Chapter 4

“So you’re saying that what’s happened with Tom has happened before,” Taylor was saying as Angela’s thoughts returned to the present.

“Absolutely. Furthermore, Tom had a second psychological evaluation done in Munich which supported the first doctor’s recommendations. I provided copies to the office of all of the doctors’ reports with my request for his exemption from being required to shower after P.E. I suspect that his panic in school the last two days was worsened because his exposure to nudity didn’t give him any quick way of avoiding it. The previous times, he could just retreat and the situation would disappear. In school, he didn’t have that option.

“So you see, Dr Taylor, we’ve known about Tom’s phobia for more than four years. And it’s apparently not getting any better; from what happened at the school, it appears that it may even be worse,” Angela summarized.

“Hmmm ... I see,” Taylor mused. “I’ll need to discuss his situation with the counselor and our Program coordinator and get their recommendation for how we should approach his situation.”

“If you can do that, sir, I’d be very grateful; thanks.” She disconnected.

That evening, Lynette recalled the envelopes which the counselor had given to them. She brought them to her mother.

“These are from the counselor, Mom,” Lynette said. “One’s for Tommie. Remember, she wasn’t there when you brought us in to register.”

“Right, sweetie. Let’s see. Uh oh ... Some kind of consent forms for that stupid naked program,” Angela said, scowling.

“What is it?” Lynette asked.

“One’s an acknowledgment that the parents are aware that our children will be required to participate and a waiver absolving the school from any incidents which occur that are not under their control. Like we’d ever agree to that. And a certification that the girl has had the birth-control and STD immunization within the past three months. Dad and I will be returning these with a letter saying we refuse to acknowledge any activity which has the potential of causing harm to our kids.”

“Oh jeez; thanks, Mom.”

On Wednesday, Tom returned to school again. In the classes which had Program kids in the room, he sat in the back and kept his eyes covered, first using the brim of a cap, but after one teacher told him to take the cap off, that hats weren’t permitted, he just slumped down and read—or attempted to read—the textbook. He remained completely unresponsive to the teachers when they tried to call on him. The others in the classroom noticed Tom’s behavior but attributed it to his simply being an uncooperative kid; there were a number of them in school, after all. Lynette, who sat near him, twice came to his defense, quietly explaining to the teacher that Tom was taking strong medications. Early on, in two of his classes where Tom was being unresponsive, those teachers sent him to the office, but Tom was quickly sent back with a note telling the teacher to let the boy stay; that the head teacher was aware of Tom’s condition.

Tom had planned for his gym class by wearing his gym outfit under his normal clothes, so he didn’t even go into the locker room; he changed in a toilet booth in the boys’ room and stowed his regular school clothes in his locker, earning himself some puzzled stares from a few kids who noticed.

During class changes, Lynette became Tom’s guide. She led him to each class and he simply followed her, averting his eyes so as not to see any of the hall activities involving the kids in the Program.

By Friday, his medications were beginning to have more of an effect. His senses were still considerably dulled, of course, but they had also taken the sharp edges off his anxiety. No longer did Tom feel extreme anxiety when he caught a glimpse of some nudity or heard the sounds of a relief session in front of the classroom. But instead of the feelings of panic which he had experienced earlier in the week, he was now feeling a sense of great dread, it was the sense of a threatening presence which always seemed to be looming nearby. It seemed to him to be like an evil darkness which was watching him hungrily. Now, when he got unavoidable glimpses of naked kids, his response was no longer one of a crushing panic; instead he felt a compulsion to flee in order to escape the constant physical threat that hovered just outside his perception. Tom didn’t know it, of course, but he was developing paranoia. He wasn’t aware that the hallucinations which were plaguing him could be one of the side effects of his medications.

On Friday morning, Dr Taylor had scheduled a meeting with the school counselor, the Program coordinator, and the local Education Authority representative, to discuss Tom’s situation. The Education Authority office in each local district was part of the government agency responsible for administration of the state-funded schools in the United Kingdom, and as such, the officials in these agencies were ultimately responsible for running the Naked in School Program in the schools. Taylor summarized Tom’s situation for the group and he discussed what he recalled of Tom’s history as Angela had related to him earlier in the week.

“That’s what I’ve learned from speaking with the boy’s mum. I also have some information from our nurse, who’s treated him on several occasions, and it appears the boy does indeed get panic attacks. He’s on medications now but his teachers tell me that he’s been mostly unresponsive and inattentive in classes. He won’t even lift his head to look at the teacher in any class where someone in the Program is present.”

