After lunch, Marty went to meet their downstream neighbors, not only because it appeared they had a big, sunny yard, but he also wanted permission to explore the swimming hole. This must be the China House I’ve heard about, he realized as he approached on the dirt road connecting the two properties. The eaves on the corners of the roof still had Oriental designs on them. In a typical comic book daydreaming fantasy, he wondered if there would be any Chinese concubines waving from the balconies. That in no way prepared him for the shock he was about to experience.
He turned a corner around a clump of trees and came face to face with a tall, unearthly man. Or at least, that was the first split-second impression he had of him: an apparition of a golden god from another world. Startled by the sudden vision, it took him a few seconds to realize the god-man had absolutely no clothes on! He had long, curly blonde hair like a rock star, with too much skin of bronzed cinnamon – or so conveyed Marty’s peripheral vision as he quickly averted his eyes with adolescent embarrassment.
“Hello there!” The bronze statue said in a cheerful, too-loud voice, as if it had been waiting for him. Planet-blue eyes glowed from beneath perfectly manicured yellow eyebrows, and a chiseled face radiated the confidence of a hero’s bust. He had long, corded muscles in his arms, and perfectly sculpted pectorals that twitched when he moved. To Marty’s intense discomfort, he approached closer and held out his hand. “I’m Frederick.”
“I’m M-marty,” he stuttered awkwardly, making sure to maintain eye contact and not look anywhere else. I can’t believe I just shook hands with a naked man, his internal radio was announcing in his eardrums as he stepped back out of reach.
“And I’m Camille,” fluted a new voice, in soft, musical tones. The lovely contralto belonged to a stunningly beautiful woman, who was probably older than Marge but looked a lot younger. She came out of a wild rose arbor wearing an intricate Indian necklace of beads and feathers… and nothing else to conceal her glowing coffee-and-cream skin! Still, that accessory made her officially less naked than Frederick, who was grinning broadly with thick, white teeth showing in a perfect line like a picket fence. Marty wondered if he should just make a run for it, but she put her hand gracefully around the statuesque model to show they were a friendly couple, and cooed in a friendly tone, “Are you from around here?”
“Um, yeah,” Marty recovered his senses enough to speak real words. “W-we moved in yesterday to the cabin just up the creek.” He was intensely self-conscious of the clothes he wore. His brown bell-bottomed corduroys and wide-collared paisley shirt were the height of fashion back in the ‘burbs, but out here in the woods, next to two absolutely natural people, he felt ridiculous and out of place. What can you say to naked people who make you feel over-clothed?
“Oh, Ron’s old place,” she said in an aside to Frederick. “Well, welcome to the neighborhood – was it Arty, you said?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied nervously, “I mean, it’s Marty. I mean, I’m Marty,” and she laughed – a high-pitched, delightful piccolo sound.
“Arty – Marty – Party,” Frederick curiously intoned like a mantra, “What does it matter? It’s only a label.” He was still regarding Marty with his remarkably piercing eyes. He exuded an aura of unusually pure friendliness, without any hint of sexual undertones, and had a pleasant European accent. Marty felt increasingly comfortable making eye contact, which conveniently kept him from looking at other parts of his body.
“Oh for goodness’ sake, don’t call me ma’am!” the lovely woman teased, “Call me Camille,” she entreated gracefully, opening her hands and moving towards him. Marty’s brain wanted to jump back, but his feet were rooted to the spot. His skin prickled and shouted an alarm: “Warning! Warning, Will Robinson! Naked lady approaching!” She briefly ruffled his hair in greeting, then rubbed her fingers together, puzzled at the residue from the unrinsed shampoo. “You smell like lilacs.”
