Tami, the Naked Freshman (complete)

A seasonal piece that I would post every year at this time at ASN.  Happy holidays to all.  — donnylaja

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Tami, the Naked Freshman (Part 1)

by donnylaja

“How College Is Different from High School
“by Tami Smithers
“Ms. Fieldstone, English Comp I

“My first impression in September was that the campus of Campbell-Frank College is very beautiful. I never saw such green grass all over. There are a lot of trees too, big ones, and when all those leaves fell in October it was very pretty. We have a nice fall season in Rhode Island, too, but not like this. And now the snow is about to start. The buildings are laid out well and there is lots of space. I especially like the library, so many carrels to hide out in and bury yourself in books with no interruptions.

“And there are so many courses to choose from! My major is math but it’s only nine credits a semester. I’m preregistering for the Spring and it’s hard to choose what my two electives will be. I’m curious about everything. I’ve always been interested in things. Looking over the catalog, there’s not much that I wouldn’t want to sign up for. And I like how I can study whenever I want, like in the middle of the night if I have to.

“But most of all I like the people I’ve met here. So many different kinds of friends I’ve made. My room is currently a triple (because of construction in Rankin Hall) but both my roommates are very nice. The girls in my wing are friendly and it’s interesting to know people who came from such different places and get friendly even though on the surface you might not have much in common with them.

“In conclusion, I think the main thing that makes college different from high school is the variety of new people I meet here.”

Tami, sitting cross-legged at her dorm room desk, tapped out this last sentence on her beat-up laptop. Then she sighed and looked down at her nipples, erect as always, and further down to her pubic hair. And added one more thing to her essay.

“AND THE FACT THAT I AM ALWAYS NAKED!!!!”

She glanced furtively across the little room at her roommate Jen, lying in her pajamas and wool socks in the lushly blanketed lower bunk. Jen was engrossed in her iPhone. Her Peter Pan haircut never seemed to be out of place, framing her gentle African-American face.

Jen wouldn’t hop up to see what Tami was writing but Tami quickly deleted that last sentence anyway. This essay was such a fake. She was supposed to write about her impressions of being away at college, a standard assignment for this way-too-easy compulsory English Comp class. But the last thing she wanted was to write about the one impression that overwhelmed all the others. Consequently she couldn’t think of any real ideas. Her imagination was cramped, strangled. She looked at her little essay again. Rats. I sound like a sixth-grader.

She looked outside, at the campus on this cold, misty Sunday morning, December 3. Not much green grass now. Last night’s frost was melting on the bare trees. She slouched, wondering how she was going to get through this winter — naked!

And naked she had to be. Caught streaking on a sorority dare that first week here, an expellable offense, she had blurted out the excuse that nudity had become her religion. It had just popped into her head, desperate as she was to avoid being expelled and losing her gymnastics scholarship. She was the first person in her family ever to go to college and the heartbreak and disappointment to her parents would be horrible. She thought she was a goner, clutching that bathrobe around her in the Dean’s house. Mr. Jorgon, an old guy with funny glasses. Then he came back and told her that, according to the college lawyer, nudity had in fact been recognized as a protected religion in her home state. Something about the Rhode Island Supreme Court and a nude beach permit. And because he was required to respect her religion under the First Amendment, he could not expel her. What a relief that was. But —

But just to make sure she was telling the truth, he said he would have her monitored to make sure she followed this new “religion”! And he placed Wanda, her R.A., in charge of making sure Tami never put on any clothes! Wanda, who had led the dare!

It was bad enough the first few weeks. She was at least allowed a little shirt and sneakers, supposedly for safety reasons. And she had the dorm room to herself (the girl she was supposed to share with never showed up). But when she came back from Thanksgiving, she was stripped totally, all her shirts and footwear taken away, and all the blankets off her bed! Her towels had been taken away too, leaving just little cloths to dry herself with after showering. She was to have nothing to cover herself with, not even any tiny little bit of her. It was Wanda’s doing — Wanda, who clearly was some kind of sadist.

It was so unfair, being that Wanda been the one who had gotten her into this mess in the first place. But what could Tami do? To tattle on Wanda, or on the other girls on that dare, would be to admit that she had been streaking that night. And then — expulsion!

Fortunately some of what she wrote in her essay was true. She had gotten her two roommates after Thanksgiving too, in that double bunk across from her. And Terri and Jen were fast becoming true friends. Terri was always on the go. She dressed smartly and was always going to one appointment or another. She had an off-campus job, played guitar, wrote poetry. At the moment (10 a.m.) she was at the gym exercising.

And then there was Jen. Like most freshmen she was shy at first but starting to come out of her shell. And she made it known, without actually saying it, that she was gay or at least bisexual. And that she was in love with Tami’s body. Tami was of two minds about that. It was bad enough being on display to the whole campus when she went out to class — there were the constant stares and wisecracks, and the occasional wolf whistle — but now she felt on display in the privacy of her own dorm room.

On the other hand Jen made Tami proud of her body. Of course her body was passable. After all, she was on the gymnastics team, as was Jen. The tough workouts under Coach Snyder made it unlikely for her or Jen to get pudgy even after pigging out on dining hall food. Students made jokes about that food, but to Tami it seemed actually pretty good. A great salad bar, and the best pancakes she’d ever tasted. Way better than the rubber-pizza menu at her high school.

Tami leaned forward a bit to get a sideways glance at the long mirror on the inside of their door. Thanks to Jen she was now proud of her flat tummy, her lithe legs. She had been told many times that her green eyes were pretty, and the dark red hair that went to her shoulders. She kept it loose these days, hoping when it grew longer she would at least have covering for her shoulders. She smiled. How long would it take to grow to my feet, to cover all of me?

As she leaned forward her little crucifix, suspended from its silvery chain, hung forward too. She clasped it gently. She had always worn it, since her Confirmation in sixth grade. Under her clothes it wasn’t noticeable. But now . . . ! People probably thought she was real religious (religiously Catholic). But it would feel funny to take it off after wearing it for six and a half years. And it was her only covering, the only thing she could still “wear”. As she touched Jesus on the cross she felt herself saying a little prayer. Maybe he’ll protect me, make me brave.

She felt downright blasphemous as she looked past the crucifix to her pubic hair, the same color as her head hair. God . . . I can’t believe my pubic hair has been on constant display. This is unreal. Crazy! She felt like that dream where you’re walking naked in front of everyone else wearing clothes. Only she couldn’t wake up from this dream. It was her life!

Her thoughts were interrupted by Jen’s soft, musical voice. “So, Tami dear.” Jen sat up gracefully. Tami knew that Jen’s parents had a lot of money and Jen seemed like a product of some kind of prep school where they teach you how to move and walk like a princess.

Tami, being looked at, once again suppressed the urge to cover her breasts. Nobody knew that this religion thing was a sham except for her and Wanda. And those other girls on the dare, who now all avoided eye contact with her. She knew the truth about them too. And telling the truth about Tami would just get them expelled like Tami almost was. So none of them dared say a thing. Oddly, Jen and Terri seemed to admire Tami for her “religion”. Which kind of made it worse, made her feel more like a fraud and a fake.

“You going to that scholarship party thing?” Jen said.

Damn. Tami had been trying to put it out of her mind. The “reception”, in that Old Main building, for the freshmen who were here on scholarships. She had gotten the notice last week and Jen had seen it. Tami had thought of faking being sick, but Jen could see that she wasn’t. So she had to go.

“Yes of course.”

“Mind if I go too? Anyone can be there, according to that invitation.”

Maybe Jen just wanted to always be around Tami’s naked body so she could look at it. Or maybe she just wanted to be around her as a friend. “Sure.” It would be good to have a friend around. She hated being naked in front of other kids but she hated being naked around grownups even more.

Jen got up from her fluffy, blanket-filled bed and gracefully moved to the closet on her side. The closet on Tami’s side, of course, was totally bare. She was thinking of letting her roommates use it, because the closet on Terri’s and Jen’s side was so stuffed. Tami’s lips went dry as she saw the huge stock of possibilities that Jen was contemplating. Jackets, coats, scarves, gloves, blouses, sweaters, bras, jeans, slacks, skirts, dresses, shoes, socks, tights, leggings, boots, sneakers . . . Tami shut her eyes and tried to get clothing out of her head. But of course she couldn’t. After all, she was a teenage girl.

“How’s this?” Jen said, placing a plaid jacket over her pajamas, and a black skirt below. “Maybe with these boots,” she said, pointing her stockinged foot toward an elegant pair of Fratelli Rossettis.

Tami’s mouth was dry with longing. She cleared her throat. “Looks good.” A thought came to her. “Try the blue blouse, and the black jacket up there.”

Jen did the switch and looked at the arrangement in the mirror. “Wow, this really does it.” She laughed and turned to her roommate. “For a nudist, you really have a good fashion sense.”

Of course I do, Tami thought. I think about clothes constantly.

“So what are you going to wear?” Jen asked.

Tami’s eyes widened, in a sudden wild hope. But then Jen said, “Sorry, I didn’t want to offend you. I mean, as far as your nail polish, and lipstick and stuff?”

Oh. Well a naked girl doesn’t have a lot of options. But she has some. Tami unfolded her legs and looked down at her outstretched fingers and toes. “White nail polish, I think. Mahogany lipstick. I’ll leave my hair down.” To cover at least my shoulders!

“Wow, white.” Jen looked down at Tami’s toes. “Tami, you know you have perfect feet? Yes, I can see how white can work.”

Tami suddenly wished she could hide her feet. She had never been shy about showing her bare feet before. After all, she was a gymnast. But now she wished she could hide every part of her. This is so crazy!

“Why don’t you put on a ring or two. I’ve got a collection here.” Jen opened a little box on her dresser. “Here.”

It was pretty, but just a plain silver band. And very tiny. Tami tried without success to slip it on her pinky. “Thanks but it’s too small.”

“No, silly! It’s a toe ring.”

“Oh.” Tami looked at it and then at her toes. She had never worn a toe ring before. It would draw attention to the bareness of her feet. But it would be something else she would be “wearing”. And like any girl she liked to look pretty.

“Try the second toe.”

Tami slipped it on. A strange feeling, and strange to see her foot “dressed” like that. But it looked elegant, somehow.

Then Jen said, “Tam, can you stand up for me?” At Tami’s puzzled expression, Jen said, “I just want to see your perfect body. It really is so beautiful. Like a woman is meant to be.”

Being so flattered, Tami could hardly object. She was aware of Jen’s desire for her, ever since that time last week in the library when Jen had hugged her. “You seem like a real friend to me,” Jen had said. Tami wasn’t gay but hadn’t been repulsed by the move either. And it felt good to feel Jen’s clothes against her bare skin.

So Tami stood up, in the middle of the room. Jen looked her up and down, making Tami blush. Tami wanted to do something with her hands besides leaving them dangling at her sides. She wanted to cover her nipples and crotch. Instead she demurely crossed her arms below her breasts. The crucifix dangled in her cleavage.

Jen’s gaze went lower. “Your hair down there is beautiful too. Sorry, but everyone knows you don’t mind if people look.” She kneeled down and placed one hand on each thigh, framing Tami’s pubic hair. “Your womanland” — strange word, Tami thought — “is so pretty. I can see your lips, and where your clit is. It’s so beautiful!”

Tami blushed crimson, and was about to say something, but stopped herself. How could she object? After all she was supposed to be a nudist, not believing in covering. “Th – thanks.”

Then Jen leaned forward and gently kissed Tami’s pubic hair. Jen got up and drew away as if aware of transgressing. “Sorry Tam. It’s your body.” She looked at Tami’s face and noted the deep blush. “Easy to tell what a white girl feels, you’re at about red shade number 7.” Tami’s chill of alarm was quelled by Jen’s next words. “You’re so — what’s the word? — modest! Blushing like that when I compliment you.”

The naked girl exhaled, then battled confusing thoughts. There was something electric about that gentle kiss, that barely grazed her lower hair and that she could barely feel on her labia. It gave her goose bumps.

The two freshman females, one in pajamas and socks and the other naked and barefoot, stood there a little awkwardly. Oddly Tami’s mind chose this moment to remind her that she was usually at Mass at this time. The 10:00 mass at St. Peter’s, back in Providence. She hadn’t gone to church since coming to college. Walking into a church naked was just out of the question. Not that she missed it a great deal. Church was usually boring.

The sound of raindrops on the window distracted them. Jen sighed. “A crummy day. I can’t wait for snow.” The prospect of walking through cold rain made Tami cringe. But not as much as the prospect of super-cold snow on her bare toes, which now squirmed against the bare tile floor. Brrrr!!! She would have to scurry between buildings as fast as she could!

“Let’s start getting ready,” Jen said. The reception was an hour in the future. About the amount of time it would take a normal, clothed girl to get dressed up. Jen got her bathrobe and things and started heading for the shower. Tami followed behind, carrying three or four little cloths and a bottle of shampoo, hoping nobody was out in the hall. Fortunately nobody was, at the moment.

They entered the bathroom, for women only because this was the girls’ wing of the dorm. “I think I’ll take a quick bubble bath in that wonderful old tub,” Jen said, heading into the big curtained enclosure which held that old-style tub with claw feet and the bath table next to it. Another one of the rich-people, old-money touches around this college. Tami was only too happy to go into the refuge of one of the regular shower stalls. In fact she got in too fast. She gasped as her naked body was sprayed with cold water. But after a few seconds the hot water kicked in and she sighed in delight. No one could see her here. She was “covered” by the walls and door of the shower stall. Ahh, not much, but for now, these were her clothes . . .

Part 2

On this windy, rainy Sunday in early December, the old bell tower struck twelve, resounding through the historic campus of Campbell-Frank College. Not many people were out around the dorms and academic buildings. Over on the west side of campus, where the bell tower was, chapel was letting out, several dozen elegantly-dressed high-church Protestants emerging and chatting quietly and politely, mostly older folks, some professors, and a few students.

Walking toward Old Main, one’s attention was understandably arrested by the three freshmen girls heading in the same direction. Two of them were sharing the same umbrella. Of the two, one was totally nude, her flushed nakedness damp and vivid, the product of the invigorating effect of damp cold on bare skin. Nude that is, except for maroon lipstick, a tiny application of red blush on her face, a crucifix around her neck, and a ring around the second toe of her left foot. The other girl was Jen McIntyre, fashionably turned out in a black jacket over a blue blouse and black skirt, and very fine imported boots.

Under the other umbrella was a Latina girl with coffee-colored skin, long black hair and enormous breasts, unsuccessfully concealed under a loose blazer and flowing blouse, contrasting with her relatively small butt and thin legs in black slacks and low heels. She shifted the bookbag over her shoulder and looked over at her naked dorm-mate, who was tacking closely to the umbrella held in Jen’s hand, hugging her arms over her breasts, fingers tucked up into her armpits, looking down as her squirming bare feet stepped over the little puddles on the old cracked sidewalk. Her dark red hair had been carefully brushed but was beginning to frizz a bit in the mist, little drops of moisture clinging to it all over. Though harder to notice, condensation clung even more copiously to the lush pubic hair below, pubic hair which was still not used to being on display at all times, Campbell-Frank’s only public pubic hair. It frizzed out quite a bit from its owner’s crotch, like a blossoming flower, much to her chagrin.

“How you feeling, Tami? Como esta?” said the Latina girl, who like Tami had gotten to Campbell-Frank on a scholarship (in computer programming) and whose name was Marisol, if you haven’t already guessed.

Tami shuddered, clutching herself the more tightly, and clenching together her tight gymnast’s butt cheeks, which were flushed red and covered with goose bumps. She looked down again at her wet feet, her toes as red as her butt. With only a slight touch of humor she said, “Cold. Freakin’ cold. What do you think?!”

“I don’t see how you can go out like that, and in this weather too,” Marisol said. “You are one brave chica.”

Tami didn’t respond at first. Then she looked up dully at the looming Old Main, a stately and ancient stone building with (of course) ivy growing up the walls. Finally she said, “Thanks.” She felt herself beginning to shiver and tried to control it. She really, really hated the feeling of cold water on her bare skin, but despite being under the big umbrella she was hit with the odd raindrop, stinging her like ice as it hit her shoulder, her hip, her butt. Her hard nipples dug into her folded arms. Her feet suffered the worst. How she missed those sneakers! Being barefoot made her feel ten times more naked, feeling the pavement and floors and grass and mud with her bare soles. They tingled with the cold wetness. Much longer outside and she knew they’d go numb.

“You are brave, Tam, one of the many things I like about you.” Jen said. Her unspoken addendum, “Such as your beautiful body and luxuriant womanland”, hung in the air between them.

They folded their umbrellas as they entered the portico. It was Marisol who volunteered to yank open one of the huge red doors, causing the mountains on her chest to lurch ponderously, barely controlled by the six-clasp 34H bra underneath. From somewhere in the distance, partly muffled by the raindrops, came a wolf whistle. It was hard to tell who was being whistled at. Tami ignored it. Marisol, toughened by years of having the biggest breasts around, glared back at the campus to see who it was, intending to give him the finger. But she couldn’t see anybody so she turned inside, the others following.

They entered the lobby, a large and ornately columned room with antique wood tables, stuffed chairs, and walls filled with a series of portraits of stern white men with beards. And now what Tami had been dreading: walking nakedly into a crowd of grownups. As the girls parked their umbrellas, they saw that the reception was in the next room, the entrance to which was filled with chatting old folks. One by one the old folks turned to behold the naked girl in front of them, and stopped talking.

Tami hung behind her two friends as much as she could. They nodded to these folks who nodded back politely. Though one or two did not hide a disdainful look down at Miss Smithers’s nakedness. Tami wanted to run, wanted to cover her breasts and pubes with her hands. But that would betray a desire for covering. So she swallowed hard and went in.

It was another large room, with long white-cloth’d tables along one side with coffee and doughnuts, and another with name tags set out. None of the three girls knew what to do so they went straight to the tags. Marisol and Tami found theirs quickly. “Marisol Cerrazones — Computer Programming”. “Tami Smithers — Gymnastics”. They were adhesive. What to do? Tami wondered as Marisol removed the backing and pressed hers onto her blouse under her neck, the one place that was not occupied with breast flesh. Tami decided to treat her skin as her clothes. Picking the spot carefully, she pressed the sticky tag over her left breast, which jiggled slightly with her motions. The tag felt icky. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt to yank it off later. Maybe it will come off in the shower. Mmmm . . . hot water!

