Chapter 6: Tuesday, Evening

Botilda and I met at the bike rack, and from there walked to the Lagrange Dojo. This dojo was founded back in the 2060's, in one of the old Island One Stanford Torus habitats, before Mendocino was even built. It's been in the Lagrange family ever since. When the grandson of the founder relocated here, he brought the dojo with him. Not just the decorations and teaching staff, but the equipment and most of the original structure. It cost him, quite a bit, but at least he wasn't trying to bring it up from Earth, which would have been ungodly expensive.

Today, it's located in a grove of cherry trees at the half-G level. Lagrange-sensei believes this to be the best "default" gravity: low enough that you can do things you can't in full-G, but high enough that you walk around and such almost the way you do in ordinary life. The dojo has access to training space in everything from 1.75 G to Lunar-G to zero-G, and pretty much anything in between.

After two days of continuous nudity, I didn't hardly think about it ... unless I noticed somebody looking at me, of course. Thing is, EVERYBODY looks at a naked sixteen year old girl strolling through the park with her hot (though clothed) friend. There were some whistles, and one woman even shouted, "You should be ashamed of yourself!" I saw Botilda start to turn, but I squeezed her arm and gave my head a slight shake. She kept her mouth shut, but for the second time today I saw her affect that one expression that isn't attractive on her. She wore that sneer all the way to the dojo.

Several of the other students were there, as was Lagrange-sensei. As the others changed into their uniforms, she gave me a quick head-to-toe look, and asked me to step forward.

"I'm going to embarrass you a little," she warned me, "but don't worry; it won't last for long."

"O ... OK," I agreed. Mimosa Lagrange is a pretty decent sort, and I figured if she said "a little" and "it won't last for long," that it would only be a little embarrassing and wouldn't last for long. I was still nervous, but after some of the stuff that had happened to me already, I figured I should be OK. She did keep me at the front of the room until all fourteen of the other students had assembled.

"Everybody," Lagrange-sensei started once they were all assembled, "some of you may not recognize Anzu James without her clothing. She is, as you will have guessed, in the Program this week. I want you all to take a good, long look, because for the rest of class you will be expected to pay attention to your forms. YOUR forms, not HER form. Got it?"

"Yes, sensei!" everybody shouted.

"Good," she continued. "Now Anzu, could you please turn around once, nice and slow?"

I did so.

"Very good. Now please return to your place in line."

And that was that. We did our warm-ups, our stretches, and then our sensei led us through several forms. I did catch a few of the guys sneaking peeks at me from time to time, especially during the stretches, several of which involve spreading the legs and bending over. But for the most part I was ignored and everybody did what they were supposed to. Even when I'd spring two metres into the air and kick, most eyes were where they needed to be ... most.

"Botilda!" Lagrange-sensei barked, "Unless you've come up with a technique which keeps you safe by looking away from your opponent, then pay attention to your OWN form."

"Sorry, sensei," Botilda responded, and then turned back where she was supposed to be, biting her upper lip and tensing her neck as her eyes glided over me.

We practiced several moves which involve attacking an opponent from above. It matters a lot whether I'm in 90% or 10% of normal, but in 50% jumping feet and all over somebody taller than myself is not a problem. Kicks to the head are low kicks, and punches are downward (unless, of course, he's jumping too). There are also moves which involve flying grapples, where I pit my mass and speed against my opponent. Since I can't depend on having more of that combination (momentum), I also need leverage. Doing our forms let us practice the lead-up to grapples, but the grapples themselves need the resistance only another person can provide, so mostly we practiced punches, knee strikes, elbow strikes, and kicks.

After a half hour of this, we were paired up. Of course, fifteen doesn't divide evenly by two, so one student was always paired with the instructor. I was not surprised when she called me to pair with her. She acted as if I were fully clothed. She had me deliver a sequence of strikes, which she blocked. I paid close attention to how she did it, because as soon as I was finished with that, she delivered the same sequence back at me, and it was my turn to block. We picked up both the pace and the complexity of exchanges, until it almost seemed that one turn began before the other was finished. These were all strikes and blocks I already knew, but some of the sequences were new. Mostly, it was just practice in adapting. We even did some leaping passing exchanges, where we would swoosh past each other a metre or more off of the floor, exchanging punches, kicks, elbow strikes, and so on in the split second when we were near enough to each other to do so. The lower gravity made practical things that in your day only happened in movies.

