The Magic Elixir Ch. 02

At this the Professor looked terribly uncomfortable. A scientist's chagrin at making a scientific error is much worse than most of us feel at making an egregious social gaffe.

"There was nothing I could do at that point. I had no more vials of elixir, and I resigned myself to being trapped at this extreme rate until the potion should wear off. I headed slowly back to my hotel to mitigate the effects of wind and friction at this tempo, and I sank gratefully into my bed when I arrived. The emotions which I had felt while I was with you had completely enervated me, but I woke after only a short time, greatly refreshed by my nap. I suppose this allowed me to think more rationally, and I realized that the solution to my dilemma lay in the Professor's laboratory. After changing into an afternoon dress I headed slowly in that direction to procure a supply of the Brake. I don't know why I changed, except that I wanted no further reminder of my adventures with the two of you."

"After arriving here I quickly found the various elixirs in the Professor's laboratory and procured myself a supply of the Brake to take back with me, for I did not want to be in your presence while I was in normal time. I had much time to think about my reactions on the way here, and it suddenly struck me that I was not immune from the great social changes that the Accelerator would bring about. I knew that it would bring about tremendous changes in our society, but somehow I had not connected them to my personal life. Suddenly I understood George's fear of the Anarchy that might result, and yet I still believed all that I said before."

"I stopped for a while to gather my thoughts, and I realized that as long as I was not the subject of the experiment I was willing and even eager to participate in it, but that this intellectual viewpoint crumbled at the first hint of personal change. I turned and went back to the cottage with a newfound appreciation of my own inconsistency, and I again went back to the laboratory. This time, however, I procured a supply of the two hundred strength potion. First I used the Brake to bring myself back to normal time, and then quickly consumed the two hundred strength in order to synchronize with the two of you. I was just in time, as you were approaching the gate went I had finished, and so we are brought to the present conversation."

"I am glad that you have reconsidered, Hetty, for you have been a most pleasant companion in our researches." And I was heartily glad, and the Professor too seemed to feel his spirits lifting, evidenced by a smile that was the first to cross his face since the earlier events.

We spent some time in conversation, in particular finding out about Hetty's experience with the two thousand strength potion, which the Professor and I had not yet tried in the outdoors. This continued until at the end I felt reassured that our relations had nearly returned to the easy informality that we had achieved before our upsetting incident. "And now I wish to make amends for my earlier behaviour. George, will you and the Professor trust me to conduct some further tests of the social implications of the Accelerator?"

We both readily nodded assent, at which Hetty rose from her chair and started to walk toward the front door, taking a wool blanket with her.

"Come and follow me then, and I promise that I shall not abuse your trust in the future."

With that she exited, and the Professor and I followed with alacrity. Down we strolled, through the town and down to the shore. I felt misgivings as to where this might lead us, but decided to trust Hetty's prior assurances. As we approached the sandy beach the plan which I thought she had made suddenly changed in my mind, for instead of heading toward the line of bathing machines Hetty instead veered off to a more secluded part of the sand, where at the moment there were only a few scattered individuals.

Spreading the blanket on the dry sand on a spot well away from any bathers, she lay down on it, sitting with her legs straight in front of her and supporting herself with her arms and hands on the blanket behind her.

"Come sit with me, and we will take some time to observe the passing scene."

We did so rapidly, prepared to spend some quiet time and renew ourselves. After the Professor and I had taken our places on either side of her, Hetty raised herself a little and spoke.

"I truly meant what I said about resolving the inconsistency between my intellectual feelings and my personal feelings, and I am resolved to expunge that inconsistency and enter wholeheartedly into the new social order."

With that she took off her shoes and proceeded to unbutton her blouse, an action which both startled and excited me. She proceeded down the row of buttons with no great haste but with a calm efficiency. When the last button was undone she stood and removed her blouse, underneath which was a silk shift. She reached around to her side and unfastened a stay hook, allowing her to easily remove her skirt. Without haste she placed her blouse and skirt carefully on the blanket, dressed now only in the shift and her undergarments. She looked down at us to strengthen her resolve, and then lifted the shift over her head. Now the whole upper half of her body was bare, as were her legs, and only a pair of bloomers served to cover her nakedness. These too were quickly removed, and she stood before us completely naked before sitting down again in the same position as before.

