Chapter 1

Initially, I thought Kent and Lisa were what most people would call a normal couple. They were in their early forties. He was an engineer of some kind at a fertilizer plant on the outskirts of town and she was a librarian at the public library for the township they lived in.

They had very similar facial characteristics and had been married for twenty-two years. They had a son, on the slow track towards becoming a medical doctor, and a daughter who was in her third year of engineering school. Both wore glasses.

They had a comfortable normal home, and wore comfortable normal clothing. We sat down in their comfortable, normal living room and I glanced briefly at the normal comfortable looking photos of the family at various stages of their lives. They were scattered around in frames on the walls, and on tables. There were lots of pictures. The only thing that looked unique was the Venetian blinds on the windows. They went up and down, instead of back and forth, long strips of some plastic type material that were three or four inches wide. They were open, to let in the evening sunlight. I had never seen any blinds like those.

Lisa set out a tray of what I call squirrel food, with celery, carrots, olives (both green and black), cauliflower, broccoli and all manner of other goodies that vegetarians seem to go for. She also served white wine. I looked at the platter, and at each of them as they took things and started popping them into their mouths.

That should have been my first clue that this family wasn't as normal as they appeared to be at first.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with squirrel food. If you're into that kind of thing. But in my world, the 'normal' thing to set out in a situation like this, if you were going to serve wine, was cheese and crackers, and rolled up strips of ham, maybe, or shrimp, or little sandwiches or something like that. Later in the decade, vegetable platters would be all the rage, but this was back in the meat-and-potatoes days, before everybody started worrying about cholesterol and carbs and all that.

It turned out they were ahead of their time. Sort of. You could argue that they were way behind the times too. A few thousand years behind the times. You'll understand in a bit.

One of the first questions I liked to ask was how a couple met each other. The stories were always fascinating and broke the ice well, getting people to talk about each other in a way that was a natural segue into more personal questions, about what attracted them to each other, and what they liked to do, leading eventually to questions about the bedroom. That didn't happen in all cases - getting into the bedroom, I mean - but it led to that more often than you might think.

"We're a little different, probably, than most couples you've interviewed," said Kent.

I found it interesting that he had some kind of magical knowledge about "what kind of couples" I had interviewed.

"We're nudists," said Lisa calmly.

Well color me surprised. I looked at the six family photographs I could see at that particular moment. Everybody had clothes on.

Kent saw me looking. "Nature lovers, as some call us, have a bit of a hard time fitting in with the average population if they flaunt it," he said. He didn't seem to be upset about the fact that his particular lifestyle wasn't acceptable in 98+ percent of American households.

Then, as if he knew what I was thinking, he started quoting statistics. I have no idea if they were valid or not. I never looked them up. According to him almost eighteen percent of Americans were involved, in some way shape or form, in living life partially in the nude.

"And that doesn't count industries that are based on nudity," he said.

"Industries based on nudity?" I asked. It was an interesting concept, even though I couldn't come up with one 'industry' that I thought was based on nudity. Victoria's Secret, maybe, but that was only partial nudity, with the promise of nudity to follow. Put a woman in all that frilly underwear, and a guy will only be thinking of how quickly he can get it off of her.

Lisa took over and rattled them off like a well worn litany. "Sure. Things like strippers, and the people who pay to see them, stage shows in Vegas and places like that, prostitutes, internet porn sites, movies rated R on the basis of nudity, the fully adult entertainment industry, Playboy and the myriad of other magazines that sell nudity." She stopped to take a breath.

"I get the idea now," I said. I was shocked, actually. I didn't think of all those things as "nudity". I thought of them as "sex". That made me ask the question.

"Is there a difference between um... nature lovers... and all these other kinds of industries involving nudity?"

"There is a difference," Kent said firmly. "Though most people might argue about that."

"Please," I said. "Educate me."

After all, I was a researcher, and it isn't the job of researchers to learn things? Our job is just to learn and gather data that may help other people learn. Right? I mean the stirring in my groin as I looked at Lisa in a completely new way didn't have anything to do with anything, right?

I was, in fact, looking at Lisa in a completely different way. She was a very normal looking woman, with breasts that were not too large, or not too small. Her clothing wasn't particularly revealing, though her buttocks were pretty well defined in the slacks she was wearing when she bent over to put the squirrel food on the table. I HAD noticed that, though I suppressed the thought immediately. She had a normal face, her nose perhaps a bit too long, and a bit too pointed, but with a nice smile and crinkles at the edges of her eyes that suggested she smiled a lot. My mind wandered as I tried to imagine what she looked like... wherever they went to be nudists. Did she have brown nipples, or pink? Did she do anything to her pubic hair... you know, like women do to their head hair? Did nudists wear makeup?

