Chapter 5

The next morning, Michelle and Tim took Zach and Toni to school. I pretty much expected it would be their last day back at school for a while. Then Michelle and Tim were going to a storage shop to kit out her room a little better for the two of them. Jim and Edna were going out for a last coffee with friends, and Kat was heading off to finish up at her work and get a hair cut (note to self: remember to notice her hair this time!). I figured it would be the last time I was home alone for a long time – the news was full of leaks of the impending lock down, and I was trying to figure out what was speculation, and what was genuine leaks intending to test the waters. Cases were continuing to jump up – the virus was all over the place, and the doctors I had spoken to the day before said that each further day of delay would mean a week further in lock down. They figured we were at least nine days overdue for lock down too.

Before Kat went to work, we went downstairs to Sal and the kids. They were sitting up in bed, having just woken up. Their eyes popped up at the sight of us, since we were naked. We sat down on the floor next to them.

“Good morning,” Kat said, sounding extremely cheerful.

“Good morning,” Sal groaned. “Isn’t it too early to get up yet?”

“Nup,” Kat said, “We’ve done an hour in the pool already. Anyway, welcome to our house. It’s just us this morning, so that will give you a little time to get settled. If you can follow me upstairs, we’ll sit at the table and go through the rules for you.”

“OK. Kids, up we get. We’ll follow you guys.”

Kat led them upstairs. I laughed – Michael was right behind her, with Kat’s gorgeous bum right in his face. He’ll have gotten over his excitement at nude females by the end of the day, I know.

We sat at the dining room table. I did most of the talking; we’d agreed that I would do it so that Sal understood that we were fully in agreement.

“Welcome to our home. As you know, we have some very particular ways that we live. While you’re here, you need to live by our rules. We know that you’re focused on the fact of being naked, but for us, that’s an outcome of the way we live. And it’s these things that are important, and that you’re going to find hard. So, you all need to listen very carefully to these rules, and think really deeply about how you live while you’re here. Because you need to understand that we’re absolutely not going to give on these things. If you can’t live this way, we’ll just dump you at the nearest women’s refuge. Is that clear?”

All three of them nodded, though I could see that they were pretty shocked by this.

“This is important, so after I tell you these rules, you’ll have to tell them to us, so that we know that you have really understood them.”

“So, the foundation of our life here is that we are honest, considerate, and that we care for each other. I know that lots of families say that, but in this home, we really mean that, and we all strive for that every day. We say what we mean, and we mean what we say, and we don’t deceive each other, or keep secrets from each other. But that also means that we know that we’re not perfect, and we are gracious to each other. The naked thing is an expression of this – a life without layers or covering, with nothing to hide, and no need to. The home you came from wasn’t like this, and it’s going to be hard work for you to learn and change who you think and feel, we know that. So, we’ll be watching you, and telling you if we think you need to pause and think. You have to listen to us – we had to learn in the first place too.”

Kat made them repeat all the important parts of that back to us. It took them a little while before they all got the details right. Once they had that, we moved on.

“Ok, so yes, you must be naked in our home. When you take your clothes off, you’re going to feel embarrassed for a little while because you’ve been taught that normal people don’t do that. But in this house, normal people do, and it’s wrong to wear clothes unless you’re going out. For us, this what it means to be free – we choose not to wear clothes. We know it’s not a choice you’d make for yourselves right now, but we think that once you’re used to it, you will. But until you’re used to it, you have to be naked.”

Kat chimed in. “We realise that it’s all back to front for you - for us, it’s a freedom, a choice we make. But I want you to know that other than that we require you to be naked, this is a safe space – no one’s going to hassle you, or stare at you. And Jael and Michael, you have today to get used to it and stop staring at us.”

They had been, quite obviously. Of course, Kat is absolutely worth staring at. They suddenly looked embarrassed.

“Do you have any questions about this?”

Sal did. “What happens for Jael and I when we...”

See, this is the problem. She couldn’t bring herself say it. Just over half the people in the world have periods. It’s not something secret or abnormal. So just call it what it is. And once, Sal didn’t have a problem, but she’s learned a lot of wrong lessons over the last couple of decades.

Kat answered, “Your period? Well, because we all swim every day – and you will be too – we all use tampons. I’m happy to sort that out with you, but if it’s a problem, we can solve that.”

“Any other questions?”

No ... honestly, they were probably overwhelmed at this point. But we needed to keep pushing them right now. “Ok. Time to take your clothes off. Who’s first?” I asked, looking at Sal.

She sighed, and stood up. Slowly but deliberately, she undressed, with tears running down her face. When she was finished, she slowly turned around so we could see all of her. Looking at her made me real sad. Overall, she had aged pretty well from when I last saw her naked, but she was clearly battered and bruised.

