Letters from Blackwell Island Pt. 02

Naked.

N-a-k-e-d.

Nude.

Bare.

Au naturel.

Disrobed.

Unclothed.

In the buff.

Undressed.

In one's birthday suit.

In the pink.

In the nip.

Without a stitch on.

STARK NAKED.

It was odd, but absolutely wonderful at the same time. And yes, I did notice a few women wearing black panties or a floral patterned bikini bottom, and yes, I didn't give them a second thought beyond "oh, she's on her period".

"I don't know if Allie explained to you about me being a catholic," Patrick said to Marea after taking a sip of his Americano.

"No, but the Saint Christopher you're wearing is a bit of a giveaway," Marea replied.

"He never takes it off," I explained to her. "It's a family heirloom."

"Yeah, well though I'm not as observant as my Ma and Da, my faith still means a lot to me and... well, what I want to know is whether or not there's a Catholic church on the island," Patrick went on.

"Ah, I'm afraid we don't have one," Marea replied apologetically. "But the church in the town here is inter-denominational, and the minister there is a lovely man - it won't matter if you're Protestant or Catholic, or Jewish or Muslim, even. Everyone is welcome there no matter what religion they are."

"Well that's good to know," Patrick responded. "But would he be willing to take confession? Or say Mass? I can't miss out on the sacrament, me Ma would kill me!"

"I don't know - you'd have to ask him yourself I'm afraid. I can take you to see him later if you like," Marea offered.

"Why don't you go see him while I get our shopping done?" I suggested.

It was soon agreed that Marea would take Patrick to the church and then take some photos of the town while I bought whatever provisions we needed. It would also give me a chance to see if I could find a few locals to chat to for my first article. So after finishing our coffees we went our separate ways.

I decided to explore the town first and see if anyone would be willing to talk to me about island life. I thought that I might perhaps be regarded with a little suspicion from the native islanders, but I was almost immediately proved wrong. The first person I approached was an elderly gentleman named Thomas who'd lived his entire life on Blackwell and hadn't worn a scrap of clothing since his eighteenth birthday some fifty-seven years ago.

He spoke at length about his life on the island. He really was engaging company and he had a dry wit that endeared him to me almost immediately. I asked him how he felt about his experience of being a man living in a matriarchal society, and he simply responded by shrugging his shoulders.

"It is what it is," he then said nonchalantly. "It's just totally normal here. It doesn't mean that women are in charge or that men are inferior, just that the women are considered to be the head of the family and first in line to inherit."

"So you don't feel in any way emasculated by it?" I asked him.

"Oh, gracious, no!" he chuckled. "Though men are considered to be the breadwinners here, that role is seen as supporting the woman of the house and the children, rather than providing for them. The wife or mother of the house is the one who has to make all the important decisions, such as financial things for example, and it can actually put quite a lot of pressure their shoulders. A husband will work to support the family, but at the end of the day it's the wife that has to shoulder the burden of being head of the family - being the leader of the pack, so to speak."

I had to admit, talking to Thomas made me see the society in which I'd grown up in a different light. I went on to ask him about other aspects of life on Blackwell and why he'd never had any desire to see the rest of the world.

"I have everything I want and need here," he said with the wisdom that comes with advancing years. "My children and their families are here, well most of them anyway, all my friends are here too. It's a peaceful and beautiful place without too much in the way of modern technology - what more could anyone need?"

Well, I couldn't argue with that.

"And besides," he went on in a more subdued voice as he leaned forward. "The sex here is absolutely incredible!"

As soon as he said that he roared with laughter in that unabashed way that older folk do.

"Have you, er, slept with many women?" I tentatively asked him.

"Well, yes," he confessed.

"In the red zones?"

"Oh, gracious, no, my dear!"

He chuckled again.

"Not with any women anyway," he went on. "Now, with men, on the other hand..."

"So, you never married then?"

"Oh, I was married alright!" Thomas cackled. "Even though I made it clear to my mother that I was gay, she insisted she had to find me a good wife. It was all arranged, as most marriages are here, and I didn't have much say in the matter, but in fairness it did all pan out in the end.

