“Finish setting the table and I’ll be back in a sec,” Sophie said. “I have a surprise for you.”
Teddy raised an eyebrow. “A surprise?”
She smiled. “An early Christmas gift.”
“Is this part of the Dirty Santa thing?”
“No. This gift is just for you. My Teddy-Bae. No one is allowed to steal it.” She wiped a smidge of whipped cream from the side of his mouth and sucked her finger clean. “And no more sweets until everyone gets here.”
Teddy looked down at the assortment of cookies, pies, cakes, and candy, all of them looking tempting and decadent. “Why not?” He took another bite out of the pumpkin pie. “I thought you wanted me to be your taste tester.”
“Because,” she said before taking the last piece of pie from his hand. “You’ve been “taste testing” all day. And you don’t need to taste test three slices of pie.” She stuffed the piece of pie into her mouth and smiled while chewing. “These are party treats for our guests. Not your personal buffet.”
Teddy watched her swallow his last piece of pie. “You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile,” he sang.
Something like a laugh and yelp fell out of her throat. “Oh I resent that. If you really feel that way maybe I won’t give you anymore of this sweetness,” she smiled before leaning in and kissing his lips.
She tasted like pumpkin and Big Red gum. “Mmm. Give me another.”
“Seaside crocodile my ass,” she said before giving him another sweet and tender kiss. “Get the table ready and I’ll be back.”
She skipped away to the bedroom and Teddy went back to preparing the kitchen island with the holiday desserts and appetizers, singing “Up on the Housetop, click, click, click,” half-assed, mumbling or making up most of the words. “Something, something, something, with good Saint Nick. Ho, Ho, Ho, who wouldn’t go.”
After he placed the berries and cream next to the snickerdoodles, he took a step back to take in the setting. Food, desserts, Christmas lights, and decorations, and so much green and red and silver and white, deliberately and meticulously arranged from the kitchen to the living room to the hallway by Sophie to scream “MERRY CHRISTMAS! loud and clear. With the scents of the pies, cookies, deviled eggs, cauliflower buffalo wings, meatballs, peppermints, and spices in the air and the burning of the logs in the fireplace, it somehow smelled like Christmas too, what ever that smell was.
“Our house looks like one of those Hallmark Channel Christmas movies,” he chuckled to himself.
Sophie wanted the perfect Christmas party, and to his eye everything looked about as perfect as could be. To his ears, too, as even the music playing throughout the house was carefully curated by her. She finished creating the playlists last night for the party, and was so proud of herself when she went to share it with him. “So we’ve got a Synthwave Christmas playlist that’s two and a half hours, and a lofi Christmas playlist that’s three hours. No repeats, no Mariah ‘All I want for Christmas’, something different and unexpected. I placed each track in a specific order so we’ll get a good mix of traditional Christmas songs and modern Christmas songs. We’ll play the Synthwave playlist as everyone arrives, mingles, and enjoys the food, drinks, and ice breaking games. Then I’ll throw on the lofi playlist when we’re ready to unwind, do Dirty Santa, and just chill out.”
If it was up to Teddy, he would have thrown on the most popular Spotify Christmas playlist- making sure it had Mariah’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ on it – ordered some cookies and cupcakes from a pastry shop, some finger sandwiches from a sandwich shop, and called it a day. But Sophie really wanted to add her own personal touch to everything about this party and make it unique and memorable. He couldn’t be mad at her for it, even if she’d been anal retentive about the entire thing this week. Today she had sent him on four different store runs, the last because he brought home a bag of peppermint candies for her special holiday brownies. “Teddy! I specifically said candy canes three times before you left, and you still brought home these damn peppermints. I can’t use these. The recipe calls for candy canes.”
Gorging on everything she made the last few days had been his just reward, he mused. And looking at the gingerbread men sitting out on the table, he thought he deserved another reward. “Teddy. I’ll know if you sneak any cookies or cakes, so don’t try it!” Sophie yelled from the bedroom. It was scary as hell that she seemed to know what he was thinking. But he also kind of loved how scary it was. Damn that woman knows me.
“You’re a monster, your heart’s an empty hole, you got garlic in your soul,” he yelled back. He heard her laugh as he took a strawberry from the bowl, dipping it in chocolate sauce, and walked out of the kitchen to avoid the temptation of the cookies and cakes. He moved past the shoe rack that he had built that week in preparation for the Ugly Christmas Socks element of the get together, past the 9 foot tall Christmas tree adorned in ornaments and white lights, into the living room and flopped down on the sectional. He assessed the space and again reassured himself that it would be large enough for a get together of 11 guests and 2 hosts.
He couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. Homeowner before he turned 30. And a really nice home as well. The kitchen and nook alone was about the size of the entire living space he and Sophie shared for their first Christmas together three years ago. He bit into the strawberry and played around on his phone before looking at the time. “What’s taking so long?” he yelled out.
“Still wrapping,” she shouted back. “Almost done!”
He wondered what in the hell it could be. He had some smaller items he added to their shared Amazon wish list, like a watch, and a new trimmer. “ It wouldn’t take this long to wrap a trimmer,” he said to himself. And anyway, she said it was a surprise, so it couldn’t have been anything from the wish list.
He must have spent five minutes trying to guess this surprise gift, but when she emerged from the bedroom, he knew he could have spent another 55 minutes guessing and he still wouldn’t have guessed correctly. “Oh, I wanna let him unwrap me, like oh-whoo,” she sang with a cute, playful roll of her shoulders. She was dressed in wrapping paper. WRAPPING PAPER. Christmas wrapping paper, that almost, almost could be passed off as real clothing. The above the knee red and silver mini-skirt was pleated, and the matching tube top had a big white bow sitting right at the cleavage line. “Surprise!”
“I have no idea what’s going on, but I like it,” he said, standing up to take her in.
“I’m giving you a gift, ” she said while strutting up to him, letting him get a good look at her skirt and top from all sides. Teddy was 5 foot 8, and Sophie was usually about eye level with him since her shoes usually had some kind of heel. But with them both in their socks, she had to look up at him.
Her skin smelled different, he noticed, a deep and pleasant citrus and peppery scent, perhaps a new lotion or perfume. But her hair smelled familiar, and the two scents made his heart flutter. “You smell fucking good,” he said, fighting the urge to stick his nose to her skin and inhale.
“Thank you,” she smiled, as he looked her over. They had gotten in the best shape of their lives since moving to Seattle last November, but he was glad her curves were still there in the right places, and she still had that cute baby fat in her cheeks that made her so adorable.
She had been experimenting with wearing beanies so much lately, that it was also nice to see her hair down and uncovered. Over the last three years, she’d sported blue bangs, blue bangs with braided pigtails, blue space buns, and a blue comb over, so seeing her with her long wavy natural brown hair again felt radical. He was growing his wavy hair out as well, which Sophie loved since she said he reminded her of Timothee Chalamet when he let it grow. And she couldn’t help but run her fingers through his hair as he looked at her. “How long did it take you to put this together?” he asked.
“The real question is why is it taking you so long to tear this off.”
“Say less.” Her little outfit almost looked too good to destroy, but he wasn’t about to argue. She pointed her chest to him and he responded by touching his hand to the paper, feeling it, taking one final look at her crafty work, before tearing the paper in half at the center of her bosom.
The paper stuck to her skin for a few moments before falling away, revealing another surprise. Sophia made Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer faces out of her boobs. There were little red cotton balls covering her nipples, and above them were cartoon looking eye and antler stickers to orient the visage. He brought a hand to her right breast and gently rubbed his finger around the eye adhesive stuck to her bare skin. She nudged his hand away with a smirk. “Finish unwrapping the gift first.”
“Fuck, if you insist,” he said. He kept eye contact with her even as he reached down for the paper skirt. He slowly tore down as if he was unzipping pants, but the screeching sound of paper tearing echoed out instead of the low metallic roar of pants and zipper coming undone. Her eyes revealed that this was very much turning her on, which always ignited his own arousal. He only let his eyes fall after the skirt fell off her hips and hit the floor. She was naked below the waist, except for a snowman made of cotton that covered part of her landing strip, but not all of her fine brown hair.
She took a step back and performed a fabulous twirl, showing off a bare milky white ass, before coming face to face with him again. “Now you can touch.”
He went for the snowman first, easing his finger past the cotton until he found her slit, confirming that she didn’t have a stealth g-string or any other undergarment on, and that she was indeed wet. She gasped but kept her grin. “You like your gift?
“Is this a trick question?” he asked, while caressing a breast, and squeezing an ass cheek. “I love whatever it is you’re giving me.” He kissed her cheek. He wanted to throw her on the sofa right then and there. But was there enough time for that? He looked at the clock, and saw it was almost a quarter till. It would have to be the quickest of quickies. “You know they should be here in like 20 minutes.”
“I’m aware,” she sighed. But there was something about the sigh and the look on her face that he couldn’t quite place as she pushed her glasses up. He thought he’d seen every emotion there was to see on her face. But this was new. Was she excited? Frustrated? Horny? High? “Dante and Sydney are early for everything, so they could be here any moment,” she added.
She was right. Dante and Sydney were most likely to show up early. So her sexy gift at the moment confused him. “Don’t you think the host of the party should probably be dressed before the guests arrive?”
“Perhaps the host should be dressed.” She bit her lip. “But what about your Christmas gift?”
He raised an eyebrow at this naked woman in front of him, with her boobs decorated to look like Rudolph, with cotton resembling Frosty hiding her pussy, whose pale skin was starting to flush red. “What about it?”
“Don’t you want to show your gift off to everyone?”
He stared at her for a moment as his mind chewed on the words. But he couldn’t digest them.
“Wait, time out. Back up,” he said, actually taking a step back. “I’m confused. What exactly is going on here?”
“You once told me that being true to myself was the greatest gift I could ever give to myself. You told me nothing made you happier than watching me live authentically. And when I made the choice three years ago to leave everything behind with you, I promised that I would live truthfully, unapologetically, and deliciously.”
Living deliciously was a motif of their relationship, the guiding principle that the foundation of their love was built upon. “Wouldst thou like to see the world? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” were questioned posed to a puritan girl by the devil himself in the horror film The VVitch, a flick Teddy and Sophie caught in the earliest days of their friendship. The questions dug themselves into Sophie’s subconscious, staying with her for weeks until she finally realized that her answer was “yes.” That film either saved or damned her, depending on your worldview.
And her invoking their motif in that moment made the truth even more bare than her body was in front of him. “You want to be naked at this Christmas party.”
“Is that weird?” she asked. “Does it feel out of nowhere?”
“No and no.” Of course this wasn’t out of nowhere. His mind immediately recalled the first time they went to a clothing optional beach when they moved to Southern Cal. It had originally been his idea, just something on the bucket list to check off now that they were seeing the world and living deliciously. They found a secluded enough spot and stripped down together, splashed around in the water, and sunbathed. But whenever he spotted a group of people coming towards him, his dysphoria fully kicked in and he quickly pulled his trunks back on.
But Sophie stayed strong, stayed nude, even as the group of men and women started tossing around a football. One of the guys probably overthrew the ball on purpose because he got to approach the naked girl and ask for it back. Sophie had just smiled, casually picked up the ball, and tossed it back to him. Something caught fire in Sophie that day, and the fire had been growing ever since. “This feels like a natural progression of the last few years.”
