1
"You coming with us?" his mother asked him innocently.
"How long you going for?"
"Four weeks," she smiled, "your father's been given some time off after winning that contract for his company."
"Where to?" he asked.
"How does France sound?" his father beamed.
"France?" Ben's eyes widened in surprise. Though healthily into his twenties, his family was not wealthy at all: his father's hard-earned salary had gone towards Ben's education, so they had never had the money to take Ben abroad. He had never even been out of the country. "Really?" he asked, truly thrilled.
"Yeah. I got given a bonus," his father said. "So we can all go abroad this year."
That all seemed very well, and for a couple of days, Ben was quietly excited about going to a foreign country for the first time ever. That was until shortly before his mother went out to work when she handed him the brochure of where they were going. He didn't look at it immediately she gave it to him, so he when he did get round to looking at it, neither of his parents were home for him to ask any questions.
At the top of the front page was the name of the place his parents had booked for the vacation:
Sunshine Nudist Colony
.
"Nudist colony?" he said aloud, though there was nobody to hear him.
His first reaction was of complete surprise: since when had his parents been nudists? He knew they often went for weekend breaks all over the country while he had been at school and college, but nudism? They'd said nothing about that. His second reaction was of complete and unabashed horror. He was going to have to be naked for four weeks in front of all kinds of strange people.
He yelled in absolute terror - not that anyone could hear him, of course - and dropped the brochure. For a long while, he just wandered around the empty house in a complete daze.
He was going to have to take off all his clothes and walk around without anything to hide his modesty whatsoever! It was like that dream he had sometimes where he dived into the school swimming pool and lost his trunks, having to get out of the water in front of everybody in the buff. But this would be reality, and it wouldn't be running naked into the changing room, it would be four weeks of vulnerability.
What was he going to do? He could just tell his parents he had plans, that he couldn't go. But his father had already paid for the vacation, his father had already shelled out for his place. He couldn't just waste all that hard-earned money now, could he? He'd just have to deal with it.
But how could he deal with it? Well, he could try and stay indoors, away from anyone else, but four weeks in a virtual prison might be worse than four weeks of sheer nude embarrassment.
He went upstairs, feeling more than a little light-headed, and went to the mirror in his bedroom. What would all those strangers think of him when he took off all his clothes? He was going to be so embarrassed. How was it they said you should deal with embarrassment? Imagine that everyone who is watching you is naked. But what if they already were naked? Hmm...if everyone else was naked as well, perhaps it wouldn't be so embarrassing.
In front of the mirror, Ben stripped off his clothes and examined his body. If everyone else was naked, then he wouldn't be the focus for merriment in the way that he had been in those bad dreams. And since he had a fairly ordinary-looking body - as far as he knew, anyhow - people in a nudist colony probably wouldn't stare at him. He had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of: the slumbering snake sitting astride that soft patch of brown hair was closer to python than worm, nothing to make him feel small when exposed. But exposure itself: that was the big thing. How would he react to all those naked people with nothing to hide himself with? What if it grew?
That, fundamentally, was the problem.
Without bothering to put on any clothes, he went back downstairs. It felt strange to be naked anywhere other than in the privacy of his own room. The breeze around his exposed genitals, the feeling of unrestricted exposure, the lack of anything whatsoever to protect his vulnerable skin.
He went back to the brochure: the Sunshine Nudist Colony. It was an inevitable reality of his near future. The cover displayed a number of smiling, happy, nude people. Most of the people were fairly ordinary looking. Most of them were the kind of people you would hope would never dream of going nude in public: bellies drooped here, buttocks drooped there, breasts hung knee-length and hair just sprouted without rhyme or reason.
But as he flicked through the pages, there were girls around his own age here and there. Girls who really wouldn't have been out of place at his own college. Girls with slender, fit young bodies, perky, supple breasts with tender pink nipples and pussies with only carefully trimmed triangles or tufts of soft hair.
A few pages into the glossy brochure, Ben's cock was as hard as granite, pointing straight up from where he sat on the couch. Damn it, it wasn't as though he was a complete virgin - he'd had some experiences - but he'd never seen so many girls his age without any clothes on. And these were European girls: their tans were as perfect as their curves. Those kind of looks were rare in the females he knew from his own social circle.
How was he going to survive at such a place?
2
Ben's parents were clearly not fazed by the whole nudism thing: they were quietly looking forward to the vacation, not at all worried by the nakedness as Ben himself was. They obviously done it before many times in the past while Ben had been away, so they were used to the whole idea of public exposure.
The next few days for Ben were awful: butterflies of nervousness fluttering inside his stomach non-stop, restlessness burgeoning into irregular sleeping patterns. He had those dreams again, only this time the people laughing at him as he left the swimming pool without any trunks were all nude European girls giggling about his erection rather than his nudity.
Time was supposed to pass more slowly when you're having a miserable experience, but Ben was miserable and time seemed to speed up. Seemingly before he knew it, the day had arrived, and he had to help his parents pack the car full of vacation equipment - but he noticed that they weren't packing clothes. It was true, then. They hadn't been joking.
"You've been acting very quiet," his mother said as they ate their last meal at home before the long drive.
"I've never been to a nudist colony before," he answered honestly. Hell, what else was he going to do at this point?
"Oh, you'll be all right," she said, "the kinds of people that do it are generally very nice."
"You might find some friends your own age," his father smiled reassuringly.
"I doubt it," he said gloomily.
"Nonsense, there'll be lots of young people there - you'll find your feet in no time."
"I'll be so embarrassed."
"No you won't," his mother said, "after a few days, you'll get used to it and then everything'll be right as rain."
"It's just a lifestyle choice," his father added, "everyone there will be the same, you won't stick out. No one will stare at you, Ben, because you won't be any different."
