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I couldn't keep up the charade very long. At the base, I wanted my parents to pay for what they did for me, so the next morning, when I woke up nude in my bed, I decided I would only get dressed for school.
My goal was simple: to piss my parents off that I had decided to return to naturism on my own. I was so focused on my anger for them, that I only saw things through that anger.
Oh boy, was I wrong.
The previous night, I had the theory that they mostly worked in the nude, and were in their room in the nude, since they only abandoned naturism to give me hope at a normal school life.
And the next morning, I thought it would piss them off that I was nude?
How stupid was I? Well, I was 12. I thought I knew everything. I didn't.
Of course, they were absolutely thrilled and excited. They asked me if they could join me, and when I was angry that they were happy, they decided to just give me time.
"You don't understand, neither of you actually do. I was at Mindy's yesterday. You robbed me of naturism"
But they indeed didn't understand. To them, I was being somewhat irrational. Sure, they understood that I was angry they lied to me, and my father even admitted that perhaps, they should have come clean earlier.
They certainly didn't get the point, so I just closed in on myself, and soon enough, got dressed for school, mostly ignoring them.
When I got to school, Mindy couldn't get it either. Was I completely irrational or was everyone else angry?
Well, I was completely irrational. As an adult now, I can confirm that. I wanted to be angry at my parents and was grasping at straws.
If I hadn't found those pictures and instead, had found a regular baby image, I might have exploded about how it was taken, or the meal at supper. Or maybe about my curfew being too early, even if I was usually asleep before it.
The reality is that today, as an adult, I have no idea where that anger really comes from. Well, I do, in general terms. I was growing up, not fast enough and yet, too fast, and I was having more powers, more freedoms, but not fast enough and yet, too fast.
I was confused, girls my age were getting their "boobies" and I wasn't, so that boys were noticing them, and not me. Plus, I wasn't noticing boys yet, why is that?
I was in a new school, some of my friends were at another school, and being shy, I had trouble making new ones.
The person reassuring me was Mindy, the fake head in my mind. Because, I may try to claim it was when I was a child, I still, well, until I met her, talked to her in my head. She just, at some point, stopped replying. But I still confided in her.
Now, the one thing I will say is that the only abnormal part of my anger was that my parents, in reality, were good parents. My anger was directed at my problem fitting in, and was transferred to them.
Why did I not fit in? I said so earlier! I was shy. Then, if I had been more introspective, I might have been able to claim that perhaps, having my best friend taken away from me made me shy, but in reality, even today, I am rather shy, by everyone's else's standards. I am an introverted person and that's ok. I just pick who I am close to.
But not when you are 12. You are expected to show maturity, to have tons of friends, to be popular, to mingle. To matter to others.
I wasn't stupid, I knew all of that, I just couldn't cut it. I couldn't be popular, and I still didn't know how being popular in high school doesn't really matter eventually.
Well, it does, in the sense that it's on that aspect that you build your personality, but I digress.
My point is that I was angry at my parents, for things occurring at the school, which I didn't understand enough yet.
So, to them, I was irrational. To me today, I was irrational. But at the same time, I was following a twisted logic to try to fit in as a round shape into a square hole, without realizing that perhaps, I was just different and not in any way inferior for it.
Nevertheless, that morning, in class, I only thought of the idea that neither my parents nor my new friend understood me, oblivious to the fact that I didn't even understand myself.
I still ate lunch with Mindy, at our secluded spot. She invited me over again, but I had a score to settle with my parents. I had no idea how, or why, but I did.
Mindy was sad, but I promised I would come over soon, and would beg for a sleepover which made her so ecstatic she hugged me, promising me that she doesn't snore, but that she falls asleep super late on a sleep-over, liking to tell scary stories under the sheets.
"Wait, do you sleep in the same bed as your friend?"
"Yeah, why? Don't you?"
"Well, yeah, but we put our PJ on"
"Oh. I usually just take a second sheet, and sleep between the two, so my friend sleeps under them. That way, our skin doesn't stick"
"That's your problem?", I ask, incredulous
"Well, yeah."
But I decided to let it go. She was more mature than me, so perhaps it was me who didn't get it. Perhaps it was outdated ideas about beds and nudity crawling in my mind.
All I know is that by the end of that Thursday lunch break, I had decided I was spending the night over at Mindy the following day. I just had to confront my parents, but didn't know how yet.
School ended, and I came home alone, for the first time since finding that photo album. It wasn't with a light heart that I entered my house.
I had two different possible plans of attack, and one of them fell pointless. I had surprised them with my nudity and they took it well. The other way I saw, was to surprise them with theirs.
They were in the basement, which is locked during the day. I always found it weird, but now, I knew why there was a delay between me knocking, and my mother coming up. She needed time to get dressed.
My parents weren't stupid, so I knew there was a spare key for the basement somewhere. And that somewhere, had to be their room.
