Chapter 1: Skin and Shame

My name is Celine Gomez. I’m fifteen years old—until tomorrow, but today, I am nothing. Not a daughter. Not a student. Not even a person. Just skin. Naked. Exposed. Reduced to the barest form of human existence, as if I’ve been flayed alive and left for the world to gawk at, and after today, it’ll be permanent.

The Absolute Nude Forever (ANF) Movement isn’t some fringe lifestyle choice. It’s the law. A federal mandate, enforced with the same bureaucratic indifference as tax codes and traffic violations. A choice my parents made for me before I could even speak in full sentences.

A choice that strips me of everything. No clothes. No towels. No bandages if I bleed. No tampons when my body betrays me because, according to ANF, anything that covers the skin is a lie and today, in this suffocating office that smells like leather and judgment, I’m signing away the last scrap of my dignity.

The chair beneath me is stiff, its white upholstery cold against my thighs. I perch on the edge, back straight, hands clamped between my knees—not that it hides anything.

My parents sit beside me, dressed in crisp, formal attire. The irony burns. They get to cover themselves. They get to pretend this is normal.

Across the desk, Eleanor “Ellie” Winslow, Esq., taps her manicured nails against the contract that will seal my fate. “This is a legally binding commitment,” she says, voice smooth as polished glass. “Once signed, Celine will be entered into the ANF registry, and any violation—including the use of fabric, bandages, or hygienic coverings—will result in immediate penalization.” My mother nods, serene. “We understand.” My father doesn’t even look at me.

The air is thick with the scent of expensive perfume and something faintly antiseptic, like the room has been scrubbed clean of empathy. A gilded clock on the wall ticks, each second a hammer strikes against my skull. This is happening.

I should be used to this. I’ve been training for it since I was eight—standing naked in the backyard during winter, swallowing bitter tonics to “purify” my resistance to cold, meditating under the sun until my skin burned, but nothing prepares you for the moment you sign away your right to ever feel safe again.

My fingers tremble as I reach for the pen and then—a cramp twists deep in my gut. No. Not now. However, my body doesn’t care about timing. A hot flush creeps up my neck as I feel it—the slow, sticky trickle between my thighs.

I press my legs together, but it’s useless. There’s no hiding. No wiping it away. No discreetly stuffing a wad of toilet paper in my underwear like I used to before ANF took even that from me.

I’m just supposed to bleed openly. “Celine?” Mrs. Winslow’s voice cuts through the haze. “Is there a problem?” My parents turn, finally looking at me. My mother’s lips tighten in disapproval. My father’s jaw clenches, and I realize—they know. They see the blood and they don’t care. This didn’t start today.

It started when I was eight years old, sitting at the dinner table, my parents smiling as they told me the story of how I’d supposedly asked—begged—to stay naked forever.

“You’ve always known the truth,” Mom would say, stroking my hair. “Clothing is corruption.”

By twelve, I was swallowing herbal tonics that tasted like rotting fish, gagging as the thick, metallic sludge coated my throat. “It strengthens the skin,” Dad would say, watching me with cold satisfaction as I forced it down. Then came Bare Harmony.

Not just a movement—a mandate. A state-sanctioned religion that worshipped exposure as enlightenment. Fabric was a sin. Modesty was a weakness, and my parents, once loving, became zealots.

I remember the day I finally said no. I was fourteen, standing in the backyard, snow biting at my bare feet. My parents loomed over me, their breath fogging in the cold.

“Today, you embrace the truth,” Mom said, her voice eerily calm.

“No more hesitation,” Dad added.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. Three years of silent obedience. Three years of swallowing my screams and then—”No.” The word hung in the air like a knife.

Mom’s smile vanished. “What did you say?”

“I said no.” My voice didn’t shake. “I’m not doing this.”

Dad’s face darkened. “You don’t have a choice.”

“I was a child when you signed me up for this!”

“Now you’re old enough to understand,” Mom snapped. “This is your path.”

They dragged me back inside, my bare feet stumbling over the threshold. Then, from a drawer, my father pulled out a sheet of paper—my handwriting, but not my words—a letter, scribbled in the uneven strokes of an eight-year-old.

