Chapter 26: Cecilia's Façade

On the first day of classes Jason returned to his job modeling for the art department. Although he no longer needed the credits, he enjoyed modeling so much that he decided to do it for the remainder of his freshman year. Because both Cecilia and Ken had completed their humanities requirement, Jason did not expect to see any familiar faces in the spring semester life drawing classes. However, but it turned out there would be a familiar face in one of the classes; Cecilia's friend Suzanne Foster. Although Suzanne already had been at the university for a year and a half as an art major, she had not yet taken life drawing, which was an art department requirement. So, this time around it would be Suzanne's turn to study his body in detail and render it to paper.

Suzanne enjoyed looking at Jason's body and thought about various photography projects she night want to try with him as her model. She approached him about modeling, which he readily agreed to do. He warned her that he could only model the nights Cecilia was duty RA, because he did not want to take any time away from the relationship or his studies. Also, his girlfriend had to approve of any modeling projects ahead of time, so it would be best if she were to approach Cecilia directly about anything she wanted him to do.

However, Jason enjoyed Suzanne's work and was flattered that she wanted to feature him in her next project. He knew that her work would be part of a major spring art show and later possibly published in a nationally published photographers' magazine. Appearing in a widely distributed magazine appealed to the exhibitionist in him, because he would have the chance to show off his body to a large audience of photography enthusiasts.

Jason's public appearances in the nude extended beyond his modeling sessions for Suzanne and the drawing classes. A European news magazine approached him about doing an interview for a feature that concentrated on US college students who were nudists. During February he was also scheduled to speak on behalf of two nudist organizations in Indianapolis and St. Louis. He was to be among several speakers at symposiums in Indianapolis, and would address a college crowd in St. Louis. Ken, Lisa, and Suzanne had promised to accompany him to the Indianapolis presentation. Cecilia also had promised to go, but secretly was hoping that Burnside might come up with some tasking that would make it impossible for her to break away from the department.

Jason, Lisa, and Ken began their second semester of classes without having Burnside's Theory of Economics class hanging over their heads. Having taken and passed that class cleared the way for enrolling in classes in several departments, making it easier for the three freshmen to think seriously about what majors they might want to choose. Jason decided that he wanted to double major in Political Science and International Affairs, while Lisa decided to major in business administration. Ken, still trying to figure himself out, decided to double-major in psychology and education with the eventual goal of becoming a counselor. As he put it:

"With as screwed up as I am, I'm sure I can see eye-to-eye with everyone else who's screwed up."

All three students had gravitated towards departments with classes that had the Burnside class as a prerequisite. Even the psychology and education departments had started using Burnside's class as a means to cut down on the number of students pouring into their programs, using the justification that anyone able to pass that class was a serious student as opposed to a dilettante.

Cecilia's future was much more set by her circumstances than were the futures of Jason and his two friends. She had to complete the requirements to get a Bachelor's degree in economics within a four-year period. She had some flexibility with taking electives, but not very much. For the humanities requirement she had thought about taking another art class, possibly with Suzanne as a classmate, but her decision to tackle Spanish changed those plans. She had decided to exchange an easy credit for one much more difficult.

Cecilia's Spanish professor turned out to be every bit as harsh as she had heard. It turned out he was the Spanish department's version of Ruth Burnside. Even worse, he epitomized the stereotype of the snooty Spaniard who looked down upon the variations of the language that had developed in Latin America, visually cringing when he heard Cecilia speaking for the first time with her rough street accent. In response she quickly snapped in her street Spanish: well, if I knew how to speak properly, I wouldn't need to take this class, would I?

Over the first month of the semester Cecilia earned the respect of her professor by demonstrating she truly was interested in improving her Spanish and that she had taken the class solely with the goal of bettering herself. Her attitude and background contrasted with most of her classmates, who of course, were non-native speakers enrolled because it was a department requirement. The class was perfectly suited for her immediate needs because it gave her the proper structure she needed to express herself in both speech and writing.