Miss Richardson, the counselor, added, “His mum’s brought in a letter—I gave copies to the P.E. teachers—that says he’s not to use the locker-room showers. I understand from the P.E. teachers that they’ve noticed that Tom wears his P.E. kit under his school clothes. They say he doesn’t even use the locker room to change clothes; does it in the loo. Like a super-hero.” She giggled. “He changes in a red box, well, I guess a loo stall is almost like a box in the loo but they’re not red, there’s no windows, and there’s no phone.”

The others chuckled.

Taylor went on, “So I told the mum that we’d try to work out something so that Tom can more fully participate in school and that’s why we’re meeting. We do need to get Tom’s situation sorted, don’t we. I’d like to get some suggestions.”

Stuart Gray, the LEA official, spoke. “When the National Program Committee was developing the Program three years ago, I recall hearing a talk from their psychologist. She explained that the modesty and fear of exposure, anxieties, and all that rot which plagues our youth, is what the Program is designed to overcome, innit? I also recall something about treating phobias from my psych class back in my uni days—goodness, it’s almost twenty years ago, oh my—about, ahh, a kind of therapy that’s used.”

Richardson chipped in, “Exposure therapy.”

“Just so,” Gray agreed. “Something like when you expose a person afraid of heights to a high place and keep them there, they gradually get used to it because they see nothing bad happens. The Program shrink went on about methods of getting reluctant kids to overcome their fears and said that ideally, shy kids could be slowly acclimated to the idea of being naked. And she said good control over the situation was essential, controlling the pupils’ environment in the school, and also the Program, to protect them. We do that in schools now, don’t we; we prepare the pupils for facing the Program in their school by using introductory assemblies and having volunteers to start off—it gets pupils ready to face the time when it’s their turn. We do the week’s first disrobing in private—just the Program pupils—and we control the school environment by having very firm rules in place for the Program. So I believe that with the kind of issues that this pupil apparently has, perhaps you could somehow get him acclimated to nudity, by doing it very gradually? Much more gradually than usually done. Get him used to seeing nudity; then it’ll be normal for him, wouldn’t it. You’d have to find a way to start his Program participation in a controlled way, I’m sure, or else he’ll continue in his current behavior.”

“Sorry?” Miss Richardson asked. “Put him in the Program? That would be a dreadful shock to the boy, it would.”

Taylor looked at Gray. “Is what you’re recommending, Stuart, that we should put Tom in the Program? Really? How can that help him?”

Gray shot a hard glance at Richardson and then addressed the head teacher. “Many children put into the Program experience some degree of shock, don’t they. Some are quite frantic. It hasn’t killed anyone—well, I take that back. Those incidents were unfortunate. The children were not properly supervised, were they. Despite those problems, the Education Ministry strongly believes that this rampant teen modesty that we’ve seen recently has to be overcome to ensure psychological balance in their future adulthood. That’s the intent of the Program as I gathered from that Program shrink,” he declared, then shrugged. “Anyway, I’m sure you know that the Program is supposed to make kids get used to overcoming any modesty issues, innit?”

Taylor turned to the Program coordinator. “You have anything to add, Janice? What do you think?”

Janice Dodson nodded. “Well, Stuart’s theory seems good and I recall some things from my educational psych class. And unlike Stuart’s class, mine was only three or four years ago. As well, the material we covered in my orientation as Program coordinator had a little psych stuff in it. Back in grad school, we saw good results from studies of controlled exposure treatments, as I recall. They used those fear of flying classes you see in adverts as an example, and in only a few sessions, the people who did the sessions were mostly cured. Well, cured enough to be able to take an airplane flight, anyway. Those sessions were supposed to take only three or four one-hour time blocks. If we put the boy in the Program, then after his spending one or two six-hour days naked, I’m quite convinced that he’d get over his difficulty with his public nudity aversion and everything else the kids need to do, wouldn’t he.”

Gray interrupted, “But remember, the Program shrink said the exposure has to be ‘controlled.’”

Dodson shrugged. “Not sure how we could control what happens with one single pupil when the Program is running, unless someone is with him constantly...” she mused.