With a little inward smile she looked at the table and fantasized there being other Tami Smithers tags. She would like three — one to cover each nipple, and one to cover her forest of pubic hair. She looked down. At least the carpet felt warm and soft under her feet. She flexed her toes as full sensation started returning to them.

“Welcome,” said Professor Audry, who taught their intro to sociology course, one of the required courses for freshmen. He was in a business suit and about 50 years old and balding. He seemed careful to look at the girls’ faces and not look down, either to Tami’s nakedness or Marisol’s endowments. “We’ll start in a few minutes. Have a coffee. Mingle. I’m glad you came along too, Ms. McIntyre. There are ten recipients we’ll be honoring.”

As they munched on crullers, a couple of other name-tagged students stopped by. Tami knew them from her classes. There was Dimitri, a short black kid with some kind of scar on his cheek, who she sat next to in Statistics. Now there was Gretchen, a tall blond girl, a little on the chubby side, who was in her intro to biology class. Gretchen was nice. They ate together in the dining hall sometimes. She came from upstate New York, and was a bio major and wanted to be a doctor someday.

Tami fell into talking with Gretchen, a little more stiffly than usual. She carefully faced the table, keeping her back to the rest of the room. She hoped she wasn’t being impolite. It was not much of a comfort, knowing everyone in the room had a full view of her bare backside, from bare shoulders, bare back, butt cheeks and legs, down to her bare heels. Her butt cheeks clenched unconsciously, and her toes grabbed the exquisite carpet.

“Attention, everyone!” It was another thing she dreaded, the voice of Dean Jorgon. She still remembered his stern warning that she would be meticulously watched to make sure she followed her “religion”. As if afraid to be found out, she quickly put her coffee down, turned around and put her hands down to her side. She blinked back tears of shame as she found herself facing over fifty people who were fully and smartly dressed. Fortunately their attention seemed fastened on the Dean, that oldish guy with the rimless glasses, standing under an especially large portrait of an especially old man with an especially long beard. Men’s suits haven’t changed much over the years but it looked like this old guy was from the early 1800’s.

“Trustees, benefactors, and of course faculty and friends . . . Welcome to our annual Joshua Campbell Armor of Christ Scholarship Presentation. Thanks to you benefactors, it has been kept going for almost two hundred years, one of the proudest traditions of this small but eminent institution of higher learning. The name of the scholarship sounds strange to our ears, but was not to those in those more Biblically literate times. The reference is to St. Paul’s admonition to put on ‘the full armor of Christ’, so that clothed and protected with it one might face life’s trials.

“The scholarship is given annually to ten applicants from diverse backgrounds. The mission is to find people who, because of background, national origin, remote or exotic upbringing, or other reasons, one would never expect to see at Campbell-Frank. Reverend Campbell was a strict Christian by our standards but was ahead of his time in wanting to cast as wide a net as possible to find young people of quality. And I think we have succeeded once again. Every one of the young people I am about to present to you has done exceptionally well in their first semester here.”

This talk of putting on the armor of Christ, being clothed . . . Tami glanced quickly down at her nipples, which were still hard from that walk in the cold. Then she noticed a large mirror on the far wall, maybe designed to give the impression that the room was bigger. There she was, her naked self, her pink skin in the midst of all this sartorial finery. Her pubic hair and bare legs and feet were bad enough. But her poor boobs . . . at 34C (back when she wore a bra) they were as big as a gymnast’s really could be without causing loss of balance on delicate routines. And with her nipples hard, it felt like she was poking them in everyone’s faces. And with that crucifix hanging between them, looking as big as those huge crosses with the rosaries the nuns back in her Catechism classes wore around their waists. She carefully stood upright, as if at attention, but she shrank inside. She felt like she was yelling at them: Here I am! Here are my gigantic boobs! And I’m Catholic! See my big bare Catholic boobs!

The Dean continued: “Let me present this year’s Armor of Christ recipients. Of course, hold your applause to the end. First, Gretchen Spaulding, Biology, Warrensburg, New York.”

Gretchen, surprised at being first, quickly straightened her rather lumpy gray dress, adjusted her barrette, and walked up to the Dean. He motioned for her to stand to his side, both of them poised under Joshua Campbell’s beard.

“Lenny Jones, Basketball, Chicago, Illinois.”

This was a thin, tall, somewhat aloof black kid with a dark tattoo on his neck, dressed in a double-breasted olive-green suit.

“Dimitri LaPierre, Physics, Toronto, Canada.

“Marisol Cerrazones, Computer Programming, Bronx, New York.

“And now some local talent, Patrick Somerville, ROTC, Island Pond, Vermont.” There were now five students with name tags standing next to the Dean.

“Roger Bryce, Art, Modoc, South Carolina.” Roger was motioned by the Dean to stand in front of Lenny.

“Deneisha Washington, Music, East St. Louis, Illinois.” A large black girl tightly packed into a big, white, going-to-church-on-Sunday dress.

A man with a large camera appeared. Tami felt the flush over the tops of her breasts. Oh no. . . a picture. There will be a photo of me naked!

“Mary Pignatelli, Tennis, Alturas, California. . . Duane Gorson, Divinity, Grundy, Virginia.

“Tami Smithers, Gymnastics, Providence, Rhode Island.”

Tami gulped and walked her naked self up to the portrait. She felt every eye on her bare butt. She looked down at her bare legs and feet navigating in a sea of socks and fine leather shoes and nylons and heels. And now she looked up to meet the Dean, forcing herself to look him in the eye.

She got in behind Marisol, wishing to hide herself as much as possible. Maybe the photo will only show my face, she hoped. Or just my bare shoulders. It will look like I’m wearing a strapless dress.

“Miss Smithers,” the Dean whispered, “get in front if you don’t mind.”

“N – no, that’s O.K.”

He repeated very softly, with thinly disguised sternness, “Get . . . in . . . front!”

All the color went from Tami’s face as she realized what she’d done. She had betrayed a desire to hide her nakedness! Her bare tummy quaked as she moved around to the indicated spot, in front of Lenny. Five behind and five in front, so as to be all in camera range. She steeled herself and stood upright, facing the crowd, her bare boobs and vagina on full display. She felt the crucifix lying between her boobs feeling like it weighed half a pound. She imagined what the Dean might as well have said. “Tami Smithers, Providence, Rhode Island. She is naked with big hard nipples and she’s Catholic!”

“Let me present to you,” the real-life Dean Jorgon now said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s Armor of Christ recipients.”

Polite but heartfelt applause. Tami swallowed. She supposed she should be proud. But here I am, a fraud, showing myself nakedly to these rich and churchy people, who think I am a brave religious person when in fact I’m lying about it to keep from getting expelled. And ruining the moment for Marisol and Gretchen and these other kids who had worked so hard to be here. This is supposed to be a proud picture but the only thing their friends and relatives will notice will be the naked girl.

“I do want to say one thing,” the Dean added. “It is not usually proper to say a few words about any one recipient. You all will have a chance to talk with them individually in a few moments. But I feel I have to say a few words about Miss Smithers, and her being without clothing.”

This is the last thing I want, Tami thought. PLEASE let me duck into the background!

“You have all heard of her, uh, unusual decision to not wear clothes. Some may have misgivings about it. As I’ve pointed out, her religion, unusual though it may be, is Constitutionally protected. Just as Joshua Campbell’s brand of fundamentalism, for which he and others were persecuted, was found to be Constitutionally protected in the case of Campbell versus State of Vermont, 1843. Let me emphasize one thing, that I know from my personal, uh, observations and what I have heard from faculty. Miss Smithers’s religion is not about sex. She is not a libertine. If you had such concerns, they are unjustified. She has been a model student, and in her personal life has been what could only be called modest.”

“Let me add something else, if you don’t mind, Percy.” It was a shortish older man in a beret, with some kind of European accent.

“Go ahead, Jan. This is Professor Jan Latimer, people, an eminent sculptor and one of our faculty’s many bright lights.”

Professor Latimer said, “What Miss Smithers is showing us is a more comprehensive understanding of the human body. It is the temple of the Holy Spirit and should be honored. When we see her body, we are seeing God’s creation. Lilies of the field, as opposed to Solomon’s luxuriant clothes. You know the reference.”

“Of course, Jan, and thank you. Well that’s all I have to say.

“O.K., Harald,” the Dean said to the photographer. He adjusted his glasses and said, “Let’s put on our game face, kids. Everyone ready?” He looked up at the portrait. “Ready, Josh?” Some laughter. “Go ahead, Harald.”

Tami could almost feel heat from the flash, on every inch of her bare skin, from her head to her toes, like she was being flash-freezed into eternity. Like Han Solo at the end of “The Empire Strikes Back”. She then sprouted goose bumps all over.

And now thankfully the moment was over and the ten recipients dispersed. The instructions were to mingle. The grownups converged on the scholarship winners. But before anyone could get to Tami the Dean got in front of her.

“Miss Smithers, if you don’t mind, I need some words with you.”

Tami followed the Dean out of the room with a feeling of foreboding. She then noticed that following her out were three other men. Of course they were all meticulously and formally dressed. She looked down as their shoes followed her bare feet through the doorway, down a hall, and out to the portico.

Part 3

Tami felt like a prisoner walking to the stump to be beheaded. Bracing herself like a swimmer about to dive into a cold pool, she walked through the big red door held open by the Dean and out into the dreaded cold air of the portico. She felt the cold of the wet cobblestones under her feet and found herself surrounded by three exquisitely dressed grownups. Fortunately the rain had stopped. No more of the stinging cold drops against her bare skin.

Aside from the Dean there was a tall bear of a man, balding, in a three-piece suit. And a smaller man, also balding, with an unsettling face that reminded her somehow of a rodent’s. The four persons, the nude freshman girl and the fully clothed middle-aged men, stood around for a few moments in silence. Tami felt weak and vulnerable. She had never felt her lack of covering so keenly. It was worse even than when the Dean took that bathrobe away from her and told her she would stay naked. And now she was quaking inside, certain that she would be expelled for that little display of modesty in front of the camera. She looked out at the campus. Fortunately nobody was around to see her . . . And at the world outside, that she would certainly be thrust into . . . God this is awful . . . She said a little prayer for God to give her strength . . .

“It’s supposed to snow tonight,” the little man said, with a slight lisp. Somehow he scared her more than the others.

“Yes,” the Dean said.

“It gets very cold here in January and February, you know,” the tall man in the three-piece suit said, looking down at Tami. “More so than in your tiny little home state.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Smithers, I forgot to introduce you. This,” he gestured to the small man, “is George Comstock. And this is Anthony Noyes. They are trustees of the college.”

Tami weakly extended her hand to each. With the motions of her arm and her ragged breath, she felt her breasts lurching to and fro, and her crucifix swinging to bump against the side of her left breast. She forced herself to make eye contact and blushed as she noticed them each glancing down to her pubic hair.

“We are still skeptical of your claim of nudity being a religion,” Mr. Noyes said.

“Yes,” Mr. Comstock lisped. And now he looked her up and down, from her breasts to her pubic hair to her bare feet. “This is not a sight that one wants to see at a conservative Christian college. Not among fundamentalist Protestants anyway.” He oddly made it sound like nudity was a degenerate Catholic thing.

“It is,” Tami said in a tiny voice, “it is. It is my religion.”

“So what were you trying to do just now,” the Dean said, taking off his rimless glasses and looking at her with piercing eyes. “Hiding yourself behind the other students for that photo? As if you were ashamed of being . . . NAKED?” She flinched as the word smacked her poor bare body like a sudden shot of icy water.

Tami gulped and thought hard. She looked down at her squirming toes, next to the men’s shined elegant shoes, and picked through her words carefully. “I . . . don’t want to embarrass the college. If people saw . . . my being . . . you know . . . in your . . . magazine or something . . . people might . . . um . . . be offended.”

The three men exchanged glances. Then the Dean said, “You need not worry, Miss Smithers. The photo will be cropped at the shoulders. It will simply look like you were wearing a strapless dress and no one will be the wiser.”

“So . . . you understand?” Tami felt a wave of relief washing over her, like a shower that was warmer finally.

It was Mr. Noyes who said, “Yes, we do. It is a plausible explanation.” Mr. Comstock looked a little disappointed.

Tami stopped herself from betraying too great a sense of relief. She squared her shoulders and looked out at the bare trees and the splotches of dormant grass.

“Tell me more about your assignment with Professor Habib,” the Dean said conversationally.

Tami was jarred by this sudden change of topic but took a breath and found herself falling into it comfortably. After all, math was her major. She spoke about fourth level derivatives, hyperbolic functions, arrays, and eigenvectors.

“Math was my major too,” Mr. Noyes said, a little less frosty than before. “Some of what you say sounds familiar, but the discipline has progressed.”

“And yet mathematics is mathematics,” the Dean observed. “It relies on no new discoveries in the physical world. Archimedes could have just as well done the same work you are doing. We are always building on the accumulated wisdom of those who came before.”

The Dean and Mr. Noyes, being academics, went back and forth for a few moments about great figures in the math world, Liebnitz, Fermat, Poincare, disparaged an apparently evil man named Thomas Kuhn . . . Tami recognized a little of what they were saying but not much. She wasn’t versed in the history of Mathematics, at least not yet.

And as the conversation went on Tami started really feeling the cold. The men didn’t of course, all warm and covered up in their suits. Mr. Comstock had even put on an overcoat before coming outside. Tami felt goosebumps rising on her and began to shiver. She looked down at her flushed skin. She decided it was all right to clutch her arms around her breasts, her hardened nipples poking out at them. She squeezed her legs together. After all, she was human, a tropical species that could migrate from Africa only after having invented clothes. She even covered one foot with the other, to at least feel the relative warmth of her sole over her toes, then switched feet. She answered the occasional question politely but with an increasingly quivering voice.

She looked at Mr. Noyes and found herself counting the things he had on. The vest. The jacket. Pants, shirt, tie. Undershirt, underpants. Maybe thermal long johns? Thick socks, big, full-coverage shoes. Ten articles of clothing. And here she was, no covering at all!

They had been out there perhaps ten minutes. How could they not notice the naked teenager in their midst was freezing her bare little buns off?? During a lull in the conversation Tami, hugging herself, finally said, “C – can we please go inside? I’m c – cold.”

“Oh of course,” the Dean said. “Sorry Miss Smithers. We were getting oblivious to the fact that you were naked and unprotected out here. A good sign, if you ask me.”

As they opened the big doors and went into the welcome warmth of Old Main, Mr. Noyes remarked, “You certainly picked a strange college to go to with your religion. Sounds more appropriate to the University of Hawaii.” Tami had never been in such a tropical setting, but felt a pang of longing for lying on a warm beach, basking in the hot sun. “Not a place like here, with sixty inches of snowfall a year.” The shock of this bit of information fastened around Tami’s heart like an icy hand.

They entered the reception room again. The first person they bumped into was Jen, talking with a woman of about 45 in an exquisite, exotic African-looking dress and a wraparound kind of hat. Looking down Tami noticed pretty, fashionably pointy black heels over black hose.

“Oh hi Tami, this is Professor Vanessa Congi,” Jen said, swallowing the last of a bagel. “She’s pretty cool. And she knows my Pop.”

“Well I don’t know him actually,” the lady said. “I’ve heard of him. The good work he does prosecuting civil rights cases. One of the most eminent lawyers in his field.”

Tami didn’t know Jen’s father was a lawyer. Jen gave hints of having traveled to lots of places. Maybe he took her along on his cases when he could.

As she was thinking this she felt someone brush by her left butt cheek. It was a thrill and a jolt at the same time. She saw that it was an older lady who was engaged in conversation with another older lady, about Michelangelo or something. Her dress was made to look like it was cotton but Tami could feel that it was actually polyester. If Tami had been clothed she wouldn’t have noticed it. As the only naked person here she experienced sensations others could only guess at.

The Dean was still next to her, and now a muscular, stern-looking man came along. He had a shaved head that shone in the light of the ornate chandelier above.

“Miss Smithers, this is Professor Kurilenko of our Anthropology Department,” the Dean said. “His specialty is anthropological biology. He might have some help to offer you.”

At Tami’s puzzled expression, the professor spoke, with a slight Russian accent. “Let me say, Miss Smithers, that we greatly respect your comportment and sense of conviction, going about naked in northern Vermont. The winters here can be quite cold.”

Tami shut her eyes for a moment. Why must I always be reminded of how cold it’s going to get? Are they trying to get me to break down and put on clothes? And admit that I was just streaking? So they can expel me? Yet all they were doing was complimenting her on her convictions and her bravery. The mixed messages were confusing to the brave but naive 18-year-old freshman. “I — think I’ll be all right.”

“The human body can withstand extreme conditions, even in an unprotected state, given the right conditioning,” the professor said. “My team and I can offer you exercises to get you through the winter ahead.”

“It is to show that we support you and will assist you in your choice of religion,” the Dean said, jumping in perhaps a bit too readily. “Professor Kurilenko — ”

“No, please — ”

“No, I insist,” the Dean said, holding up his hand. “I know you don’t really mind. The professor is a member of the 300 club.”

“The what?”

“At the international South Pole station, where he was stationed, they have a strange tradition of waiting until the first night it falls to 100 below, Fahrenheit of course. They sit in a sauna at 200 degrees, and then run to and from the Pole, unclothed except for boots. A 300 degree differential within seconds. Hence, ‘300 club’.”

Tami’s eyes grew wide. So did Jen’s. “That’s — crazy!” Jen exclaimed.

“The Pole is 250 yards away from the sauna,” Professor Kurilenko said. “Nobody has ever suffered any permanent damage.”

“All together, they run a third of a mile,” the Dean said. “If a naked man can run that distance in minus 100 degrees, you should easily adapt to short periods of time in our much milder climate.”

“Given, of course, the proper conditioning,” Kurilenko said, in a way that raised goose bumps on Tami despite the warmth in the room. She felt her nipples pucker up. Again, she felt like these men were trying to scare her. Please, get me out of here. She longed to be back in her warm dorm room with Jen and Terri.

“If you wish to avail yourself of his services,” the Dean said, “you are free to do so. Of course, your R.A., Miss Percival, will be advised.”

Tami hated the mention of Wanda. If only the naked girl could convince Jen and the others that Wanda was such a sadist. So far they seemed to think she was a bit aloof but basically O.K. And there seemed no way to tell them *why* she was a sadist without revealing the awful secret.

