"Here's some burnt connective tissue," she said, wiping a small grease splatter off her nipple and forking three strips of bacon onto Rod's plate. Before turning back to the stove she snapped off a piece for herself. Burnt connective tissue tasted so good sometimes, especially on a late winter morning like this.
Her comment was playing to her vegetarian guests, Jen and Leisha, married three years ago under the laws of the State of Vermont, who were taking in Tami's famous soy flour pancakes. Dressed in flannel shirts, jeans, and sneakers with nice thick wool socks, they also took in the trim butt cheeks as Tami worked the stove, cheeks that were always bare like the rest of her and were a prime display of her trademark tan. It was well observed in the Campbell-Frank College community that Tami's summer skin was copper, but her winter skin was a light brown, a change like the summer and winter colors of certain birds. But at any time of year, her permanently nude body was one of the glories of the local countryside.
She turned to slide another pancake onto Jen's plate. "Nice, what is that, burgundy, Tam?" Jen said. Tami stood back, playfully tossing her shoulder-length hair like in a shampoo commercial, then looking down to her full length nudity. Her hair, her fingernails, her pubic hair ("lower hair", she called it), and her toenails were all the same reddish color, a shade lighter than her natural hair color. "No, more magenta-ish. The box calls it 'Plum'," she said. "Goes well." "Thanks. I might stick with this for a while." "I still like the all-black look on you."
As Jen said this she brushed aside a few of the beer bottle caps that had some time ago spilled over the top of the big round oatmeal carton that graced the end of the table. Most of the caps reflected Tami's favorite brand. The carton had been there a year but, still, that was a whole lot of caps. Behind the mountain of caps, on the wall, a bulletin board with various pictures and notices, many way out of date. And a little framed note that said, in Tami's neat hand,
"Would you spend your life
With a naked wife?"
Next to that, a Pawtucket Red Sox hat, push-pinned into the board.
Rod, about ten minutes from having to leave for work, ready for the outside world in his gray button-down shirt, dark pants and engineer's boots, looked up from reading this morning's news on his laptop. He reflected on how Tami's appearance had changed over the past three years. Her face, for one thing. Longer, a bit more angular, more like a mature woman. Looking back at those old photos now, like from the Black Formal he had taken Tami to during her first semester, her face seemed more babyish, almost chubby. Now it was more "beautiful", as if to catch up with those bright green eyes.
Her body, too, was a bit more angular, the muscles slightly better defined, especially around the midriff and that tight little butt typical of white girls. Her breasts seemed a bit larger. Remarkably they did not sag, being without the benefit of a bra all this time. Maybe not so remarkable. When she was a sophomore Tami had dug up a study showing that bras, for all their other purposes, do not really prevent sagging. Sounded wrong, but in Tami's case the theory was correct.
Looking at her matching hair and nails, Rod was glad that her personal fashion sense, or what fashion choices life had permitted her in light of her allergy, had calmed down. That sophomore year, at least the second half, was a wild ride. Blazing colors, half-buzz cuts, shaving into a "T" for Tami, Bride of Frankenstein shocks -- Tami's crotch was like a dazzling billboard bopping around the campus and town, making it even more the center of attention that it already was wherever she went. Her upper hair was no less flamboyant, one month almost a Mohawk, the next green dreadlocks, and usually different color nail polish on each finger and toe. It was a trial to be seen with her, though he never admitted it. Just when he was hoping people would get used to this naked girl walking around, she calls attention to herself.
Then that summer internship in Germany, working with a famous math professor on six-dimensional polymers or whatever it was -- he never could quite understand her attempts to explain it, even though he was about to complete an engineering degree with two years of calculus. When she came back in August she was so enthusiastic. "Germany is such a totally nude friendly country. It's where nudism began. They go out naked to the parks. I'd walk out and, it was like, I'm not the only one for once. It was so nice not being stared at. Everyone was so polite and grown-up about it. One day they had an exhibit at an art museum; it was a really hot day, so if you went naked you got in free. I was just one of the crowd. I wished all the time you could be there and we'd be naked together. Of course" they were on the bed at the time, late at night, "I wouldn't be able to control myself, looking at this! Roarrr!" Whereupon she grabbed his dick, swung it around from the base like a floppy baseball bat, then took it into her throat.
When she came back from that summer she was full of German phrases. He had learned a little bit from his father, who had been stationed there during his Army days, and had thought it a military and harsh language. But then he heard Tami speak it in a gentle, musical way and it was enchanting. "I love the way you wrap your lips around those umlauts," was his favorite phrase for a while.
She had also, really for the first time, embraced what she called "the theory of nudism" -- the beneficial effect of the elements on bare skin. She was determined to live in as natural a state as possible and it was almost as hard to take as The Year of the Dazzling Pubic Hair. She let her legs and armpits go unshaved, let her hair grow wild and long, till it was almost to her butt. And she would take long hikes at night in the woods behind the house. He had quite a shock the first time he woke up in the middle of the night to see a wild naked white woman, autumn leaves in her hair, perched in the opened bedroom window, dirt-covered toes curling over the sill, green eyes glowing in the dark, then pouncing across the room onto him, pulling the covers off, commandeering his dick, and jumping on it to ride him through her many orgasms, his crotch scratched by crumpling leaves that had gotten caught in her lower hair. She did this a number of times until the novelty wore off.