"Patti and I were together for more than forty years before she passed away, and we were blessed with three wonderful sons, all of whom are now married off themselves. And we had a beautiful daughter who is a doctor at the local health centre here.

"She knew pretty much from the start that I was more attracted to men than women - we're pretty open about things like that here on Blackwell - and she was perfectly okay with me, y'know, indulging in my urges if you catch my drift.

"Besides, I guess mother was right in the end - we ended up being perfect for each other. Patti, you see, always preferred the company of other women! That's right, my dear, she was a lesbian! The only times we ever had "marital relations" together was when she decided she wanted us to have children."

* * * * * *

I'll admit that Thomas's rather frank admission that he was gay came as a surprise - it wasn't that I disapproved or anything, it was just that he didn't look the type. I guess when we're not inside the outer shell of clothing it makes it much harder to make assumptions about sexuality and stuff. Just a few hours into my first full day on the island and already I'd learned so much after talking to just one old man!

I chatted to another couple of islanders, both of whom eagerly consented to me recording our conversations, before heading to the island's one and only supermarket to stock up on food and drink and other household necessities for the week ahead. Marea had conveniently parked the Mini Moke in the supermarket's car park to the rear of the place so that I wouldn't have to carry the shopping very far. As soon as I loaded it into the car I went back into town to meet up with Patrick and Marea back at the coffee shop.

"How'd you get on?" I asked my husband, after greeting him with a brief kiss.

"Pretty good," he answered with a smile.

"And?" I prompted him to expand.

"The minister said that he leads a weekly Mass for catholic tourists," Patrick continued. "It's not quite the same as a proper Mass with a properly ordained priest, but it'd close enough to keep me Ma happy enough. Plus, he said that although he doesn't take confessions and gives out penance he's always happy to talk in confidence."

"So, I guess that'd keep your mum happy then?" I queried.

"Well, obviously Ma would rather I attend a proper Roman Catholic church with all the bells and Latin and stuff, but it's as close as I'm gonna get here."

"What's his name?" I asked.

"Reverend Alec McCabe," Marea answered. "Before coming here he was a vicar at a church in Greater Manchester."

"Was he, er, was he naked?" I enquired tentatively.

"Well, he said he was already a committed naturist before he came here," Patrick responded. "But he always wears the proper vestments in the church, so no, he wasn't naked at the time. And neither were we - there were special tunics to wear just inside the door. It actually felt a bit weird to be putting something on after spending so long in the nude."

"Well, imagine how weird it would be to put something on after fifty-seven years in the nude!" I chuckled.

I went on to tell them both about my encounter with Thomas. Marea of course knew the man well, and explained that he was definitely one of the most loved local characters on the island.

"Everyone loves old Thomas!" she chuckled. "He has quite a reputation for introducing tourists to the pleasures of the red zones! There's many a young man who's had his first time with another man in the company of old Thomas!"

I glanced at Patrick, and could see the shock in his face.

"Don't worry, Patrick," Marea assured him as she placed her hand on his upper arm. "He's not a sexual predator, and he won't try to convert you to homosexuality or anything! And besides, he's an old man now - his days of chasing after handsome young men are behind him!"

After that, the conversation turned to more mundane things and we just sat and watched people going by. It was interesting spotting which of them were tourists and which were natives, but apart from that it was impossible to discern anything about class or wealth or status, and I liked that. It dawned on me that being naked is perhaps the truest form of egalitarianism there is - when we're naked, everyone is equal.

We headed back to Jackson and Marea's place, and as soon as we were back in our little apartment above the garage and had put the shopping away I opened up my new laptop and got straight to work on the first installment of Letters From Blackwell Island. Patrick, not wanting to distract me when I was working, went out to find Jackson - he always knew when to make himself scarce!

The words literally poured out of me - I was on a roll, and it only took a couple of hours before I had a first draft I was happy with. I wrote mainly of our journey here and our first full exposure to the island and its people. Of course, when I say exposure, I mean it in more than one way! I decided to leave it there for the time being - I would revisit it the next day for some tweaking before emailing it to Mags back in England for final editing, compositing and eventually, publication. I went to see if I could find my husband, and unsurprisingly I found him in Jackson's "man cave" in the summerhouse.