As her natural gentleness invaded Marty’s very agitated personal space, his eyes felt as if they would roll and pop out of his head from the effort it took to avert their gaze. He was intensely aware of her nudity, and the body parts other than her fingers that were dangerously close to contacting him. Every touch sensor on his skin was going crazy – even underneath his shirt – and he could feel the temperature rising inside his collar. I must be turning red as a tomato, mused the background track of his awareness, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Finally, and grateful for the change of subject, he remembered why he came. “Hey, is it okay if I explore the creek yonder past your house?” he pointed a bit too eagerly; with a trembling arm.
Camille and Frederick exchanged absurd looks, as if that was the strangest question they had ever heard. “Yonder?” Their laughter was not mocking but appreciative, like a studio audience. “Of course, it’s all open land around here – you don’t have to ask.” She turned and swung her arm around, and her breasts followed with Marty’s eyes in tow.
“You should go see the Inkwells,” offered Frederick, “The swimming hole, I mean. It’s got a couple of nice waterfalls. And the state park is just down there,” he pointed helpfully down the road. He stood with conviction, chest out, in the universal superhero pose, with his hand on his hip as if his skin was a uniform and his long hair was a cape, and there was nothing unusual about having a daytime conversation while completely devoid of clothing.
“T-thank you,” Marty stammered politely, still being too formal. “It was nice to meet both of you, even though you’re – uh…” he caught himself in time.
Camille laughed her piccolo tune. Her eyes assured him that she knew of his terrible shyness and responded to it altruistically. “Oh, you mean we don’t have any clothes on?” she teased playfully. “We’re nudists. We don’t believe in clothes.”
“Except in the mornings,” Frederick added quickly, crossing his eyes in an abrupt shift of character and emphasizing his odd accent. “It’s fooking cold out here, comrade! Turns my balls blue!”
That was a stronger visual suggestion than Marty was prepared to fend off, so he took it as a cue to exit stage right, and waved goodbye. Now he was the one who felt naked when he walked away. “Did that really just happen?” he asked himself with a strong sense of déjà vu. He proceeded to the open area behind the house, and a large garden came into view. Three more nudists – one man and two ladies – were working the planting beds like farmers… but without the overalls. They waved in a neighborly, down-home sort of way, without a trace of the cultured, thinly-veiled hostility Marty had known in the suburbs. He never got the sense he was a stranger, or was trespassing. Instead, he felt as if he belonged for the first time in his life… but he would be keeping his clothes on, despite the native customs. Like most adolescent boys, he was acutely self-conscious about his body, and ashamed of it.
Down past the garden, the road split and continued far down the creek bed to his right, and the left fork led back to his house. Straight ahead was a little path and a rushing noise that grew louder as he approached. He walked out onto a small granite knob and saw immediately why the place was called the “Inkwells.” The water poured down a chute and into a round hole that looked quite deep. There it swirled and churned like a washing machine, and fell into another round hole below. That one was smaller but deeper than the upper one, and swallowed sunlight like an open mouth. All that turbulence was sculpted out of a massive outcropping of gray, crumbling granite that was exquisitely mossy in the moist places. The only odd thing about the idyllic scene was a concrete pipe running all the way across at a diagonal from bank to bank; about 3 feet in diameter and 12 feet over the water. With his keen, teenage powers of observation, Marty deduced it must be moving water from one place to another. It looked like a miniature freeway overpass built up on trestles. So there he was, staring at water flowing in 2 different directions at once, entranced by the roar of the rushing foam, falling into the depths… no!! He caught himself in time. The sound of the falls concealed a siren’s song, enticing the visitor to jump in and join the flow. He quickly stepped back from the knob.
As he made his way down the rocks to the edge of the larger pool, more naked people came into view. Two couples were sunbathing behind a large boulder that blocked the breeze produced by the falls. Thankfully, they hadn’t seen Marty yet, so he circled around and upstream in a way that concealed his incongruous attire. The feeling was surreal, as if he was one of the boys from the Brady Bunch who had wandered onto the wrong set and found himself in a French porno movie. He stealthily followed the creek upstream about 300 yards to his new home, and hoped his family still had their clothes on.