"I could not bear my own hypocrisy in advocating one thing for others and staying above the fray myself. This will be an integral part of our future, and we may as well get used to it now. I am too much a part of our old society to do this with equanimity, yet do it I must, as we all must in the future. I invite you two to look at me and drink your fill of the sight of a woman's body. Although this is hard for me now, it will become easier with time, and I think that you too will find that once the novelty has warn off you will come to think no more of it than seeing a hand or an arm left uncovered."

After saying this she lay down full length on the blanket and closed her eyes, whether to hide as a child does or to relieve our embarrassment I do not know. The Professor stared frankly at her body, and after some initial shame at being caught, so did I. I felt that Hetty must be wrong, for I did not believe that I could ever have my fill of seeing her body, and in fact I felt the first twinges of jealousy knowing that the Professor had a view of Hetty's body that I came to want for myself alone. He, however was the more practical and considerate of the two of us, for of a sudden he said "This may not be the best place for this. We are all here unmoving, and if we stay long enough one of the normal crowd will notice us."

"Of course, Professor, and it is good of you to bring it up. The world is not yet ready for this, and while it may become accepted in the future, for now we have to take care not to cause a scandal.", and with that she picked up the clothes she had placed on the blanket and proceeded to walk with them in her arm in the direction of the shingle beach. The Professor and I folded the blanket and followed her, not certain of where we were going but eager to follow her wherever she went.

She stopped at a place in the gorse between the sandy beach and the shingle beach, where no people were around and we would not be observed from the path or the water. "Right here would be perfect, and we may even fall asleep for a time without attracting notice." The professor and I dutifully spread the blanket over a flat patch of ground, and after Hetty lay down on it and the Professor and I sat we all resumed our activities from the beach, staring and being stared at.

After a while I adjusted my position so that I was lying on my side looking at Hetty, and I must have found this most comfortable, for the next thing I knew I was aroused from a deep sleep by a shadow blocking the sun from my eyes. The Professor had taken a swim while I slept, and was just now coming back to the blanket. It took me a moment to realize that he too was now naked, and I saw his clothes piled on one corner of the blanket.

"You looked so peaceful lying there that I didn't want to wake you when I went for a swim. It really is quite marvelous to float around unencumbered, though I must admit it would have felt even better had I not been living in Accelerated time."

He sat down on the blanket, and suddenly I felt like the odd man out. We live our whole lives covered from toe to neck, yet it is a most uncomfortable feeling to be the only one clothed in a group of naked people. How quickly our social conventions change in new circumstances, for suddenly I was starting to feel ashamed about being dressed when my companions were happily enjoying the sea air, having it touch them over their whole bodies. Perhaps Hetty is right, I thought. Soon we may all change our perceptions of what constitutes social decorum and morality, and it were best that I accept those changes now rather than have them thrust on me unwillingly. I had seen too many of the men in my youth who had grown to manhood at the height of the Victorian age and were now being overcome by the tide of new ideas and philosophies. I had no wish to become like them, quaint relics of a bygone past, and I determined that I would adjust to the new order before the change was forced on me.

Without thought I began to remove my clothes. Shoes and socks were first to go and then the coat and shirt and pants. Starting had been easy, but now that I was down to my undergarments I began feeling terribly anxious. But I had started already, and I refused to turn back. I quickly removed my undershirt and underpants, and stood there as naked as my friends and I sat down again straight away. The feeling was one I cannot describe, a mixture of freedom and dread and shame. Surely this could not be part of the new social order, for it created far too much discomfort. But it did not take long before my nakedness began to feel natural. Soon enough I wanted to feel how it felt to go into the water without the restraint of clothes, and with as much naturalness as I could muster I walked toward the water.