“Oh Sal, that’s terrible. You really needed to get out of there,” Kat exclaimed.

“Kat, should we get photos of this in case?”

“Yes, we really should. Sal, later today we’ll definitely take some photos of you. Don’t worry – Dave will keep them really secure; no one else will see them unless you agree. That’s what he does for a job.”

Sal nodded. “I agree that we have to.”

“OK, who’s next?”

Looking at the twins, I was surprised. They didn’t seem so uncomfortable with it as we expected. They looked at each other and shrugged. They both stood up and undressed in a pretty business-like fashion.

No bruises on them – they both looked fine. Quite good, in fact.

“That was easier than we expected?”

Jael gave a small laugh. “Not that easy. But Michael and I talked about it last night. Dad would say we shouldn’t do this, so he can go jump.”

Hmm. There’s definitely attitude challenges for us to manage there, but on the other hand, it’s pretty reasonable given what’s happened. We’ll worry about it later.

“Ok, now that we have that out of the way, we need to talk about a few practical details. Firstly, Jael, Toni has kindly offered that you can sleep in her room. Sal, you’ll be in the guest bedroom, and I’m afraid Michael will be with you. Today, you have to get your bags out of the car, and figure out what you want in your bedroom, and what you can put in our storage room, where there’s a little space for you. Now, we need to talk about house duties.”

Sal perked up, “Please, you know that we don’t have any money to pay you, so I’ll do all the housework. Please, let me do it all.”

Kat replied to that. “Sal, we expected that you would say this, and we’ll appreciate you doing the housework, except that the kids are responsible for tidying, vacuuming and dusting their own rooms. Though you will have to check them – they’re constantly getting slack on that. Also, everyone takes turns cooking the family meal for dinner. You can go into that roster, and both Jael and Michael can too.”

We talked about a few more details, including the house rules that apply to our own children. Then I got to the big point. “On the subject of house rules, Sal, here’s something you’re going to find difficult. While Jael and Michael are here in this house, we’re going to be acting as their parents, not you. If you think we’re doing something wrong, you can talk about to us about it, because we know that they’re really still your kids. We’re not stealing them from you; we’re just going to be in control for a little while. You, Sal, you really need to step back from your life, and reset your direction. We’re going to make sure you do that while you’re here. You’re going to do housework a few hours a day, and you’re going to exercise a lot, and you’re going to chill and have no responsibilities or control over anything. Finally, you’re going to give us your mobile phone now. You can borrow it back to make phone calls if we agree, but that’s all for a few weeks. Think of this as full immersion into a stripped down life.”

I could see that Sal nearly rebelled at all that. It was a close thing. And totally understandable. But Kat had alerted me to the subtle signs of alcohol abuse in what Sal had said, there was the whisky last night, and some physical signs were there now she was here with us. We don’t have much alcohol in the house anyway, but from now on through lock down, we were going to keep a strict limit on what we had. If we were going to do anything for Sal, we had to get on top of it. This was going to be super hard for her. But she was trapped – absolutely no choice. We waited in silence while her anger dissipated and turned into tears.

“Do you have to humiliate me in front of my own kids?”

Kat replied to that. “Sal, Jael and Michael need to know where they stand. We have much more to talk about, you and I, but we’ll do it later. You and I will talk each night after family time.”

Sal nodded, resigned to her restrictions. I wondered whether we were doing the right thing, and whether it would all blow up in our face. But as Kat had said last night, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to give it our best shot. If it all blows up, then we’ll be ruthless about it – they’re out of the house.

My truly naked sister would have to earn each piece of her modern armour back. Kat grabbed Sal’s phone, and then hurried off to her final day of work, and I got the three of them up, and walking around the house to look at their rooms, and our storage, and then I showed them the wet area, which they had never seen when they visited before. By then it was time for my first meeting of the day, and I told them to unpack their stuff, and then to do 40 laps each of the pool and try out the spa. That should keep them busy for most of the morning.

My run of meetings finished late in the morning, and I stood up, hung my t-shirt on its hook and went looking for them, to see how they were doing. They were just finishing up in the wet area, so I offered to get them a drink in the kitchen.

We were walking past the top of the stairs from the garage when Michelle came running up the stairs. When she spotted Jael, she dropped what she has holding and gave her a big hug. “Oh, Jael, welcome to our home, I’m so happy that you’re here!” Then she gave the same big hug to Michael. Finally, she turned to Sal, and hugged her. I could see that Sal was a little taken aback. And believe me, when Michelle gives you a hug, you are hugged, especially when she’s naked. Then she introduced Tim, who immediately welcomed them to paradise, though he wasn’t ready for hugs yet.

I could see that all of them were much more comfortable after that – Michelle did a great job of normalising the naked thing for them. And I think that they were mostly all fine for the rest of the time in our house after that.