Gretchen stopped by, eating her third doughnut despite her attempts to stay away from them. Jen and Professor Congi moved away to talk. So did the Dean and that scary Professor Kurilenko.

“I admire you, Tami, you’re so brave.” Gretchen said. Tami liked her but hearing that over and over again made her want to scream. Did her nudity always have to be constantly referred to? Couldn’t she ever have a normal conversation? She decided to start one. “Gretch . . . Good doughnuts?”

“Mmmff, mmm,” Gretchen said with a mouth full of custard.

“My mom taught me how to make them,” Tami said. “It’s really hard to get just right. Too much time in the oven, and they’re like sweet pretzels which is kind of gross. Too little time, and they’re pasty. Like the pasties my grandma used to make.” An Irish specialty.

“What are pasties?” Gretchen said. “Oh sorry — ”

A glob of custard had fallen on Tami’s nipple, completely covering it, about two inches under that adhesive name tag that by now felt like it was permanently glued to her bare skin. As Gretchen quickly proffered a napkin Tami blushed, thinking of the other meaning of the word “pasties”. Those nipple coverings that she heard strippers wore. She saw a model wearing them in a magazine once. Looking real sleazy.

The custard felt gooey and sticky on her sensitive nipple. Another sensation she was forced to feel that a clothed girl wouldn’t, not through a dress and a bra. Tami wiped the custard pastie off her nipple, watching her breast jiggle with the rubbing, blushingly aware of people looking. She then hunted for a wastebasket, which she found under the table. She bent down to throw the napkin in it, feeling like her butthole was on display for everyone. Exquisitely dressed grownups. A dignified setting, chandelier, portraits of distinguished guys on the wall. And sticking up at them, my bare butthole! Ewwww . . . She was glad of the care she had been taking in the shower lately, keeping every part of herself scrupulously clean, inside and out!

Now as she stood there with Gretchen, up came another old lady, in an old-fashioned netted hat and white gloves, looking her up and down disapprovingly. “I don’t see what you’re trying to pull, young lady,” she said quietly but sharply. She was joined by her husband, in an olive green suit, who looked at her bare breasts as if they were turds. The lady said, “We take religion very seriously around here.” Tami blinked back tears and wanted to curl up and die.

“She has a right to her views,” said another older lady, in a queen-bee type of dress. She spoke with an old-style Vermonty kind of lilt.

“I don’t care what you say, judge,” the lady in the netted hat said. “It is just not right. I don’t know what the world is coming to!” And she and her husband left.

“Sorry about them, my dear,” the judge said — it was more like “my de-ah” — “though one might forgive them. Your appearance is quite unusual. By the way, I’m Prudence Stanton. I’m the district judge here.” (“he-ah”)

After a short chit-chat about the college’s courses of study, the judge left and now came one of the other scholarship recipients, Patrick Somerville. They spoke briefly. It turned out he already knew Rod, that cute nerdy black guy who had asked Tami out to the Black Formal next week. She found out that Rod was on an ROTC scholarship too. He must have been at this presentation the year he was a freshman.

“Rod’s a good guy,” Patrick said.

Tami smiled. She didn’t want to say she thought Rod was cute. She was tongue-tied for a moment. “He’s . . . smart.” Oh boy. Damning with faint praise. Tami tried to think of something else to say. For some reason thinking of Rod got her flustered. Not like with any other guy she’d met.

Gretchen, Patrick and Tami were in this conversational lull when they heard singing and then all conversation in the big room hushed.

It was slow and gospel-like. Looking to the center of the room, they saw that it was Deneisha, the black girl in the white churchy dress, who had the music scholarship. People stood back from her in a circle to give her room. The Dean was up near her, with a smile that seemed designed to be noticed. Deneisha was quite good. Her voice was low and gentle. The tune was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. She went up a little on the second verse but didn’t do any Mariah Carey-type oversinging like a lot of gospel folks do.

She finished her song and after a short moment there was applause, pretty loud considering this type of crowd. Deneisha smiled as if blushing and bowed. She was probably aware that the applause was largely the product of white guilt but didn’t mind it.

The Dean then said, “It is traditional at this function for the recipients to display their talents if possible, only if they wish of course. There is no pressure on anyone.” Someone whispered in his ear. “Ah yes, Mr. Bryce, where are you . . . I know your scholarship is in art but I hear you are an accomplished poet. Please let us hear.”

The kid from South Carolina stepped forward and began to recite in a pleasant-sounding southern accent. It was about trees or something. Tami had a hard time listening to it. She had an inkling of what was about to happen and was having trouble concentrating.

The ending of the poem was met with applause, not quite as strong maybe as for Deneisha.

“Well,” the Dean said, looking around for other young name-tagged kids who had won the Armor of Christ Scholarship. “Anyone else? No pressure, of course.”

Part 4

Percy Jorgon, age 52, Dean of Campbell – Frank College for three years, Assistant Dean at another college for eight years before that, was a longtime veteran of bureaucratic politics. He was good at stroking egos, and at gently crushing them. He knew how to get his point across with such subtlety that one could hardly know that the point was his. He could engineer controversies and purges without anyone being able to detect his fingerprints on them. And he was a master of the surreptitious gesture. He now adjusted his tie, tugged on his jacket, and cast his eye in a certain direction.

Tami, standing with Jen and Gretchen in the back, grateful that people’s attention had been directed at Deneisha and Roger, was waiting for another of the Armor of Christ recipients to volunteer to show their talents.

“Ah yes, Miss Tami Smithers,” the Dean said. All the blood drained from Tami’s face. The Dean looked across at her. “I see you’ve volunteered.” She looked at him in fear. She had done no such thing. He responded with a steely glare disguised as a smile. Nobody else could tell. “We’d be glad to see your gymnastics skill. I thought you were shy. But let me say, folks, there are some things of which Miss Smithers is justifiably proud.” He looked around at the crowd. “She is also a straight-A student in mathematics, her major. But watching you integrate a fourth-level derivative would be rather a dry divertissement, and for some of us, downright intimidating.” There was some chuckling from people who had gone into arts or the humanities because they didn’t know how to add.

As Tami gaped at the Dean in fear, he looked at her with a patient smile which masked a gleam of threat. And now the faces of Mr. Noyes and Mr. Comstock, as if on cue, appeared behind the Dean’s. Their expressions were neutral except for cocked eyebrows which made their expectation of what she should do — what she MUST do — all too clear. Why are you hesitant, Miss Smithers? You’re a religious nudist, right? You don’t believe in modesty, right??

Jen nudged Tami with her elbow. “Good for you Tam,” she whispered. “Show them your stuff!”

No, no . . . Tami found herself lurching forward, as if in a dream. She had a polite smile frozen on her face as she walked through the space the grownups in front made for her. She looked down and once again saw her bare feet, with the tacky white toenail polish and the ostentatious toe ring, treading the soft carpet among the elegant shoes and socks and hose. And now she made it to the front ring of people around the circular clearing that had acted as a performing space for Deneisha and Roger. She was now directly across from the Dean and Mr. Noyes and Mr. Comstock. She carefully kept her shoulders back, kept her hands at her sides, while her face burned at the awareness of so many eyes burrowing into her full frontal nudity. She glanced up at the big portrait of old Joshua Campbell. whose eyes seemed to be looking directly at her. His long gray beard and Old Testament scowl glared down a harsh judgment of disapproval on this young girl’s brazen nakedness. In his day even wearing a knee-length skirt was probably considered shameful. And now — here I am — little Tami Smithers — all bare!!

Suddenly a thought hit her. “S – sorry but . . . th – there’s not enough room for a floor exercise. I’d need space for the runup. B – bigger than this room,” she added, looking back over her bare shoulder at the wall.

“Surely there are stationary exercises you can do.”

“Tami,” Jen called out. “Do the handstand backwalk! You know, with the scissors and split!”

Tami looked back with a tortured smile. Jen wants to help. If only she knew . . . !

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” the Dean said. “Go ahead.”

Tami gulped and padded to the center of the circle. With eyes fixed on a distant place — a place, maybe, where she could be all covered up in clothes like everyone else — she assumed the gymnast’s opening position, arms out at her sides, chest thrust out, feeling her breasts wobble. Her toes gripped the carpet. In high school she always felt overexposed in her leotard, even with other leotarded teammates nearby. It was the one thing she didn’t like about gymnastics. She always wished she could wear slippers and tights like they did in the old days, rather than perform in bare legs and bare feet. Now, totally naked and solo, was a thousand times worse. She would love to have just that leotard back!

She shook and felt a warm flush over her breasts which she knew had to be visible. She said a little prayer and began.

What Jen was referring to was a minor floor exercise lasting about two minutes. It was not as showy as the big set pieces, with mid-air somersaults and lutzes. For Tami it was an easy run-through. As she did her handstand, came up again, then down again, and scissored her legs above, toes pointing at the ceiling, she tried as hard as she could to pretend she was all alone, doing this in a studio in front of a mirror. But it was impossible. There was the presence of the crowd filling the air. The occasional coughing somewhere from old throats. And now someone said, “Very impressive.” An older woman, perhaps not meaning to be heard so well, said, “Amazing, how young girls are so flexible.”

And now the Dean said, “We really should see this better. Harald, could you turn up the rheostat?”

The crystal chandelier directly above her, with its dozens of little decorative bulbs, grew brighter than the sun. Tami’s upside-down face saw the sharpening of the shadows of her breasts on the carpet. She felt like a well-lit display in a museum.

On her hands, she kicked vigorously, her toes pointing to one side of the room then another. She heard a woman’s voice say, “I’ve long thought that gymnastics was a sport that should be performed in the nude. There is no need for clothing. In fact it probably would hinder her movements.”

The Dean chuckled and said, “Vanessa, I’m afraid the rest of our team will have to stay fully uniformed. Only Miss Smithers can be naked.”

Damn! Tami thought. I’m the exception to everything. Everyone else has clothes and shoes and coats to cover themselves with. I have nothing! All bare!

And, all bare, Tami Smithers, gymnast, all 105 pounds of her, held the rapt attention of the assembly. The men who made up most of the crowd would never forget the exhibition of this Miss Smithers and her perfect body. She was a few years younger than the bodies they lusted after — indeed, she was just out of high school and to them seemed hardly more than a child. But the men, and the women, were impressed by the tight muscles, the thin but strong limbs, the concave tummy, the trim butt cheeks, the nascent beauty of a teenage athlete. And the calm but serious face.

And now the last part of the exercise, the big handstand split. Tami took a deep breath and down she dove, onto her straightened arms. Her hands spread and braced against the floor carefully. The carpet was a little firmer than a performance mat but not too bad. . . With her upside down face dully looking at the forest of shoes and boots and pants and skirts, she spread her legs to a split.

“Remarkable,” a man said.

She was about to close her legs when the old professor in the beret said, “What a wonderful illustration. . .”

The Dean said, “Miss Smithers, could you hold this position for a moment?”

Tami nodded, her loose hanging hair reaching the carpet and sweeping across it as she nodded. A strange feeling. During meets she always kept her hair tied back.

She felt Professor Latimer’s presence behind her. “You see here the unabashed female form, in a nonsexual context.”

“Can it really be nonsexual?” a woman from behind asked. It was Professor Brignon of the Art Department. She spoke with a French accent. Not Qubecois, like sometimes heard on the radio from nearby Canada, but French. “It was Velazquez, I think, declaring that any artist who denied the feeling sexual while painting a nude was the hypocrite most high.”

“In this case I think it would not be,” the Dean said. “Miss Smithers’s nudity is not about sex. As I have mentioned, her deportment has been exemplary, in fact demure.”

“She is rather too young for me to be aroused,” a man from some distance away said. There was a murmur of agreement.

“As an 18 year old,” the Dean said, “Miss Smithers is a fine specimen of young womanhood, both in body and in mind.” He said this, of course, to assure everyone that Tami was not 17, or younger.

“Note the tendons,” Latimer said, pointing to the tightness of Tami’s anatomy on either side of her vaginal lips, “how exquisitely they perform their function of keeping the legs apart yet united. Also the lush forest of pubic hair. So often hidden, tucked away shamedly, the province of prostitutes and loose women, seen here in its proper place, a glory of the female form.”

“Come on, Tami,” Jen enthused. “You can split further than that!”

“Indeed?” the Dean responded, with just enough of a hint of insinuation for Tami to get the message. Gotta show I’m not modest. Tami’s concave tummy inhaled and exhaled, and she spread her legs out further, until they were in fact bent further than 180 degrees, her legs actually aimed slightly downward now to each side. In a further demonstration of her virtuosity, she flexed her feet, and spread her toes. Her toes now pointed in toward her hands, which now shifted slightly as they continued supporting her weight, pressed against the carpet.

“Remarkable flexibility,” a woman said. “I don’t see how they do it.” Tami’s butt bones jutted up on each side of her crotch. Her entire lower body was distorted by the stretch.

And now she felt her labia open, and felt the air from the room start to go in there. It was an odd feeling — and then she realized to her horror that her inner cave was illuminated by the overhead light.

Oh God . . . These grownups can see right down inside me!

She squeezed her eyes shut. Her face burned crimson — which the assembled persons, fortunately, attributed to her being upside down and the blood rushing down.

Jen beamed with pride that competed with lust at the sight of her teammate, so exposed and open, her cute labia and clit bright and pink under the brilliance of the chandelier — it was hard to resist just walking up to her, bending down, and giving her a lick! She smiled at the thought of Tami’s body jolting at the touch of her talented lesbian tongue. She wondered: if I burrowed in there, lapping and lapping, chasing her clit around and finally sucking on it, showing no mercy, how long could Tami hold that position? Could she actually orgasm like that, holding a handstand split? Tami was a good enough gymnast that, just maybe — ! Jen found herself getting hot under her blouse and jacket. She took a deep breath and tried to cool off. Got to control myself. This is my roommate . . . bad idea to get involved . . .

“I can see the nonsexual beauty of this,” an older-sounding man said.

“If her religion was to go around in push-up bra and corset, now that would be sexual. And damned distracting,” another man said. Some hearty male-style laughter from the back, which was quickly suppressed by the Dean’s careful glare. The other Armor of Christ recipients stood in the rear, not knowing what to think.

These comments just made Tami more ashamed. She wondered when she could dismount from this position. She was able to handstand for quite some time — part of her training in high school had been to build up her endurance — but she wished the Dean would hurry up and tell her it was O.K. to stand up. After which she wanted nothing more than to close her legs tight, cover her pubes and breasts with her hands, and scamper into the nearest closet!

As Latimer continued to point to the intimate features of the naked teenager’s anatomy, her upside-down gaze continued without enthusiasm to survey the shoes and pants and socks around her. Then her eye caught that mirror, that big mirror she had seen herself in before. Her mouth opened in astonishment. Her naked body was gleaming in the bright light. She looked smaller than everyone else, these big grownups made bigger by their clothes. She was like a bright statue that they were closely examining. And ohmigod — my pussy hair — every single hair cast its bright shadow on my labia. Her eyes widened disbelievingly as they took in the little clit poking out, the open lips with the light shining directly into and between them. And finally and most shamingly, her little butthole, surrounded by a ring of brown skin, in its open valley up behind her pubic hair. In a reflex of trying to cover herself, she started to squeeze her butt cheeks closed. But she could not risk the Dean detecting any attempt to cover herself, no matter how minor and inadequate. So she relaxed her butt cheeks. All that the grownups saw was a twitch of the little brown asterisk.

Tami tried to look away from the mirror but it kept drawing her attention. Her gleaming, nude, wide-opened form was unbearable to look at. She just had to turn away from it. But it was impossible; it kept attracting her gaze.

“If you — don’t mind,” she said quietly, “I — have to — reposition.” And with that, she turned around, her hands shifting a few degrees at a time. As her legs rotated her spread toes brushed against someone’s jacket and another person’s dress. Her poor bare toes, denied covering for so long, thrilled at the touch of fabric. “Sorry,” she said. “No, I’m sorry,” came the replies.

Finally she was facing the other direction from before. She thought of how she must look in the mirror, her bare butt gleaming under the lights. And now she saw in front of her, shoes and socks and pants she recognized. The Dean, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Comstock. Her heart sank as she realized these three men were looking right into her secret womanly cave. And right down at her brightly lit butthole! She wanted to turn around to where she was before but she knew how that would be interpreted.

It was becoming too much for the frightened naked teenager. I can’t take all this exposure, all this shame! Please God . . . And now she felt her eyes getting wet. She had tried to control her shame, but now her tummy quivered and so did her mouth.

She sniffled and immediately regretted it. Sniffling was a dead giveaway. I am so dead! She thought of her parents and how crushed they would be. Expelled as a streaker and a liar, scholarship revoked. Back to Providence. Waitressing, maybe, like a lot of her friends from high school. But mostly she thought of her parents. I’ve let them down!!

Blinking back tears, she looked up at the Dean, the corners of her mouth straining to keep back the sobs. And the Dean looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. And now a little, triumphant smile.

As their eyes continued to meet, confident gray eyes staring into wet young green eyes of fear and terror, Dean Percy Jorgon, master of the surreptitious gesture, coughed. He coughed casually, as if suddenly having a little tickle in his throat. He decorously put his hand up to cover his mouth, of course. The hand was clenched a little so as to block his breath. But only apparently so. In fact as his curled fingers let his breath escape, they funnelled the force of his wind directly into the opened vagina of the naked 18-year-old freshman gymnast.

Tami’s body flinched as she felt his breath go right up inside her, and waft over her cute little exposed anus. Everyone could see her womanly lower lips flinching under the bright chandelier, her sphincter twitching. There was no holding back now. Her wails of shame would no longer be contained. Tears fell from her upside-down face, rolling over her forehead into her hair. She sniffled again, louder. Her whole body trembled, her legs shaking.

“Oh I’m sorry, young lady,” Professor Latimer said, guessing that
she was straining from holding the position. “You can finish now.”

Tami’s heart was in her mouth as she finally, blessedly closed her legs, her toes pointing up to the ceiling. And now she did a backflip and landed her bare feet on the carpet, her chest stuck out and her arms extended backward in the classic gymnastics finishing position. She felt her breasts wobble for a split second before they came to rest. She saw that her nipples were erect. They seemed to poke into everyone’s faces.

And now the loud, loud applause rang in her ears as she listened through her incriminating tears. Probably the last applause I’ll ever hear, she told herself.

She put her arms down and began to turn around. But then the Dean said, “Miss Smithers, you’re crying. Are you upset about something?”

