Letters from Blackwell Island Pt. 01

I leaned in and whispered in his ear as quietly as I could.

"If it makes things any easier," I whispered. "Your cock is way more impressive than that guy we just saw up on the top floor!"

This at least elicited a hint of a smile on Patrick's face.

"I guess..." he began hesitantly. "I mean... I suppose I'm just being silly really."

He took a deep breath and brought his hand to the edge of his towel. But then just as quickly, he took his hands away.

"Gah! Fer feck's sake!" he exclaimed in frustration. "I can't feckin' do it!"

Well, there was only one thing for it. I reached behind him, and with as much force and speed as I could muster I whipped his towel off him and tossed it away as far as I could.

"Hahh! Jaysus, Allie!!" Patrick exclaimed in total shock as he was suddenly forced to bare all. He instantly and instinctively covered his crotch with his hands.

"Hard part's over," I said to him.

Suddenly realising how daft he looked covering himself with his hands I took hold of his wrists and pulled them away. I sighed as I saw his bare genitals - a sight I never, ever tire of seeing - and returned my gaze to his handsome Irish face.

"You're a gorgeous, handsome man, Patrick," I said to him. "You won't get hard, okay? It won't happen if you just stay calm."

He paused for a moment, considering my words, and then nodded his understanding.

"Okay," he said, his voice a little unsteady.

"Good, now go and pick up your towel and just drape it over your shoulder, like I have mine, and then we'll go downstairs together, okay? I need you to help me through this just as much as you need me - we're in this together, right?"

"Er, y-yes, of course," he responded.

I gave his bare bottom a light pat and then shooed him away to go pick up his towel. I could see for a moment that he considered wrapping it around his waist, but much to my relief he took a deep breath and then draped it over his shoulder.

I took him by the hand and together we headed downstairs. I could still feel that Patrick wasn't very comfortable with being naked, but at least he hadn't just immediately covered himself up and headed straight back to the locker room as I feared he might, so at least that was a start.

"How do you feel?" I asked him once we were back on the ground floor and paused at the top of the stairs that led down into the basement.

"I feel... well, a bit odd really," he replied.

I glanced down and saw that despite his misgivings he hadn't immediately become erect. In fact, if anything his penis looked to be totally relaxed about being free from its normal incarceration inside his underwear.

"Odd in a good way, or odd in a bad way?" I prompted him to clarify.

"Well, I dunno really," he responded after a few moments of consideration. "I guess it's not as scary as I thought it'd be."

Just then a man came up the stairs, his bare skin beaded with droplets of water from the pool downstairs. Once again I couldn't help but glance between his legs - his penis was quite a beauty, and its appearance was accentuated by a Prince Albert piercing. How pleasingly exotic, I thought to myself.

"Afternoon," he greeted us jovially in a northern accent as he passed us by.

He carried his towel by his side and as he walked away from us and headed towards the main lounge I glanced at his rear and noticed that in addition to his piercing he also bore a tattoo of a red rose on his left shoulder. I guessed from that particular adornment, coupled with his accent, that he was a native of Lancashire.

"Come on, let's go for a swim," I said to Patrick, and led him down the stairs.

When we entered the pool area there were at least ten or so other people there, either in the pool itself or simply sitting casually at the edge with their feet in the water. Most of them were men, although there were a couple of women also. For a moment I felt alarmed that the men were only there to watch the naked women, but I soon realised that I'd been too quick to judge them. I hung my towel over a nearby rail and prompted Patrick to do the same, and then climbed up the short ladder and entered the pool. The water was a little colder than I'd expected but I soon adjusted to the temperature. Patrick joined me in the water and before long we swam the short distance to the corner where there was a ledge we could sit on.

I couldn't help but notice a couple of the men looking my way, but they only seemed to give my naked body a cursory appraisal, which I supposed was a fairly natural reflex, before returning to their poolside conversation. I looked at Patrick who finally seemed to be a little more at ease.

"How are you feeling now?" I asked him. "Still okay?"

"I guess," he replied. "In fact I... I think... I might get used to this."

"Really?" I responded to him.

"If, y'know, it was going to happen, sure it would've done so by now," he answered.

