Geometry of Shame
Copyright© 2025 by Danielle Stories
Chapter 17: The Fig Leaf Protocol
The side door groaned shut behind me, a metallic thunderclap in the vast, wind-scoured silence of the Badlands overlook. I carried Ash in my arms, her body light and pliant, her head nestled against my shoulder where her breath warmed my neck through the polo shirt’s thin cotton. I carried her not because she couldn’t walk, but because the connection forged in the wagon’s back seat was the intimacy of her cleaning my hand with her mouth. The silent sacrament of it felt too profound, too newly consecrated, to sever with something as mundane as standing apart.
Her weight was my anchor. My purpose.
I carried her past the wagon’s rear bumper, over the crunching gravel, toward where my sisters stood like a pair of elegant, exposed saplings against the apocalyptic scenery. The setting sun painted the banded cliffs in rust and blood and bone-white, a perfect mirror to our own stripped reality.
Only when I was upon them did I let her slide down. Her bare feet found purchase on the ground. She swayed for a single heartbeat, a pale reed in the wind, then stabilized, leaning back against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her from behind, crossing over her collarbone and stomach, locking her into the frame of my body. My chin rested on the crown of her head. We were a single unit, a living sculpture titled Possession. From this vantage, I listened.
My parents stood a few paces away, a united front. My father, crisp in his polo and khakis, was a pillar of clothed authority. My mother, utterly nude, stood with a serene, untouchable grace that made her seem more dressed than anyone in the park. Her nakedness wasn’t an absence; it was a declaration, and in that moment, it felt like the most powerful attire imaginable.
The conversation was already in motion, a low, strategic planning session. The wind snatched at words, but their voices were calibrated to carry.
“ ... the density is the test,” Dad was saying, his gaze on the horizon where the last light bled into the eroded canyons. “Prairie Dog Town was a controlled sample. The Badlands overlooks had intermittent exposure. Wall Drug is a sustained, pressurized contact. A swarm.”
“It’s the ultimate validation of the protocol,” Mom added, turning to face Claire and Megan. Her nakedness was so irrelevant to the discussion that it was startling; she was discussing troop deployments. “You will be immersed. Not just seen, but passed by, surrounded, unavoidably there. The temptation will be to shrink. To make yourselves small. That is the old wiring. You must override it.”
Claire stood with her arms crossed, not in modesty, but in a posture of focused reception. The defiant shield I’d seen at Prairie Dog Town was being reforged into a tactical stance. “How?”
“By redefining the boundary,” Dad stated. He stepped closer to them, his clothes forming a stark contrast. “Your skin is now your attire. Your only attire. It is not a state of vulnerability; it is a finished garment. You must treat it with the same psychological indifference as you once treated a cotton t-shirt.”
Mom picked up the thread, her eyes alight with pedagogical zeal. “I want you to visualize it. When we walk into Wall Drug, I want you to see yourselves, in your mind’s eye, fully clothed. See the jeans, the sweaters, the shoes. Then, I want you to understand that the exposed skin you feel the air on ... is that clothing. It is not you. It is your outfit. The most honest one you’ve ever worn.”
Megan nodded, her mind visibly working. “A perceptual reframe. The sensation of exposure is re-categorized as the sensation of wearing a specific, unitary garment.”
“Exactly,” Mom affirmed. “And because it is your garment, it comes with its own rules of engagement.” Her voice sharpened. “A casual brush from a passerby? That is no different than someone brushing against your sleeve in a crowd. You would not gasp. You would not flinch. You would barely register it. That is the reaction you must cultivate.”
Dad took over, his tone that of a coach before a championship game. “Now, a deliberate touch. A grab, a prolonged contact. That is the equivalent of someone putting their hand under your clothing. A violation of the boundary of the garment itself.” He looked between them. “In the old world, you would recoil. In our geometry, you do not. You own the boundary. So, you turn. You look directly at the violator. You hold their gaze. You do not look to us for rescue. You look at them with the full weight of your personhood, and you let the absurdity of their action of groping a clearly composed, unashamed person hang in the air. Then, and only then, you look to me, or to your mother, or to Sam. You transfer the acknowledgement of the violation to us, the heads of the unit. We become the enforcement mechanism. Your calm is your power. Your gaze is your first line of defense.”
The doctrine was so perversely elegant it stole the air from my lungs. They weren’t teaching my sisters to be brave victims. They were teaching them to be unassailable sovereigns of their own exposed state. Shame was being pre-emptively dismantled. Violation was being re-categorized as a social faux pas committed by the transgressor.
