Nina West looked at Helen and Helen looked back at her. What was going on here? Why had Tami changed so much from that ordinary girl in the graduation gown? One of the things that turned them off about their guest was how she seemed so ostentatious about displaying her lack of shame. This morning, for example, when Nina and Helen came down to the living room getting ready to go to the office, they found Tami sitting cross-legged on the couch, reading a magazine. The teenage girl nodded at them in acknowledgement, then went back to reading. And then, slowly and almost casually, she leaned back and unfolded her legs, and then extended them widely out to each side. Still reading, she extended them with trained limberness -- she must be a gymnast or something, the two young women thought simultaneously -- until each bare foot lay on top of the armrests on the ends of the couch, toes flexed and pointing up. Her bare, tanned pussy was thrust forward, the inner lips opened just a bit, showing the pink inside, her little teenaged clit poking out above. And she kept on reading like it was nothing. Nina and Helen almost felt like rolling their eyes before going to the garage to put on their clothes.
Nina’s thoughts were interrupted by a picture on the screen of a line of a dozen or so undergraduate girls in matching blue skirts with yellow blouses. They seemed snooty. A circle around one of the girls on the right, a thin girl with dark hair. “This,” Sarah said, “is the Alpha Omicron sorority at Campbell - Frank. Every year, of course, they initiate new freshmen, with what we would think of as pretty innocent dares. Such as streaking past the Student Union building late at night. All perfectly ordinary. The young woman in the circle is Wanda Percival, in charge of initiations. Last September, one of the freshmen who signed up as initiates was Miss Smithers.
“This, perhaps, is where the seeds of disaster begin. This man is Robert Burdick, who had just been promoted to Chief of Security at the college, after three years as Acting Chief. The, uh, previous chief,” Sarah said in an aside, “had run off with his male dispatcher. The college relies mostly on fundamentalist Baptist benefactors and, as you can imagine, it was lucky that the incident was not publicized.” Nina looked at the picture of the stern-looking man in a pressed brown uniform and mirror sunglasses.
“Chief Burdock was brought in to crack down on any weakening of morality, and one of his goals was to make sure any hazing was done behind closed doors. He had gotten a tip on when the sorority hazing would be, so he had his two officers patrol the area. And they caught Miss Smithers, who had gotten separated from her fellow initiates and had hopped out from behind a bush, wearing only her sneakers.
“She was taken to Dean Percy Jorgon,” Sarah continued. A picture of an impeccably dressed, pale-faced man of about 50 with rimless glasses. “Mr. Jorgon has been a college administrator for many years. He has been Dean of Campbell - Frank for five years, his first job running a whole college. Not an easy job, because he has to deal with a board of trustees filled with headstrong religious types, and benefactors of much the same stripe, from old Puritan families. To return to our story, Miss Smithers, like all freshmen, had been carefully lectured on the college’s strict rules of conduct during orientation and surely knew that to be caught streaking was an expellable offense. When Dean Jorgon asked her why she was without clothing, she answered, apparently in desperation on the spur of the moment, that it was her religion.
“Now we get to Henry,” Sarah said, shaking her head with practiced exasperation. “I’m not going to show you a picture of him, but let me tell you, he is a good man to have as your lawyer, but he is also a sadist. And he doesn’t mind seeing naked women, in chains if possible, but unfettered is also o.k. with him.”
“You seem to gravitate to those kinds of people,” Brian Cook said with a smirk. Donald Bell rubbed his eyes and nodded.
“Let’s not get into that now, gentlemen,” Sarah said, a little peeved by the comment. “Let’s get back to Henry. Anything involving naked people grabs his attention, and he was certainly aware of the Moonbeam decision -- ”
“Moonstone,” Martin interrupted, not irritated this time because he saw it coming.
“Right,” Sarah said, “and he advised Dean Jorgon that nudism was a protected religion under the United States Constitution. Which was almost true. Martin?”