Besides giving Cecilia proper structure, the instructor also corrected numerous errors she made that were not normally made by a Spanish-speaker with formal education. For example, she confused the letters "b" and "v", using them interchangeably when she wrote words in Spanish. Her professor drilled her on that mistake, forcing her to memorize which letter went with which words and putting huge red circles around her spelling mistakes. As the semester progressed, Cecilia noticed fewer and fewer red circles on her papers as she memorized the lists of words her professor had typed out for her to study. She also noticed her speech improving as she began editing out the slang and anglicized words from her childhood. As was true for her English, her Spanish street accent was stubbornly resilient, but it seemed that in everything else she showed marked improvement.

By her fourth semester in college, Cecilia already was taking junior-level classes with the economics department. Burnside's ultimate goal was to get her scholarship student to take a couple of graduate-level classes before the end of her senior year and get a feel for what she might expect as a graduate student. She knew that Cecilia really had no choice but to continue her studies upon graduating, since there was little she could do with a BA in economics. She would have the choice of pursuing an MBA or perhaps work towards a future in economic development, but, unless she had something in her background that made her stand out, she would have a hard time getting the financial help she needed to pursue the next level of her education. Burnside hoped to give her that something extra and get her through the MA program with some assistance.

Although Cecilia's probation had ended and the exam crisis from the previous year was forgotten, Burnside was her usual unpleasant self when dealing with her student on a day-to-day basis. At least once each week Cecilia had to stand in Burnside's office justifying why she had not mentioned some famous economist in a research project, or why she did not have a formula properly memorized, or why she had not properly applied some theory to a real life situation. In addition to her own work, there were endless tests and essays Cecilia had to grade, her ongoing duties as RA, and her self-appointed project to fix her Spanish. At the end of each day she relieved her stress in the gym, and then relied on Jason to massage her and give her an orgasm to settle her nerves. She reflected how reliant she was on her nightly routine; without her nightly massage and orgasm she really would be going nuts with all the pressure she was under.

At first it seemed that the relationship between Cecilia and Jason would continue during the spring as it had during the fall, as least on the surface. It still was Cecilia who was telling Jason what to do most of the time. It would remain his responsibility to attend to her needs, to massage her body, give her shoulder and neck rubs, satisfy her clitoris with the gentle caresses of his tongue, hold her, and comfort her. When she needed him to be there for her, he would be there for her. He was taking another Burnside class during the spring, and spent hours standing at attention in the nude, answering her questions about what he was studying. Whenever he did anything to offend her, it was clearly understood he would bend over to receive the belt. As for his outside activities, he would ask her permission before making any commitments.

However, as she interacted with Jason and watched him running around the dorm and hanging out with his friends, Cecilia reflected that he was changing. He certainly seemed more self-assured than he did in the fall, which was something she had not expected. During the fall she had forced him to be successful in his studies, but that very success made him more willing to stand up for himself, defend what he believed in, and also defend his relationship with her. Jason had started growing up.

During the second week of classes Cynthia Lee got together with Cecilia. Cynthia had spent New Year's in Danube City celebrating with her sister and brother-in-law, and came back with some good news. The Danubian government of Vladim Dukov and the national government of his counterpart to the south had finalized a border treaty that incorporated the idea of moving the Danubian consulate to Sumy Ris. The consulate itself would be a compound enclosing the disputed church and graveyard, along with two buildings built in the 18th Century that would contain the offices for the Danubian diplomats. However, what was really exciting was that the nearby castle and several other ancient buildings in Sumy Ris would be sold to a private group of Danubian investors who were planning a restoration and tourism project. If the project went ahead as planned, Sumy Ris would become a major destination for Danubians making pilgrimages to the church and traveling south to other parts of the Balkan Peninsula.

