Submitting your vote... Letters : 13838 Words : 2642
My current life has been intermittent. Let me explain.
So, I grew up a naturist. We didn't live in a naturist resort, but we visited them and at home, we were mainly nude. It was simple.
My parent's friends were naturists, and they were nude at our home, and we were nude at theirs.
They had kids. Some of those kids were my age, and some of them were my friends.
Of course, I don't have clear memories of all of that, it's mostly lost to my childhood, but my parents told me all about it.
But then, kindergarten arrived. I am told I wasn't the one causing a problem. It was one of my friends. Mindy. She was only months older, but that meant she landed in kindergarten a full year before me.
The naturism blew up in her parent's face. Mindy was even worse than I was. She actually grew up in a naturist resort, only wearing clothes to move around the town.
I loved going to Mindy's apparently because we could play around the resort carefree and clothes free.
I could be nude in my backyard, but for most of my friends, their backyards were off limit to nudity, something that Mindy and I struggled with, and a lot more than our other friends.
It was enough for my parents to completely lose their mind. Would I struggle as much as Mindy?
Now, my parents have a company. An import company. That means they mostly work from home, and as such, I could be babysat by my parents, with the three of us nude.
But that all stopped, in September, when I was four. Suddenly, naturism was out of our lives, all of a sudden.
It wasn't gradual. My parents were freaking out! Apparently, we were nude, went to the store to buy more clothes for me, and then, when we got back, I was told we would be wearing clothes from now on, and I didn't take it well.
After a few days, however, with a lot of ice cream as bribe, naturism was just an old souvenir and by the time I arrived in kindergarten, I wasn't even thinking about nudity.
I lost contact with Mindy, and made new friends at the local playground.
Elementary school went by in a flash, with me as shy and oblivious to naturism and nudity as anyone else in my classes.
I had zero recollection of a childhood spent nude. None whatsoever.
But in 6th grade, I went to a junior high school. I know, for many school districts, it's 7th and 8th grade, but for us, it was 6 to 8.
In a social studies class, I was asked to bring some baby pictures to get to know the class. We would basically put them in a box, shuffle them, and pick one up, trying to find who it was. Hopefully, it would form a chain, or multiple loops, and that way, we would know a few more people.
At home, that day, my parents were busy working: school finishes early compared to work, so while they were in their basement office, I ran for the old photo albums.
I hadn't looked at them, like, ever, but I knew where they were.
Both my parents heard me scream and ran upstairs, finding me with one of our photo albums from my youth, with not only my parents, but also their friends, completely naked!
They ran upstairs, and my father hit himself on the forehead. "The albums"
"I thought you hid them?", said my mother
"I did, for a 4-year-old, but not for a 12-year-old"
I looked, and saw myself, with a friend. Both of us were nude, making a sandcastle in the sand, happy.
"Can someone enlighten me, please?", I told them.
They sat on both side of me.
"Honey, when you were a kid, we were naturist. Nudists. All our friends were, all your friends were. But your best friend, Mindy, went to kindergarten a year before you did and had trouble with wearing clothes, so we decided to become textiles"
Mindy. I knew that name. In fact, when I was a kid, in school, I sort of had an imaginary friend I spoke to in my head, and her name was Mindy. Oh, don't look at me weird. I didn't see her or anything, I just spoke to her.
She was like, my internal friend to talk about my fears and my problems to.
What was fucking with my head, was that Mindy was a head. Just a head. I could see her facial features, her hair, but nothing else, and there, on the pictures, was that head.
After I got confirmation that I indeed knew Mindy, we talked. I was freaking out a little, but I wasn't ready to strip naked yet.
This was my past, after all.
My parents called Mindy's parents and they talked. For about an hour. Well, my father did, my mother stayed with me, talking to me and reassuring me, that whatever I decided to do, they would respect my choices.
We did find a picture of me as a baby where I had clothes on, so my assignment was completed, but now, I had a new problem.