It was locked by a privacy lock at night, but not during the day. I went in, and explored. In the closet, I found more naturist magazines, including recent ones. They had given me old ones, but it's clear to me that they were still subscribers.
I searched in my father's bedside table and found his razor, a deodorant stick, a comb, a brush, and a book on economics. In a drawer?
I went on the other side, and in my mother's room, I found a single key, on a key ring, but nothing else on it.
In addition to a hairbrush, a toenail clipper, a nail filer, many hair scrunchies, a lip balm, some cream for the eyes, for the face, for the hands, and others I couldn't even understand what they were for.
It's no wonder my father has a small one and my mother a large one. It's worse than her purse!
I even found quarters, and dimes.
I grabbed the key, and gently tiptoed downstairs.
Right, the locked door isn't to go downstairs, the door is downstairs. You go down the steps, and there is a door to get in their office.
I gently slid the key in the lock, and quickly turned and opened the door. I had no illusions that I could unlock the deadbolt without making a racket, so I just accelerated from 0 to 60, opening it wide open, and finding my parents, at their desks, on their computers, wearing clothing.
Honestly, I almost died inside. I had betrayed their trust for that?
What was even my goal? To prove they were still naturists? I knew they wanted to be.
Both looked at me, and I looked at them. So, I did the only sane thing I could think of. I closed the door, locked it, and ran upstairs to put the key back where I found it.
My father was the fastest of the two. He caught me as I was leaving their bedroom.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Nope", and I evaded him and ran to my room, slamming the door behind me.
He knocked.
"Julie, you can't just shut us out of your life, you know?"
"I can try", I yelled
"You can't hide in here forever, you know?"
"I only need 6 years"
But that was too much. He gave up, and my mother opened the door. She broke the peace, and got in.
"Mom, you promised you wouldn't barge in my room!"
"That was then you promised you wouldn't snoop in our room. You broke the agreement, young lady"
"So fucking what?"
"That will be no desert for swearing. We still need to talk, your father and me, about what you just did. Anything to say before we pick your punishment?"
"It's not fair"
"Life's not fair. You have to learn to deal with it. We can help you, if you let us in"
But I just grunted.
"Why are you even so angry? What did we do?"
"You kept me away from naturism"
"We did. We did what we thought was best. However, it's not too late. The three of us can undress and catch up on lost time"
"Oh now it's okay. Why not 4 years ago?"
"Because we tried, and you didn't want to"
"What?", I say, surprised
"We went camping. Do you recall?"
"I do"
"We went to a lake, and it was beautiful, but we didn't have a bathing suit, on purpose. Do you recall that?"
"Not at all"
"We proposed to still swim, but without a bathing suit, and you refused. You didn't want to be naked, even just between the three of us"
"Really?"
"Really. We even tried a few more times. More subtly. You weren't ready"
"What about more recently?"
"Last spring. We watched that movie, with skinny-dipping in it. We asked if that sounded fun, you said it sounded gross"
"I have no recollection of that"
"Of course! We were testing the water in small steps. Like when I called to get a towel, when we were in the shower, about 3 months ago and you averted your eyes. I even tried to talk to you, as if everything was normal"
"But no one told me that nudity was normal. That's the point. It's like speeding in a car, and being surprised when it doesn't stop on a dime."
Ok, fine I am recreating this dialog years in the future. I certainly wasn't that clear with my words. I was twelve! Still, it's a nice analogy that I came up with when trying to remember the talk.
I might not remember the words, but I recall her reaction.
"You know, you are right. It wasn't fair of us. We raised you for four years one way, and then, sent you in another direction hoping something stuck"
"But I think that something did stick. I was happy at Mindy"
My mother smiled.
"Would you like us to go spend the weekend there?"
Holy shit. I wanted to manipulate my parents to let me spend a sleepover with Mindy, and they were offering me a weekend?
Was I that good? Of course not. She was also pushing for her goals, to become a naturist family again, but since at that moment, it was also my goal and my parents were my enemy, I couldn't see it.
"If I can sleep over with her Friday night"
"Deal"
"And I have my dessert tonight", I add
"Too late. We had a deal, and you still need to learn a lesson"
But my father, whom I didn't realize was there all along, added.
"Let her have it. We also need to learn a lesson"
"Fine. But don't barge in on us anymore", my mother added.
"I was so sure you would be naked!", I replied, sad.
"On other days, we would have. However, with the tension with you, we didn't want to risk it and rush to get dressed if you needed to talk to us coming back from school", my father explains
"But if we do become naturist, why lock the door?", I ask
"We have phone calls with customers. A lot of them"
"That's it?"
"That's it", my mother added.
"So are we good?", I ask
"Not without a hug", My mother said.
Reluctantly, I agreed to a hug. She had agreed to the sleepover after all. I had won.
"So", my father said. "When will naturism return to this house?"