Maybe he was too buttoned-down. Maybe there was a wildness inside him that she was trying to tap, without saying so. Certainly when they were alone she was wild enough for both of them. But it was good to see her calm down and settle on "Plum".
He returned to reading his laptop. Tami kissed the shaved smoothness of his ebony scalp and scooted in across from him, beside her old roommate Jen. While shoveling in her third helping of potatoes she turned a bit, drew her leg up toward the microwave with her gymnast's flexibility, and with her dexterous toes tapped in ninety seconds for the eggs. A flick of her pinky toe and it turned on.
"Ooo ooo ooo," Leisha said in a raspy voice. Tami smiled. Her friends sometimes made chimp sounds when she used her feet like hands. For her it had been a natural progression, going around in bare feet for three years with toes always out there and available. It also made the wedding band more noticeable, on the third toe of her left foot, matching the larger one which Rod wore in the conventional place.
"Going to Killington today?" Rod asked. (The biggest ski center in Vermont.)
"Not sure. Might be too warm," Jen said, leaning against Leisha. They were more or less bumming around the region until Leisha's next anthropology conference in Montreal. Jen, daughter of wealth, was conducting a very low-key job search, hoping to land an assistant professorship next fall.
Rod tapped a few keys. "Says it'll be cloudy today, possible rain, up to 40."
Tami stretched and thrust out her breasts. "No, that's wrong."
Jen smiled. "Accu-tits weather."
The naked 22-year-old got up and stretched again, giving Jen and Leisha a mouth-watering view of her breasts riding up on her perfectly formed body. She tapped on her dark brown, permanently erect nipples with her index fingers and then flicked them up and down, making her breasts jiggle, giggling as her guests swooned. "Let me go out and check. I forgot the mail yesterday anyway."
After she had gone, Rod, checking sports scores, said, "See Tam's latest rescue?"
Jen and Leisha looked at each other with a flash of realization. "So that wasn't a dream."
"No, another girl from Teaser's." Rod exhaled. "Luci, the manager, called around midnight. I keep telling Tam it's not her place to put herself out so, but you know how she is. At least this one was just weepy and drunk. We put her on the couch in the sun room."
"I think Herr Remmler would have approved," Jen said, referring to the deceased professor emeritus at Chalfont who had willed this little house to Tami and her husband for as long as she was associated with the college. Rod shrugged helplessly. Providing emergency shelter for wayward strippers was one of many things he had to resign himself to, as husband of Queen Tami the Nude.
Tami returned sorting mail in her hands, tapping last night's fluffy snow off her toes, having padded silently down the driveway to the mailbox and no doubt waved at the ever-present Mrs. McBreer across the street. Having sampled the outside air, her nipples could give a more accurate forecast. "It's about 25 now, going up only to 35. Clear all day."
Leisha said, "Clear tomorrow too?"
"Vielleicht," Tami said, parking her butt down where it was before. One of the German words she still occasionally used -- they knew by now that "vielleicht" means "probably".
Another huge scoop of potatoes into her mouth, to the amusement of Jen and Leisha. It was often remarked that during the cold months, Tami ate like a hog.
They breakfasted silently for a moment, Rod reading his laptop, the two African-American women wiping up the last of the syrup as they leaned against each other, about as true as true love can get.
Rod could sense it before it actually happened. Beneath the table, Tami's snow-encrusted toes now caressed the crotch of his pants. "How about a quick go-round?"
"Babe, you're going to kill me," he said for about the ten thousandth time.
"You're the one who attacked me, last night," the naked girl countered.
"It was more like you attacking me," he said.
"That was only the second time."
"And the third."
After a quick wink to Leisha, Jen quietly slid under the table. A quick inhale from Tami ensued.
"Thanks, Jen," Rod said. The experiments that Tami had been coerced into undergoing at Chalfont during that awful freshman year had created within her an insatiable sex drive which had not diminished after all this time. Rod knew that Tami's dedication to him was total, but also knew that he just did not have the time or the energy, or maybe the staying power, to keep her from climbing the walls all by himself.
It got worse after that bra and panties that had been so diabolically designed for her at Chalfont, with the bristles and dildos inside, got too uncomfortable for her to wear. It was a shame. It was the only thing she could wear after her allergy set in. They would be happily hanging out on the porch on a fall evening, him in his sweats and her in that bikini, conversation interrupted only by her quivering now and then as she worked the remote in her hand. Afterward she would be sated and happy for hours. But then, not far into her sophomore year, she felt confined with those straps around her back and her hips. According to Dr. Kantor, the behavioral therapist at Chalfont who had been assigned to cure her clothes aversion, it was simply another manifestation of the allergy.
Now the bristle bra and dildo panties hung, unused, in the closet. Add to this the odd fact that Tami just could not reach orgasm by her own hands. The help of others was just necessary. Rod had adjusted to that fact a long time ago. So he appreciated Jen's help. Besides, Jen had a kind of seniority.