Of course, the "it" in question was his penis standing to attention. Instead, as I glanced down into the water, I could see that it was simply maintaining its normal flaccid proportions. But then, the cool water might've had something to do with that.

"So, you're okay then?" I asked him for confirmation.

"Well, it's only been a few minutes, but I can already sort of feel more comfortable," he said. "I mean, well, I thought it'd be like being back in the showers after P.E. at school."

Patrick had told me stories of his youth in Ireland at a catholic boy's school on the outskirts of Cork that was run by the local church. The place sounded a lot like the school featured in the movie The Boys of St. Vincent, but unlike that particular school and the horrific abuse that had occurred there, he'd never experienced or witnessed any form of abuse, and he had mostly fond memories of his schooldays. He had however, been subject to some teasing from the other boys in the showers. But then, pretty much all the boys teased each other, he confessed.

"This couldn't be any more different," I replied to him. "In here everyone actually wants to be naked. They're not forced to strip off and get in the showers by a sadistic P.E. teacher after an afternoon out on a muddy hurling pitch, they're here because they feel more comfortable being naked than they do wearing clothes. Look, I'm going to see if I can find out a little more about some of these people - I'm here for research purposes after all."

"Once a journo, always a journo!" Patrick chuckled.

Leaving Patrick behind to sit on the ledge I waded across to the two men I'd noticed looking at me earlier.

"Hi," I greeted them. "Forgive me for asking, but are you two regulars here?"

"Yeah, although not as regular as we'd like to be," the slightly taller of the two replied with an amiable smile.

"I'm a first-timer myself," I said conversationally. "I mean, not just my first time here, but my first time doing the whole naturist thing. Oh, I'm Allie, by the way, and that's my husband Patrick in the corner there."

"Pleased to meet you," the man responded, reaching out to shake my hand. "Always nice to see people experiencing naturism for the first time! I'm Andy, and this is my other half, Graham."

"Hi," Graham greeted me with a smile.

"So, a first-time nudist, huh?" Andy went on. "How are you finding it so far?"

"Well, it's only been about ten minutes since I took my towel off, but it's been pretty good so far. I could definitely get used to this!" I replied. "What about yourself?"

"Me? Well, I practically grew up naked!" Andy chortled. "My parents were, well, I guess you could call them hippies really, and we spent most of our summers in France at one nudist camp or another. As for Graham there, well to begin with he was a full-on textile, but I gradually managed to talk him out of his clothes!"

"That was ten years ago now," Graham recalled wistfully. "Andy convinced me to just take the plunge and get naked at a little naturist B&B in the Cotswolds, and literally after only a couple of minutes I wondered why on Earth I'd ever been so scared of taking all my clothes off! It feels like the most natural thing in the world now."

"That's because it is," Andy said. "We're all born naked, after all."

"True," I acknowledged.

Of course it's one of the few things that unites every human who ever lived - from the lowest to the highest echelons of society, we all come into this world naked.

"So, why have your husband and yourself decided to give naturism a try? If you don't mind my asking, of course," Andy enquired.

"Well, to be honest it's more for research purposes," I confessed. "I'm a journalist, for my sins, and I've been offered a job by a magazine to spend a year living on Blackwell Island. Have you heard of it before?"

"Blackwell, you say? Yeah, I know it! It's quite well known amongst us naturist folks," Andy replied. "Graham and I went there for our honeymoon a couple of years ago - it was quite an experience!"

"In what way?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Well, I don't want to give you any spoilers," Andy continued with a knowing smile. "But if you're enjoying yourself here you'll absolutely love it on Blackwell! So you'll be spending a whole year there, huh? I'm already insanely jealous! Our two weeks there was the most wonderful time we'd ever spent together. Hopefully one day we'll get to go back."

"Yes, well I need to convince my husband first," I replied, gesturing towards Patrick as he sat by himself in the corner of the pool. "That's another reason why we're here today - to give the naked lifestyle a trial run. He was a bit nervous to begin with, but I think he's coming around. I had to, er, convince him to get rid of his towel, but he seems to be coping well so far. Better than he thought he would, anyway."

