Hammersmith 03: Day One

This is a continuation of the Hammersmith story, and assumes you've read the previous installments.

I'm not the sort to wake up disoriented. The only times I've awakened not knowing exactly where I was and how I'd gotten there were after a couple of massive overindulgences shortly after I could drink legally. It only took two epic hangovers to convince me that I needed to dial that back.

So there was no reaching for a bathrobe that wasn't there, or a moment of wondering what resort or campground I was at. I sat up on the edge of the cheap bed that I was pretty sure had a Swedish nickname, and by the time my feet hit the floor, I'd already reviewed the previous day and the fact that I was about to report for work nude.

Yeah, coffee was going to be a necessity. I'm one of those paradoxical reaction people. I don't get anxiety, I get focus. No, I haven't been tested for ADHD, but I've always assumed I was on the spectrum. I slipped on the flip-flops that would be the extent of my attire for the day, and crossed the room from the bed side of the efficiency flat to the utility side.

First, the loo, a one piece plastic cubicle installed at the hallway end of the utility section, forming an entryway with the closet on the other side. A glance at the fittings, and the fact that there was a squeegee in a wall-mounted clip by the toilet, confirmed Danish origins for this bit. That, and when I flushed the toilet, it nearly yanked the air from the room and still used less than a liter.

The kitchenette, which included a combination washer and dryer where an American apartment would have had a dishwasher, was prestocked with a few basic necessities, among which, thankfully, coffee, a manual grinder, and a French press. Gevalia, the world's most expensive stale beans. It would have to do for now. I was pretty sure the office would have some kind of beverage service, or at least a fund can to pay for tea, sugar, and hopefully decent coffee. While the electric kettle heated, I ground a handful of beans and threw them into the French press. The kettle clicked off. I reminded myself that Britain ran on 220 current and things would be a little zippier yes, and filled the French press.

While the grounds were steeping, I threw a few things into my messenger bag to join my laptop, including two spare sitting towels. I was in a new country, drinking the local water and eating the local food. There may be gastric issues.

The intercom buzzed. I went over to the wall panel by the door, and pushed the Talk button.

"Hello?"

"Nigel here," came a far too cheery voice for this hour. "Ready to go?"

Well, he did say he'd be round to knock me up at eight. Which, even though I knew the British slang involved, still gave me a bit of a start.

I pushed down the plunger on the French press, filled my Pitney-Bowes logo thermal mug (no way I was leaving that behind, it's a collectors item), and went back to the panel.

"On my way down now," I told him, and made a quick survey.

Messenger bag with documentation, laptop, towels, bottled water, leftover airline pretzels in case I needed a carbo boost, and the temporary access card that was my house key and tower access pass in one. Lights all off, kettle unplugged as the flat didn't have switchable outlets, French press in the sink and I'd deal with it later. Sandals, wristwatch, and nothing else between me and the world.

The residential tower had in fact been a safe zone, an enclosed place where nudity was the rule and there was no risk of negative reaction. I was leaving the cocoon, though, and about to journey through the streets of a coastal village in Cornwall to an office building in the small patch that they called downtown.

Deep breath. And out the door onto the mezzanine walkway, looking out over the building's atrium. The residential tower was a hollow square, originally with a courtyard open to the sky, but Hammersmith had put a glass roof over it and made it a climate controlled space as a first order of business. The lift was three doors down. The second one opened just as I passed.

"Good morning!" said a bright, cheerful, feminine voice, as its owner checked the door to be sure it latched, then turned round to speak to me, depriving me of the view of a truly magnificent ass.

My cock twitched, and I thought of rehashing a database table. The speaker was female, just a hair shorter than me, about ten years younger, trim, well toned, with a shaved mons and C-cup tits with perfect pink nipples that were way too damn close all of a sudden. I took a step back and a deep breath.

"Good morning," I managed in a quasi professional tone. "Not sure we've met?"

She giggled. Oh my God. Bright blue eyes, yes, focus on her eyes a minute here. Why am I so damn horny this morning? Anxiety will do that, my own voice replied from the back of my head. Not helpful.

