

"Night."

I put the 'phone down and fell back onto my bed. The vision of Debbie in her red bikini was fresh in my mind's eye and then I was peeling off the top and pulling her bottoms down and off. I groaned and succumbed to my right hand as imagined licking her and kissing her all over. The sound of her laughter filled my ears and the vision of her smiling face, filled my imagination and I came. As always after I masturbated while thinking of her I felt slightly ashamed. But after the conversation I'd just had there would be no way I would've got to sleep and then I'd have been tired and cranky tomorrow and no fun.

Having thus convinced myself I was doing it for her ultimate benefit - yeah right - I fell asleep.

Sunday

I woke the next day vaguely aware that I'd been dreaming of her all night. I dragged myself out of bed and into a shower. I was half asleep and forgot to wait while the water heated. The unexpected feel of the tepid shower felt like ice water to my sleep-warmed skin. Somehow I suppressed a scream. After the first few seconds it felt refreshing, so I turned the water heat down and finished my shower in lukewarm water. The cold had shrunk my morning hard-on - so that was one less thing to do - and I felt refreshed and awake.

When I got downstairs my parents were sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee, eating croissants and reading the Sunday paper. I grabbed a mug and poured myself some coffee.

"The croissants are warming in the oven, they should be done."

"Thanks, mum." I opened the oven and juggled the hot serving dish from the oven shelf and onto the table.

"If you burn yourself, I'll have no sympathy and if you drop it and break it you can buy another one." I grinned; she always complained that I had asbestos fingers. I grabbed a croissant from the dish; it was warm, flaky and buttery. Tearing one end off I dipped it in my coffee and ate it.

My father scowled in mock horror at what I was doing and muttered something about me being corrupted by my aunt. "Ridiculous French habit, ruining perfectly good coffee and pastry!" I stuck out my tongue and continued eating my croissant. I consumed a second croissant by tearing off pieces and slathering them in butter. He watched me do this and shuddered. "Think of your arteries, they'll be stopped up with cholesterol before you're thirty!"

I looked at the remains of his muesli. "At least I'll have enjoyed what I ate. How can you eat that rabbit food?" It was a standing joke that one day I would switch the rabbit food with the muesli and he wouldn't notice. The rabbit certainly didn't - when we ran out of real rabbit food, which was fairly often, we would feed him muesli and he was happy to eat it. I remembered my conversation with Debbie and decided to broach it with them.

"I heard something interesting from Debbie last night," there was no obvious response apart from a non-committal grunt from dad. "Andrea told her that the Naked in School Programme was being inaugurated at our school." They looked up, interested in spite of themselves. "Apparently it starts tomorrow." Mum was the first to say something.

"I did overhear something while I was on a break last week. Marcia and Steph were talking about it. They seemed a bit shocked. I didn't like to tell them that I wasn't sure I understood what all the fuss was about."

"Me too, I've always thought that the rest of Europe has the right idea about nudity. The less inhibited you are then the less problems you have with sex and nudity." He warmed to his subject. "I mean look at the Victorians and the Edwardians, they were so bothered about it that they covered table legs for God's sake..." he wound down, suddenly aware that mum and I were mouthing the words, silently, along with him. "Okay, so it's a pet peeve, what do you think, Mark?"

"I'm not sure. Like I said to Debbie, our family has never had a problem with nudity - at least in the home - and I thought once I got over the initial embarrassment I'd probably be OK. That's if I was to be chosen, of course. If it was just seeing other people I don't think it'd be any big deal. I mean, I'm sitting here talking to you and you're naked."

At this the two of them started to laugh. I couldn't understand this; I didn't think I'd said anything that funny, had I? After a while they got themselves under control.

"What's so funny?" My mum answered me.

"You are. You're naked too and you didn't even realise it."

I looked down and I realised that she was right. Mum continued.

"See? We're not particularly strange as families go, I'm not sure what they hope to achieve by importing The Programme?"

"Better sex education?" This was my dad, "They can hardly do worse than they are at the moment." He was right. The UK had the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe and had, had them for decades. I excused myself and went to get ready for Debbie.

I opened the door for her as she rang the doorbell. She made a moue of disappointment.

"You might have slept in, so I could see you get ready for me."

"You only want me for my body!"

"Well it is a very nice one."

With that she linked her arm in mine and we started on our favourite walk. We chatted about this and that. I told her about my conversation with my parents. She laughed. "You mean, there you were telling your parents how good you were being, treating them as normal even though they had no clothes on and you were naked too?" She cracked up again.