As for the rest of the border, the negotiations had gone extremely well. About 40,000 ethnic Danubians would be re-incorporated into the territory of their native country as a result of the border changes. There would be customs agreements and several internationally managed nature preserves. Most importantly, there would be a bi-lateral agreement to de-militarize the border region in exchange for better cooperation between the two countries' police forces. For the first time in its history, Upper Danubia would have completely secure borders and a formal ally.

The arrangement also would affect all criminals who were ethnic Danubians incarcerated in the country's southern neighbor. Once the new border between the two countries was demarcated, about 400 criminals of Danubian descent would be transferred by bus to the Duchy. On the Danubian side of the border there would be judges and police officers waiting for them. The criminals would be granted Danubian citizenship and then re-tried under Danubian laws. Those who still had time left on their sentences would have to finish their terms under the Danubian justice system, which meant they would be assigned a Spokesperson, collared, switched, and forced to live in the nude. It was a convenient way for Upper Danubia's southern neighbor to rid itself of 400 prisoners.

The arrangement could not have come at a more crucial time for the government of the Duchy's neighbor. Even before the treaty was finalized, Dukov's counterpart was forced to move troops away from the Danubian border to deal with another border dispute that was not going nearly as well. Had Dukov been less trustworthy, his government could have taken advantage of the troop withdrawal to grab the land in question. However, the treaty had been negotiated in good faith and awaited approval by both parliaments before the Danubians would take possession of their new territory.

Cynthia confided that she was worried, in spite of the amiable arrangement between the two leaders.

"The commercial attaché at the US Embassy tried to undermine the negotiations, and no one can figure out why. Also, it seems that Mega-Town Associates doesn't like it and they're trying to get the World Trade Organization to stop the treaty. I don't get it. You'd think that one less border conflict in Eastern Europe would make everyone happy, but it hasn't. Something weird is going on behind the scenes, and whatever it is, I don't have a good feeling about it."

The final two weeks of January passed by very quickly, but at the same time were hectic for the residents of Huntington Hall. Cecilia had to choose her spring semester research topics for Burnside, which took time away from her efforts to learn correct Spanish. She and Lisa continued to work out together, more out of habit than anything else. Cecilia was in much better physical shape than she had been during the fall and knew as much about using the gym equipment as Lisa.

Of course, among the things that interested Cecilia were the latest details of Lisa's love life, because the Californian had given up a boyfriend the RA respected for one who she thought was a total idiot.

Cecilia made no effort to hide her disdain for Ken and clearly expressed that she felt Lisa had made a very poor exchange. Lisa, in trying to justify herself, gave up more about her relationship with Ken than she had intended, giving her friend a full account of Ken's desire to be punished and the real satisfaction she felt having him over her lap.

"I don't know how I can say it so you'll see where I'm coming from. The truth is I totally love punishing him. When I have him tied up and I'm hitting him ... I don't know ... I just feel really good. It's a total adrenaline rush. And he likes it too. As soon as I do anything to him, spank him, slap him, or best of all, give him a really good pinch ... it's like flipping a switch. He's as hard as a dildo. And it's total, you look in his face, and you can tell he wants it so bad..."

"OK, that's real nice. So he likes you whippin' his ass and you like whippin' his ass. And what else is goin' on between you two, besides his sore ass?"

"You make it sound like there ought to be more. Why? Why should there be more? Right now I'm having fun. He's got a lot of imagination and he's willing to try anything, which was something Mike absolutely refused to do. It's fun, and that's what I want. I'll tell you, I've never had sex like what I'm having with Ken."

Lisa's relationship with Ken was very different from Cecilia's relationship with Jason. The level of personal commitment between Lisa and Ken came nowhere near the commitment Cecilia and Jason had with each other. Outside her room Lisa saw Ken as her equal, so she was not trying to raise him or influence his personality like Cecilia was trying to do with Jason. Lisa never disciplined Ken with the goal of influencing his behavior. Her viciousness was a manifestation of her sexuality, nothing more. Unless they were building up the mood for a sexual/discipline encounter in her room, Lisa never told Ken what to do, what to wear, or how to behave. There was no hint that she wanted to control his life or form his personality, so the punishments she inflicted were just for sexual stimulation and had no larger purpose.

