Chapter 2

I lay at home with a bandaged leg for a few days, and when I thought I was back to normal, I went to see my savior, Irma Peters. Besides, I had to pick up my bicycle.

I bought a bouquet of flowers and wandered down the forest path, hoping I wouldn’t get lost. Of course, I got lost, couldn’t find the path I had taken off the bicycle route, and had to trudge to the spot where the dark cherry Skoda had turned out of the forest on the way to the doctor’s office. So I reached Mrs. Peters’ house almost at dusk, and I felt awkward.

Ringing the doorbell, I immediately regretted it. What if she had company? If I had come during the day, my visit would have been a passing courtesy, but now, in the evening light, it looked ... um ... intimate.

- Who ... Oh, it’s you!” Mrs. Peters opened the door for me. Like the last time, she was completely undressed, and it suited her better than any dress she’d ever worn. Well, no, she was “dressed” a little differently now. If last time she was wearing sneakers, that was all, now I noticed the slim-heeled shoes, the jewelry pendant on her clitoris, the glitter of earrings in her ears, the piercings in her belly button and pierced nipples.

- I wanted to thank you for your help,” I said, holding out the bouquet. - But I see that I came a bit at a bad time, you’re expecting guests...

- Ah,” sighed Mrs Peters, accepting the flowers. - I’m not expecting anyone. My husband died three years ago, my daughter married a year ago and moved away, so I dress up, pardon my frankness, for my own pleasure. Sit down, - she waved her hand toward the elegant leather sofa. - Would you like some tea? Coffee?

- Coffee, if you can,” I asked, and then suddenly realized. Daughter? - I’m sorry, I didn’t understand about the daughter. Do you have a grown-up daughter?

- Of course, - Mrs. Peters smiled. - I take your question as a compliment. My daughter is twenty and I myself am forty-three. I don’t hide my age.

I exhaled. Well, well.

- And you’ve been walking around naked since your daughter was born...? Mrs. Peters?

- Irma. And you are?

I introduced myself. Irma went into the kitchen to get water for the bouquet, and I looked around and liked what I saw. A modest but very expensive setting, and a Nolde sketch on the wall ... or a very good imitation. Irma’s husband was a wealthy man.

- Actually, I started walking around naked before Lisa was born,” Irma said as she walked back into the hall. - It was a pregnant woman’s quirk. You know, a lot of women have strange fantasies when they’re pregnant. As a rule, with the birth of the child it all stops,” she put a vase with cakes on the table. - The coffee will be ready in a moment ... Yes ... In my case, the fantasy didn’t leave me even after my daughter was born. Michael took me home from the delivery room wrapped in a blanket. Since then, I’ve only been fully dressed a few times ... Of course, in the fall and winter I had to throw something on in order not to catch a cold, but I gradually became hardened, and now I can walk comfortably in my natural clothes, even at minus five.

Irma brought out the coffee pot and cups. As she leaned over the low table, the huge, half-wall mirror reflected her half-extended buttocks, with something gleaming between them. Wow, I thought, but I didn’t venture to ask, instead talking about her work.

- Oh, that’s... - Irma waved her hand. - A sinecure, if you can call it that. After my daughter was born, I could have stayed a housewife, we have enough money, but I wanted to be useful to society. My husband had been elected Burgomaster several terms in a row, and he got me a job at the public library. Of course, it was all coordinated with the community ... No one, not even the women, objected to a nudist working in the library.