Unapologetic

  It wasn’t that he had an urge to be different or something like that. He just like the way the world felt when no clothes were worn. It made him feel alive, as if the pants and shirts he wore for work were just the symbols of a servitude he had never been happy with. He didn’t understood how some people love to wear such clothes but the important thing was that he hated them and, if he had the choice, he would have chosen never to wear them again.

Let’s go back a bit in this story to better understand Nicholas, or Nick, as only his closest friends called him. He didn’t allow anyone he didn’t know to call him Nick; he thought it was just wrong. Two loving parents, which had belonged to the hippie movement back in the sixties and early seventies, raised him like that. He hadn’t been around them at the time, but their choice of living certainly showed some of those things learned in life.

Nowadays they lived in a small farm, taking care of various animals and planting most of their food. They would avoid doctors if they could, and all electronic devices except a cellphone, which made the connection, once every two days, with their son. They would always give him advice on eating healthy and how to be a better human being and Nick took the advice. His friends appreciated his humanity and inherent openness.

Anyway, from his childhood nick had learned to respect all creatures and not to be ashamed of him, both physically and mentally. He was taught the human body is beautiful and that this beauty should always be appreciated and taken care of. And the reinforce this idea, his parents would often take him to the beach to look at people and make him sick that “ugly” rarely meant “hideous”. Most often, it meant, “I don’t like it”; a personal opinion. Respectable but not universal.

Of course, those beaches were nude ones. People would go around without any kind of underwear and, from an early age, he knew that was normal and just played as any other kid on the beach, building castles and bridges and making pits with the salt water. And he enjoyed it thoroughly. For him, his parents were just ideal because they let him do whatever he wanted but just remained him to be responsible. And Nick was smart so it made it a lot easier for them.

Of course, he received a fair share of bullying in school. Because he was so young, he just told everyone about his holidays, like any other little boy or girl did, but when he said he had being in a nudist camp or beach, the kids would laugh at him and the teacher would call his parents, who would explain their views to her, with no success. They would push him and call him names only because he wasn’t ashamed.

That’s when he learned what hypocrisy means. He was a bit older than ten years old when he learned that older men thought often about younger naked women and they were magazines and TV channels showing them, not necessarily being pornographic. And that was ok in general, although not unspoken. But when someone mentioned liking being naked after showering for some minutes, people thought of them was instantly a depraved person and someone to watch out as he or she might become dangerous.

But Nick, now aged thirty-one, knew there was nothing depraved in going to the beach and just not get any tan lines. He was amused that, when a sexual partner asked him how he did to be so evenly tanned and he answered with the truth, such person would get even more aroused. Still, after so many years, it was almost seen as a fetish. For Nick, that wasn’t the case. It was just him being who he was.

If he stayed at home a whole weekend, for example trying to finish up some work or because of the weather, he would always be naked. He showered and took care of himself, so there was nothing really bad about it. If someone visited they would ring before hand to be let into the building so that gave him a couple of minutes to grab some pajama pants and a t-shirt, or something of the sort. And he would be “presentable”.

He did that because he was aware most people were not comfortable with nudity. That’s why, and he said it loudly when drunk, he just loved sex. And it was because he felt free, not only because it felt good or was fun. He just felt more like himself during sex and also when he stayed naked at home alone. He wished it could be like that all the time but, of course, it wasn’t possible.

Nick had learned from his parents, though. When he had time to spare, and only after visiting his parent’s farm, he would go to a nude beach or to a nude camp to fish. He loved fishing too and his father had taught him everything he had learned from his father who was a fisherman, the kind that captures rare crabs or lobsters. The lake was not like the ocean but the teachings were just as effective.

The best about it all was that he had no secrets with his parents. He was absolutely honest with them and they would tell him every problem they would have. He would drive his father to his prostate exams and would laugh with his comments about it afterwards. Same with her mom and her gynecologist appointments, which he loved because of the faces of the other ladies there. Nick, in turn, would tell them about work, love interests and his love for the naked body.

It was obvious they deeply loved each other. Nick’s friends envied this relationship he had with his parents because, as they told him, it wasn’t strange that parents and children became apart with time, as their priorities change and even distances settled in. But most, he knew, had not really being that close with their families when young so, there wasn’t anything to wonder about.

One fun thing about being naked was that some people thought it was fascinating. Some of his best friends knew about it and didn’t mind (as long as he did only in his house) but people he had met randomly or through them would take an interest in it. Nick found that to be kind of awkward but always tried to answer every question as accurately as he could and sometimes even told them to ask a doctor because most questions related to some physical problem, as if you required a special set of physical and mental skills to be naked.

It was Jenna, an older woman who was a teacher of fine arts in a university, who asked him if he could model for her class. At first he said yes but then he recalled the days he had been bullied and pushed around. What if they laughed or stared in an annoying way? He loved being naked but he didn’t like to be the center of attention; one didn’t lead to the other. But he had already said yes so he went and, for once, he did love to be center of attention, even if it was to twenty students trying to draw his body.

Afterwards, he was able to see the pictures the students had painted and he was surprised to see many of them were very talented. He somehow thought students would just try to do something decent but quickly reminded him that artists become artists even before they are aware of it. When he was about the leave, he met another model and talk to him for a while. He was studying architecture and paid his lunches and other expenses with the money he made standing naked in front of the students. He quickly became one new friend.

Nick had known other people that liked nudity before but they would always like it in relation to sex, which he found to be a bit obvious, to easy if you will. Besides, they would vanish fast, after promising to call, to write or to meet again. But with Greg, he had stronger connection: Greg’s mother had been a hippie too and his dad was just the most loving guy one could meet. In his words, his dad loved everyone just because they existed.

So from then on, they would often meet and talk, not necessarily naked. Nick liked to be around someone that understood him and got what he thought of many things. In the holidays they shared a trip to the beach and had a great time. They would even go dancing at night and stay in one of their apartments each time, that was the degree of friendship and trust. Sex? No, it never happened. They were friends. And kept on being friends for a long time after they met, almost all of their lives.

Nick did love being naked but what he liked the most was people. And not any people but the people that made him who he was, who loved him for who he was and who didn’t judged just because for what he liked. Yes, he was a man that loved being naked; he was not ashamed of himself and was unapologetic. But he was also a great friend, a dedicated son, an open mind and one great fisherman.