“Indeed,” Mr. Noyes said, stepping forward, looking down at the naked girl from his height. “Perhaps we should talk about this.”

Mr. Comstock stepped forward too, his reptilian face twisting into a smile.

Tami wiped the tears from her face and sniffled. “O.K.” Out to that chilly portico to get expelled!

“No, that’s normal,” Jen said, stepping forward. “When you’re upside down for a while your eyes get bloodshot and teary, and the . . . mucus (she was going to say “snot”) goes down to your head so you sniffle.”

Tami’s eyes widened. “Yes, that’s right.” Yes it was! She remembered Coach Ballister in high school telling her that! Thank you Jen!!

The Dean looked confused and a little flustered. He glanced at Mr. Comstock uncertainly.

Then Professor Kurilenko, that bald Russian man, spoke up. “What she says is true. The human body is not used to being upside down. Blood goes to the eyes, fluids go to the head. Tears can flow.”

“So . . . you’re all right?” the Dean said to Tami.

Tami, sniffling and catching her breath, put her arm around Jen and said, “Yes, Mr. Jorgon. I’m fine. And thank you — Ladies and Gentlemen — for this scholarship.” She smiled broadly, momentarily forgetting her nakedness.

Later, eating the last of the doughnuts as the reception wound down, Jen hugged Tami, pressing Tami’s bare breasts against her jacket. “You were great out there, Tam!”

“Oh Jen . . .” And Tami hugged her friend harder than ever, feeling her breasts crush against the smooth jacket material. She held back saying, “You saved my life!!” Even though it was true.

Part 5

When the Armor of Christ Scholarship reception was finally over, in mid-afternoon, Tami and her friends, walking out to the portico and hoping for a leisurely walk back to the dorm, found the air much colder and the wind blowing.

“Oh Jesus!” Jen said.

“Shhh!!” Tami said, half giggling. One shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain with so many evangelical Christians about. She was so glad to be out of there, so glad the embarrassment of spread-out exposure was over, that she was kind of giddy. Back among friends.

Jen looked up at the white sky. “Looks like snow.”

“Eeek!” The naked girl gasped as the suddenly icy wind stung her breasts. “Let’s go!” The three ran out along the path, aiming for Pilgrim Hall, halfway across campus. Jen carried the umbrellas. As they ran Marisol couldn’t help but grab her breasts to keep them from bouncing painfully up and down, not very successfully since each was way more than a handful. And Tami, hunched over, arms crossed over her bare nipples, kept laughing and shouting, “It’s c – o – o – o – o – l – d!! Aiaiaiai!!” Her feet slopped in a mud hole and got covered with black goo. Playfully, she jumped in a little fountain to kick the mud off, saying, “Water! Cold! Cold! Eeeee!” They were back at the dorm in record time, bursting through the doors, panting gratefully in the warmth of the lounge.

They stomped upstairs and Tami headed straight for the showers. A moment later people passing by in the hall heard the spray of hot water and a girl who sounded like she was having an orgasm, saying, “ohhh . . . ahhh . . . yes!” They knew it was just Tami, getting all the mud off and enjoying the blessed feel of hot water on her defrosting skin.

. . . .

On campus there is never anything to do on Sunday night. It is the pit of the week. So in Room 207, Pilgrim Hall, there were seven bored 18-year-old women hanging out, on beds, chairs, on the floor, making jokes about the dining hall food they’d just consumed, and talking about this and that.

Jen and Tami were at their desks in the middle of the room, facing each other. Sitting cross-legged up on Terri’s bunk was Dawn, a kind of granola-head nose-ringed girl from Wellesley, Massachusetts. Next to her, in flannel shirt and jeans and stocking feet, was Rebecca, a local girl who was “into Jesus”. Sitting on the floor in her pajamas, leaning against Jen’s lower bunk, was Marisol. Across the room on Tami’s bare bed was Mayree, a heavy-set black girl in a T-shirt and sweatpants; and Shenille, a tall, regal black girl in silk pajamas, playing with the ends of her extensions which had somehow gotten unraveled.

Tami, laughing nervously at Jen’s account of the scholarship reception, was leaning over her desk, trying not to let her breasts show. Her legs were together, half-hidden under her desk.

“Yes the clanky rusty armor of Jesus awards,” Jen said . . . “Sorry, Rebecca.”

Rebecca shrugged tolerantly. “Just because it says, ‘Lord, Lord’, doesn’t mean it is Lord.” This puzzled some of them.

“It’s all those pompous white man beards on those portraits!” Jen said. “Ever been there?”

“Yes, for a prayer meeting,” Rebecca said.

“Where’s this?” Shenille said.

“The Joshua Campbell Center,” Marisol said, drawing her knees up to her chest. She liked this position; it gave her breasts support. “It’s that little stone thing connected to Old Main, near the chapel.”

Jen looked at Tami and said, “I can’t believe you did a split right in front of that guy’s portrait.” She turned to the others as Tami forced a smile. “Right under that chandelier, she went upside down and spread her legs so wide he could see right into her woman-land, right down inside her, her open woman cave, all lit up bright and pink! Tami’s insides are as beautiful as her outside!”

“Oh, Jen,” Marisol said, hiding her eyes. “Toooo much information!”

Jen was undeterred. “I wonder if old Josh ” — with her hands she drew her face into a long, downward-inspecting frown — “if he could move his face, what he would be like” — she didn’t move her face now except to bug out her downward-looking eyes in surprise. Even Rebecca had to laugh at that one.

This banter was interrupted by the blast of grainy snow against the big bay window. It was dark now, a short December day, and with the light on in the room they couldn’t see what was going on outside. “Oooh,” Tami said, feeling a draft on her bare hip. She reached over, hoping no one outside could see, and tightened the old-fashioned iron casement window by turning the crank.

“Winter’s blast,” Dawn said. “The earth goes to sleep.”

“Our first winter up here,” Mayree said. They were all freshmen. “C – o – l – d!”

They watched as another blast hit the windows. Because the lights were on in the room they couldn’t see out. A couple of them rubbed their clothed shoulders. Tami scrunched up and rubbed her bare shoulders, with genuine fear.

Now the strains of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” from down the hall. “Oh Christ not again!” Jen said. Bailey, a dippy white girl at the end of the wing, with an equally dippy roommate, had been playing the same CD for a week. It seemed to have only four songs — Rudolph, “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas”, “Jingle Bells” and “White Christmas”. She kept on even in spite of the blistering, though jokey, protests on the message board on her door. “Rudolph needs a nose-ectomy!!” Jen had written. “I’m dreaming of a BLACK Christmas!!” Mayree had written. But Bailey just erased the messages and kept on playing the CD. They knew she would keep this up right until Christmas break, two weeks away.

A knock on the door. “Come in!” Jen said. It was Wanda, their R.A., trying to be nice. “Hi guys, how’s it?” She seemed aloof to them, but seeing her unforced smile, maybe they had been wrong. The emotion she aroused in Tami, of course, was quite different. The naked one’s heart was in her mouth. Now what?

Tami realized that, leaning over her desk, legs underneath, clutching her shoulders, she was betraying modesty. With great effort she straightened up, thrust her breasts out, and turned her chair outward, casually yet deliberately opening her legs just so. With even greater effort, hiding her cringing shame, she met Wanda’s gaze evenly with a smile. “Hi, Miss R.A.”

“We’re going into the second week of Rudolph saturation,” Jen said.

“Well, babies, it’s not hurting anyone. And Bailey’s a good kid. . . mind?” She was toting the weekly campus paper and sat down at the end of Tami’s bed, next to Shenille. She showed the appearance of a motherly presence, as their R.A. and the only non-freshman there. “Can’t get those to work?” she said to Shenille, referring to her unraveling extensions.

“No, damn,” the displaced African princess said.

“Let me try,” Mayree said. As one black girl helped tie the other’s extensions, Wanda said to the rest of them, “Welcome to the north country winter.” She hopped up and turned off the light. This made the wintry scene outside visible, though they could see only what was illuminated by the light posts on the campus path, themselves blurry in the white noise of the snow. There was an inch or two on the ground and no one was out there. Wind picked up and it sounded like sand hitting the window.

Tami tried not to look. She knew Wanda was doing this for her benefit, showing her the horrors of having to go out there naked. Another attempt to get her to crack — to admit that nudity was not really her religion, that she had been streaking on a dare. Which would result in expulsion. Tami bit her lip and looked down at her flexing toes framed in front of Mayree’s socks in fluffy slippers. Well, if it’s me against Wanda, I’m going to win. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

Then as if to torture her more, Wanda said, “Oh I forgot Rebecca, you’re a native. What’s the record cold up here?”

“Twenty-seven below, near Grafton,” Rebecca said. “Back in 1973. My uncle was living there then. He said no one could start cars, even after keeping the battery inside. Everyone just stayed inside until the snap was over. Babies got born in houses.”

It was Dawn who finally said the obvious. “Tami, I admire you! How you’re going to survive running through that snow all winter, I don’t know.”

“Oh I just know Tami will survive,” Jen said, smiling and mischievously nuzzling Tami’s bare toes under the desk with her heavily stockinged feet.

“People can run outside naked in hundred degree below weather, you know,” Wanda said.

“What!”

“There’s this guy Professor Kurilenko, in the anthro department,” Wanda continued. “Tall shaved head guy, ever see him around?”

Part 6

There was only one faculty who fit that description. “I’ve seen him,” Dawn said. “Looks kind of scary.”

“He isn’t, though he might be a little, you might say, chilly,” Wanda said with a practiced giggle. “He was stationed at the South Pole and they would streak from their building to the Pole itself, and back, when it was one hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit.” She looked squarely at Tami with a smile. “Can you believe that? One hundred degrees below zero!”

Tami tried to hide her anger. Yeah, Wanda, you would know a lot about streaking! You dared me to streak, and I got caught and paid the price!

After a somewhat awkward silence Marisol said to Tami, “Hey chica. It’s all of maybe twenty degrees out. Hot, for you. I’ve got some suntan lotion you can use.” Female giggling among the clothed freshwomen broke the tension. The naked freshwoman tried to laugh along. But a chill colder than that outside seemed to fasten on her heart. Wanda knew about Kurilenko. Already! Tami herself had just heard about his “program” this morning at the reception. “Exercises to help you get through the winter ahead,” he had said . . .

Wanda, probably thinking she had gone far enough for now, said, “Welcome to Sunday night in the winter, babies. The deadest part of campus life. . . Tell me, what would you rather be doing now?”

Tami’s stomach was rumbling even though she had just eaten an hour ago. She started, bravely, “Eating a burrito. I love Mexican food. But they don’t have it here.” For some reason she was hungry already, despite having left the dining hall less than an hour ago.

“Yes,” Mayree said. “I miss my Taco Bell.”

“Ugh! Fast food!” Dawn said.

“No es comida chicana real,” Marisol said in Spanish.

“Well then call me common,” Mayree replied. “Mild sauce though. I can’t take too much spice.”

“I can,” Tami said, “hot hot hot.” She smiled and actually began to forget her condition and enjoy the conversation. Maybe to bug Wanda? “Mighty Taco, on Chalkstone Avenue, Providence. Their hottest is called ‘suicidal’.”

“Oh Dios, akkk!” Marisol said. She pressed her knees up to her neck, causing her breasts to bulge out on both sides. They jiggled as her stockinged feet padded a soft drumbeat on the tiled floor. “How can you stand it!”

“Well, Tami can stand a lot of things,” Jen said. Her eyes were shining at her naked roommate admiringly, which Tami noticed.

From Bailey’s room, “Rudolph” came on again. The girls all sighed in exasperation. And then giggled. Shenille, breaking character a little, gave a fake stage cry. “Torture . . . I’ll say anything . . .”

“As for food, I miss falafel and tempeh,” Dawn continued. She smiled at the expected reaction. “Ewwwww!!” “Granola head!”

“Me, I’d like a leg of turkey at Sylvia’s in Harlem,” Mayree said.

“Baychester Diner on East Two Thirty Third Street, Bronx,” Marisol said. “Best lobster bisque ever.”

“I believe,” Shenille said, speaking with slightly self-mocking regal composure as her servant Mayree continued to do her hair, “A large Greek salad at Stavros’s in Bridgeport would be in order.”

A couple of the girls looked at Jen, wondering what she would say. They knew her dad was rich and she had been all over the world. What exquisite Monte Carlo restaurant would she mention? But her pretty African-American face tactfully kept its attention on everyone else’s.

“What else do you miss?” Wanda said, the benevolent R.A. trying to get her charges through this boring time.

Again Tami led the way. “Horror movies.” This came out of nowhere.

“Oh woman, you have extreme tastes!” Jen said.

Tami smiled, so at ease now that she momentarily forgot her nudity. “I put that on my application to this place. They wanted a list of our likes and dislikes.”

“I remember that question,” Rebecca said. “I hope they didn’t take it seriously. I put that I liked peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Well they accepted me to this place, so horror movies must be o.k.”

“They’re so violent,” Dawn said, pointing out the obvious. “A reflection of our society.”

“It’s all make-believe, and an escape valve,” a new voice said. It was Terri, Tami’s other roommate, who had just walked in. “Whoa,” she said to Jen, “our room has become the Hotel Vermont!”

Terri, as always, was well dressed, except for the Uggs that she wore out of necessity. As she unwrapped her scarf and took off her coat, they saw her long business skirt and tan buttoned-up blouse. Her blonde hair was flecked with bits of snow. “So what corporate boardroom were you just in?” Jen said. Terri was a well-known go-getter and multi-tasker.

“Business Club meeting,” Terri said. She posed like a model. “I am now the Vice President! I get to start the coffee machine for the meetings!”

“Oooohhh,” everyone said.

“Must be frightening to have that much power,” Mayree said, smirking as she did Queen Shenille’s hair.

Now with a wink at Tami, Terri said, “Your friend Rod was there.”

Jen said, “Yes!” Looking at the others’ puzzled faces, she said, “Rod asked Tami to the Black Formal!”

Tami blushed and looked down. She did think Rod was cute. Now a rising chorus of “Woooo!!!”

Rebecca, a little confused, said, “I wonder how many white people show up at that?”

Mayree reassured her. “We always get a few. I’m on the dance committee and we make sure the posters are where white students can see them. They say, ‘All Welcome’.”

Wanda was surprised and maybe a little intrigued. “Tami, so you’re going to the Black Formal with Rod Sykes?”

Tami nodded, not knowing what to make of Wanda’s interest.

“He must think you’re really cute,” Wanda said jovially.

Jen said, “Well obviously. How could anyone not be in love with Tami?” She was, too, but couldn’t find a way to express it. And now it looked like Rod was in the way. . .

“Anyway,” Terri said, feeling like the current topic was embarrassing Tami, and settling on the bunk next to Marisol, “I like horror movies too.”

“The Nightmare on Elm Street series, that was the best,” Tami said.

“I like Freddy’s sense of humor,” Terri said. “Remember that one where he broke that guy’s bottle of champagne and was about to slash him with it, and he said, ‘Bad year, Dan!'”

“Yes! Yes!” Tami laughed, her breasts jiggling, her bare toes digging into the floor. She even risked looking at Wanda.

“I prefer Chuckie, myself,” Terri said.

“Too bad the movies they show here are so moldy,” Jen said. She was referring to the Sunday Night Movie Series, in the Student Union. It was an effort to relieve the boringness of Sunday nights. But turnout was low because of the movies shown, mostly old-folks fare like “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Xanadu”.

“Yeah I know,” Wanda said. “I’m on the board of that committee, but they always want to play it safe. I’ve even proposed horror movies, but . . .” She shrugged.

“Fighting the good fight,” Tami said, smiling at Wanda, perhaps more in defiance than in appreciation. See! I can get along just fine being naked! Still . . . she took a deep breath and wondered if she really could . . .

A blast of grainy snow at the windows made Tami shudder.

“The ‘Saw’ movies, though, that was going too far,” Terri said.

“Oh God,” Jen said, covering her face, cowering for once. “Torture porn! No!”

“They’re not so bad,” Tami said, suddenly feeling warm again, reaching over, patting Jen’s hand playfully. “I’ve seen two or three. It’s just more of the same, with more inventive ideas.” She tried not to notice the sensation as her bare nipple brushed against her Calculus III workbook. “There was one where a guy woke up and had to get a key that was implanted behind his eyeball. He had to tear his own eye out with a scalpel.”

“Oh Jesus! . . . Tami, you are a piece of work,” Mayree said, shutting her eyes and shaking her head, finishing the last of Shenille’s unraveled extensions by finger touch alone.

“So what’s the movie tonight?” Rebecca said, looking at the clock on Jen’s desk. She actually enjoyed the usual fare. “It’s only ten minutes to showtime.”

“I don’t know,” Wanda said, shrugging.

“You’ve got the paper,” Terri pointed out.

“Oh right! Duh . . .” Wanda unrolled it from her hand and looked. “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! The apocalypse is arrived!”

“What? What??” everyone asked.

“It’s one of the ‘Saw’ movies!”

Tami hopped up, along with her breasts. “Which one?”

“Saw III. . . seen it?”

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one,” Tami said.

“Let’s go!” Jen said. “I’ll close my eyes at the bad parts.”

“You might as well be blind,” Tami said. “Thank you Wanda!!”

“I’ll go too,” Terri said, standing up. “Anyone else?”

“I can’t,” Wanda said with a shrug. “Too much homework. Besides, I have to make a call or two.”

Tami’s sensitive ears detected a hint of intrigue. But she quickly returned to thinking of escaping into the world of horror movies. Even though it seemed no one else was up for it. “Us three then,” Jen said. She and Terri got up to the closet for their coats. Tami stood up her naked self awkwardly.

They looked at the window as another blast hit it. Then “Rudolph” started up again.

“Just run like hell, Tam!” Jen said. “If they can do it at the South Pole you can do it here. And it’s less than a hundred yards. And anything to get away from Bailey’s CD!”

Tami bit her lip again. Then off they went, the three residents of Room 207 leaving their friends behind in their room, the muffled clomping of Uggs and the slapping of bare feet disappearing down the hall.

Part 7

“EEEE!! EEEE!! EEEE!!” The naked freshwoman dashed half-blindly through the sandy blizzard, immediately numb from the cold, yet half-laughing, knowing she would be inside the Student Union in a minute or two, and bathed in the warmth of the support and good humor of her two roommates, who, burdened with coats and hats and scarves and boots, were lagging behind her as her insensate bare feet knifed through the quickly rising accumulation of grainy snow.

