When it started no one quite knew how to classify this thing, the more conspiratorial believed it was a bioweapon, chemically designed to destabilize the social cohesion of the country,

The more ... let’s say levelheaded among the populace believed it a disease, somehow naturally brewing in the deepest pits of nature or in some misguided lab experiment that leaked out into the general population,

Fantasy Nerds believed it was a magic spell,

Those in charge of naming it seemed to be on the side of the fantasy nerds,

How else could you explain the phenomenon of clothes spontaneously melting off people’s bodies, leaving them bare as the day they were born, how else could you explain this miracle of nature only affecting clothes and not other materials one might cover their body with such as seatbelts, jewellery, shoes, and blankets,

How else could you explain the fact that upon physical skin-to-skin contact with one of these ‘infected,’ the subject would become permanently nude after only a few moments gestation, unable to put on any clothes for the rest of their natural lives,

It defied natural law is what it did,

No other disease behaved this way, affecting every person it came into contact with in precisely the same way, and no other disease had such specific a side effect with seemingly enough intelligence to deduce which fabrics were clothing and which were not,

That’s why folks called it the spell, spells have intelligence behind them, a guiding hand, carried by the winds of fate.

The very first case was traced back to a public beach in southern Mexico, where Patient Zero, otherwise known as four-year-old Abigail Schmidt was on holiday vacation with her family when she decided to partake in an activity most four-year-olds did, wandering off while her parents were distracted with her baby brother who had a very full diaper with no replacement in sight,

Only after Mr. Schmidt made a short trip to the car, finding the diapers in the back seat, did Mrs. Schmidt notice her daughter was missing,

A short minute later she found the child playing in shallow water at the end of the beach a few dozen feet from where the family was sitting with no bathing suit to speak of at all,

Thinking the child had haphazardly taken off her bathing suit, another activity four-year-olds seemed to partake in with alarming regularity, Mrs. Schmidt wrapped her daughter in her shawl, handed her to her husband, and proceeded to walk down the beach to find where the current had dragged the suit,

After a few minutes of searching, she noticed a stir among her fellow beachgoers and that many seemed to be looking her way, several women took to covering both their children’s and even their husbands’ eyes, and a few of the cruder even took to wolf whistling at her.

It wasn’t until she felt a gentle breeze against her did she clue in as to why,

She looked down in horror to find every inch of her body exposed to the sun and the dozens of eyes analyzing every curve of her body, which aside from a few stretch marks looked spectacular for a woman who had birthed a child less than a year ago,

She desperately tried to tie the tattered remains of her bikini to her body, but the more tightly she pressed the cloth to her skin the faster it dissolved away into a few shreds of useless polyester,

She sprinted back to her husband, who was frantically packing up their beach towel and picnic baskets, his exposed bottom and the pile of shredded Hawaiian print swim trunks told a very similar story.

This was not the only story that had appeared all over the world, shortly after very similar events were reported on every continent, and due to the infant and unknown nature of what was becoming known as “the spell” it quickly spread to dozens of people, soon hundreds and eventually thousands now living permanently naked,

The governments of the world tried their best to contain the spell, instituting lockdowns and desperately trying to develop a cure, vaccine or treatment derived from the already infected, the best anyone was able to do was a pill designed to slow down the gestation period to a few minutes rather than less than one, but the subjects would become permanently nude all the same,

So after nearly crippling the world economy and almost inspiring a civil conflict, people had decided to accept that the spell was not going away any time soon and return to normal life, and today, with so much tension in the air, marks the first day of that effort, the first-day post lockdown.

Owen found it interesting how the world had naturally divided itself, on one side of the street were the clothed, each looking stressed out of their minds and keeping their heads on a swivel on the lookout for rogue ‘nudies’ that might infect them, each one of them eyeing the full body protective suits a pair of police officers walking down the sidewalk were wearing with envy,

On the other side were the nudies, looking in comparison far less stressed, strolling past in the afternoon sun without a care in the world, smiling to each person they walked past like they were old friends,

He was waiting in his parked car on the side of the street for his fiancé Lisa who he was there to pick up, staring at the front door of her office building, which much to his dismay was on the nudie side of the street, where every two seconds a chance to get infected walked by, especially if you were as clumsy and easily distracted by your phone like Lisa was.