As always, I gave it everything I had. I might almost have forgotten my nudity, if it weren't for the fact that every time any part of me touched any part of her, I felt it against my own bare skin. Not that we touched a lot, but we were leaping about and punching and stuff. Not hard punches, and we weren't really sparring, but just trying for accuracy. I knew there would be sparring Thursday, and I wondered how that would be.

This went on for twenty minutes, and then we were sent to the showers. The men's and women's showers are next to each other, and since this wasn't school, I got to use the women's. In fact, this was the first time I'd been in a women's locker room, shower, or restroom since my Program week had started. And yes, I had used the toilet a few times yesterday and today. I didn't describe it because, really, who cares? Nothing had happened except that I'd sat on the pot and done what people do. Neither interesting nor sexy.

But anyway, I was in a room full of stripping, showering women. I (ordinarily) am six days a week, between spoccer and veegeewushu, so I didn't even feel bashful. That is, I didn't feel bashful until the other girls started talking to me.

"Anzu, you looked so hot out there."

"Such nice tits!"

"I never noticed how pretty you are."

What the hell was all this? They'd all seen me naked before. "Nice tits?" What, and they'd been lousy tits before? Had they just not been paying attention, or did I somehow look more attractive when everybody else had her clothes on? I just said "thanks" several times, took my shower, and then headed for home.

Botilda walked with me most of the way, before turning towards her own place. I walked the rest of the way alone, and although several people saw me, only one said anything, and that was just "looking good, girl!" I didn't even know who he was, but he was wearing a Systems Maintenance uniform. I just waved.

And you know, it does feel good to be told that you're pretty, or sexy, or "looking good." Somehow, being naked made it, I don't know, stronger somehow. I mean, it's wonderful to be told that your blouse is nice, or that you look good in the latest high-waist jeans, but now ... Now, it's just ME, you know? People are saying that I look good, just me. Even the compliments in the showers were nice, if a bit weird.

When I walked in the door, supper was ready. I knew that Mom and Dad had worked together on this one. Dad would have cooked the roast beef, sliced the red onion, and sliced the Swiss cheese for the sandwiches; Mom would have made the chocolate peanut butter cups and chosen the tawny port for desert and either one might have fried the green tomatoes and mushrooms. The rye bread would have been bought from a neighbor, Tammi Milson, who was the best baker in Mendocino. Though officially retired, she made a little extra money selling home baked goods, and spent about half as much time baking as she used to at her work-a-day job.

And I saw a bowl of pumpkin soup in my place. I hadn't planned on eating any more of it this week, but God was I glad to see it. I'd been wanting to do everything normally, you know. But there wasn't anything normal about any of this! I don't "normally" run around naked, and that's that!

"How was your day?" asked Dad.

"It was OK," I replied, squirting mustard on the bread. I always ate two of these; one with mustard, one with mayo. I would put some of the green tomatoes on the one with mayo, and some red onion on the one with mustard. Mom and Dad eat them with lettuce, but I only like lettuce in salad, not on sandwiches.

"You weren't in any pain today," Mom wanted to know.

"Briefly," I admitted. "I took relief, and that solved it."

They looked at each other.

"I looked up relief in the pamphlet," Mom told me. "Right in front of everybody. I can't believe they make you do that."

"Well, it is pretty embarrassing," I confirmed, "but it was either that or suffer. What with there being touching today, I wasn't going to be able to put it off until I got home. Besides," I added, "I didn't have to do it myself. I had volunteers."

Dad chuckled. "Boy or girl?"

"Boy, thank you very much!" I aimed a mushroom at him, but of course didn't throw it. That would be rude.

Mom gave me a look like she used to when I would scrape my knee or something. "That must have been pretty nerve-wracking, Apricot."

"It was," I admitted, "and to be perfectly honest, I ... really don't want to talk about it. I mean, that's almost sex, and I don't want to discuss it with my PARENTS, for Pete squeaks."

They looked at each other. Mom leaned over and whispered to Dad. I caught the words "understand" and "masturbating," and wanted to plant my face in the tomatoes.

