Episode #12: Overcoming Trauma #12: Avoiding Church

Jan,17 2026

<-#11: Overcoming Trauma #11 - Sleepover

When I woke up, Nadia and Patrick had moved from under the sheets to over the sheets, and Nadia was sleeping half over her husband.

Far from erotic, it was, well, romantic. I felt privileged to be privy to their intimacy this way.

I move a lot when I sleep. And I do mean a lot. John is mostly immobile, so the best way for us to sleep is for him to be against the side of the bed and for me to bounce around on my side.

I gently wake up, planning to go pee at the sanitary block, but Nadia reacts and joins me in silence.

Once outside, I apologize for waking her up.

"Nonsense, I was awake but afraid to move. I think you were awake when I went to pee, thought"

"I was; I hadn't found sleep yet"

"And you did after?"

"Yeah. I was going to the sanitary block"

"Good idea, my bladder is full again!", she says.

It's weird to be out without shoes, sandals, clothes, or even a towel, but I notice something.

Nadia's hair is already perfect.

"You just wake up with that hair?"

"What? Yours is just perfect"

"I doubt that", but when we make it to the block, I check in the mirror, and it's not that bad.

"Huh", I said.

We each pee and then wash our hands.

"Do you often do adult sleepovers?", I ask her.

"Hardly ever. The last time, well, the other couple turned out to have inapropriate ideas"

"Like having sex in their bed?"

"No, more like wanting to have it with us", she says, shivering.

"Oh, like swingers?"

"Yeah. We misread that friendship so much. I still beat my head against the wall about it. They were so nice! Now we know why"

"Right. Ulterior motives"

"Exactly. I mean, we are devoted Christian Naturists, determined to avoid sin. Did they really think we would be ok with it?"

"They didn't think with their heads"

"That's for sure. Service should be soon. Can I count on you and your family to be there?"

I almost freeze up. She mentioned it yesterday, and I was hesitant then, but I am not now.

"Not this week. It was a lot"

"I get that. ", she says. "Maybe next week".

I look at her.

"I am not coming here every weekend", I told her.

"Hey, you do what you want to do. It's just a saying. Perhaps we can share breakfast with our kids, and you can have some time between the four of you while the three of us are at the service?"

I look at her.

"Perhaps. Who else is going?"

"Martina and her husband are even more devout than we are. Frank and Kara too, and their kids. Jackson and Lily, Victor and Kelly, and their kids", she listed, along with other names, but I didn't know the last ones.

"What about Dr. Philips?"

"Oh, no. He even laughs at us. His wife usually comes, when he is working on Sunday mornings, but I don't think she fully buys our philosophy. She just enjoys going to church"

"Right. I get that. If there is room for one person like that, maybe I might join you one day, but John is rather against religion"

"To each their own", she says, smiling.

She tries to wake up her husband without waking up mine, but it's a failure.

We end up at Candace's house, where Nadia just goes inside without ringing or knocking. She enters like it's her own house, but she does tell us to stay back.

She returns with our kids, but also with Dr. Philips's daughter and Frank and Kara's kids. One of them is the teenager we saw, and the other two are twin teenage girls.

They are both wearing a gold necklace with a cross on it. It's the first time I see them, so I wonder where they were.

The young adult and the three other kids each went to their houses, but my kids hugged me as they were happy to see us, and, well, they were impressed I let them have this sleepover.

The seven of us went to the restaurant, and I carried my purse, but this time, both Nadia and Patrick had their cell phones... in my purse.

That way, they paid for their food, and I paid for our food.

Frank, Kara, and their three kids soon took another table, but we just saluted them.

We all ate with a weird appetite. We all overate for supper, and I heard that the kids had too many snacks. If you add the s'mores and the marshmallows...

But there is something to be said about open-air deepening appetite.

After the meal, however, our paths diverged, as Nadia and her family went to church, and the four of us found ourselves in cabin 28.

"This is a cool cabin. Can we rent it some day?", asked Sarah.

I don't think either of us responded clearly, but whatever noncommittal answer we gave, seemed to satisfy Sarah enough.

Kyle, however, had something that bothered him. "My new friend Jimmy, he told me that he hasn't put any clothes on for now for 4 months. That's insane, right?", he says.

Kyle doesn't use such judgments lightly, so it triggers a red alarm in my mind.

"Candace neither", adds Sarah, without judgment.

I need to do something, and I don't like it.

So I decide, I am the mother. I am one of the adults, so I will do this intervention however I want.

"You know, Kyle, do you now think it's normal to never be nude?"

He thinks.

"I don't know"

"Fair enough. Well, Candace and her parents, they think that never wearing clothes, is an ideal to reach. Do you think that way?"

He thinks, but I see Sarah deep in thought too.

"Jimmy tells me that he has his mom as a teacher and only sometimes other kids with him during class. That sounds lonely. "

"It is", I said.

Sarah speaks up. "But if Candace, Cassie, and I were homeschooled there, it would be the three of us together, no?", she says.

So Sarah is more on board than Kyle, and it doesn't surprise me.

"Sure, but what if you get into a fight with either of them?. At school, you can make other friends."

"Right. I didn't think about that", she says.

Kyle gets back to me. "I like gym class"

John speaks up. "I know you do, buddy"

"I like when we do big sports. Like dodgeball, or baseball, or soccer. But Jimmy, he just plays with his mom. "

"It does restrict his choices"

"Yeah", he says. And I get the impression that for him, that was it. His question was answered, but it wasn't for Sarah.