A few weeks after that first trip to the nude beach, they found themselves hiking on a trail, when they came across a lake. Emboldened by how much fun she’d had at the nude beach, she again stripped down so she could go skinny dipping. But once she got out of the water, she complained about the possibility of having to walk around in wet clothes. “I think I should just air dry. There’s a lot of shade here so we should just keep walking up the trail where it’s sunnier so I can dry off quicker. I’ll put my clothes on once I’m not so wet.”
He knew even at the time that it was just an excuse she was using to justify her desire to stay naked. But he wasn’t going to object if this was what she wanted. She packed the clothes in her backpack, and the two continued on their hike, him fully clothed, her hair wet, her pale skin dripping with water, fully naked sans her socks and boots. Above five minutes into resuming their walk, they spotted a couple of guys having a water break. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she had whispered under her breath.
“Just act normal,” Teddy had said as they approached the men who had become aware that a naked woman with blue hair and a backpack was approaching them.
“How can I act normal, I’m naked,” she mumbled through a forced smile.
But they kept walking as if they were just enjoying a normal afternoon in the California sun.
“Perfect day for a walk, huh,” one of the men remarked as Teddy and Sophie neared.
“Yup. Can’t beat this kind of weather,” Teddy responded.
“Enjoy,” the other man said once Teddy and Sophie passed them.
“You too,” Sophie said with a smile and wave.
Only when they were out of earshot, but clearly still within eyesight of the men watching her walk away did Sophie say, “I don’t want to look back. Do you think they’re still watching?”
“I mean, you did tell them to enjoy,” he said. “There is a lot of ass back there for them to enjoy.” And the two of them cracked up. They ended up finishing the trail before she put her clothes back on. He remembered being proud and in awe of her. But also very turned on.
“So you’ve been anticipating me wanting to do something like this?” she asked. “You think it was inevitable?”
“Maybe inevitable is putting it too strongly. But you’ve been exploring this side of yourself for a while now.” It went unsaid that their vacation that July to a nude resort in Northern California resulted in her spending most of the trip nude. And that she had posed nude for a figure drawing class two months later. “I think it was only a matter of time before you wanted to…come out.”
“Come out?”
“Yes. To your friends.”
“Come out as what? A nudist? An exhibitionist?” Sophie never liked labels. But it was obvious she’d become a naked-in-front-of-clothed-people enthusiast over the last few years. She particularly liked when Teddy was one of the clothed people, and they went through the motions of doing whatever normal activity was occupying their time, as if her nudity was totally incidental. He wasn’t totally sure what label he’d attach to that behavior either.
“A happy naked girl, I suppose,” he said. “You go into a euphoric state whenever you drop your clothes around people. And even after you put on your clothes, it’s like you ride the high for as long as it’s fresh in your mind. You were glowing for weeks after we came home from the nudie resort this summer.”
For some reason, the comment seemed to make her a bit defensive. “Well it’s not just me that gets something out of it. I recall you being unable to keep your hands off me when we came back. You like when I’m naked around people. You liked when I was sitting bare ass on your lap while we chatted with that couple in the lounge. You liked when we were at the pool and you put sunscreen on my naked ass, thighs, and boobs while those guys watched. You liked me life modeling for those old artists.”
Teddy couldn’t deny any of it. She was right. The nervous, playful energy, and even slight feelings of jealousy was a strange but thrilling emotional concoction that he was fond of whenever he got to see her naked around people. And it did make the sex even better. “But doesn’t this feel different?” he asked. “It’s one thing getting butt naked in front of strangers you’ll never see again. But these are people you actually know.”
Only after he said those words could he finally place the look on her face that he’d never actually seen before. This was stage fright. “I need a drink,” she said out loud, but it wasn’t clear if she was speaking to him or herself.
Either way, they moved to the kitchen island and each took a snowball shot. Neither said a word immediately after consuming the drink, as they caught their breath and let their bellies warm. The silence between them brought his attention to the computerized, groovy retro version of The First Noel playing in the background, one of hundreds of songs Sophie picked through for this party. Teddy looked over all of the appetizers, desserts, fruit, and drinks spread around the kitchen, and all of the lights, mistletoe’s, stockings, and other decorations all around them. “It all makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“How you’ve been acting. I’ve never seen you so pressed about planning something before. Or this possessed by the Christmas spirit. All of the baking, frying, cleaning, decorating, obsessing over making sure everything is perfect. You snapped on me today over some peppermints.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been on the verge of a meltdown all week. I just want everything to go smoothly and for everyone to have a great time.”
“You don’t have to apologize, I get it. This perfect party you planned was really just a distraction to dump your anxieties about showing yourself to everyone. Coming out is always nerve wracking.”
“There you go again with the coming out. ”
“Because that is exactly what it is,” he said. “It’s another coming out for you. Another opportunity to announce ‘Hey everyone, this is me.”
Those opportunities had never gone well for her. She was outed as a teenager the first time she admitted out loud to having queer feelings during a game of truth or dare at a sleepover. Her church leaders held an intervention that opened with the pastor’s wife asking “Sophie, do you like girls?”
They prayed the gay away and a few years later she ended up married to the pastors son. The marriage ended the second time Sophie “came out”, and told them that she was living a lie and couldn’t do it anymore. Teddy thought the things they said to her were unforgivable, and it was clear she still hadn’t fully recovered emotionally from these experiences. “I really don’t know if I can actually go through with this.”
“Do you actually want to go through with it?” Teddy asked. Maybe it was a strange question but he thought it mattered. “There’s a difference between wanting to do something and feeling like you have an impulse to do it.”
“No, I legitimately want to do it. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I want to be naked around everyone that we invited.”
“But in front of eleven people? Guys and girls? Maybe it would be a little easier to start smaller. Did you ever think about just doing something like this in front of a few girlfriends first?”
“I did…but I don’t like the idea of segregating my body by gender. And you’re right, I think the main thing is I just want all of our friends, guys, girls, whatever, to know this thing about me,” she said, but when she used her hands to express herself, she accidentally knocked the red cotton ball off her breast, exposing her erect nipples.
But she kept talking, seemingly not noticing it. “When we got the idea for the Christmas party, the bulb went off. Everyone will be here, at least everyone I want to share this with. So I can get it all over at once. With everyone drinking, laughing, eating, just being festive, it feels like it would go over well. But I’ve been second guessing myself all week.”
“Second guessing it going over well?” he asked, still not ready to point out that her nipple was exposed. He wanted to see how long it would take for her to notice it.
“Basically, yeah. We’ve barely been in Seattle for a year. We’re still learning about our friends. I can’t predict exactly how they’ll react to seeing me like this.” She looked down at herself, and her mouth fell open. “Shit, the nose fell off.”
She covered the nipple with her hand while her eyes darted around the floor looking for Boodolph’s missing nose. He found it before she did and handed it over to her. “Did you know it came off?” she asked while securing it back.
He nodded. “Yep.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me?” she pushed him in the shoulder.
“Nope.” He looked at her two boobs. “That’s probably going to be a problem all night. You might need to glue them on. Or lose them altogether.”
“You think I should?” she asked, looking down. “Lose the Reindeer thing, I mean? I thought maybe dressing my boobs up in a funny way and hiding my pussy behind a snowman might make the nudity easier to swallow for everyone. So that it comes across as naughty, playful and silly but not fully wanton.”
“Ok, I can see that. Playful and silly.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked. “Are you saying it makes me look like a clown?”
“No. I’m just saying I see the angle you’re going for. But if I’m being honest, I’m not sure you need an angle. If you’re going to go for it, then just go for it.” He could see in her body language, specifically her crossing her arms over her breast that the comment hadn’t been as encouraging as it felt in his head. “Do you just want to send everyone a text?”
“And say what?” she asked. “Attention everyone. Sophie will be naked for the party. But you still come wearing your ugly socks. I would hate that. The disclaimer really takes the spontaneous, casual fun out of it for me.”
She didn’t look like she was having any spontaneous, casual fun right now, Teddy thought. She went to pour herself another shot but Teddy grabbed her hand. “Soph, if we’re going to do this, you need to be sober while you host the party. You want to be a happy naked girl with your full wits and charisma, not some sloppy drunk chick that’s slurring her words and falling over.”
“I just want to calm my nerves,” she sighed.
Teddy could see how worried Sophie was, but while it made sense to be, he still felt like she really was overthinking it. The group on the way were all 20 somethings or early 30’s. And none of them were super conservative or uptight about sex or raunch. They all knew edibles were on the menu, and no kids were allowed, so while Sophie hosting naked would certainly be unexpected, he didn’t really see it as grossly inappropriate. But then again, it wasn’t him sitting there naked right now, so his feelings on the matter weren’t as relevant as hers. “So let’s do this,” he said. “Let’s go down the list of everyone we’ve invited and honestly assess if you should be worried about any of them not being ok with this. Least worried, to most worried.”
Teddy could tell she still would have preferred the shot, but she took a deep breath and said “Okay, let’s do it.”
“I’m sure you’ve already told Alanna,” Teddy said, starting with the person he thought was least likely to be bothered by Sophie hosting in the nude.
“I wouldn’t tell her or anyone else before I told you,” Sophie said. This surprised him. Alanna was the closest thing Sophie had to a bestie. They met at Seattle University’s winter quarter orientation in January and had basically been inseparable since. The two women were around the same age and bonded over both being transfer students from way out of state, which let them explore and learn Seattle while also learning about each other. They were together so much that whenever Teddy brought home pizza on Friday nights, he always made sure to bring a Hawaiian since it was Alanna’s favorite, and he could safely assume she was there.
“Well at least you can count on her being cool about this,” Teddy reasoned.
Sophie wrinkled her face. “I don’t have to worry about her being mad about showing off my goods but she might be pissed I didn’t tell her about this. She tells me everything so she might feel some kind of way about me keeping this part of myself from her.”
Teddy tried to imagine Alanna being pissed, but his imagination failed him. She was the most laid back and carefree of everyone on the way over. He never even heard her raise her voice before. She was always giggling about something. This live and let live attitude was why she was pulling in great tips working as a bikini barista to pay for classes. Because who didn’t love a fun-loving college chick with very unnatural red hair, a very natural large chest, and even more natural resting happy face. “Alanna isn’t going to be mad. She’s just going to smile and giggle the whole time. And that’s before she gets one of these brownies.”
Sophie considered his words without retort. “Well what about Connie and Suraj?”
He failed to see an issue with them as well. They were health and fitness nuts that Sophie and Teddy met at a Washington Trail Association event. They showed them the best places to hike, ride bikes, and gave them suggestions for the best spots around the city for organic and vegan food. He’d made two treks to their favorite farmers market earlier that day. “They are forever posting body positivity stuff on IG and Snap. Pretty sure I remember seeing Connie post a photo of her doing a nude yoga pose with a sunset silhouette of her body.”
They were clearly the most adventurous of everyone on the way. They even took Teddy and Sophie tandem skydiving with them back in June. “And didn’t they say something about wanting to ride bikes naked with you in that Solstice Parade next summer?”
“Kind of,” she shrugged. “I asked them if there were any legal places to hike nude, or any naturist outdoor events they knew of. Suraj brought up the parade where everyone paints their bodies and rides their bikes naked. Connie mentioned that she always wanted to go to the parade. I told them maybe we could all go together and participate in the next one and Connie kind of laughed and said she would be down. But I dunno, she hasn’t mentioned it since. She could have just been humoring me.”
“Connie seems like a straight shooter to me. Neither one of them really strikes me as the bullshitting type.”
“Okay sure, but just because they might be cool with naturist events outdoors doesn’t mean they want to be trapped inside a house with a naked girl.”