In contrast, in Jason's life a belt-whipping served a completely different purpose from an erotic spanking. Cecilia felt that she was finishing the job of raising her boyfriend and was trying to form his personality. She wanted him to behave responsibly and used the threat of the belt to keep his weaknesses under control. She threatened him much more than she actually punished him, one example being her insistence that he quit driving. If she ever caught him behind he wheel of a car she really did plan to flog him to the point of drawing blood, but she also expected never to have to carry out that threat. She had warned him, and if he knew what was good for him, he'd obey her.

A second difference was that Ken wanted a more intense experience that focused on pure pain. He enjoyed being tied up, slapped hard, savagely pinched, and cruelly humiliated. During their sexual sessions, "fucking little pervert" was only one of many insults Lisa hurled at him. As serious as Lisa might be at the moment, both she and Ken knew that her insults were not what she really thought of him, they simply were part of the mood they needed to make his punishments truly satisfying.

As for Lisa, the punishments gave her a way to vent her anger and frustrations, as well as satisfy her craving for combining cruelty and dominance with physical stimulation and sex. She loved attacking Ken by jumping on him, digging her fingernails into his skin, slapping him hard across the face, and above all, viciously pinching him. All that was on top of punishing his bottom, photographing him, and telling him what a little pervert he was for getting so aroused. The savage animal in Lisa's being had escaped its cage and now roamed freely in her room whenever Ken was there. The inner tension in Lisa's soul was gone now that she had a partner who could satisfy her. She was much happier than she had been in a very long time.

With that Lisa concluded her response to Cecilia's doubts. There was no question that Mike was smarter, more worldly, and had a stronger character than Ken, but none of that mattered. It was Ken who satisfied her needs. It was Ken who was feeding her inner animal.

Cecilia shook her head. Most of that stuff Lisa was doing to Ken she couldn't even imagine doing to Jason. Her boyfriend did enjoy being spanked, but what Jason considered erotic paled in comparison to what Ken wanted. During an erotic spanking, the moderate pain from the smacks of her hand or the leather paddle were only one out of many ingredients of a much more complicated experience, which also included caresses, sensuality, foreplay, and love. The raw meanness Lisa inflicted on Ken was absent from the sessions during which Cecilia spanked Jason.

Jason's public responsibilities took him to Indianapolis the second Saturday of February, where there was yet another conference for naturists concerned about increasing the appeal of nudism to college-age people. The conference not only emphasized the idea of nudism as a fitness movement, but also its philosophy and perceived conflicts with organized religion. It was a far-reaching conference that also sought to address some of the moralistic arguments being used in the US to keep the movement as restricted as possible.

Jason's part of the presentation would be to discuss his love of exercising in the nude, and how, without any prompting from anyone else, he had become accustomed to being naked at home while he was still in high school. The point he was making was that he considered himself fortunate because his privileged upbringing allowed him to have the privacy to pursue his beliefs. His argument was that other young people should have the choice of exercising naked regardless of social class or privacy and society needed to accommodate that need. He would conclude by citing research about Danubian high school students who exercised nude in their gym classes. The research clearly demonstrated that the typical Danubian high school student led a lifestyle that was far healthier and free from vices than the lifestyle led by a typical student in the US and did not have the same sexual hang-ups.

When Jason informed Cecilia that a representative of the Danubian Clergy was planning to be present to discuss traditional Danubian values and the Church's attitude towards nudity, her interest in going was sparked. She was curious to see a Danubian religious leader in real life, given the Church's importance in the society of the Duchy. She dropped her idea of trying to get out of going, instead asking permission from Burnside to be excused from any duties to the economics department that weekend. She would go, partly out of curiosity about Upper Danubia, and partly because she wanted to see why Jason was becoming such a popular speaker at nudist events. The two couples piled into Ken's car and drove into Indiana towards the state's capitol. Suzanne, who originally had planned to travel with the group, had a contract to take pictures and already was at the conference site getting set up.

