Chapter 8

August is my birthday month. Also, Brits traditionally get a month off for holiday each year and Stuart usually took his holiday in August. In planning their holiday this year, the Marshalls included me in their discussion.

“You remember that we told you that our family’s nudist—we go to a nudist resort?” Gerry asked. “That was when we learned that Scott had been rescued and we dropped that discussion.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “The girls—Abi—was going on and on about how brill all that was.”

“Yeah and we’re going again!” Abi enthused. “We didn’t get to go at all in July this year and I miss my friends there!”

“You go a lot?” I asked.

“Every weekend!” Sam. “Mostly.”

“Oh. I hope that I haven’t been keeping you from going,” I remarked.

Stuart shook his head. “No, I’ve been busy most weekends this July and the others don’t like to go without me.”

Gerry looked at me. “You could stay with Dad for the month we’re away...”

The girls jumped up and grabbed me. “Please come! Please come!” they chorused, each one pulling on an arm.

“You’ll see, it’s ace!” Sam.

“There’s lots of things to do!” Abi.

“You’ll meet our friends. You’ll love them.” Sam.

“We swim and lay out and play games all the time.” Abi.

Of course, that was all said simultaneously. Hmm, Einstein did some calculations involving simultaneity ... oops, there I go again.

Stuart and Gerry were smiling indulgently. Andrew was looking ... hopeful? anxious? He hadn’t spoken. When he saw me glance at him, he did speak.

“Erm ... Emma ... I would be delighted if you would come with us. You’re like part of the family now.”

Awww ... I had to go over and hug the bloke.

“Well, I don’t know. Remember what I told you about that naked in high school rot. How I did everything in my power to get it stopped.”

Stuart laughed. “And you did it up royally too! Dad still can’t believe how you orchestrated that business—and even got the people involved arrested! But our resort is nothing like that. Hey, first thing, it won’t be sub-freezing there!”

I laughed. “Yeah. I’m still trying to get used to the 30 degree days here.”

Didn’t have to convert for them. They were Brits and knew I meant high eighties and above.

“Wait until you feel a breeze on your bare skin when it’s 90 degrees out,” Gerry put in.

“True,” Stuart continued. “This is nothing like what I imagine that ridiculous school program is like. Everyone is nude at the park, not just a few selected people. Nudity’s not required, though, unless you use the pool or hot tub. Nobody stares at anyone; doing that is rude. There’s absolutely no public sexual behavior allowed because that would get the person tossed out permanently.”

Andrew interrupted, “In the Naked in School Program that’s supposed to start at our school, they’ll be forcing kids to allow touching and groping, doing all kinds of sexual stuff, and making kids wank in front of everyone. That’s just horrid. Nothing like that happens at camp. Everybody is lovely and they look after the kids to make sure everyone is safe.”

“So if I go,” I said hesitantly, “I wouldn’t be forced to get starkers?”

“No, never,” Andrew said. “Last year a girl came, she was 16, I think, and she always wore her cozzie around the camp. She took it off to swim, but showered in private, wrapped a towel around her till she got to the pool, and slipped out of the towel into the water. After a week, I guess she saw that doing that was just silly; she was making a spectacle of herself and she saw that her modesty was attracting attention, so she dropped doing the whole hiding-herself-with-her-towel act and stopped wearing her cozzie too. She told me after that, that being the only one wearing a cozzie was more humiliating than her being starkers.”

“Oh. Ohhh...” was all I could think to say. My mind was whirling. Could I do this? The girls responded to my unspoken question. Or had I actually spoken it aloud? Maybe. Probably. Ugh.

“Sure! You can do it! There’s lots of teen girls all starkers!” Abi.

“I got all modest when my boobies came in! But it was okay!” Sam.

“Nobody stares! Everyone’s starkers, it’s so fun!” Abi.

“When you’re starkers, the air and sun on you is ace!” Sam.

“There’s so much to do, you’ll forget you don’t have clothes.” Abi.

“Everyone’s equal. Nobody looks rich or poor. All the same.” Sam.

I had a terrible time keeping track of what they were saying because it all came at once again. Apparently the parents could follow them; they had years of experience, obviously.

I tried again. “What about the pictures that get on the Web? Nobody cares about that?”