Sophie was usually a half-glass-full person, but her defense was up right now. “Well if anyone we invited will be perfectly happy to be trapped inside a house with a naked girl, it’s KC. That one is undeniable. If she gets mad at anything, envy will be the reason.”
“What do you mean?”
He didn’t think it really needed to be elaborated on. Karen Corbin, or KC as she preferred to be called, was easily the most showy of their friend group. With a purple and pink buzzed mohawk, tattoos covering every bit of exposed skin below the neck, and piercings in hidden places she never wanted to hide. “I know what that woman’s clit looks like because she randomly decided she wanted to show off her new piercing to me, you, and the uber driver. I got 1 star bombed for that shit, too.”
Sophie must have only then remembered the night they went to a show with KC because she cringed. He didn’t even need to make mention how later on that night, KC dropped her pants to her ankles, squatted, and peed in the parking lot of the club. “She’s not always like that,” Sophie said. “She just was rolling really hard that night.” Teddy was pretty cool with Sophie’s friends. KC was really the only one he didn’t click with. Different personalities, different values. She was the music director at the student run radio station at SU, KXSU 102.1 FM, and had featured one of Sophie’s music playlists live on the air. Now she was introducing Sophie to the local music scene, getting her into all kinds of music genres and artists he’d never even heard of.
Every other week Sophie had a new favorite local band, a new favorite genre. This month, ‘Oh Rose’, and Synthpop. But that wasn’t the issue for him, it was her propensity for trouble that worried him. KC got arrested for disorderly conduct the last time time Teddy hung out with her. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted her here tonight for the party,” Sophie said. “She’s really funny, super smart, and totally chill when she’s not fucked up. And her knowledge about Seattle and music history is insane. I want you to give her another chance, I really think you’d like her in this kind of setting.”
Sophie also wanted KC to tag along with them to Coachella next year, Teddy knew. He didn’t know if his opinion of the girl could change. Not when he had images of her throwing drinks and starting a fight at a seedy club that led to Teddy throwing a punch when some guy tried to grab Sophie and pull her into the mess. That was the last straw for Teddy. But Sophie had never been in a fight in her life, and Teddy could tell she sort of liked the rush of it all. But now he worried every time she went out with KC to a show, or club, stayed out all night, and came home smelling loud as hell when the sun was peeking over the horizon. “We’ll see about that. I just know the only thing that shameless woman is ashamed of is her first name. If anyone can appreciate exhibitionism, it’s her. We just have to worry about her trying to one-up you by dropping her pants to show off her new butthole tattoo or something.”
“She won’t,” Sophie insisted. “I’ll limit her to half a brownie and I promise she’ll be on her best behavior.”
“So who else are you worried about?” Teddy asked.
“Sarah and Joel.”
“Really? Teddy asked. Sarah and Joel were siblings that they played a tabletop RPG with every week.
“Yes, Sarah especially,” Sophie admitted, before realizing the red cotton ball had fallen off her nipple again. She cursed, put it back in place and continued, “I’m legitimately afraid of what she might say…and how she might say it.”
Teddy could at least understand that point. Sarah was very blunt, direct, and honest. Of them all, she would be the one to say the emperor was naked. They met her at a bar downtown the first month they moved to Seattle. She had complimented Sophie’s space bun hairdo while serving their drinks. They tipped her well and Sophie in particular made herself so likable and charming that before the night was over she got invited to one of Sarah’s tabletop games. He tried to imagine Sarah’s reaction to seeing Sophie like this. She’d probably say something like “Nice outfit. I like the snowman. It really brings out the labia.”
Teddy himself found Sarah really fun to be around. Her dry, sarcastic wit and off-beat sense of humor was strangely charismatic, and somehow not pretentious. He usually couldn’t stand tryhard oddballs, but nothing about her seemed forced. She was an unfiltered nerd that didn’t try to be ironic about it, which made her sometimes politically and socially incorrect comments sincere and endearing and not rude or cynical, which wasn’t the norm with sarcastic people. “I think Sarah will just be thrilled to have another story to tell.”
“Gosh you’re right,” Sophie agreed. She knew Sarah told great stories. She could recap her trip to the grocery store and introduce interesting characters she met along the way and make you feel like you were there or should have been there, a trait that made her a great bartender at night, and gamemaster in her free time. “I can already see her telling some guys at the bar about the time she went to a Christmas party with some butt naked chick that kept having Rudolph’s nose fall off her tits.”
“But she’ll tell it with a deadpan delivery and no one will believe her. Cue the Curb theme song.”
A laugh fell out of her mouth. “There will be a sitcom laugh track playing every time this fucking nose falls off tonight,” she giggled, adjusting her boobs. But a thought that must have popped in her head at that exact moment stopped her in mid-laugh. “Fuck, she’ll probably contrive a way to make my character get naked. Like cast some spell that makes her lose her clothes, or that she has to get naked in order to use invisibility, and needs like 100 XP in Arcana and Charisma to break it.”
She gave Teddy a look that communicated how serious of a development this would be, as Sophie dressed in costume to get into character each session. She was so invested in the development of her level 8 warlock spy, that she wanted to personally feel everything that happened to the character. The look Sophie gave all but said if her character needed to get naked in order to be invisible, Sophie herself would get naked in front of everyone to stand in solidarity with her. But Teddy didn’t believe it would ever go there. “Sarah has too much integrity as GM to bring real world stuff into the campaign and troll you like that. She wants her sessions to be safe spaces. If something like that ever happened, it would be because you wanted it to happen.”
Still Teddy couldn’t help but imagine Sophie having to strip her clothes off in front of the five players that made up their campaign, not including Sarah. Week after week, session after session, Sophie completely naked for hours amongst clothed men and women gathered around a table. He knew she had it in her to do it, and that made the imaginary image of her role playing while in the nude seem real. He knew he’d be fantasizing about it going forward. But that didn’t seem relevant now. “You seem more apprehensive about Sarah thinking this is really funny, rather than any worry that she’ll be upset.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said.
“And Joel is secretly in love with you so that’s another who will be down to see you naked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Joel is madly in love with you.”
She seemed legitimately surprised to hear Teddy say this. “Are you sure? Did he tell you that?”
“Sophie, the guy can’t look you in the eye for longer than two seconds without turning away. Pay attention to him tonight, throw him a few looks every now and then. Guarantee something of interest on the wall or floor will suddenly catch his attention.”
“That’s a flawed test,” she said. “I’m naked. I’m sure it’s kind of weird being around a naked girl. Where are you supposed to look? If he can’t give me eye contact, it could just be because he wants to be polite and doesn’t want to be creepy by looking at me too long. Wouldn’t mean he has a crush.”
“Sarah herself said a few months ago that it was not like Joel to so consistently show up to her games. He has his own friends he tabletops with. But ever since you showed up, he’s been showing up religiously to her game. That’s not a coincidence.”
“I dunno. Maybe I just have a poor crush radar but I never noticed anything out of the ordinary with Joel. He’s just a super nice guy.”
“Nice guys won’t make any overt moves when the girl they’re crushing on has their man around,” Teddy said. “They wait around being nice until they break up and he smells blood in the water.”
“Wait, is that why you always come with me?” she asked, her brow raised.
“When have you known me to be possessive like that?” he frowned. “I go because Sarah makes the role playing really fun, even for people like me that aren’t normally into it.”
“You’re right, my bad, I’m overthinking everything again,” she sighed. “Like my thoughts are actually occupied with wondering what Paris is going to think about all of this. It fills me with dread.”
“Paris? No, I like Paris.”
“I like Paris, too. Fuck it, I love her.”
“Pretty sure she loves you too,” Teddy said. They both met Paris at the Seattle International Film Festival that summer. Well it took three days of constantly bumping into her in lines, bathrooms, parking lots, restaurants, screenings, and various other places around the festival before Sophie concluded it was fate for them to actually meet her. They saw her having coffee alone in a diner after a late screening, Sophie said enough was enough, went up to her and said hi. Although Paris was an introvert that was always on guard emotionally, Sophie’s friendliness disarmed her, and the three of them ended up talking about movies until the wee hours of the morning. “I don’t think you have to worry about Paris, Soph.”
“I dunno, Teddy. Paris is so fucking talented and brilliant. Literally the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life.” Teddy thought literally was a bit hyperbolic, as Paris was a recent PhD dropout that quit academia to podcast full time. But on second thought, he recalled the many discussions he’d had with Paris over the months, and realized Sophie was speaking to something far more meaningful than having Doctor before her name. “I really value her opinion of me. She might come here thinking I’m cool but leave thinking I’m a buffoon.”
Sophie was looking down at either the cartoony eyes on her tits or the cotton snowman on her mons pubis as she admitted this fear.
“But what makes Paris so smart isn’t, like, IQ tests or whatever,” he said, though he wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had a genius level IQ. “It’s her emotional intelligence that is off the charts.”
Teddy remembered the time he, Sophie, Paris and a few other friends left the Seattle Queer Film Festival and landed at a dive-like bar. Shortly after getting their drinks, some loudmouth in their vicinity started going on a tirade with her drinking companions about the gender neutral bathrooms, drawing Teddy’s group into the discussion. Teddy wanted to rip the asshole a new one, but the usually reserved Paris ended up spending like ten minutes listening to that woman’s story, acknowledging her experiences and concerns, and calmly attempted to persuade the woman to see where she was coming from. Teddy could not have rolled his eyes harder at the entire exchange, but he kept his mouth on his beer to keep from saying something he would regret. He almost spit out his beer whenever the loudmouth actually apologized and said “I guess I never thought about it that way.”
What was this sorcery? In this polarized world, did people actually say they were wrong anymore? Well this woman did. And all it took was a single conversation with Paris. Paris seemed to thrive on trying to see the other side. Not in the South Park “both sides are equally crap” kind of way, and not as a pushover bleeding heart either. She actually confronted the loudmouth’s arguments. But she was somehow able to dismantle the ideas she expressed while not dehumanizing the woman or making her feel like an idiot. Teddy was ambivalent about the whole thing and when the loudmouth and her party left the bar, he ended up asking Paris “What did you get out of that?”
Paris was tipsy by then, maybe another beer away from drunk. But she gave a contemplative look and said, “I hear my mother’s voice whenever I hear people talk like that. I hear her pain and fear and recognize her confusion. My mom died before we were able to make peace with each other. I guess this is my hopeless attempt to make up for that.”
Teddy eyed Sophie as she sat naked in front of him on the barstool, having grown surprisingly comfortable with seeing her like this. “Paris meets people where they are and connects with them. She’s probably the most empathetic person I’ve ever met.” Maybe even to a fault, he thought but didn’t say. Teddy didn’t have it in him to do the whole “teachable moment” thing for people that wanted to make life harder for someone just wanting to take a shit in peace. And he thought it unfair and sad, not to mention painfully exhausting for Paris to have that kind of patience, emotional endurance and grace. But he still couldn’t help but begrudgingly admire her for the heroic amount of empathy she possessed for people. “I can’t see a person that empathetic seeing a happy naked girl as a buffoon just because she wants to be naked around her friends.”
“I hope you’re right,” Sophie said. “When I think the worst and imagine tonight being a disaster, half of the time it’s Paris that is skeeved at me for throwing my lascivious nakedness at her. The other half, it’s Dante and Sydney being disgusted.”
Dante and Sydney were probably the most “normal” of the group of friends invited, if normality meant a Christian, politically moderate, cishet, married with kids, nuclear family unit; though in some circles, an interracial relationship was transgressive enough to still be considered abnormal. Again illustrating Sophie’s ability to make friends anywhere, Teddy and Sophie met the married couple one Saturday morning at the Seattle Drivers Licensing office. Sydney was very noticeably pregnant, and kept going to the bathroom, and Dante was noticeably irritated by how long it was taking for their ticket number to be called, saying “this is ridiculous, we’ve been here almost two hours.”
