Waif and Whale at PFIT, 1st semester: Storm Orphans
by Chessman

With many colleges and universities, the name by which an institution is known to the public is not the name on the official documents. PFIT started as the Philadelphia Fashion Industries and Technologies Institute. It began as a two year institution, training young women to cut fabric, match patterns and stitch and sew fine garments for the Pennsylvania upper crust of society. Girls graduating the two year institute found employ in the households of the wealthy as dressers and seamstresses. A few, a very lucky few, became the owners of the Main Line couture shops to which the rising middle class flocked for wedding and formal wear.

As industrialization replaced hand craftsmanship, the institute began adding engineering courses and admitting men so that the new factory machinery could be designed, maintained and upgraded. PFIT attained college status and began granting four year degrees in the 1920s. When a graduate of the Wharton School became chancellor of PFIT in the 1930s, a course of study in business management was added to the curricula. Further expansion via endowments from graduates who achieved success in their lives added fine arts, theater arts and technical theater and a humanities department that tied anthropology, sociology and psychology to fashion and the arts.

Now, officially, The Greater Pennsylvania University of Fashion, Fine, Industrial and Theatrical Arts, granted degrees up to and including the Doctor of Fine Arts and is well respected for the sculptors, painters, musicians and yes, fashion designers, churned out by its educational system. Perhaps, but only perhaps, PFIT is also famous or infamous for being one of the rising number of, and one of the first, campuses that are clothing optional and for some subjects nudity required.

Wendy Ann Ingrid Farrell walked through the halls of her dorm clad as she always was, (save for required sandals to protect her feet), au naturel. No one noticed, as eighty percent of the males and females on her dorm floor were similarly nude. What had begun as the life style model movement a decade before had now become the norm. The odd clad student usually reflected a commuter, or a work study semester student who in the forays into the community needed to be clothed to meet community standards.

Nude did not mean unadorned to the students of PFIT. Body jewelry prominently on display in nasal, ear, belly, nipple and genital piercings as part of the college experiment toward maturity, and possible rebellion against parental stricture and structure, is very evident among the lower class students, freshmen and sophomores not being readily tempted to the permanent body changes scarring, branding and tattooing bring. Several students adapted the ABSOLUTE look, both male and female removing all hair from their bodies including their heads.

Others adapted to the HIRSUTE style and allowed all body hair to grow without trimming or cutting. Consenting Nudists, such as the commuters living in less liberal off campus communities or at home, would arrive on campus clothed and strip for class and university activities. These folks, both faculty and student, would clothe themselves before leaving campus.

TEXTILE students and faculty tended to be those who aspired to and who taught clothing design and theatrical costuming. As Heidi Klum said in her commencement address the year before, “If everyone was nude twenty-four and seven, there would be no Project Runway and I would be out of work, both as a model and a host.” The comment drew a big laugh from the audience.

Waif, with her slight stature, small breasts and almost boy-like hips and bottom was simply nude. It was her preferred lifestyle and also a condition of her scholarship. Maintain a 3.5 grade point average, be nude for all activities college related, and represent the university at alumni events and student recruiting throughout her home state. These are the three main conditions of her full scholarship to PFIT.

The building that she resided in, Chessman Hall, housed student athletes and their significant others; Waif roomed with Whale, Richard Richards, her long term boyfriend with whom she had a committed monogamous relationship. Small blond Waif and the almost two meters tall two hundred twenty pound deep beige male with whom she cohabited made an odd couple when out in public.

The couple had been compared many times to the day time television host pairing of Kelly Ripa with Michael Strahan. If Kelly were to appear on the show nude, the imagery would be almost exact. Whale, of Eurasian and African-American parentage, had his father’s size and his mother’s exotic features. As a football and sports scholarship student, Whale was most often clothed, as athletes were required to wear all gear appropriate to the protection needs of contact sports.