"Can I come in, boys?" I asked after knocking on the door and remembering that since it was a traditionally considered a men-only space that I had to ask them for permission to enter.

Jackson appeared at the door and invited me inside the normally male-only sanctuary. The two of them were simply playing a few frames of pool and enjoying a couple of ice cold beers together, and it was nice to see that Patrick had been getting along so well with Jackson.

"I was wondering if you and Marea would mind posing for a photo for my first article," I said to Jackson as he chalked his pool cue.

"Sure, no worries," he replied, and then took his shot. "Though technically you should ask Marea first - she's the matriarch after all."

The eight ball deftly dropped into the corner pocket.

"Ah, for feck's sake!" Patrick exclaimed in mild exasperation as he lost the frame. "Sure I was always crap at this game!"

"Heh! Don't worry, Patrick ol' chap, you'll have plenty of time to play better while you're here," Jackson assured him, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I'll gladly give you a few pointers to improve your game."

"Hurling, now that's a proper game!" Patrick said as he put his cue away. "I used to play for my college back in Cork - I was pretty good at it too."

"You'll have to teach me about it," Jackson said, ushering us back outside into the bright tropical sunshine.

"Is there much in the way of sports here, Jackson?" I asked.

"Well, we're a relatively small and traditionally very isolated community here, so options are a little limited when it comes to forming leagues, but each parish has a football team who play against each other, plus at the sports centre there's tennis courts, squash courts, an athletics track, basketball, and I've even heard a rumour that we might be getting a small bowling alley in the town.

"How do the football teams tell each other apart?" I asked him. "I'm assuming they play naked, right?"

"Body paint," Jackson responded. "Oh, and the teams are mixed too. Men and women play together. There's often not enough men in a parish to make up a team, or women either for that matter, so to make things easier men and women play together in mixed teams."

We found Marea in the kitchen and I asked her if she would pose for a few photos outside their house with Jackson. She agreed, and so I sent Patrick to go and fetch the camera. A few minutes later I had the couple stood outside the house and posed in such a way that showed that they were clearly naked but without showing anything that would need to be pixelated. Marea was posed so that her breasts and vulva were hidden behind a couple of conveniently located plant fronds, with Jackson standing just behind and to the side of her. His penis was hidden just enough by Marea's body but his bare hips were on show, making it obvious that he was naked but without showing anything that would need censoring. When I checked out the results on the little screen on Patrick's camera I was definitely pleased with how it came out.

"I think I'm definitely getting the hang of this thing," Patrick said proudly as I checked out his photos from the day.

I had to admit, his photos of the church and the rest of the town had indeed come out pretty well. Not perfect, but he was definitely much better at photography than he gave himself credit for. And in time he would only get even better at it.

It was late afternoon, and so we decided to return to our apartment and chill out in the living room. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we were well catered for with TV channels despite the remoteness of the island - not only was the BBC available (albeit with quite a time delay for obvious reasons) but there were other UK channels and some American channels too, all received via satellite and with catch-up and streaming services via the internet. As I watched TV, Patrick cooked us up a nice meal from the provisions I'd bought earlier that day.

All in all it was a fine start to our time on Blackwell, and the following day I finished up my article and emailed it, along with Patrick's photos, over to Mags so that she could do whatever was needed to get it into the magazine. The email I got from her in reply a few hours later was positively gushing with praise.

"Our readers will LOVE this!" she wrote with glee.

A Day On The Beat

It had been three weeks since our arrival on Blackwell, and already both Patrick and I sported full body tans - no more unsightly tan lines for us! We still made sure to slap on plenty of sunblock whenever we went out (the shops here literally sell the stuff by the gallon, mainly for the tourists!) but at least our skin tone was much more even so that we now blended in with the native islanders much better than when we'd first arrived.

There was one thing that made us stand out however, and one evening I decided to broach the subject with Patrick.