Gerry shook her head. “No pictures. No cameras. No mobiles. If you’re seen with a camera or doing anything like taking a photo with a mobile, you’ll get kicked out and the thing’s memory gets wiped. Everyone watches to make sure that rule is followed.”

“So it’s safe?” I wondered.

“Safer than anywhere in the textile world,” Andrew remarked.

“What’s textile?”

“Erm ... It means like in cloth,” he answered. “Those who wear cloth. ‘Textiles’ is what we call non-nudists. So will you go with us? It would be blindin’ amazing.”

“Well ... Okay. But promise you’ll protect me,” I pleaded, taking his hand.

He squeezed it and nodded at me, smiling widely, as the girls squealed (ouch, my ears) and began hopping around, then they came over to hug me, whilst Stuart and Gerry beamed at us.

“We’ll need to get permission for you,” Gerry said as she too came over to give me a little hug. “Is Scott well enough to sign a parental consent form? They are very strict about having that.”

“Sure. He’s signed other things whilst I was there visiting.”

“I’ll get a form for him to sign then. I think I can get it from the resort’s site,” she said.

Meanwhile the girls were grabbing my hands, pulling me away. They wanted to tell me all about what we would be doing at the camp. In stereo. Andrew looked at me and rolled his eyes. I mouthed back to him, “Sorry.”

Hey, I would get to spend my birthday at the resort in my birthday suit. Just how brill is that?

The resort was only about 40 minutes away and the trip went quickly. Fortunately their seatbelts kept Sam and Abi from bouncing out of our SUV; they were fidgeting so much on the drive, but those belts sure got a workout. I had to restrain myself mightily when I found myself beginning to calculate the required tensile strength of the nylon webbing of the belts necessary to ... Anyway. Okay, Emma, just stop it.

How much do you pack for a stay for a month at a resort? If it’s a nudist resort? Not much, it seems. We did have some special things to take—for example, the resort had a monthly theme night and people dressed up for that theme. Nudists love to dress up. Who knew? Weird, right?

This year August’s theme night was “Your High School Prom.” Huh. I never had one. Did my school have proms? I never noticed! So the girls found a remnant of a gauzy fabric and organized a “prom dress” using it. I thought it was more like a sari and it would hide virtually nothing on me, but they insisted that it would be perfect.

Of course nobody needed bathers for swimming. I only have two cozzies; I idly wondered if they would still fit so I checked them out, just for yucks. Ugh, the one-piece I used to wear to swim in the uni’s pool was all faded and stretched out now. Into the bin with that one. And my two-piece cozzie? Hmmm, I last wore it, well, it was early last year. When I was 12. It looked so juvenile now. When I tried it on, I could barely get the stupid thing over my hips—and the top? Wait a second here. No way will this fit!

Now I started really looking at my body. Really looking—I went over to the mirror on the back of the door. Jeez, will you look at that. I hadn’t been paying much attention, but damn, my boobies have grown some; no wonder that top didn’t fit anymore. I turned sideways and checked the mirror. Wow. My nipples are puffy and popped out and there’s a nice amount of padding of flesh under them, yep, there may even be enough here for an “A” cup. I have a small body and small chest so they kinda look bigger than they really are, I guess. Awesome ... damned if they don’t have a really nice shape too. But, crikey, they’re so firm that I don’t need any support at all.

Just how much have I grown, anyway? I found a pencil and using a book as a square, I stood against the door frame and marked my head. Oops, I’m wearing sandals. Marked my head again. I found Stuart and he loaned me a tape measure. Blimey! Five feet one inch ... no, one and a half (don’t laugh, those halves count too! A half inch is a whole one and a quarter centimeters, you know. Every centimeter is important!). Shit, I grew two whole inches in the year. There’s hope for me yet. Maybe the cold weather in Alaska had stunted my growth and now my body’s finally got itself unfrozen. Yep, Emma’s come in from the cold. Woah, hell, I’m chuffed with how I’m starting to grow finally.

And back in the spring, I had noticed that I’d begun growing some light brown curly hair on my mons; looking down there now, my hair’s denser and it mostly hides the skin underneath. I had already begun to shave the hair growing in my pits. My periods had started back in the late spring. Puberty, here I am! Ready for the world. I hope the world is ready for me because I wanna DO THINGS!