With each step it seemed I gained new confidence, and by the time I came to the water's edge I felt only elation. Turning, I waved to Gibberne and walked into the water. I felt like a boy again, splashing and playing, and yes, although I had never really known the meaning of the term before, frolicking. Gibberne had been right: the water did not feel natural, and I envied the men further down the beach who could enter the normal water without restraint. After some time I emerged and walked back up to the blanket. I could see that Hetty was now awake again and sitting back on her hands., looking at me as I walked up the shingle. After a slight hesitation I kept walking until I could sit down on the blanket.

She smiled at me and said "I'm glad we have all joined into the game. I was most uncomfortable being the first one, and I was getting desperate for some company. But now that both of you are naked I feel most natural." With that she gave us both a peck on the cheek, and though it was like a maiden aunt kissing a nephew it felt to me like a marvelous affirmation of her regard, and I could not overcome my feelings of elation.

We stayed for a while longer and grew increasingly easy in each other's presence. Somehow it didn't seem to make any difference any more that we were naked, only that we were in the company of friends in the warm sun. As all good things must pass, we eventually agreed that we had to leave when we saw what the sun was doing to our skin, especially that of Hetty. She had turned an even light brown, and soon in her face and hands would be indistinguishable from those of a fieldworker,

We dressed carefully to ward off the effects of the sun and picked up the blanket to make our return. We were in a jolly mood as we walked back to the cottage, but I could not help feeling tightly confined by my outfit, and remembering the freedom I had felt lying naked on the beach I began wondering why our society demanded that we wear such cumbersome clothing even when the weather was warm and sunny.

There was not much conversation on the way, but we did stop at a street vendor for some refreshment. We were quite hungry, and the thought of another cold supper was not appealing, not to mention the fact that we were running low on food. We spied a fish and chips vendor near the park, and had a picnic on the grass with the variety of food we had appropriated from him. I must hasten to add that we left him sufficient money for what we took, for we had no desire to become thieves, a potential problem with the use of the Accelerator about which we had some discussion.

Well satisfied with our repast we returned to the Professor's cottage. An animated discussion ensued once we had settled ourselves in the parlour, for we could not let today's extraordinary events pass without turning them over and over again in our minds. At last a lull came in our conversation and Hetty spoke, I think, for all of us.

"It has indeed been an astonishing day, and we will all be quite restless in our sleep. I propose that we retire soon and let these events settle in our minds. As far as I am concerned I will need some time to adjust my thinking to the reality of the new social order and think on what it means personally. We have already overcome some of the long-held ideas of our class as to what is decorous and proper, and I shall spend some time pondering these new ideas. I believe that we have just scratched the surface of what will change, and it behooves us to apply logic and reasoning to what may occur, so that we remain in the vanguard of the new order rather than be left behind and surprised at every new idea or mode of social intercourse."

Gibberne and I readily agreed, and it was only a little time before we decided to settle in for the night. I, of course, wanted to take the couch again, but Hetty insisted that we should alternate stays in the guest bed, and I agreed after only a small argument, seeing that she was determined to assert her rights to equal treatment. I took off my clothes before retiring and chose not to wear nightclothes because my sunbathing experience had made the thought of wearing clothes to bed very unappealing. Ensconced unclad under the covers, and aroused by the faint smell of perfume left behind from Hetty the night before, I went to sleep dreaming not so much of new modes of social intercourse but of the delights of being enamoured of Hetty.

The following morning, or rather what we chose to call morning although the sun had moved little from its noontime height at which we had gone to bed, we met again in the kitchen. Again Hetty's dress looked fresh and unwrinkled, and at my raised eyebrow she turned to me with a smile on her face and said "I put it aside before going to bed last night, and felt wonderfully wicked doing so, but wonderfully free at the same time. It was surely the only time I have ever gone to bed naked on a couch with two men in the house, and yet after our wanderings yesterday I did not feel at all uneasy about doing so."

"I too slept without clothing, and I admit to feeling most deliciously wicked as well. And you, Professor?"

