Chapter 1

"Everybody knew it was just a matter of time," Jack said. "I can't believe you're worried about lettin' it all hang out, Curt. Just think of all the girls who will be swooning."

"You know that's not the problem, Jack," Curt insisted. "I just think the whole idea is so wrong."

"Well, don't waste your time worrying about it, please," Jack pled. "Just do your senior year and take off your clothes when you have to. Oh, and get us that state championship."

Curt and Jack were sitting at McDonald's having a Coke after a morning run. It was the middle of July, and they had been faithfully gearing up for the start of football practice less than a month away.

Crosley was a sports-mad town. Actually, all towns seemed to be sports mad in this 'sophisticated' era. Numbers and winning seemed to mean everything. In Crosley, sports meant high school football, and Curt Valez was the quarterback.

The elderly driver who had smashed into Curt's car, keeping him out of last year's state class championship game, had been run out of town. That the man was a descendant of the town's founder meant nothing compared to the disaster he had brought about.

The accident and the lost title had not hurt Curt very much personally. The scouts from major colleges were still very interested in him, and that was important to Curt and to his mother, Gwen. Curt had never known the father who bailed out during his infancy, and Gwen had worked hard to make a decent life for herself and her son. His winning a scholarship would be a fitting reward for what she had sacrificed.

Even if a football scholarship did not come through, Curt would most likely get some academic offers. He was at the top of the school's grade rankings.

Curt lacked the 6'5" height that seemed de rigeur for modern day major college and pro quarterbacks. But at 6'1", he possessed a rifle arm, quick feet, good running speed, and a brain that seemed to instantly absorb and process everything happening on the field.

What Curt and his friend were talking about that day was the Naked in School Program. Crosley's school board had decided to go ahead and join, even though they could have stalled for another year or two before losing the all-important government funding.

In a move that people in the fairly conservative town were scratching their heads over, the Crosley school board had chosen to make participation in the Program a prerequisite for graduation. Although the powerful national office of the Program had been fighting vigorously for its removal, the Program in many places allowed parents to exempt their children. Not in Crosley.

In two more years, that exemption would disappear everywhere as a prerequisite for government funding. Nowhere in the country did the students themselves have any say in the matter.

Thus, in a typical four-year high school of 500 students in four grades, two or three boys and two or three girls from each grade would be naked each week. That would allow for every student to spend one week naked during their high school career.

In Crosley, there would be no naked students for some of the colder months. Having at least one boy and one girl from each grade would exhaust the available 'un-bared' students long before the school year finished. The other alternative talked about was to limit the nudity to upperclassmen or maybe to just exempt freshmen.

The whole Program issue was very traumatic for Curt. He had extremely strong views on the subject, honed by years of reading and research. And it was not just about himself. To him, it was the most egregious human rights violation in the last century. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he believed things strongly, and he was willing to risk personal loss for his beliefs.

There was no way that Curt would attend a school that was in the Program. That would imply that he condoned or accepted it as legitimate, and he absolutely did not. The real problem that he faced was the impact on his mother, Gwen.

Once the program's implementation in the fall was announced, Curt knew that his high school football days were over, even though he did not let on to his coaches, teammates, or friends.

Curt and Gwen had talked about the program extensively, and their views on it were the same. In fact, Gwen had shared her beliefs with Curt from a very early age, and had stressed the importance of living according to those beliefs. There was no doubt that she had shaped his value system, and she was proud of that.

And Gwen's beliefs had nothing to do with prudery or modesty. In fact, because they had always lived in small apartments or rental homes, she had raised Curt to be comfortable with casual, incidental nudity. She was convinced that the lack of artificial modesty had helped to strengthen the bond between them.

Gwen heard the decision first, before Curt did, and she had managed to be home when he arrived after going to a movie with his current girlfriend. Gwen knew how upset he would be, and she knew the reason would be his concern for her. Her heart ached because she would not be able to watch him on the field. But at the same time, her heart swelled with pride for the man of principle that she had raised.

"I already have us a place in Hooverton," was the first thing she said as he came through the door. "It's a three bedroom, so we can have a work room, now. Not as nice inside, but in a decent neighborhood - close to school."

Gwen had never quite been able to buy a home. She had been at the same job for fifteen years, but she had always rented the smallest apartment they could get by with. As he got older, Curt understood. Home ownership was still the best way to accumulate assets, but Gwen was always determined to build up enough liquid savings for at least a moderate emergency.

Curt always realized what his friends had that he did not, but he never allowed it to make him bitter. Gwen tried very hard to find things that they could enjoy together that did not cost much, and her success brought them even closer.