Whenever Sydney returned from the bathroom for the third time, Sophie took it upon herself to offer the pregnant woman some sandwiches, fruit, and crackers that she had in her purse. “I once waited four hours at my DMV back home to get my ID. It taught me to pretty much bring breakfast, lunch, and dinner in my purse just in case they decide to hold us hostage.” The couple had laughed, which opened a door for both couples to vent their frustrations, and talk about where they were from. Sophie’s infectious personality took it from there and helped the time fly by. An hour and a half later, the four of them found a cafe to have brunch together.
“Is your worry here that Sydney won’t appreciate having her husband around a naked woman?” Teddy asked.
“I think so, yeah,” Sophie said. She stood up from the table and began to pace. “I mean Sydney has been telling me how excited she is about coming to a not-safe-for-work get together, with no kids around, so she can get out of mommy mode for a night. She says both she and Dante need the stimulation and reminder of what life was like before a nightly schedule of getting up in the middle of the night to change diapers. But that could just mean they want to kick back for a few hours, take a few tokes of grass, and sip some eggnog and booze. Doesn’t mean she wants to see my naked white ass or subject her husband to it.”
Teddy stared at that naked white ass, tried to see it from Dante’s eyes, and couldn’t help admiring its shape, size, and jiggle. It was a nice booty. Would Dante end up comparing Sophie’s body to Sydney’s, who was still shedding her pregnancy weight? He thought about some of the private conversations he’d had with Dante recently, one of which he let slip that it was a struggle to find the time, energy, or mood for intimacy since the baby was born. “We actually had way more sex whenever she was pregnant,” Dante had admitted. He also expressed being very into her body as her breasts and belly swelled. “Her breasts were super sensitive and she was horny all the time. It made for really passionate lovemaking. But now? We’re never on the same page. If she’s in the mood, I’m busy. If I’m in the mood, she’s tired. Sometimes she just ends up passing out on the couch, too exhausted to even get in the bed. It scares me, I’m only thirty one, she’s thirty three, we’re still young, but we’ve already gotten used to going to bed without thinking about sex.”
Teddy stood up and put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from pacing. “Honestly, them being around a naked chick might unexpectedly be just what they need. You said it yourself: they need some stimulation. And I must say, despite the reindeer tits, this whole thing here is plenty stimulating. Your cute ass prancing around, a little weed, and alcohol might be the reason they go home and fuck like they’re nineteen again.”
This brought a smile to Sophie’s face, as she stared up at him. But the smile didn’t last. “Teddy, why are you so good to me? We’ve spent all this time talking about how this affects my relationships with people going forward. But your friends from work are on the way here too. You have to work with them after tonight. And I just threw this on you, as if only my friendships can change forever after tonight. That isn’t fair. Are you not freaking out about how awkward work will be if I don’t run and get dressed right now before Matt and Patrick get here?”
“Nah, I’m not freaking out about them,” he said, shaking his head. But even as he denied any worry about his work friends, he couldn’t help but wonder should he be? Should he not be assessing the risk here? Matt and Patrick were both fellow software engineers in their late 20’s, and the only two friends Teddy felt comfortable enough to personally invite to his home for a Christmas party.
Patrick, a New York native and Harvard grad that didn’t let anyone forget that he was a New York native and Harvard grad, was a mash of two well worn stereotypes. The skinny, glasses-wearing, nerdy, socially awkward programmer, mixed with the skinny jeans-wearing hipster that was a snob about coffee, beer, movies, music, books, food, literally everything except waiting in line for the next Apple product. For his birthday, Teddy got him two dozen Apple logo stickers as a joke gift. “Now everything can be an apple, even this apple,” he said before giving him an apple from the cafeteria with the Apple logo decal stuck to it.
But Teddy still enjoyed his company since Pat was generally good natured, fairly knowledgeable about fun to discuss subjects, and didn’t take himself too seriously despite the trappings of being someone that did. To this day, Patrick still slapped those Apple stickers on random things in his office. “Patrick will be cool about it. Too cool, if anything, He’ll probably act like he doesn’t notice your nudity because noticing it or making a big deal about it is something a pleb would do. Let him tell it, he attended parties hosted by naked people all of the time back in Brooklyn and Cambridge. More sophisticated parties, with better music too, I’m sure.”
Sophie seemed satisfied that he was right about Patrick, but she seemed to be able to sense the conflict that Teddy felt about his other friend. “What about Matt?”
Teddy had judged Matt as a stereotypical frat boy the day he met him. He looked like one for starters. Tall and dark with perfect hair, a hefty beard and crossfit body. He wouldn’t be the ugly friend if he was best buds with Henry Cavill, Chris Evans, and Zac Efron. But he also talked like a frat boy. Constantly starting conversations in the office about football and UFC, beer, and his truck. Calling the guys in the office dudes and bros. Plus he would say “Let’s go!” any time anything remotely excited him. Figured out a bug in the software? “Let’s go!” Swished a crumpled up paper basketball in the trash? “Let’s go!” Remembered it was Taco Tuesday? “Let’s go!”
Teddy wrote Matt off as the type of guy that would have bullied a guy like him in high school. The textbook “alpha male” body that a teenage Teddy might have cut out of a magazine and stuck on his bedroom wall for inspiration when everyone else thought it was a teenage girl’s crush. The ultimate “real man” that Teddy’s father might have said Teddy needed to let “throw a fuck into you to get you out of this tomboy thing.”
The kind of guy Teddy came to hate as an adult, if only because he was the kind of guy Teddy envied and wished he could be. It wasn’t until Matt got a promotion, while Teddy was stuck on a project, and made a snarky comment about Matt being a “dudebro failing upwards” to a colleague that he was called out on his hating.
“Matt, a dudebro?” the colleague spat, incredulous at the suggestion. “I’ve been at Microsoft and Expedia, and Matt is legitimately one of the kindest and smartest people I’ve ever worked with. And kind and smart is not a combination you always get. There’s a lot of people here that think and act like they are big shit. Matt isn’t that guy. If you’re stuck on a project, need fresh eyes, or someone to brainstorm with, Matt is the guy to go to. If you think he’s just some dumb jock that got a spot here through some connection at the top then you should check your own prejudices.”
Teddy wanted to crawl in a hole and die. But he swallowed his pride and went to Matt for help. Matt saved Teddy’s ass, helping him solve a problem he’d been stuck on all day. And to show his appreciation, and perhaps atone for judging a book by its cover, Teddy took Matt out to a bar for drinks after work. They talked for hours, first getting into how they got started in their field of work. Matt took the traditional path laid out for him by his parents before he was even born; high tuition private primary school, high tuition private high school, high tuition private university, prestigious internship, prestigious job. But the journey to Big Tech for Teddy had been much more unconventional. “My first job was at Krogers. I worked there for five years until I hit 21 and realized fuck, I don’t want to work retail for the rest of my life.”
He didn’t tell Matt that the realization came only after he’d reached a major milestone in his personal journey to self actualization and grew a passable beard. The confidence boost he got from the transformation of his body led him to set a new goal towards transforming his career prospects. “One day I just decided to teach myself how to code. Got some books from the library, watched some videos online, and spent about a year learning different programming languages. I saved up some money, did a boot camp, and by 22 I decided to quit Krogers, despite them offering me a pay raise and promotion to stay.”
“Bro, that’s fucking amazing, seriously,” Matt had said. “I was basically pushed into STEM my entire life. I won’t say it came naturally, but it came with a lot of helping hands, pushing me to succeed. I always really admire the self taught programmers I meet. You guys are truly the heart and soul of the tech industry. So what happened, did you come straight here after leaving retail? ”
“No, I worked a bunch of bullshit IT jobs here and there, some of them with low pay. But I needed the experience since I didn’t have a degree. I didn’t really get my first big break until I was 26. I got a contract with this church that wanted me to develop an app and website that could stream and archive services, and allow their members to create profiles, post pictures, like comments, that sort of thing. They were super behind the times, and in my interview, they basically said they were looking for a do-it-all IT guy and asked if I could transfer hundreds of DVDs and VHS tapes to a digital format to be stream able, set up a server, help with video production, and a bunch of other stuff to bring them into the 21st century. The pay was great so I said sure I can do all of that, no problem, and then went home and googled how to do most of that stuff. ”
“Spoken like a true problem solver,” Matt laughed. “Half of our job is knowing how to find solutions on google and reddit. So how did it all work out?”
“They fired me over some bullshit three months into the job,” Teddy admitted with a laugh. “But it was totally worth it in the end because I met my girlfriend Sophie at that church.”
As they knocked down the beers and got to know each other, Teddy truly did have to admit to himself that Matt was a very solid dude. Funny, friendly, thoughtful, and he had political leanings and even some hobbies that Teddy never would have guessed. He felt so bad for misjudging him that he ended up apologizing, and it was the guilt speaking much more than the alcohol. But Matt accepted the apology in stride. “Don’t worry about it bro. We all have biases that we constantly need to confront. Like I misjudged you as a lightweight on the beer but you’ve been out drinking me all night. And if it makes you feel any better, you had me correctly pegged as a frat guy. Lambda Chi Alpha. And let me tell you, the stereotypes about Greek Life are closer to truth than fiction. You’re not a bad person if you don’t tend to like those guys. I didn’t even like myself half the time when I was around the guys.”
The two men started working out at the gym together, with Matt giving Teddy workout pointers and nutrition advice for building muscle. They went fishing in the summer, they watched UFC fights while eating hot wings at sports bars, and that fall Teddy officially became a Seattle Seahawks fan. After one game when the Seahawks beat the 49ers on a field goal as time expired in overtime, Teddy even yelled “Let’s go!” while he and Matt yelled and celebrated. Sophie could only shake her head before saying “My gosh Matt, you’ve turned my man into a total dudebro.”
But what Teddy found most encouraging about his growing friendship with Matt was that he didn’t treat him any differently the day Teddy confided in him that he had an appointment with an endocrinologist. “You ok? Anything serious?” Matt had asked. And before he could talk himself out of it, Teddy explained why he was seeing a hormone specialist, and would have to for the rest of his life. Maybe Matt could already tell and just didn’t care, but that not a single thing changed between them after Matt found out about the transition meant a fuck ton to Teddy.
Teddy was conflicted about Matt seeing Sophie naked because he genuinely valued Matt as a friend. But make no mistake about it, that wasn’t the only reason he felt conflicted. Matt was an attractive bachelor that would probably be in the top 1% of the most right-swiped guys in Seattle. Sometimes he would even show Teddy the kind of drop dead gorgeous girls he was being matched with. “What do you think bro, the slim thick red-head lawyer, or the petite platinum blonde doctor?” he’d ask, while showing photos of the women on his phone.
And more often than not before they even made it out of the bar, some chick would end up approaching him, but he usually politely declined their advances, since he was chilling with the guys. The thought of a guy that turned down more hot women than most guys had ever even spoken to being around his naked girlfriend for an extended amount of time made Teddy feel really strange. He would see Sophie, really see her. The shape of her boobs, color and shape of her areola, her ass, maybe even her pussy if that snowman fell off like the noses kept doing. Sophie wasn’t a model, or physically flawless like some of the girls Matt slept with, but he still couldn’t imagine a hot blooded straight guy seeing Sophie naked, and not getting hot about it. And the feelings that came with that thought had been sitting there in his gut ever since she revealed her intention to spend the evening without clothes. But only now was he being given the space to sort out his feelings. “Do you find Matt attractive?” he asked.