"Aislinn Quinn," she said, putting a hand out. I shook it, gently, released it as quickly as was polite. "I'm the front desk receptionist, so you would have met me in just half a mo."

I turned round and pushed the lift button. Deep breath. This was a coworker and someone I was going to be seeing regularly, and someone I absolutely could not fool around with. HR would have a conniption over the power dynamic, and rightfully so. I really needed to find someone in this town that I didn't outrank, or I was going to pop off in the middle of the street.

Back round. Be polite. Focus on social ritual.

"Ian McCormick, but then you probably already knew that," I said.

She nodded. "Nigel's on the front desk calendar for this morning, to bring you round for orientation." She giggled again. How old was she really? "We've just got a leg up on things."

Then the elevator dinged, and I didn't explain the double entendre that was there in American English but not in British. I was however beginning to wonder if this was some kind of trial. How long could I manage proper naturist etiquette without having to excuse myself to go stroke one out?

Some people have this weird idea that people with dicks have conscious control over their erections. There's no voluntary musculature involved. Erection is an autonomic response to sexual arousal. There are physical ways of controlling erections, sure, but they generally involve really obvious hardware, or medications with nasty side effects. Trying to exert mental control over your sexual arousal level - well, let me just ask those of you with pussies, how well does that work for you?

Naturism is supposed to be about acceptance and celebration of the human body in its natural state. In a nude society, you're going to see people in various states of arousal, and that's just part of being mammals. If you can't accept that, especially if you try to shame someone for a physiological reaction that they have no control over, you're not living up to the spirit of naturism, and need to rethink your beliefs.

All that said, it's still considered poor etiquette to walk around with your cock hard.

Of course, the elevator was one of those glass ones. I had to be made to feel like I was on display rather than just taking the lift down in a naturist only building. Aislinn strolled in, the doors closed, and we held silence for the very brief trip down one floor. Apparently there'd already been complaints about there not being stairs for the one-story journey, so those able to climb the stairs could forego the electricity use. The only stairways the building had, though, were the fire exits, and there were issues about using them for regular traffic, not the least of which was, none of the fire stairs terminated in the atrium. They all let directly out of the building, for escape purposes.

And the elevator dinged, and I was able to escape it out into the atrium, where Nigel stood, speaking with an elderly woman leaning on a cane.

I'd met Gisele du Mont last night when Nigel brought me round to my new flat. She lived three doors up on the far side of the lift from me, and had been in the building when Hammersmith bought it. She'd decided that one was never too old to get one's PN cert, and had stayed when the building went naturist.

"Good morning, Gisele," I said, strolling up to them. "Nigel." I gave him a nod.

"Gut morning to you also," she replied, breaking out in a cheery grin. "You haf coffee, I see." She waved a gnarled hand at my thermo mug.

I shrugged. "Something that passes for it, anyway."

She harrumphed. "I keep telling this one," and now the hand, joints swollen from long term arthritis, pointed at Nigel, "that the company can afford to put a bistro in, so we can get a cappuccino in de morning and not haf to drink what we make for ourselves."

Nigel sighed. "And I keep telling you, ma'am, that we are having issues with the permits, and that you need to speak with the Board of Health about it. Getting requests from residents would help firm up our case."

"Bah!" She waved him off. "Talking to the bureaucrat is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. I did my work, you know." She waved a hand at the scar down her right flank, a nasty, livid one that stretched from nearly her waist halfway to her knee.

"You did," Nigel agreed, "and we'll keep trying to get the permits through and get you your cappuccino." Behind Gisele, Aislinn rolled her eyes, and got a bit of a frown from Nigel for it.

"But for now," Nigel went on, indicating me, "I need to get our new employee to the office and get him signed in proper. If you'll excuse me, please?"

Gisele shrugged. "Go, get your work done. I can find my own coffee if I must." She brought her cane round, and started her slow journey back to the lift, her right leg obviously bothering her fiercely this morning.

As we walked away, heading toward the front doors, Aislinn shook her head.

"Sorry," she said, mostly to Nigel, "I know, it's rude of me, but she's been fixated on the cafe getting opened for two weeks now."