"Hey, what can I say? Like I said, being naked at home is no big deal."

"So you'd have no trouble with the 'outreach' element of The Programme then?"

"Obviously not."

"What about me?"

"How do you mean?"

"If I was naked in school?"

"Slobber, slobber, drool, drool! Try keeping me away from you." Debbie blushed, this was as close I had ever come to admitting how I really felt about her. I took a breath, now was the best chance I would ever have of telling her how I felt about her.

"Debbie?" She turned to look at me a speculative smile on her face. And all at once I just couldn't do it. I smiled in return, trying to mask the searing anguish that I felt as, once more, I felt the opportunity slipping from my grasp. The silence grew as I struggled with my insecurities. "Did Andrea tell you anything else about the how The Programme was going to work?"

Jesus! How lame can you get? Still Debbie didn't seem to notice anything, just widened her smile into a grin and teased me. "Mr. Nonchalant-I'm-okay-with-nudity isn't getting worried is he?"

"Nah, just wondering if your big sister let anything slip, that's all."

"We didn't spend the whole time talking about The Programme, she just slipped it in at the end of the conversation. Sort of, by the way you know that Naked in School thing they have in the States? Well it's coming to England and your school will be first to try it in this area. Oh and it starts next week. By the time I'd processed what she'd said I was listening to the dialling tone." Debbie grimaced at me, "I really, really hate it when she does that, and I know she just does it wind me up."

We walked for a while in companionable silence, stopping occasionally to admire the view. After about half an hour or so we reached a clearing in a small copse, that stood on a wide ledge just below the ridge of an escarpment. We sat back to back and looked through the gap in the trees at the flood plain below. The fields made a patchwork of greens of various hues. Occasional pastures were dotted with sheep or cows. The sun was well on its way to noon and the morning was pleasantly warm. We sat in dappled sunlight. Debbie sighed in contentment.

"This is just so..."

"... peaceful..."

"... and the view is..."

"... stupendous."

"I suppose it would have been different if I'd have been naked and surrounded by everyone else wearing clothes. I seem to remember reading something about Anglo-Saxon cultures..."

"... having a very strong nudity taboo. Wouldn't it be better if we could separate nudity from sex? Naturists have always said that they're two different things..."

"... but when people make money out of nudity, it's in their interests to link it with sex as..."

"... sex sells!"

I looked at my watch, Sunday lunch beckoned. We stood together and ambled back to our road via a short cut that knocked about an hour off the time that we had taken in getting to our vantage point. We reached Debbie's house first, not for the first time I wanted to spend more time with her, "Do you want to have Sunday lunch with us?"

"Will you be naked?" She smiled broadly.

I blushed, but stared her in the eye. "I will if you will."

It was her turn to blush. We held each other's gaze and she laughed. "It's tempting but I have an essay to finish and I haven't eaten a Sunday meal with my family for weeks, mum and dad reckon I'm only a weekday daughter." Reaching out she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Usual time tomorrow?"

"Yeah, see you then." And with that she turned and went into her house. I wandered, disconsolately, back to my house and an afternoon spent staring morosely into space. I couldn't believe that I hadn't said anything! I was dimly aware of the 'phone ringing, but I ignored it. Mum must have answered as she shouted to me that I had a call. I picked up and waited for the sound of the downstairs handset being replaced.

"Mark, speaking."

"Hello Mark, this is Anne Thomas," her voice sounded familiar and I was just about to place where I'd heard it before when she continued with, "I'm Mr. Edwards' assistant." D'oh! Of course!

"Hello, how can I help you, Mrs. Thomas?"

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "I have to read you an official notice, don't worry it's nothing bad, at least it's nothing of a disciplinary nature, but it is official and I have to read it to you. Can you wait until I've finished and then you can ask questions?" I felt a terrible yawning sensation as I linked the news of The Programme and then this strange, to put it mildly, 'phone call. I blurted out what I was thinking.

"You're putting me in The Programme aren't you?"

"How did..." she stopped herself. "It's better if I read the notice and you ask questions."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make it difficult for you."

"Well, anyway, here goes: Mark Thomas, I am informing you that from 8:45 on Monday, the 24th of June, and for the following six days you will be required to be naked while on school property or during school activities wheresoever the said school activities take place. You must make no attempts to cover yourself during this period, such attempts will be penalised by extensions to the original seven-day period. You will be required, while you are naked or on school property, to undertake to perform reasonable requests from other students and from members of staff. During this period you will, at all times, use the female changing facilities and the female toilets. Do you understand the notice that I have just read?"

