Chrysalis leaned forward and read the email on her computer screen again while shaking her head and saying under her breath, “Oh, no…” The message was from her best friend of 20 years announcing that she was going to be celebrating her 30^th birthday at a nudist resort and expected her best friends to be there.

Janalee expounded on her latest favorite thing to do – nudism!  She poetically described her all-over tan as ‘my sun-kissed body’.

As Chrys read on she became intrigued with the idea, even though her head was still shaking side-to-side as she considered whether to go to this year’s celebratory event. 

The previous year they had traveled from San Antonio, Texas to Phoenix for a hot air balloon ride over the Arizona desert. She had fond memories of the Champagne breakfast after the flight. Everyone had laughed at her toast to the Captain. ‘May you always get it up and keep it up’. Now, the balloon ride seemed tame compared to walking around in public, naked.

She nervously tapped her pen on the gray metal desk. Maybe she should decline the invitation and make up some sort of excuse. She didn’t want to hurt Janalee’s feelings, so it would have to be a valid reason. Her curiosity compelled her to click on the link to the online brochure but as the picture appeared, she saw naked people playing volleyball in the Florida sun. She lunged forward and covered the screen quickly with her left hand spread open. She scrambled to find the mouse and quickly closed the page on the computer screen.

Now that she had made the decision to get out of going, she resolutely closed the email to answer it later from home. People were nosy, and if anyone looked over her shoulder she would be embarrassed by what they might see.

Her head popped up above her cubicle to look around. Good. No one was wandering about at the moment. She wondered if she could get into trouble viewing inappropriate websites. The dire repercussions flooded her brain. She could be fired from her job, lose her position as assistant to the editor, but worse than that, she felt like a slimy voyeur.

She had never missed a birthday party in the many years they had been friends. How could she miss this one?

The brochure made it sound quite innocent and very nature friendly. It might be something she needed to do once in her life. Chrys was not a prude in any way and as she looked down at her clothed body, she imagined getting an all over tan. She pulled up her skirt to look at her pale legs. She had snagged her panty hose that morning as she got out of her car. Without nylons they looked pale. She pulled her skirt higher to look at her generous thighs as she contemplated the idea of someone else looking at her naked body. She hurriedly pulled her skirt down and bounced up to look around the office cubicles again. She hated prairie dogging, but wondered if anyone had seen her analyzing her body. She clenched her teeth and almost groaned aloud. ‘No, definitely not going to happen,’ she thought as her eyes gazed into the fluorescent tube lights overhead. ‘My less-than-perfect body is going to stay covered, thank you.’

At the end of the workday, she was still thinking of the email as she prepared to leave. Her concentration had suffered and she had not accomplished as much as she had wished. She felt a twinge of guilt as the shrewish office manager approached. She was prepared for a snide remark about her unfinished projects.

Lydia leaned into her cubicle and asked in her nasal Texas twang, “Miss Carey. I have you penciled in on my calendar for your vacation in two weeks. Are you still planning on being gone a full two weeks?” She looked down over her red bifocals in her usual condescending way.

Chrys had always tried to be the perfect employee and considered saying she would cancel her vacation or defer her accrued time off. It could be the excuse she needed to tell Janalee why she couldn’t go. Instead, she firmly, but sweetly said, “Yes, Lydia, I still want the full two weeks.”

Lydia pulled off her glasses and let them hang by the jeweled chain around her neck. “Don’t worry, there are plenty of people that can do your job,” she said as she ruffled the paper in her hand. She turned and walked back toward her office, peering into cubicles as she went.

There was an ongoing battle between the two over vacation time. It irritated her when she was made to feel she was expected to work without ceasing. Just because Lydia had no life outside her job didn’t mean that everyone else should be a dried up old maid. ‘She’s trying to intimidate me,” Chrys thought angrily. ‘Well, that won’t happen!’

Every year she planned her vacation to coincide with the slowest workload in February. She worked overtime whenever Lydia asked. What more did the old bat want? She had to weigh the choices in her mind.

It was important that she and her friends keep up the tradition of being with Janalee for her birthday. Best friends were hard to come by and she had the best in the world. They shared their lives with one another and genuinely liked each other. That was a rare occurrence in this day and age.

She suddenly felt very militantly nudist. Her own reticence in being naked among strangers turned into a statement of sorts for her own personal freedom.