“What about us?” Claire asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Sam and ... Ash?”
Mom’s eyes flicked to where I held Ash. A faint, approving smile touched her lips. “Sam is clothed. His role is different. He is the curator in the gallery, the handler of the most specialized piece. His focus is on maintaining his companion’s quiet amidst the stimulus. His responsibility is her equilibrium, not the crowd’s morality.” She paused, letting it sink in. “As for your sister ... She is Sam’s garment. His responsibility. Her reaction will be a reflection of his calibration. If he is calm, she will be impervious. If he is tense, she may ... glitch. That is his burden to manage.”
The words settled over us like a fine, cold dust. Ash, in the cage of my arms, didn’t stir. But I felt the slightest shift in her breathing, a deeper intake. She was listening, absorbing the parameters of her world, which were now entirely defined by the stability of my will.
“We have reservations for dinner at the Wall Drug Cafe,” Dad said, checking his watch. “After that, we drive. We’ve booked a suite past Rapid City for the night. A connected room. Your sisters will stay together.” His gaze was level, the architect reviewing the blueprint. “And you will practice. In that room, you will look at each other. You will see the fully clothed woman you are learning to be. You will treat the sight of each other’s skin with the same indifference as seeing each other in pajamas. A slight brush as you pass? That’s fabric touching fabric. The goal is to make the neurological connection until the lie feels truer than the old, screaming truth.”
The plan was monolithic. A full-spectrum assault on their own neurology. Dinner in the lion’s den, then a night of forced, intimate normalization in a sterile hotel room.
Claire swallowed, her throat working. She looked at Megan, and for a fleeting, heartbreaking second, I saw the ghost of their old solidarity, a shared, wide-eyed terror from a time when such a thing would have been unthinkable. Then Megan’s analytical mask slid back into place. She gave Claire a small, firm nod. We can optimize this. We can learn this protocol.
Claire’s shoulders straightened. The fear was metabolized into resolve. She looked back at our parents. “Okay.”
It was not enthusiastic. It was the sound of a soldier accepting a mission from which there is no return.
“Good,” Mom said, the word warm with pride. “Then we’re ready.”
Dad clapped his hands once, the sound final. “Load up. Last leg to Wall.”
The geometry shifted. Claire and Megan turned and walked back to the wagon, their movements more purposeful, their backs straighter. They were no longer exiles in their skin; they were ambassadors in a uniform they were just learning to name.
I guided Ash to follow, my arms still around her. As we walked, I leaned my mouth close to her ear, my voice the private stream in the current of my parents’ doctrine.
“You heard them, my doll,” I whispered, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “The noise, the crowd ... It is nothing but the weather. You are under my cover. Your skin is my garment. Your quiet is our fortress. No touch that is not mine will ever be real. Do you understand?”
She nodded, a slight, definite motion of her head against my cheek. A pulse of warmth, of agreement, traveled from her body into mine. It was the only answer I needed.
We reached the wagon. This time, I did not lift her in. I opened the door, gave a slight guiding pressure on the small of her back, and a silent command; she flowed onto the bench seat with the graceful obedience of a well-trained animal. I climbed in after her, and she immediately curled into my side, her hand finding its familiar place on my chest, over my heart.
The doors shut. The engine started. The wagon turned, leaving the grand, empty theater of the Badlands behind. Ahead lay the garish lights, the canned music, the press of countless eyes at Wall Drug.
The final, crowded calibration awaited.
And in the humming dark of the car, holding my doll, feeling the steady beat of her heart through my shirt, I felt a terrifying new sensation settle into my bones. It wasn’t dreadful.
It was anticipation.
The wagon crawled into Wall Drug’s sprawling, neon-drenched parking lot just after six-twenty, the sky a deep bruise of twilight giving way to artificial day. The place was a seizure of light and sound, a carnival of consumerism plopped defiantly in the prairie. Billboards screamed for free ice water, five-cent coffee, and jackalopes. The sheer density of people was a physical pressure against the windows: families spilling from Winnebagos, bikers in leather vests, tour groups with matching hats, a swirling, clothed river of normalcy.
“Forty minutes until the reservation,” Dad announced, killing the engine. The silence inside was brittle, charged. “Protocol begins now. Claire, Megan. You know your objective. Be at the cafe by seven, no later.”