“Yes, I do.”
Sophie didn’t lie to him. And that was one of the reasons he loved and trusted her so much. If she ever did lie, that is when he would know something was wrong. Living deliciously and freely didn’t mean not having any boundaries in their relationship. They were monogamous, even if they had stepped a foot outside the lines to explore. At the nudist resort, a very attractive polyamous couple had taken a liking to them, and the four of them spent some time at the pool. When it got late, the woman asked “Hey, do you guys want to come up and get in the hot tub?”
Teddy threw a look at Sophie, and after she communicated her desire to continue the fun, Teddy said “Sure. Let’s go.”
Sophie was still exploring labels, but Teddy was pretty sure once she felt the time was right, she would call herself pan-sexual. It was the orientation that most described her desires, in his estimation. And with his blessing, Sophie took that opportunity to explore kissing both the man and the woman, while they were naked in the hot tub. But kissing and a little touching was as far as it went before Teddy and Sophie called it a night. Teddy realized that night that he didn’t want to swap partners or watch another man or woman have sex with Sophie. He enjoyed them looking at her while she was naked. He enjoyed little hugs and touches, like a slap on the butt, or a pinch of her nipple. He even enjoyed her giving them little kisses. But PG-13 flirtation was as far as he wanted it to go. And Sophie made it clear to him that she likewise wasn’t interested in sleeping with anyone else. But that was then. This was now. And the question begged to be asked about Matt. “Do you want to fuck him?”
She pondered her answer for a moment, letting her fingers run across her softest parts. “When I’m like this, I think I want you to think I want to fuck him.”
Teddy imagined the later portion of this Christmas Party, once the lofi playlist was on, soft chill music was playing, and everyone was relaxed on the sectional, and at ease, having spent a few hours in the presence of a naked woman. And he imagined Sophie deciding to sit down on Matt’s lap, the two of them sharing a joint. Matt might rest a hand on her thigh, and slowly but surely rub her skin while they passed the weed back and forth, until his hand found her ass cheek. Sophie would probably peak at Teddy, wanting to make sure he was watching them, wanting him to think she wanted to fuck him. And Teddy wouldn’t exactly know how much of it was performance, and how much of it was real lust. And the uncertainty would be scary, if not thrilling to watch. Matt would be eye level with Sophie’s tits, and he’d easily be able to see her areola, since they were larger and rounder than the red cotton on the nipple. And he’d probably get annoyed at being denied her full nipple and say “Take this silly stuff off,” before pulling the eye stickies, antlers, and red cotton ball off her tits, freeing them to be seen fully by anyone desiring to look. And with her tits out, she’d have no excuse to hide her pussy anymore. So Sophie would reach between her thighs and rip the cotton snowman away. He’d look down at her landing strip, and she would instinctively open her legs a little, allowing him to see the wetness inside her.
Matt would have a visible hard-on, as he squeezed and caressed the flesh of her skin. Sophie would notice Matt’s erection, and it would make her even wetter as she sat on his lap. She might even position herself in a way that the massive erection would press against her pussy. But no one else but Teddy would see it, as they would be engaged in laughter and conversation and weed. And Teddy would act like he didn’t notice, and instead lean back and enjoy his high, no worries in the world, just raw emotion as the fire of the fireplace crackled and gave off a majestic glow. Matt would whisper something in Sophie’s ear, and she would giggle, before pulling her knee length red and white socks down her legs, and off her feet. She would wiggle her toes, showing off toenails painted in Christmas colors, and Matt would say “You have really pretty feet.”
And at the end of the night, when everyone was putting on their shoes, Sophie would kiss Matt on the cheek, and Matt would pull Teddy aside, thank him for the great party and say “That Sophie is something else, man. You’re really a lucky guy.”
The fantasy turned him on. He didn’t really understand why. Perhaps a little penis envy, but whatever the case, the arousal was so strong that it was probably clouding his vision, and blocking him from properly assessing what allowing Sophie to be naked around his friends would do to their friendship. But yet and still he said, “You don’t have to worry about Patrick or Matt, Sophie. Honestly, I don’t think you have to worry about anyone tonight.”
That was the list. Each and every person on their way to their home right now, due to arrive at any minute, where Teddy was dressed in open flannel, gray tee, charcoal jeans, and black string of Christmas lights socks, while Sophie was naked, with striped red and white knee length socks. And as far as Teddy was concerned, this would be a safe space for Sophie to share herself. But it wasn’t his assessment that mattered. “Do you feel better?”
“Better? Yes. Is my mind still racing? Yes. Is my stomach settled? No. Am I certain I’m not making a huge mistake? No, not really,” she said. “I might lose some friends tonight, Teddy. No matter how hard I try to make the perfect party, there might be some that just won’t be cool sharing space with some random naked chick.”
“Maybe there are some that wouldn’t be cool with some random naked chick, but you aren’t a random naked chick to them.”
“Barely. Thirteen months ago, I was a total stranger to all of them. Some of them have only known me for like seven months, tops.”
“And think about the impact you’ve had on them in such a short amount of time,” he insisted. “Connie and Surah don’t celebrate Christmas and even told us that they normally wouldn’t be caught dead at a Christmas Party. But of all the things they could be doing on a Saturday night, they are choosing to come to a Christmas Party, because it’s you that asked them to come.”
He moved on down the list.
“You know Alanna’s passwords to every piece of social media she is signed up for. Hell, the girl lists you as her emergency contact at work. She trusts you more than anyone else in her life with the private matters of her life.”
Before she could interject, he kept going.
“KC loved your story about leaving home so much that she got that Black Phillip, Live deliciously tattoo on her under-boob and belly, to permanently live on her skin. Now for the rest of her life when someone takes off her bra and looks at her tits, and asks what the tattoo is for, she’ll tell them about this beautiful girl with a beautiful soul that inspired her.”
He was on a roll, and she knew now to just sit back and listen.
“Sarah has turned down shifts at the bar so she can work with your schedule and keep your campaign going because she knows how much your character means to you. She said it’s the longest campaign she has ever run. And God Bless Joel’s heart, he keeps a detailed wiki of your campaign for posterity, knowing you’re probably the only one in the game that would ever go back to read through it.”
He remembered Sophie being worried about Dante and Sydney more than everyone else except Paris. But like the others, he could not see them throwing their friendship away over something so benign as nudity.
“We spent Thanksgiving last month with Sydney and Dante, with his entire family there. They invited us because they remembered you making the comment about missing large family gatherings. So you and I were the only non-family members they invited to share dinner with, just so you would know you were loved.” Sophie seemed taken back that Teddy was able to recall these moments so easily, but he could also see she was being affected emotionally by what these memories, gestures, and moments meant to her.
One stood out above the rest. It happened a few months ago when Teddy, Sophie, Paris, Alanna, and a few of Alanna’s friends had gone out to lunch. After the newcomers were introduced to the rest of the group,and the drink, appetizer, and entre orders were placed, Paris politely excused herself from the table, and walked away with tears clearly filling her eyes. Sophie went after her, while everyone else at the table looked around at each other in confusion, all asking “what just happened?”
Sophie and Paris were gone long enough for their appetizers to arrive, so Teddy had to go looking for them. He found the two of them outside the restaurant, sitting on a bench talking, Paris wiping her red eyes, Sophie comforting her. The two women eventually rejoined the party, but neither of them offered anything about what had happened, just that Paris had to have a moment to herself, but everything was ok now. When they left the restaurant, Teddy asked Sophie about the breakdown, but she wouldn’t tell him. He asked again later that day while watching TV, and again that night in bed as they lay naked together after making love, but each time Sophie refused, saying that Paris had told her something in confidence, and she wouldn’t betray her. “Paris has confided in you and I’m sure it’s the only thing in the world you’ve ever kept from me. And I think it’s fucking awesome. She trusts you and you’ve proven to be trustworthy. No matter how many times I’ve asked, you’ve protected her secrets.”
Teddy grabbed her hand. “Sophie, these people have made room for you in their hearts, in their homes, on their skin, in their lives. And they aren’t thinking about trying to let you go. You’re a gift to all of us. And I truly believe you’re going to be embraced for being who you are.”
“And if they don’t?” she asked, staring hard into his eyes. “If they are like, this is weird, I didn’t sign up for this, You’re canceled.”
“Honestly Soph, sometimes friendships fall apart. That’s life. There is no threat modeling to preserve relationships that aren’t meant to last. Even if you got dressed right now, had the perfect party, with no drama, no one offended at your naked body. What about tomorrow? What stops Paris from finding out you like Gremlins 2 more than the Godfather 2 and canceling you right then and there? Maybe Alanna meets some chick on Monday that likes pineapple pizza just as much as she does and that becomes her new bestie. Or maybe she finally gets a boyfriend and her free time vanishes. Maybe Sarah will fall in love with Patrick tonight, they peace out to New York, and you lose touch with her forever.”
“You can’t predict what’s going to happen or be crippled by fear of losing them. We cross paths with people while we’re all on our individual journeys, and the value in the relationships exist in the moment that they’re with us. They matter, even if they won’t last forever. And if anyone tonight decides that they’d rather not be friends with someone as amazing as you, more power to them, go with god, it will be their loss. I promise there will be many others that’ll be plenty happy to be friends with a happy naked girl.”
Teddy wiped a tear from Sophie’s eye before it had the chance to fall down her cheek, and she kissed his lips and hugged him. She clung to him as if she needed his warmth. When they broke their embrace, they realized the noses from both nipples had fallen off again. He helped secure them back this time, before she looked at the clock. He followed her eyes, seeing that it was almost five minutes till. But before he could make a comment about her being ready, she started moving her shoulders to the music that was playing. “Dance with me,” she said.
“Now?”
“I need to pour all of this adrenaline, emotion, and nervous energy into something,” she said, continuing to groove. “Since you won’t let me have another drink…and since I know I can’t fuck you right now, I need something almost as satisfying to distract me until they get here.”
She moved away from the bar stools and into the living room, sensually moving her arms, swaying her hips, smiling at him with glassy green eyes, saying come hither with her fingers. She was so irresistible. Dangerously irresistible, and had been so since the first time he shook her hand, the one with the wedding ring on it, four years ago. She’d introduced herself as Sophia Ellis, the administrative assistant for the church, who was being tasked with answering any questions he had, showing him around the church, and providing him with media files and any other resources he needed to get to work on the project. When she learned that he had just moved to the town for the job opportunity, she perked up. “If you don’t have anything planned, we can grab some lunch and I can show you around.”
He wanted to say no, the last thing he wanted to do was spend a day with some holy roller, born again chick. But there was something about those sincere green eyes that he couldn’t say no to. She took him to get the best bar-b-que and ice cream in town, then stopped by a furniture store owned by a member of the church that gave him a discount on a sofa and bed for his new apartment, and even bought him a scented candle for a housewarming gift. Teddy had wanted to ask her how old she was when they first got to talking, but you weren’t supposed to ask a woman that, right? His patience paid off as she eventually let slip that the access code password to the gate was her graduation year. This meant she had to be 3 or 4 years younger than him. And already married? Later on, as she drove him to his apartment and he looked at the ring on her finger, he asked “How long have you been married?”
She looked down at her ring, at him, and then back at the road before answering, “Three years.” But the way she said it made it clear that answering the question was painful. There was a profound sadness to the way she answered, the look on her face, the speed at which she changed the subject to bring a semblance of joy back to her face.
