The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
There are two nudist beaches in our district. Both are fairly difficult to get at, very stony and were not popular before they were designated as nudist. By tacit agreement and custom the smaller one was for women only and the slightly larger one was for both sexes.
The beaches had been in use as nudist beaches for about ten years when one of the local paper printed a letter from a withheld address complaining that the writer, while walking with her grandchildren on the cliffs, had seen nude women kissing on the beach. The writer said that she was ashamed and wanted the local council to "do something about this offence to public decency".
Next week there had been a flood of letters to "The Editor" both for and against. Most ignored the fact that only a very small part of the beach was visible from the cliffs and that the users of the beach had just stopped using the visible part.
However, the issue was in public so the Council decided that it would have to act. Two or three Councillors tabled a motion requesting that the "women's beach" should lose its nudist designation. We thought the issue would die down but rallied our supporters and started action just in case.
Both sexes of nudists gathered a petition of several thousand local electors supporting the current arrangement but the Councillors were on a moral crusade. By a large majority they recommended to the Executive that the nudist designation should be removed and that all nudists should use the unisex beach.
I called a crisis meeting at the beach ... where else? We couldn't be overheard; no one we didn't know was likely to risk gatecrashing. We knew every detail of the regulars' bodies.
Apart from the nudity the beach was a place where the women of the town could relax and let their hair down, emotionally as well as literally. We discarded and switched off our phones and bleepers or at least left them with our clothes. We didn't have to wear push-up bras, war paint or even have to pretend that we were years younger than our chronological ages. It was the place where we could be our unadorned ourselves. Naked, who cared that one of us was a lawyer, another a head teacher, and another a waitress?
Despite the complaint it wasn't a lesbian paradise. Most of us are straight, some are bi, and a few are lesbian but it didn't matter. We left that behind. I won't say that nobody made dates on the beach, but nobody did anything there. Apart from being in full view of the rest of us, the beach was too stony for any passionate clinches. We behaved almost as we would do if fully dressed. We hugged and kissed friends, air-kissed acquaintances and waved at those we vaguely knew.
I started the meeting by asking if anyone knew which of us might have been seen. The answer was simple. Mary had been swimming. As she came out of the water her sister Anne had met her and hugged her. Anne had been away at a conference for a few days and had returned that day. When she rang Mary, Mary's eldest son had told his aunt that Mary was at the women's beach. So Anne went to the beach.
But the implications for us were bad. If it became known that the women seen kissing were sisters, the prudes in the town would assume lesbian incest and the fat would really be in the fire.
We had only one chance left to stop the change. The Executive was just seven Councillors, all men. The whole Council had a nearly equal number of men and women but party politics and length of service had created a men-only Executive. If four of the Executive could be persuaded to vote against the change, the beach would remain as it was for at least a year. By that time the furore would have subsided and no one would be likely to raise the issue again.
When the Executive met, several of us, supported by some of the men, presented our case. We had photographs showing just how little of the beach was visible. We were willing to promise to stay off that part of the beach. We won a delay. The Executive wanted to visit the cliffs and the beach before making a decision.
On the day of the Executive's visit we were all fully dressed. We demonstrated exactly what could be and what could not be seen from the cliffs. We provided tea and cakes for the Councillors. We had many people lobbying on our behalf. We had the support of The Chamber of Commerce, The Residents' Association, The Masons, and any other organisation we thought could help. After the visit we thought we had won. The reports in the local papers were generally favourable. The next meeting of the Executive on Thursday evening would make the decision.
The only thing we didn't allow for was one church's minister. We had spoken to all the local churches, but that particular minister was away. He came back on Saturday. We forgot to contact him before Sunday morning. It was his turn to conduct the annual Civic Service, which celebrates the work of the community. In front of a congregation of all the Councillors, and all the great and good of the town, his sermon flayed nudism, nudists, particularly women nudists, and suggested that there were acts of flagrant immorality performed in public view on a daily basis. He promised Hell Fire and Damnation. It would have been a great sermon in the Nineteenth Century but not in the Twenty-first.
What could we do? A large section of the congregation walked out while he was in mid-flow, but you can't get up in church and contradict the preacher. It just isn't done.
Thursday morning the two local papers came out, each with banner headlines and several pages on the subject, quoting the minister at length with added comments from him and with interviews agreeing with him. We were disgusted. We were also condemned in public with no chance to redeem ourselves before the evening's meeting. I telephoned as many friends as I could. We met on our beach despite the light drizzle. It seemed to match our depressed mood.
"We will lose if they make the decision this evening." I said to nods from everyone there. "What do we do?"
"We make sure they don't make the decision this evening, Lisa," said Jan.
"How?" I asked.
"I think there are several ways," Jan said "We could stop the meeting taking place, we could make sure that the meeting doesn't have its quorum of at least four, or we could get the Executive to defer the decision, or to disqualify themselves from taking the decision."
I wasn't sure. Jan and I underestimate each other too often. We are lovers despite being happily married with children. We enjoy each other's bodies and find bliss on a double dildo and squeal for joy with a double vibrator. Our physical loving is so strong that we forget that both of us have brains. Every time I look at Jan I grow weak and sloppy with an insatiable warm urge between my legs. I do the same for her. It makes intelligent conversation difficult when all we want is to find the nearest double bed. I can easily understand how some men find it difficult to talk sensibly to a beautiful woman.
"Those alternatives sound possible, but how can we do any of them?" I asked, "If we stop the meeting or make it not quorate, they could just call the meeting for tomorrow morning."
"No, they can't," said Jan. "They have to give ten days notice of any meeting. If we stop them tonight, they can't meet again for at least eleven days counting the day the notices go up. So we would have time to contradict this week's newspaper reports."
"I've done something," said Mary.
We all looked at her. Mary was usually so quiet. We rarely noticed her presence on the beach. She wasn't shy. She just didn't say much unless someone spoke to her first.
"I've got an injunction issued against the minister and started a suit for libel." Mary continued.
"What!" Several of us said at once.
"I've got an injunction issued against the minister and started a suit for libel." She repeated.
We were stunned. We hadn't thought of using the law. We had even forgotten that Mary was a qualified and practising lawyer.
"It won't work in the long term," Mary said. "Generally a minister speaking from his pulpit is privileged but the remarks printed into today's papers aren't. But it could delay things tonight because we can argue that the matter is "sub judice" and the Executive can't make a decision until the case is heard. When and if it is heard we'll lose but it buys us time."
"Do the Executive know?" I asked.
