Damned

My mom and dad were doubtless introducing poor Goran to the assembled media outlets represented at Park City, Utah; or Cannes; or the Venice Film Festival, while I was hiding out beneath six blankets surviving on hoarded Fig Newtons and Vichy water—avec gaz.

No, it's not fair, but I was clearly getting the better part of the arrangement.

My family assumed I was aboard a yacht, among giggling friends. My mom and dad assumed I had friends. The school assumed me to be with my parents and Goran. For two glorious weeks all I had to do was read the Brontes, evade the occasional security guards, and wander about— naked.

In all my thirteen years I'd never even slept in the nude. Of course, my parents paraded unclothed constantly, exposing themselves around the house and on the more exclusive beaches of the French Riviera and the Maldives, but I perennially felt too flat in some places, too fat in some, too skinny in others, simultaneously gawky and plump, too old and too young. It was clearly in violation of the school's rules of deportment, but alone one night, I pulled off my nightgown and slipped into bed, naked.

My mother had never hesitated to suggest I attend this or that weekend retreat focusing on genital awareness and mastering control of one's own pleasure centers, the usual assortment of celebrity mothers and daughters idling in a remote grotto, squatting over hand mirrors and marveling at the infinite pink moods of the cervix, but their sort of workshopped... empowerment seemed so clinical. It wasn't a frank, honest workshopping of my sexuality that I wanted. It was Goran I wanted, someone ruddy and moody. Pirates and tightly laced bodices. Masked highwaymen and kidnapped wenches.

The second night I slept alone, I awoke needing to pee. The toilets were down the hall, shared by all the girls on each floor, but I was almost certainly alone in the residence building. So, despite the sacrosanct rules, I peered out of my room, naked and barefooted, checking the dark hallway for a patrolling guard. I ran the cold steps to the bathroom and did my business, all in the dim moonlight filtering through the windows, my breath steaming in the cold air. The third night, I visited the bathroom, again naked, but strolled en route, taking a detour on my return trip to visit the first-floor lounge and sit unclothed on the chilly leather sofas which faced the blank dark mirror of the television screen. My nude reflection in the glass, wan as a pudgy ghost.

Ah, those glory days when I still had an earthly reflection...

Really, Satan, please. You have to swear that you won't breathe a word of this.

By my fifth night alone I'd ventured naked to the chemistry lab, sat naked in my usual desk in the Romance Languages classroom, and stood naked on the dais at the head of the dining hall, where the senior faculty normally sat for their meals.

And, yes, while I admit to being dead and having a poor body image and a suppressed sense of my own personal value, I am well aware of my risky, late-night exhibitionism and yen for Goran as symptoms of my budding sexuality. The night air against my skin... all of my skin and nipples, and the texture of so many ordinary objects: wooden desks, stairway carpets, tiled hallways—without the usual intervening layers of silk or nylon—it all felt glorious. Around any corner seemed to lurk a possible guard, some strange man wearing a uniform, his boots polished. I imagined each guard with a polished badge, wearing a gun strapped to his belt. Most likely, it would be somebody's Swiss father or grandfather with a mustache, but I pictured Goran. Goran, carrying handcuffs. Goran, his brooding eyes behind dark totalitarian sunglasses. At any moment, the beam of a flashlight might reveal me, the parts of myself I had always kept hidden. I'd be reported and expelled. Everyone would find out.

In my nude ramblings I lingered among the leather-smelling stacks in the library, perusing the books as I walked barefoot over the chill marble floors. I swam unclothed in the pool complex. With only the moonlight to see by, I sneaked into the stainless-steel kitchens and sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, eating chocolate ice cream until my body shook with the accumulated cold. As lithe as an animal... a sprite... a savage... I strode into the chapel and presented my fleshy self to the altar. There, the paintings and statues of the Virgin Mary were always so heavily robed and veiled, crowned and burdened with jewelry. Depictions of the Christ seldom wore more than a thorny halo and a way-tiny loincloth. Sitting on the front pew, I felt the gentle suction of my bare thighs against the polished wood.