Under the table, Jen's tongue worked her magic. It never took long with Tami. She swallowed, then lay her head back, eyes half-closed. Then soft, breathy moans escaped between her deepening breaths. Tami's orgasms had a wonderful diversity, every one was different, but the general signs of her ascent were well known. One foot came up to brace against the wall next to the microwave, as if she was about to defy gravity and walk up sideways. Leisha cradled the other foot in her lap. Toes spread and the naked young woman swallowed quickly, then held her breath as she waited for the onslaught. Rod lifted his coffee off the table.
"Zhh!! Zhh!! Zhh!!" Eyes exploded open. Her knees jerked up with each jolt, banging up against the table and causing plates to clatter (but not coffee to spill). Rod disengaged himself from today's news and looked at his beautiful wife. One could only smile. He never tired of seeing her face registering the greatest physical pleasure a person can know. This was a really violent one, her body showed incredible strength – he almost believed she could lift a car with her upward jerks. He admired Jen's virtuosity. He had gotten better at oral sex over the past few years, but maybe it takes a woman to really know what works best on another woman.
In fact he was convinced of it. Tami and her female "fans" (as he thought of them) seemed to occupy a world different from his. A totally female world. The last time Jen and Leisha visited was memorable. It was one of those Saturdays he’d had to work. He left after lunch, Tami sitting like she often did, cross-legged on top of the living room table, with her two seated friends holding her hands. Jen had brought some white wine and bread and cheese; Jen liked to bring in some elegant props and it was unspoken that they were getting ready for one of their little "events".
He got to the project -- restoring an old dam near the Canadian border -- and it was hard for him to concentrate. His mind wandered so much that the jeep he was driving almost drifted off the service road at one point. He kept wondering, what are they doing to her now? His mind relaxed after about three o'clock, realizing they must be finished and sitting around, maybe while Tami took one of her frequent afternoon naps.
The job took longer than he thought. At six he called home but there was no answer. He left a message on the machine promising to be back at nine sharp. When that time finally rolled around, bleary-eyed and exhausted, he rolled into the driveway and stumbled into the living room.
He was stunned. They were still at it. Tami was on the table, on all fours, covered in sweat, her hair dripping around her face. Behind her, Jen was slowly working a big ribbed dildo in and out of her rectum, while licking her pussy, drawing out the lips, poking at the clit with the tip of her tongue. Leisha, sitting on the other end, had drawn the end of Tami's stretched breast into her mouth, vigorously sucking on the nipple while reaching over to rub the other nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Tami's whole body was tight as a drum, her toes twitching, suspended right on the brink.
Had they been going all this time? Jen and Leisha were still fully dressed, not a button undone. Had Tami been pleasured for nine hours straight? Had they given her a breather? How many times had she come? Were there any limits at all to the sexual capacity of his naked wife? Questions flooded his suddenly awake mind. The wine had almost all been drunk, some crumbs of bread still on the plate. It was as if Tami was the main course.
He had sometimes resented it -- he sometimes imagined they were seeing how many orgasms they could get out of her, playing her like a pinball machine. Yet that was not it. It was something more like communion -- maybe Tami, raised Catholic, got some kind of fulfillment out of it, Catholicism had always been something alien to him -- or maybe more like worship.
It turned out, unexpectedly, to be romantic. The three women did not appear to notice his approach. But then as he got near the table Jen and Leisha accelerated their ministrations, and as he circled Tami's shaking body and came around to her sweaty face, he caught a look in her half-opened, feverish eyes that could only be called pure love. He then knew what to do -- he bent over and kissed her, a full-throated kiss, and as he did she lurched forward, moaned loudly into his mouth, and her whole body spasmed, and spasmed again.
More followed. It was a powerful orgasm even for Tami. Her whole body quaked and quaked, as Jen and Leisha hung on for dear life and he kept his lips on hers, grasping the damp hair behind her head, and she held her lips to his to the extent she could. The whole event, the whole nine hours, had been a preparation, waiting for him to join her as she scaled and reached what must have been the pinnacle of ecstasy.
Rod thought of that time as, now at the breakfast table, he saw the post-orgasmic catching of breath, the slight sheen of sweat, the hands that went under the table to caress Jen's hair, which nowadays was set in short cornrows. Tami was descending to the plateau now, from whence she could rise and then rise again -- "going up", she called it. Leisha watched intently too.
Inconsequentially, the microwave beeped and the eggs were ready.
Now the ascent to the second orgasm.
"Rrringg!!"
Rod was about to get up when Tami reached up with a sharp motion and got the phone. Maybe it was her good-girl, straight-A sense of duty, her Catholic upbringing, but she would not let her orgasms interfere with anything. She pushed down the crest with a visible effort. "H - hello."
"Oh hi Wanda," she said with a smile and she relaxed and went back to riding Jen's tongue. She looked and fondled the cornrows. "Wow. C - congratulationsssss!!" She seemed happily surprised and glad for her old friend. To Rod and Leisha she said, "W - Wanda's b - been hired by th - the B - Boston D.A. off -- off -- office -- Ohhhh!"