She cleared her desk for the day and fairly stomped to her car. It rarely snowed in San Antonio, but the wind cut through her light wool suit jacket. “Florida sounds pretty good right about now,” she said aloud while fumbling in her purse for her keys. Her compact car was an older model, but functional. The door creaked as she opened it. She brought her bare legs into the car thinking about her torn panty hose. She looked for a place that might have a rough spot. She would have to pay more attention not to tear her next panty hose.

“I can’t believe that woman sometimes,” she said gritting her teeth as she started her car. “She wouldn’t look like such an old biddy if she got a tan.” A picture of Lydia in the nude flashed into Chrys’ mind. She was lying on her side like those old time paintings over the bar in a saloon. She started laughing so hard she could hardly drive out of the parking lot.

This was one time she was glad the expressway was grid locked with traffic. She glanced to the car on the left. A hawk-nosed man wearing heavy black-rimmed glasses was talking on his cell phone. He was probably explaining to his wife why he was going to be late for dinner. She pictured him without his shirt and pants, and then chuckled to herself at the mental images she was conjuring up from her fertile imagination. ‘He would keep his tie on and his wing-tipped shoes. But where would he put his pocket protector full of pens?’

Chrys considered her own wardrobe. Maybe the world would be a better place if there were no prestige labels on clothing. ‘Hmm. That would save a lot of money. My clothes would never wear out. What would life be without clothes?’

She shivered with a chill and turned the car heater higher. ‘This cold weather would be enough to curtail nudity in the winter. But, on the plus side, if people were nude they would be recognized for their wit and intelligence instead of their stylish clothing. How bad could that be?’

The time that it took to get through the heavy traffic around Loop 410 seemed to pass faster than normal as she looked into passing vehicles and envisioned each person naked.

She nodded approvingly at a very attractive man driving a trashed out pickup truck. He couldn’t know that she was using her imaginary x-ray vision. When he noticed her staring, he leered and made a crude hand gesture to suggest what he would like to do to her. Her jaw dropped in shock. She kept her eyes straight ahead and slowed down, hoping he would outdistance her in traffic. ‘He should keep his hands on the wheel!’ she thought disgustedly. ‘He’s probably jacking-off right now. Creep!’

Chrys had now thoroughly talked herself into this latest escapade, at least on a cerebral level. As she walked into her small studio apartment, she started flinging off her clothing. She rebelled against her usual neat-freak behavior. She kicked her shoes across the room and almost hit the lamp.  Her navy wool skirt slithered down her legs and landed in a pile with the pink silk blouse and navy suit jacket. The lacy, pink bikini bottoms and bra landed on top, making a statement of sorts.

The freedom from clothes brought the sweet nostalgia of a more innocent day when she was six years old and her mother told her to put on shorts to play outside. Growing up in the small Texas town on the outskirts of San Antonio, it was every child’s right to play outside in the back yard pool, naked. She remembered that day clearly because she had asked her mother why she had to put on clothes and was told that she was growing up and needed to cover up her private parts. She had never known she had private parts until that day.

Chrys grabbed her dilapidated pink chenille robe from the hook on the bathroom door and shoved her arms in quickly. The frayed robe was her comfort swaddling. ‘Well, enough of that…. I don’t think so…. not for me…I’m not going to display my private parts to the public.’ She picked up her wool suit and hung it in the closet. ‘Maybe Janalee can get away with wearing nothing at all; even after having three children, she has a great body.’

As teenagers in high school, they had spent many sleepovers at the McCoy home. Janalee’s free spirited personality made her the center of attention. She had been the most popular girl and on the cheerleading team. Chrys had been the serious one in the group and their antics had gotten Chrys into trouble many times.

Chrys’ mind flashed back to the time Janalee had talked the entire slumber party into getting naked and running down the road at 12:01 in the morning of her 18^th birthday. She had said it was ‘her birthday girl request’ and they all had to obey. She was the first to become a woman and they were all just girls until they, too, were eighteen. She laughed remembering when Brenda tripped and skidded on her bare bottom. Her good friends helped her wash the gravel off with a hose in the front yard. When Janalee’s Dad came out to see why the water was running at midnight, they had all run screaming back to her basement in embarrassment.

‘Aha!’ Chrys thought with sudden revelation ‘this idea has been forming in her mind for years and now she’s going to do it for real.’ She reached for the telephone. She would call instead of replying to Janalee’s email.

Janalee’s long-suffering, but patient husband, Brad, answered the phone on the other end. “Oh, hi, Chrys, I’ll bet you’re surprised by the ‘birthday suit-birthday party’”, he laughed at his own joke. “I’ll get the wild woman for you, just a sex…. I mean, just a sec, ha, ha, boy am I funny.”