The conference was at a rented country club, which made the entire affair surreal to Cecilia. Outside there was nothing unusual about the entrance; it was just a parking lot full of cars like anywhere else. Inside was a different story. There were lines of people checking in, still dressed in winter clothing. However, beyond the check-in there was a sign that read:

Nudity required beyond this point

Beyond that sign, not a single person was wearing anything except shoes. It was when Cecilia saw the sign it hit her that she would have to surrender her clothes and, for the first time in her life, appear naked in front of a bunch of people, most of them much older, who did not know her. She struggled to catch her breath, thinking: what the fuck have I gotten myself into? It was too late to reconsider; now she had to go through with it.

As Cecilia nerved herself to go into the women's locker room, she saw Suzanne off in the distance, loaded down, as usual, with her photography supplies. Apart from the black camera bag straps crisscrossing her shoulders, she was as naked as anyone else in the corridor. Cecilia called out to her, and she waved back. Suddenly Cecilia became more concerned about talking to Suzanne than anything else, so she rushed into the locker room and quickly pulled off her clothes. As the cool air hit her bare body, she felt extremely exposed and vulnerable, but she quickly ran out to greet her friend.

Cecilia posed for a snapshot with Jason and Suzanne, the three students standing completely naked arm-in-arm. Only later would Cecilia see a huge irony in the photo, standing as she was between her boyfriend and her one-time lover. Lisa and Ken stood together for another picture, her fit, deeply tanned body contrasting with Ken's somewhat lighter skin. Fortunately the couple had toned down their sexual adventures prior to coming to the event, so Ken's skin was unmarked. Cecilia noticed Ken glancing at her body, and then remembered he had never seen her without her clothes before. The closest he came was that night he saw her in her underwear during the Poker game when she had battled Lisa and narrowly won.

Cecilia's initial unease diminished after a few minutes. While Jason took off to meet with the group organizers, Suzanne recruited her friend to help her with her equipment, carry camera bags, and reload film. Cecilia stuck close to the photographer, grateful to have something to do that kept her mind off the fact she was naked for the first time in her life in front of hundreds of strangers. It also helped that Suzanne was equally naked, looking perfectly at ease as her statuesque body moved about the main conference room.

It was mid Saturday afternoon when the first of two presentations that interested Cecilia was given, the speech by the Danubian Clergy. A severe-looking older man, accompanied by a somewhat younger but equally severe-looking female companion, entered the room. Both were dressed in their religious outfits: a long black robe with a tall hat for him, and a long black dress for her. The dress looked like a typical Danubian formal gown, except the color. Cecilia later learned that the Danubian Clergy had to wear their religious garb whenever performing official duties or representing the Church. That was why, even at a nudist conference, they had to stay dressed.

Cecilia then had the shock of her life. Cynthia Lee followed the priest and priestess onto the stage. She was completely naked. The two representatives of the Danubian Clergy stood at attention while she moved in front of them, knelt, and touched her head to the floor. Then she stood up. The two Clergy members saluted her and she saluted back. It turned out that Cynthia was a convert to the Danubian Church. She really was taking Danubia seriously.

Cynthia and the Priestess took their position at the main podium, while the older man stood behind them. The purpose of the arrangement became evident when the woman started speaking in heavily accented English. Cynthia was there to make sure she could be understood and translate any questions posed by the audience. The Priest was there to back her up if she had any theological doubts, but the presentation would be mainly her show.

The Priestess gave a brief history of the Danubian Church, but quickly moved to the topic of interest to the conference, the role of public nudity in Upper Danubia and how it was viewed by the Clergy.