I realized with a jerk that Lisa was, in fact, trying to educate me, while I was busy trying to think of her naked. I was lucky it was her talking, since I was staring at her.

"... isn't so much about sex as it is in, say, the porn industry. That's all about sex, all the time. But when nudists get together, its more about being free to be whoever you are inside, as well as outside. Clothes cover up our imperfections, and when we wear clothes we project an image that isn't necessarily valid," she said.

I had to imagine how she had started, but it wasn't too hard. I hadn't missed too much. Still, I was a little embarrassed.

"Mmmm" I nodded in what I hoped was a sage way.

"But when ereyone is nude, then everybody has some kind of flaw, whether it's stretch marks, or flab, or knobby knees or something, and it's all on display. And people learn, after a while, to get past all that and concentrate on who the other person IS, and not what they LOOK like."

"And that works?" I was astonished. I was convinced that, if I were among a bunch of naked men and women, all I'd see was... naked men and women.

"It takes a little time," said Kent, smiling. "But eventually, for most people, it works that way."

I must have looked as doubtful as I felt.

Lisa flashed the smile that had, no doubt, created those delightful little creases at the corners of her eyes. I noticed some above her cheekbones that weren't as obvious too.

"Oh, there IS some sexual tension there." She looked over at her husband. "But it's no more common common among nudists than it is in the general clothed population."

I realized I had been given permission to make a comment.

"But there's sexual tension all over the place," I pointed out. "The world seems to thrive on sexual tension."

She looked earnest as she went on. "That's the point. Think about it. When people wear clothing, a lot of the time what they're actually doing is trying to imagine the other person without clothing, instead of concentrating on who that person really is."

She smiled again. "Maybe what I should have said is that the attraction between nudists is more often genuine attraction."

"I don't think I understand," I admitted.

She leaned forward. This was obviously important to her.

"OK, think about it this way. I'm a woman, sitting here with clothes on. If you're like most men, you've imagined me naked."

Well, that was pretty blunt. Apparently I was like most men. I restrained a nod as I glanced at Kent. He was grinning. Finally I nodded as I blushed.

"OK, are you attracted more to the mental image of me naked... or as I am right now."

"That's not fair," I objected. "I don't know you at all. I've known you for what, maybe fifteen minutes?"

"You're dodging the question Bob," she scolded. "You're either attracted to me, or not. If not, then there's nothing to talk about. If you are, though, then the obvious question is why? Didn't you ask me what attracted me to Kent? That seems to be important to you. Why wouldn't it be important if you were attracted to me?"

"I think we're getting off base here," I tried.

"No we're not," she said. "Would you rather see me clothed, or naked?"

She put me on the spot. This project required that people trust me. Honesty was the best way to do that. I tried to be as honest with people as I could be, because that built trust and trust got me the truth, and the truth was more valuable by far than bullshit.

"OK, I'd rather see you naked," I admitted. "But that's not true with all women I see."

"And why is that?" she asked. "I'm no raving beauty. I'm a perfectly ordinary looking woman. So why would you want to see me naked?"

"I don't know!" I was frustrated. "You seem like a nice lady?" I was grasping for straws. Why WOULD I prefer to see her naked.

"AHA!" she crowed, leaning back in her chair. "THAT is the whole point. You have made a judgment on my worth as a human being - who knows what you based it on - like you said we've only known each other for ten minutes - but for whatever reason you have found me fit as a female human being and NOW, you'd like to explore me on a more personal level."

What she said made a kind of sense, but I thought of a girl I had seen driving a Mustang on my way to their house. I had wondered what that girl would look like laid out on the hood of that beautiful car, naked. I told them about her.

"I didn't know her at all. Yet I wanted to see her naked too," I said. "That doesn't fit with what you are talking about."

"I'll bet you she was a good looking woman," said Kent. "If she had been a seventy year old woman would you have wanted to see her lying naked on that car?"

"Well no, I suppose not." I felt bad about that for some reason. That was strange, in that I don't think I ever felt bad about NOT wanting to see a grandma, naked, and lying on top of a sports car.

"That is exactly what I've been trying to explain to you," Lisa said, nonplussed. "Most of us have two responses to the opposite sex. One is raw sexual appeal... the mating instinct, if you will. The other is based on something deeper, more genuine, where an actual relationship is required to make the other person interesting sexually. It involves more than just sex."

