Condemned

The naked girl was standing in the chilly, packed courtroom, all by herself, facing the immense judge’s bench. The uniformed bailiff to one side droned on and on as he read the petition. It was so cold that his words came out in little clouds of condensation. The naked girl had goosebumps and was shivering. She squeezed her legs together and was hugging herself in a vain attempt to keep warm. She could feel her nipples, rock hard from the cold, poking against her folded arms. Her bare feet shifted unsteadily on the wood floor.

The bailiff concluded, “Miss Tami Smithers petitions to be allowed to wear clothing. All hear ye the decision of the court.”

The five judges behind the bench shifted position in their heavy black robes. Two were wearing gloves because of the cold. Judge Jorgon in the middle spoke in pompous, loud tones. The spectators in their heavy coats, scarves, and warm hats craned to see him and waited on his every word. “Does the petitioner have anything further to say?”

The naked girl, shivering, hugging herself all the more tightly, looked up and said in a tiny voice, “P-p-please, sir . . . Your Honor . . . I’m s - s - so . . . c - c - c - c - cold . . . p - p - please . . .”

The judge in the middle looked down at the naked girl and then boomed, “The petition is . . . DENIED!”

There was some mumbling from the crowd in the packed courtroom. The judge continued, drawing out his words: “The petitioner is to continue to be to-tal-ly na-ked for the rest of her life. She will now return to her assigned tasks. If the petitioner attempts to bring any more such petitions, she will be se-vere-ly punished!”

The naked girl looked down and began to sob. She wiped a tear from her cheek as she turned slowly to her right, where a big sliding door was being opened to reveal a bright snowy day, a slushy street in front of old style houses, people along each side of the road, and a small carriage with a man and a woman in it dressed floridly and abundantly in nineteenth-century style. The harness in front of the carriage was empty. The naked girl dutifully went through the door and, her bare feet crunching in the snow, picked the harness up and tied it around herself. Leaning forward with straining steps, she got the carriage in motion and started pulling it down the slushy street, dodging horse droppings, as the spectators started to cheer.

. . .

Tami awoke with a start to find herself back in 207 Pilgrim Hall, sunlight filtering through the big bay window. Frigid air was blasting in through the side window, which her roommate Terri was now closing with a stiff open hand. “Sorry, Tam,” she said, waving her hands stiffly up and down. “This nail polish smells pretty strong and I was getting a little sick . . . Like I’m not sick already.”

With the window closed the room returned to its usual warm and cozy self. Tami watched as Terri, in her bathrobe and fluffy slippers, sat back on her lower bunk, and being a real multi-tasker, got back to reading from her biology textbook while simultaneously waving her hands to dry her nails and reaching for a tissue to blow her nose.

As always, Tami’s first thought when she woke up in the morning was that she was without clothes and lacked anything to cover herself with. She found that she was already scrunched up in a ball as if to hide her body. Then she remembered who she was and where she was. She was Tami Smithers, a straight-A freshman math major at prestigious Campbell - Frank College, who had been caught streaking on a dare her first week, an expellable offense, but who was allowed to remain after offering the excuse that nudism was her religion, a religion she must now follow.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” came the soft, velvety voice of her other roommate Jen, smiling from under the covers of her upper bunk. Jen’s pretty African-American face, framed by a short Peter Pan haircut, stood out in contrast to her white blankets. She teasingly fondled the top edge, saying, “You know, under these covers --” then suddenly flung them down to reveal a T-shirt and shorts -- “I’m naked!”

Tami smiled. To be in her room with her roommates again, after such unsettling dreams, almost made her want to cry with happiness. The weird dreams, one grotesque and the other cruel, were quickly leaving her mind, as dreams will, and she got up and stood straight, stretching her arms. “What a fine Saturday morning,” she said, looking out the window. Maybe even without clothes she still loved sunny winter days. The brisk wind blew the scattered clouds across the sky. The sun was almost blinding as it reflected off the windows of the science building nearby. The room was nice and warm. All was right with the world. Well, almost.

Realizing her stretching was turning her lesbian friend on, Tami turned to look up at her and fondled her breasts and rubbed her nipples in a mock-Playboy fashion, then put her arms down and shook her torso for a second so that her breasts wobbled tightly to and fro. Then she giggled.

“Oh baby!” Jen said lustily.

“Hey now, none of that,” Terri said playfully and tolerantly, returning to her textbook.

Tami stood in front of her roommates, forgetting her nakedness for a moment. “Time for coffee,” she said, and went to Jen’s coffee maker on top of their dresser. It was “their” dresser because, though it was on Tami’s side of the room, Tami had no clothes to put in it and she had let Jen use the lower drawers. Tami took the carafe and opened the door to the hall, Jen looking up and getting a nice full-length rear view of her roommate’s body.

Tami braced herself as she went out into the hall. She had gotten comfortable being naked with Terri and Jen in her own room, but going out into the hall was different. There was no telling who might pass by. A still higher level of courage was required when leaving the dorm. Walking naked on campus in general made her cringe, even after all this time, though some places were worse than others. As for the dorm lounge downstairs, the scene of that humiliating sexual health seminar where Tami had gotten stuck with serving as a demonstration model, she now avoided it entirely.

Fortunately the hallway was empty. As she closed the door behind her Tami heard Terri sniffle again and say, “Damn this cold! I shouldn’t have gotten my shoes wet yesterday!” Tami padded down the hall and realized that in all the time she had been naked she had never been sick. She was just about the only one in her wing who hadn’t gotten that virus that was going around before Thanksgiving. She had looked on as Terri and Jen went through various colds and sniffles. And now Terri had a cold from walking around in wet shoes on a cold day. Yet Tami had been walking barefoot through freezing rain and snow for weeks now, and naked too. Maybe the constant exposure had built up her resistance. Tami shook her head as she filled the carafe from the bathroom sink. I keep finding these advantages to being naked. This is nuts!