Young Lather

Naked

Sounds WTF, yeah? Naked. But that's how this starts, because I'm in the woods, naked. I was swimming.

Oh, and yes, skinny dipping. It's just me right now, but that's pretty much the way all of us do it these days. I'm at The Twisty this time, even though it's not the best swimming hole. The deepest part is mostly in the fastest part of the stream, so you have to swim pretty hard against the current just to stay in one place. You can't just float, or you'll get dropped in the shallows quick. I mean, you can kind of stay near the edge of the current by a couple of the big rocks, but mostly it's one of those pools where you have to keep moving, so we don't choose it much.

We've been swimming here in the woods for years, though usually at a couple other places downstream from here. Two summers ago, we just... did. We started skinny dipping. ...Well, I started it. I was already in a deep part of what we call Big Bend, which is the best swimming hole. We were all in the deep part. But then, for some reason, I took off my trunks and held them up and shouted, 'Oops!' with a big smile. No one could see anything, but everyone laughed and started messing around, chasing me, trying to steal my trunks or get me into shallow water. But they also were playing with each other, and then, when Archie pulled Track's trunks down, Track sort of let it happen, so then he was holding his trunks up too.

Of course, that would have probably been as far as we got, except for Kara. She is pretty awesome. She just took off her top like, whatever — not underwater or anything! Kind of a shock. And then she took her bottoms off too, but underwater. Dara (yeah, Kara and Dara) and Celeste copied Kara, except all underwater, and then it was just Archie, who is always last to do stuff. Plus, he's smaller — I think he barely even had pubes then. But there's something about the woods, and even Archie finally got naked, and there we all were, naked in Big Bend, staying in the deep part, holding our suits. I remember we were all kind of nervous and excited for awhile, but, I don't know, pretty soon we were totally calm — quiet, even — looking up into the trees, floating, talking quiet.

We never stopped.

One by one, we even let ourselves see each other. Like nudist camp people do, I guess, but it seemed more like brothers and sisters. One time Kara and me sort of agreed, and we just tossed our suits on the shore, and when we got out, we just... got out. Then Dara and Cel — and, yeah, they kind of decide things together a lot. Track did it too, but he sort of timed things so he didn't really get seen much for awhile. Archie was shy for a long time, so he'd kind of get naked on the shore like everyone, but he'd stay way at one end and keep his front hidden. But the girls and me...

Anyway, this upstream pool — The Twisty — is the one I always pick when I'm by myself — mostly because I can be a hundred percent positive that no one else is going to see, even by chance. It's just too deep in the woods. ...Well, 'deep' really doesn't mean anything. What I mean is that there are ways that people might be in the woods, and ways they might go through them, and this pool isn't anywhere people besides us would go, and it's not along any way that people might choose to get anywhere. It's not like anyone ever saw us skinny dipping at Big Bend or The Logs — and we never skinny dip at The Falls — but we've seen people at those places before. Hardly ever, but I suppose it could happen.

Plus, The Twisty has this small meadow right next to it — really small; just big enough to maybe spread out three blankets. Or four. So when I get out of the water, if there's sun, it isn't completely blocked by the trees, so I can catch some rays easy. There's a hot sun today. So anyway, I get out of the water, stand in the meadow, take a deep breath, kind of put my head back and spread my arms and legs, and just stand there naked and soak in the sun for a minute.

It is NOT weird! I mean, if you think it's weird to like being naked in the woods, then you've never done it. It's that simple. At first, yeah, you get nervous maybe. Maybe it's better if you're by yourself then, or with a best friend who you know in a way that makes it easy — like if you were real little kids together, or had lots of sleepovers, or changed in a locker room with, or something like that. But once you do it, you feel so free.

"Free" is the word. It's like, imagine you're born in jail, so you're used to it — you've never known anything else. You feel sort of not perfect, but it's life, so... But then one day you get let out — you get freed. And you go out of the prison gates and, wow, there's the world, and you feel a feeling that you've never felt before. Never even dreamed of feeling, really. A brand new feeling — feeling free. Well, that's what naked in the woods feels like, so think about it.

So you don't have to go crazy or anything! I don't. ....Much. Usually, just swimming and a little time in the sun, and then, like now, clothes back on and back to normal me, which, today, means studying for a fucking geometry final — which, BTW, I will crush (I hope). But I like it, and if I have some time and it's nice out, once in awhile I just take a walk to one of my favorite spots and I get... naked.

Of course, that's just me. Track, Dara, and Celeste don't do it by themselves. I don't think Kara does, but maybe she would. Archie? No way. ...I think. Just me. So if you'd never do it, you're probably like almost everybody, which is normal.

Oh, but that's not why this story starts here. See, school is almost out, and something is going to be different about this summer for me and my woods friends. I'm sure of it, because... Well, because we were sitting around a couple of weeks ago. It was Archie's 16th birthday. He's the youngest of the six of us. We all have early year birthdays — Kara, Celeste and me all have birthdays in the second half of January. Anyway, we got into telling stories we'd heard about these older kids. I told about this kid, Barry, who was drunk and fell and broke his foot. That reminded Kara about this senior she knew who was pregnant, and who was on crutches because of a broken ankle. Archie told one about a friend of his big brother who was growing pot plants, and Kara said that she heard that Gemma Stockard from our class got so drunk at a party that she puked all over herself, and then she passed out in her neighbor's front yard. There were a couple other stories, but then we all sort of went quiet, and I think we were all realizing that those weren't stories about older kids anymore. They were stories about... well, about us. Our friends at our school in our world. I sort of felt excited — I think everyone did.

And then, out of nowhere, Track says, "It's going to be a great summer," and, I swear to god, I think all of us were thinking the exact same thing. That's the way it is for the six of us. Together. In the woods.