Chapter 1

Gerald had not told any of them why they were invited, but the invitation to the Magnuson mansion was a surprise to no one. All of them had been there before, and all were closely connected through the incredible project that had restored Kathy and Ted Randolph’s marriage. Besides them, the invitees were Shannon and Alex Torvold, Greg Laskey, Yvonne Torres, Frank and Julia Waxman, and Carolyn and Jim Randolph, Ted and Shannon’s parents. It actually seemed like a reunion.

Gerald Magnuson found no reason to apologize for the good breeding, the good fortune, and the enormous inheritance that allowed him to reside at the top of the social and economic heap. He, and everyone who knew him, considered him an exceptional steward of the many treasures with which he had been blessed. Incredible drive, deep-seated compassion, and rock-ribbed integrity had enabled him to multiply the fortune bequeathed to him. In the process, he had created employment and wealth for many others, and had given generously to worthy causes.

The death of his beloved wife a little over a year ago had muted the glow of his success, and caused him to step back from his varied enterprises while still in his mid-sixties. Fortunately, he had found new love with Elizabeth, life-long friend of his wife and himself, and the one he had not chosen when he married his first wife.

Through Elizabeth, a retired dancer and studio operator, he had received an astonishing request. He was asked to serve as a dance partner for Kathy Randolph, who was sequestered, naked, at Greg Laskey’s home. Kathy’s talent for and love of dance were discovered to be the key to her recovery from severe phobia of anything sexual.

The current dinner meeting was a direct outgrowth of his time with Kathy and a desire to use the Magnuson Foundation money to promote new and innovative human services.

Frank Waxman felt like he had been reborn. He never thought he could sell the fashion business he had built so lovingly and so successfully over all those years. At sixty, he did not consider himself over the hill. In fact, he was more confident in his analytical and decision-making skills than at any time in his life.

The wake-up call had come in the form of temporary impotence due to a metabolic imbalance. And what a wake-up call it was! He considered himself the luckiest of all men on earth to have the love of his gorgeous wife Julia. In his mind, he never used the word gorgeous - he considered it inadequate. Now forty-eight, she still turned heads wherever she went. And she made heads spin with the brilliance of her mind, as well. Their love life had always been spectacular, and the first time he was unable to perform, it jolted him as no business or personal setback ever had.

Julia was a psychiatrist, and therefore an M.D. Because of her deep love for her husband, she treated his problem gently. But as a doctor, she hounded him mercilessly until he sought medical help. At first, he tried to shrug it off as just age, but she wasn’t buying that. In her opinion, no man fell that quickly from the exceptional level of sexual performance they had enjoyed throughout their twenty-one years together.

The medical problem came at the same time as the heaviest travel demands of his career. For nearly a year, he was gone over three-fourths of the time, with some trips lasting nearly a month. The worst part of his combined absence and illness for Frank was his concern for Julia. He knew the strength of her sex drive. He could not satisfy it in the ultimate way, and he was not even there to comfort her with alternatives.

Greg Laskey was a young entrepreneur who had developed a leading-edge manufacturing logistics system. Frank became Greg’s first big-time customer, and the partnership propelled Frank’s business to the top of the fashion industry and Greg’s into a leadership position in the software business.

Greg had taken on a radical project to rescue Shannon, the adult daughter of his surrogate parents, Jim and Carolyn Randolph. He had worked out a plan with Julia, and somehow got Shannon to agree to it. Then plan involved Shannon losing a third of her body weight, obtaining a G.E.D online, and restoring relations with family members. All this took place while continually naked at Greg’s house.

During Shannon’s renewal, Julia became so enamored with Shannon’s courage and her personality that she began joining Shannon for workouts, stripping naked as she did. Since their first meeting years earlier, Greg had been close friends with Frank and Julia, and Julia’s patient after his shattering divorce. Frank and Julia convinced Greg to become Julia’s sexual partner until Frank recovered and returned from his travels.

All of those experiences convinced Frank that the time had come for a change. The company was doing well and was very salable, but he was not ready to just retire. The answer came in an offer from Gerald to manage the Magnuson Foundation. That brought him home to Julia for good with his health and vigor restored. In that role, he was a co-host of the dinner gathering.

Julia Waxman felt the same sense of rebirth as her husband, Frank. Greg came to her with his desire to help his ‘almost-sister’ Shannon reclaim her life from drugs, obesity, and dissolution. Julia’s first response had been quite traditional, knowing the heavy odds against success. When she learned of the lengths to which Greg was willing to go to rescue his erstwhile friend, she began to seriously consider innovative alternatives.

What she called ‘immersion therapy’ seemed the most likely answer, and she worked with Greg to lay out a program. She had to work hard to convince him that Shannon’s constant nudity was a crucial element. Largely because of Shannon’s strength and the incredible love and support of her family, the plan succeeded beyond any expectation. It succeeded so much that Shannon took the lead in the rescue of her brother Ted’s wife, Kathy.

In the course of Shannon’s recovery, Julia joined Shannon naked whenever possible for workouts and support. She became Greg’s lover with Frank’s blessing and encouragement. Nearly twenty pounds lighter and tighter than in her twenties, she felt ten years younger.

Kathy’s remarkable turnaround was another verification of the power of immersion therapy. Julia had the makings of a revolution in treatment, but was concerned about negative reaction to her methods within the stuffy psychiatric profession.