Her eyes opened to the ceiling and lost focus as they always did just as an orgasm began. She was listening to what Wanda was saying, or at least trying to. How did she do that? He had asked her once -- "I just play back in my mind what I just heard." It probably took practice, but of course, she had had plenty of that.
Spasms and little grunts followed. She was holding back her vocalizations so she could hear better. Then she looked down at Jen. "W - wanda says hi." She hadn't needed to mention Jen's name.
"Ohh!" Her pelvis jerked. Jen had apparently delivered a little rough suction to Tami's clit. This was Jen's way of saying, "Hi, Wanda."
Jen and Wanda continued to converse through Tami's body for a little while, sentences, pauses, commas, an occasional exclamation point. Then: "T - tomorrow night then -- ohhhh!. . . OK . . ." After replacing the receiver with great effort Tami exhaled and caressed Jen's hair, lurched one final time, then came down from the plateau at last. "Mmmmm . . . " After a few moments Jen came up to lay her head against Tami's breasts, like a contented baby with a tummy full of mother's milk.
Rod felt his dick, recently given up for dead, stirring. It was Tami's musk, which filled the room and made it hot and humid. He might or might not be able to get fully erect again but it was a moot point; it was time to go to work. He put the laptop on "hibernate" and went to get his briefcase. When he returned a couple of minutes later he said, "Your guest is up. I found her in the hall."
Tami, by then back in this world with her orange juice and eggs, said, "Tell her to come in. She must be hungry."
"She's too shy. She'd rather stay in her room. . . Well, good-bye Babe." Off to his new engineer job in Burlington, his first real job after the year with the Army Corps of Engineers which had been a condition of his scholarship to Campbell-Frank.
Tami stood her naked self in front of him, her breasts jiggling as she straightened his tie.
"Thanks Mom," he said.
"'Clothes make the man,'" she said as she looked him up and down admiringly.
Which was greeted with a snort. He put his finger behind his tie. "Akk. If the world is ruled by men, how come we have to wear ties?"
"Because it's not ruled by SMART men."
"What's on today, Babe?"
"Aside from the usual, I have the presentation in Fashion Design with Gretchen. I think she'll be all right. Also they want to see me about something. Then Kantor."
Rod exhaled in exasperation. "It just goes on and on. Why doesn't Kantor or Abu Jamal talk to you? I think they're holding back on something."
"Oh I KNOW they're holding back," Tami said. "They'll tell me when they're ready." Once again, the odd fact: Rod wanted one of the many therapies they had tried to finally work, while Tami seemed to take it one day at a time.
A slow kiss on the lips, bare arms around his coat, tan midriff against his belt buckle, toes wrapping around his gumshoe boots, and Rod was gone.
She woke groggily but then with a sudden sense of alarm. She was in a strange bed. The strap of her camisole had pulled off her shoulder and she straightened it. Her black vinyl pants were bunched up too. She poked her head up from the covers like a ground hog. What had she gotten herself into? Had somebody dragged her half-naked drunk body into bed and humped her? She had heard of that happening --
Fortunately her private parts did not hurt. She felt more or less in one piece, except for the hangover. And this sun room she was in did not seem sleazy, in fact it seemed respectable and neat.
Taking care not to move too fast -- with her hangover she could easily get dizzy -- she got up and saw that her shoes were placed neatly on the floor. She clumsily slipped her bare feet into the glass-bottomed, four-inch-high platform sandals and, straightening out her long black hair behind her, took stock of where she was.
A nice little house. As she lurched into the next room, a living room, she tried to dismiss the weird dream from last night. Practically being thrown into the cold night air, a cold ride in a pickup truck with someone who spoke gibberish, then a naked super-woman picking her up like she weighed nothing and carrying her inside. It was obviously a dream, at least the last part.
Pierre, Pierre . . . I know he won't forgive me for this . . .
She heard voices far away somewhere. Trying to trace their source she found herself in what must be a master bedroom. A queen-size bed, recently slept in. An open closet with lots of clothes -- just men's clothes. She looked around for women's clothes and shoes and found none. Just a guy must live here. She also noticed that the covers were thrown back on only one side of the bed. Single. And a gentleman, not to have screwed her last night.
There was a big window showing the back yard, and a computer table with books and papers, a monitor and keyboard. The mouse and its pad were on the floor, under the chair. Weird.
Her eyes were arrested by the pictures on the dresser. Naked girls. No, they were all the same girl. That super-woman? The big photo, in the middle, with her standing on a riser in front of a cheering crowd, flowers in her hair, next to a young black man in a white formal type coat. It could be a wedding picture, but for the missing bridal gown. A young lady in a minister outfit is next to them, and a straggly-looking bearded guy in a blazer and jeans. The naked girl looks so out of place, with everyone else fully clothed.
Another picture, the same naked girl, sitting on a throne wearing a tiara, with an exaggerated haughty expression. Below her, on some steps with a red carpet, three girls in matching red and black, bowing to her. One was white, one was thin and black, another was Hispanic-looking with giant tits almost spilling out of her low-cut dress. Another picture, of the naked girl in the tiara, this time with her arm around another girl, thin and white and kind of no-nonsense looking, in a kind of business suit.
