I was up in my room with my laptop on my knees, fixated on a boring assignment I didn’t even have to do. My history teacher, Mr. Salonen, found this essay contest online and told us anyone who entered would earn an extra two points on their semester grade. All we had to do was write a thousand words on the topic, “The Greatest American Freedom.”

Before I went upstairs, Daddy looked over the assignment sheet and told me to bag it.

“It’s some right-wing, Ayn Rand think tank,” he said. “You want to be a part of that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Then let me ask you this: Do you need the extra credit?”

“Not really.”

He looked at me.

“You’re going to do it, anyway, aren’t you?” he said.

“Everybody else is.”

“And you feel guilty,” he said, handing me the paper back. “All right, well, just tell them taxation is theft, and capitalism is the bomb, and you’re a shoo-in.”

But I didn’t care about that stuff. Not enough to write a thousand words about it, anyway. I looked at my blank Word file, and I looked at it some more, and I decided it would be a better use of my time to go online and look up some nude beaches. Maybe I could talk Dad into taking me to one next summer. It’s risky getting naked in the backyard, or at school, or around my neighborhood. I mean, I love the risk, but what I really want sometime is to take my clothes off someplace where people can see me and nobody freaks out. Now that would be real freedom, I thought, and ... and...

Oh, yeah. Suddenly I knew what I was going to write. It was crazy, and there was no way I would ever hand it in, but Mrs. Laurie, my English teacher, says you’re never more eloquent than when you write about something you care about. And it might get my juices flowing.

My creative juices, I mean.

Naturally, to get in the mood, I had to strip. Any excuse, right? So I threw everything off (not that I had much on to begin with), and then, freshly nude, except for my fuzzy socks, I settled back on my husband (that’s what those big pillows with the armrests are called, look it up), balanced the computer on my thighs, just below my sandy beach, and banged out this prize-winning masterpiece in less than fifteen minutes, practically giggling the whole time:

THE GREATEST AMERICAN FREEDOM

By ‘Liberty Girl’

Freedom can mean many things to many people. To some, it means a freedom from — from something dangerous or demeaning, like hunger, poverty, or the crippling debt of school or medical care. To others, it means a freedom to — to act, to exercise a right, like speaking out against injustice, worshipping God according to their conscience, making money, or owning guns. Religious people speak of moral freedom — the freedom to choose good over evil, or even to choose evil, which, they say, makes choosing the good more meaningful.

The United States Constitution — written, we must admit, by men who believed they were free to enslave other people because of their race — guarantees some of our most precious freedoms. Under the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, Americans have the freedom to speak, to worship, to bear arms, and to peaceably assemble, and the freedom from having their homes searched, testifying against themselves in court, or being tried twice for the same offense.

All of these freedoms are essential, but for me, as a girl growing up in America, there is one that tops them all. Without this special freedom, all the others, in my opinion, are nothing but empty promises on paper.

I mean the freedom to be naked.

There is nothing more liberating than taking off my clothes. Almost every day, when I come home from school, I strip as soon as I step in the front door. Stop by any afternoon, and the odds are good you’ll catch me doing my homework in the nude, or doing the dishes in the nude, or practicing my flute in the nude. My Dad used to say it was “inappropriate” to walk around the house “like that,” but now he hardly notices, and if he does notice, he doesn’t complain. Besides, if we can’t be naked in our own homes, how free are we, really? I was born naked. I was born to be naked. My body is my freedom.

But just hanging around the house with no clothes on does not give me the full experience of freedom I desire. As our Founding Father Benjamin Franklin might have said in Poor Richard’s Almanac, nudity in the home is a private vice, not a public virtue. (Well, it sounds like something he might have said.) To be truly free, I need to get outside, to feel the air and see the sunlight on my body, to run, to swim, and sometimes, to be seen. Occasionally, mostly at night, I sneak out of the house, while my Dad is asleep, and wander around my neighborhood, leaving my nightie on the grass in my yard. (Taking it with me would be cheating.) I keep to the shadows, avoiding cars and streetlamps (mostly), and the farther I get from the shelter of my home, the freer I feel. Ever since I was in sixth grade, I have been sneaking around naked in parks, strip malls (how appropriate!), and even at school.

My most memorable nude adventure, so far, took place last summer, when my best friend and I biked to the nature center, and she dared me to walk naked through the woods. I left my clothes with her and went out along the creek, and when I got back, I discovered she had run off with them. It was scary, but it was exciting, too, and it was even more exciting when, while I was climbing up the path after her, I passed two hikers on their way down.

There was no point in trying to hide. When a girl dares to go naked in public, she can’t suddenly pretend to be shy. She has to own it. So I held my head up and kept walking. The hikers — a plump old woman with wrinkly knees, and a skinny old man with a white beard — looked me over thoroughly, even though they didn’t say much. On the outside, I remained calm, but inside, I never felt more alive.