They had only one car, so his social life had some severe limits. Several wealthy local football fans had offered cars and more to Curt, but his moral code would not let him accept. The one 'extravagant' expense mother and son agreed upon was the Internet and both a desktop and a laptop computer. Curt took the laptop to school most days, since it was almost a standard piece of gear for modern students. Both of them enjoyed surfing and they were both involved in various chat rooms and blogs.

To prevent college-style recruiting of players between high schools, the state league had very strict rules about transfers playing at their new schools. The Valez's move would not qualify Curt to play at Hooverton. There really was no other place to move, though. Gwen needed her job, and the fifteen mile commute from Hooverton was not bad. Besides, there were not many other districts left without the Program.

Unable to contain his emotions at her huge display of love and loyalty, Curt broke down completely. She reacted the same way, and they hugged and soaked each other's clothes with tears for several minutes. They did not even have to talk about it. Everything important had been said many times before.

Arms still around each other, they sat on the couch and were quiet for a few minutes. "Luckily, I got an August 1 date," she finally said. "I actually rented it in April. If we had not needed it, we would have lost two months' rent, but I was afraid there would be a rush after the announcement. I was almost certain the board would adopt it." Both of them knew that the move date was significant because after that, they would be unable to keep secret that Crosley had lost their quarterback and any reasonable chance at the single 'A' championship.

Both of them expected any number of attempts to get Curt to somehow stay at Crosley High School. Since his objection was to the Program itself and not to his own forced nudity, only rescinding implementation would mollify him. To do that for the sake of one key player, even if it was possible, smacked of the same moral vacuum that the Program exemplified to him. By having physically moved before word got out, they hoped to cut off most of the maneuvering and pressure.

It was going to be a very tough two weeks, basically lying to everyone who gave him best wishes and encouragement for the upcoming year.

Knowing that the decision was probably coming, Curt had worried about his current girlfriend, Jordan. He had taken her to the prom after only two dates. They had been in several classes together, and had known each other since elementary school.

Jordan was a legitimate brain, and had a lot of the other characteristics associated with brainy teenaged girls. She had developed late, and at the end of her junior year, she still had a ways to go for her mature shape. Socially, she was also behind her contemporaries. She was naturally shy, and to her peers, she seemed distracted and aloof.

Curt knew better. She was really a sweet girl, and she had opened up a lot to Curt, but there was nothing remotely sexual between them. That's why Curt worried about her. He could not imagine what would happen if she was ordered to strip and walk to class.

A few times he had wondered if he should stay just so he could protect Jordan. Besides having to be true to his convictions, though, he did not believe that they would be a couple for any length of time. Still, he would hate to see her get hurt.

Hooverton was one town that would go down kicking and screaming when the government tried to force them into the Program by cutting off all government aid. They might just be able to pull it off. About ten years earlier, one of the ten richest men in the country had moved to Hooverton. He had bought three small manufacturing operations in town, and had performed flat out miracles by reviving the plants and the whole town.

Jason Pritchard had so much money that his highly-paid financial staff could not even agree on how much there really was. Given that the bulk of his cash assets were now off-shore, fluctuating currency exchange rates made an exact total somewhat meaningless, anyway.

It had all started with two extremely risky investments in the second dot.com boom that had paid off unbelievably well. From there, he had shown nearly magical instincts for finding ways to multiply his money. Not yet fifty, he stood on top of the financial heap, a long way from his roots as the son of a teacher and a fireman.

Unfortunately, Jason considered the current financial heap to be a very risky place to stand, given the government's direction vis a vis capitalism. The U.S. seemed determined to retrace the path that had already been proven to be worse than a dead end by Western Europe. Several countries had danced on the brink of collapse, and a few others had been forced to drastically revamp their culture to avoid the same fate. As a result, the EEC, at least in its full realization, remained a many-decades-old dream.

Now, the U.S. was panting after every socialist idea that had gutted Europe economically, somehow thinking it could done right with good old Yankee drive and ingenuity. Jason knew better. He knew history.

Jason headed a small, tight-knit, very secretive group of extremely wealthy men and women who were of like mind. The group was called Renewal. They were the ultimate beneficiaries of capitalism, and they passionately believed that it alone offered the most opportunity for others to find the same success. Every one of them had built his/her own fortune from next to nothing, and they did not want to be the last American generation able to do that.

As yet, Renewal did not rival the resources of the many wealthy people who supported the socialist/humanist causes, including the current Democratic administration. With a few notable exceptions, the money supporting the left was all old money, and the donors several generations removed from the entrepreneurs who had built the fortunes. Although Jason only recognized the Parkhurst family from a summary report in the group's extensive database, they were the perfect example of the formidable financial force that Renewal faced.

