I recently attended a clothing-optional pool party organized by my local nudist group. I’d gotten into Buddhism not long before, and this was partly an experiment for me in seeing how my embracing that philosophy would affect my thoughts, impulses, and general internal and external self-control in the presence of a whole bunch of naked people, at least some of whom were likely to be attractive females.
It was an interesting experiment, and I was pleased to find that I had indeed developed a level of internal calm and composure that didn’t abandon me at the first sight of a pretty, unclad woman. I continued my experiment, and to simply enjoy being nude in the company of others, for some time, wandering randomly (or seemingly so) from the wading pool to the sauna to the steam room and so forth. chatting with people. munching a buffet dinner. generally enjoying the event.
At one point, upon wandering into the pool-and-hot-tub room from the sauna, I decided I was finally going to brave an attempt to find room for myself in the hot tub that had been jam-packed all evening but had now, finally, inexplicably developed a few vacancies. As I approached and began my descent down the ladder into the bubbling brew, I noticed the pretty woman in a pink camisole and panties making a parallel descent. She initially stood out not only because of her striking face and incredibly clear blue eyes, but because in that camisole and those panties she was probably the most fully-clad woman in the place. She and I wound up standing together in the center of the hot tub while the evening’s raffle was announced and carried out, and she showed herself to be very gregarious (and flirty!). She chattered happily to me and the other people in the tub, and when the first ticket number was announced she leaned her shoulder against mine as she held her ticket at arm’s length and asked me if I could read it. This was not just a flirty ploy – she really couldn’t read the thing without her glasses – but it did rather perfectly serve double-duty as a flirtational device (and you never want to get into a hot tub without a flirtational device).
She won a prize! A cute little nylon tote-bag-thingy (it took us a while to figure out exactly what it was). And I didn’t win a prize. Or rather, I hadn’t won a prize yet. Or maybe I’d already won the biggest prize of my life and just didn’t know it.
The raffle ended, and as none of my tickets had won, the Pretty Lady In Pink gave me a consolation prize better than anything that was raffled off that night. She barely-clad, me naked, and both of us soaking wet, she wrapped her arms (and one leg) around me, right there in the middle of the hot tub, and held me tight, making contented little sounds and assuring my mind that it was now definitely free to move about the cabin, spinning wildly with all the thoughts and some of the hopes I had up to that point been reining in as unfounded.
We said words here and there; I don’t remember most of what was said at that point, but I do remember her saying, “so what’s next?” followed fairly closely by the word “hotel” (a sequence of sounds well-calculated to prick up my little male ears). From the speed at which she now seemed to be moving, I guessed she might be a flirty, flighty woman on whom I shouldn’t place too much importance, but with whom I might be in for an enjoyable night or weekend, followed by a fond (and final) farewell. But I didn’t have much time to ruminate on this before we were approached by one of the event’s organizers and asked to remove ourselves from the hot tub for actually doing what most everyone there only wished they could do (though I’m not sure we’d even kissed yet at this point). It was suggested that we move to the pool; why, I really don’t know, as behavioral constraints were no more relaxed in the pool than they had been in the hot tub. It took us maybe another seven minutes to find this out, at which point another organizer – a seemingly much less sexually-frustrated man than the woman who’d found fault with our hot-tub hotness – chatted amicably with us for a while and thoughtfully suggested the showers as a more private (but similarly aqueous) place to continue our canoodlings.
Thus off to the showers we obligingly (if a little exasperatedly) went.
I will spare you, gentle reader, the oh-so intimate details of all that transpired in that shower on that fateful night. One detail, however, I will relate: it turned out that this woman had had a double mastectomy some five weeks earlier, had since developed a near certainty that she’d never have sex again, and had chosen to trust and honor me – me! – with the opportunity to help her disprove and eradicate that unwelcome hypothesis that had been growing in her like a cancer.
Okay, one more detail too I’ll relate: we disproved it. Disproved it, eradicated it, annihilated it. *Poof!* – aw gone.
Eventually – though not until we’d been grumped at one more time by the female organizer for the deeply delighted noises we were making – the party wound down and we departed. In the parking lot, we briefly discussed our options and instead of choosing to go the hotel-room route, she invited me back to her place (I was to be honored yet again). And over the course of the dream-like weekend that followed, we discovered many things. For my part, I discovered that while she was most definitely flirty, she wasn’t exactly flighty, as her Ph.D in organic chemistry and her work as founder, president, and CEO of an international non-profit organization would attest (it would be some time yet before I’d find out about her black belt in taekwondo). I discovered she was brilliant, hilarious, just plain cool, and when it came to relationships, pretty much all my wildest dreams-come-true, both in and out of bed. Naturally dominant and very happy – relieved, even – to constitute the base of power in the relationship, she was genuinely and independently interested in a man who’d rather submit to her than try to compete with her for equality (ha!) or superiority (HA!) in the relationship. Not merely disinterested in sexual exclusivity, she was in fact dead-set against it. As in, warning me from the outset that her being sexually exclusive to me is out of the question, and assuring me shortly thereafter that my having sexual adventures with other women, while not required, is definitely encouraged, and even advised. Ju-u-u-ust romantic enough for me to understand that she really cares about me (a lot), she is completely comfortable with my own greater penchant for romanticism while never suddenly saddling me with emotional quandaries that have been a long time brewing but only revealed to me once they’ve become formidable (and usually bewildering) obstacles. And the list goes on.
Baby, does it go on.
Just maybe not in this post.