As tense as he was, he had to admit it was certainly enticing to watch them go by, the bounce of breasts the sway of hips, and the men walking by who were visibly enjoying it as much as him, almost made it look fun to live nude, neither he nor Lisa would ever do it, but it was fun to fantasize.

He damn near had a heart attack when Lisa walked out the door, nearly crashing into a middle-aged nudie man as she cut across the sidewalk and onto the street,

Owen was amazed he had ever gotten a girl like Lisa to agree to marry him, her chocolate brown shoulder-length hair flowed in the wind as her hourglass figure with smooth pale skin jogged across the street to their car in her business casual outfit of black dress pants and a white v neck blouse that teased a tiny hint of her entrancing breasts,

“You’re not going to believe it!” She said excitedly as she climbed into the passenger’s seat,

“Hello to you too,” Owen greeted as he started the engine, “You know you nearly crashed into like three people just then?”

“Jerry’s a nudie!” Lisa said, ignoring his concern,

“Like your boss Jerry?” Owen questioned, Lisa nodded, “How the hell did that happen?”

“He chose it,” Lisa explained, “Had one of those secret infection parties with his friends halfway through lockdown,”

“Why anyone would choose that is beyond me,” Owen remarked, “What about you, are you okay, are you gonna keep working there?”

“Hell yeah,” Lisa nodded, “Jerry kept the entire office payroll during the lockdown, I’m not leaving him now, in fact, he even offered bonuses to whoever followed his lead,”

“You’re not thinking of...” Owen hesitated to finish his thought,

“No, of course not,” she waved off, “Just thinking out loud, any ideas for dinner?”

“I figured the first day back braving the hostile and ... exposed outside world was worthy of an old favourite, pizza from ‘Pope’s’?” Owen offered,

“You’re on mister,” Lisa smiled as her phone began to ring, “Hold that thought, Hey Sis, what’s up?”

Elena was Lisa’s sister, so as you may have expected, Owen and she had grown quite close, they were going to be family after all,

“Elena, sweetie,” Lisa said, her voice growing concerned, “Calm down, what happened?”

There was a pause as Lisa listened,

“Okay, we’ll be right over,” she responded, “Hang tight,”

“What’s going on?” Owen asked cautiously,

“We need to get to Elena’s place,” Lisa said urgently, “She’s been infected.”

It was a short drive over to Elena’s house, it was a very nice place considering her young age, she was a realtor and had gotten lucky with a few houses before lockdowns happened, Lisa always joked that her luck would catch up to her sooner or later,

She was very disappointed to be proven right.

Lisa gently knocked on the front door and waited,

There was no answer,

“Elena!” She called out,

She went to knock on the door again when she heard the lock click and a rapid thumping of footsteps racing deep into the house,

“Come in!” A nervous voice called out,

Owen shrugged and pushed the door open, allowing Lisa to go first as he closed the door behind them,

“Elena!” Lisa called out again as they entered the living room,

It looked like a war zone, everything from the couches to the coffee table was covered in scraps of cotton, denim, leather and every other type of cloth imaginable, it looked like Elena had tried on every piece of clothing she had in her possession, all of them destroyed by the effects of the spell,

“Hello?” They heard Elena’s voice call out from behind the corner, the left side of her face and bare shoulder just poking out for them to see,

“Sweetie,” Lisa said sympathetically, stepping towards her sister, “Are you okay?”

“Don’t come any closer!” Elena snapped, throwing her arm forward and waving her away, the change in her body’s position giving Owen the ever so faintest glance at her pale breast, still glowing white with the signature tan lines of a brand new nudie,

“Okay,” Lisa agreed, taking a cautious step back, “I won’t, how about you come out to the living room and we’ll talk?”