Of further concern to Jason was the lack of an opposition party that they could support and help bring back to power. The Republican party had drifted, or scurried, as the case may be, so far to the left of any conservative or capitalist ideology that it offered no intellectual or philosophical help out of what Jason considered the terminal whirlpool of the U.S. economy and social system.

Nor was there any chance of even the emasculated Republican party making any kind of resurgence at the polls. When it had last held power, it had badly bungled the immigration issue. As a result, tens of millions of new citizens, mostly Hispanic, and presumably all Democratic voters, were naturalized over a period of a few years. That guaranteed a solid Democrat majority for the forseeable future.

That working majority was guaranteed as long as all of the new voters responded as expected, and so far, they always had. Renewal had a well-funded staff of highly expert researchers looking for any issue that could be used to pry some of those voters away from their reflexive allegiance to the Democrats. Problem was, even if they succeeded, what good would the current Republicans do in forestalling the impending meltdown?

Jason Pritchard could take some small comfort in preserving what he could in the congenial town of Hooverton. As best he could in the current regulatory climate, he had encouraged entrepreneurship and spent heavily on social causes in which he believed the government had no business involving itself.

Having never gotten around to finding a life mate, Jason nevertheless had a real fondness for children and young people. Inexplicably, he was present at an amazing number of games and performances by Hooverton Public Schools students, as well as the three local private schools. In fact, in an era of unbelievable pressure on private schools and home schooling, Jason made certain that those in his area survived and thrived.

On several occasions as he was leaving events at the high school, Jason would stand and just watch students moving through the halls. He tried to picture a few of them naked, having to submit to the attentions of their classmates. The idea sickened him. He could personally keep it out of Hooverton by replacing the withheld government funding. It would only be a drop in the bucket for him, but it would also be only a drop in the bucket in terms of any national impact.

A secret move was not possible for Gwen and Curt, especially as they lived in a fairly large apartment complex. The best they could hope for was to confuse things as much as possible. With a large rented storage shed, a pickup truck rented for a week, and the help of a strong, generous, discrete neighbor, they got most of their belongings out of the apartment and into the shed over a one-week period. They worked mostly after midnight, putting a strain on Gwen's workday, but it was the best plan they could devise.

On move day, a hauler from Hooverton picked up the contents of the shed before stopping for the final items at the apartment. They paid extra to get the final pickup late in the evening. Surprisingly, they were successfully into the new place before the word got out.

It was not an occasion for celebration when they ate their first meal in the new apartment, but they were both comforted with the thought that they had stayed true to what they believed.

The day after the move, Curt drove his mother to work in Crosley, and went to see the football coach personally. The coach was a good man, and it had bothered Curt greatly to keep him in the dark, but it had to be done.

At the coach's home, Curt endured the enthusiastic greeting and just blurted it out. "Coach, I'm sorry to tell you like this, but we just moved to Hooverton."

The coach's face went through confusion, shock, disbelief, and finally anger. "Why the hell would you do that?" he sputtered out.

"The Program. I refuse to have anything to do with it."

"I can pull some strings and keep you out of it," the coach said in desperation.

"I'm not worried about going naked myself. I just can't attend a school where it's going on. I can't appear to accept or condone it."

"But we had a great shot at the title!"

"Believe me, I wanted that title," Curt said, his emotion showing. "And I hate letting my teammates down. It just comes down to whether I'm willing to act on what I believe."

"I didn't know you felt this way."

"It's not something I've talked about much, except with my mother."

The coach had absorbed the news like a man, but at that point, he ran out of tough. He collapsed into a chair and held his head in his hands. His wife, a very nice lady that Curt had a good relationship with, came over to Curt and gave him a quick hug. "I hurt for my husband, but I admire what you've done. That Program business is horrible. If you can do anything to turn opinion against it, you have to do it. Don't make the loss to the team go for nothing. Please!"

Curt visited with several shocked friends for the rest of the day. When he stopped to pick up his mother at the bank, he found her standing outside with a box by her feet and obvious tear-stains on her face.

"They fired me," she said as soon as she opened the door. "I filled out an address change form, and two hours later, they kicked me out!"

"Oh, God, no! I'm so sorry, Mom! What are we going to do?"

"We've got several months of savings to carry us over. Business is supposed to be good in Hooverton. I'll find something. I won't get a decent reference, though."

It was a very quiet ride home and a sorrowful introduction to the path they had chosen.

Molly Parkhurst looked up first in surprise and then in disgust as her naked father, Win (Winthrop) walked into the kitchen for breakfast Saturday morning. She hardly noticed her equally naked mother, Eleanor, right behind him, beaming from ear to ear. The sight of Eleanor's 'best that money can buy', nearly forty-year-old body was no longer a source of great interest after several weeks of exposure.