Nigel shrugged. "Not like she has much else to do, really. We try to keep her social calendar busy, but she's old and can only do so much, and then she's stuck sitting around with her mind working and her body not so much."

"Has she tried crosswords?" I asked. Nigel snorted and Aislinn giggled, which seemed to be her default reaction.

Then we were at the doors, and walking out onto the pavement out front of the building, where the Hammersmith shuttle bus waited. We boarded, said hello to the driver, who was fully clothed but had the Hammersmith logo on his cap and shirt, and hello to the one other occupant, a dark-haired woman about my own age, with unshaven but neatly trimmed armpits and pubic hair, and well rounded tits and hips. She glanced up from her tablet long enough to respond to our hellos, then went back to something she apparently disagreed with. We laid our sitting towels down and took our seats, and the bus got moving.

Aislinn immediately pulled out her phone and spent the entire ride doomscrolling, not looking up until the bus braked at the office entrance.

"This is the early bus," Nigel explained to me. "The next run will be pretty much full. Aislinn and I are normally the first ones in of a morning, to put on the lights and the kettle."

The bus rolled out of the residential towers park, what little of it there was, and down an unmarked lane and a half asphalt road with more than a few potholes, some poorly repaired.

A wide pipe gate blocked a muddy pull off to the right. Across from it, a narrow gravel lane led up through a crumbling stone archway and on up the hill.

"Sheep crossing?" I asked.

Nigel gave a nod. "Right, there's a farmhouse up there, not a working farm any more. They theoretically let out as an AirBnB but they seem to rarely get a booking."

My turn to chuckle. "Maybe they're growing something they're not telling people about."

The dark-haired woman had looked up when I'd spoken. She cocked her head quizzically for a moment, then sat up a little straighter and put her tablet aside.

"You're the American," she told me.

I gave her a slow, nonplussed blink. "I suppose I have to be?" I asked.

She shook her head, annoyed at herself. "My apologies. I am Dr. Margarete Immerwahr, but please, call me Marga. You are the American. I am the German. We are the two foreigners brought in for this phase."

Right, comes the dawn, said that sarcastic voice in the back of my head. But hey, I'd just found someone else in the same situation I was in. They'd told me there were eighteen people being brought in for Phase 2, all but two from the UK. They'd gone abroad for technical talent.

"You'd be the materials chemist brought in to head up the research lab, then," I said. "Ian McCormick, data librarian. I'll be one of the two heads of IT locally, working with Pinella Brightmore, the system architect."

She made a bit of a face, but it was gone before I could really get definition on it, smoothed over and back to professionally neutral. I made a mental note of it anyway. If there was a problem with the system architect, I'd better know sooner than later. Right now, though, I had more immediate concerns.

"So how have you been adjusting to living in public?" I asked hopefully.

She shrugged. "It has been very easy for us, really." She gave me a sympathetic look. "I am German, and from the East. I have never worn a swimsuit in my life. Our children were so terrifically excited about never having to dress again."

I couldn't help it, my eyes flicked down, and yes, there was a tracery of stretch marks around her navel, faint, but I was looking for them.

"You have children?" I asked. I didn't, and the possibility I am ashamed to say had not occurred to me, that other people moving here might bring whole families.

"Oh, ja," she said. "My wife Hilda and I have two, Morri and Amelie. They attend the town school."

That's got to be fraught, I thought, but probably best to let that subject lie for now.

The country road emptied into a roundabout, and then we were rolling down a one lane street in town.

"This is Lansdown," Nigel said, pointing out the window. "One way south, so you'll get to see the harbor before we reach the roundabout and swing over to Ecter on the other side of Hocklinger, that's the high street down the middle."

"Three streets to the town?" I asked.

"There's a few more," Nigel said, "but they're outlying. Yes, downtown Trewinney is basically three streets and a few connecting alleys."

Then we rolled down a slight hill, the cliffs on the left fell away, and the harbor and the lower terrace of the town came into view. Four piers, only half the slips occupied, and some of the boats at dock looked in serious need of maintenance. One, a big fishing trawler at the end of the second pier, listed alarmingly, straining its tie-off lines.

I became aware that Nigel was watching my reaction.

"Hammersmith got the deal partly because the town was desperate," I told him.