Waif, as a swim team member, did not need to be clothed as swimmers and divers were permitted to both practice and to compete in the nude. Their suite mates, Lane Erwin and Adrianna Williams, were also athletes. Placed together by the housing committee, the boy, Lane, and the girl, Adrianna laughed at their situation from the first meeting. Within three days they discovered that they both liked girls as friends and sex partners, and that nudity did not bother either of them. Lane, a middle-weight wrestler, rarely dated and Adrianna, a springboard and platform diver, often was his companion for social events. Their friendship was so platonic that others in the dorm referred to them as ‘brother and sister’. The four suite mates often were seen together on campus, sharing a table at the student union or in the cafeteria. Life was good for the first nine weeks of the semester, but it was the year of the Superstorm. The one that devastated Shoreside Heights, tore a gaping hole through Shoreside Park and buried Bayside under six feet of debris and sand. The communities of the barrier island found their way of life destroyed along with the beaches, amusements and attractions that drew the tourists and provided the economy for the towns.

Many students and faculty had ties to the communities that suffered property loss. Some had parents or grandparents living in the towns. The families of others owned time share condominiums or vacation cottages on the island. Still others followed the Sky Clad Goddess and used the seaside retreat available to members of that faith. Many students migrated to the Shoreside communities to work during the summer months and depended on that income to supplement their educational funds. The far reaching consequences and damage even affected students from states far to the south and north of the coastal area directly impacted. Many students from northern cities were told their homes were lost to wind and storm surge.

Waif, whose grandmother had weathered a similar Superstorm in the early 60s as a bride in her late teens, found that her grandfather had planned for another such storm, though he had not lived to see it. When the family home was rebuilt eighty pilings twenty one feet long were buried twelve feet into the sand of the island. The home was framed atop the pilings and the pilings braced and cross braced while leaving adequate room from sand to subflooring for water to rush through.

Fifty years later, the storm surge did come through. The Anderson house stood firm against the flood and lost only the staircase leading to the rear porch. The Farrell house just up the street also fared well, having been similarly built. Other homes on the street were washed away. Power was out, vehicles and boats were lost but the houses stood and both homes became refuges for displaced souls. The Andersons had demanded their builder install real storm shutters, ones that closed over windows and locked in place protecting the glass from wind carried debris. These had held as siding and flying debris including boards from the boardwalk slammed into the house on the seaward side.

Kate Farrell now hosted the family of Mark and Dorothy Dunn, the town’s new pastor and his wife and their three adopted children in her large home, sharing accommodations with Ruby Richards and her daughter Rita and the Farrell twins Amy and Tammy. Six grade school children in one house was pandemonium personified. Ruth Anderson had taken in Duane and Andrea with their three and five year old daughters.

Those who were trapped on the island were making the best of their bad situation. Those who like Waif and Whale were off island when the storm hit now found that they were unable to return home as the one causeway bridge onto the island over the bay was badly compromised by storm debris and erosion. The bay, filled with flotsam and jetsam, was too dangerous for small boat traffic. The National Guard was flying in supplies of food, water and temporary shelters in the form of squad and company sized military tents by helicopter.

Thanks to Ruth Anderson’s generator, housed in its Lexan lined concrete block walled utility room beneath her home, neighbors could power their tablets, phones and laptops to maintain communication with the mainland. Waif and Whale were able to speak to their mothers and siblings several times following the storm and were assured by the parents that all was as well as could be based on circumstances.

PFIT campus, lying low next to the estuarial bay and riverfront, suffered tidal and storm surge damage as well. Student parking lots and the athletic fields were lost to the storm surge and the debris within it. A thirty meter long commercial fishing boat drifted up to and now remained in front of, the university president’s campus offices. Water seeped under the doors and sandbags protecting the basketball field house and warped the parquet flooring within it.

Classes were canceled for three weeks while stop-gap repairs were made and students and faculty pitched in with the clean-up. Games and activities scheduled as ‘home’ events were rescheduled as ‘away’ and Whale and his team spent three weeks on the road playing their football schedule elsewhere. The natatorium and aquatic center had suffered no damage other than the power outage causing the filtration systems for the pools to foul and need repair. A heavier than usual smell of chlorine wafted from the pools as maintenance attempted to salvage the several million gallons of treated water within the facility; of course, no swimmers were allowed in the complex as yet, until water testing showed chemical and bacterial levels back in the normal ranges.

Around campus the sounds of chainsaws cutting up trees felled by the storm was as common as music drifting from the student union. Life would resume a new normalcy soon, but just now and until the rubble was cleared, the storm was an ever present memory.