She elbowed Owen in the stomach,

“I’ll go make some coffee,” He said on cue, turning his back, walking towards the kitchen and turning on the kettle,

When he turned back towards the living room Elena had positioned herself on her couch, burying herself in as many scraps of cloth within arm’s reach to cover herself with,

It was a somewhat effective strategy, covering her most private of areas while leaving the rest of her still rather exposed,

As you might have expected, being sisters, Lisa and Elena looked remarkably similar, with the same chocolate brown hair, pale skin and basic facial structure, what wasn’t as evident to Owen was how they also shared magnificent figures, even with only the slightest glimpse of her under all that scrap cloth it was clear how spectacular her body was, coming a close second to her sister in his eyes,

“How did it happen?” Lisa asked as Owen handed her a cup of coffee, before placing a cup on the coffee table in front of Elena and sitting down next to his fiancé on the opposite couch,

“This afternoon, I was showing a house to this couple, they had just gotten married at the courthouse when lockdowns lifted,” Elena began to explain, “They realized they loved each other over Zoom call if you would believe it, well anyway I was showing them the kitchen when these people barge through the front door, a nudie guy and nudie girl. Before any of us could react they pushed us all down and ran out the back door, we thought we might have gotten lucky for a minute there, until my pants fell off my hips, and his shirt buttons began coming off, and her bra dissolved...”

“Who were they, did you get a good look?” Owen asked, remembering the laws that were put into effect a few months back making it a felony to purposely infect someone without their consent,

“Apparently, face-concealing masks are one of the things that the spell doesn’t affect,” Elena said, “The police said they would look into it but there was probably nothing they could do,”

Lisa and Owen looked at each other, there had been reports of a nudie ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ running around the country purposely going and infecting people with the spell, wearing balaclavas as they did so, before disappearing into the larger nudie population, they had hit gas stations, supermarkets, and most famously, right before lockdown hit, they had snuck into a movie theatre without anyone knowing, infecting everyone in a packed house before running out through the lobby and getting a few theatre employees for good measure,

Some had followed in their footsteps but they were usually found and arrested soon after, what made these two so infamous was their anonymity.

“What am I gonna do?” Elena asked, choking back tears,

“You can still sell houses,” Lisa assured her, “Hell, you might actually sell more this way,”

While they were talking Owen began to notice the cloth covering Elena’s body starting to get smaller, breaking into finer and finer threads as they made contact with her skin,

“Umm ... Elena,” Lisa said, finally noticing it for herself, “You’re looking ... a little exposed there,”

Elena looked down at her body, now totally exposed as the threads that were left over fell off of her body,

“Oh my god,” she gasped, putting one hand over her pair of magnificent b cup breasts and the other against her unshaven mound, all covered in the faint ghost of the tan line of her bikini,

Lisa noticed her fiancé tense up when he saw her newly exposed form,

“Could this day get any worse?” Elena asked,

As if fate were answering her the doorbell rang.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” She sighed, placing her hands over her face and curling up into a ball,

“I’ll get it,” Lisa offered, getting up from her seat and walking towards the front door,

Owen couldn’t help but glance at her exposed slit as she pressed her legs to her chest,

“Well, at least the weather around here is nice,” Owen said, trying to reassure her, Elena glared at him through the space between her fingers, “I’m just saying, you won’t have to worry about catching a cold,”

“Oh, hey Henry,” The two heard Lisa’s voice greet,

“Oh my god!” Elena gasped, leaping behind the couch for cover,

“Elena, hon,” Lisa said, bringing the man at the door to the living room, “Henry’s here,”

Henry worked with Elena at the realtor’s office, from what Owen had heard the two had kind of a will they won’t they dynamic, a dynamic Lisa was very eagerly trying to push in the will they direction,

“What are you doing here?” Elena demanded,

“I heard what happened,” Henry explained, “I just wanted to come check on you, are you okay?”

“Do I look okay!” Elena snapped at him,

An awkward silence hung in the air,

“Owen, dear, you remember Henry right?” Lisa smiled, breaking said silence,

“Actually I don’t think we’ve met,” Owen corrected, “I’ve heard of you though,”

“Vice versa man,” Henry reciprocated as the two shook hands,

“I’m sorry,” Elena interrupted, blushing furiously, “But I’m not exactly dressed for company here, and I could use a little space,”

“A little space? I...” Lisa questioned,

“Well I think we’ve bothered your sister long enough honey,” Owen said, “We should really get going anyway, Henry, we’ll walk you out,”

“Right,” Henry nodded as the three of them walked out the front door, Owen nearly having to push Lisa forward,

“We’ll come back tomorrow to check on you okay?” Lisa called back as they hit the front porch, “Take care, Elena, I love you!”