Some smaller pictures of the naked girl with what must be a brother and her parents, cropped at her bare shoulders. Now the same brother it looked like, in uniform next to an American flag. There she is with her shoulders again, next to the black guy, this time he's in a black graduation gown, with what must be his parents. The father is bent over and supports himself with a cane. Quite a contrast in that photo, with her bare white skin.
On the other wall a large painting caught her eye. Somehow she hadn't noticed it before. It was the same girl, in a chair in what looked like the stacks of a library, pausing from reading a book as if pleasantly surprised to see the viewer. The book is half-open in her hands over her flat tummy. Totally naked, her pubic hair and breasts on full view, yet not showing them off either. Her attitude was strange -- not at all like a stripper, just the opposite. As if she didn't even know she was naked. Both her face and her body are beautiful, as if the artist was in love with her.
Now on another little table, set apart, a frame with photos of a tall, friendly-looking guy with black curly hair, wearing a long black coat, and a girl in red lipstick in a black dress with a real long string of pearls, leaning against a lamp post, her hips playfully swayed and her head tilted, like a hooker. This is the white girl from the throne photo. Between them, a photo of the World Trade Center.
She looked at the doorway, thinking she heard a movement. I shouldn't be in here. So she scampered back into the hall, realizing how loud these ridiculous stripper shoes were on the hardwood floor. Still a bit hung over and disoriented, she made a wrong turn and found herself facing a bathroom. Too late to turn back. So she went in, her shoes stomping on the little tiles, and closed the door.
No sound. She found that she did have to pee and sat down. The bathroom was tiny. As she exhaled and let it flow she looked at the bathtub and shower right next to her and realized that there wasn't just a guy living here. Three bottles of shampoo, one of conditioner, then some hair coloring. They couldn't be for the guy because his head was shaved. On the sink were a brush with reddish hair in it, and a long comb. Also a very short little comb, like guys might use on a moustache. Odd, the guy in the pics didn't have a moustache. What's the little comb for?
Reaching over for the toilet paper she was startled to see a big blue rubber bag on the floor with a narrow tube coming out of it. Where had she seen that before? Oh right -- that dancer Lita had one, who kept talking the virtues of anal sex. Ewww, an enema bag. Well, now I know more about this girl living here than I really want to.
And now she detected the faint odor of vomit. She thought: great. She's bulimic too.
Back to the bed in that little sun room. She waited and there was no motion. She got up again.
"Oh," she said, startled in the hall by a tall black man about 25 years old, with a shaved head and wire-rimmed glasses, in a suit and big brown boots. This was the guy from the photos.
"Hello, are you feeling O.K.?" he said, with concern.
"Oui . . . Merci . . . yes. . ." She was babbling.
"You were quite a mess last night. You probably need some food in you."
That would ease the hangover, at least. She smelled eggs and pancakes cooking from somewhere. A telephone rang and there were female voices. Uh - oh . . . a woman gasping as if she were crying. Some kind of scene was going on.
"I still am need to sleep," she said. She couldn't concentrate to speak good English right now.
"O.K. I have to go. My wife's name is Tami. You can't miss her," he added with a smile. "She'll take you to the help center. Good luck getting back on your feet."
She watched him go. She wanted him to stay. Anything to keep from the clutches of this Tami girl. She was getting a very bad feeling about her. Into anal sex, bulimic, takes naked pictures, even with her family -- and now she's breaking down in the kitchen. How did this O.K. seeming guy get involved with her? And why was he leaving her to cry in the kitchen? It made her own situation seem positively normal.
She tumbled back onto the refuge of the bed, wearing her shoes in bed even though it was impolite.
She couldn't stay there forever. It was about fifteen minutes later that she got her courage up to traverse the narrow little hallway, the walls studded with ornately framed black-and-white photos of old men and old women like from a hundred years ago. Then she turned the corner and --
"Hi, Yvette!"
The cheerful girl was next to the stove with a spatula in her hand, facing her as if glad to see her. And without a stitch of clothing. The naked super-woman, in the (bare) flesh! And with no sign of having cried.
Yvette, her mouth open, took in the bare breasts and pubic hair and bare legs. The only thing this girl was wearing was a little golden ring on one toe. Yvette shielded her eyes. "So sorry -- "
"No, it's O.K." she said with a laugh. "I'm Tami. Excuse my appearance. I'm allergic to clothes."
"That's right, she is," said Jen with a mouth full of pancakes. Leisha, also eating but a bit more refined, nodded in agreement.
Yvette slowly unshielded her eyes and accepted the invitation to sit down. There was a table setting in front of her. She nodded to the black women. Do they live here too? What kind of kinkiness was going on? Does the fact that this Tami is the only white person in the house have something to do with her showing her skin all the time?
She watched Tami's backside as she worked the stove. Yvette was a stripper and had seen plenty of naked women walking around, but only on stage or in the dressing room. At home, strippers tended to cover up. This was decidedly weird.
Yvette quickly blinked and realized: and what a body. Thin, firm, narrow waist, nice tits. And a pretty face with striking green eyes. She'd never seen a girl on the circuit so good-looking.