Back to the present; it’s Saturday morning and we’re at the resort’s gate. Stuart drove through the gate and we’re inside the park. Oh, blimey, I’m scared!

Then I heard Andrew chuckle. “Emma, it’s okay to open your eyes now...”

“Can I? It’s not rude to look?”

Sam laughed. “Hey, you need to see where you’re going, Emma. You can look all you want. Just don’t stare.”

I looked ... and looked some more ... ohmygod, there are naked people everywhere! Where do I look so it’s not obvious that I’m looking? How long a look is a proper look before it turns into an unacceptable look? Does the rudeness of a stare depend on the sex of the person that I’m staring at? Are there any rudeness-prevention graphs that plot the acceptable looking times of the looker versus the sex of the lookee? Cut it out, Emma. Get a hold.

Stuart and all the girls went into the office to check in. This year, Gerry had told me, they weren’t renting a camper trailer, they had organized a cabin. More room, she said. I was stood outside with Andrew whilst he was pointing out some of the resort’s features to me. Yeah, I was looking at certain other features. Just looking, I told myself. I was ... no, I wasn’t staring ... I think...

“Emma, close your mouth. And stop staring...” he chuckled.

Damn.

Crikey, intellectually you know that you’re gonna see naked people at a nudist resort, but the reality is, well, like a smack upside the conk. Damn, can’t help but look at those sights ... boobies bobbing, arses jiggling, and goddamn, the blokes! I guess the internet doesn’t prepare you for seeing a real live penis for the very first time. And so many of them, and they’re all so different! Crikey! Who knew? How can they walk around with all that ... stuff ... just hanging right out there, swinging around? Doesn’t it hurt? Or get in the way? Ugh, seems like it’d be awfully uncomfortable, all that ... erm ... flopping around ... especially whilst running ... but look over there, those blokes are playing volleyball and ... jumping? Diving? Blimey ... Don’t wanna think about it ... Sigh ... I think I’m getting overwhelmed...

Stuart and Gerry reappeared with the girls in tow. They were hopping around Gerry, begging to get starkers, right now.

“Hold on, hold on. You need to help getting the car unloaded and then help Emma get used to all this, okay? She’s looking a bit...” she peered at me, “overwhelmed.”

They both giggled. Now that they could handle. They immediately determined that I would be their acclimatization project, so they agreed handily, “Great idea, Mum.” In stereo.

I swear, despite their age difference, they behaved just like twins. It was almost like they knew what each other was thinking. They completed each other’s sentences and if you asked either of them a general question they both responded in harmony, like a Greek chorus. So funny.

We found our cabin and took in our bags. This cabin was a new addition to the park and had two bedrooms and a sitting room which had a small kitchenette in the corner. A loo was off of the sitting room and it had a small stall shower.

One bedroom had a queen bed. The other was a little larger and had a queen bed and a two-level bunk bed.

Once we were settled and had put our (small amount of) clothing away and filled the pantry, fridge, and freezer with the supplies we had brought, Gerry and Stuart got the four of us together.

“We need to lay down the sleeping arrangement rules,” Gerry said. “Emma isn’t used to nudity, obviously, and certainly not used to nude people being so close to each other. Andrew, I know that you and the girls sometimes fall asleep cuddling together in the same bed and that you kids also ... well ... okay. We trust you kids not to do anything against the rules we set. But I don’t know how Emma feels about seeing you cuddling the way you do.”

Gerry looked at me. “Will you be okay with my kids cuddling together?”

“Erm? They’re cuddling, like ... starkers, together?” I looked at Andrew and he nodded. “Oh. Ohhh...” I whispered.

My mind whirled again. The little ball whipped around it, bounced a bit between the black and red pockets and then plonked right into the green one as the whirling slowed down and stopped. I had bet green so ... Jackpot! So I went for it all. (Just so you know: the roulette wheel was invented by Blaise Pascal. A physicist. Just sayin’.)