It was a dismissal and a test in one. My sisters didn’t hesitate. They exchanged a glance, a last, fleeting spark of the old, wordless sister-code, then Claire pushed the heavy side door open. They slipped out together, two pale, nude figures melting into the river of clothed humanity flowing toward the gaudy entrance. They didn’t look back. They were implementing Phase One: autonomous navigation in the uniform of skin. I watched them until they were swallowed by the crowd, a strange knot of something like pride tightening in my chest alongside the fear.
“Sam,” Mom’s voice pulled my attention. She was turned in her seat, her eyes soft but intent. “Your father and I will make our own circuit. Why don’t you and your companion explore? Find something nice.” Her gaze dropped meaningfully to Ash’s throat, where the cheap, provisional collar sat, then back to me. “Look at the options. Consider what suits her ... function. What enhances her truth.”
The unspoken command was clear. The twenty-dollar bill for a collar was now a curatorial budget. I was to complete Ash’s presentation, to make the final, definitive choice.
They left us then, my parents stepping out with the mundane ease of any middle-aged couple on a road trip, their clothed normality the perfect camouflage. The door shut, and suddenly it was just us.
The insulated bubble of the wagon was gone. We were in the world.
I guided Ash out, my hand firm on the small of her back. The transition was jarring: from the vinyl-scented quiet to a parking lot buzzing with engines, laughter, and the tinny cacophony of calliope music from the store’s speakers. The evening air was cool, carrying the smell of exhaust, fried dough, and dust.
I steered us toward the main entrance, Ash a half-step behind me, her fingers laced with mine. The first wave of stares hit like a physical force. Double-takes. Whispers behind hands. A child’s loud, unconcerned, “Mommy, why isn’t that lady wearing clothes?” followed by a frantic, mortified shush.
We crossed the threshold into Wall Drug itself. It was a labyrinth of kitsch and clutter. Aisles overflowed with embroidered pillows, rubber tomahawks, taffy machines, fudge samples, and hundreds of people in a state of cheerful, overwhelmed consumption. We were a discordant note in the symphony of normalcy, a silent, shocking chord that froze pockets of conversation in our wake.
I moved with a purpose I didn’t fully feel, heading toward a section marked ‘Western Wear & Souvenirs.’ My eyes scanned for collars, leashes, anything pertaining to pets. The pet section, when I found it tucked between cowboy hats and souvenir spoons, was a profound disappointment. Thin, garish nylon things meant for poodles and chihuahuas, adorned with rhinestones or tacky plaid patterns. They were frivolous. Unworthy. They spoke of a silly, decorative domesticity, not the solemn, functional ownership I was meant to embody. Ash stood passively beside me as I fingered a pink, glitter-studded band, feeling nothing but contempt. This was not her language. This was not our truth.
As I turned away in disgust, a man brushed past us, his movement hurried. He was burly, in a stained denim jacket, with a face weathered by sun and indifference. An older woman, his wife, and two teenage girls followed in his wake, their eyes wide. In the tight press of the aisle, his swinging, ham-sized hand didn’t just glance against Ash’s bare hip; it traveled, a rough, fleeting caress down the curve of her spine to the top of her buttock.
My head snapped up. Our eyes met. His eyes were flat, challenging blue, devoid of apology, glinting with a crude, testing curiosity. He’d done it to see what would happen. To see if he could get a rise. To claim a piece of the spectacle.
A white-hot wire of pure, protective anger sparked in my gut. My fingers tightened around Ash’s. But before I could speak, before I could even tense to step forward, I felt her.
Or rather, I felt her lack of reaction.
She had registered the touch; a tiny, almost imperceptible shift in her posture, a slight stiffening of the muscle under my hand, told me she’d felt the pressure. But there was no flinch. No gasp. No reactive turn of her head. Her breathing didn’t change. She remained perfectly still, leaning into my side, her gaze fixed on a point on the shelf ahead, as if studying the stitching on a saddle blanket. It was as if the touch had occurred on a layer of invisible glass between her and the world. She had executed the protocol perfectly. Her skin was a garment; his hand was on the sleeve. It was nothing.
The man’s smirk faltered, then died. He’d expected shock, shame, a reaction he could feast on. He got ... nothing. A non-recognition so complete it rendered his violation meaningless, absurd. His wife, catching the tail end of the interaction, flushed a deep, ashamed crimson and yanked his arm, pulling him and their gawking daughters down the aisle toward the jackalope postcards. He went, throwing one last, confused scowl over his shoulder, not of triumph, but of bafflement.