"Ah, afraid of getting a bit aroused I suppose!" Graham chuckled knowingly. "Yeah, all us boys have all been there! Unless you've grown up naturist like Andy did, I guess it's an anxiety that all us guys new to nudism experience - and I was no exception. It's really not a big deal, most naturists are pretty open-minded when it comes to that sort of thing. As long as you don't wave it around and draw attention to it most nudies will just think little of it. Of course, if there are kids nearby it's inappropriate to blatantly wander around with a full-on erection, but a quick dip in cold water soon makes it go down! And then of course there is always another way to get rid of a troublesome stiffy!"

I felt myself blush, for I knew what it was that he was implying, and for a moment the mental image of Patrick suddenly excusing himself to relieve his erection with a quick clandestine wank behind a beach hut made me chuckle.

"I've always wondered, just what exactly is the difference between a nudist and a naturist?" I asked them to sate my curiosity.

"Well there isn't a massive difference really," Andy responded. "I guess you could say that nudists see being naked in the company of other naked people as a casual social thing, whilst naturists see it as a lifestyle to commit to. I suppose a nudist would only get undressed in a situation like a barbecue or on a beach or at a place like this where there are other nudists around, whereas a naturist would only ever wear clothes when they absolutely have to. So they would be undressed as often and for as long as possible, such as at home for example. There are even naturist colonies where people live, a bit like Blackwell but on a smaller scale. Those places are always clothing-optional though, whereas on Blackwell nudity is actually enforced by law. But then it does have the kind of climate where it's comfortable to be nude all year round.

"I guess you could define Graham and I as naturists if you really want to pigeonhole us - we both rarely wear anything around the house and in the garden nowadays. We love being naked together - it's come to the point now where we actually dislike having to put clothes on to go out!"

"Living on Blackwell would be our idea of heaven," Graham took over. "I'd give my right arm to have the chance to live there!"

"The island's government is very strict about keeping the population to a sustainable level," Andy explained. "As you can imagine it's a Mecca for nudies from all over the world, but they only allow a certain number of tourists to visit per year. There's actually a three-year waiting list just to visit the place! We even delayed our wedding just so that we could go there for our honeymoon!

"The island's government has a policy of putting sustainability ahead of profitability in order to keep the island from becoming a concrete jungle of hotels and resorts and to maintain the place as the pristine sustainable tropical paradise that it is."

"So you can understand how insanely jealous we are of you!" Graham chortled with obvious envy.

I continued to chat with the two men amiably for several more minutes before rejoining Patrick. I suggested that we ought to spend a little time in one of the saunas. He agreed, but only if we went into the slightly cooler of the two, which suited me just fine. So we got out of the pool and dried ourselves off and then went to find the sauna.

For a brief moment I expected Patrick to return to wrapping his towel around himself, but he surprised me by just picking it up and draping it over his shoulder instead. Naked, he followed me toward the slightly cooler sauna. There were two women already in there when Patrick and I went in - suddenly finding himself as the only naked man in a room with three naked women clearly caused him to feel a moment of alarm (I couldn't help but notice his penis giving a little telltale twitch and swelling slightly) but as he sat down on his towel beside me he soon seemed to relax.

"Jaysus, sure it's hot in here!" he chuckled.

"And this is the cooler of the two saunas here!" one of the other women responded. "I haven't dared try the hotter one yet!"

I once again went into journalist mode and asked them about what had brought them to the naturist spa.

"Oh, we love it here, don't we, Jen?" the girl to my left enthused.

"We come here as often as we can," her companion confirmed. "We've tried for years to convince our brother to come along, but he always makes up lame excuses for not joining us!"

"You two are sisters?" Patrick asked them.

"Twins," Jen confirmed. "I'm Jen, and this is my twin sister, Carrie."

"Nice to meet you both," I responded. "I'm Allie, and that's my husband, Patrick."

The twins were quite possibly the most attractive young women I'd ever seen - they couldn't have been older than their early twenties. No wonder Patrick's penis almost betrayed him when he set eyes on them! I definitely wouldn't have blamed him if he did start to respond to them - they were so slim and beautiful that they'd have had that effect on pretty much any red-blooded straight male! They weren't identical, but they both shared very youthful physiques with shapely breasts crowned with prominent nipples, not an ounce of fat on them (which immediately made me a little jealous of them) and although in their seated positions I couldn't see between their legs I suspected that they both shaved themselves down there - they just seemed like the sort of girls that would do that.

