The Nerdy Nudist

"I don't mind you asking, but I honestly don't know," James said. "I just -- well, the way my mother put it, because this has been a thing with me for a long time, she once said, 'James, you think you don't deserve anything nice!' And I don't know why that is, but she hit the nail on the head."

"Mothers usually do," Sarah said. "But -- wow, that's sad. So you feel you don't deserve to waltz a bunch of beautiful girls around the floor?"

"Crazy, isn't it?" James asked. "I always have wondered, just how did we end up with a tradition like that anyway? Who ever thought a semiformal dance set to waltz music would ever go over well on your average lefty granola campus, with its share of nerds and misfits and women who don't shave their legs and men who do?"

Sarah laughed. "You're so right! But I love it, and it sounds to me like you do, too."

"Well, it does always bring on some surprises, doesn't it? 'Hey look, he took a shower!' 'Wow, she does own a dress!' And, I mean, once I do get over myself and go, you know, there's that minute or two of awkwardness, and then someone asks me to dance, and I forget all about what I don't deserve!"

"That's sweet," Sarah said. "And you don't need a date, if it comes to that."

"Does that mean you've changed your mind about that friend you mentioned?"

"Let me check with her first," Sarah said. "I won't tell her who you are or anything, I just want to suss her out a bit. For one thing, I don't know for sure she hasn't got a date. But I don't think so."

"Then we just need a date for you, huh?" James said.

"Do you know if Alan really doesn't have a date yet?"

"Sarah, you don't want him!" James said. "The way he treated Rosa?"

"I didn't like that," Sarah admitted. "But I mean, he's a guy. But a cute guy. Look, if I'm going to help you find someone, can't you help me?"

"If you're sure you want that, I'll see what I can find out," James said. "But I'm warning you, those two, they're my buddies and all, but they're a couple of immature brats, too."

"Oh, that's just what I like," Sarah said. "They're the kind who know how to have a good time. I mean, no offense, James, a guy like you would make a wonderful husband, but I want to have some fun first."

James nodded and smiled but said nothing, and for an awful moment Sarah was afraid she'd just broken his heart. But he showed no further sign of any such thing as he sat down at his desk and put his shoes on. "I'm off to the library now," he said. "But I know Mark and Alan are going to the bar tonight, if you want to come."

"I'd love to," Sarah said. "James, thank you."

"For what?"

"For understanding. I know what Alan is, but he's so cute...I just can't help it."

"I've been there," James said. "See you tonight?"

"Sure!"

James took a couple of minutes to get his books together, and to think about what Sarah had just revealed. But when he left his room a few minutes later, Sarah was still in the hallway, bending over with laughter while Tim and Tom were noodling on their guitars. "Guys, do it again for James!" she said between gales of laughter.

"She's right, James," Tom deadpanned. "You've got to hear the Truck Blues."

"The Truck Blues," James repeated. "Well, the title's got promise, guys."

"That ain't all it's got!" Tim said. "Take a load off and listen!"

Five minutes wouldn't hurt. James sat down and welcomed Sarah plopping down beside him, and watched as Tom formed a G chord on his guitar. In ragged unison they began.

"Took my baby, lay her on my truck!"

Sarah was just as amused this time. James joined in on the laughter.

"Took my baby, lay her on my truck!"

Two of the freshman guys from the other end of the floor were looking on, seemingly as amused with James and Sarah's reaction as with the song.

"Pulled her down, and then we had a real good..."

"Picnic!" Tim yelled out. "You guys weren't expecting...you're sick!" He and Tom both dissolved into peals of laughter.

"Beautiful, guys," James said. "Thanks, I needed that."

Sarah did have every intention of stopping by Rosa's room to apologize and gauge her interest in James. But she crossed paths with another friend who invited her to the student union for a snack and then she had a committee meeting at four o'clock, and once that was over she had forgotten all about her earlier plans. So Rosa was left alone all afternoon to study in peace and to flip back and forth between terror and exhilaration at the plans for the evening. Even the rest of the Corner Table had never seen her naked, and she bore enough emotional scars from the high school locker room to be happy to keep it that way. But the prospect of giving their whole campus a fuck-you for the way it always held them at arm's length was irresistible, and if there were one group of people on earth whom she trusted with being so absolutely vulnerable...