The wire of anger in my gut cooled, transforming into something else: a profound, chilling satisfaction. My calm is her fortress. The doctrine was real. It worked. I gave Ash’s hand a slight, approving squeeze. She returned it, a gentle, answering pulse against my palm. Understood.
The encounter had clarified my mission. The pink nylon collar was an insult. I needed something that spoke of utility, of deliberate choice, of a bond that transcended the decorative. Something that matched the stark truth of her, and of us.
We drifted through the chaotic store, a slow-moving island of quiet in the noisy sea. I passed aisles of tie-dyed t-shirts, shelves of polished geodes, racks of foam cowboy hats. Then, in a quieter corner near the back, beside a display of leather conditioners and saddle blankets, I found a section dedicated to actual ranch supplies: braided ropes, silver bits, tins of saddle soap. And there, on a simple metal hook, I found it.
It was labeled as a horse bridle collar. Made of thick, supple, oil-rich brown leather, worn smooth in places with the ghost of imagined use, bearing a beautiful, deep patina. It was wide, almost two inches, with a solid, polished brass buckle and a heavy D-ring at the front. It had weight. Substance. It spoke not of pet ownership, but of partnership with a creature of strength and quiet purpose. It was honest. It was true.
“This one,” I murmured, more to myself than to Ash.
I took it from the hook. The leather was cool and firm in my hand, smelling of hide and honest work. I turned to Ash. “Look up, my doll.”
She lifted her chin obediently, exposing the vulnerable, graceful line of her throat. With careful fingers, I unbuckled the cheap black nylon band, her provisional collar, a placeholder, and let it fall into my pocket. Then I lifted the heavy leather circle. It settled around her neck with a quiet, definitive weight, like a crown being lowered. I fastened the buckle, the brass tongue clicking home with a sound of finality. I adjusted it, ensuring it was snug but not tight, sitting just above her collarbones, a dark band against her pale skin.
The effect was instantaneous and transformative.
The wide band of leather was a shocking, beautiful contrast. It didn’t hide her; it anchored her. It framed her face, drawing attention not to her nakedness, but to the deliberate, curated nature of her presentation. She was no longer just a naked girl. She was a marked one. A claimed one. The collar was a statement, a piece of functional art that completed the sentence of her body.
And then she smiled.
It wasn’t the doll’s placid acceptance. It was Ashley’s smile, bursting through the calibration in a radiant, unguarded moment of pure, unmistakable joy. Her eyes, which had been calmly vacant, sparkled with a light I hadn’t seen since before the Mustang. She brought her hands up, her fingers delicately tracing the edge of the leather, feeling its reality, its rightness. She looked at me, and the gratitude, the sense of homecoming in her expression, was so profound it stole my breath. In that moment, she didn’t just accept the collar; she shone.
“It is perfect, Sir,” she whispered, the words barely audible over the store’s din, but they resonated in my core like a struck bell.
Emboldened, primal, I found a matching, slender leather lead on the same rack. Not to use as a leash, but as a tether of connection, something to loop around my wrist, a tangible symbol of our bond. I also selected a small tin of saddle soap to maintain the leather, to care for the artifact of our union. The total, with tax, came to just under twenty dollars. At the register, I used Mom’s money, then dug a few crumpled dollars of my own from my wallet. At the nearby fudge counter, its glass case gleaming with sugary slabs, I bought a single, thick square of chocolate walnut.
“For my companion,” I said to the bored, teenage cashier, who barely glanced at us, already numbed by the endless strangeness of ten thousand tourists.
I handed the fudge to Ash. She took it with a reverence usually reserved for communion wafers, holding it in both hands, not eating it yet. It was a treat. A reward. A sacrament of my choosing.
I checked the wall clock: 6:55. Time to converge.
I led Ash, now collared and holding her fudge like a sacred offering, through the bustling store toward the cafe entrance. We emerged onto the covered, wooden boardwalk, into the cooler evening air. And there they were, my family, arrayed on a long bench like a panel of judges awaiting our return.
My parents sat at one end, clothed, observing the passing crowds with detached anthropological interest. At the other end, Claire and Megan sat side-by-side, nude, their postures not hunched or defensive, but observant, almost regal. They had done it. They had navigated the swarm alone. Their faces were pale but set, their eyes holding a new, hardened sheen, like polished stones. They looked like soldiers back from a patrol in a foreign, hostile land.
All eyes turned to us as we approached.
The reaction was immediate and collective.