"Apricot," Mom said to me, "sometimes, you need to talk to us about things, even if it's uncomfortable. But you seem to have a hold of ... to be hand ... you seem to be dealing with this fine on your own. So we don't need to talk about it tonight."

"Cool," I said. We then talked about the sort of stuff we talk about when I'm not in the Program. I preferred this talk. This was when I thanked them for the pumpkin soup.

"You can have it all week, if you like," Dad assured me.

"I ... I don't know. Can I call during second Homeroom and let you know?"

"Sure," Mom said, "as long as you call first thing in second Homeroom. That's about the time we coordinate dinner plans, so that'll be perfect."

I decided to hold off on desert until after Steve left; I have to be careful with port. The only time I've ever drank too much during the school week, it was tawny port. And chocolate.

No sooner had I announced my intentions than there was a knock on the door. A quick check of the eye-tap showed that, sure enough, it was Steve.

He was all bright-eyed and smiling, of course. His eyes locked on my tits as he walked in, greeted the 'rents, and we started in on the Enlightenment.

We covered Montesquieu and his ideas on the separation of state powers, and his notions of three types of governments: monarchy, of which he claimed the guiding principle was honor, republic, where the principle was virtue, and dictatorship, where it was fear. Steve saw immediately how this related to the American and French Revolutions, so I knew he'd been paying attention in school.

Carl Linnaeus and his classification of life forms got talked about, and Steve related it to the file system on a computer.

"I've got a folder called 'Pictures'," he started, "and inside that I've got ones called 'Buildings', 'Earth', 'Mars', 'Maps', and so on. Well, that's kind of like Linnaeus and 'Panthera tigris, ' what with 'Panthera' being a category and 'tigris' being another category inside that one. I mean, sort of."

I had to agree that it was similar. But of course he couldn't stop there.

"I've got another subfolder under 'Pictures'," he started, blushing, and I knew where this was going. "It's called 'Anzu', and it has about a dozen pics."

I tried not to show any reaction. It was kind of sweet, but God, he has a folder dedicated to me? And of course, I knew what was coming next.

"Monday I made a subfolder within that, I guess a subspecies." He looked at me, and I just looked back. He was going to have to say it himself. He blushed furiously, and I was starting to wonder if he'd ever get around to it.

"It's called 'NiS'. Kind of: Genus, Pictures; Species, Anzu; Subspecies, NiS. It's for pictures of you during your Program week."

I smiled. I couldn't help it. Not that I was happy with this whole picture idea, of course. The idea of nudie pics of myself, available for viewing by somebody else whenever he likes, with no control from me, forever...

But he was so sweet and cute about it. So while I felt cold, I couldn't help but smile.

"So," I asked, "how many pics are in there so far?" None, of course, and then he was going to blush like never before asking if he could have one. And the weird thing is, I wasn't sure I'd say no. He was just so sweet about it.

"Five," he said, "but in two of them you can't see anything."

If I'd been standing up I'd've fallen down.

"How..." I took a deep breath. "How..."

He looked worried. "They're on the O'Neill High School website. They always have the Program kids on the website. I ... I'm sorry. I can delete the folder."

I had forgotten all about the school website! I knew that each week's Program kids were there, of course. Twice this year I'd looked up some handsome guy (Bret a couple of months back. Yum!). But I had forgotten it.

"Anzu, I'm sorry," and he seemed really contrite. "I really will delete the folder. I just thought, I mean ... aug."

"N ... no," I started, and took another deep breath, "No, it's OK. I mean, if everybody else can see them, why shouldn't you be..."

Everybody could see them! Was the guy in the Systems Maintenance uniform running his eyes over my naked bod right now? Was Bret stroking himself to my image? The kid from yesterday's spoccer practice: was he exploring the possibilities of preteen masturbation while staring at my...

I felt dizzy as the possibilities forced themselves on me. There were probably guys who checked out O'Neill's website every week. There could be dozens, hundreds of guys looking at all my most private parts every night! When the week was over, I and the other twenty-one Program kids would be taken off, and the new batch put up. But there was nothing to stop anybody who wanted from saving my pics to their own folders, just like Steve. They could still see me naked after my Program week was over! They could see me naked forever!