"Eggs, pancakes, bacon, cereal, oatmeal?" Tami said. "Tami's diner, at your service."
Yvette had taken in the ordinary, good-natured atmosphere in the room and decided it was impolite to act freaked out by Tami's nudity. After all, she should be grateful, a safe night's sleep in a clean bed. "Oatmeal, s'il vous plait."
Her mettle was tested again as Tami crouched and then leapt three feet up onto the counter. Her naked host opened the cupboard and stood up there and reached into a shelf near the ceiling. In the meantime she resumed a conversation she had been having with Jen.
"So what kind of job is that?"
Jen described a position that had opened up at Middlebury College that she was interested in. Tami said periodic "mm - hmm's" as she pushed aside boxes of cereal to get at the oatmeal. Meanwhile her toes reached over to the sink and turned on a faucet. Having found the oatmeal she searched further in for the honey. Two quick passes of her toes under the spigot to test if the water was getting hot, then the foot stretched over to the back burner for the kettle. "Mm -- hmm. . . Sounds kind of boring . . . Aren't you overqualified for that?" Clasping toes placed the kettle under the spigot. Tami hopped down with the oatmeal and honey, so gracefully that the only sound was the soft click of the toe ring as it hit the wood floor.
Yvette thought: this girl is like a monkey.
The oatmeal was very good, if a bit rough going down. Tami had simply poured the oats into a bowl and added hot water. "Better fiber that way," she said.
"Well . . . " Jen said.
Tami laughed. "Actually if I try to make it the real way, it's awful."
Jen and Leisha had to leave. Their bags were already packed in the hallway. They each hugged Tami's bare bod, but casually. They would be passing by again in a few weeks.
"If you don't mind, next time we come, let's make a day of it," Leisha said.
Tami paused and said, "I'd love that. The pleasure would be mine."
"You KNOW that's not true," Jen smiled.
And now Yvette found herself alone in the kitchen with this naked Tami girl.
She almost choked on the coffee. "Sorry, I don't realize how strong I make it," Tami said. Yvette had to load it with milk and sugar to make it drinkable.
"This is a 'safe home'," Tami said. "I'm supposed to take you to the help center here, part of the Campbell County Social Services department. I'm in no hurry, I don't have anywhere to go till ten." She paused as if for effect. "You don't have to talk to me, but I am here to listen if you do. I'll keep it a secret if you say so." Another pause. Tami began to stretch, her breasts jutting out, then seemed to check herself. She stretched out one leg and rested the bare heel on the far corner of the table. "You were quite a mess last night. I heard you threw up on stage."
"I almost threw up on you too, when you picked me off the ground."
"Actually you did."
"Oh -- I'm so sorry."
Tami smiled. "It's O.K. It's happened to me before."
Yvette sipped and thought. "I miss my boyfriend."
"What's his name?"
"Pierre. He got me this job and then we had a fight."
"Where is he now?"
"Ste. Catherine. He biked there yesterday."
"Quebec."
Yvette ventured a smile. "Oui."
"Sorry, my French is poor. That's 'ja', right?"
"No, I think it's 'si'." Yvette hadn't used this knowledge since high school. She suddenly remembered her mother saying, "You're smarter than you think you are."
"Funny, I thought it was 'da'."
The two young women giggled. Yvette's first giggle in a long time.
After a quiet moment Tami said, "You like that job? At Teaser's?"
"There's nothing wrong with being a dancer. The pay is good and it's safe," Yvette said defensively.
Tami looked as if she'd heard that a thousand times before. Then she took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to sound, like, judgmental. A lot of girls from there seem weirded out. Others are O.K. Or so I've heard. I've never actually been there."
Yvette looked at the bareness of Tami's breasts and did not know what to think.
"Do you want to talk more about it?"
At the risk of being impolite to her host, Yvette said, "No. Sorry. No." She wondered about calling Pierre. No, it would be long distance from this phone. Also impolite.
"Well then let's get going." Tami got the keys that were hanging from the doorway. Yvette got up and followed her, with another twinge of disbelief. Surely she wasn't going outside in the winter -- like that?? There were no coats or boots in the doorway.
Tami opened the door and a gust of cold air hit Yvette. She shivered in her camisole.
Tami turned and put her hands on Yvette's shoulders. Yvette looked down at the tanned perfect body. Tami looked at the camisole, the vinyl pants, the sockless feet in platform sandals.
"The first thing to do," the naked girl said, "is to get you into some decent clothes."
In the driveway, next to the tracks in the snow left by Rod's jeep, was an old, old yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Yvette, freezing in the doorway, watched in astonishment as Tami, holding up the key chain with one hand to separate out the correct key, walked over to it slowly and casually, bare feet slopping through the slushy snow covered with two inches of fluffy powder from last night. As she got to the driver's side she called back. "C'mon, Yvette. You'll be O.K. It's all in the mind. Besides, it's a real short ride."
It was a bright morning. The new snow was almost blinding. Yvette looked both ways, wondering if anyone saw this crazy naked girl, then rushed into the car.
She watched silently as Tami pumped the gas, bare toes curling over the padless metal that must feel colder than ice. Her breasts jiggled as she pulled the manual choke -- this was a really old model, like her grandfather used to have in Abitibi. Then Tami got out to the rear, opened the hood, and threw some kind of switch that got the motor to reluctantly kick over.