It turned out the Danubian Church was accepting of nudity under certain circumstances. People performing religious duties such as public penance or ancestral remembrance marches used nudity as a way to distinguish themselves from people living everyday lives. To the Danubian religion, to be naked was to humble oneself before the Creator and the Spirits of the Ancients. The Priestess was well-aware that the attitude of the Danubian Clergy horrified many foreign religious leaders who viewed the uncovered body as something shameful and definitely not something to be openly incorporated as part of the believer's personal atonement. The Danubians, on the other hand, were horrified by other cultures that had placed such a huge emphasis on the fashion industry and the "evil worship of cloth".

To emphasize her point the Priestess held up several glossy fashion magazines.

"This how we the Danubian view the Sin! This the real Sin, the material worship of thing no made by Creator! No made by Creator, but capitalist say we must give much money to company, and we must worship the cloth, no worship the Creator. This ... the capitalist Sin!"

With that the Priestess tore the magazines and threw them to the ground. It was a rather shocking display, the Danubian version of a fire-and-brimstone sermon attacking the fashion industry and its materialistic values.

The leaders of the conference had invited the Danubian Church representatives to encourage the conference attendees and reporters covering the event to see the issue of religious morality in a different light. The Priestess's angry tearing of the fashion magazines to emphasize her point certainly caught the attention of the audience and of several reporters filming her. The Danubian priestess was presenting a moralistic and philosophical counter-argument to much of what was being preached in the US about the human body, which was why she was there. She wanted to get her audience to urge the people of the US to re-assess their priorities.

Jason was at the podium shortly afterwards, with a much more light-hearted portion of the presentation. He was an excellent and very likable speaker. Cecilia watched him with intense interest, wanting to see her boyfriend in action. He commanded the stage and the room, surprising her with his on-stage charisma. He joked with the audience, told amusing anecdotes, and confidently moved back and forth between serious thoughts and humorous ones.

Dang ... he's good, thought Cecilia to herself as the audience chuckled and clapped.

Jason continued with some jokes about the Tri-Alpha run and gestured to his fellow-runners Ken and Lisa, who were sitting in the audience. A light shined on them as they stood up and waved to the group. Jason's presentation concluded shortly afterwards, to much cheering and applause.

There were other presentations, but Cecilia missed them. Suzanne quickly drafted her to help move some lighting, pulling her away from Lisa and Ken. As she walked down the hallway following her friend, she had time to reflect about how much Jason really was changing. She had known about his changes since the beginning of the spring semester, but now she had actually witnessed it, seeing him perform so well in public. Jason was completely self-confident and clearly enjoyed himself on stage. For half an hour he had captivated a room of nearly 400 people.

It was at that moment, as she walked down the hallway studying Suzanne's bare backside, Cecilia had an awful realization ... Jason isn't gonna belong to me after all. It just isn't gonna happen. I'm not gonna be able to have that kind of relationship with him, not with the way he's goin'.

The relationship she had envisioned, where he would be kneeling and meekly obeying her commands ... there was no way he would be able to give that to her. His character was too strong.

Cecilia had to reflect on her situation alone. She excused herself from Suzanne and looked for a place she could think in peace for a few minutes. Finally she found an indoor tennis court that was empty and poorly lit. The court reminded her of Jason's mother and the Schmidts' moribund lifestyle, but she pushed that thought aside to deal with her own inner turmoil.

Cecilia realized she was very frightened. She had promised herself that never again would she allow a relationship to take over her life, but now, with Jason, that was precisely what had happened. She had wanted to change him, and indeed did change him, but not into what she had anticipated. The changes in his character were because of her, because she had forced him to overcome his weaknesses and stop hating himself. She had made it impossible for him to fail, because she wanted to create a partner who would not be a loser. She had created a person whom she could respect, showed real potential for success, and could contribute to the world. But in doing all that, she had lost her control over him.