Ultimately, Rosa decided, that was worth anything and everything. A hopeless romantic from as far back as she could remember, Rosa had always been prone to lush fantasies where her dress, bra and panties melted away for one who appreciated her natural beauty no matter how unlikely that seemed in real life. In her imagination she always felt wonderfully confident and comfortable in her body. With her friends, that seemed well within reach for the first time ever.

By dinnertime, Rosa was surprised to find she was even a little afraid the others might have gotten cold feet. She was pleased to learn they not only hadn't, but that word had spread around to other Corner Tablers who hadn't been there at lunch. "Rosa, have you heard about our plans for tonight?" asked Robert, dressed in his top hat and vest as usual and accompanied as always by his girlfriend Amy in yet another peasant dress.

"I was there when we decided to do it," Rosa confirmed. "I'm glad to hear it's still on, I spent all afternoon working up my courage for this."

"You and me both," said Keith, the only other one who'd been there at lunch.

"Rosa, what are you afraid of?" Amy asked. "You're beautiful!"

"Thanks, and so are you, Amy," Rosa said. "You're not afraid, are you?"

"I've only got so much to show, haven't I?" Amy looked down at her dainty breasts, which were indeed rather smaller than Rosa's.

"I'm sure they're lovely, Amy," Rosa said. "And hey, we'll all be there for each other, you know."

"Are you two going to be drawn together like magnets or what?" asked Robert. "And how closely can I watch?"

The whole table laughed uproariously. Rosa welcomed the funny looks from the other tables. She, like all Corner Tablers, had heard the rumors that they all routinely slept with one another on top of everything else.

Aileen, seated on Amy's other side, addressed that issue as soon as they had quieted down. "You do realize this will be making everyone think they're right about us being a bunch of perverts?"

"Let 'em think so," said Colby, the chair of the Claxton SCA chapter, who also had the biggest beard on campus. Rosa had always wondered if the rest of his body was that hairy. Realizing now that she was about to find out, she couldn't help smiling.

"Rosa, you're really looking forward to this, aren't you?" asked Aileen, who was partial to shapeless men's shirts and loose jeans.

"I cannot tell a lie," Rosa confessed.

Though there were rarely more than eight or nine people at the Corner Table at any given time -- it was all that would fit, and no one ever coordinated their lunch schedules that Rosa knew of -- there were well over twenty members of their band of misfits all told. Not all of them were brave enough to take part, of course (Rosa vowed never to give them a hard time about that, and she knew the others wouldn't either). But by the time the appointed hour rolled around that evening, about a dozen of them were crowded into Moose's room in Horton Hall, at the far end of campus. "So I suggest we simply walk up the way to each of the dorms and don't even say hello, we just wander in and out and give them an eyeful they'll never forget," Moose said when the moment of truth had arrived. "Anyone want to wimp out?" he asked, standing up from his desk chair.

"No judgment if you do," Rosa added, also standing up.

She got lots of nervous grins in response, but no one left the room.

Patricia, the nearest one to the door, closed and locked it. "Game on," she said with a nervous giggle, and pulled her top off.

Once the ice was broken, the next minute or two was a blur of flying shirts and bras and socks and lots of awkward laughter. Rosa had to sit down to pull her tights off and was among the last to finish undressing, but that meant she had a bit more time to let her gaze wander. Colby was standing nearby, and she was pleased and utterly titillated to see his penis was as lushly forested as his face. So she was confidence itself as she stood back up with her own big bush on full display. She didn't look around to see if hers was the second biggest in the room, but she rather suspected as much.

With her mind off on that tangent, she failed to realize she was still gawking at Colby's body until she looked up to see him grinning at her. "Like what you see, Rosa?"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Rosa laughed, covering her eyes.

"Rosa, it's okay!" And she looked up just in time to see he was coming over to hug her. She welcomed the delight of his bare skin on hers. Having always heard the feel of skin on skin was utterly delicious, now she saw it really was. "You were probably wondering, because of my beard..."

"Exactly," Rosa confessed. "And also hoping because, you know, solidarity." She pulled back and patted her own lush, thick triangle, complete with a light treasure trail. Now that the initial shock was over, she looked around to see all the others were checking each other out as well.

"I can just imagine the looks that got in the locker room," Colby said with a knowing look. "I got a lot of the same."

"And at the pool," Rosa said. "Lots of, hey, all your friends are in bikinis, why not you?"