Traditionally, the campus turned into a ghost town for the Thanksgiving week. Students left campus after final classes and by Wednesday afternoon through Sunday night it was rare to find anyone at the university. The storm changed this balance directly. While many on campus were offered a seat at the table of classmates’ parents, many others became Storm Orphans and remained on campus for the week-long break. Whale, having a football game in another state, was not on campus. Waif found her companions, about a dozen of them, in the main cafeteria on campus Wednesday afternoon at dinner time.

Professor Uche Skye stood in front of the two tables of students and introduced herself to those who not having taken the required mathematics courses for graduation, as yet, were unfamiliar with the vivacious thirty-something redhead. She drew the short straw for newly tenured instructors and was the designated house parent for those unable to get home for the long holiday weekend.

“Hello, Wendy, glad you could join us,” Professor Skye smiled as Waif walked in, “I was just filling the others in on our plan for the weekend. The food services staff has given us full access to this kitchen and the contents of the refrigerators. We won’t starve; however, we will need volunteers to prepare meals and do clean-up after them. I was asking for volunteers who can prep, cook and serve meals. Those who cannot will be assigned cleaning duties.”

“Sorry I was delayed, ma’am, Gordon from campus police asked me to have you give him a tally of who remains on campus and what the housing arrangements are. He says he would prefer all ‘the storm orphans’, as he calls us, be centrally housed so if an emergency occurs he will know where we are.” Waif gave this new information to the faculty member, who nodded when hearing the news.

“That brings me to our next point of interest, housing, and where each of you now hang your hats,” Professor Skye suggested a roll call of names and residence halls. Waif recognized Madigan Ferris, Bill Turner, Athena Washington and Jinx Grimm from Chessman Hall. From Campbell Hall, just across the quadrangle from Chessman Hall, were Avalon Younger and Alexis Raven and Shane Merle. Rand Hall, across campus and behind the sciences and engineering classroom buildings gave the group Dan Grey and Leon Beckett. Waif added Whale’s name to the list, and noted he would return with the team Friday night following the Thursday evening away football game.

“Well, then, it seems we have three students from the fine arts dorm, six from the athlete residence and two from engineering. Both Campbell and Chessman are clothing optional. Rand is a textile housing unit. Do either of you gentlemen have an objection to moving in with either the ‘jocks’ or the ‘frocks’ for the weekend?” Professor Skye asked, and then added, “It would simplify campus security if all of us were housed beneath one of two roofs. We eat here and we sleep and study in the dorms. We are all adults, I for one do not care who sleeps with whom or if you get any sleep at all. What I do care about is no alcohol, recreational drugs or tobacco be used on campus grounds. That is a rule we cannot relax.

“Now are there any textiles among us who have never seen another student or faculty member naked?” Uche asked the group. All of the students laughed and replied in the negative.

“Then I suggest we be as informal and relaxed as we possibly can be given the circumstances,” with that she unzipped the neck to hem zipper of the denim dress she wore and discarded it. A natural redhead who matched carpet and curtains, Uche Skye was also the most freckled individual Waif had ever met. A natural C cup, should a bra ever be required, Uche Skye had aureoles the size of half dollars and nipples resembling pencil erasers. Her abs suggests regular workout routine as a part of her lifestyle and a small diamond navel ring set off her middle. A tattoo of a butterfly just inside her right pelvic bone and another of a fairy, probably Tinkerbelle, to the left, completed her body decorations.

“I am now off duty as a faculty member. I am not wearing the hat of chaperone. I will check that you are all in your assigned quarters, that being one of the two dorms we will use, at campus curfew, and I will be here in the cafeteria to assure meals are prepared three times a day, one sitting per meal. Other than that, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you all know what you should be doing for class and extracurricular activities and you should go about accomplishing those tasks. If you need help I will be in room one hundred two of Chessman Hall. Thank you for your time and attendance.” She slung her discarded dress over her left shoulder holding it with the forefinger of her left hand and wiggled out of the cafeteria in a walk that had most of the males semi-erect and a few of the females damp between the legs.

“Oh, I want that so badly”, Jinx Grimm sighed as she watched the professor distance herself from the student group.

“Forget about that, at least for two more years,” Athena Washington snorted, “She takes one senior class lover every second semester. Always a student who never had her as a professor and sex makes no difference to her. Since I’ve been here her choices have been two men and one woman.”

“Since she is one of two faculty that teach non math and science majors the required math courses needed to graduate, that tends to leave science, engineering and mathematics majors as her catchment,” laughed Bill Turner, “I guess that only leaves Dan and Leon in the running as possibles.”