And as they worked together over the next few months, he continued to notice that this woman was unhappy despite the smile and chipper attitude she offered to the contrary. She put on an “I’m okay” face that was convincing enough for her congregation, but not to him. Particularly when he’d ask the grownup version of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and it was clear church administrative assistant and part time Sunday School teacher wasn’t what she wanted out of her life.
One day while they had lunch together at a burger joint a few minutes away from the church, she made mention about wanting to go to college before she got too old. When he asked, “Well, what’s stopping you from going now? You’re not getting any younger…” She got defensive, gave an unconvincing answer about being too busy with her duties at the church, and made up a reason to cut their lunch short, so she could head back to the office at church and handle something important.
He wouldn’t learn the root of her sadness until his contract with the church was terminated three months later, after his “deceit” was unearthed. The night he was fired, Sophie called him in tears, and kept apologizing even though she had no power to stop it. But she seemed to partially blame herself. “My husband found out I was taking birth control. That is what started all of this. He somehow gained access to my passwords and started monitoring my phone calls, texts, and social media, I guess to see what else I was hiding. And I guess he started to believe I was having an affair with you. So he started digging for dirt on you that could be fireable under the “morality clause” you signed, and somehow he found out about…your old name. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t even believe him until he showed me proof. Old pictures of you that he found. I’m still kind of in shock. And I’m just furious that he did this to you.”
It all came out that night while she shed tears of anger. The youth trip the summer after she graduated from high school, where she lost her virginity to the youth pastor that was supposed to be her mentor; the resulting pregnancy, the panic from the youth pastor, who happened to be the son of the pastor, the haste to which her parents and his parents arranged for Sophie and the youth pastor to marry each other to avoid scandal. The insistence from her mom, dad, and pastor that the only choice she had available to her was marriage and giving birth to the blessing from God inside her, even though she wasn’t ready to be anyone’s wife or mother. And what about college? “College can wait,” the pastor had said. “What’s important here is making sure this baby is born in wedlock. You made the decision to fornicate. Now you have to take responsibility, listen to God and do what you know is right.”
So Sophie married the 27-year-old youth pastor a month after her 19th birthday, and miscarried three months later on Thanksgiving day after eating a plate of ham, dressing, and macaroni and cheese. All foods she can no longer stomach to smell, let alone eat. “And the crazy thing is I’ve been faithful to him our entire marriage. Yet here we are. I’m going to resign in protest because this is just a vendetta against you,” Sophie had said over the phone after she confessed to Teddy about her loveless marriage. “And I’ll expose all of them if I have to. I don’t think it’s even legal for them to fire you over this. Isn’t it sex discrimination or something?”
“Sophie, no,” Teddy had said. “You have your own life to live, don’t derail it over some guy you met a few months ago. I’m used to this kind of bullshit. And I’m not even going to fight it. I got my deposit back, and the landlord is letting me out of the lease in exchange for letting him keep the furniture. So I’m packing up my shit tonight and moving on.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe NYC. Chicago. Austin, San Francisco. I’ll flip a coin and let fate decide if I have to. I’m just done with this shithole.”
There was a pause over the phone before Sophie spoke again. “Can I see you tonight? Before you go?”
He told her no. She asked again. He told her no again. She all but begged him. “Please Teddy, I wouldn’t be able to live with how this turned out if you left without me being able to see you in person first. I just want to give you an apology, and a hug, and I’ll be on my way.”
Teddy gave in. They met that night in his apartment, where his bags were packed, and he was ready to move on with his life. She apologized like she said she would. And she hugged him tight like she said she would. But she didn’t let go, couldn’t let go. She clung to him as if she needed his warmth. “They are going to know you’re here,” he’d told her.
“I don’t care,” she’d responded.
And in his bed that night, they made her husband’s wrongheaded fears of an affair an actual reality. After making love for the first time, they lay in bed winded, satisfied, wrapped in each others naked bodies. And she ran her fingers across the faint surgical scars below his nipples and followed that up with kisses to his chest, before caressing and kissing the arm and shoulder tattoos he hid from the church by always wearing long sleeves or a coat. And she looked at him in the dark and whispered, “That was my first real orgasm.” And after she fully regained her strength, she climbed on top of him, leaned forward to kiss him, and with her tits hanging in his face, and her sincere green eyes glowing even in the dark, she said “I want to leave with you.”
That was three and a half years ago, when Teddy left the bible belt behind, and Sophie left her wedding ring behind, and together they drove in a car across America to an uncertain future, decided by a coin flip. The only promise they made to each other was that they would “live deliciously and see the world.” Four years ago, she was teaching Sunday school. Now look at her. Dancing naked to this dreamy Christmas music.
A new song had started to play on the speakers. It had a very retro feeling, starting off with jingle bells before picking up the tempo. He caught the rhythm and stepped closer to her on their living room hardwood turned dance floor. He pressed his body against hers, and with her eyes focused on his, her naked body moving sensually to the drums and synths, the words came through and hit him hard. “Stand back my love, there’s something I’ve been thinking of. I don’t want you to fade away.”
Something about the words, the 80’s inspired beat and atmosphere, or perhaps the fact that he’d just been reminiscing about how they first met, something about it made him feel very nostalgic. What was he feeling nostalgic about exactly? He couldn’t tell at first. But when he noticed Sophie’s naked shadow dancing on the wall, made possible from the dimmed lighting, and glow from the fireplace, he realized he was feeling nostalgic for…Sophie. “This Christmas, I’ll be missing you. Twelve days of heartbreak, don’t know if I’ll make it through.”
It was illogical, longing for someone dancing naked right there in front of him. But somehow he felt the heartache of her not being there. It was almost as if he was having an out of body, out of time experience watching her dance nude to this music. Like he was experiencing emotions from the future. A terrible heartbreak five years early. Feelings from when Sophie was long gone, and he was holding on to memories, clutching hopelessly to the past when she needed him, and he couldn’t help but miss the moments that were actually happening in the present, right now. “Only photo frames remain. I’d be lying to say, I didn’t feel no pain.”
The feelings brought him back to the day Sophie told her husband the truth about everything, the morning after she spent the night with Teddy. “I feel like I was forced to marry you so I didn’t embarrass you, your parents, and the church. I feel like I was forced into a risky pregnancy that wrecked my body and spiraled me into depression. I started taking BC behind your back because I resented being forced into this marriage, into motherhood. And it was the only agency I had, to at least get to choose when I’m ready to conceive and potentially go through that much pain again. I don’t hate you. But I also don’t love you. And I don’t believe you love me. So why waste the only life we get being unhappy with someone we don’t love? Teddy helped me to realize how unhappy I am. How trapped and repressed I feel. And I can’t live like this any longer.”
She was verbally eviscerated by her family and church community after they heard what she’d done and said to her husband. They called her everything but a child of God, and the vitriol that came from her loved ones made her so physically ill, she couldn’t even speak to them. Teddy knew the pain all too well. The last time he talked to his father, the man had said “You’re dead to me.”
So Teddy took it upon himself to go to her husband’s home to get some of her most cherished belongings, which included a necklace her grandmother had given her before she died. But when he got there, her father in law, mother in law, brother, mom, and dad were all there, supposedly to comfort the poor blameless husband that had been blindsided. “Where’s Sophia?” the first lady of the church had asked. “Too ashamed to show her face after what she did to my son?”
“Please just give me the things Sophie wants out of her room and I’ll be out of your way,” Teddy told them.
But they weren’t going to make it that easy. They wanted this encounter with him to hurt. It was the price to pay for falling in love with the youth pastor’s wife. “I hope you know this is just a phase for Sophia,” her father said. “She’s always had a rebellious spirit. Always been a follower, easily influenced by the devils on her shoulder. She just needed someone like you to get in her ear and tell her what she wanted to hear. That up is down and hot is cold and girls are boys. But you haven’t won anything, miss. When she grows tired and disenchanted with this exciting lie you’ve introduced her to, she’ll dispose of you and return home where she knows the truth is.”
Teddy had promised himself he wouldn’t take any bait, but stupidly, he let himself get drawn into a 6-on-1 argument with these people, defending himself and Sophie’s decision by appealing to love. The kind of unconditional love that their holy book said was key to being a good person.
Sophie’s husband broke his silence once love was introduced to the equation. “See how much unconditional love you have for her when she uses you up and throws you away once she gets bored.”
Then Sophie’s mother in law added her two cents. “Sophia doesn’t love you. She’s using you as a cudgel to crush my son’s spirit and humiliate him.”
Sophie’s father-in-law and pastor followed that up by saying, “You can’t love someone that you met through deceit. You lied to her just as you lied to us about who you are. She was just as shocked as we all were when we showed her who you really are. She may be confused by it all right now, but love can’t come from deception.”
Her brother jumped at the moment to chime in on the topic as well. “Honestly, Theresa, if you’re mutilating your body and changing your name, then how can you say you love anyone when you clearly don’t even love yourself.”
Her mothers voice wasn’t as aggressive as the men, in fact she spoke with tears in her eyes, but the words she spoke were no less of an assault. “This isn’t about love, not for you or Sophia. How can she truly ever say she loves or even respects you if you would take her away from her family? How can you say you really love her if you’d let her break her mothers heart?”
Teddy never told Sophie exactly what her family said to him that day. But years later, he could still hear their voices, their words, whispering to his subconscious. He tried to drown them out as Sophie smiled at him before she closed her eyes, turned her back to him, and really began to let loose and feel the music as if she could feel the vibrations in the air washing over her. “All I want, for Christmas this year, Is to hear you whisper in my ear.”
As she spun around with her eyes closed, he watched one of the red cotton balls slip off her nipple again. But she didn’t care, she was lost in the music. As Sophie made love to the music, Teddy couldn’t help but continue envisioning the end. What if Sophie really was due to grow out of this? Every day was a new discovery for her, new things to taste, new desires to indulge, old desires to discard. The only promises or commitments she was willing to make was to the ongoing journey of self discovery. That meant one day wanting to have Lasik to fix her vision because “glasses make my eyes look comically huge, like I’m a half blind librarian. I hate it,” and the next day, wearing contacts and saying “I hate how I look without glasses. The frames fit my face perfectly and give me character. My face looks weirdly plain without them.”
It meant going to the tattoo parlor sure she was going to finally get inked, but then leaving without getting inked because “I can’t decide what I want on my body forever.”
It meant going to school for several semesters at two different colleges, and still not having any idea what she wanted to major in. One day, so certain it’s going to be Film Studies because she wants to make movies, and the next day Chemistry because she wants to work in a lab, then French because “it’s the most beautiful language I’ve ever heard. Maybe I could teach it or be a translator.”
Teddy supported Sophie in her journey to self actualization. She was 26, but was getting a late start on being allowed to find herself and figure out what she wanted out of life, so he wanted to give her the space, love, and encouragement to do just that. As she reminded him tonight, he told her before she made the decision to divorce her husband that “being true to yourself is the greatest gift you could ever give yourself.” And it truly did make him happy every time she discovered something new and exciting about herself, or went in an unpredictable direction.
“Just lay your love down tonight,” the words said, as Teddy continued to question it all. What if her family was right? What if everything about this was just a phase, just as the blue hair had been? What if he was right when he told her five minutes ago that the value of relationships were how they felt in the moment, not that they would last? But instead of her friends, what if Teddy and Sophie’s relationship was the one destined to burn out? What if this very party had the next person she would fall in love with? Joel, or Alanna, or KC, or Suraj, or Paris, or even Matt? And what if he was just handing her naked body over to them, helping to write the prelude to their love story? What if he was failing her by letting her make self-sabotaging decisions under the guise of self discovery? What if he was putting the fantasy of seeing her naked in front of their friends, over what was actually best for her? And what if this was just confirmation of what her mother had said about them loving each other? “Together we can make it right.”