"Six volt system," she explained as bare buns settled back onto the ripped vinyl of the driver's seat. "The juice doesn't carry in the cold, so I had to put in a bypass on the fan shroud."
Yvette nodded like she knew what Tami was talking about. And then the old car lurched into action.
"Whoaa!" Yvette cried out as it swerved along the driveway, steadily propelled from behind but with the destination of the front end more uncertain. Tami swung the steering wheel back and forth like it was a bumper car in an amusement park. Yvette didn't feel in danger. This was fun. Tami laughed. "VW's are great in the snow. That's why I got this one."
Yvette was hoping for some heat, but then remembered that her grandfather's car was always cold. As they came to a stop sign she looked at the blank knobs on the dashboard. "Is there heat?"
"Theoretical heat, but not real. This has a stale air system. It's O.K., you don't really need heat in a car, unless you're on a long ride." Yvette did not ask what this naked girl did for long rides.
Now they turned onto what looked like the main street. Yvette had never been in the center of this town; Teaser's was on the outskirts. She looked around to see if anyone was noticing Tami's bareness. The tops of her breasts, at least, would be showing. But now a professor-looking type on the sidewalk waved at her. And a young couple carrying bookbags. Now, an old lady toting a cart with groceries. Tami waved back cheerfully to each.
Yvette smiled. "Everyone seems to know you."
"I've been here almost the whole four years." Then she turned closer to Yvette's face. "Also, I'm easy to recognize."
They pulled up to a church. Good God! Is she going to walk naked into --
When they got out it turned out they were actually going into a small clapboard house next to the church. A knock on the door and . . .
It was Rev. Josiah Stipend, a tall and strong-looking man in a rumpled minister's suit with gray hair almost covering his collar. "Welcome, Miss Tami," he said, not in a Southern accent, but in that lilt that Baptist preachers sometimes have.
"Good morning Reverend," Tami said respectfully but amiably. "This young woman stayed with me last night. Her name is Yvette. She could use some clothes."
The reverend nodded at Tami for a long second, then without looking below either woman's face, led them in a gentlemanly manner through a hallway, down some stairs, and into what looked like it might have originally been the house's garage. Aisles of donated clothes and shoes beckoned, so narrow that there was hardly room to get through.
A middle-aged woman, a kerchief holding back her hair, sat nearby sorting clothes on a low table. Behind her was a washer and dryer. "Hi Tami."
"Hi Mrs. Stipend."
Tami led her guest into the aisles, obviously knowing how the place was organized. "First you'll need some real pants . . ."
The Stipends looked at each other and then at the nakedness among the clothes. Rev. Stipend could not help reflecting on his past experience with Tami. He used to be a real firebrand, one of the hellfire members of the college Scholarship Committee. He could not forget the committee's visit to the Dixon Mill to see Tami at her grounds crew assignment, her sweating nakedness on display as her bare feet trod the blades of that awful double treadmill. How he had berated her sinfulness then, and also later when she was summoned to appear before the committee in those special bra and panties which contained protrusions invading her inner cavities, bringing her to climax after climax while being forced to answer their questions.
It was only later that he found out that she was a modest girl who did not want to be naked, and who had been forced into that escalating series of humiliations by Dean Jorgon and Henry Ross who were trying to get her to renounce her scholarship. And that, after Jorgon had resigned and Ross had disappeared and the whole injustice came to light, she discovered she had developed an allergy to clothes and shoes of any type.
What remarkable iron within those young features! He wrote her a letter of apology but knew that was not enough. He prayed for several nights trying to find forgiveness. Finally he met with her in the faculty lounge and asked her forgiveness in person. For a person of his pride it was not easy. She said nothing for a long moment, and then to his surprise she embraced him tearfully.
That experience profoundly changed him. Also, events in the outside world over the past couple of years had convinced him that fundamentalism was perhaps not the way to go. Fortunately most of his congregation followed him as he edged leftward. The lengthening hair was but a trivial sign of it. He peppered his sermons less and less with condemnation and more and more with social justice and compassion. It turned out not to be that hard. Support in scripture was certainly easy to find.
The idea that came to him to set up a clothing closet had such an obvious and questionable origin that he resisted it for a while, but it was simply the right thing to do. In this often cold climate there were many poor people, not so much in town but in the surrounding area, that would benefit. He was aware why he got the idea, through his partial embrace of Freud. Herr Remmler's mentor had made some penetrating observations. Rev. Stipend wanted most of all to give Tami Smithers clothes. Setting up the closet was a sublimation of that desire. Sublimation, he now knew, sometimes had its uses.
Tami and Yvette emerged from the aisles, Yvette carrying jeans, a coat, a flannel shirt, and tall leather boots. Tami carried a furry, Russian-style hat.
"You can take more," he said, then realized he was actually talking to Tami. What a cross she had to bear. Yet she carried it almost joyfully.
Tami seemed about to turn back, then said, "No, this will do. Thank you."
"Any time, my dear -- Tami."
