Naked at Lunch by Mark Haskell Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

look at her large, and admittedly attractive, naked breasts.
    Imagine that sexual harassment training film.
    And so I sat there and ate my lunch. Naked.
    After lunch I went to check out the library and game room, which was really just a shelf of books and board games off to the side of a very modest fitness center that housed a few creaky elliptical trainers and some dumbbells. I entered the room to find a naked woman looking through the books. She was probably seventy years old and tilted her head back so that her reading glasses would focus on the titles. Although I tried not to gawk or stare, I have to say that for someone her age, she looked to be in pretty good shape. She gave me a quick once-over. And I have to admit that I was taken aback. Weren’t we supposed to not look? Isn’t that what the sign says? Or is a quick once-over different from a gawk or stare? But that’s something I noticed about nudists: for all their talk about nonsexual this and don’t gawk that, they always take a peek. It’s a normal human response to seeing a naked person. I look too. You can’t help it.
    The library comprised a few shelves of paperbacks that looked to have been abandoned by previous guests. Among the usual suspects, the thrillers and romance novels and bestselling business books, were some literary fiction titles. Zadie Smith at a nudist resort? Maybe not in the flesh, but a copy of White Teeth was here.
    The naked lady pulled a dog-eared paperback off the shelf and turned toward me. “Have you read this?”
    I made a concerted effort to look her in the eye and said, “I’m not really a Clive Cussler reader.”
    She put the book back and continued looking. Only now we were looking together, side by side, a naked man and a naked woman, strangers trying to find something to read to pass the time. I picked up one of Lee Child’s novels. “Have you ever read him?”
    She nodded. “He’s good. Can’t say I cared for the movie.”
    We chatted about authors and books for a few minutes, and just as I was wondering how the conversation might turn if I picked up the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey sitting on the top shelf, she chose a Harlan Coben thriller and said good-bye.
    Would this have been an encounter worth writing about if I hadn’t noticed the gray hairs on her pubic region? Doubtful. But there it was. My first nude conversation with a stranger. Awkward, but not unfriendly.
    I went back to my chair by the pool. Was this a more enjoyable experience than sitting by a pool and reading with a swimsuit on? If I’m honest, I have to admit that it was. It felt good to let the sun and the warm desert breeze dry my skin after a dip in the water without the feeling of clammy fabric sticking to my body. Admittedly it was strange to look around and see naked people, but they were doing a pretty standard version of what people on vacation do, reading or snoozing or drinking cocktails and laughing—all in a nonsexual way, naturally. Nobody gawked, nobody said anything offensive or racy, it was all very proper. I suppose, for me, it was a bit too proper. But after a while I got used to it. I didn’t feel weird or embarrassed or uncomfortable being naked around these people, and the few who would dare talk to a lone naked man were totally friendly.
    There was nothing else to do but kick back and relax, so I laid out on the chaise lounge, my penis reflecting the desert sun like a chunk of fool’s gold.
    ***** Nothing annoys me more than someone who writes a book about cannabis and then claims to have “never smoked it.” Really?
    ****** It was not the actress Maggie Smith.

A Very Brief History of Early Nonsexual Social Nudism
    N udity isn’t new. People have been expressing their natural nature from the beginning of civilization. Ancient Greek Olympians competed in the nude; sculptures of early athletes reveal rippling muscles, curly pubic hair, and genitalia in exacting detail. In decorative drawings on ancient wine ewers,