“I want to be free like the trees and the sky,” it read. “I want to be pure, with nothing to hide.” The words sounded poetic. Too perfect. Too rehearsed because they were.

I remembered that day. My mother’s hand guiding mine, her voice whispering in my ear, “Write this, sweetheart. It’s important.” I did because I was eight—because I trusted them. Now, they held it up like a contract written in blood.

“You wanted this,” Dad said.

“You chose this,” Mom corrected, her voice soft, as if that made it better.

I looked down at my hands, still trembling. Back then, after I’d written it, they’d let me put my clothes back on.

“You need time,” Mom had said. “A year, maybe more. You’re not ready to be out in the cold for long yet.” Even though I’d barely worn anything for years. Even though I’d endured winters with nothing but my skin.

Now, sitting in this office, the past and present collided. That letter was my leash, and they’d been holding it all along. The walk from the law office to our car was the longest fifty yards of my life.

Fresh blood trickled down my thighs with every step, leaving faint crimson footprints on the polished marble floor. The receptionist gasped, hand flying to her mouth as I passed. A delivery man dropped his package with a loud thud, his face turning beet red as his eyes traveled the length of my naked, bleeding body.

“Shoulders back, Celine,” Mom murmured, her high heels clicking beside me. “Natural beauty means embracing every bodily function with pride.”

A group of businessmen exiting the elevator froze mid-conversation. One man’s coffee cup slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered.

Dad held the building’s glass door open with exaggerated patience. “You’ll get used to the stares,” he said cheerfully. “By winter, you won’t even notice them!”

The car ride was worse. I sat on a plastic garbage bag Mom had thoughtfully laid across the leather seat, my bare skin making wet, sticky sounds every time we hit a bump. The summer heat turned the car into a sauna, amplifying the coppery scent until it filled the enclosed space.

“Roll down your window, dear,” Mom said without looking back from the passenger seat. “Airflow helps with the odor.”

At the stoplight, a minivan pulled up beside us. A little girl’s face appeared at the window, her eyes widening. “Mommy, why is that lady—” The window slid up abruptly. Dad turned up the radio.

When we got home, they made me hose off in the backyard. The cold water stung as it washed away the evidence of my humiliation, turning the grass pink at my feet. “Remember,” Mom said as she handed me a rough towel—the last one I’d ever be allowed to use—”starting tomorrow, no more showers either. True ANF adherents only use natural bodies of water. The school’s swimming pool will have to suffice during your monthly cycles.”

I stood there dripping, watching my parents retreat into our fully-furnished, climate-controlled home, where they would sleep in pajamas under blankets tonight. Where Mom would pad around in slippers tomorrow morning while making coffee. Where Dad would not wear his tie before work, every thread was a privilege they’d convinced me to surrender.

Through the kitchen window, I saw them laughing about something as Mom poured wine. Normal people. Living normal lives. While their daughter stood naked in the backyard, preparing to face the world with nothing but her exposed skin and a permanent scarlet stain on her future.

Today was Friday, a little over a week before the new school year. The morning of my sixteenth birthday dawned with a sickening cramp low in my abdomen—right at its peak, of course—as I lay curled in a fetal position on my rubber-wrapped mattress. They’d removed my old bed last week, replacing it with this cold, utilitarian slab, easier to clean. The first streaks of sunlight cut through the blinds, exposing me in cruel detail—every stretch mark, every goosebumps, every shameful smear of dried blood.

Downstairs, the blender whirred like a chainsaw. Mom was making her infamous iron booster smoothie—beetroot, liver powder, and something unidentifiable that made it clump like wet cement. I’d be choking down three of these a day until my cycle ended, just in time for orientation on Tuesday.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” Dad’s voice boomed up the stairs. “Big day today! Come down before your smoothie oxidizes!”

The hardwood floors were icy underfoot as I shuffled to the bathroom. At least they’d let me keep toilet paper—though Mom monitored the roll like a prison warden, ensuring I wasn’t “wasting it on modesty.”