"Yeah, we've been trying to get Ricky to come with us for ages," Jen went on.

"He's too scared that he might get an erection!" Carrie chuckled.

"Well I can understand that," Patrick acknowledged.

"This is his first time going naked," I explained to the twins. "Mine too, actually."

"Well, has it happened to you yet?" Jen asked Patrick cheekily.

"Um, no, it hasn't, thank God," he responded, looking up towards the heavens as he spoke.

For a moment I thought he might make the sign of the cross, as he often does whenever he mentions "the big man upstairs", but this time for some reason he refrained.

"Well, don't worry if it does," Jen continued. "It's only ever a problem if you draw attention to it."

"Yeah, if you ignore it it'll go down of its own accord," Carrie added. "I've seen guys here get hard before - it's not really a big deal as long as they don't wave the thing around shouting "hey everyone, check out my rock hard cock!" But it's also considered to be good etiquette amongst nudists not to stare at it as that could only make the situation even more embarrassing for a guy. Nudists make quite a big deal out of being respectful of each other."

"And if all else fails a quick dip in the cold plunge pool helps to get rid of an unwanted stiffy!" Jen chuckled.

"Speaking of the plunge pool," Carrie took over. "I think we've been in here long enough, Jen - time we ought to cool off ourselves!"

"Nice meeting you both," Carrie said as she stood up and took her towel with her. "Maybe we'll see you both around later."

"Phew! For a moment there I thought it was, y'know, actually gonna happen!" Patrick said after the twins departed.

I looked down between his legs and could see that our brief conversation on the subject of erections had definitely caused him to firm up a little.

"If those two had kept talking about stiffies any longer, sure I'd have had to go and excuse meself!" he went on, with obvious relief in his voice.

With the twins gone, Patrick and I just sat on the wooden benches and enjoyed the dry heat. After a little while one of the staff members came in and sprayed some kind of scented water over the hot coals - I momentarily expected Patrick to hastily cover himself as the fully clothed woman entered, but he surprised me by just smiling politely at her with everything out on open display.

"You're starting to get into this, aren't you!" I chuckled once she'd left the sauna.

"Well, I'll admit this isn't anything like as embarrassing as I thought it'd be," he responded. "And I guess I ought to hold my hands up and admit you were right - I am actually sort of enjoying it."

"Well you've certainly changed your tune!" I chuckled in response. "I know I've perhaps found it a bit easier than you, but I'm definitely with you - I'm enjoying this being naked malarkey too!"

"I can't put my finger on it though," Patrick went on pensively as he leaned back against the wooden bench and spread his legs apart in a relaxed pose. "I mean, I should be embarrassed - I'm literally sitting here stark bollock naked, but I don't feel embarrassed at all. It just feels so..."

"Natural?" I said, completing his thought. "That's what Andy said to me earlier - we all come into this world naked, so being naked is natural. It's being clothed that's actually unnatural.

"This whole experience so far has taught me so much about myself and this whole naturism thing than I ever thought possible - I think I definitely get it now. It's not just about walking around naked and being with other naked people, it's something deeper than that."

"I was just going to say it feels so feckin' hot in here!" Patrick chuckled beside me. "But sure, maybe it does feel natural too, now that you mention it! But I could definitely do with cooling off now - shall we head upstairs for a drink?"

I looked at him and saw the smirk on his face. He definitely was getting into it - he'd left his inhibitions behind, as I had left mine behind also, and from that moment I knew that even if I did ultimately have to turn down Mags' and Carole's offer, Patrick and I would definitely return to this place.

We both picked up our towels and returned upstairs to the main lounge area. By now there were around twenty people milling around and I realised I had no idea how popular naturism actually was. And they seemed to come from all walks of life and all ages. Although the majority there were men, there were still enough women there for me to not feel as though I was alone. We wrapped our towels around ourselves as we entered and ordered a couple of cold drinks and feeling a little peckish, a couple of toasted paninis each. Thus fed and our thirsts slaked, we stayed in the lounge to await our massage appointment.