Going back to the car, Yvette remarked, "For a cleric he is a nice man." Tami laughed.
Another quick jaunt in Tami's cold little metal crate and they were back at the house. Tami sent Yvette into the shower.
Yvette came out wrapped in a towel, with another around her hair. "Come over here." She followed the voice to the master bedroom where Tami had her "new" clothes laid out on the now completely made-up bed. Tami was rummaging through a drawer. As she bent over with a total lack of bashfulness, the brown asterisk of her butthole was almost in Yvette's face. Yvette tried not to look.
"You probably want some socks under those boots," Tami said. "Rod has some extras. Sorry I don't have any women's underwear."
"No?"
"No. I don't own any clothes of course. . . I'll be in the kitchen, calling the help center."
Yvette took her time with dressing. She couldn't help but smile as she presented herself to Tami in the kitchen. Though second-hand, the shirt, jeans, the coat, even the Russian hat, looked very good on her. This Tami had excellent fashion sense.
She felt like a little girl getting ready for a party as Tami fussed over the blouse and the coat. Absently looking at the jiggling bare nipples, she said, "Tami, your body is most fine. You could make a million dollars dancing on the circuit."
At this her clothesless host just smiled.
A few minutes later, the old VW, back in town, parked on the main street. They were about to get out and Yvette, sensing their time together was about to end, could not resist asking. "Tami. How can you stand being without clothes in this weather so cold?"
"It's mostly in the mind," Tami replied, as if having been asked this question many times and having rehearsed and refined the answer. "To some extent my body has gotten used to it. In the cold weather I eat like a pig and my metabolism is higher. Of course I can't stay out for, like, hours or anything like that. Or if it's super-cold. Keeping moving is important."
"How long have you been like this?"
"This is my fourth winter. The first one was rough. The second one, I kept testing my limits, seeing what was possible. By the third winter, I knew how to handle the cold so automatically, that I hardly thought about it."
They were getting out of the car now. A tall woman in stylishly bohemian clothes and stiletto heel boots stopped by. Next to her was a much older woman with a cane, in a big fake-fur coat and a green flowery hat.
"Hi, Tami," Assistant Dean Vanessa Congi said.
"Hello dear," the lady in the green hat, Professor Emeritus Mildred George, said in her scratchy old voice.
"This is my friend Yvette," Tami said graciously as she shuffled around the back of the Beetle to turn off the bypass switch. Yvette shook hands with each, a little ladylike clasp. As the naked girl came around to where they were, Professor Congi said, "That's a beautiful shade of hair, Tami."
"Oh thanks." Tami looked down at her pubic patch. This made Yvette half cover her eyes.
"I see your nails all match your hair color," Mrs. George said admiringly.
"I did them myself."
"It looks professional."
"Gee thanks," Tami said, blushing over and above the usual flush from the cold. As they looked down she lifted a foot and spread her toes. The plum-colored toenails, graced with crystals of fresh snow, sparkled in the bright morning sun, a strange and beautiful sight.
Professor Congi looked a bit further up. "Did you also color your clitoris?" She remembered what Tami had been like as a sophomore.
"No," Tami laughed, looking down there with the rest of them. She spread her labia with her thumbs. "That's just my lips. See, on cold days she stays inside." The little pink clitoris, lighter in color than the lips or the hair, poked out wetly and tentatively in the cold brightness as the two older women, bundled in their winter clothes and boots, looked appreciatively, Mrs. George leaning on her cane.
"Hi!" Professor said playfully with a little wave.
"Hi hi," Tami said in a high-pitched singsong, with little jerks of her internal muscles making the clit jump up and down twice. The older women got quite a kick out of that.
Yvette, feeling faint, stood up and looked at the blue sky and took a deep breath. After some minor chit-chat the two grown-ups left.
As they were getting Yvette's bag out of the car, her mind returned to the main subject of her curiosity. "And this fourth winter?"
"What?"
"You said how you dealt with going through the first three winters. This is your fourth. How is it?"
"Well," Tami said, standing next to her. "Now -- it's -- fun!!"
She kicked snow up with her toes, pressed it down on the other foot, then all in the same motion with a soccer player's skill kicked the little snowball right into Yvette's face just as she said "fun"!
"Eeeek!" Yvette brushed it away but it was followed by another. She ran behind the car, laughing, and decided retaliation was necessary. When she emerged a big sloppy snowball hit Tami right on her tanned concave tummy. This elicited a left-handed curveball that hit the shoulder of her coat.
The two young women ran around and around the Beetle, Yvette clumping around in her boots, bits of snow flying back from Tami's toes. It was not a fair fight, of course. Tami seemed to be a natural pitcher, and could produce an "eeek!" whenever she hit Yvette's face or neck. Landing snowballs on Tami's naked skin, already used to the cold, did not have the same effect.
The Quebecois girl was flushed and disheveled when Tami brought her into the help center, but was cheerful and smiling which would make her easier for the case manager to work with. "Thank you, thank you, merci," was all Yvette could say as she said goodbye to her naked new friend, hugging her tightly, enjoying the soft feel of the breasts crushed against her coat, and even betraying a sniffle or two, only partly from having been out in the cold.