Prologue: A Stepping Stone

The past year stripped me down to my core—in every sense of the word. I’m Nellie Maddox née Genovese. The person I was twelve months ago feels like a ghost—one who mistook her clothes for armor and her composure for self.

It all started near the end of my junior year. The social landscape was shifting faster than my parents could process. A recent federal ruling had turned clothing into more of an optional accessory than a requirement in our state, a change that clashed with every belief they held. I was trying to find my place in that new world—still figuring—when life threw a curveball that shattered everything.

I told myself it was just a game. That we were just playing. Even then, a voice in the back of my mind was already screaming. The incident in Mr. Davison’s history class is seared into my memory with blistering clarity. He had stepped out of the room, and something in the air shifted. Pete, my boyfriend, was there. The energy between us had always been electric, a little reckless. That day, it turned destructive.

It started as a dare. A game. A test of boundaries in a world that suddenly had so few. Then it escalated. What was supposed to be harmless rebellion turned into something else—something that neither of us could stop once it began. There were too many eyes, too much noise, and in the middle of it all, Pete and I became trapped inside a moment that rewrote our futures.

He said later he hadn’t meant to hurt me. That it was proof of love, of devotion, of the closeness no one else could understand. I believed him, because the alternative was unbearable. We were seventeen, and the world felt like it had been watching us since birth, waiting for us to fail. Maybe we were only giving it what it wanted.

The buttons on my cardigan popped, flying in all directions as Pete slid it down my arms and tossed it aside. Pete pulled my sundress over my head and tossed it behind him. His hands weren’t gentle. He fumbled with the clasp of my bra, not with affection, but with frantic urgency. He pulled at the seams of my panties until they gave way. My shoes ended up under someone’s desk.

I was exposed—completely and utterly—in the middle of the classroom. The world narrowed to the cold Formica surface of a desk against my back and the eyes of two dozen classmates. Some watched with voyeuristic fascination. Others—those who had already embraced the new “living nude” norm—looked on with a detached acceptance that cut just as deep. Their faces blurred together, forming a human wall between me and the door in case the teacher returned. Pete’s grip tightened. What happened next wasn’t love; it was performance. Possession. A raw, humiliating exchange of power and submission played out under fluorescent light. He pushed me down on that desk and entered me from behind—in front of an audience.