Chapter 14

It had been a few weeks since Laura had caught Sara in all her naked glory as she peeked out the window. There was a funny side effect to Laura finding out about our family secret. One that I never would have never expected solely based on how she had reacted when she caught my sister naked. She was obsessed with our nudism and nudist lifestyle. A fact that she was incredibly curious to learn all about it.

As intrigued as she was, at the same time she was reluctant and borderline scared to ask me the questions I could plainly see were eating at her every time I saw her at school. If there was ever a time that I could accurately read a female’s mind, this was it. In my short life, I had learned that attempting to know what a girl was thinking was absolutely ridiculous. Laura however, in this instance, was as easy to read as a pop-up picture book.

“Laura, just ask me already,” Laura stood there at my locker after our last classes, watching me. She wanted to say something but every time our eyes met, she would look away. Finding something interesting about the floor or a locker across that hall. “Seriously, it’s fine. I promise there is nothing you could ask me that would offend me or something.”

“I ... um,” Laura stammered and blushed furiously, clutching her books to her chest like they were worth a fortune, and it was her job to protect them from any possible attack or theft. “It’s nothing. I was going to ... never mind. Can we just go now, please?”

“You sure?” Admittedly, I was way too comfortable with how this dynamic was going.

“I’m sure, okay!” Laura whined, blushing an ever-deeper shade of red.

“Okay, fine,” I said, heaving my backpack over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Laura rode home with me in my Ranger after school. She and I had come up with an every-other-day schedule when it came to who was giving who a ride to and from school. I loved it. Laura enjoyed it as much as I did, which was an added bonus.

I would crank the heater up and roll down the windows so I could rest my elbow out the open window. Laura would do the same thing or else the cab would get too hot. With both of the windows down, I could watch the wind as it tossed and toyed with Laura’s hair. She really was beautiful. Everything about her was amazing.

There were still things I needed to finish on the truck. I still hadn’t gotten my stereo fixed, but we didn’t really need it. We usually talked and laughed to fill the time, or in this instance, I just watched as Laura fidgeted, trying to build up the courage to finally start asking me questions about growing up naked.

“Sam?” I barely heard Laura’s voice but not because we were driving so fast that it was hard to hear over the wind. It was because she was just being shy and when she was, her voice became timid and soft.

“Yeah?” I replied, gazing in her direction, locking eyes with her, and giving her a quick smile before looking back at the road.

“You weren’t just messing with me, were you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused by her question.

“About being a nudist. That wasn’t some bullshit made up story, right?”

“Nope.”

“That’s just crazy.” I glanced over and saw her looking at me and I raised an eyebrow questioningly. “I mean, it’s not like, crazy crazy, but it’s crazy! You know?”

I just shook my head and laughed. I had to admit, it was quite the revelation. Learning one of your childhood friends was a nudist was a pretty big deal.

“It’s not that big of a deal for us. For you, sure, but for us, not at all.”

“How would you even start?”

“I don’t know what happened and how exactly it started with my family,” I explained. “All I know is it did. I heard a story about the sixties, and how things were different back then. I don’t know if that was when it officially started though.”

“So, your grandparents started it then?”

“I think so, but like I said, I don’t know for sure.”

“And you don’t think it’s weird at all?” Laura asked. “Being naked with everyone in your family?”

“I grew up in this lifestyle so it’s completely and totally normal. I think it would be even stranger if we suddenly started wearing clothes all the time instead of being nude.”

“Wow,” Laura had a contemplative look on her face as she digested what I had just told her. “Was Sara serious?”

“About what?”

“Dinner.”

“Oh, you mean joining us for dinner, naked?” I waggled my eyebrows teasingly.

“Sam!” Laura screeched. There was an awkward silence for a minute as Laura tried to regain her composure. “She wasn’t serious, right?”

I just shrugged.

“There’s no way,” Laura announced, confidently.

“You could just ask my mom when we get to my house. She can probably answer all your questions.”