“Okay, I know. So we could control the events at the outset,” Richardson offered. “For many of the children, it’s a real shock for them to have to strip off for the first time in a group of pupils like they have to do. For this boy, it would have been really horrid for him if he had to strip publically like we had the kids do in the Monday’s assembly, on stage in front of the entire school. That would really frighten him—wait, that’s right, he panicked just watching, didn’t he? Even if he had to strip off with a small group of other children watching, like we’ll have the children doing starting on Monday, it would be a fright for him. So maybe we can do it in a controlled situation; we’d let the boy strip and get used to being naked alone. Have him undress privately and then have him wait for an hour or so with no other children around, just an adult to supervise. That will allow him to get used to being naked before he goes out. And yes, we shan’t send him off into the hall straightaway when classes are changing; instead, let’s bring him directly to his first classroom after the halls are empty. That will continue to keep him in a controlled situation, in a class with just a couple dozen pupils, all under close teacher supervision. Only after that adjustment period of several hours, will he need to go into the halls. Is that controlled enough?”

Dodson nodded. “Yes, quite. That’s brilliant. As well, I’m sure that the boy’ll be really reluctant, resistant probably, when he’s told he has to get naked, so we should have a couple of teachers nearby to ensure that he strips, won’t we?”

The group continued to discuss their plan for Tom’s time in the Program for another few minutes and soon the details were finalized.

It was Sunday afternoon in the Armstrong home and Tom was still hard at work trying to catch up with all of the class work he had missed the previous week. Lynette was helping him, sharing her class notes, and trying to assist Tom when he got stuck. After a while, Tom begged for a rest.

“Lynnie, I’m reaching the end of my concentration,” he sighed. “My head’s buzzing and I can’t see straight anymore.”

Duncan overheard Tom and came into the room. “Hey sport, d’you still feel like a zombie now?”

“Aahhh, no, Dad. Still very tired; don’t sleep well. But I feel all tense ... um, wound up, you know?—and like I get really annoyed when I can’t figure out something. Like a burning anger, I guess. And I can’t concentrate when I feel like that.”

“Hmmm ... that sounds like it could be one of the pills’ bad side effects. I’ll look into that tomorrow. Maybe your dose is too high. When you think of being in classes with naked people, how do you feel about that now?”

Tom sat and thought for a dozen seconds. “Ugh. What it is—is dread, I think. Yeah. Danger. Darkness. Blackness just out of my sight. Oh god, I don’t know!” he moaned. “I don’t ever look at those kids. But I just had a memory of a stupid relief session I couldn’t help hearing. I didn’t watch it—couldn’t. But in my mind—ugh, the images of those kids being naked in front of everyone, with everyone watching. And then it seemed like there were these black eyes watching me out of this black cloud, hungry, waiting for ... I don’t know what ... for me to fall into that blackness around its eyes. But I don’t feel faint, it’s more like a feeling of rage. I have this constant anger that makes me want to fight back somehow. But there’s nothing to fight. But I’m so angry at how ... how this is so unfair!”

Duncan was shocked. “My god,” he thought, he sounds bad. Hallucinations? Gotta check on what those meds could be doing to him.

Angela came in. “Tom, maybe you need a break; go take a nap. We’ll check with the docs on your dosages tomorrow, okay?”

Tom yawned. “You’re right, Mom, I’m really tired. Still don’t sleep too well.” He went off to his bedroom with Andrew, who was trying to calm Tom down.

Duncan sat down and took Lynette’s hand. “Thanks for watching out for Tom, sweetie. You’ve been his savior several times, you know. If Tom doesn’t mention it, it’s because he’s been so out of it.”

“Oh no, Dad. He thanks me all the time—it’s almost embarrassing. But I like to hear that he thinks I’m helping him.”

“You really are,” Angela agreed. “Say, Tom mentioned a ‘relief session’? Is that what I think it is?”

Lynette made a face. “Yeah. Sex stuff. A boy in the class had an erection—what a big one he had, I never knew they could be that big. Anyway, he asked a girl to help him and she put it in her mouth and sucked on him, making all kinds of really nasty slurping and glugging and gulping sounds, while the guy was yelling ‘I’m cumming!’ He sprayed his stuff all over her face then and the class was shouting and applauding.”

“Good grief,” Angela said. “And Tom?”

“He was curled up in his seat trying to cover his ears, but he looked bright red. He was really, really angry!”

“Yeah, this isn’t good,” Duncan said. “I really need to talk to the doc.”

“How much of that ‘relief’ nonsense goes on in your classes?” Angela persisted.

“Well, almost every class. Girls get fingered to orgasms and a number of times a boy licked the girl down there until she screamed. Oh, one time a girl got another girl to do it to her. And Friday in lunch—there was a crowd around a lunch table so I couldn’t see—I was trying to get Tom away—but two kids were on a table ... um ... having ... intercourse. I could hear their bodies slapping.”