"What do you mean, you want to shave my pubes off?" he responded as he sat beside me on our sofa.

"Don't you remember what Marea said on our first morning here?" I said to him calmly. "Married couples always shave off their pubic hair. I spoke with Marea about it the other day and she explained that it was sort of like wearing a wedding ring - a symbol of matrimony. And apparently it's common for wives to shave their husbands, and vice versa."

"Yeah, but I don't know if I can trust you with a razor blade on me balls!" he chuckled nervously.

"It's not just pubic hair - all our body hair that has to be shaved off if we want to truly fit in here," I explained in further detail. "I mean, does it really matter that much? It's not like it won't grow back when we leave this place."

"I guess," Patrick shrugged.

"So, shall we do it?" I asked him. "I'll shave you, and then you shave me?"

Patrick paused in thought for a few moments.

"I suppose you've already bought some razors and loads of shaving foam already, am I right?" he responded.

Was I really that transparent?

"Er, yeah," I admitted. "Aw, come on, Patrick, it'll be fun!"

"Ahh, okay, sure whatever you say, Mrs. I'm the head of the family and I make all the decisions now!" Patrick smirked.

I was about to tell him it wasn't like that and that I didn't really consider myself as a matriarch, but the smirk on his face showed that he was just teasing me.

"So, shall we do it?" I asked him, putting the emphasis on "we".

Again, Patrick paused before continuing.

"What, like, right now?" he asked me.

"No time like the present, as they say," I responded casually.

Another pause for thought.

"Okay, I guess," Patrick answered with a slight shrug. "In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say."

So I immediately stood up, took him by the hand and led him into the bathroom - I didn't want to give him a chance to change his mind!

I hadn't realised just exactly how much hairier men are than women. Patrick wasn't exactly the most hirsute of guys to begin with, but it took a lot more shaving gel than I'd anticipated using to take care of his arms, legs, chest and back. I purposely left the "fun part" to last, but before that there was the small matter of his backside. I had him laid on his back with his legs akimbo in a position familiar to any woman who has ever visited a gynaecologist, but one in which most men have never found themselves in. Fortunately, Patrick seemed to take it with good grace and humour as I carefully shaved all the hair away from his gluteal cleft, his perineum and around his anus. By the time I was finished there I had to take a moment to sit back and admire my handiwork. The phrase "as smooth as a baby's bottom" immediately sprang to mind. Finally, with the can of shaving gel somewhat depleted, it was time to tackle his... well, his tackle.

What surprised me was how stubborn his pubic hair was, and it took quite a few passes of the razor before bare skin replaced the pubic jungle between his legs. I looked across at the mirror as I liberated him from his pubic hair and chuckled at the sight of me with the razor in my right hand as I held up his penis in my left.

"Just be bloody careful there, wo'an!" he said as he followed my gaze.

I was extremely careful, but not just because I wanted to avoid any nicks or cuts in such a sensitive part of his body, but also to simply take my time and enjoy what felt like a kind matrimonial trust exercise.

All in all, it took almost an hour to complete the job, but by the time I'd finished I was really happy with my work. He actually looked even more handsome now that he was totally smooth - his pectorals were even more prominent now that all that downy hair on his chest was no more, and his penis actually appeared to be a little larger without the mass of hair that had surrounded it. I finished up by covering him with a locally made balm that Marea told me all the islanders use after shaving, and once I'd finished that, it was now my turn to be shaved.

Patrick's work to shave all my body hair was a lot less effort - I had always habitually shaved my legs and armpits anyway, and I always took care of my bikini line. And as everyone knows, women are less hairy than men anyway, so it took Patrick considerably less time and a hell of a lot less shaving gel before only my pubic hair stood between me and total body baldness. Patrick took great care as he daubed the shaving gel between my parted legs, using the moment to give my clitoris a cheeky little "accidentally on purpose" tweak that caused me to gasp. With razor in hand he started to shave the last remnants of pubic hair from my outer labia. I looked down at him as he worked - I don't think I'll ever forget the look of concentration he had on his face!