Ch. 11: The Journey to Brook
Of course the first thing to do was to read up as much about Brook as Alice could. It certainly seemed a pleasant place, full of woods, streams and valleys, but the most interesting aspect of the country was its liberal attitude towards sex and nudity. Kedi escorted Alice to the railway station and soon she was on her way.
She shared the compartment of the train with several other people: most of them very much older than her. In front of her, an elderly man was reading a newspaper, but Alice was not to be outdone. Blanche had lent her a copy of a Brook newspaper, a tabloid which she said would help her get an understanding of the district. It contained many pictures of naked people, but these were mostly just photographs accompanying articles about fairly dull things such as garden fetes, mayoral banquets, goat farming or whatever.
There were however certain pictures that could only have been inserted for titillation, and these featured not just nudity but full sex. The captions were of a fairly odd nature saying things like "Geraldine's nipples are even harder now that there's something hard up her cunt", "John's certainly come to a fortune now!", "Mummy never told her about using the back entrance" and "How many pricks can you get inside you?" This coyness was in curious contrast to the explicit photographs of all sorts of sexual behaviour.
As the train traveled along, the passengers disembarked at the stations on the way, and soon Alice was in the compartment by herself. She occupied her time looking out of the window at the countryside passing by and leafing through her newspaper. All at once she started as a loud sound came from outside at a station where the train had stopped.
"That certainly surprised you!" commented a little voice. Alice looked back at the source of the sound, which was a boy about the same age as Alice. He actually looked young for his age, but Alice could see that he wasn't too young, by virtue of the fact that he was wearing no clothes. This shocked Alice a little too: a fact that must have been noticed by the boy as he crossed his legs.
"Are we in Brook already?" Alice asked - as this seemed an appropriate response to the boy's nakedness.
"No, not quite," the boy answered smiling, "but there aren't any more stops till we get there."
"And that's why ..."
"I just hate wearing clothes!" the boy replied. "But it's so necessary when you're away from home. Clothes are so uncomfortable. Don't you agree?"
"Well ..." responded Alice who didn't really have an opinion on the subject.
"When I'm away from Brook, I only wear clothes when I go out and about. The rest of the time, the most I ever wear are shoes."
"Is everyone like you in Brook?" wondered Alice.
"No, of course not," the boy responded. "Many people wear clothes."
However, Alice couldn't be at all sure of this as the train continued on its journey and all the people who passed by the compartment seemed equally unclothed. And she could tell that she was in Brook when she saw through the window that everyone outside was also naked. After a while, Alice gave in to the prevailing custom and shyly took off all her clothes and packed them neatly into her suitcase.
"I'm glad you've seen reason," commented the boy, smiling at Alice. "It's so much better without textile constraint, isn't it?"