Chrys shook her head wondering if Brad was included in this nude thing. She couldn’t imagine him without clothes. Her eyes rolled, ‘Oh, no, don’t even go there’. They had known each other since college days. Brad was a real brain, but not much brawn. Chrys tried to put the thought out of her over-stimulated mind.

Janalee answered exuberantly, “Well, what do you think, Chrys, darlin’? Have I done it this time? What a great idea, huh? You are coming, aren’t you? It will be a real eye-opening adventure.”

“Well, when I got your email, I immediately said ‘no way’ a thousand times, but I’ve been vacillating since then. I can’t imagine seeing everyone nude that I usually see with clothes on. It might warp me for life.” Chrys argued.

“It is ‘clothing optional’, darlin’, so you could wear whatever seems comfortable to you. But, in the pool area and hot tub, there are no bathing suits allowed. Everyone is very comfortable with nudity. No one will even pay attention to you. Actually, you would be more noticeable with clothes on. Come on Sugar Pea, it will set you free of all your inhibitions. You know what I mean on that one. You need this. Please say you’ll come.”

Janalee’s wheedling voice brought up the memory of gym class in Eighth Grade. The inhibitions that Janalee alluded to came to mind. Chrys had hated the bantering between the girls about whose breasts were developing and whose weren’t. She was one of the girls who had developed early. The mean girls started calling her, ‘goat titties’. It was mortifying.

She also remembered the chubby girls who were cruelly ridiculed. This trip would be a way of getting back at those silly girls who had nothing better to do than make fun of others.

She found herself answering with much trepidation, “Sure, I’ll go. It might be interesting and at least it will be totally different than anything you’ve ever gotten us into. Except that time on your 18^th birthday when you had us running naked in the night.”

Janalee whooped with unrestrained joy, “Woo, hoo, I’m so glad. You won’t be sorry, I promise. It will be just the girls. My hubby has to work and of course, baby-sit the three crumb-crunchers. Brenda thinks she would have more fun without Steve. You know Debbie is between relationships right now. Maybe Bianca has a man, I don’t know. But anyway, we’ll be on the loose for two whole weeks.”

Chrys felt a little sinking feeling as she realized she was committed to going. Janalee would never let her backtrack now. “I guess I’ll get used to the idea. It will be a new adventure.” She reached for a wine glass while she held the phone against her neck with her shoulder. A glass of wine would settle her suddenly nervous anticipation.

Janalee laughed, “I know all about those insecurities of yours. The first time I went to a nude resort, I felt like everyone was staring at me, but after a few hours of sun tanning and sitting in the hot tub, I felt totally free. No one treats you any differently than if you had clothes on. It’s liberating and stress relieving. You’ll see Honey Bear. You’ll love it. I won’t be able to get you to leave.”

“I may live to regret this, but I’m on,” she said as she gulped a mouthful of red wine. She sounded more confident than she felt.

“I know Debbie and Brenda are coming. It’s a little ‘iffy’ on Bianca. I haven’t heard from her in a while. You know how busy she is making a success of her business. But we’ll have a fun time, I promise. Besides, I’m paying for the condo for the two weeks. Where else can you get a deal like that?” Janalee’s excitement was infectious and Chrys began to lose some of her anxiety.

Janalee was like a steamroller when she had an idea. “Be sure to bring tennis shoes. Also, some sexy lingerie,” she added with a sultry voice. “But mostly all you’ll need is a beach towel and robe. And, don’t forget the sun block,” she cautioned, “for those parts that have never seen the sun. If we need something we can shop,” she laughed.  Janalee had shopping down to an art form.

“Wait, wait,” Chrys interrupted, “what is the sexy lingerie for? It will be just the girls, won’t it? I can wear my fuzzy jammies.”

“Yes, but there is a dance on the weekends and some of the women wear something that covers things that jiggle while you wiggle. I’m going to send you all the details, Honey Bun, don’t worry, it’s going to be awesome.”

Chrys laughed as she hung up the phone, ‘Yeah, Janalee, awesome. Scary awesome - gruesome awesome – weird awesome. Hmmmm. I do have a pink negligee I’ve never worn. But not to a dance,’ she grimaced.