Dan replied, “Who knows, perhaps she will relax her standards for this weekend and one of you will get lucky, short term.” This brought another round of laughs.

Athena then wiggled her finger at Dan Grey, “Mister Grey, I have an empty bed in my suite. My roommate dropped out of school in the third week. So if you need a place to park yourself, you are more than welcome to the bed.”

Shane then offered the upper bunk of his dorm room to Leon Beckett who happily accepted the offer. “Oh, nuts, I was hoping to get him,” Avalon Younger blurted. A general laugh went up from the group.

Waif got her four meal assignments and left as the feeding frenzy of the uncommitted began to show signs of pair offs for other than sleeping over the next few days. Waif, for one, feeling the tension and smelling the aroma of arousal and excitement in the air, could not wait for Whale to get back from his football game.

Thursday

Seven in the morning was not early for athletes used to rising at five to get in two hours of practice before classes began. Waif leisurely walked from the dorm to cafeteria, meeting up with her fellow food preparation workers along the way. Madigan, Alexis and Shane looked fresh and ready for the day.

“Has anyone seen Leon,” Shane asked his companions, “He slipped out of our room after curfew last night and has not been back since.”

“Avalon had her eyes on him, yesterday,” Waif remarked.

“I checked with her, she hasn’t seen him,” Shane responded.

“Well, he doesn’t have a car, and the campus bus stops running an hour before curfew, so he has to be someplace on campus. If he doesn’t show up for breakfast, then we’ll worry,” Alexis sighed with the air of someone who was thinking well in front of the group.

“Alexis, where did you hide the boy,” Waif giggled, “You have the look of a woman who had been ridden hard and put in the barn wet, so, you want to confess now? Or should I drag it out of Leon when he crawls in here to eat?”

“I admit I was with someone last night,” Alexis offered the group, “But, it was a she, not a he and we wore the batteries down in several toys before napping off about four thirty this morning. So go look for your lost boy elsewhere.”

The grill heated quickly and pork roll, bacon and hamburger patties soon sizzled aromatically. Prepared hash brown potatoes found their way on the grill and a three dozen egg container rested on the side preparation table as the rest of the group filtered in from the dorms.

Uche Skye, still nude and looking very relaxed bid the students good morning and took the plate of food offered her gratefully. “So hungry I could eat a side of beef this morning, boys and girls, and feeling very relaxed as well,” she said as she walked down the line to the bread taking four slices and heading for the toasters.

“Professor, by any chance have you seen Leon?” Alexis called after her. The mathematics instructor turned, smiled and yawned, “No, Lexi, the only student I’ve seen since dinner last night is you.” The grin on her face and the blush of hot pink on Alexis’ cheeks would be etched in Waif’s mind for many weeks to come.

Avalon and Leon walked in several minutes later, holding hands and hip bumping playfully. That mystery appeared solved. Waif felt the itch between her legs growing and thought about Whale and hoped he would get back to campus sooner than the team itinerary suggested.

Waif pulled up short, in her sandals, knee length apron and hair cap and yelped, “Hold on there, Alexis Raven, you got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.”

“No. I don’t,” from Alexis as she tried to quickly vacate the cafeteria and get outside. She found her way blocked by Shane, the boy assigned to bussing tables and dish washing on the breakfast shift, who added, “Stop, chill and spill, dearie, you are going nowhere until you do.”

“Okay,” Alexis giggled, “Uche might have fits because I promised her no one would find out; however, she opened the can with her comments so I’ll just tip it and let the worms out.

“You know Uche is using the vacant Chessman Hall Resident Assistant suite while she is proctoring us, well, you also know that the hot water heater for that suite is separate from the rest of the dorm and it has been in need of replacement for a while. Everyone has heard Wilkes complain about it this past semester.

“I was monitoring the lobby desk, campus security requires it even if there are only a handful of people staying on campus over the break, someone has to be on the desk and log the ins and outs until curfew, then sign the log book that the doors were locked and the alarms set at curfew. Last night was my turn at the plate.

“Just as I was locking the doors down at curfew, I heard a shriek from the RA suite. I learned several new variations of swear words in four languages and Uche burst out of the door, covered in shave cream, yelling for help.

“I asked what happened, and she said she was in the middle of shaving her legs in the shower when the water heater blew out, there is hot rusty water all over the suite floors and she thinks she cut herself behind her right knee.

