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For the Taylors, the drive to their new house rather short. Their new house was only 3 minutes from the airport and their back yard gave a direct view to the military base's fence.
Mark Kelso only had time for chit chat about the flight, and reassured the family that all of their furniture and personal belongings had since been loaded on the truck which would be driven night and day to their new house to arrive at some point the next evening.
The house was just like the pictures. What the photographs didn't show was the neighborhood around the houses. The 6th avenue in this area ended in a cul-de-sac and contained mostly higher end houses, with only 3 actually bigger than their own.
What wasn't either in the picture was the two nice cars in the entryway.
The whole family was excited when they entered the house, but quickly discovered that the ground floor was entirely empty.
"We installed army beds for tonight upstairs in the bedroom. The home theater projector above the garage is working, but sadly, we couldn't find a fridge or an oven fast enough. For supper, I'll take you with my family to our local delicacy, Casa Mia, a fine Italian restaurant and tomorrow morning, all of the new Eden's creek families are having a nudist brunch in one of the barracks. For now sadly, public nudity is still forbidden, but this should last only for another few months."
The four of them unloaded the luggage from Mr Kelso's car and once done, everyone just sat down on the floor in the main living room.
Mr Kelso explained that this house was the personal home of the former head scientist in charge of Terraforming the city, but that he had left a few weeks earlier, soon after the death of the general.
"This section of the 6th avenue is where the biggest houses of the city are located. All of the top officials stayed here. My own is the big one at the end. It used to be the General's personal house. The one next to it is Derrick's house, it used to be for the General's chief of staff. All of the houses in this sector except one are unoccupied, but soon everyone in this section will be naturists. The house in front of yours will be the Richardson's."
Eric inquired on which one was already occupied.
"Your right neighbor. It's the residence of Colonel Mackensie, who was in charge of military and civilian relations at Base Sygma. We requested he stayed for the transition to help smooth things over and he gracefully accepted. He isn't hostile to our plans and more importantly, his son isn't either."
Natasha asked why his son was so important.
"He is the founder and sole employee of the only radio station in town, KMBS 98.5 FM. There is no newspaper, no local TV channel, so Mister Ian Mackensie is the only source of information about our town that we get. Derrick and I announced 2 days ago the conversion of the town to a naturist city on his radio station, and Ian has been running almost now stop on the subject. Monday morning Eric, you'll need to go on his morning show present yourself. Kelly is scheduled right after you."
"What's the town reaction like ?"
"It's mixed. We only have the callers' reaction, so we don't know what the silent majority says, but we can estimate that almost 35% of the town families had at least 1 member calling over the last 48 hours. We have employees posted in bars and restaurants to get the pulse of the population.
Overall, most of the people rigidly opposed to naturism have sold us their house and are encouraging others to do the same. Their reaction is: Let's get the all out of here. We've met more business owners and the majority see the new immigration in a positive light for their business. The two clothing stores are really scared, but we said we would try to compensate them.
It's mostly the residents who are convinced they can't find another job anywhere else that we are worried about. They might stay in because their mortgage is low. We did offer a few a job in one of our factories elsewhere, but some simply want nothing to do with us.
Fortunately, the town sheriff and his two deputies are seeing the move in a positive light because this means they will no longer be a second grade force. Right now, the military police handles most of the problems, leaving the men in brown to fix the ridiculous complaints and issue speeding tickets.
One of the deputies even admitted to having skinny dipped a lot in his home town with his wife, so we might win them over."
"And the radio guy, what's his reaction ?"
"Derrick had a long talk with him while he was playing a musical segment. He always hated the town because there was not enough single woman for him to find a girlfriend. Because his father was the liaison with the civilians, the town girls snubbed him while the enlisted girls of his age didn't stay long enough on the base to settle in. So, pragmatically, he is hoping he'll meet a nice girl amongst the new residents who knows him mostly as the "sexy DJ in town" and not as his father's son."
Natasha asked : "How old is he ?"
"I think he 21 or 22. His hormones are still talking from what I can see. Hey, anyone hungry ?"
They walked over to Eric Kelso's house where they go to meet Francine, his wife and assistant, Steven, their 16 years old boy and Karen, their 15 year old daughter. Everyone was dressed in comfortable yet classy clothes. Francine and Karen were wearing summer dresses while Steven was simply wearing jeans with a t-shirt.
"Kids, Mr Taylor will be your new Math teacher in September."
Both greeted their new teacher and soon enough, both families were sitting down in the back of the Casa Mia restaurant dining room.
The restaurant was almost empty despite being a Saturday evening and as such, only had one overworked waitress who was efficient, but rather cold.
At first, Natasha was worried that perhaps, she resented their presence, but Mark reassured her that the restaurant had been struggling in the past 3 months due to the partial withdrawal of the military.
"The owner was considering closing the restaurant, but the food is amazing so we eat here as often as we can to keep them open. As such, every new employee who comes into town is treated to a meal. Hopefully, we can get enough of them to return on their own to keep Casa Mia open in the long term."
Kim, who had been silent most of the day asked if there were other restaurants in town.
"There is a Subway franchise. The owner was a pure investor and started making demands, so we just bought the franchise from him. Most of the employees were kids from military parents, so it's going to be one of the first restaurants with an all nudist staff. There used to be a small McDonalds in town, but it closed 2 years ago. The building is still there and we hope to open it back up. There is a small cost pizzeria operated by a Kurd family and a nice Chinese buffet. Both assured us they would stay open. There are three independent dairy bars. One will remain open as it is, but we bought one who wanted to sell his to follow his wife out of town and the other one just wants a little money to erase his debts. There are two grocery stores and the biggest one also offers meals like Chicken BBQ and sandwiches.
Most of the towns in the area also have a waffle house and at least one deli, but that's something missing for now. We've contacted a naturist family who runs a waffle house in Texas to see their interest of moving here, but we haven't heard from them yet"
"It looks like you've though of everything."
"Well, honestly I am not sure if it's a good idea. Perhaps I should wait a little."
"I know, but if this project is to be successful, we need community leaders to show a positive example. We hope to have filled both schools with a least 30 to 40% of naturists, but if only kids are nude, it's not going to work. We need naturist teachers, but we can't fire any of the current teachers. Fortunately, M. Granger, your predecessor, was eligible to an early retirement so we coaxed him into leaving, but over both schools, we might have only 3 or 4 naturist teachers in place by the time nudity is allowed in town."
The food come in and both families anxiously dug into their plates. The food really was amazing. Natasha couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she had agreed to more she could handle and was seriously considering backing out. Yet, she couldn't help but imagine how this could help break down barriers and open minds in the long term, on both sides of the fence.