"Cassie is always nude at home but gets dressed when she goes to school"

"And Nadia tells me they do textile activities all the time"

"Yeah. Huh", she says, thinking.

John actually has a nugget. "A lifestyle doesn't have to mean that it takes up your whole life. Just the parts when you can choose to do it."

"I like that. Choose to do it. Thanks", she said, and she went and hugged us. We are inside and alone; I suppose it's ok.

Kyle wanted to go for a walk, so the four of us went, with me hiding my purse in the room, as I can't lock the door.

We went by the houses and saw Dr. Philips with his daughter.

Kyle ran up to her. "Ginny!" he said. "We are on a walk".

"That's nice. Do you guys want to go on my secret trail?" she said, lowering herself to be roughly Kyle's height.

"There is a secret trail?" he said, excited.

"I'll show you guys."

Greg asked us. "Are you going? Do you guys want to hang out?"

I feel like hanging out nude with my colleague's daughter is less irritating than staying with him, so we tell him we are going with our kids.

To my horror, he just decides to tag along.

"My wife went to that stupid church. She said that when Nadia is here, it inspires her. I don't like it", he says, grumpy.

"Not much of a Christian, too?", I say.

"Me? I am very Christian, which is why I don't dare show up in church"

"I don't follow", I say.

"What do we do, Elena? We play God in the hospital. We know he is a jealous God. I try to make myself small, avoid his gaze, and just do what I can to delay when people get to meet him. I don't need a priest to remind me that God has a plan when we are breaking that plan each day"

"Wow, I see our work as a duel against God. I see we think alike"

"I like that. I've always liked you, Elena. You care about the patients, like I do"

I look ahead, and both my kids and Ginny are getting further ahead.

"Maybe we should step up"

He looks down. "We are both barefoot; the kids don't mind the rocks, but they need to get back this way anyway. We might as well take our time"

"What is this secret trail?" I say.

He laughs. "There is nothing secret about it. Each trail is marked. We saw a marker on the way in. But someone keeps stealing the trail for that path, so the teenagers name it the secret path. It's nice, but if the destination had another name or the path another length, the sign would still be there..."

"I don't get it"

"That path is 0.69 miles long"

"Ah" says John.

"They'll properly put a 0.7-mile length, but it would mean renaming the peak too"

"Why?"

"Well, it leads to a small triangular mountain with trees around it, so it got nicknamed the Venus Mound."

We both laugh. "I see why the sign keeps getting stolen", says John.

"But the thing is, it was all tongue-in-cheek back in the day. But now, the new teenagers, they don't respect the resort like their parents did"

"So there isn't one of those signs in your home, by chance?" I say.

"No, there isn't a sign saying 'Venus Mound, 0.69 miles' anywhere in my house"

"Oh, I am surprised. You do take a few liberties at the office", I say, teasing him. It's all for the good of the patients and never illegal.

"We have two", he says, laughing

"Two?"

"My wife stole one when she was a teen, and my teenager stole the last one, not knowing her mother had one already"

I laugh.

Eventually, we turn on the path, with a pole without a sign, and soon enough, make it up what is just a tall hill, basically.

The view is breathtaking, as we get almost a bird's-eye view... of the lake where I first removed my clothes yesterday.

I find my kids and Ginny sitting on the edge, their feet dangling mid-air. It's not really dangerous; Ginny almost touches the opposite slope, but there is a sort of clearing with rocks on the side.

"These rocks were placed here by the resort to sit on. It's a great place to just hang out, especially as teenagers.", says Greg, who sits directly on one of the rocks.

"Right, hang out"

"Hey, naturist kids tend to be sexually active a little more than 2 years later than textile kids. My daughter began experimenting when she was almost 18, despite growing up here"

"Really?", I say, skeptical.

"Oh yeah. I was active young because I was curious about girls. But here, my curiosity would have been fulfilled!" he says.

It made some sense. Even if I can't believe that the 0.69 miles and the name of the hills are pure coincidence.

Walking back, I noticed that most of the trails had pun names, which were questionable.

One of them was "Bare Crossing Path". Another was "Cotton Tail Trail", which reminded me to ask Greg.

"Hey, what is a cotton tail?"

He laughs. "Naturists usually tan all over. Like, none of my family has tan lines. But new naturists, well, their behinds are less tanned, so they look like they were cotton, like on a bunny, you know? So "cottontail" means "tanned except for under the bathing suit", you know?"

"Right, while I don't have tan lines because I don't spend a lot of time in the sun, period. When I do, I use a lot of sunscreen. I did part of my internship in a skin cancer office"

"It makes sense. Wait, with Dr. Whatters?"

"Yeah"

"Now I know why you are intense. That woman has no sense of humor"

"No, she doesn't", I say, laughing.

We stop at the chapel, where people are in the process of leaving.

Nadia asked Ginny directly. "We were planning to go golfing; would you mind looking over our three kids?"

"No, they are pleasure"

Kyle was excited. It's like he got a fun babysitter. Plus, Candace and Jimmy were with Cassie in church and were now available to play with my kids.

Sadly, this meant I was stuck playing golf nude.

And don't get me wrong, the part I dread isn't the nudity...

<-#11: Overcoming Trauma #11 - Sleepover