“I checked and there was no blood, but there was a trickle of pee, she was scared enough to have a small bladder leak. She was embarrassed when I told her that and then asked if there was another shower she could use and did I have any dry clean towels, hers were on the floor of the suite bath room and were sodden from the flooding.

“I took her up to the second floor, where my room is, and let her use the common showers there. I loaned her my razor and gave her some towels. When she emerged, clean shaven and dry she hugged me and thanked me for my help. Then she gave me the tenderest kiss full on the lips I have ever experienced. I mean it curled my toes it was so lovingly tender.

“Her hands dropped from her hug from my upper back to my butt and she pushed me in toward her and let her hands roam my lower back and backside until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I asked her if she would like a dry place to spend the night.” Alexis paused and grinned, “I meant my roommate’s bed since maintenance would be in the RA suite doing repairs most of the night. She accepted and we wound up sleeping double in a single bed. Uh, well, sleeping would be not the correct word to use.

“If this is a one night stand, it will go down in my memory as the number one experience of my life time. Let me put it this way Uche Skye is one heck of a teacher.” Alexis’ torso turned a pretty pink in a blush that could be arousal or embarrassment and rising to leave left the others in a state of confusion.

Alexis paused as she eyed Avalon and Leon, smiled, and said, “On second thought, my dearies, I want to hear the true confessions of the dynamic duo that joined us late this morning.”

“Nothing to tell here,” Avalon quickly blurted, “We studied for the synthetic textiles final and fell asleep on the lounge sofa.”

Leon coughed and added, “What she said.”

Seeing the opening for a great group tease, Jinx, who wandered in while Alexis was telling her tale, Waif and Shane began a cheer of, “Deets, deets, spill spill spill.”

“We started out studying, really, then we progressed to the drape factor of natural, versa blend versa synthetic fibers. Both of us were nude so the fiber factor was speculative at that point.”

Avalon added her bit then, “Our mutual light bulb went off, nothing sexy, just a bare skin comparison, that we, between us had a set of eight hundred twenty thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, a set of micro-fiber and a set of cotton-polyester blend sheets. If we used them as a skin to cloth comparison we might be able to settle the argument scientifically, albeit with a very small sampling and no control group.

“Leon ran and got his two sets of sheets, I made up my bed with the Egyptian cotton ones and we settled in for a night of research.” Avalon giggled, “We actually did change the sheets three times. Our conclusion was that if all you wanted to do was sleep, the cotton polyester blend was fine. The pure cotton was better.

“However, if you were to get more physical,” Avalon rolled her eyes up and grinned a grin that only the post coital satisfied woman knows how to grin, “Neither the microfiber nor the pure cotton give enough grip to prevent slip.”

Leon then added, “Our research team therefore came to the conclusion that scientifically the cotton-polyester blend was the all around better choice for comfort and utility.”

Shane howled with laughter and Jinx and Waif joined in to lesser effect, then Shane added, “I suppose the two of you will submit an extra credit joint research paper to your professor on this topic?”

Waif, giggled, “No, they will seek a large grant from the federal government to expand the sample population and continue the research.”

“Maybe including which fabric the natural bodily fluids produced wash out from most completely and with which laundry detergents. Yep, I can see this as a full on graduate study with thesis publication.” Jinx managed to say all that before reverting to doubling over, clutching her tummy and laughing so hard tears ran down her cheeks.

“May we just get our breakfast, now, or do we need to endure more of this from the peanut gallery before we get served?” Avalon smirked, “Oh, and all of you may have been discrete last night, but we still have until next Tuesday curfew before the campus is fully repopulated. We will be watching, listening and maybe even peeking for the next round of embarrassing escapades.”

Leon went into creepy radio announcer voice, adding, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, and women at PFIT? The Shadow knows, stay tuned for our next tale of carnal adventure brought to you by your friends at Trojan…the folks who know how to protect you when your pants are down.”

The friends shared another huge round of laughter at the general silliness of their situation before finishing eating and cleaning the cafeteria area for the crew who would get lunch out in a few hours.

As they worked, it was decided by all that at one in the afternoon all would gather in the main lounge of Chessman Hall to watch the game between PFIT and Illinois School of Design.

The End

Copyright© 2012 by Chessman. All rights reserved.