The lights ahead, shrouded in a kind of fog at first but then getting clearer and brighter, told her she was almost through it. Finally her hand grabbed the handle of the glass door and, with a huge heave that almost caused her soles to slip on the icy-cold smooth concrete, it opened.

The Student Union lobby welcomed her into its warmth. A clothed person would think it was freezing, with the draft from outside and the inadequate radiators, but to the naked girl just in from the blizzard it seemed warm and almost hot. She found herself standing on the dirty tile, her bare feet squirming on the grit and cigarette butts, and facing the astonished faces of dozens of students, mostly freshmen like herself, standing in front of her and around her in their heavy clothes wet with slowly melting snow.

After a long second they applauded! It was the muffled applause of gloved hands, but accompanied by the odd cry of “Yay, Naked Tami!”, her recently and predictably acquired nickname.

Tami had not yet learned to be proud of her perfect body, her firm 34C breasts, her concave tummy, thin hips, finely toned butt and legs. She blushed with shame, but knew that Wanda or the Dean must have spies present and she dare not betray the slightest sign of modesty, the slightest move of her hands to cover her breasts or crotch. She instead tried to act like a clothed person, and wrung the snow out of her hair with her fingers.

Now the door flew open behind her, she felt another blast of cold on her butt, and Jen and Terri stomped in, shaking the snow from their boots. “Jesus Clanking Armor of Christ!” Jen said, shaking the snow from her coat like a dog shaking wet fur.

Tami felt tingling in her toes and then her thighs and breasts as sensation came back. She still was catching her breath, intensely conscious of her nipples heaving into everyone’s faces. Yet this was not so bad as the spectacle of her Big Bare Catholic Boobs in that room of elegantly attired grownups. These here were kids, just like herself.

With the return of feeling to her thighs she felt something warm running down her legs and for a weird moment thought she was peeing. She looked down to see the thick thatch of impacted snow stuck to her pubic hair. Without thinking she bent her legs open a little, and scooped it out and flung it to the floor. Everyone laughed, at a sight they could never have imagined. Jen and Terri laughed. And Tami found herself laughing too!

A little more relaxed, but still desperately aching for clothes and shoes, Tami got on line and filed into the multipurpose room with the others. Homer, the grounds crew chief, a guy in a wheelchair and baseball cap, had thoughtfully set up a coffee urn that some were taking advantage of. With the wind and snow beating outside on this Sunday night, this little lobby was a solitary cocoon, and outpost of warmth and civilization. The kids were glad to be here, together.

The multipurpose room had been set up with a big screen and maybe a hundred and fifty chairs, almost all filled up. A little hand-drawn sign said, “Tonight’s Film: Saw III”. Someone had written “yuck!” under it. Tami, loving horror films, led Terri and Jen to the front row. “No, not so close!” Terri said. “It’s the only way to see horror,” Tami said. Also, in front she would be mostly hidden from everyone’s eyes. All they could see of her from behind would be her bare shoulders.

It took a few moments for Homer’s assistant Omar to get the old-style projector going. Meanwhile Terri and Jen took off their coats and flung them on the chairs to either side. Tami was in the middle, parking her bare butt onto the cold metal of the folding chair. After a few seconds her roommates put their coats back on. “Why don’t they turn up the heat in this place?” Terri said. “What do you mean?” her naked roommate said, fanning her face with her hand. “It’s pretty hot in here!”

They were shushed by the brightening up of the screen, and garbled sound. Then, “oh shit, damn it, man” from Omar behind them. “Awwww,” came the general lament, which Tami and Terri and Jen joined in. “Don’t worry, folks, I’ll get it,” Omar said in his thick, good-natured Mexican accent. He had been dragooned by Homer into fighting his way through the blizzard and trying to operate this ancient equipment and knew that Homer now owed him big-time.

Jeffrey Dillon swept by them, with his curly blond hair and long Doctor Who coat, accompanied by his boyfriend Trent, equally tall. “Hey Tam, looking good,” he said. As he settled down next to Terri’s coat he looked over and said, “Love your boobs sticking out, Dudette. They look like twin towers.”

Terri and Jen laughed. So did Tami, as she and Jeffrey, talking across Terri, discussed the little rings he was always adding to his coat. They talked easily, as girls will with gay guys. Odd that while all the straight guys on campus feasted on Tami’s nakedness with unspoken lust, only Jeffrey was out loud about Tami’s magnificent pulchritude. Meanwhile Jen looked sideways at Tami’s breasts, which stuck out straight despite being without a bra for three months. Twin towers indeed!

The screen lit up again and this time it looked for real. “Lionshead Pictures”, now the scary logo for the director, and now . . . “Saw III”!

Terri and Jen bit their lips and determined to sit through. This old guy was dying of cancer and looked half dead. Now he’s being operated on, without anesthesia. Skull being cut, blood spurting out. A few “ewwws!” from the crowd. Tami ate it up, crossing her legs and sitting back. Jen noticed that she was idly twirling her pubic hair with her fingers, the same casual way someone else would rub a button on her coat, a sign of nervous excitement. A naked person with her own nonverbal language.

Now there’s some kind of revenge plot the old guy has cooked up. The lady surgeon was fitted with a collar made up of guns aiming at her head. Tami giggled. “Oh give me a break!” someone said. Now, a half-stoned looking guy in a bathrobe waking up in an abandoned factory. It’s always an abandoned building in a horror movie, Terri thought. You KNOW something awful is behind the next rusted door. She put her gloves back on. It really was cold in here. She looked over to Tami, who was rubbing her shoulders. Tami’s feeling it, finally. As the minutes went by — nothing horrible just yet — she began to get concerned for her roommate. The light was dim, but she thought she could see goosebumps on Tami’s thighs. The bare toes were jammed into the crotches of her knees. The metal chair must feel like ice under her bare butt.

Now the bathrobe guy opened a big metal door and found himself locked in a big freezer. This freezer was really, really cold. He was shivering, breath coming out in overly thick clouds (bad special effects? intentionally exaggerated?) and the air was blue. Must be a deep freezer, way below zero. Terri looked across. Tami had gasped and was hunched over, hugging herself. During a silent moment she could hear her naked roommate shivering. Jen heard it too.

The bathrobe guy turned around and there was a naked woman hanging by her handcuffed hands! She was dead, her hair frozen to her head. The bathrobe guy approached. Her head looked up with a loud crash of nightmare music. She was not dead!

Terri and Jen heard a choking like sound from Tami, hunched over and shivering.

“Help me,” the frozen naked lady pleaded. “I’m so cold . . .”

It turned out the key that would unlock her hands was behind some kind of freezer pipe that the guy couldn’t reach. And now the lady was sprayed all over with cold water, from nozzles aimed at her from every direction! She yelled with agony as the water froze to her immediately. The water stopped and the bathrobe guy argued with her about something. She tried to speak but her face was half caked with ice. She begged for her life and the guy tried to reach the key again to save her.

Again she got the all-over cold water shower. How cold was it in there? Terri remembered what someone said, who had been in Alaska once, about what happens when it’s forty below. Water freezes before it even reaches the ground.

Some guy behind them reflected her thoughts. “It must be forty below in there.” Now the ice was so thick that the bathrobe guy looked around and saw the lady’s face motionless behind a sheet of ice, eyes open in horror. She must be dead, or maybe just barely breathing. The guy made a final jab and got the key, freezing part of his face off in the process. But when he reached up to try the key the lady’s hands, and the handcuffs, were encased in an inch of ice and inaccessible. The lady was dead now, somewhere in a thick sarcophagus of white that had only the approximate shape of a naked, hanging woman. The bathrobe guy sobbed and stumbled out of the deep freezer, the forty-below-zero freezer.

The scene switched to the lady surgeon up in a control booth, with the gun collar on, looking at a monitor of the frozen-dead, suspended lady. Now Tami unwrapped her arms and legs and lurched out of her seat. “Exc – cuse me,” she said, crouching down so as not to be seen as she stumbled out to the bathroom.

Shortly after, Terri followed her. A minute later, as Jen tried to deal with another gruesome scene, Terri returned and motioned for Jen to follow her.

They were standing outside the women’s room. “That scene really f**ked Tami up,” Terri said.

“I could kind of tell.”

“She’s in there crying.”

When they went in they found Tami in the stall. She let them come in and they saw her perched up on the toilet, shivering, hugging herself, rubbing her toes with her fingers as if to warm them. She moaned softly. “Oh — oh — oh — oh”

“Tami, are you all right?” Jen said stupidly.

“Oh – oh – I’ll – b-b-b-be o k-k-k-kayyy.”

Clearly she was not o.k. What she needed was to be back in her room. But to go through that blizzard again!

Jeffrey and Trent were called in for help. Fortunately when Trent was sent to look outside he saw the blizzard was over. It was cold and still out, with just an occasional gust. “Come on, Tam, we’ll carry you back,” Jen said in her soft voice. And so the four friends carried their naked friend back over the swirled grainy snow, the treacherous ice patches, her butt in Jeffrey’s arms, her head and shoulders in Terri’s hands, Jen and Trent holding up each leg. Meanwhile Tami shivered and quaked, her concave tummy heaving up and down, her toes jerking wildly.

Five minutes later Tami sat on her bare mattress, not wanting to touch the cold concrete wall with her back, hunched forward cross-legged, in much the same position as she had sat on the metal folding chair in the multipurpose room. She tried to hide herself, though to the sympathetic eyes around her she seemed to be just trying to get warm.

Standing around her with concern were Terri, Jen, Jeffrey, Trent, Rebecca, Marisol, Dawn and Shenille. The door was open, and out in the hall, a few other girls had gathered in their bathrobes and fluffy slippers. The word had passed around. Naked Tami was freaking out!

“Is there anything we can do?” Rebecca said.

Tami, appearing not to hear, whimpered, “She w-w-was . . . s-s-s-o . . . c-c-c-coldddd. . .”

There was a separating of girls outside and then Wanda, the R.A., walked in. Her face registered shock as she looked down at the cowering naked girl, one of her freshman charges. “What’s going on?”

“She was f**ked up by that movie,” Terri said.

“I thought she liked horror,” Wanda said.

“This was . . . different. It had a naked lady, being tortured with cold.”

“Tortured with cold?”

“Hung up naked and sprayed with water in a deep freezer,” Jen said, looking at Tami as if she was that lady in the movie, “until she froze to death.”

“God almighty,” Wanda said, shaking her head, as if never ceasing to be amazed at the outrageousness of horror movies. There was a long moment when everyone looked at Tami and also was waiting for Wanda to say something. Finally she said, “Let’s leave her alone. No, Jen, you stay with her. She needs private time.”

They went out into the hallway. Wanda closed the door. She looked at all of them and said, “That girl needs to be wrapped up in warm clothes. Immediately.”

Rebecca said, “But it’s against her religion.”

“Against her religion!” Wanda said in a loud whisper, as if making sure Tami couldn’t hear her through the closed door. “Look, I know she’s a nice girl, and everyone likes her, but this is just another kid with a crazy idea. I’ve seen a few in my time as R.A. We had one girl last year, she had really thick glasses, half blind, then one day she declared that Jesus had ‘healed’ her eyesight and she took the glasses off. She spent all day bumping into things. Then she fell down stairs and almost broke her neck. We had to talk those glasses back on. Didn’t force her, just talked her into it. Probably saved her life.”

Wanda opened the door a crack and peeked inside. Then closed it again. “This is worse. Much worse.”

“It’s only a movie. She won’t see anything like that again,” Terri said.

“Oh but she’ll LIVE it. Maybe not forty degrees below zero, but close to it. That dash through the blizzard was just the beginning. There’s three months of winter ahead. What’s the record low here, twenty-seven below? If she’s going to react like — like *that* — pointing her head to the door — to just a movie, how will it be when she feels that cold for real? You know, the anthro department has set up exercises for her to deal with the cold. I’m supposed to help. But now I see we are headed for a major freakout, a psych ward admission, if this goes on.” They were stunned by her words, by the sudden sense that the stakes were very high here. Now she looked over to Jeffrey. “If you don’t mind, I’d like you to take that long coat off and give it to her to put on.”

“But . . .” Rebecca protested weakly.

“I know, you’re a religious type, Rebecca,” Wanda said. “But I’m responsible for the well-being of all the girls on this wing, and it’s something that has to be done.” No one around her could disagree. At the moment Wanda’s moral authority was overwhelming. Jeffrey obediently took off his coat. He gave it to Wanda, who gave it to Terri.

“It’s better if you do it,” Wanda said. “I don’t want her to feel threatened, just urged in a friendly way. We’ll stay out here. Ask Jen to help. Let me know when she’s got it on.” Wanda absently took a smart phone out of her bathrobe pocket, as if to check the time.

Terri went in silently with Jeffrey’s coat and closed the door. Wanda and the girls outside listened closely.

Part 8

Wanda, Jeffrey, Trent, Rebecca, Marisol, Mayree, Shenille, Dawn, the others — the whole crowd waited breathlessly and silently outside the closed door of 207 Pilgrim Hall. No sound came from within. Now some soft murmurings, Jen’s voice, low and comforting, though the words were unintelligible through the thick oak door in this old dorm.

Finally Terri came out with Jeffrey’s coat. Everyone’s shoulders slumped, Wanda’s especially. “She won’t put it on.”

Wanda said, “Did you tell her I wanted her to?”

“Yes.”

“I wish you hadn’t done that.” Terri, normally quite quick, understood that invoking the R.A.’s name made it more like coercion, made it less likely that Tami would accept the coat, less likely to cover her poor naked body, a body that was shivering from thinking of that frozen naked lady in the movie. Terri felt guilty, as if she was helping to condemn her dear friend Tami to a life of shivering nudity instead of clothed warmth.

Terri had a horrible vision of Professor Tami, years in the future, living her life in a freezing glass booth, motorized so she could get around, teaching classes, living at home, going to the beach with friends, who were warm and clothed and happy while poor Tami herself was naked and freezing and shivering.

Wanda exhaled and took charge. “If you don’t mind, Jeffrey,” she said, taking his coat from Terri and opening the door. She kept the door open behind her and let the others watch.

Tami, curled up in a ball on her bare mattress, holding her toes in her hands, did not seem to react.

“Tam, you’ve got to put this on. I see you’re suffering,” Wanda said with as gentle a voice as she could muster.

Tami seemed to freeze up further upon hearing Wanda’s voice. She hugged herself tighter and slowly shook her head.

“She’s right, Tam,” Jen said in her low, soft voice. “I know you’re a religious nudist, but you don’t have to be naked every minute of every day.”

This remark seemed to irritate Wanda, who broke in quickly with, “You have to think of your well-being. I am responsible for you. You need this coat, Tami.” She moved closer with it. “Wouldn’t you like to feel this warm fur all around you? Think about it. No more dashing through the snow in bare feet.”

“Dashing through the snow . . . on a one-horse open sleigh . . .” Damn Bailey and her four-song CD! A couple of the girls in the back stifled a laugh as “Jingle Bells”, on cue, once again seeped through the walls of every room on the wing.

Wanda exhaled and closed her eyes, then soldiered on. “No more seeing everyone else bundled up while you’re naked and freezing. No more super-cold tingle of snow on your poor bare feet. No more goose pimples on your bare buns. And don’t you hate it when everyone can see everything you’ve got, every little bit of you? Your pussy and your butthole are on full view at all times. While everyone else is all comfy and covered up. Everyone’s entitled to their secrets, Tami. You don’t have any. You have no privacy, no dignity at all.”

Rebecca said, “Wanda, you’re going a bit too far — ”

“Shhh! . . . Tami, okay, I respect your beliefs, this new belief you have that you should always be naked. But this is an emergency. You’re sick, you’re traumatized. Tami Smithers: You WANT and NEED clothes! Right now!”

Tami sniffled and again shook her head.

In a sharper voice Wanda said, “Do I have to call your parents?!”

At this, Tami bolted off the bed and stumbled back to her desk, clumsily hitting the chair at an angle with her butt and it scraped against the floor. She curled up into a ball again, her toes curling over the edge of the chair.

“I accept that you’re a religious nudist, and you don’t believe in modesty,” Wanda said.

With violent jerky movements Tami put her feet down to the floor, straightened up, put her arms down to her sides, and opened her legs halfway. Her fingers and toes squirmed with the strain.

“Well okay then,” Wanda said. Though paradoxically she put Jeffrey’s long coat onto Tami’s desk. It draped down so as almost to touch Tami’s foot. Tami gulped and scrunched her toes away from it.

“I’m supposed to be helping out Professor Kurilenko of the Anthropology Department in getting your body used to being naked in the winter,” Wanda said with an air of formality. “Tonight was supposed to be the first session. I’m supposed to bring you to the bathtub in the wing bathroom. But if you’re not up to it, I will . . . report that.”

There was silence, then for the first time Tami spoke, in a low, croaky voice. “No . . . I’ll do it.”

Wanda said, “Tami, I don’t think you’re in a condition to go through with it. It’s supposed to last half an hour. I’ll just tell Kurilenko, and the Dean, that you’re — ”

This caused Tami to shoot up and lurch toward the door. “No — I’ll — don’t tell him — let’s go –” Her eyes were downcast, her breasts jiggling with her shivering. Her fists beat against her hips.

Outside in the black night, the wind picked up again, blowing grains of snow against the old iron-cased windows.

“No, Tam, no.” Wanda said.

“She’s right, Tam, no!” Jen said. Terri and Jeffrey and some of the others echoed Jen’s words.

Wanda said, “I’ll just tell them — ”

“NO!” Tami said. “Let’s go.”

With jerky steps Tami marched out of the room. They heard her bare soles stomp toward the bathroom down the hall. Wanda shrugged and went after her, though she came back to quickly snatch Jeffrey’s coat. “Sorry Jeffrey, but I’ll keep trying.”

“No go ahead,” Jeffrey said.

“Throw it on her if you have to!” Terri said.

Wanda disappeared and now they heard the door open to the bathroom. And oddly, from the hall in that direction, along through the open door of the dorm room, they felt a waft of frigid air.

Part 9

The bathroom door closed and the nine friends stood around in Room 207 in silence. The other girls in the wing drifted away to their rooms. Jen and Terri, whose room it was, sat down at their desks in thought. It was crowded in there, but no one felt like leaving. They all looked at each other, wondering what to say.

“This is very strange,” Rebecca said.