"Yes, yes, of course. After walking about the beach naked and lying in the sun I could not bear to think about dressing for the night. This really is a marvelous effect, and I am more than ever convinced that the Accelerator will have a most healthful effect on our society, much more so than I envisaged at first. Now, what shall we do today? All of the questions I have regarding the outside effects of the Accelerator have been answered, and it remains only to test some of the composite effects of Brake and the higher dosages as Hetty did yesterday before we can release it to the general public."

"If you please, Professor, I would like to make a suggestion. Having felt the effects of the two thousand dose I would like to recommend that it not be released. The problems I had with clothing and movement were really quite severe, and it would be more danger than help to any but the most careful or most nefarious of users. The social effects, which I feel are the chief benefit of the Accelerator would be most beneficial at the two hundred dose."

"As you know I am against any impediment being placed in the way of science, but from what you have said I agree that the dangers outweigh the benefits. If that is agreed, then we have very little to do today. I much enjoyed my stay at the beach yesterday, but the deleterious effects of the sun on your skin mitigate against repeating that experience."

"Not at all Professor, I have but to employ a covered canvas chair to be shaded from the sun, and it is so perfect out we ought to take advantage while we may. So I say let us off and have a picnic. And let it be a dejeuner sur l'herbe like the scandalous painting by that Frenchman. Before long such will no longer be a scandal."

And so the preparations were made, blankets taken up and a picnic basket brought up, with plates and utensils but as yet no food. Armed with our supplies we marched off gaily for a picnic, making sure to head first for the food vendors in the park. There we filled the basket with various delicacies, making sure to leave payment for each, and then headed toward the beach for the canvas chairs. Luckily the day was not so busy that all the chairs were taken, and at the stand of the old woman who rented chairs we found an ample supply of canvas chairs fitted with canopies, as well as a stack of large umbrellas. We each carried a folded chair, for Hetty insisted on being treated with equality, but she did not protest when I also carried a large umbrella.

So equipped we marched east and continued until we were out of sight of the bathers on both the sandy beach and the shingle beach. Finding a suitable spot we spread out the blankets, set down our picnic supplies and unfolded the chairs and canopies and the sun umbrella. Well pleased with our activity, I also felt a twinge of anxiety and anticipation, for anxiously awaiting a repetition of yesterday's events I was also prepared for disappointment. As Hetty started to unbutton her blouse my heart soared and my fears abated. On seeing her start to disrobe I also quickly commenced to do so, almost engaging in a race with her. Gone was my hesitation, I only wanted to feel the freedom of feeling the breeze on my skin and drinking in the sight of Hetty's marvelous body. Gibberne was not far behind, and soon we were all lounging comfortably in the chairs , protected from the sun by the shade covers.

I will readily admit that initially my main motive for lying naked in public was to enable me to enjoy Hetty's body without feeling too much of an outsider, but as time wore on I began to appreciate the feelings I experienced. Undressing on the beach that second day had been much easier than the first, and although I did not fully believe in the supposed health benefits I reveled in the feeling of freedom. Surprisingly I also lost the intense curiosity that Hetty's naked form aroused in me. I was still interested in her body. But familiarity had made my interest less morbid and more appreciative. If such a change in my attitudes could occur in such a short time, I thought, then Hetty was surely correct that society would undergo a rapid change when the Accelerator was widely deployed.

It was with such thoughts that I happily spent my time, and I believe that I was as content then as I have ever been.

"I am feeling quite famished. Shall we have our picnic now?"

Hetty's voice startled me out of my reverie, and I hastened to open the loaded picnic basket, saying "Of course, splendid idea." I laid out the contents of the basket in the shade of the umbrella and the three of us sat down on the blanket. My thoughts revolved more on lust than hunger as we ate, for the sight of Hetty kneeling down was consuming all my thoughts. I felt a quickening in my groin, and hastily placed a cloth napkin over myself to hide my blossoming erection. Legs and breasts and stomach and all the other marvelous parts of her excited me to distraction. I wanted to kiss those soft breasts, touching the nipples gently with my tongue, running my hands down her smooth skin from her stomach to the silky mound of her nether hair, feeling the warmth of her skin touching mine from head to toe.