Sophie once chastised Teddy for feeling guilt about letting her leave her family for him. But the guilt was still there. Perhaps that was why he wanted her to make a lot of friends, and develop something of a surrogate family. Someone she could truly be herself around, and never have to worry about them calling her demonic possessed, or a complete disappointment, or someone that “maybe lost the baby because you weren’t happy enough for it,” as choice members of her family had said before she left.
When the “This Christmas, I’ll be missing you!” refrain of the song ended, the electric guitar bridge of the song began. And this exciting, climatic piece of music gave Sophie a new wind, a new purpose, a new unpredictable direction. She ripped off the remaining red cotton ball from her nipple, and followed that up by snatching away the cotton ball snowman fixed to her vagina, dropping both to the floor without breaking rhythm. Her eyes remained closed as she peeled away the cartoon eyes stuck to her breast and threw them away from her. She bent down, removed the striped red and white knee-length sock from her left leg, and did the same with the right, before tossing them aside.
She was fully naked and barefoot now, with no coverings or silly gimmicks to hide behind. The gift was fully unwrapped now. And there was a noticeable difference to the energy of her movement, as if her body was going through catharsis as it responded to the screams of the guitar. Her tits bounced, her booty jiggled, and her smile deepened as she writhed and bounced and swayed, enjoying freedom; free from loveless marriage, free from neverending judgment, free to enjoy her body, and desires in a home decorated and arranged to express her burgeoning personality. “This Christmas, I’ll be missing you.”
She looked so lost in herself, the way someone might dance if they were alone in their room, not giving a single fuck how she must have looked to an outside observer, that he briefly wondered if she had somehow forgotten that he was right there. Her movements looked euphoric, sexy, self-indulgent, and delicious, almost as if she was masturbating via dance. And if he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that she was on the verge of having an orgasm. “Twelve days of heartbreak, Don’t know if I’ll make it through.”
Maybe it took seeing Sophie so alive and satisfied to break the spell of despair that had taken hold of him. In a moment, a group of people would be here to see her like this. People he had boiled down to being care free, adventurous, showy, charismatic, empathetic, and normal. He could see now that each of these people were helping Sophie round out her own personality and develop her unique identity, with parts of them becoming parts of her. And this was a good thing, he decided then and there. It couldn’t just be him. She needed all of them to find out who she was meant to be. “The snow falls down when you come around, I don’t think you ever knew.”
Suddenly the weight of the words and music and nostalgia didn’t feel so heavy. The music didn’t fill him with dread or despair or conjure up feelings of loss or guilt. If anything, he felt humbled and full of gratitude, as he moved with this naked dancing girl, lost in her own happiness, relishing all of the overwhelming feelings that came with sharing her nakedness. He knew it might not last forever. But Sophie was here with Teddy, right now, on a journey of self discovery. And even if this fire from her would one day burn out, even if there would one day be regrets from him, or her, or both of them, and even if this was just a moment in time that he’d one day look back on and miss with a broken heart, he was going to cherish the gift she had chosen to share with him tonight. “This Christmas, I’ll be missing you!”
When the doorbell rang, Sophie’s eyes popped wide. She looked at the door, and then at Teddy, and then at the door again. “They’re here. This is it,” she whispered.
“Do you want to see who it is first?” Teddy asked, looking at his phone with the Ring app that would tell them who was at the door.
But Sophie shook her head no. He figured she would have thought of that as cheating. And she didn’t want to cheat herself of any surprises. She grabbed his hand, and they let their fingers intertwine, before she took a deep breath, and stepped towards the door.
When they reached the door she turned to him. He thought he might again see stage fright in her eyes, but instead, Sophie looked humbled and full of gratitude for the gift they’d unwrapped together. And with that emotion on her face, she instinctively touched her grandmother’s necklace sitting above her bare breast near her heart and said, “I love you Teddy.”
He received her love with a devilish smile. “Time to live deliciously,” he said before turning the doorknob and pulling the front door open.
I’m so excited to see this story Kinsey! I’ll comment here as I read along. Plus I added you to the voting.
I really really want these playlists.
Way better than saying there was a glint in her eye. Nice direct sentence.
I would like to complain, that my wife – NEVER DOES THIS. And ‘He went for the snowman first’ is an awesome opener to this paragraph!
Great reaction. And I liked how she made it real by invoking their motif.
Again, my wife never says this! I really enjoyed the memory of the hike.
And now it’s getting real. So well written.
I like the little details like this as they apprehensively chat about her coming out to the friends. The anxiety is pulling the reader in deliciously.
The progressive descriptions of friends as they angst over how they will react, was very well done. So many excellent descriptions. A great way to milk the tension.
I’m loving the dialog. I should have added a best dialog award. And I wish I could goto Sarah’s bar and attend her game with her being the gamemaster as I haven’t had fun like that in years. I mean, even without a naked Sophie attending!
Yeah right. I have my doubts. lol… Still enjoying the amazing descriptions of their friends. From now on, I’m going to have to study this chapter when I want to introduce a new character.
Best backstory ever. Sophie and Teddy are fascinating people. I really like them. And it’s cool when they have self doubts and I love seeing Sophie through Teddy’s eyes.
Thank you Kinsey! This it was an extra delicious dialog story treat. Seriously. You nailed it with splendour and icing and cotton and reindeer noses. I feel so close to them now. Amazing how you can do that. I wish I was part of their very real lives. Suddenly I feel the need to have another dialog contest next Christmas!
Nice story. Be great to follow up with the party.
That’s an amazing story! On a superficial level, not much is happening (apart Sophie getting naked in front of her partner, of course), just a couple talking about some guests they expect to attend their party. But what a conversation it is! Just through the conversation, these characters really come to live. I have the feeling I know them now. I wonder if they are all imaginary characters, or based on real life ones. They feel so real. But the character I liked most was Sophie. She is just – for the lack of a better word – adorable. And together, Sophie and Teddy are just fascinating.
“Best backstory ever”, as ReaderMan said. I completely agree.
But what I liked most was the scene when Teddy imagined the future, when they are no longer together. Experiencing emotions from the future. I have to admit, here I had to fight back tears. And that’s very rare to happen. What else can I say about the story?
The only problem with this story is that I have voted already, before you posted it for the story contest. So now I can’t vote for it anymore. It would have been a very strong contender for first place.
(I am very sorry that I never commented on your first story, because it is also great. I think this was right after the board started and I was for some reasons too reluctant/shy to voice my opinion.)
A gift to unwrap, thank you Kinsey!
I’m enjoying this story, but I’m less than a fifth into it. I love the wrapping paper, as well as the gift she wants to give everyone.
Such an intricate picture you’ve painted for us. No, not a picture. This is all real, with all the detail you’ve put into everything, all the characters. We’re not just with Teddy and Sophie as they wait for the guests to arrive, we get to know them, and their friends. Their fears, their fantasies, their pain, their happiness.
Even though the story ends as the first guest arrives, you managed to give us a very good idea of how the party will be going. So in the end I’m not disappointed we don’t get to see the party, because we already did.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
I am in awe. All of those characters, so real, so present. Truly wonderful.
Hi Kinsey,
this is a nice one-act on the stage with only two participants, but they discuss their friends in such a colorful way that they become alive, even when they are not physically in the story. The fact that these new friends are all coming to their party – thus skipping long established Xmas routines for some – gives testimony for the character of Sophie. Her bubbling (in lack of a better word), contagious personality finds free-thinkers virtually anywhere.
Even with the deliberately vague gender identity of Teddy, for the story it really doesn’t matter and for them and their friends it’s just as casual as it can be. She is really a free spirit that we’d love to have around.
This story also begs to be continued.. Thank you for this wonderful story.
(I do love the self-correct on English words while creating a comment, saves me many embarrassing typos)
Barometer
Hi KinseyBay,
At the beginning, passing the Title, I was just expecting a light short story about Sophie’s nudity.
Then, I discovered a large panel of various characters and a very complex story about Sophie and Teddy’s lives.
After a lightly long beginning, You stuck me until the end.I’m totally stunned about what I just read.
Thank you for this great story.
Just one remark, I counted 13 persons to be expected at the party. Is it just a coincidence, should I be superstitious about that or Did you think of something else (I’m a little afraid about how Sophie’s could react)?
Helen.
I need to apologize. I was under the serious influence of a thick hazy covid brain fog when I first quickly read this and made that first comment. This morning however, I am finally going back to work and a little clearer minded but while I was still laying in bed, I was trying to figure out questions in my mind like the meaning of the stories title, the design of the story, and why someone questioned Teddy’s gender. So I opened up the computer and skimmed through it again. I was shocked. In my first reading, so many things flew over my head it’s simply mind boggling. I will read this again, properly, and post a comment within a day or two. I’m so embarrassed. It’s an amazing story, powerful, and deserves a comment that is worthy of the writing.
Unwrapping Sophie, is what I initially thought this story might be about. This is my second read-through and I’m noticing all kinds of little things.
Teddy is lucky to have Sophie.
Still, I think this is a worthwhile endeavour. To take chances once in a while.
I don’t like that these opportunities had never gone well for her.
I like this writing technique here. Shove in some great backstory and zip back to the present with a snippet of dialog at the end. I totally gotta use that. Instant depth! This conversation here, I like that she has made up her mind to come out, no matter what happens. Bravery tends to be admired.
I can imagine how that can be a gamble.
I like Teddy’s strait-forward nature.
Amazing dialog. You can just imagine the body language. (Above and Below)
I’m enjoying the run down of the friends. This paragraph however, caught my eye. Characterizations galore, and a nice transition into a question. So far very lively bunch, I really like Alanna.
I shall call this technique, bombshell character descriptions. You don’t mess around with a character description like this. You want to introduce someone BOOM. There it is. I’m so inspired with both impact and realism.
Teddy is not a Fan of KC. And that’s made clear. So it’s a nice bit of conflict to see as Sophie tries to butter Teddy up.
This kind of setting? With Sophie naked? lol
I’ll continue this comment in another post (one per day). Like the story, we are still just getting warmed up.
Hi Kinsey,
I feel I don’t know you, and yet I very much would like to. You and I must have a lot in common. Maybe not superficially — the things that someone would notice if we were standing side by side. But on a deeper level — down inside. And yet even there, we might be almost completely different. And yet we seem to be drawn to the same things — or thing — writing. And because it is important to me and seems to be important to you, I’d say we have a lot in common.
In another life (an earlier life) before the birth of this storyboard, I was reading your Jennifer Lawrence story. I was enjoying it, quite a bit actually. But at that time, I was writing and posting my own story, so I only had half a brain (less) for reading what others were posting. As I recall, you had quite a following, and I was part of that, a non-vocal part (I probably commented a time or two, I really don’t recall).
Fast forward to today, and I am beholden to you — deeply. For I love this site and what you have done to hold our small community together. You are the glue and I’m one of the biggest beneficiaries (the glue-ees), for this site gives me the opportunity to indulge in something I’ve grown to love: writing and sharing the fruits of my labor with a receptive audience. I thank you, most sincerely (that should probably be all caps, and yet that’s not my style).