"Rosa, I knew you'd be beautiful underneath!" declared Amy, who also helped herself to a hug, which Rosa eagerly returned. Over Amy's shoulder, Rosa could see Robert looking on, hard as a rock. He looked down at it and laughed with an apologetic shrug.

"Oh, you are too, Amy!" Rosa said. Drawing back, she took her friend by the shoulders and looked down. Thin as a rake, small breasts that stood out effortlessly without a bra, and a sprinkling of pubic hair that looked like an afterthought compared to her own -- different, to be sure, but beautiful. "We're going to knock their socks off!"

"And everything else, if they're anything like me," said Robert.

Since Rosa herself had broached the subject of her bush, she wasn't surprised to detect plenty of furtive glances at it as they all put their shoes (and in her case, her cowboy boots) back on. She was fairly sure some of them -- even some of the women -- wanted to touch it. In the heat of that deliciously erotic moment, she'd have allowed it, especially since she'd have liked to give several of the guys' dicks a squeeze. But no one asked for such a thing or invited anyone else to do it to them. So Rosa was content to enjoy the admiring looks at her body, which she eagerly returned.

Having danced off most of the afternoon in the library, James was more than happy to join Mark and Alan on their bar-run. Despite his misgivings, he told them Sarah wanted to join them. "I think she's got her eye on one of us for Spring Forward," he said as they set off up the way towards her dorm.

"That mean you are going after all?" Mark asked.

"Don't I always?" James let a laugh escape as he said it.

"Yeah, well, no offense, but I think she's a little out of your league, James," Alan said. "And Mark, you've already got this mystery girl, to hear you tell it. So I guess that leaves yours truly."

"Good for you, man," James said. "Gonna ask her tonight?"

Alan laughed. "Man, how can you do that? I put you down and you just wish me good luck?"

"'Cause he's a gentleman, dude," Mark said. "Not like you and me, you know that. James, I think that's really big of you. But I never actually said I had a date, you know."

"Then may the best man win!" Alan said, opening the door to Camden Hall, where Sarah lived.

"Sarah said she'd be in the first-floor lounge," James said, ignoring both of their bravado, which continued as he led the way up the three steps to the first floor.

At the top of the steps, Mark and Alan both forgot all about their friendly rivalry and everything else. Sarah wasn't anywhere in sight, but there was a heated conversation going on by the lounge door. One of the participants was a guy James knew by sight only, having seen him from a safe distance at the Corner Table -- the guy who was known campuswide for always wearing mismatched shoes.

He was wearing them now. And nothing else.

He was also calmly trying to reason with a slightly older woman -- James thought she was the Camden Hall RA. "We're just on a nice little walk around the campus," he was saying.

"Well, I'm going to have to ask you to continue that walk elsewhere," the RA said. "We're watching a movie in there and your friends are making some people very uncomfortable."

"There are more of 'em inside?" Mark grumbled. Instinctively all three of the guys turned away -- and only then did they see none other than Sarah's friend from lunch that day, just as naked as her friend was.

Rosa's heart was beating so hard she was surprised the guys couldn't see it. Or maybe they could see it, but they were fixated on the rest of her body. She looked back at them and laughed nervously. She knew just who they were, and having not forgotten the insults the rowdier two of the trio had served up at lunch, she welcomed their hungry gaze on her now. Eat your heart out!, she felt like saying, as they definitely seemed to like what they saw. But she said nothing.

With Sarah still nowhere to be seen and the argument still going on behind them, James grinned back at her and held his hand up to block the view below her neck. "Hey, how are you feeling?" he asked.

"How do you think?" Rosa managed to say between embarrassed titters.

"I can't imagine," James confessed. "But I'm impressed. This takes guts! I wish I were as brave as you."

"Thank you!" she said. "But I take it you don't like what you see?" She pulled his hand down so he had a clear view of her body again.

"No, I do! I just...didn't want to stare."

"She's naked, dude, she wants you to stare!" Mark called from behind them.

"I don't know about that," James said. "But hey, you're beautiful and brave."

"You're too sweet!" Rosa said.

She was prepared to say more, but just then the stairwell door opened. "Oh my God, Rosa!" It was Sarah. "What's the big idea?"

"Would you ask that if we were the swim team?" asked Moose, who had finally given in and collected the rest of their friends from the lounge. "Or the football team?"

"Uh, yeah!" Sarah said, although she did help herself to a look at Rosa's friends who were now gathered all around them. "Rosa, I...I've got questions."