Among the many things in her life that she wished she could do over, Shannon’s treatment of Greg was high on her list. Best friends and soulmates since early childhood, she had spurned him when she was invited to join the ‘in’ crowd in High School. Unfortunately, that crowd introduced her to recreational drugs, for which she had no resistance.

Dropping out of school, living with a man through two kids, going through recovery twice, escaping a close brush with the law, giving up or losing job after crummy job, trying and failing numerous times to live away from her parents, adding weight to her slender 5’6” frame until she topped 200 lbs; these were the sad milestones of Shannon’s life.

Amid all the failures were two miraculous successes, Terry and Janie. Whether it was the Grace of God, or the constant presence and care of her parents, her kids had turned out far better than Shannon had any right to hope for.

At age thirty-two, Greg stepped back into her life with an outrageous proposal: stay with him, naked. Exercise, eat right, get her diploma - erase several of the failures. That was hard enough, but she had to meet with and renew relationships with parents, siblings, and children, all while naked.

Her personal trainer was a man, more accurately a Nordic god. Exposing herself to him was by far the hardest part of her ordeal. Yet, he was a kind man who saw something in her that she did not even see herself. Theirs was a moving but highly unusual romance, and from the depths of hopelessness, Shannon had risen to a fairy tale existence.

In demand by professional athletes in several sports, Alex Torvold had achieved everything possible for a trainer/therapist. Among the most respectful and considerate people alive, he rejected Greg’s request to be the personal trainer for his naked female friend. Finally giving in was the best move of his life. Within the fat and depression of Shannon Randolph lurked the woman he had never been able to find.

The fact that Shannon had two teenaged children became a tremendous bonus. Terry was the young man he wished he could have sired. Janey was a constant threat to his libido, and in total control of his heart. Shannon and her children introduced him to a level of family openness and intimacy he would once have considered immoral. Now, he could not imagine life without it.

Greg Laskey, at thirty-two, had more money than he knew what to do with, and an open psychic wound from a failed marriage. Guiltily renewing relationships with Jim and Carolyn Randolph, who had filled the role of parents during his youth, he found out what had happened to Shannon.

Driven to help his former soulmate, Greg worked with Julia on the radical plan to turn Shannon’s life around. Although following a rather different path than expected, the plan worked incredibly well.

During Shannon’s stay with him, Greg enjoyed a remarkable level of intimacy with the whole Randolph family. He was privileged to share a bed for two months with the incredible Julia. After a troubled start, he was able to play the key role in introducing the lovely Yvonne Torres to first friendship, then love - things from which she had isolated herself.

Kathy Randolph was becoming her mother, and it was about to cost her her marriage. More and more she was buying into her mother’s fanatical aversion to anything ‘improper.’ That designation covered anything related to sex and nakedness. Her deprived husband, Ted, had reached his limit, especially when Kathy’s impact on their teenaged daughters came to light.

Through the careful machinations of Julia, Ted, Shannon, and Ted’s parents, Kathy found herself naked at Greg’s house. She was free to leave, but the price was divorce. Somehow she survived unbearable shame and humiliation to keep from losing the husband she loved dearly. When her love of dance, something her mother denied her as improper, was discovered, she was on the road to normal, healthy attitudes. Her passionate reunion with Ted was just the start of an ongoing dream.

Ted Randolph let his wife, Kathy, manage the lives of his daughters far too long. When he met with his brave, naked sister Shannon at Greg’s house, he was emboldened to resolve his own troubled situation. Julia’s immersion therapy and brilliant diagnosis of the keys to Kathy’s phobias gave him the kind of marriage he had yearned for. In the process, relationships with his children, his parents, and his other sister took directions he would never have thought possible or even proper.

Carolyn and Jim Randolph were proud of all three of their children. With their youngest, Shannon, it took an effort of will to feel that pride. Nevertheless, they were always there for her, at times practically raising her children.

When it looked like Greg’s plan for Shannon would fail before it had started when they first visited her at Greg’s, they joined her in nakedness. This was a tremendous sacrifice to the naturally modest Carolyn, but typical of the lengths she would go for her children.

That move led to regular naked family gatherings. Through these, the unsuspected problems in Ted’s marriage came to light, and the plan for their correction was developed.

The storybook return of her prodigal daughter was worth any personal sacrifice asked of Carolyn. She willingly joined Shannon, naked, in support of the troubled Kathy during her recovery.

As a teen, Yvonne Torres feigned lesbianism to ward off the unwanted advances of her cousins and the stifling traditional expectations of her parents. On her own, she scratched out an admirable college career, both academically and athletically.

Yvonne built a successful business as a nutritionist while remaining isolated from both men and women. Realizing her need, she sought help from Julia. On Julia’s recommendation, Greg hired Yvonne as Shannon’s nutritionist. There was an instant, obvious attraction between Greg and Yvonne, but the wounds both carried from their pasts pushed them into a battle of wills. All was resolved in time for Yvonne to replace Julia in Greg’s bed upon Frank’s return.

After the superb meal Gerald had provided, the group of friends was sitting in the library, sipping coffee or aperitifs. Frank broke into the various conversations, and when everyone was still, he quipped, “Last time I saw this group together, we were all in much different attire.” That last time together was at Greg’s house, celebrating Kathy’s ‘graduation.’ As had become customary at Randolph family gatherings, nudity was the dress code.

“Do we need to strip before we can get down to business?” Shannon asked to a chorus of laughter.