Now, most naturists will tell you nudity has nothing to do with sex, that it’s only about being natural and uninhibited. I am not one of them. I always get a sexy tingle when I strip, and it practically explodes when I’m in danger of getting caught. Later on that day at the nature center, for example, as my girlfriend and I were walking along on the trail, holding hands, both of us naked, we were almost swarmed by a group of little kids out on a nature walk. In a panic, we ducked into the bushes, and they never saw us, but it was so dangerous and so exciting we couldn’t stop playing with ourselves.

I’m a teenage girl, and to be honest, I have a nice body. Most people, especially men, don’t mind me showing it off. In that sense, I am privileged. But I dream of the day when everyone is comfortable taking their clothes off in public, no matter what they look like. In my dream, that old, wrinkled couple on the trail, and the little kids on the nature walk, could join me in stripping without guilt, or shame, or anybody calling the police, and they all would be accepted and admired for the beautiful, natural beings they are.

And that’s the greatest freedom.

“Yeah, right,” I thought, and I closed out the file. But I meant every word of it, and I was dying to show it to somebody. Sharing it would be as much fun as exposing myself. Daddy was a no. He’s seen me naked plenty of times, but he still doesn’t know about the nature center, or a lot of the other stuff, and I think we’d both be better off if it stayed that way. The only one I could send it to was Saanvi. Since she was the “best friend” I ran around with, she wouldn’t dare rat me out. So I attached the file to an email, with this note:

Aaaaaand — send. I didn’t tell her it was a joke, because I wanted to get her reaction. I figured she’d read it, freak out, and send me something back like OMG! You’re crazy! Is this for real? Don’t tell them about me! Then I’d set her straight. It wouldn’t be long, since she checks her mail every night before she goes to bed, and I knew just what to do while I waited.

I had that buttery, fluttery feeling down in the Oval Orifice before I was halfway through writing, and by the time I finished, it was all I could do to keep both hands on the keyboard. Now I wouldn’t have to. I laid the computer aside and spread my legs wide and straight. My girl needed some air. She was damp and fragrant, and she felt tight up front, like she could use a massage. I was happy to oblige. It wasn’t going to take long. I reached down, sliding my middle fingers along either side of my lonely little bump, and squeezed. Oh, that was good. The tickling flickered back and forth over the bulge, like sparks across a wire. Then the pleasure went all through me. My knees came up, and my free hand went to my boobs, twisting and pulling them. I saw myself in a room full of people. The men wore tuxedos. The women were in silk gowns and pearls. And I was naked, except for my black heels, a bowtie, starched cuffs, and a lace headband, serving drinks from a silver tray.

May I have a refill, please, Miss? My, that’s a charming uniform you’re wearing. Did you make it yourself?

I squeezed tighter, waggling my fingers. My clitty poked through them like a sparrow’s tongue.

The party people acted all cool, pretending to look past me, but I could feel them glancing sideways at my ass.

Yes, she does all her work nude — scrubbing the floors, walking the dog. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

“Aw, fuck! Fuck!” I said. It was that yummy instant where I kind of hang in the air, trying to hold off the big whoosh. Squeeze and release, squeeze and release. Keeping myself on edge as long as I can. She’s a treasure all right. Come by tomorrow and she’ll give you a bath. But my girl had other ideas. I threw my head back, and it bounced on my husband while the little bitch made me come.

I can never get over how amazing orgasms are, every single time.

Saanvi hadn’t answered my email. I checked my computer (one hand still stroking the beaver), and the only thing in my inbox was a two-for-one bra sale. Well, I thought, I did come pretty fast, and she does have a life, probably. So I settled back again, feeling myself and fantasizing about other jobs I could do naked. I could be a stripper, but that’s too predictable. I’d rather be a schoolteacher, doing math problems on the board and watching the little boys wank themselves under their desks. Feel free to join me, class... That one put me over the top again, helped along, naturally, by two fingers stirring the pot.

Amazing. Every single time.

And she still didn’t answer. I thought, okay, I can play this game all night. But after my third come (charity car wash, sudsy pubes) I was too worn out to care. I could bug her tomorrow. Right now, I was warm and relaxed and my whole room smelled like pussy, which is such a nice smell to fall asleep to. The computer would shut itself off.

Saanvi has a bright smile that I love seeing every day, but the next morning, when I met her at her locker, I didn’t appreciate it the way I usually do. Instead, I studied her face, looking for a glimmer in her eye or any little sign she was in on the big secret. She noticed it right away.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

What I was sure of was that she was doing it on purpose, waiting for me to bring it up. The little bitch was playing some game of her own, and it was driving me crazy. Which I was sure is what she wanted. We walked down the corridor, with the windows to one side, and outside Mrs. Laurie’s room, I asked her flat out, “You doing that essay for Salonen?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kind of lame. Like we all have to be in love with America.”

“My dad said the same thing.”

“What about you?”

“What do you mean, what about me?”

“I mean, what about you. What’s your problem?”

“Didn’t you get my email?”

“What email?”

“The one I sent last night.”

“I didn’t get anything.”

“You lie.”

“Why would I lie about that?”

“That’s weird,” I said.

“What?”

“I wrote a whole thing and sent it to you.”

“Maybe it went into my junk folder. I’ll check later.”