“What is Wanda going to be doing with Tami in there?” Terri said, superficially opening up a text and then closing it again. “What is this bit about Kurilenko and getting her used to the cold?”

“He was at that scholarship reception,” Marisol said. “He said he used to be in Antarctica.”

“Yes,” Jen said. “Streaking in a hundred degrees below zero, to the South Pole and back.”

“God damn!” Mayree said. “What white people do!”

“But why didn’t Tami put on your coat?” Dawn said to Jeffrey. “She was f**ked up by that movie, if it’s what I hear. Why is she torturing herself?”

“She seems like a normal girl, except for being naked,” Shenille said.

“That’s a big ‘except’,” Rebecca pointed out.

“But you know what I mean,” Shenille said. “She’s not just another weird crazy chick. She’s not an exhibitionist. She doesn’t show off.”

“If anything, she tries not to make anyone notice that she’s got no clothes on,” Mayree said.

“She’s almost what you might call ‘modest’,” Dawn said.

“Can’t you see?” Rebecca said, her eyes brightening with a sudden insight. “There was nothing to stop her from putting Jeffrey’s coat on. Nothing to stop her from saying, ‘No, Wanda, let’s do the cold training thing later.’ Wanda tried like heck to cancel it, or postpone it. But Tami was having none of it. She’s doing it anyway. In fact she went first, leading Wanda to it. . . Really hard for her to do. REALLY hard, after being traumatized by that movie. But she’s doing it anyway. What you’re seeing is a really strong faith.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Faith in what? In being naked no matter how uncomfortable?”

Rebecca said, “I know how you feel about faith and religion, Jen, but that’s the only explanation, isn’t it?”

Jen shrugged. “I suppose.” She looked out at the door. “Strange as it is, I do admire that. I just hope she’s all right in there.”

Trent, who was in a T-shirt and sweatpants, rubbed his arms. “I feel cold just thinking about that girl.”

“Me too,” Jeffrey said.

Jen smiled up at him. “You and your ‘twin towers’!”

Jeffrey smiled. “That’s what her boobs look like. They stand straight out, even with no bra. Even a gay guy notices it. Just call me ‘Twin Towers Jeffrey’.”

There was a general movement out the door as the friends went to their rooms, some taking the stairs to avoid going past that women’s bathroom. This left only Jen and Terri, and Rebecca and Marisol, who sat on Jen’s lower bunk.

Marisol, in her usual floppy sweatshirt, hugged her huge breasts together, and flexed her feet in their thick socks. “I’m glad I’m wearing all this,” she said. “I hate thinking of her in there, que frio!”

Rebecca said, “Maybe we should go and show our support.”

The friends all looked at each other and recognized that Rebecca was right. But they knew what they had to do first. Sheepishly they went for their heavy clothes, Rebecca and Marisol going to their room next door.

They met a moment later at the doorway to 207, their bundled condition making it a crowded convergence. Jen: panties, thermal shirt and long pants, sweater, jeans, thick socks, boots, coat, scarf, ski cap, thick wool gloves. Terri: bra, panties, ski pants, wool blouse, peacoat, earmuffs, riding cap, gloves, socks, Uggs. Rebecca: bra, panties, flannel shirt, corduroy pants, scarf, parka, knit cap, gloves, socks, sneakers. Marisol: sturdy minimizer bra, panties, long-sleeve T-shirt, sweatshirt, jeans, fake-fur full-length coat with a hood, over a scarf that covered her face except for her eyes, fur gloves, wool socks, snow boots. As they clumsily hiked toward the bathroom they were intensely conscious of all the heavy items they were wearing, all the covering they enjoyed that Tami was denying herself.

After a moment’s hesitation at the bathroom door, Terri took the lead and pushed it open, right under the “Women” sign.

The arctic blast blew in their faces and made them shiver despite their layers of heavy covering. They turned right, past the six regular shower stalls. As they approached where that old claw-footed bathtub was, they looked around and saw frost forming on the pink wall tiles. And then they turned toward the bathtub.

They found a purple, violently shivering naked girl standing over the tub, her bluish toes draping over the tub’s non-skid edges. Her arms were spread out, her white-knuckled hands with a death grip on the oval curtain rods, denuded of curtains, that suspended from the ceiling. She faced the wide open windows from which blew merciless icy gusts from the black night, attacking every inch and crevice of her spread-out nudity.

Hanging from a hook on the wall was Jeffrey’s coat, seeming like only inches from Tami’s clenched left hand.

Wanda, as bundled up as they were, was to one side, leaning down into the tub, which was half-filled with ice cubes bobbing about in freezing water. With a pan she was scooping up the cubes and water and basting the nude body, now on the shoulders, now on the butt, now on the breasts.

Wanda looked up with a little irritation. She pulled her scarf down past her mouth and said, “We’re in the middle of something here.”

“Is she all right?” Marisol said through her scarf.

“Of COURSE she’s all right,” Wanda said. “Kurilenko gave me detailed instructions.” Not wanting her nose to freeze, she pulled her scarf up again. In a now muffled voice she said, “There is no danger.”

“P – p – p – p – ” Tami’s violent shaking made it hard to make it out, but it looked like she was trying to say something.

Terri boldly stepped forward and around, so that she looked up past Tami’s jiggling breasts and her rock-hard nipples up to her face. The naked girl’s eyes alternated between being squeezed shut and being opened slightly with a dull gaze forward. Outside the open windows was another dorm, Rankin Hall. With the bright lights on in this bathroom, Tami’s spread-out form was easily visible face-on to the dozens of students in Rankin who were no doubt observing from the comfort of their warm dark bedrooms.

Terri said through her scarf, “Tami, are you trying to say something?”

Tami closed her eyes and with great effort said, “P – p – p – plllease . . . g – g – g – g – go. . .” It took several breaths from her quaking concave tummy before she could get it out.

Despite Tami’s wish her friends felt, so to speak, frozen to their spots. They took in the scene and began to notice more nuances of her torture. Her skin was either reddish (shoulders, back, breasts), or purplish (face, arms, legs, butt cheeks), or bluish (fingers, feet). As Wanda ladled ice over Tami’s head they could see crystals of ice in her dark red hair. Her eyebrows were rimed with frost. Her reddish breasts were tight with the cold, the nipples tiny hard purple pebbles. Tami’s toes flexed slowly as if trying in their lethargic way to get sensation back. Her abundant pubic hair dripped with the icy water, which because of the relentless shivering, shot forward and back like a little crazy sprinkler. Her tightly muscled buns shivered and shook.

A door opened and they heard the hard New York accent of Sharon in the distance. “What the f**k! It’s f**king cold in here!!” bounced off the freezer-like walls.

Wanda exposed her mouth. “Use the bathroom downstairs, Sharon!” The door slammed shut and Sharon was gone.

Now Wanda, her face covered again, risked exposure to her hands by taking off her gloves. She bent in front of Tami and fished up an ice cube, rounded from being in the water. She ran it into each armpit. She reached up and noodled it between Tami’s fingers, then bent down to separate Tami’s frozen toes and run it between them. As the friends watched with widened eyes Wanda took another rounded cube and ran it along Tami’s labia. Finally she separated Tami’s lower lips and slipped the new cube inside. Tami’s body lurched back sharply, almost losing its footing. Wanda slipped another cube in, then another. Tami gave a full-body shudder and then shouted. “Oh – oh – oh – ohh!” As if she was trying to expel the cubes, or maybe crush and melt them with her internal muscles.

A frozen gale blew in from the Arctic, hitting Tami’s naked body face on. The friends, their heavy clothing creating wind resistance, were pushed back.

Now Wanda came around behind Tami. “Bend forward!” she said loudly in her muffled voice. Tami did so and Wanda spread the naked girl’s butt cheeks. Her friends saw the tight asterisk of her butthole, surrounded by a little ring of brown skin. Wanda picked up another little cube and pushed it inside! Tami’s legs wobbled wildly. “Ohh — ohhh — ohhh!” Wanda slipped in a larger cube now, then a still larger one. The rubbery purple legs danced left and right to the extent they could without dislodging the bare feet clutching the edges of the tub.

“Jesus,” Jen said quietly. She looked at a patch of water that had splashed onto the sill of the tub, near the faucet. Or at least it once was a patch of water. Now it was frozen into a patch of ice. The friends, heavily bundled, thought miserably of Tami’s total nakedness utterly exposed to the cold, every pore and crack of her bareness, unable to hide from the full blast.

Wanda went to the front and fed some more ice cubes into Tami’s vagina. The naked girl’s eyes bulged out into the black night, and into the faces of the spectators in Rankin Hall.

It was at this point that the door opened and clumpy male footsteps approached. It was Justin, the dorm director, a big amiable guy with a beer belly, though now he was in an unaccustomed state of pique, having been complained to very loudly by Sharon.

A gust of wind from the window almost blew Tami over and almost blew Wanda into the tub. Justin had to talk loudly to make himself heard. “Wanda . . . Tami . . what is going on here? Can you shut the damn window??”

Wanda put her gloves on, which gave her time to think. “Hi Justin,” she said offhandedly, “we’re just getting Tami used to the winter.”

“What?”

The gust blew itself out and Wanda could speak more quietly. “Professor Kurilenko’s program. I’m supposed to help with short sessions like this. Didn’t you get the e-mail?”

Justin got dozens of e-mails from the college every week. Most were stupid bureaucratic notices. He convinced himself he’d seen something about Kurilenko. “Oh that. . . Well are you done? We need the bathroom. Downstair’s clogged up again. And Tami,” Justin said, coming around to where he could look up at her, “everyone in Rankin can see you like this. You could be more, uh, discreet, can’t you?”

Tami tried to nod, hard to make out in the raucous chorus of her many quakes and shiverings.

“We’re uh, we’re about done,” Wanda said. This satisfied Justin and he left. The bundled up friends continued being mute watchers of this scene. “Okay, Tami, that’s it for this session.” She gave one last look at the opened window, sighed, then turned the cranks on each side to shut it. “You can step down. Here, I’ll help you.”

Tami felt it hard to move her frozen body but she unclenched her hand and gave it to Wanda, who tried to help her down. Tami moved like she was a hundred years old and as she loosened her other hand she lost her footing at last. One bare foot plunged into the bobbing ice cubes, then the other. Her legs, standing in the tub, shook like a sapling in a strong wind.

“Why don’t you take an ice bath,” Wanda said offhandedly. “Here.” She turned on the cold water faucet. “It won’t feel cold to you, not now.”

Then she passed Tami’s friends on the way out. “Show’s over. A little shorter session than it was supposed to be, but it went all right.” Before she exited the door she said, “Good job, Tam. I admire you for going through with this tonight. Next session is Tuesday. Colder and longer of course. Oh,” she said, quickly walking back in and snatching the long coat from the hook, “I should give this back to Jeffrey.”

After she left the friends gathered around the tub and their naked friend, who was still purplish and shivering and apparently still unable to speak, looking down at the rising ice water as it approached her bare knees.

“She can’t take any ice bath now,” Marisol said, shuffling around in her heavy coat to turn the cold water faucet off. “She needs *this*.” Turning on the hot water.

“No wait,” Rebecca said.

Part 10

“This girl needs warm water, and fast,” Marisol said.

“No, no, that’s the worst thing,” Rebecca said. They were standing around the bathtub in the still-freezing bathroom, all bundled up in winter clothes, as their shivering, naked, hypothermic friend stood in their midst in the tub, clumsily clutching her shoulders, knee-deep in ice water. “She has to be brought up gradually. Even lukewarm water would feel painful to her. Wanda was right.” She turned on the cold water faucet. “Tami needs an ice bath.”

They figured that Rebecca, a native of this north country, who might know about things like recovering from frostbite, knew what she was doing. And of course so did Wanda, who had only Tami’s best interests at heart. Good old Wanda, what a good, protective R.A. she was. They all thought that, as the water rose higher, as the ice cubes ascended up to Tami’s bare knees. Wanda wanted Tami to get warm by giving her Jeffrey’s coat, then gently tried to postpone this “cold training”. Tami would have none of it — she stayed free of the coat, and subjected herself to being drenched nakedly in the intense cold. You couldn’t blame Wanda for any of that.

“Let’s help her,” Rebecca said. “Take it down easy, Tam.” They held their naked friend’s unsteady arms and helped her sit down into the ice water. As her bottom slid forward and she descended further the water rose up past her breasts. She started gasping heavily, either in shock, or relief, it was hard to tell. Now she grasped the outer sides of the tub with her clumsy wrists, with an open-mouthed stare at the ceiling. A full-body shudder. Then, she finally spoke. “Oh G – g – god. I’m cold!! I’m so c – cold!!”

“Put your head under for a moment,” Rebecca said. Tami appeared not to hear. Then she slid back and held her nose and submerged, her knees breaking the water. When she came back up the rime of frost on her eyebrows had gone, and her eyes were more aware of her surroundings. Her face had a more normal expression. She seemed to have awakened. She looked up at her friends. Still shivering, she said, “Anyone . . . want to j – join me? The w – water’s f – f – fine!”

Marisol laughed and said, “No thanks, Tami.”

Tami smiled a blue-lipped smile and this broke some of the tension. “You are the greatest, Tami!” Jen said, bending over and kissing her on the lips. “Oooh!” She couldn’t help recoiling, rubbing her lips after their contact with Tami’s chilly skin. Then Jen continued her praise. “What a strong naked woman. We should call you Tami the Strong.”

“After what Wanda put you through,” Terri said, “I can see you walking through blizzards all winter up here like it’s nothing!”

“Yes, it seemed cruel, what Wanda did,” Rebecca said, “but I see where Professor Kurilenko is coming from. It couldn’t have been easy,” she mused, “for Wanda, doing all that harsh stuff to you, when she cares about you so much.”

“Not too easy for Tami here either,” Marisol said. “I wouldn’t want someone sticking ice cubes up my butt and into my whatzit!” She shuddered a mock shudder.

“I bet you’re glad you have Wanda on your side,” Jen observed.

Tami responded to this by putting her head under again. When she emerged, she saw Rebecca adding more cold water, but also mixed with a little hot. “We should do this bit by bit,” she said, lifting the big old-fashioned plunger to open the drain a little.

Over the next few minutes, as Rebecca added and subtracted water, they watched as it went from icy cold to merely cold, the ice cubes shrinking.

The door opened and in walked Dawn and Shenille and Mayree. They were amused by the ice water bath that Tami was taking. “Can we get Jeffrey and Trent in here?” “I’ll keep a lookout,” Terri said. And so, soon, the two guys were in the women’s bathroom on the second floor of Pilgrim Hall. It was unspoken that because they were gay, it wasn’t so obviously against the rules.

“She has to stay here for a while,” Rebecca said.

“Let’s make an event of it,” Jen said. “Hanging out with Naked Tami on a Sunday night!”

It was a joke but they all saw that it had potential. Chairs were brought in, and one of Mayree’s folding trays, and cheese and crackers, the kind you buy in little plastic packages at the convenience store for two dollars. Hot cinnamon cider was made on Dawn’s hotplate. The bathroom getting warm again, coats were discarded and everyone returned in their nighttime dorm garb of pajamas and socks.

In the middle of this sat Tami, her nakedness and wetness contrasting with everyone else. She looked at her friends seated around her, sipping the cider. The water went from cold to a little tepid. Though it seemed cool to everyone’s touch, it was the hottest the naked girl could stand. Her pinkish body, restored to full circulation, was on full display. Everyone looking down could see every little bit of it through the clear water, the bouyant breasts bobbing around the water line, the fronds of her pubic hair waving slowly like seaweed on the ocean bottom, her feet resting up on the far end, and pinkish toes tingling back to life and wiggling in everyone’s faces as she talked and laughed and giggled. Outside in the blackness the wind kept gusting and throwing grains of snow against the window. It only emphasized how warm and friendly it was in the bathroom.

The conversation drifted back to “Saw III”, the gruesome tortures, and then went on to boys and school and the weather. Tami sipped, occasionally spoke, but mostly sat there in the center of gathering, like a naked Queen holding court with her clothed subjects.

Jen had been ogling Tami’s body all along and finally could not keep from saying something. “Tami, I have to say it, your body is the most perfect body in all the world.”

“Not hard for someone like you to be naked,” Mayree, who was a little chubby, pointed out. “If you weren’t so modest, I’d say you were showing it off.”

“Tami’s not an exhibitionist though,” Dawn said to Mayree.

“That sounds so odd to say,” Shenille said. Shenille was giving the air of a visiting Queen who was paying a state visit to a friendly ally, Queen Tami the Naked. “Doesn’t want clothes, but isn’t an exhibitionist.”

“Her body has certainly been through a lot tonight,” Terri remarked. “You can’t be frightened by that lady in the movie, not after this . . . treatment.”

“That was make-believe of course,” Rebecca said. “Let me get this right — she was tied up in a deep freezer and being sprayed with water?”

“And it froze onto her,” Terri said. “How cold would that have to be?”

Rebecca knitted her brows in thought. “For water to freeze as soon as it hits something, it would have to be forty below zero or so. That’s what I’ve heard from folks I know in Canada.”

“Fahrenheit or Celsius?”

“It’s the same temperature. The two scales meet at that point.”

“But the water hitting her can’t be any colder than freezing, right?” Jen said. She was looking at Tami’s pubic fronds as she said this. In fact, everyone was looking down at Tami’s body, as if she were the freezer lady that they were discussing.

“Of course.”

“So if it was forty below zero in the freezer, being sprayed with water would feel really warm to her. What — at least seventy-two degrees hotter than the air.”

“The ice water felt warm on you just now, didn’t it?” Terri said.

Tami looked down at her breasts, bobbing in the water. She felt the urge to cover them. Wanda wasn’t here, and she could pretend she was cold. So she wrapped her arms around her breasts, feeling the still-hard nipples poke into her palms. “It — wasn’t AS cold as the air.”

“Instead of ‘ohhh, ohhh, ohhh,’ that lady in the freezer should have been going, ‘oooohh yes, ooohh yes, warm, warm, more, more’,” Terri said.

“Actually she was more like, ‘Oho! No! Waaahhh! No! Oho!’,” Jen said harshly, quite unlike her usual gentle voice.

They contemplated this for a while, looking at Tami. Tami felt herself on display and, now that she was warm and wide awake again, felt the return of shame and embarrassment despite being around such true friends. She was so exposed and stared at, the tub might as well have been of glass. She pictured herself in the future, after Wanda really turned up the shame, having to sleep in a glass box hanging over the entrance to the Student Union, in full view of everyone at all times. Of course as a committed nudist, who didn’t believe in modesty, she couldn’t object!