He nodded, slowly, obviously a little uncomfortable.

"The economic incentives of our moving in were a significant factor," he admitted.

Then we swung through the roundabout, and were heading up another one-lane street. A stone rowhouse left over from Trewinney's days as a mining town took up the inland side. A few shops lined the right, and then a long building with big ventilators on the roof proclaimed itself the Yevanovich Bakery, established 1892.

"We're pretty sure Yevanovich wasn't the family's original name," Nigel commented as we drove past. "They showed up with enough money to buy the village bakery at a time when it was failing, and kept it going through the lean years, but they've dodged or refused every civic award ever offered, and won't make publicity appearances. Anything official goes through their solicitor."

Marga shrugged. "There were many Russian nobles who fled the country, who did not want to later be found, and buried their heritage for their own survival."

"Sometimes you have to make a clean break to get on with it," Nigel said, rather pointedly I thought, with a glance at me.

And then we were standing in front of a three story office building, maybe 1970s, had that sort of look, and getting out of the bus right on the pavement like any normal person.

Except all four of us were nude. On the street. With a couple of textiles going by on the far side.

Aislinn waved to them, traded good mornings shouted across the short distance, then busied herself with the keypad, unlocking the front door. We followed her in.

I was starting to believe that this was really happening, and that was even weirder than it being some kind of elaborate set-up.

"Raechel Tolliver is our head of HR," Nigel told me, as I followed him down the hall from reception. He pronounced it Ray-Shell. I made a mental note of it. It's important to pronounce people's names correctly. "She won't be in for a little bit, so let's get what we can done in the meantime."

That apparently started with getting my photo ID made. Which involved me standing with my toes on the strip of tape on the floor, in front of a blue cloth hanging on the wall, looking into the camera, and maintaining a calm expression despite being nude in front of a camera. In my workplace.

Nigel tutted over the photo. "I'd suggest to retake it," he said, then glanced up at me, "but you're not likely to look any less terrified, are you?"

I sighed. "I'm sorry, Nigel. I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around all of this. I think the phrase you use is at sixes and sevens?"

"Well, you look just fine from where I stand." The throaty purr underlying the sultry feminine voice gave me a twitch. I took the obligatory deep breath before turning to see who it was this time.

"Ian McCormick," said Nigel, "Raechel Tolliver."

Your first reaction on meeting the head of HR probably shouldn't be, "Oh, Hell yes," but here we were. Raechel was a stunningly beautiful Black woman with a natural hairstyle, a trans flag tattooed above her left firm C-cup breast, slim hips, and a girlcock accented by pubic hair shaved into the shape of a heart. My cock bounced up a bit, threatening to cause a situation.

She gave me a devastating smile, stepped round behind the counter, and busied herself at the desk. "Welcome to Hammersmith and Farrell," she said, giving it such a bedroom intonation that I realized, in my slow, dim, and socially inept way, that she was teasing me, having me on as the phrasing would go here.

"Glad to be here," I replied in my best overprofessional voice, and stepped forward so I could lean on the counter. "So, how much paperwork is there and how many hours will it take?"

She laughed. I could easily hear that laugh again. "Not as much as you might fear," she said, in a more normal office tone. "You've already done most of the onboarding by remote, over the last two weeks. Most important bit is to get your PN cert done, and that's over to the clerk's office, and they dont open" -- she glanced up at the wall clock -- "for another forty minutes, so let's do your identification verification. Got to keep the immigration office happy, you know."

"I'll leave you to it, then, shall I?" Nigel asked, and popped out without waiting for an answer.

We spent a few minutes doing boring, tedious paperwork. Then there were forms to do on the office computer, and one of them stopped Raechel.

"Hm." She glanced up from the screen to me. "You're the IT person. What does this mean?" She tapped the screen.

I walked around the end of the counter, and had a look at the error message. That put us hip to hip. Um.

"Network transient," I said, cleared the error, reloaded the page, dismissed another alert. "Just ignore it when it grumbles about leaving the page."

"Mm-hm." She leaned in closer, put a bit of effort into the form on screen, then slowly turned her head, the tip of her nose nearly brushing mine.