I thought about Louanne, a girl I worked with sometimes on various projects. We were on a parallel educational path. I had thought about asking her to do the interviews with me for this project. I had thought having both a male and female might get a better response. The thing was that I had the hots for Louanne. I didn't at first. She was a mousy looking girl who wore clothes that hid her body. She was flat-chested and had big hips and didn't go to a lot of effort to do things with her hair and skin and all that. But as I got to know her better, she somehow became really attractive to me. I had reflected on that in the past. She didn't get any better looking. I just liked her more and more as we got to know each other better. Eventually I had fantasies about her. I had never acted on them. She was a good friend and I didn't want to screw that up.

I told them about Louanne.

"Exactly!" said Lisa excitedly. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. You looked past her 'flaws' and like her as a person. That's what we do at our retreats. We're just more honest about it by interacting with each other au naturale."

"I still don't see how that helps," I said helplessly.

"Since we all want to see each other naked sooner or later anyway, we get that out of the way up front," she said patiently. "Then, once the raw mating instinct is dealt with, we can concentrate on who we really are, and not what we look like."

"But isn't that awkward?" I asked. "I mean the raw sexual attraction... in the beginning."

"It can be, but when there are stiff pricks everywhere, your own doesn't seem to... stick out... quite so much," Kent chuckled.

"I get extra good loving when we're at a retreat," said Lisa. She grinned. "Whenever he gets that way I just take him someplace private and make it all soft."

"But doesn't it bother you that he's... thinking of some other woman?" I asked.

"We all think about members of the opposite sex," she said. "Who says I'm thinking about him while I'm making it all soft?"

"Wow," I said. "And everybody behaves themselves at these... retreats?"

"Not at all," laughed Kent. "But it isn't polite to just leer and make it obvious. While we are trying to disregard each other's flaws, we also try to disregard evidence of arousal."

"It still sounds impossible," I said.

"Well, it works for us," said Lisa. "I'd say that's one of the big reasons our marital bond is so strong. We both get to be as free as possible with lots of other exciting and interesting people, and our bedroom life benefits from it."

I had no place on my clipboard to put any of this. I just sat there.

Kent stood up and reached down to get more veggies. "We should probably tell him the rest," he said to his wife.

"There's more?" I asked. My voice cracked a little.

He was still looking at her. She nodded fractionally, but frowned a little.

He sat down. Around something crunchy, he spoke calmly.

"We allow each other one affair per year."

"One affair per year." I sounded like some deep-voiced parrot.

Lisa looked nervous. "Yes. Once each year each of us can choose another sexual partner. It's more complicated than that, but basically that's it."

Nope, nothing ordinary or normal about this family. For some reason I looked at the pictures again.

I had filled in practically nothing on the form for this couple. I wasn't exactly shocked by what had come out thus far. You'll remember that Lizzie and Todd had me... break in, for all practical purposes, their fourteen year old daughter. So it wasn't that this was so strange, except that they seemed so completely normal when I got there. I think I was having trouble assimilating all this for some reason.

"Let's come back to that," I suggested. "Let me get some of the blocks filled in on the questionnaire and maybe that will give me time to get my mind working better."

The problem was that they had been nudists their whole lives, and it wove in and out of everything they did. They met at a nudist retreat, when he was fourteen and she was thirteen. They both liked water skiing, and went out on a shared boat together. They became friends and then there evolved some friendly competition between them as they learned how to go from two to only one ski. I tried to envision these kids, naked in a boat, competing to be the first one to make it up out of the water on one ski and stay up for more than ten feet.

"I knew he was happy for me the first time I made it up," said Lisa. "I skied for almost a mile, and when I got back in the boat he had an erection."

Kent laughed. "As much as we competed, I really was excited when she succeeded. But I think it was the last dance that did me in."

"Last dance?" I asked.

"Yes, at each retreat we have what is called the last dance. It is always held on the closing night. Usually, during the retreat, we pretty much avoid situations where close personal contact would take place... like dancing. We play sports and do other things for recreation, or sit around and talk, just taking it easy. But the last night we have the last dance. There is a code of sorts. Half the room is set up with green table settings, and the other half with blue. If you don't want to dance, or want to dance only with a particular partner, you sit at a blue table. If you're willing to dance with anyone, you sit at a green table. If you sit at a green table you can't turn down any request to dance.

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Why, so no one gets left out," said Lisa. "Not everyone has a beautiful body. It wouldn't be fair for there to be wallflowers. The whole point to nudism is to get past the physical appearance and go deeper. I have danced with men old enough to be my grandfather, and almost all the boys my age too. Everybody knows about the last dance, and what can happen there. It encourages people to get to know each other, since you might have to dance with almost anybody. What's fair for one, is fair for all."

"That year she sat at a green table with her parents, and I got to dance with her," said Kent. "I was hooked."

"You were a lecher," snorted Lisa. She turned to me. "He broke every rule. If a man got an erection during a dance, he was supposed to go sit down."