Martin finally disengaged his mind from how to undo the Cronenberg disaster and sat up. “Just because Rhode Island says so doesn’t mean Vermont has to follow suit. If this were litigated in Vermont, the Vermont Supreme Court would be free to hold that nudism is not protected.”
“Exactly,” Sarah said. “But still, Henry told the Dean that nudism was protected and Miss Smithers had the right to be naked. I might also add that the previous year the college had settled a sexual harassment suit for a large sum, alerting the sensitive noses of civil rights attorneys, and the Dean was wary of any further civil rights claims. So Henry hatched his devious idea. The only way to fix the situation, if they could not expel Miss Smithers, would be to make it impossible for her to stay. On the advice of Henry, Dean Jorgon told Miss Smithers that she would not be penalized, but she would be monitored to make sure that this recently acquired religion was authentic and not just an excuse to avoid expulsion. In other words, Miss Smithers was expected to go naked at all times, and any putting on of clothing would be taken as a sign that her claim of religion was false. And she would be expelled.”
Nina and Helen sat there in horrified disbelief -- horror that grew upon seeing the next picture. “This is a candid shot of Miss Smithers on her way to class the next week.” A girl, naked but for sneakers and the bookbag slung across her back, walking stiffly across a sunlit leafy path, passing other students who are staring in shock. The expression on the girl’s face is of pure fright and mortification. “Miss Percival, who was also her R.A. in the dorm, was put in charge of monitoring Miss Smithers’s ‘religion’. A cruel twist of fate, and one that matched Miss Percival’s temperament exactly. You see, we have found that despite her youth she has been an active dominant in the S & M scene, fully as sadistic as Henry. She had all Miss Smithers’s clothes taken away, leaving this petrified girl to go through her freshman college semester totally naked.”
“Why didn’t she just go put on clothes and appeal to the Dean for a little leniency, maybe a lesser penalty?” Donald Bell asked.
Dr. Maber spoke up in a warm but troubled voice. “Because she was afraid to. You must understand, to a young girl from her background the workings of the college environment are alien and intimidating. And she, and her parents, felt very lucky and full of pride at her being able to go to such an elite school. To be expelled would be a crushing blow, and a bitter disappointment for her family. This poor girl had no choice but to do exactly as she was told.”
“It might be added,” Sarah said, “that she had no clue as to how to defend herself legally. She didn’t know of any Moonbeam decision -- ”
“MoonSTONE,” Martin said.
“-- or of any rights she had. Probably not even her father knows any lawyers, at least not any who could handle a civil rights suit. All she knew was she had to stay naked until graduation or her life would be ruined.”
Donald Bell seemed to enjoy playing the skeptic. “What about when she came home for holidays? Did she have to be naked then too? Would her parents put up with such a thing?”
Dr. Maber spoke up again. “From what we can gather, her father was contacted by the Dean and knew the religion claim was a lie. But he was very upset that the girl broke a disciplinary rule and insisted that she face the consequences of her behavior.”
“He sounds almost too dumb to live.”
Dr. Maber shrugged. “We know he’s headstrong. It’s pretty clear, though, that Miss Smithers has kept from her parents any knowledge of the more . . . extreme details of her ordeals.”
“More about that in a minute,” Sarah said. “Also, Miss Smithers knows that whenever she’s home she’s being watched. One of the trustees went down to visit during Christmas intercession and intimidated her into making her usual attendance at midnight mass.”
“Midnight mass?” Nina said, intrigued.
“It’s a big deal for Catholics,” Brian Cook said. “Almost a hangout for the teenagers.”
“I’m sure after seeing a naked girl walk in, those Catholics went home and started producing even more babies,” Donald Bell said jovially. A couple of people chuckled.
Dr. Maber was not amused. “Let’s spare the cultural stereotyping, shall we?” Donald shut up and nodded obediently.
Sarah said, “Henry has his own network of spies, too. He has worked closely with Miss Percival on certain, um, aspects of this. And it gets worse, much worse.”
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