Owen slowly closed the door behind them,

“She doesn’t seem to be taking it well,” Henry remarked,

“I’ve heard of worse,” Owen remarked,

“Henry, thank you for coming,” Lisa said, “I’m sure Elena appreciates it,”

“I’m just sorry I can’t help her,” Henry sighed, “I’ll see you around,”

The two watched as Henry climbed into his car and drove away,

“And how are you doing?” Owen asked, pulling Lisa into a hug and placing his chin on the top of her head,

“All my life, it’s been her and me,” Lisa said soberly, “For twenty-five years we’ve had each other’s backs, she was going to be my maid of honour for god’s sake, and now, in the most vulnerable moment of her life I can’t help her, what good am I?”

“I’m sure she appreciates you being here, she appreciates your support,” Owen assured her, “She just needs time,”

“Thank you,” Lisa said, leaning her head up to kiss him,

“Let’s go home, huh?” Owen said, leading her by the shoulder towards the car, “Grab up that pizza on the way?”

“You’re on mister,” Lisa sighed.

Lisa was rather quiet that night, she spent most of her time on her tablet quietus reading until it was time for them to go to bed,

As they climbed under the covers she finally broke her silence,

“Earlier today,” She began, “At Elena’s, when the cloth had disappeared, it got you excited, right?”

Now any man who has spent more than five minutes in a relationship with a woman knows there was only one right answer to a question such as this,

“No, of course not,” Owen said with rehearsed confidence,

“Really?” Lisa questioned, “You weren’t excited by my sister’s body, her smooth flesh, her perky, bouncy, squishy breasts, her round firm ass, all there for the taking?”

“Nope,” he struggled to say without his voice cracking,

“Really,” she said, reaching down under the covers and suddenly grabbing his already throbbing erection, “Evidence suggests otherwise,”

“No,” Owen stammered, “That’s ... for you,”

“For me?” Lisa questioned, “I’m wearing Garfield pyjamas,”

“No, baby,” Owen tried his best to assure her as she flicked out the lights, and turned her back to him,

He tried his best to get her attention, kissing the back of her neck and rubbing her lower back usually worked, but tonight she seemed intent on not responding to her fiancé’s touch,

Finally recognizing he failed he turned away from her, instead focusing his energy on trying to fall asleep in his current ... state.

The two barely exchanged words that morning, they stayed in silence as they made and ate their breakfast, and they stayed in silence as they packed up to get ready to work, the first time anyone broke the silence was when Lisa told him she was going back to their bedroom to retrieve her tablet,

After a few moments of waiting alone, Owen noticed Lisa’s tablet on the kitchen table,

“Hey Hon,” he called out, “I found it,”

As he lifted the device off the table the screen sparked to life, revealing what Lisa had spent the morning reading,

‘The health benefits of the spell, why we might be better off living nude’

He immediately switched the tablet off as Lisa walked into the room,

“Thank you,” she said politely, slipping the tablet into her purse,

Owen then drove her over to her office, exchanged a quick formal kiss, then went off to his own job, with that headline bouncing back and forth in his head the whole day.

A mild panic had formed in Owen as he pulled up to the curb in front of Lisa’s office,

How far would she actually go to support her sister, would she go as far as to give the now nudie Jerry a big old hug and infect herself?

He breathed a sigh of relief as she walked back onto the street with her clothes still intact,

“How was your day?” He asked as she climbed into the car,

“Fine,” she said, noticeably much less talkative than yesterday,

“You’re still worried about Elena right?” He asked, trying to make small talk,

“Yeah,” she nodded,

“I get it,” Owen assured her, “You know, I half expected you to walk out the door infected yourself,”

“Would that have been the worse thing?” She asked in a flirty tone, “Think you could stand looking at me naked 24/7?”

“Something tells me I could get over it,” he chuckled, “I’m just glad you didn’t though,”

“Why?” She asked,

“It would completely uproot our lives,” he explained,

“Would it?” Lisa questioned, “I could still do my job, you could still do yours, sure our social lives might change but...”

“You’re not actually considering this, are you?” Owen asked,

Lisa read the fear on his face and changed her tone,

“No,” she said sympathetically, “I’m sorry I wouldn’t do that to you baby,”