"Lunch tomorrow?" Rosa asked, just as casually as if she'd been fully clothed.

"Please!" Sarah turned around. "Guys, come on!"

Sarah had planned to flirt with Alan on the walk to the bar. Instead she spent the walk griping about Rosa. "I love her to bits, but she's always been kind of weird. But I never thought she was that weird!"

"I admire her," James said. "That was so brave!"

"You would say that, dude," Mark said. "A beautiful naked woman is standing right there, and you think of how brave she is?"

"Beautiful?" replied Sarah, who had of course seen Rosa naked a time or two when they were roommates. "With that bush? I always meant to tell her, listen, you've got to start shaving or waxing or something. I mean, gross!"

"Couldn't disagree more," Alan said. "I dig that look!"

"Dig," Mark said with a haughty laugh. "A nice furry hole to dig in, that's for sure. But I liked it too."

"You did?!" All at once Sarah saw things were going in a direction she did not like at all.

"Yeah, man, how often do you see something like that these days?" Alan said. "It's fresh and different and hip! You know if she's got a date for the spring dance, Sarah?"

As Sarah swallowed her heart, she almost lied just to screw with Alan. But she hadn't yet said anything before Mark cut in.

"Not so fast, dude," he said, chucking Alan on the arm. "I saw her first."

"The hell you did, man!" Alan shot back.

Half-hoping the two friends would come to blows, Sarah held her tongue for an uncomfortable moment. Then she got a wonderfully awful idea. What had Alan said about the dance being right after April Fool's? She smiled through her disappointment and held both hands up. "Gentlemen, no need to fight over her!" she said. "You heard me say I'm having lunch with her tomorrow. I'll ask then, all right?"

"Please do," said Mark. "And Alan, no hard feelings when she chooses me, all right?"

"Looks like you both have hard feelings about Rosa to me," said James, who was also stiff as a board remembering her body, not to mention surprised that they shared his fondness for hairy pussies.

"Guys, enough!" Sarah declared. They were outside the bar and she set her hand on the door handle to open it. "Now can we please talk about anything except my ex-roommate's snatch?"

"Talk yes, think no!" Alan declared. Mark and James laughed along with him. But they did obey Sarah's request, and through three pitchers of beer the talk was of anything but what was on all three guys' minds.

The Corner Table were no more well-received at any of their other stops than they'd been at Camden. But Rosa was high as a kite with the memory of the lustful looks she'd gotten at every stop, never more than at Camden. That quiet guy had been such a sweetheart, but his two friends -- rude though they'd been at lunch -- they were ever so cute and the way they'd looked at her had made her feel like Miss America. If only it had been one -- or both! -- of them who'd been the polite ones. In her imagination, though, they both were. They'd been on her mind ever since Moose had herded the others out of the lounge and on to the next stop. And when at last they'd all returned to his room to get dressed and she'd enjoyed last fleeting looks at Colby and Paul's dicks and said her good nights to all her friends, she knew just what she'd be doing once she got back to her room.

"You're welcome to hang out a while," Moose said, once they all had their clothes on again. "I've got a bottle of something or other if you're interested."

Most of the others did look like they intended to accept the invitation, but Rosa was feeling much too wound up to linger. "Thanks, but I'm beat," she said. "See you at lunch tomorrow?"

"You're meeting your friend for lunch, aren't you?" said Aileen.

"Oh, right!" Rosa said. "Dinner then, I guess. We showed them, huh?"

"And each other, too," quipped Nick.

"Yeah, Rosa, you have a gorgeous vagina," added Paul with a smirk.

"Why, thank you, Paul!" Rosa just had to turn away then and let herself out of the room. It wouldn't do any good to let Paul know at this late date how welcome he'd have been in her gorgeous vagina if only he weren't gay.

And after all, she reminded herself as she scurried back to her room, she now had two guys to choose from who very clearly weren't!

Rosa had, of course, matured a great deal since the bad old days when she'd been ever so certain she was the only girl at school who played with herself. But not everything had changed. She still thought of it as making love to herself, and she still took it seriously. Once she'd brushed her teeth and returned to her room to stay for the night, she sat on the bed to take her boots off, then got up and put the windowshade up. The evening's adventure had her feeling very much at one with nature, and she wanted a good look at the dark campus with its signs of early spring.