With the apparent crisis of Carol's impending arrest averted for reasons neither she nor Henrietta could fathom, the three women settled snugly into their booth each with their respective cups of coffee to nurse. However, the young naked blonde, who called herself Maisie, insisted that her fellow nudist, Carol, sit with her "just in case."
"You said something about Zenrists earlier," said Henrietta as she took a sip of her cappuccino. "What is that supposed to be?"
"Hmm, it's hard to describe what we are in a few words," said Maisie, "but I guess you could say we're a religious order. The Lovers of Zenriah we call ourselves."
Henrietta quirked an eyebrow. "Lovers of Zenriah?"
"Yes. Lovers of Zenriah," Maisie said before pausing a moment to pensively gaze at her breast and stroke the tattoo on it very delicately, like how one would expect a woman to behave toward a dearly loved one. "The goddess, Zenriah, is our creator and our protectress. She gave us our existence, our lives, and our purpose. In return, we devote our very beings to Her."
"Goddess? Zenriah? I've never heard of Her," Carol mused aloud.
"Really? I find that hard to believe, what with you walking around in the nude like that. A lot of women think that just because we do it, then they can too."
"It was my idea," said Henrietta. "I suggested that she come here naked. Carol here, she's a nudist you see. Loves to run around naked. Says she would do it all the time if she could!"
"Tell the neighborhood, why don't you?" Carol groused before taking a deep sip of her iced coffee.
"Really? Is that so?" said Maisie, shooting Carol a long and very ponderous look.
"Back up a minute," said Carol. "When you said 'we do it,' what exactly did you mean? Did you mean to say that you...Zenrists, you walk around...naked?"
"Indeed, we do," said Maisie. "One of our core tenets is that we must live every moment of our lives nude. Wearing clothes is, you could say, against our religion."
Carol was thankful she wasn't drinking her coffee when the Zenrist girl said that, because if she had, she would have most definitely sprayed it out her mouth and likely all over Henrietta's face. "Really?"
"Mm-hmm."
"So
that's
why I saw some women walking around here naked the other day!" said Henri. "Could they have been Zenrists like you?"
Maisie nodded her head. "Most definitely they were. We do have a pretty sizeable presence in this town."
"But wait, if Zenrists run around naked, why can't anyone else?" said Carol.
Maisie shrugged. "It's just the way things are. The court ruled that since we are naked for spiritual reasons, our nudity is protected under freedom of religion. So we Zenrists have the right to be nude in public. Us and only us. Well, maybe Digambara monks could too, but good luck finding one of them in this country."
"I see," said Carol. "So that's why that cop had an issue with me. But wait...how did she know I wasn't one of you? And for that matter, how could anyone tell a Zenrist from a regular naked person? If someone's just walking down the street flaunting her stuff, she could just be a random flasher for all anyone knows?"
Maisie smirked. "Like you?"
"Yeah, like me...heeeey!"
Maisie giggled at Carol while the latter shot her an indignant glare. "Well, Flashy, I'll give you a hint as to how it works. What happened when you first walked in here?"
"I...nearly bumped into a cop?"
"Yes, and then...?"
"I nearly got arrested."
"Nope. Think back; did she raise a fuss when she first saw you?"
"Hmmm...no. She didn't."
"She just seemed to look you over," said Henrietta. "And then walked past you. Behind you."
"Yeah, then that's when she said I couldn't walk around like this. It was pretty odd. But that still doesn't explain anything. How could she tell I wasn't the real deal?"
"Because she was checking you out. Not that way exactly, or maybe it was that way, I don't know for sure," said Maisie. "But no, she was checking to make sure you had the proper...identification. Something on your person that would prove you were indeed one of us, and naked for religious and perfectly legal reasons. And when she saw that you didn't, that was when she realized something was up with you."
"Identification? On my person?" Carol looked down at her person in confusion. Her very naked person, with two large breasts hovering neatly over the table. "What could possibly be used to identify me as..."
Two large breasts. Large breasts. Breasts. Something clicked in Carol's head. She turned her head away from her breasts and stared at her fellow nudist's much smaller ones. Or more accurately, she stared at the distinguishing mark on her left breast. "It's that tattoo, isn't it? That's what marks you as a Zenrist."
"Bingo! Here's your prize," Maisie cheered, and she leaned forward to give Carol a playful kiss on the lips. Carol stiffened in surprise at the sudden display of intimacy, but made no effort to resist it. "This mark is our Sigil. To us, it represents all that we stand for and all that is sacred to us. But for everyone else, it lets them know that we are women of the Goddess. That we are doing absolutely nothing indecent or illegal, but living by the principles by which we stand."
"Yes, now that I think about it, I do recall seeing that symbol on at least one of the girls when I was here last week," said Henrietta. "I didn't really think much of it at the time, though, or realized how significant it was. A lot of people get weird tattoos after all."
"You sure would have saved your friend a lot of trouble if you had," said Maisie. "I don't for a second believe she's doing anything wrong by being nude, but the law's the law. If I wasn't here, she'd be in a lot of trouble right now."
Henrietta looked to the side sheepishly. "Yeah, I really should have. I honestly wanted to have a more thorough conversation with those naked girls to see what they were all about, but both they and I were strapped for time, and we only had a couple of minutes to chat. I can't even recall if they even said the word 'Zenrist.'"
"But wait, there's still something that doesn't make sense," said Carol. "The second you showed up, the cop relented and walked away. What was that all about?"