As she snuggled down in the welcome comfort of her familiar sofa, all her earlier negative arguments returned. She questioned her sanity in agreeing to the unusual vacation. ‘Okay,’ she commanded herself, ‘get used to the idea’. She slapped her cheek to snap herself out of feeling ambivalent. She stood up and took off her robe. ‘I’m going to spend this next two weeks getting used to walking around nude at home’

She sat down to her computer desk to answer email feeling a sense of resolve. She chuckled to herself, knowing that no one knew that she was sitting at her tiny desk typing in the nude …and sticking to the plastic upholstery. She frowned and got up to bring a bath towel to sit on. ‘This has got to be Nudie Rule Number One,’ she thought. ‘Nude butts stick to plastic.’

Her mother and big sister would think she’d lost her mind. Chrys took a little ornery satisfaction in that thought and started liking the idea more and more. She couldn’t tell them, but she felt a little wicked. She was almost thirty years old and still trying to shock her mother. ‘Okay, so I’ve got a little quirk,’ she smiled.

She emailed Brenda, Debbie and Bianca to get their thoughts about Janalee’s crazy idea. She looked again at the website for the resort, now that she wasn’t worried about someone looking over her shoulder. She visited the website for the Nudist Association and read some of the articles about nude recreation. As she looked over the amenities for Club Au Natural in Florida, she saw many activities that a regular clothed resort would offer. They had a weight room, sauna, pool table, tennis courts, table tennis, sand volleyball and water volleyball. Her comfort level began to rise as she learned more about the nudist lifestyle. Some even called it Naturism. That sounded healthy.

She was glad that Janalee was paying for the condo.  Brad had always pampered her, going along with whatever she wanted. He was always lavishing gifts on her. ‘Why can’t I find someone like Brad?’ She remembered her mother’s words, ‘you can marry a rich man as easily as a poor man.’ The problem in her life was that she never met any rich men that attracted her. All the bad boys were much more fun to conquer.

In the plus column, Chrys had always wanted to go to Florida on vacation and now was her best opportunity. The weather in San Antonio was miserable in February and she looked at the warm temperatures in Florida. It was a lovely prospect.

During the next week, time dragged slowly along at work. The ‘wicked witch’, Lydia, tried to talk her into taking a few less days now, and staggering her vacation, but Chrys was determined not to bend. She needed this break.

Her love life had been slowly drying up. The men she met were dull or wrapped up in their own lives.  She couldn’t get excited about anyone she met. During the past few years she had enjoyed several fleeting affairs, but the men were brainless. The daily grind had been getting her down. “I guess I work too hard,” she told Debbie that night when they spoke on the phone.

“That’s right, Chrys, you’ve got to experience life, not just live on the sidelines.” Debbie said encouragingly. “You research other people’s exciting lives but yours is totally boring.”

Chrys’ smile turned to a frown, “Well, thanks, but I plan on changing my life and my outlook. I’m feeling brave. So. How do you feel about being naked around other people?”

“I hate to think what my Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Fred would look like without clothes. It freaks me out just thinking about it.”

“I know what you mean. I’m not telling my Mom until this is over. She would try to talk me out of it. Besides, at my age, I shouldn’t care what my Mommy says,” Chrys said defiantly.

“Hey, don’t feel bad, I don’t think you ever get over worrying about what your mother thinks. I just wish mine was still alive to tell,” Debbie added wistfully.

Chrys felt instantly contrite, “I’m sorry, Deb, I know you were very close to your Mom. I’d let you share mine, but I think she’s got enough to handle trying to micro-manage my life from afar. That is, if you can consider one state far enough away. I can still hear her voice in my head.”

“No, you’re right, there are some things I wouldn’t have wanted to tell my Mom.”

Debbie made a slurping sound and Chrys said, “What is that you’re eating? It had better not be ice cream,” she said with mock anger. “You’re making me hungry.”

“Yeah, you caught me,” Debbie laughed, “I’m eating a hot-fudge sundae out of stress over this.”

“I feel like eating, too, so I’d better go and do some exercises. Somehow this experience has made me more health conscious. Maybe I can lose twenty pounds in one week,” Chrys said reaching into the refrigerator for a piece of celery. She crunched off a bite loudly to add sound effects. “You look the same as when you graduated from high school, so don’t try to sound so guilty,” Chrys said, thinking of Debbie’s stick-thin figure. With her bright red hair and lack of curves, the group of boys in school that decided which girl was cool called her ‘Matchstick’. After graduation, she had started modeling and was doing well as a catalog model.

Debbie slurped again and Chrys laughed, “That’s all I can take. I need to eat real food or I’ll be tempted to run to the store for some Pistachio Almond Fudge.”