My father came back. "They will talk to her, and if both girls want to talk to each other, they will be able to."
"I'd like to", I said, with no doubts in my mind.
I retired to my room about an hour later. I had enough, emotionally. My parents were like the perverts I heard about in the schoolyard, who ran around with their bits hanging out, and they had raised me that way.
In fact, if Mindy hadn't freaked out, maybe, just maybe I would have been a pervert too.
I was taken out of my thoughts with the phone ringing. About a minute later, she came into my room, with the wireless phone.
"I have Mindy on the phone, do you still want to talk to her?"
"Yeah"
"Want me to stay with you?"
I think about it and decline her offer.
I pick up the phone, but don't know what to say. What do you say to an imaginary friend who is suddenly alive?
I think she heard me breathing.
"Julie? Is that you?"
"Yeah. I can't believe you are real", I replied
She laughs, and she laughs exactly like the voice in my head. Because, yeah, sometimes, she spoke to me, and laughed, or cried.
"What do you mean, of course I am real", says Mindy
"For years, I thought you were my imaginary friend"
"Wow. I still remember you. I have a picture of both of us doing a sand castle pinned on my mirror in my room"
"Wait, you have a picture of us naked in your room?"
"Yeah, so?", says Mindy
"Isn't it weird?"
"Why? I live in a naturist resort"
"Oh, so you are still a naturist?"
"Right. My parent told me you weren't anymore. I was told you moved away, but now, I hear they just stopped being naturists"
"Parents", I said
"Right? I cried for weeks. Until I made friends at school, but they weren't naturists. It took me years to really make naturist friends. There was Billy for a while, but he really moved away. We helped them pack to move west"
"Billy?"
"Right, if you mostly had forgotten me, you would have forgotten him too. He was a year older than me. He still is, I suppose", she says, laughing.
"Let me grab the photo album, I'll be right back", I said, but then, realized I was on the wireless, so I just went.
My parents looked at me weird, but said nothing as I grabbed the album.
I flipped through it, and Mindy walked me through it. I figured out who her mother was, her father, Billy, his parents, Olivia, an older girl and her even older brother Jacob.
"He used to watch over us when we were at the resort"
"I have no memories of this", I said
"I bet, we were young. I hope we can return to being friends. I often still miss you. Don't think I am crazy, but I still talk to you. To your picture"
I laughed. "I thought you were my imaginary friend"
She laughed.
And then, we talked about school, and discovered that we actually went to the same one!
We made plans to meet the next day, and then, I kept the photo album, returns the wireless phone and pretty much ignored my parents for the rest of the day.
That would teach them a lesson about lying to me and my friends.
I even ate my plate in my room.
The next day, my lunchbox was still on the counter, but I left without talking to them.
In the bus, I had butterflies in my stomach. We had a few minutes at the start of the day to get organized, and decided to meet at my locker.
I took my stuff for my first two classes and waited. Not long, and I'll be honest, she didn't have to present herself. I knew exactly who she was, and I could see the same recognition in her eyes.
We hugged. We actually hugged, crying.
After all, we had been kept apart from 8 years! Eight years.
We made plans for lunch, and she walked me to my room, making promises to resume our friendship.
For lunch, we went in a staircase, away from the crowd, to reconnect. We spoke about our lives apart, about our friends, our classes, our parents. Everything but the elephant in the room: naturism.
When we were done, she asked me, "Are you freaking out? I would be"
"I am"
"Because you were lied or, or because of the nudity?"
I looked at her. I honestly had no idea.
"Then here is what I propose. I go to your room tonight, and we figure it out", she said
"How?"
"Do you trust me?
"No, but more than my parents"
"I'll take that", she said, and we went on to our afternoon, with me giving little thoughts about her.
After school, however, she was waiting by my locker.
"You take the bus?", she asked
"Yeah"
"Good. Let's go", without bothering to check with me.
At my house, she commented on how boring the decoration was, and I asked her to keep quiet, that my parents were working in the basement.