While she spoke my mind was racing and I almost didn't realise that she had asked me a question.

"Sorry, do understand what you just read out? Yes, yes I understand."

"Good. We want you to come to a meeting for 8 o'clock on Monday. Everyone who's in The Programme will be there and we'll try and answer your questions and you will see that you aren't the only one in this situation. Until then, please don't tell any of your friends or other students about this."

"What about my parents?"

"Oh, I didn't mean them, just don't tell anyone else at school."

"Can you tell me who else us in The Programme?"

"Sorry, but you'll find out before everyone else though, because you will be at the meeting. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, but I think I might as well wait until tomorrow."

"That's the best thing. I'm sorry to spring this on you like this, but this is as new to us as it is to you. Cheerio." Yes, but you won't be naked tomorrow will you?

"Uh, bye." I sat and listened to the dialling tone; almost catatonic as a million half-formed thoughts and questions vied for my attention. All I could think was: 'I'm gonna be naked in school! I'm gonna be... ' round and round. Zombie-like I replaced the handset. In a daze I wandered downstairs and found mum and dad sharing the rest of the wine as they cleared away the evening meal and chatted about this and that. My appearance must have been worse than I thought because mum immediately pulled out a chair and sat me in it.

"Sit down, Mark, before you faint. Are you all right?"

I looked at them both they looked concerned, which made me feel better; at least I knew I had someone in my corner whatever happened. "Sorry, I just had a bit of a shock, that's all."

"Who was on the 'phone?" Dad was ever the practical one.

"Anne, I mean, Mrs. Thomas, the Head's PA. She rang to tell me that I'm in The Programme tomorrow and I have to go in early to go to some sort of meeting."

"Are you all right about it?" Mum asked.

"I don't know, I suppose in one way it's better than going all year wondering if I'm going to be next. On the other hand, I'm going to be naked in school all week!" I couldn't help it; I started to giggle, slightly hysterically. "It's going to be an interesting week." I said after I had calmed down.

"It's an old Chinese curse: 'May you live always in interesting times.'" That was my dad, a fount of useless knowledge; useless, that is, until it was time to enter the village quiz and then his team would romp home in first place. Suddenly I felt tired, it had been an emotional day and this news put the tin-lid on it.

"I'm tired, I think I'll turn it. 'Night, mum, dad." I trudged upstairs and got undressed, too tired to stick my clothes in the wash-basket I just let them lie in a heap by the door. Fuck 'em I'll do something about them tomorrow. Before I drifted off I reset my alarm an hour earlier, if I was going to this meeting and being naked for the rest of the day I'd better make sure I was squeaky clean! I wondered, vaguely, who else was in The Programme but I was too sleepy to think coherently and my thoughts scattered like frightened pigeons and the next thing I knew the alarm was beeping insistently and it was Monday.

Monday

I looked at the alarm and tried to remember why I had set it so stupidly early. Something about being clean... shit! I remembered the 'phone call from Mrs. Thomas I was going to be naked in school for the next week. I pulled the covers over my head and moaned. Why me? What had I done that was so bad that I deserved this? Oh well, lying in bed whinging about it wasn't going to make it go away and once I was awake I had never been able to loll about in bed anyway. I did the shower and shave thing, making a special point of ensuring that all my nooks and crannies were squeaky clean, even to the point of sticking a thoroughly soaped finger in... Well perhaps that's too much information, you can guess the rest.

Getting dressed was different, I was aware that all of my clothes were going to be on view at some point, so I made sure that my underwear was completely clean and hole-less. Luckily I'd bought some new only last week. I donned the obligatory year 11 uniform of jeans and a tee-shirt. I looked out of my window and though the sun was shining there was still some mist about, so I grabbed a sweatshirt just in case. I was too nervous to eat anything so I just drank a glass of milk. As I was leaving the house, I realised it was far earlier than I had intended. I shrugged mentally, Debs wouldn't mind and if she wasn't dressed she might think I was trying for payback.

To my surprise Debs was waiting for me, even though I was much earlier than usual. Had I not been preoccupied with thoughts of the upcoming week, I might have made more of it. Debbie seemed excited, I made some comment - I can't remember what exactly, something inane, I wasn't on top form and she said something about the weather being nice. All too soon we had arrived at the main entrance. Strictly speaking we weren't allowed to use it - it was only for teachers and years 12 and 13, but because we were usually early no one ever said anything. Anyway, with exams over, we only had a couple of weeks before the end of term and then it would be official. Why was I thinking of this inane stuff, I wondered? Mrs. Thomas saw us and waved.