She looked around and dearly wished she could wrap herself in pajamas, socks, sweats. . . Even thin panties would make her feel all covered. She tried to think of some pretense to wrap the merest scrap of clothing onto herself — as if wanting to try on Mayree’s sweat shirt, to see if she had really gotten all her feeling back. Would that work? For a dedicated nudist to legitimately ask that?

One can stay in a filled tub only so long. Hydrostatic tension presses against the lungs, and Tami was feeling a little suffocated. She bit her lip, realizing that transparent as the water was, it was a form of “covering”, and then said, “I feel like I have to get out now.”

The friends didn’t move from their chairs. Rebecca pulled the plunger all the way and water started loudly whirlpooling out. They watched as the water receded past her breasts and then past her navel. When there was barely enough to do so, Tami slid back into the water aud submerged her head one more time. Her dark red hair billowed out over her face.

Now the naked goddess rose, not Venus emerging from the ocean on a shell, but Tami Smithers from the bathtub in the second-floor women’s room in Pilgrim Hall. As she stood up, dripping from her breasts, butt, shoulders, face, she raised her arms to twist the water out of her hair behind her.

A wave of lust swept over Jen. “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, look at that body!” She pushed her chair back and stood up in her excitement. With Tami’s arms up over her head, the naked girl’s waist was almost freakishly narrow, her sleek tummy, water dripping down it, just a firm concavity. “Look at that waist! So tiny! And those thigh muscles! And the shoulders and arms! And those firm boobs! Twin towers, Jeffrey! . . . Could you turn around? Look at that tight butt!”

The naked white girl’s dripping body was gleaming in the brightly lit bathroom. Terri rolled her eyes at Jen’s babbling but everyone knew that her remarks were absolutely correct. They gazed at the naked sleekness in awe.

Finally Shenille said, “No argument here.”

Tami smiled, blushing, twisting her hair longer than necessary.

“And look at her!” Marisol said. “She’s shy about it!”

“The modest nudist,” Rebecca said with admiration.

“Tami, can you get up on all fours?” Jen said excitedly. “Hands and feet on the edges?”

“C’mon, Jen,” Terri said. “She’s not a dog doing tricks.”

“Oh please oh please oh please,” Jen said.

Tami smiled. “Okay, just for a moment.” Jen’s childlike enthusiasm was impossible to say no to. Tami arranged herself as requested, facing the window, hands clutching the edge up near the faucets, her dexterous toes wrapping themselves around the edges of the lower end. In this position she was facing down, her butt sticking out at them.

“Ohmigod look at those hanging boobs!” Jen said. They swayed slightly as Tami adjusted her grip with her fingers and toes.

“Don’t slip,” Mayree said.

“Don’t worry, we gymnasts can grab onto anything,” Jen said. Which served to remind everyone that she and Tami were both on the gymnastics team, this being the basis of Tami’s scholarship.

Jen walked around to behind the naked girl. “Oh Tami, what a cute butthole you have! Look at this? Have you ever seen such a cute winkie?!” Indeed everyone could see Tami’s anus between her trim, separated butt cheeks, the brown asterisk glistening in the overhead light, now twitching with Tami’s secret shame. At the other end, unnoticed, Tami’s face burned red.

“Now turn the other way, like a crab walk,” Jen said.

“Jen!” Terri admonished.

“This is a once in a million chance,” Jen pointed out.

Wordlessly Tami stepped back into the tub and leaned back to grab with her hands. As Jen knew, it was similar to a move they had just learned on the parallel bars. Tami spread her legs and placed the arches of her soles onto the edges toward the bathroom door. It was hard to hold this pose so she raised her hips up so that they were higher than her head. She faced the ceiling, back straight, her knees way apart to stabilize her.

“Oh wow, look at that woman-land,” Jen said. Tami could feel her lower lips opening up and felt air wafting in. Looking up at the ceiling, she knew that Jen, and whoever else was down there, could see right up inside her. Like being naked on top of being naked. Super-naked!

It was in this shaming, spread-out position that Tami, to her horror, heard the door open, felt a gust of air curl up inside her, and heard the voice of Wanda. And adult footsteps behind Wanda’s!

Part 11

Tami, nakedly and awkwardly sprawled supine over the bathtub, toes gripping the edges, legs wide apart facing the door, looking up at the ceiling, felt her face burn with shame as a gust of air from the opening door curled up inside her opened vaginal lips and she heard Wanda say, “Whoa, Tami, no modesty!” She put her hands up to her face as if trying to protect her eyes from Tami’s blatant exposure. “I’m — sorry — Professor, but Tami doesn’t mind — showing herself — like this –”

Tami’s face, not visible to the rest, burned not only with shame but with anger at Wanda’s unmitigated gall. Anger which of course she couldn’t express. So many emotions she had to keep bottled up!

“Good — good evening, Ms. Smithers.” It was the surprised voice of Professor Kurilenko, who found himself addressing a wide open pair of legs and a shameless display of female genitalia.

“Girls,” Wanda said, “this bathroom is temporarily off general use, so can Professor Kurilenko step in for a moment?”

“Yes, sure,” Rebecca said, speaking for all of them, and, she assumed, for Tami too. “Jeffrey and Trent are here, see?”

Looking around at the seated freshwomen, and the two guys, and the hot cider mugs and the table with cheese and crackers, Wanda said, “It looks like you haven’t been using this place as a bathroom anyway.”

“We’ve been having a great time,” Jen said in her soft voice, far removed from her screechy imitation of that naked “Saw III” lady just a few minutes ago.

“Yes, we helped Tami get back to warm,” Terri said proudly.

Tami craned her neck to get a view of the new visitors, if only for politeness’s sake. “Sorry — hello Professor — let me get down — ” Her fingers and toes squirmed as she tried to hop off the tub but it was a lot harder to get out of this position than it had been to get into it. A slip would be dangerous. “Can someone help me — ”

Terri was about to get up and grab Tami’s hand when the Professor said, “No — it’s not necessary, Ms. Smithers. Don’t be modest on my account.”

“No, Tami’s fine the way she is,” Wanda said. She came over to where Tami could see her face without strain and arched an eyebrow. “You don’t believe in showing any modesty, right?”

“No,” Tami said miserably. She steeled herself by taking a deep breath, her upturned concave tummy rising and falling. Jen’s lips smacked with barely disguised lust as they all recalled her gushing, and accurate, comments on the perfection of their naked friend’s body.

The Professor, tall, stern-looking, was still in a business suit, though he now wore a heavy overcoat, a scarf around his neck, and a ski cap on his shaved head. He had on thick gloves and carried a little laptop bag. He spoke with a Russian accent. “I came here to see the first session of cold acclimatization supervised by Ms. Percival here” — turning toward Wanda — “but I see I’m a little late. I can tell that it ended half an hour ago.”

“How did you know that?” Wanda said. “I didn’t tell you.”

“I refer you to the labia minora,” he said. He stepped forward and pointed to Tami’s open vagina, which was about level with his hand. “If you can see, they are engorged and almost glowing red.”

Everyone got up to look between Tami’s legs. “Please raise your hips a bit, Tam, so we can see,” Wanda said. Tami’s eyes got wet with deep shame as she listlessly did as requested. After all, modesty was against her religion, right? She continued to look at the ceiling, her eyes pleading to God, as her legs were spread for the close inspection, in turn, of Trent, Jeffrey, Wanda, Terri, Jen, Mayree, Dawn, Shenille, Rebecca and Marisol.

“That’s amazing, you’re right,” said Jen, who had a lot more experience looking at vulvas than the others. “Her lips are all puffy.”

“It shows the return of blood to sensitive regions with the return of warmth,” the Professor said. “If you look further inside, you will see a slight purplish hue.”

Wanda said, “Tami, can you — well, Professor, Tami isn’t in a position to open her — herself up.”

“I’ll do it!” Jen said, a little too eagerly. “I mean — Tami, if you don’t mind — ”

“No, go ahead,” came the tiny defeated voice from the other end of the tub. She gave a little gasp as Jen’s expert fingers grabbed her lips and stretched them out and apart.

“Wow, Tami,” Wanda said, leaning in and spitting out the “T”. “WON -derful,” she said, with a calculated blast of breath that went right up around Tami’s cervix.

“Yes, I see it’s purplish inside,” Rebecca said with clinical curiosity. She pulled in Marisol, who was the shyest about looking inside Tami. “C’mon, Mar, it’s just a vulva. You have one too.”

“It’s just — so weird,” Marisol said, fighting her conservative upbringing, and her general unease about body issues, caused by having such enormous breasts. She squinted as she looked in.

Terri laughed. “It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s Tami who’s all naked and spread out, showing us her most secret place, the inside of her — woman-cave, and *we’re* the ones who are embarrassed!” This caused the others to chuckle too. Tami cleared her throat but did not say anything, still looking up at the ceiling. She was like a naked female Jesus, spread out on a cross of humiliation torture, desperately beseeching a God who seemed to have forsaken her.

“I want all of you to closely observe Ms. Smithers’s body reactions, to both heat and cold, in the weeks ahead, when we begin the new semester,” the Professor said. “Tonight was the first session of many. The college deeply respects Ms. Smithers’s religion and wants to help her live through a climate which at this time of year is normally inhospitable to nudity.”

“‘Normally’?” Mayree. “Look, there’s no way a naked girl can survive a blizzard like tonight.”

“The human body is capable of adaptations that would amaze you,” the Professor said.

“Yes, we heard about the South Pole streak,” Dawn said, almost rolling her eyes.

The Professor smiled. “That is a lark. But I mean more serious exposures. Have you heard of Natalia Avseenko?”

“Who?”

“A Russian swimmer,” the Professor said, with a note of nationalist pride. “After much practice she is able to swim in the nude under the ice in the polar ocean, in salt water that is below the freezing point, for twelve minutes.”

“Impossible! She’d be dead!” Terri said.

“She doesn’t hold her breath for twelve minutes, of course. She has a fully suited male assistant who supplies an oxygen mask every sixty seconds. But you are right, an unprepared human would die of hypothermia if submerged in such a temperature. But there were primitive tribes, for example the natives of Tierra del Fuego, who lived naked in a subfreezing climate, babies walking naked in the snow, women swimming for long periods in water only a few degrees above freezing.”

“I read about that,” Wanda said, as if following a script. “But they had evolved with more body fat, right?”

“True. But there are adaptation exercises, including some mental processes, such as are learned from Eastern religions, which Ms. Avseenko has benefitted from. It is fortunate that Ms. Smithers is female, because women’s bodies are better able to adapt to the cold while naked than men’s. We will be taking Ms. Smithers through those exercises. And we will need the help of those around her, most particularly dorm neighbors such as yourselves.”

“What do you mean?” Rebecca said. She, as well as everyone else, was still standing around looking into Tami’s vagina, as if they were carrying on this conversation while absently watching TV.

“There are a series of techniques,” Wanda said. “Why don’t you describe them in detail, Professor? It’s part of a course next semester?”

“A course?”

“Yes,” the Professor said. “A modular course dedicated to conditioning Ms. Smithers’s body to the cold. You are invited to sign up if you want. It is under the Anthropology Department.”

“What’s it called?” Terri asked with amusement. “‘Make Tami Freeze’?”

“No, Human Climatic Adaptation,” the Professor said, without amusement. “There are assigned readings, but most of the activity in the course involves helping monitor her body’s changes and reactions. Photographs and videos will have to be taken.”

“Oh I’m sure to take a lot of those,” Wanda said. “Of course Tami won’t mind.”

Tami’s upturned eyes, not visible to the others, widened. She felt a twinge of fear in the pit of her stomach as she realized that Wanda, having taken photos, might “accidentally” post them all over campus, all over the world! Her naked body would be all over the internet!

“We will begin with some milder measures, such as cold water enemas. It is very effective to acclimatize Ms. Smithers’s rectum because it is the warmest part of the body. Again, those of you who wish to, can help with the equipment.”

Tami pictured her anus on full display in the dorm lounge, being plugged with an enema tube by a gleeful Wanda, Tami’s body cramping with the introduction of ice water into her gut . . . and then everyone watching her on the toilet as she pooped out the dirty water.

“Next, what we would call the ‘five-minute chill’, where Ms. Smithers will stand outside in the snow until she starts shivering violently. Then one of you will time five minutes before she is allowed inside.”

Tami pictured herself in front of the student union, bare feet in a foot of snow, icy wind blasting her nakedness, shivering to her core, next to Wanda, who was all bundled up tight, drinking hot coffee and holding a stopwatch.

“We have designed a transparent tank, six feet tall, four feet across, but only a foot in depth, in which Miss Smithers will stand, her arms and legs spread out. It will be filled with subfreezing salt water up to over her head. She will breathe through a snorkel. She will be restrained so that when violent shivering starts there will be no injury. The transparency will allow every part of her body to be observed as she is taken to the verge of first stage hypothermia and kept there. Several people will be needed to monitor this.”

Tami pictured her blue, freezing naked body on full display, the water buoying up her breasts, as her friends took pictures of every part of her from every angle. The tank was outside the student union again, or inside in the lobby, as people passed by on their daily business.

“And I believe the temperature in her dorm room should be gradually decreased,” the Professor said. “Perhaps two degrees a week, so that by the time the warm weather comes, she is able to sleep without covering in fifteen degrees Celsius.”

“That’s 59 degrees Fahrenheit,” Rebecca calculated.

“This, however, is dependent of course upon the approval of her room mates,”

“It’s O.K.,” Terri said quickly. “We’ll just stay bundled up.”

“It’s easier to sleep in the cold air anyway,” Jen said.

Tami imagined herself trying to sleep in a freezing room, covered with goose pimples, on a bare bed, while Terri and Jen in their bunks were in layers of clothing, sweat shirts, sweat pants, thick socks, sleeping soundly under five blankets.

The naked, spread-out girl couldn’t hide her feelings. Still looking up at the ceiling, she said, “Oh boy.”

“It’s your religion, Tami,” Rebecca said. “What a show of true faith, going through this winter naked. We admire you.”

“Yes, we’ll help you through all this!” Terri said. “We’ll be rooting you on!”

Dawn laughed. “I just had a vision of, like, us in cheerleading outfits around Tami in that tank, and the cheer is, ‘Go — Tami — go! Five more minutes — go!'”

“It has possibilities,” Wanda said with a grin. “You’re going to have one heck of a semester, Tam!”

Tami grunted. Finally Rebecca said, “Tami, you must be tired. Even a gymnast can’t hold that pose long.” She and Marisol moved around to where her white knuckles grasped the edge of the tub. “This — might need several people.”

It was a complicated project, getting Tami off that tub, and ended up being Jeffrey and Trent grabbing her thighs, and Rebecca and Marisol grabbing her arms. In the process they had to spread her legs even further, until poor Tami was almost doing a ballet dancer’s split. They lifted her over to near the door, then set her upright.

Tami exhaled as her bare soles hit the tiled floor. “Th – thanks.”

“I might mention another reaction to tonight’s experiment,” the Professor said. “If you don’t mind, Miss Smithers, show us your anus.”

“My — what — ”

“Bend over, spread your legs, then pull your butt cheeks apart,” Wanda said.

The naked girl tried to hide the deep hurt in her pretty green eyes as she weakly said, “Oh of course.” Glad at least to be facing away from them, she bent over and did what she was told.

“Oh Tam — ” Marisol said, shielding her eyes.

“What a pretty butthole,” Jen said, leaning forward. “Squeaky clean from the bath.”

The Professor brought a heavily gloved finger up to Tami’s puckered asterisk. “I know this area of the body is hard to look at, but note the darkness of the skin around the anus.”

“It’s like a brown ring of skin,” Wanda said, loudly so Tami could hear.

“Yes. It is darker now because of the return of warmth. Conversely, when Ms. Smithers is subjected to cold, it will get a lighter color. And her labia minora will retract and become more violet.”

Tami stared down at her bare feet as she kept her butt cheeks spread for everyone’s view.

“So we will have to observe Tami’s anus frequently, and take pictures,” Wanda said.

“Yes, I believe that area of the body is the best external indicator of status. Perhaps a chart could be made,” the Professor concluded. Then he stood up to his full tall height. “Well that is all for now. I thank you for your time, students. And you too, Ms. Smithers,” he said, bending down again to address Tami’s upside-down, beet-red face. He left with Wanda, who winked back at Tami with a quick glance up at her butthole.

Tami tried to blink back tears as she stood up. Then she took a deep breath and turned to face her friends. No one knew what to say; it had been such an intense and unusual experience.

Then — “White Christmas” from Bailey’s CD again!

“Damn that girl!” Mayree said.

Terri sighed. “Back to our daily life.”

“We should straighten this place up,” Shenille said. And so the return of chairs and tables and mugs was accomplished, leaving the bathtub, standing proudly on its traditional claw feet, once again in sole command of this half of the women’s room. The guys in Rankin Hall, seeing that the show was over, turned down their blinds and got back to either studying or goofing off.

“Tami,” Jen said as she and Terri went with her back to Room 207, “you’ve had a workout and you need some . . . comfortable time.” Then she shouted in the direction of Bailey’s door, “AND LESS CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!”

Part 12

Tami’s thoughts raced as she followed Terri and Jen back to their room. Now Shenille came by and wanted to talk to Jen about something. Not wanting to stand around being looked at, Tami wandered down to the end of the hallway. It was starting to get late and people were going to sleep. She went to the big glass window and looked out into the darkness. Anyone out there could see her, but there was no one out there to look. Knife-edged mountains of snow spread out along this corner of the quad, in drifts up to four feet, like a waves on a cold, motionless ocean. All was quiet. Tami leaned against the rail and anxiously twisted her big toe on the hard floor. Now a distant thud from downstairs as some poor soul left the dorm, or maybe entered it, and the big front door slammed shut.

Aside from the constant shame, the worst thing about nudity was being cold all the time. Even indoors, Tami felt every draft, every time someone opened a door. Last week when the guy next to her in Calculus III closed his book at the end of class, she felt the draft across her nipples. She hated the cold floor under her bare feet and the cold plastic chairs under her bare butt, even the metal chair supports under her bare arms. So sensitive to being chilly — how could she ever survive out in the snow?