Well, the naked Eleanor was not of much interest to Molly, but the same could not be said for fifteen-year-old Bert (Bertand). Even several weeks of Eleanor's new-found naturist fad had not completely dulled his interest. A quick glance through the glass top of the breakfast table told Molly that Bert was saluting his mother in the usual way.

After the next glance at her father, Molly's disgust must have been quite apparent, for Eleanor's smile quickly changed to a look of irritation. "Millicent (Molly's hated real name)! Your father has a good body! Don't look at him that way!"

"Oh, it not about his body!", Molly retorted to her mother. Turning to Win, she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice "Been working out a little, Dad? Seems like your navel isn't quite as lost in your gut as it used to be. And the love handles have definitely shrunk a bit. Nice dick. Hey, did I just see it twitch, there? Gee, your balls hang pretty low, don't they?

"What's really disgusting, Dad, is that you gave in. You think this is wrong, but you let her force you into it. How long did she cut you off for, huh? That must be why they're so low and so full."

"Now, wait just a minute, young lady! You have no call to talk to me like that!"

"Then how am I supposed to talk to a so-called man whose spine is as limp as his dick?"

"Millicent!" Eleanor shouted once more. "You will show respect to your father!"

"What respect!" Molly shouted back. "Is this respect? Parading your genitals in front of me at breakfast, whether I want to see them or not? And what about Erma?"

Their long-time cook had just walked in carrying their breakfast on a large tray. She almost dropped the tray when she saw Win's state of dress. By sheer force of will, she tore her gaze from Win's privates, set the tray down on the sideboard, and fled back to the kitchen.

"We have the right to be free and comfortable in our own home," Win insisted, winning him a bright smile from his wife. "Erma will just have to adjust."

"Comfortable? Who are you kidding, DAD? Is comfortable why half your skin is flushed. Is that why your dick is twitching and I can see the skin on your ball sac crawling?

"Speaking of respect, have you signed my exemption from the Program, yet? The deadline is Tuesday."

"You know I can't do that!" Eleanor said. "I'm the president of the school board. I was the one who got the Program in. How would it look if I exempted my own daughter?"

"So that's still more important than respect for my beliefs and my feelings?"

"Don't keep saying it that way," Eleanor pled. "You need this, Molly." She only used Molly's preferred name when trying to ingratiate herself. "You're missing out on so much of your best years."

"You mean pimply-faced, skinny-assed jerks with hard-ons pawing at me whenever they want to?"

The town's founding family was named Parkhurst. The name was prominent everywhere in the town and in the company that was its original reason for being. Molly Parkhurst's life was one of privilege, but she was certainly not the typical example of worn-out bloodlines that one saw so often in the later generations of wealthy families.

Molly's IQ was far into the Mensa range, but she had inherited a generous portion of her distant ancestors' initiative, creativity, and common sense along with her intelligence. Money had not gone to her head in the least. Oh, she used and was thankful for the things that money could buy, but she exhibited no preoccupation with the fads of the upper crust, and never indulged in the 'can you top this?' games so prevalent in her family.

Molly's attitude was definitely a throwback. Her father was a prototypical 'idle rich' scion of old money. Her mother had married money and was determined to make everyone believe that she had been born to it, or at least deserved to have been. Snobbish, ultra-faddish, pleasure-driven, class-conscious; several more less-than-complimentary descriptions could be applied to Winthrop and Eleanor Parkhurst.

Eleanor Parkhurst was president of the local school board, and she was primarily responsible for getting the Program instituted two years before the legal deadline. Nor was she a figurehead, having earned a Masters degree in educational psychology. It was probable that Molly's super-genius brainpower came from her mother.

The Parkhursts were quick to jump on any humanistic bandwagon that came along, and the past decade had seen a continuous stream of them. Of them all, the Naked-In-School Program was the most dramatic.

Many prohibitions against nudity had been eradicated over the years. In a strange reversal of the feminist trend, female nudity was allowed just about anywhere. Display of male genitals was restricted in most public places, except those limited to adults. Most beaches and pools were truly clothing-optional, regardless of whether or not they were open to children.

With naked people encountered regularly by almost everyone, particularly in the summer, nudity certainly did not carry the stigma that it once did. Molly was not particularly modest or body-shy, nor did she have any reason to be. Along with her brains, she inherited a very nice face and body from somewhere in her ancestry. Probably thinner than she should be, she still had a very pleasing arrangement of hills and valleys. She moved with the grace of a dancer or a pro athlete, although she did not pursue any sports.