Chapter Text
Well as it turns out, life doesn’t end after high school; it’s funny how the media lies like that. With the help of a certain program and getting my butt in gear, I managed to graduate high school with flying colors and got into a decent university a few towns over. I was taking a new step into uncharted territory, a new chapter in my life…and I wouldn’t be going through it alone. In a turn of events, my dear friend Madison would be coming along for the ride.
See, Madison’s family had just moved a while back and it seemed unfair that they were being separated after finally being settled into a new state. As luck would have it, the very university I was attending offered a good distance between her and her family. Now she could visit her family as flexibly as needed and we’d have each other’s backs in college. It was the kind of coincidence that you’d see in the movies…so I guess the media only lies 95% of the time.
But what about the nudist lifestyle, you might ask; last we left off, I was about to graduate high school in my birthday suit. To the relief of my parents, the program ended in high school, so my days of being publicly naked were in the rearview mirror along with my teenage years. The operative word here being publicly. While there weren’t many places I can go around nude in public, I was free to be in the buff behind closed doors, whether I was sleeping, studying or just vegging out on Netflix. It was comfortable in college as it was in senior year; I didn’t even have to get dressed when Madison visited my dorm since she was used to the whole nudism thing by this point.
So, as you can see, I made bounds by my first year of college. I now had a clearer direction in life, a best friend I could talk to anytime and a controversial yet still fulfilling lifestyle. It seemed that I finally had my proverbial shit together now that I was out of my awkward teenage years. I was now ready to conquer adulthood, the world was my oyster, nothing could stop me now…
…Yeah, I wouldn’t buy any of that feel good stuff if I were reading this either. What story, tale or yarn has ever started with everyone having everything figured out? No, no, if there’s anything useful high school taught me, it’s that everything before you turn 18 is just the prologue. Now comes the first chapter.
It all started during my second semester at college, right in rhetoric with Professor Chen. After the introductory weeks, we were just about ready for our first big project for the class. With the professor running late, the rest of the class was buzzing with conversations.
Naturally Madison was by my side while we had our chit chat on Chunky Monkey, as the best of discussions start out with. To my left…was him. I remember he was wearing a black t-shirt, olive military windbreaker, faded jeans and scuffed boots. His red hair was a wild curly mess on top and shaved at the sides, really matching his scruffy “I don’t give a crap” ensemble. He was hunched over his desk, his cheek in his hand, looking bored out of his skull.
This was Jesse O’Connor. He is not the villain of this story, but he caused me a lot of problems over my freshman year of college.
I actually had him for art class in addition to rhetoric, so I saw him just enough to get his name. In the past weeks I attended class I didn’t really see him do much or interact with anyone. He usually just sat at his desk with a sullen look on his face, as if everything around him was causing him pain. His sunny disposition certainly didn’t have people coming up to him and being his friend. Even I only went as far as sitting next to him when I had to. So, it was a surprise when he tapped me on the shoulder and spoke to me for the very first time:
“I gotta take a piss. Let me know what the professor says when he gets in.”
That bit of poetry caught me off guard. I gave him a bewildered look and sputtered out “Huh?” He just raised his eyebrow and looked at me like I was high. He then oh so helpfully repeated it as if I didn’t get it the first time.
“I had two sodas during lunchbreak and now I need to unload. Keep me updated when the teacher comes in so I don’t miss what he says. Can you do me that solid?”
I narrowed my eyes and frowned at him before spitting out, “Sure pal, just be classier next time you need a “solid” from a stranger.”
He merely shrugged and muttered “Meh, whatever”, before getting up from his desk and taking his leave from class. I watched him walk out there, mulling over my first negative experience in a campus setting. “Wow…I’d say that was piggish but that would be an insult to my Tia Leticia’s prize-winning hog.”
“For real,” Madison said, having watched the whole scene unfold. “I never would have thought that someone that cute could be that gross.”
“Hold up a minute; you think he’s cute?” I just had to question that last part.