And with that wordy intro, I’ll jump straight to my thoughts on this, your latest piece of fiction: Unwrapping the Gift. As I read, I would jot down ideas as to how I might begin my comment. Oddly enough, as I moved though this thought-provoking work, I found myself thinking of things to append before (prepend?) what I had already thought of. What stands above — a perfect example.
Initially, I was thinking this story might have a lot to do with how Sophie came out in gift wrap, allowing Teddy to tear it off. Idea after idea was prepended to that such that that one fell off the bottom. It happened, and it was a fun scene; however, it didn’t turn out to have much bearing on the ultimate direction your narrative took. And, it was a superficial element.
Okay, this is how I want to begin. I’m not going to sugarcoat this: your story starts off slow. It’s well-written, but there isn’t much of a hook there to keep someone with limited time (or a short attention span) reading. I’m not being critical, I’m being honest. I printed it out. That’s what I tend to do when I wish to really read something (not very earth-friendly, I know). But doing so gives me the ability to underline and make margin notes.
Printed, your story came to 30 pages. The first two pages (more than 1000 words – longer than a number of the other stories) had no enf. There was a seasick crocodile, but no nudity. That’s fine. But if you don’t get the most votes and win, that’s what I’m going to point to — that you lost a number of readers early on. Which is unfair, because you are the best writer who has ever posted a story on this site. This might not be the best story on the site, but reading this story leaves me convinced that you are the best writer here.
Please don’t take that as a perfunctory comment. I don’t engage in such things. Not only do you have talent, but you have developed your talent. The rest of us, we can all learn from you.
This printout of mine — there is so much writing on it. Many words and phrases circled, and quite a few styles of underlining [boxes too]. If I really like something, I draw a wavy line under it (~~~~~~~ sort of like that). Lots of that here. Right at the start, for example: “She wiped a smidge of whipped cream from the side of his mouth and sucked her finger clean.” I love that on so many levels. Right off, we know what kind of a person she is and what kind of a relationship they have. Another writer might need two paragraphs to convey all that information.
Well, like I said, it did start off a bit slow. But man oh man, did it ramp up. My emotional attachment to these characters was at an extreme level by the time we got to the part about Sophie (Sophia at that point, I suppose) having macaroni and cheese at Thanksgiving (I’d be avoiding it too).
But, I have to ask, are there really people that have macaroni and cheese for Thanksgiving dinner? Maybe in the bible belt. My mom was from the bible belt (Kentucky), but she didn’t serve macaroni and cheese, at least not to us. But she served ham, so there is that.
Okay, what else do I have to say? Again looking at my printout — simply put, there are too many great lines, too many great characters, for this to be just one story, the product of just one writer. “Nice outfit. I like the snowman. It really brings out the labia.” Oh my God! And Sarah never even said that. That’s just Teddy thinking of what she might say.
At that point in the story, I was thinking that all these interesting people were going to actually show up, so I decided I want to try and pick a favorite. I think I gravitated to Sarah. I can’t really say way. In part, it might have been initiated by the above sentence, but it was more than that. You describe her as a blunt, direct, honest bartender — and the table top games — all of that appeals to me. But she had a lot of competition, Paris for example.
I ended up deciding that I was envious of Paris. That’s because I’ve always had trouble seeing the other sides of arguments, actually appreciating opinions that differ from my own. (I’m sure my wife will agree.) You describe her as, “… somehow able to dismantle the ideas she expressed while not dehumanizing the woman or making her feel like an idiot.” That is quite a superpower and quite a character. “Paris meets people where they are and connects with them.” Wavy line!!
But now we come to Matt. I found that I had real issues with how he was described. All this stereotypical frat boy stuff. For me, that was a big turn off. I’m sure it has something (a lot) to do with who I am and where I’ve been. I was in a fraternity. We were a close-knit bunch, still are (decades later).
“And let me tell you, the stereotypes about Greek Life are closer to truth than fiction. You’re not a bad person if you don’t tend to like those guys. I didn’t even like myself half the time when I was around the guys.” Barf! That doesn’t cut it with me, I’m sorry. There isn’t such a thing as a stereotypical frat boy. There is just as much variety between fraternities and within fraternities as there is outside of them. I wasn’t going to put this in here, but I lost a fraternity brother today (he passed in his sleep this morning at 4:20 am). He was all of 59 — my best friend in college. But I got to spend 4 days with him the week before Christmas (driving him home over snowy passes. The airline authorities wouldn’t let him fly). That is time I’ll cherish forever. I’ll leave that there. Just know that you are promoting unfair stereotypes when you describe a character as not fitting a stereotype … especially when you drop in dialogue like what I pasted in above. Like everyone, I have biases, I admit. Moving on…
Maybe you sense my emotion in the above words. That’s not altogether bad. For it is a credit to this work that it brings out emotion. And for me, there was a lot of emotion ahead (but fortunately the rest of it did not hit quite so close to home). Examples:
“But you haven’t won anything, miss.” Ouch!
“See how much unconditional love you have for her when she uses you up and throws you away once she gets bored.” Ouch! Ouch!
“Honestly, Theresa, if you’re mutilating your body and changing your name, then how can you say you love anyone when you clearly don’t even love yourself.” Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
You really know how to drive up the emotion! By this point in time, we’ve all grown to care about Teddy. Then to see him treated like that, verbally abused. It hurt (well done).
Due to the length of your entry, due to it’s complexity — your story required an investment on my part. I invested time, I invested mental horsepower, I invested emotional capacity in processing what you put down on the page. But am I ever glad I did. I’ve profited greatly from this ‘investment’ and on many levels. As a reader (entertainment). And as a writer (the chance to study and learn from what you are able to accomplish with the written word). And it doesn’t end there. I even learned about Seattle. Just kidding. Not really. I live here. But I just checked, the Seattle International Film Festival. It’s going on right now. With covid, I hadn’t even considered that it might still be happening. Thanks for the reminder! My wife and I, we love SIFF!
One last point (maybe it will be the last, lol!) — if “We are what we eat” then maybe “we become who we associate with.” If that is true, then Sophie and Teddy are destined to end up being some dang fascinating people. In the first place, they are already so frickin’ complicated and interesting (and naked, Sophie anyway). If they spend much time with the individuals who are on the way to this party, then they are going to end up being more interesting than anyone I know (with the possible exception of a few of my fraternity brothers).
Well it’s late, and I’m sure I’ve written more here than you are going to want to read. But — all my best to you and thanks for sharing this amazing piece of fiction and allowing me to live deliciously!
Blair
Good morning Kinsey,
I just reread what I wrote. It’s long, and here I am adding … lol! I’ve now read and commented on all the (25) stories. Yours came last because it was posted last. I was up until 3:50am doing that. Ugh.
One thing I meant to mention, is that I listened to a few of those songs in the background while I was composing my comment. That really helped bring the story to life for me. I very much admire how you incorporated Sophie’s playlists into the narrative. I imagine I’ve seen that done before — probably. Never this effectively.
About the frat boy thing. I really did lose my best college friend yesterday. We met on move in day. Later we roomed together. And we pledged the same fraternity (also together). Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In his case, it ran its course quickly, just 6 to 7 weeks from first symptoms to the end. But even though that was fogging my vision, I stand by what I wrote.
I think discussion of stereotypes is fine. It was fine that Teddy imagined that Matt was a certain way, based on his preconceived notions. And then it was nice that Matt ended up having unexpected personal qualities. Where you crossed the line (in my opinion) was when Matt himself mentioned the same prejudices.
If it helps, rotate another group into Matt’s place. Let’s make Matt a member of an ethnic race (any race), and let’s make Teddy a person prejudiced against that race. And then Teddy learns that his prejudices don’t fit Matt. Matt is a kind person. Teddy learns and grows — eventually he apologizes. That mirrors what you have here. I’d say that’s fine, and it’s realistic. But then you crossed the line. You had Matt say the equivalent of, “Oh I get it. Members of my race, we are bad people. I don’t even like members of my race. And I don’t like myself when I’m with them.” Maybe that better illustrates why I reacted as I did.
In my humble opinion, Matt should have followed up with something that one of my fraternity brothers might have said. Something like, “Oh, I get it. The public sees partying. That’s how fraternities are portrayed in the media. But they don’t see what goes on inside our houses. How supportive we are of one another. How we help each other with homework. Our charity work. How we rally around the guy who is experiencing a rough patch. You, Teddy, you would have found a lot of love and support in my fraternity.”
You say that Matt is smart and kind. That’s what a kind person might say. He’d acknowledge the biases, but then he’d work to dispel them.
Okay, now I have really written too much. But I guess it is a testament to your work. You packed it with emotions. I experienced them, each of them. As ReaderMan has said, the goal of writing is to make someone feel something. This story certainly did that.
Take a bow. You deserve it.
Now to end on a different note:
Wavy Line!
My last post had a mistake. I meant to say I like Sarah, not Alanna. As I was thinking that the bartender & gamemaster combo was just too cool.
Obviously Kinsey was born to write dialog paragraphs. Above the sentences before each dialog are amazingly lively and creative expressions of action that instantly paint a picture.
I like Matt, from the paragraph above. But I’m not sure I liked the below response to the fuck question.
I didn’t like Sophie playing on Teddy’s worry, even if it’s meant to be playful an inspire a little jealousy. Still it was a lot better than saying yes.
Loved that little break between the same person speaking.
I also liked the roll he was on.
And I like all the various descriptions of nervous energy. Although I wonder if they had enough time for all of this talking and dancing.
Poetic justice! Above and below. Great story!
I’m smiling, great song. But I worry about this guy.
I had drunk step father, and my mother was a hippie. So I can’t really relate to caring about hurtful words from parents, but this seems pretty bad.
I love that Teddy did this to help her.
And also that he kept this from her. He’s a true man. I’m really feeling this paragraph. ReaderMan almost reaches for the tissues, enjoying the emotion wash over him.
I’m not worried. Not at all. They are way too tight. But, damn the writer and these constant paragraphs with all the worrisome thoughts. And a line of music at the end of each one. It’s a powerful scene. Too powerful. Hammering away at our confidence… at Teddy’s confidence.
Wow! It was exactly what they both needed. The process of accessing the situation for their friends ended up being more of them assessing and unwrapping themselves and the origin of their love. They reconfirmed their feelings, stronger than ever, and it was exactly the gift they both needed at this scary moment – perfect confidence. A perfect ending. And a perfectly named story!
Thank you Kinsey. You knocked this one out of the ballpark!
Hey arthwys, I agree. This part is a bit haunting to me, because it almost feels like this entire story could be a memory. And that everything imagined in the future, was actually something that happened in the past. But that would be pushing it. Likely the story is meant for us to just feel exactly what Teddy and Sophie are feeling – a scary uncertainty combined with a last minute brave confidence that they will survive this.
Boy was I feeling that. I tried to think of it as simple pessimism on Teddy’s part, but it went beyond that. It was like a premonition with 20/20 vision … haunting (your word, but the right one) … as if it had already happened.
Thanks everybody that read and commented on my story. Like usual for me, I ended up writing way more than I intended to write when I first conceived of the story. If you can believe it, I wanted it to literally just be 25 lines of dialogue. But I guess Sophie and Teddy had way more they wanted to say.
I especially want to thank ReaderMan for starting the contest and giving me an excuse to spend some of my Christmas break with these characters that I fell in love with the more I sat and listened to them.
I’m really flattered by the generous thoughts, compliments, analysis and constructive criticism that everyone has shared. And moved by how much thought, time, and heart was invested in providing this much wonderful feedback. I’ll take every bit of it into consideration when I make a final revise of this story.
Thanks again to all.