Jay, Laura, and I were naked and lying in the backyard, enjoying the summer sun and talking, when a woman came through the gate and walked towards us.
“Hi Mom,” Laura said.
Uh-oh, I thought. Laura was our neighbors’ daughter and had been tanning nude with us for the last month, ever since she had come over to swim and caught me coming out of the pool sans suit. We had told her that she could come over to use the pool any time, and when she caught me I had to explain that we considered the pool a clothing optional zone. She had taken to it immediately and was pretty much spending her summer with us. Sometimes she brought girlfriends along. They were all only 16 or so and although I didn’t touch them and was doing nothing technically illegal, somebody who was really pissed might try to charge me with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or moral turpitude, or promoting skin cancer in naughty places, or some such.
Jay sat up and I stood. I had no idea whether Laura had told her parents what she did over here. I studied her mother’s face as she approached, looking for signs of murderous rage. Instead, she had a quirky little smile on her face. She stopped in front of me, looked at my body for a while, then back up at me as she stuck out her hand.
“Hi, I’m Laura’s mom Cyndi,” she said as we shook hands. “And you must be the famous Johnny.” She looked down at my body again. “I must say, you’re exactly as she described you.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “And this is my girlfriend Jay.” They shook hands, too, and we all sat down.
“I was afraid you might be upset to find us all nude,” I said.
“Laura and I don’t have secrets,” she said. “I’ve known since day one that you’re all nudists, that Laura has been joining you, and that you’ve never touched her except to put suntan lotion on her back when she asks you to. Although I know that she wishes you would touch her elsewhere.”
“Mom!”
“Anyway, I don’t have a problem with it and neither does her dad, although he refused to come over here himself because he doesn’t feel comfortable seeing Laura nude.”
That was weird, I thought. He was okay with me seeing Laura nude but afraid of seeing his own daughter. If I had a daughter I suspect she’d be naked all the time like her dad. But I didn’t have a daughter, so what did I know?
“I’ve been thinking about tanning nude at home,” Laura said.
“I’ll put 911 on speed dial for your father’s heart,” Cyndi said. Then she looked at me again. “I don’t know the protocol for nudism. But it’s hard for me to not stare at your cock. Is that okay with you? Will your girlfriend strangle me if I do?”
Laura rolled her eyes and groaned, “Mom.”
“Feel free to stare,” Jay said. “I know I do.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Cyndi said.
“Oh, my God,” Laura said under her breath.
“Sure,” I said. “But if you stare at my body I get to stare at yours.”
“Except that you can’t see as much as I can.”
“No. But I know how to fix that,” I said.
She blushed. “I couldn’t,” she said.
“Really? Why?”
“I’d be embarrassed.”
“Really? Why?”
She stared at me as she thought about it. And thought. It was obvious that the answer was so basic that she couldn’t come up with it.
“Let me help you,” I said. “A: you’ve always worn clothes. B: you’ve been taught to be ashamed of your body, at least parts of it. C: you’ve been taught that other people will be shocked if you don’t have clothing on when you’re with them. D: you’ve been taught that clothing is your defense against men getting to your naughty bits. Am I missing anything?”
She looked at me for a while. “No, that about covers it,” she said. I noticed that sweat was beginning to form on her forehead. The sun was doing its usual work.
“Well, let me divest you of those learnings, out of order. C: we wouldn’t be shocked if you got naked. D: having clothes on won’t protect you against some men, and being naked is still safe with better men. A: you haven’t always worn clothes. When you were a baby, and most likely when you were a child, you were free to run around nude including outside where the sun beat down on your naked body. You didn’t know any better at that point; no one had yet beaten the joy of it out of you. B: you have nothing to be ashamed of for several reasons. First, you’re fucking gorgeous. And that’s an expert opinion, by the way. Second, every woman’s body looks basically the same; you’re not going to shock anyone by revealing that you have tits and a pussy. We’ve all seen it before. ”
She stared at me. “You’re good at this,” she said. “It all makes sense.”
“Get naked, Mom!” Laura said.
“Not this time,” she said. “I have to get back to your dad. Maybe next time. Oh, I almost forgot why I came over.” She looked at me. “Richard and I are planning a little getaway and we were wondering… we were wondering if you’d be willing to let Laura stay here with you for a few days.”
I stared at her.
“I know it’s quite an imposition and it’s totally okay for you to say no. I was just thinking that she already spends most of the day here, and that she’d enjoy staying here if you wouldn’t mind having her.”
“It’d be cool,” Laura said, excited. “Please, Johnny?”
I stared at Cyndi. “I’d be naked most of the time.”
“She doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.”
I sighed. I was willing to do this but Cyndi needed to know what she was buying into.
“I live with two girlfriends. You’ve met Jay but not Mary Beth.”
“I know about that. And that your niece Dawn lives with you, too. I told you: Laura and I don’t have any secrets.”
I’m a very private person but for some reason I needed Cyndi to understand everything. “Dawn shares our bed,” I said.
She stared at me for a moment. “Ah,” she said. “Well, your being willing to tell me that just reinforces my sense that I can trust you.” She turned to Laura. “Did you know about that, Sweetie?”
Laura was looking at me with an expression that I couldn’t read. “Yeah, I’d pretty much figured that out. I’ve seen them kiss, and it wasn’t the usual uncle/niece kind of kiss.”
“Has there been sex going on here in front of you?”
“No,” Laura said. “Dammit.”
“You’re not afraid that I’ll corrupt your daughter?” I said.