Of course Wanda would torture her to the extent possible. Why was Wanda such a sadist? What did she get out of torturing her? If only Tami could let her friends know Wanda’s true nature. But of course that was impossible. Wanda was being mean only if you realized that Tami didn’t want to be naked. And that would give away the secret: that Tami had cooked up that “religion” excuse to avoid instant expulsion after Wanda had talked her into that streaking prank. Expulsion was not an option. It would bitterly disappoint her parents and mean the end of any kind of future. Might as well get pregnant and go on welfare like all too many of the girls from her high school.

So she was stuck being naked all the time. There had to be a way out of this!

Despite the cold, Tami knew that the Professor’s “exercises” would not hurt her physically. She would be under medical supervision. She believed that bit about the Russian woman who could swim naked in the Arctic. Maybe a clip of it was online? But she hated being cold and hated the idea of freezing her bare buns off, shivering constantly, never knowing any warmth again, at least not till the warm weather arrived. Up here in the north country, that wouldn’t be until April. The fact that she had so many friends cheering her on made it worse. Her heart would be warm (in a sense) but her body would be in agony. Shivering uncontrollably in that ice-water tank while Dawn and the others kept urging to go just one more minute, then one minute more . . . while students and faculty were passing by, seeing every bit of her bluish naked body . . .

She turned to see that Terri and Jen had gone into their room and left the door open. Tami went in and closed it. Please, no more exposure tonight. . .

Jen had changed into her bathrobe, and Terri into pajamas. “Tami,” Terri said, “you’ve been through a lot. And you were up on that bathtub for a long time in that position. You need to relax. Why don’t we give you a massage? I took a course in it over the summer.”

Tami wanted to be left alone, to run to a place where no one could see her, but of course this was their room too. “Um . . . okay. Thanks.”

She made a movement toward her bare mattress but Terri directed her to the floor. “Don’t worry, we wiped it, it’s clean,” Jen said. “You need a firm place to support your body, and the bed is too soft,” Terri pointed out.

And so now Tami felt herself directed such that the entire length of her bare body lay prone. From her face near the desks down to her toes facing the door, her bare skin was pressed onto the coldness of the bare tile floor. She hated it and recoiled at the cold. But the air above her was warm — and then she was dazed and hypnotized by what Terri and Jen were doing up there. They ran their hands up and down her back, massaged her neck, and caused such a relief from tension that Tami found herself moaning.

“Ohhh . . . that’s so good . . . ohhh . . . wow . . .”

Tami had never really been massaged in her life. It was heaven. And in the privacy of her dorm room, door shut, she found she did not really mind that Terri and Jen saw her naked. It was just a . . . a “procedure”. She did not really know anything about massage, at least not legitimate “massage”, just those sleazy “massage” places she had passed in downtown Providence, before they cleared that area out and uncovered the Woonasquatucket River for the pretty fire-and-water park. In legitimate massage — did people go through it naked? She convinced herself they did, that at spas, women took off their clothes. And so for once she was not being a nudist. Just a massage client.

“Mmmmmmm . . . ohhhhh . . . that’s great, guys . . .”

“Feel those glutes!” Jen said as she followed Terri’s lead in poking her fingers around Tami’s gluteus maximus. Jen was on the left cheek, Terri on the right. And now they each brought up a foot and rubbed from the ankle out to each toe. “Perfect feet,” Jen said softly, now risking a quick kiss on Tami’s big toe. “Wide spread toes, tough soles . . . Feet that are one with the earth.” Tami’s feet, abused by having to walk through snow and on every rough surface, were grateful. She wiggled her toes in thanks.

Tami’s neck was rubbed and caressed free of so much of the tension it had accumulated that night. Her back was stretched, Terri pulling her right shoulder apart from her left glute, and now her left shoulder apart from her right glute. Her arms were moved around and wrung out from her shoulders to the ends of her fingers.

Now a brief pause, and then —

“Akkk!” Terri had stepped her stockinged feet onto Tami’s shoulder, now onto her middle back. Vertebras cracked, one after the other. Tami’s breasts were crushed onto the floor and flattened out to the sides. After the shock, Tami realized it felt so good! Terri’s toes, through the stockings, worked Tami’s shoulderblade muscles, then along each side of her spine, down to her sacrum and now her butt muscles.

They paused again and Tami lay limp on the floor, her head facing to the side. “I feel like a corpse,” she said sleepily.

Wordlessly her two friends turned her body over so that she was facing the ceiling. Tami felt a little bashful. Frontal nudity was much more shaming than people seeing just your bare back and butt. She knew that very well by now. But she was peaceful as she felt her tummy go up and down with her unimpeded breathing. “Wow,” she said again.

Terri on her left, Jen on her right, they each grabbed a foot under the instep and bent Tami’s legs up so that her knees touched up to her chin. For a trained gymnast’s flexibility this was easy. Tami felt her vagina open a bit, a tiny draft coming in from under the door. (It was caused by someone, twenty seconds ago, closing the door to the men’s room in the wing at the other end of the dorm.) Another joint in her back cracked. “That was not a fart,” Tami giggled softly and giddily.

Now they placed Tami’s knees together and slowly, as if reverently, brought her bent legs down until her bare feet lay flat together on the floor. Now they straightened her legs out, toes together. Now, repositioning themselves, they pulled her legs as far apart as they would go, and brought her feet up until her straight legs made a wide, wide “V”, her feet to the side, coming up even with her shoulders.

A knock on the door.

Tami flexed as if to close her legs but she was held open by her roommates and then corrected herself. She dreaded but expected what was coming.

Unconcernedly, knowing Tami had conquered shame, Terri said, “Come in.”

Of course it was Wanda. Their R.A. flinched as she looked down at the widely spread vagina on the floor. “Whoa, Tami, I can’t get used to this. Spreading your legs everywhere! . . . Well, I’m glad, because I was supposed to check on you about now.”

“What do you mean?” Jen said.

“The Professor. Now that it’s an hour post exercise Dr. Kurilenko wants me to record Tami’s, uh, what he calls her ‘indicator regions’. Like her vulva.”

Jen smiled. “You mean her woman-land.”

“Well, I’m using the scientific term. Where I come from,” she said a little quietly, taking out her iPhone, “it’s called ‘pussy’.” Wanda bent down to take the photo. Then she said, “Not quite enough light. Mind?”

There was a bright light, seldom used, over the doorway. Wanda snapped it on. It was not a sunlamp but Tami could swear she felt the heat of the intense luminosity making every little hair down there cast a sharp shadow. Only the squirming of her toes, cradled in her roommates’ hands, betrayed her mortification.

“That’s better. There . . . and there . . . and there,” Wanda said, bending down and moving left and right, getting every angle of Tami’s open cave. “The Professor was right. Her labia are still red and almost glowing.”

Jen, of course, was bending over too, staring intently. “Tami, your clit is glowing and shiny too! Beautiful!”

Tami suddenly realized: Wanda’s left the door open! Anyone passing by can see!

And now Antoinette, a thin snotty black girl from downstairs, passed by with two friends and stopped cold. “Oh,” she said in affected surprise, “what is this? Naked Tami? Hi, Tami!”

Tami was compelled to raise her head and say, “Hi . . .” From her perspective she and Antoinette were conversing with her pubic hair right in their line of sight.

Antoinette turned to her friends and said, “I didn’t know she was so ‘out there’.”

“Tami’s part of an experiment for the anthropology department,” Wanda explained.

“Oh . . .” Antoinette and her friends, somewhat hesitantly, looked over Wanda’s shoulder down onto Tami’s nether regions. “When they said you didn’t believe in modesty, girl, they were SO right!” Her friends giggled. The three girls walked on, Tami putting her burning red face to the side as she put her head down again.

“Don’t pay them no mind,” Jen said quietly.

Wanda continued to evince a clinical and duty-bound interest. “Now,” she said with a tired sigh, “the other indicator region, the ring of brown skin. Tami, could you turn over and spread your butt cheeks?”

Nearing tears, Tami was released by her friends and turned her naked body around on the cold tile. She bent her head down to the floor, spread her knees, and spread her butt. She felt like a naked slut, lying on the floor shoving her pussy and butthole into everyone’s faces. Or like a wild animal with everyone else standing on two feet and clothed.

“VERY good,” Wanda said, snapping pictures of the clear valley of pretty skin and the ring of brown around the anus. “I see the brown color’s returning, just like Dr. Kurilenko said.”

“Yes,” Jen said, looking closely. Tami could feel Jen’s breath on the sensitive skin back there as Jen, using her own hand, spread Tami’s left butt cheek toward her. “Beautiful!” she repeated.

It was at that point that heavy booted footsteps approached, and then slowed to a bewildered stop. Tami’s eyes, hidden from their sight, widened as she heard Wanda say, “Oh hi Rod!”

Rod Sykes had trudged across campus hoping to see Tami. And he certainly was seeing her now, though not the part that he expected. “Hi, Wanda. . . Hi, Jen.”

“Hi Rod!” Jen said enthusiastically, standing over Tami, as if proud of the view that Tami was giving.

Tami’s hands twitched for a second but she realized she dare not let relax the grip on her spread butt cheeks. Her anus twitched, a sign of her mortification and nervousness.

“We’re just testing Tami’s physiology here,” Wanda said.

Now that Rod knew it was Tami — and how could he not know it? he couldn’t see her face, but she was the only naked person on campus — the terrified naked girl cleared her throat. In her prone position, speaking into the floor, she said weakly, “H – hi, Rod.”

“Sorry, this is a bad time,” the male voice said nervously. “Wanda, didn’t you say — ”

“I said tomorrow night at 9,” Wanda’s voice said.

“I though you said tonight,” Rod’s voice said.

“No — maybe it was a mistake, I’m sorry,” Wanda’s voice said.

“Well — ” Rod’s voice sounded uncertain. “I can come by later.”

“No, that’s fine,” Wanda’s voice said, “Tami doesn’t believe in modesty, remember? Is that right Tam?”

Thus prompted, Tami had no choice but to say, “Yes.”

“Well — good to — see you,” Rod’s voice said.

Tami felt like crying. Like saying to this cute guy, “I’m so sorry you have to see me like this!” All he could see was her spread anus, winking in the bright overhead light, and the soles of her feet and the squirming toes. She could feel the breath of his words on the sensitive skin of her sphincter. She could even sense the tiny whiffs of cold air that told her that bits of snow were stuck to his boots.

She felt like she was talking out of her butt as she said, “I’m — looking forward to the Black Formal.”

“Me too, Tami.” His breath caused her anus to twitch again. Then he said something that shocked her with its expansiveness. “I’ll be proud to be seen with you.” He gave emphasis to the word “proud”. Tami’s sphincter reacted to the plosive “p” sound.

“Rod, you are a great guy,” Jen said.

Tami didn’t know what to think. She couldn’t stop it, her shame was making her cry, but then she realized that her tears could be explained by her inverted posture, like at the Armor of Christ reception.

Wanda took another couple of pictures, this time bending down close to get every nuance of Tami’s nether region. “This shows her reaction to the temperature, the hue of that ring of brown skin around her poop-chute,” she explained to Rod, using the grossest possible term, her voice now closer. “Don’t be afraid to look.”

“No — that’s ok. No — offense.” Rod’s voice was once more ill at ease. “I know you’re — comfortable with your body . . . Well — see you around — Tami,” Rod said.

“B – bye,” the prone naked girl said, miserably. She had wanted to talk to him. But not like this! Not like this!

It was only after the boots, still stamping bits of snow, receded down the hall and the stairwell door closed that Wanda decided she was done with her photographic survey. She stood up. “Thanks, Tam, I’ll e-mail these to the Professor. . , Bye girls . . . get some sleep. Another week begins in the morning.”

Wanda left without closing the door. Tami felt allowed to turn back around and sit cross-legged on the floor. But she didn’t feel like she could ask that the door be closed. That would be a sign of modesty, right?

Fortunately Terri closed it for her. The massage completed, and Terri and Jen not supposing that Wanda’s visit would have reintroduced any tension, the roommates helped Tami to her feet and placed her stretched out body on her bare bed. Jen kissed her on the cheek — her face cheek.

Tami exhaled. “Thanks guys. Good massage.”

“Anytime!” Terri said. Then she whispered something to Jen and left.

“Shower time,” Jen said, grabbing one of her many full-length towels and moving to the door.

For a moment Tami felt like a pampered princess. “Jen?”

“Yes?”

“I feel hot. Can you turn down the heat?” In fact Tami hadn’t noticed it but she was starting to sweat. The air in the room was suffocating.

“Actually,” Jen said, “we figured after that treatment in the bathtub, or over the bathtub, you would want warmth, so we cranked the heat up. But now the good Professor says it should be cooler in here. So . . .” She went over to the radiator and turned the dial down. Then she cracked open one of the windows. Wordlessly she turned off the lights and left.

Tami didn’t mind the waft of cold air over her body. It felt good in all this heat. She breathed it in deeply. Then she dozed off. But not before Bailey and her CD and “Jingle Bells” entered her consciousness again and she said under her breath, “Oh Christ. . . ”

Part 13 (conclusion)

“OH! NO NO NO! OHO!! NOOOO!!”

Tami bolted up in the darkness, sitting up on her bed. Shouts from outside!

“OHOHO!! NOOO!! AHHHHH!!”

She scampered to the window, kneeling so as not to be seen. Her eyes widened and then she laughed.

“OHO!! NOOO!! WAAAHHHH!!”

Jen — totally naked — was standing under a little tree, her hands gripping the branch over head, her bare feet in a foot of snow, as Terri, in her pajamas and boots, holding Jen’s bathrobe, threw little bits of snow at her.

“OHO!! NOOO!! NOOO!!” A perfect imitation of that naked lady in the freezer in “Saw III”.

Tami couldn’t stop laughing. When she could finally catch her breath she shouted out, “Get the key! Get the key!” She knew the show was for her benefit but she wanted the scene to be over. She didn’t want Jen to freeze.

Terri, turning in exaggerated wide-eyed surprise, made like she suddenly saw something in the next tree. She ran to it and stuck her arm between the branches, mashing her face against it. “Oww! Owww!” She got the imaginary key and ran back and turned unlocked the imaginary lock over Jen’s hands.

“Thanks. About time you doofus. Shit!” Jen said, as she grabbed her bathrobe and ran like hell to the dorm’s front door, kicking up snow with her toes.

A minute later, the slapping of Jen’s bare feet, and the muffled clip clop of Terri’s boots, grew closer in the hall. Tami heard Terri whisper, “I’ll crash with Dawn.” Then Jen flew in and jumped onto Tami’s bed, huddled in her bathrobe.

“Oh shit,” Jen said, shivering. Tami scooted over and hugged her.

“You must be frostbitten!” Tami said with equal parts amusement and concern. Then with just concern: “You know you could get expelled for that.”

“Zh zh zh zh,” Jen said, clenching her teeth. She stuck out her frozen feet and Tami rubbed them vigorously.

“Let me make you some hot tea,” Tami said. She microwaved it and put it into Jen’s shaking hands. After a few sips Jen leaned against her.

“Good acting,” Tami said. “I almost thought it was forty below zero out there.”

Jen smiled. Her shivering had stopped. “Wanted you to feel better about that movie.”

“It worked. I do feel better.”

They sat there in the dark, looking at the snowy scene outside. Finally Jen said, “Tami, I am so devoted to you. You are my queen, my princess.”

She put down the tea and, like she did after the massage, lay Tami out on the mattress, only this time with her head against the wall and the legs dangling down to the floor. Tami could see the brown eyes glowing in Jen’s pretty African-American face. Jen’s dark brown hand whispered over Tami’s concave tummy. “I can’t help saying it, you have a perfect body.”

Tami smiled. “I don’t mind you saying it. Here in the dark with just you and me.”

Jen kneeled on the floor, between Tami’s slightly open legs, as if bowing to her Princess. She idly picked at Tami’s pubic hair. “Sometimes I think there’s a faraway country where” — she poked Tami’s tummy — “there’s a Princess Tami. Princess Tami the Nude. She’s been naked since birth, except for diapers when she was a baby. Never, ever wore a stitch.” Now she poked right under one of Tami’s breasts. “Her body is so beautiful, it’s the law that she can never wear anything, so that the people could always enjoy the sight of her beauty.” Now she playfully flicked at Tami’s chin. “And I’m your handmaiden, and every day at noon, in the public square, I give you your sponge bath, in a glass bathtub so that your people can see every bit of you. The tub is on a pedestal so they can see you better as you stand up and I sponge your breasts and your butt.” Jen went to play with Tami’s pubic hair again. “And in this faraway land, there’s no war. . . no violence. . . no guns. . . But a lot of good sex!”

In the dark Tami could see Jen’s eyes as her face approached. “I want to help you through this winter.”

Jen seemed to think that the whole winter would be fun. Dragging Tami out into the snow as she squealed, “Eeek! Eeek! Goddamn it’s COLD!!”, more playful squealing as Jen and her friends buried Tami in the snow, till only the toes of one foot showed, then dragging her out, and back to the dorm, into a warm (or cool) bathtub. One big lark.

But now Jen was serious. Her face approached and Tami could feel her breath. Now her lips met Tami’s.

Mouths slowly opened and tongues played.

Jen, exhaling with relief, kissed each of Tami’s nipples, then worked her kisses down to Tami’s crotch. She gently separated Tami’s legs. Then she kissed the insides of Tami’s thighs. A scent of musk issued from down there as Tami breathed heavily and undulated her hips. Her knees shook slightly.

Now: “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

“Oh no, oh no,” Tami and Jen both giggled in tired exasperation. “Bailey . . .!”

Jen was inspired. She licked her lips and pointed her tongue, ready to attack. She started singing along, punctuated by Tami’s cries as Jen scored direct hits on the naked girl’s clitoris.

“Ta – mi the naked fresh -man — ”

“Eeek!”

“Had a very shiny clit — ”

“Oooohh!”

“And if you ever saw it — ”

“Ahhh!”

“You would want to li – ick it!”

“Eeek!”

“All of the o-ther fresh-men — ”

“Ohh!”

“Used to laugh and call her names — ”

“Chhkk!”

“But they — heard from 2 – 0 – 7 –”

“Eeek!”

“Shouts whenever Ta-mi came!”

“Ooohhh . . .”

And then Jen buried her face into Tami’s crotch, and Tami gasped as Jen’s experienced and expert tongue played a hundred tricks, in, around, up, down, flicking Tami’s clit and licking in circles, and now Tami felt herself rising up to the crest and going over the waterfall —

OHH OHH OHHHHHHH

[the end]