"I didn't," Kent grinned.

"And he wasn't supposed to run his hands all over my body either." scolded Lisa.

"I did," Kent grinned again.

"My mother about had a hissy fit," said Lisa. "She was dancing with my father and saw the tip of Kent's penis sticking out between my buttocks."

"How can anybody expect that not to happen when you're dancing naked?" I asked.

"It's all about controlling your baser urges," said Lisa. "The whole point is to get past that raw sexual attraction and treat each other like human beings, instead of just sexual beings."

"I understand the concept," I said. "I just don't think I could do it."

Lisa looked at me steadily. "Would you be willing to try an experiment?"

"What kind of experiment?" I asked warily.

"How about if we did these interviews in the nude?" she asked.

"All of us?" I asked.

"Of course," she said.

I looked at Kent. He was grinning again.

"I really think I can help you understand what we're talking about." she said.

"Um... what if I get... you know?" I asked.

"I'd be a little offended if you didn't," she said sweetly. "But there will be no hanky panky between us. You need to understand that."

"Of course," I said. It seemed like the right thing to say in what was quickly turning into a bizarre situation.

"I'd feel pretty strange sitting here naked," I said.

"Of course you will... at first. Trust me on this Bob. Almost anyone can become a nudist. It just takes a little practice."

The concept of 'becoming a nudist' was just so foreign to me that I had to try it.

"OK," I said.

Kent picked up what looked like a remote control for a TV set and pushed a button. I heard the whir of motors and it got dark in the room as those Venetian blinds I had seen earlier closed. He pushed more buttons and lights came on in various places around the room. Then he and Lisa stood up and disrobed.

It was just that simple. They stood up and disrobed right in front of me. Kent was flaccid. Why I noticed that immediately I don't know. They folded their clothing and piled it neatly on the coffee table, and then sat down again, like everything was completely normal.

I had the fleeting horrible thought that Lisa was a lot better looking naked than she had been with all that clothing on. My penis agreed. Her nipples were pink, by the way. She had a narrow strip of pubic hair that was somewhat darker than her head hair. It looked like a bikini cut, and I swear the first thing I thought about was her, dressed in a bikini. She was naked, and I mentally put clothes ON her! I think I giggled at that thought.

"Close your mouth, Bob, and get undressed," said Kent.

Well, I did, but it wasn't easy. She had already given me permission to be erect, so I didn't feel too bad about that, except that I knew I wasn't REALLY supposed to do that. Or at least a nudist wasn't supposed to do that. I wasn't a nudist, so I decided not to feel bad.

But it still wasn't easy because I was getting naked in front of strangers. We all have things about our bodies that we're not enamored with. I was skinny, a product of being poor and not eating as much as most Americans eat. My hair was shaggy, because I didn't like to spend money to get it cut. I hated to shave, so I just didn't. Trimming a beard is a lot harder than one might think, so I did that rarely too. I didn't think of myself as "attractive".

Nobody commented on my nudity. They acted completely normal. I could only think of one thing to do, and so I started asking them more questions.

After that first 'last dance', the two of them didn't see each other until a year later. At the next retreat, as soon as they saw each other they gravitated back together. Sex between youngsters was frowned upon, just like it's frowned upon by people who don't go nude. In fact, the social rules of the road are, for the most part, exactly the same for both nudists and the rest of us. The difference was, that without clothing, a young person's feelings were much easier to detect, and parents did a lot of talking to their children as they became sexually aware, and interested in the opposite sex.

I remember thinking that this was how it should be with ALL families. Parents should prepare their children for the world of sex. We teach kids how to do everything else in life, but for most people, when it comes to sex all we do is say "DON'T DO IT!" We spend years yelling "DON'T DO IT!" and then, suddenly, they get married and we change to "WE'RE SO HAPPY FOR YOU!". We don't say "NOW you can do it, and, by the way, here's the best way to make it glorious..." We just tell them how happy we are for them. As a result, a lot of young people enter marriage thinking that sex is somehow wrong, or dirty. We shouldn't find that strange. They've been told over and over for years and years "DON'T DO IT!"

Nudists, on the other hand, come up against their children's sexual urges early and obviously, and they are in the perfect setting to talk about what's natural, and what to do about it. Instead of yelling "DON'T DO IT!" what they do is explain how it isn't time, just yet, to indulge all those feelings. It will be time later, and then it will be perfectly all right to explore those feelings with another person. There is a whole support group for the kids, of like minded people, who teach control and thoughtfulness. A boy is taught, when his body reacts, to back off and get some control over it. A girl is taught not to tease, and to react to her own urges in an acceptable manner. Masturbation, in private, is perfectly acceptable under those circumstances.