Once in my room, the door closed, however, she told me not to panic, as she removed all of her clothing, more or less stripping in front of me, but in a plain ordinary way.
I could see the start of her of breast starting to grow where my chest was still fully flat, and a thick bush over her private parts where I only had a few strands of hair, no one had ever seen but me, and it's not like I look at them other than in the bathtub or the shower.
"So? Freaking out?", she asks, once she was nude and sitting next to me
"Yeah, but not as much as I thought", I said, honestly.
"Great. Tell me about your day, and when you stop freaking out", she said.
So, I told about my classes, and since she is one grade ahead of me, she understood full well what I was going through. She even had some of my teachers, and could imitate a few of them.
After a while, I admitted I was fine now.
"Great, your turn", she said.
"My turn for that?"
"Nudity."
"I have zero intentions of stripping naked", I replied, insulted
"Hey, I have no intention of asking you to strip naked"
"But you just said"
"I want you to get nude. It's different"
"Right"
"Hey, back when you were a naturist, we were besties for life. I don't care what you look like, I just want my friend back. And I want you to recover what your parents stole from you"
"What do you mean?"
"I had trouble in kindergarten with clothes. Your parents panicked, but then, after a few months, everything was fine. I could tell the difference between behind at home and being at the resort. I am not stupid, and neither are you. But they stole your agency. That means"
"I know what agency means"
"Good, you ain't stupid"
Fine, I got it from context. I didn't know, but was I to tell her?
We talked, and what do you know, I decided to try it.
Going to my panties was easy. I was still a little girl upstairs, despite wanting breasts so much, but my underwear hid the first signs of my burgeoning womanhood.
Ok, fine, that's now how I thought. It was more like "Is she cray cray? What the frick, oh my God. I can't do this"
But I did. And I was glad. We talked more, and I quickly went over the craziness of being naked, sorry, nude, with a girl.
"I'll get home, but tonight, try sleeping in the nude.", she eventually says, grabbing her clothes. "And don't be too rough on your parents. All parents suck"
"All parents suck", I replied.
"Well, mine are sort of awesome, but wait until you meet them"
I didn't take long for us to get dressed, and to wish me good luck, leaving my room.
I got dressed and joined her in the kitchen, where she called her parents for a lift.
What surprised me is that they didn't need the address, but Mindy reminded me that they had often come here.
I did go outside with her to wait, and saluted her mother. I recognized her from the pictures, but have no memories of her. She did recognize me and was excited to see me "all grown up", but in me, I knew that I wasn't "all gown up"
I didn't tell my parents, not even that Mindy had come and they were none the wiser. They did ask me if they could leave me a few naturist magazines so I could understand it better, and I decided to just be grumpy.
Still, they did, and I did look at them, but honestly, if this was their idea to convert me again, it was a bad idea. These magazines were so focused on how adults view naturism that I just couldn't connect. Nothing in there seemed fun or interesting.
Sure, most of them had full-body tans, like Mindy, but it's not like that ever been a priority for me.
I kept them, in my room, and spent all evening in my room, until I was brought the wireless phone. It was Mindy again.
"Wait, so you are nude at home, right?"
"Always. Well, not always. But when I can"
"I didn't tell my parents you came"
"Don't be too hard on them. It's not their fault, you know?"
"I know."
"So, want to come to my place tomorrow?" Mindy asked.
I almost froze.
"Nude?"
"Yeah, like yesterday, like 8 years ago"
"I am not ready for that yet. I mean, to see your parents naked, for them to see me"
"Julie? You'll never be ready. Jump in, or don't. I am not your mother. But then again, your mother prevented you from going on with the only life you knew, and split you from your best friend"
"Yeah, but are we still best friends?"
"I'd say, if we can spend an hour in the pool trash talking about boys without getting on each other's nerves, then, we will still be best friends"
I laughed.
But the next day, I went, telling my parents I simply went to a friend's house, which technically, wasn't a lie. I did it often, only this time, it was a different friend.