“I mean kind of,” Mads scrunched up her face a little trying to find the right words, “Like you said he’s piggish but…he’s got this cool bad boy vibe going on when he doesn’t open his mouth. The jawline helps.”
“You know Mads, not to knock what other people like but I just can’t get into the whole bad boy thing,” I opened up to my friend. “If it was just about physical attraction, I can look at 90s Calvin Klein models, jawlines and all, and avoid the trash fire personality.”
“I can understand why you can’t stand bad boys but…why 90s Calvin Klein models specifically?” Madison asked, her turn to nitpick at my statement.
I just smiled and replied, “Oh my dear Mads; there’s a whole world of classics I need to introduce you to.”
Just then the chatter was cut off when Professor Chen walked into the classroom, his usual high energy apparent as he rushed to the front of the class.
“Sorry I’m late class and thank you for not taking off after fifteen minutes! It was fourteen minutes and three seconds anyway; I kept a timer running! Jokes aside, let’s not waste any more time and get started.”
Once he was settled at his desk, Professor Chen faced us, diving into our lesson plan: “As I mentioned last week, we’re going to be doing things a bit different for this semester. Once you get into groups of three, you’ll work on one assignment in three sections. The first section is a rough draft compiling your research data, the second is a paper with your group’s opinion supported by your findings, and finally, you present what you found to the class. How well you do in each section will determine your final grade for this class.”
Our jovial college professor became a smidgen more serious, showing us what a big deal this was going to be, “The whole point of rhetoric is that you need to learn how to argue your position and as adults, many of the arguments you’ll be facing will be controversial, making everything you learn in this class all the more invaluable. The topic of this semester will be…nudity.”
Upon hearing that magic word, the class got excited, whispering loudly among themselves and cracking up at hearing the topic; clearly, they didn’t expect our assignment to be this scandalous, proving that the professor was right in calling it controversial. I was sitting there with an odd sense of déjà vu, wondering just where the professor was going with this.
“Settle down everyone; you’re all adults here remember?” our professor gently chided. “To clarify, the assignment is based around the concept of nudism, which is to say the concept of living without clothes. This often ties into the concept of public nudity and the issues that come with that. You’re tasked with arguing for or against the concept of nudism and practicing openly.”
Okay forget déjà vu, this felt like something out of Groundhog Day. On one hand, it felt like the decisions I made back in senior year were now coming back to haunt me. On the other proverbial palm, I had this shit in the bag. If the teacher was willing to give me such an easy topic to talk about, I could look past how odd the whole situation was.
“Now, if you all understand what you need to do,” the professor said, “feel free to break into groups of three; your assignment begins now.”
With that, our class broke into orderly and controlled chaos, with people getting and quickly claiming partners. As you could guess, me and Madison partnered up from the comfort of our desks. The only thing left was the elusive third member for the group and as we looked around, pickings were slim. Alice and Bobby had grouped with Evie, Mallory went with Charlie and Donna, Peggy and Victor welcomed Trent on board, and Larry threw his lot with Rose and Colin. Larry was surprising since he had promised he’d help us if any assignment popped up early in the year; to this day, his betrayal still stings.
Mads and I looked at each other dumbfounded, not sure what to do with everyone else taken. Professor Chen walked over to where we were sitting and asked, “Madison, Inez, anything going on?”
“We’re missing one person for our group and everyone else is taken. We’re not really sure what to do now,” I admitted.
Professor Chen looked concern, saying, “This is a class of fifteen, we should have been divided evenly with groups of three. Who could be missing…”
At that exact moment, he walked in. Jesse appeared at the doorway, almost as if willed into existence, looking confused. “Uh…anything I missed?”
“Ah yes, that’s right, Jesse! You’ll be with Inez and Madison for the assignment,” the professor announced to the redhead.
“Really? We have to be with him?” Madison asked uneasily.
“Seriously what the hell is going on?” wondered a poor, befuddled Jesse.
I tried my best to sort out the situation. “Is there any way we could do this project by ourselves?”
“’Fraid not miss,” Professor Chen replied simply, to my disappointment.
With that one fateful decision, everything was set in motion, for better and for worse.