“You said nudist places aren’t about sex. I can see that you all love each other very much and I know that love and sex can be different things. That’s what I’ve read on the Web. Can’t trust everything on the Web but I feel that part is right. If Andrew and the girls like to cuddle, that’s ace. Erm ... would I mind it? No, I wouldn’t. Erm ... but would anyone mind if ... if ... I got some cuddling too? I’m not interested in having sex—the rot that the Program kids had to do in a video I saw was horrid. But getting a little cuddling myself would be brill.”

I was starting to tear up.

Gerry came over and took me in her arms. “You poor thing; you’re love starved. You’ve got all that intelligence but you’ve bottled your emotions up inside you, haven’t you. This must be overwhelming for you, dear, isn’t it.”

My tears were falling now. “Yes. Yes it is. Sam and Abi have become like sisters to me and I can’t get enough of them. Their exuberance is amazing. And Andrew is brilliant—both as in ‘brill’ but he’s also smart. He’s special to me now as well.”

Now it turned into a group hug, with everyone trying for priority.

“Okay, kids. Let’s get back to where we were,” Stuart said. “Emma, you’re okay with the casual display of affection the kids have for each other, then?”

I nodded. “Yes. Very okay.”

“Hmm ... Gerry, what do you say ... let the kids choose their sleeping arrangements?”

I thought: wow. How many other parents would be like this?

Gerry nodded. “Okay then. You know the intimacy rules we set when we first discovered you all in bed together doing your naked cuddles ... and ... the other things. Same rules apply; tell them to Emma, and Emma is included as much as she is willing.”

Wow again. Then I got a sudden shock, like a jolt of reality just hit me. When I had agreed to go to the resort with them, I intuitively knew that I’d be seeing Andrew’s naked body whilst there, but that was just an abstract thought and I had never had any experience even remotely similar. The idea of my being starkers together with a boy had never even made it into my conscious thoughts—even back in Fairbanks, I knew that I wasn’t going to be prancing about starkers in school. Now my being starkers in public was about to become a reality—and—Andrew’ll be starkers too—and—ohmygod, perhaps later Andrew’s naked body’ll be close to mine, his naked skin even touching mine. Suddenly I’m feeling lightheaded. I think I’m gonna faint.

Gerry spoke again. “Dad and I are going back to our room to get ready to go out. You kids get ready too. Don’t forget the sunscreen and the towels!”

Ulp ... moment of truth. What do I do...?

Andrew made a little throat-clearing sound. I looked up.

“Erm ... I could go in the loo and get ready...” he began.

“ ... and Sam and I can go in the outer room,” Abi spoke for the two of them as Sam nodded.

I gulped. Bite the bullet. Was this how I would have felt if I had actually been forced to strip off on that far-away day in that notorious Room A103A? No, this situation didn’t have that feeling at all. All I felt from the others were love, concern, and something else. That’s crazy, it felt like impatience ... as in, “let’s get the bloomin’ show on the road.”

“Erm ... no, I’m okay ... I think. Let’s all stay here.”

Ohmygod. Did I really say that? I must have because we all stayed.

Bloody damn, I’ve never seen anything done so fast in my life. The girls’ clothes were gone in one eye blink. Every frikkin’ article. Whipped off. Gone. Seriously. Superheroes couldn’t have done it faster.

Wow, the girls were blindin’ CUTE! Abi was like a pixie. Not flat, her body lines weren’t straight like a prepubescent. She had begun to get that hourglass shape that comes with puberty. Her boobies were small but perky—little cones—and between her legs sat the cutest little puffy mound with a dusting of faint hairs.

And Sam? What a doll. She had—maybe small “B” cup boobies, I’m guessing, but there was more than enough to fill the cup in the bra she had whipped off. She had a sleek, curvy shape and the curly hair on her mons matched her dark blond hair.

Both girls were jiggling with impatience now. It was fascinating to see how that affected Sam’s boobies.

All that had happened in about two seconds and then I noticed that Andrew now had his shirt off. Apparently the speed gene had skipped him. Or he was being polite. Yeah, maybe that. Hey, I was behind now—if I wait, then I become the spectacle. I don’t fancy that. So I pulled off my top and slipped my shorts off my hips, where they puddled on the floor. Now I was stood there, just wearing knickers. I don’t wear a bra; my boobies don’t need any support, although if my nipps keep poking out the way they’re starting to ... Damn. Taking a deep breath, I slid my knickers down and off.