The look Laura gave me at that suggestion was a sight to behold. Her mouth was moving like she wanted to refute my statement and her eyes were wide with shock and what I assumed was a touch of awe.

Right then and there I decided that I was going to jump into the whole situation with both feet and force the issue. As soon as we got home, I was going to have Laura confront my mom about being a nudist and everything that entails. I would drag Laura into that conversation kicking and screaming if I had to.

Mom was pulling into the driveway just as Laura and I were. I grinned at Laura who gave me a confused look. That only had me grinning even wider. Laura had no clue what I was about to do. She knew something was up, but what exactly that was, she was utterly and completely in the dark.

“Hey, Mom!” I waved trying to grab her attention as I got out of the car.

“Hi, Sam,” Mom raised a hand in acknowledgment. “What are you two up to?”

“Not much, just going to hang out until dinner.”

“Okay, dinner should be ready in a couple hours.”

“Do you have a second?” I asked. Laura gasped, her eyes wide and looking a bit frantic. I winked. That didn’t give her any relief at all. “Laura and I wanted to talk to you for a bit.”

“Sure, let me get changed and get something to drink.” She offered a smile, and I nodded my agreement to her suggestion.

Mom looked happy to talk to us. She was always exceedingly friendly and willing to talk to almost anyone. She had no idea what we were going to be talking about, but I was confident she wouldn’t be caught flat footed, not entirely anyway. Laura, on the other hand, looked like a deer in the headlights. Knowing full well danger was speeding towards her but completely unable to make herself move out of the way.

I walked around the truck towards the front door. I didn’t notice right away that Laura wasn’t following me. She was just standing there, her body completely still as her head and eyes tracked my movements. For all intents and purposes, she was a statue, frozen in place.

“You coming?” I nodded my head towards the front door. Laura’s lips moved a little, but whatever she was saying was too quiet for me to hear or she wasn’t actually saying anything. I chuckled and shook my head. I walked over to where she stood, grabbed her arm, and pulled her after me. “Come on, jeez. It’s just my mom. She’s not going to bite. At least I don’t think so.”

“But ... but...” Laura barely managed to mutter as she mindlessly allowed me to maneuver her to the front door and inside.

“You can sit down if you need to. You want something to drink?”

Laura slowly, steadily sat down on the edge of the sofa, her eyes locked on the huge window looking out over the front yard. I didn’t wait for her to answer the question. I went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and grabbed two cans of Coke.

I sat down on the middle cushion of the couch, right next to Laura. It wasn’t until I held out one of the cans of Coke to her did her body move at all or even show some sign of life.

“Here,” I said, moving the can in front of her. “She should be done changing any moment now.”

Her head snapped to look at me and her eyes again had that wild look to them.

“She’s not going to ... Oh God!” Her hands rushed up to cover the lower half of her face, leaving only the bridge of her nose and eyes exposed.

“No, no,” I chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking and no, she isn’t going to come down here naked.” She gave me a look that screamed she didn’t believe me. “I swear, don’t worry about it.”

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Mom asked as she walked into the room in a pair of baggy pants and a T-shirt.

The relieved look in Laura’s face made me start laughing and Mom gave me a questioning look but was grinning as she did so.

“So, remember when Sara and I told you that Laura had caught us, and we had to tell her about our family?” Mom nodded, looking over to Laura and offering her a warm smile before shifting her gaze back to me and giving me a slightly more intense look. “Well, Laura here...” I rested my hand on her shoulder, and I felt her flinch. “ ... has some questions.”

That got Mom’s full and undivided attention.

“Oh, sure,” Mom replied. “What would you like to know?”

What happened next started off slowly. There were a lot of awkward pauses but as we talked, Laura seemed to loosen up a little bit and once Laura realized that everything we had told her was the truth, the floodgates were opened, and she wouldn’t shut up.

“So, you’re all ... umm ... like, nudists?” Laura asked, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer she was about to get.

Mom nodded, maintaining her calm, disarming smile.