Hammersmith 05: Day Three

This is a continuation of the Hammersmith story. I'm continuing to put it under E/V for now, as one of the principle drivers remains Ian's anxiety about his public nudity. Arguably, it could be included under Group Sex at this point, although we're building a polycule, not holding an orgy.

Yet.

Reminder, while some of the characters talk about their families and their children, all characters appearing on stage are of legal consent age or older, which in the USA is 18.

I woke up feeling more refreshed? Alive? It took me until the kitchenette to realize. I'd been nude long enough, my skin was waking up.

This was good news and bad news. Skin is the body's largest sensory organ, responsible for the sense of touch. When you wear clothing, your brain ignores the signals from the fabric-covered parts of your body, classifying the constant stimulation as noise. After a few days of continuous nudity, such as you get on a long weekend or full week stay at a resort, or by going full time, your brain starts monitoring the signals again, and you become aware of touch over your entire person.

This makes swimming a near orgasmic experience, especially in tropical ocean water. It also makes you aware of every stray breeze. Every time your leg brushes up against something on the bus or in a shop, you'll notice it. I was going to be much more aware of my nudity for a day or two, until my brain started filtering out the new noise like it does for other senses.

Mid week anxiety spike? I'd rather not, but my body insists. It really wants me to know about every square centimeter of skin that's hanging out in the wind.

How do these people do it? Nigel said a week. That's maybe about the point where attentional filtering ought to kick in, assuming you have enough attentional filtering to start with. I'm told that for folks further along the neurodivergent spectrum, it can take longer, and some never escape it.

I really didn't need a sense of faz, of being so aware of changes in air pressure I can sense movement around me. I do not need to feel the movements of the people around me all over. Please no.

Brooding on this got me through coffee and a microwaved British idea of an American breakfast item. The less said about it the better. We really needed the cafe on the ground floor to open. I was a tower resident now. I should find out which bureaucrat to make noise at.

Tidied up, packed, ready to go in twenty minutes from waking up, and that had included at least five minutes of staring at the coffee press while my anxiety brewed.

=======

The bus ride involved introductions to Breck (short for Breckinridge but dear God that's so pretentious) Tyler, one of the clerks in Accounting and far too young a twink for me to be looking at, and Anastacio De La Rue, the data center tech, who reported to Pinny with a dotted line to me. (That's just as definite a No as a direct report, fyi.) He was a handsome Black man about my age, maybe a year or two younger, not manscaped but with reasonably tidy grooming, and a circumcised cock.

"I'm usually on the next run," he told me, "but the kids have the day off from school. They're in the tower daycare, and I'm on the earlier bus." He had two children, Meredith, age 8, and Demetrius, age 7, who he was raising as a single parent. I saw the pain in his eyes and did not ask what had happened to his spouse.

Having turned away to avoid an awkward moment, my thoughts drifted, and in that moment I finally realized what the weird thing was that had been bugging me the past three days. Names.

The Hammersmith people were all on a first name basis. With me coming from American business culture, I hadn't noticed, Americans are known globally for informality. Of course my direct reports in Manhattan called me Ian.

But this was Britain. European formality should attach. Yes, we'd addressed the clerk as Miss Litwin, and the other village and parish names I'd heard had been surnames with gendered honorifics, but within the firm, only Mr. Hammersmith appeared to get the title.

I was still thinking about this when the bus dropped us at the office, which kept me from noticing the textiles also on the pavement. Pinny walked up beside me just as I reached the door, so I held it for her.

"Thank you, and good morning, Ian," she said as she went in.

I followed her. "Pinny," I addressed her in lieu of a return greeting. "Raechel, Allison," I added with a nod, taking in the two women at the reception desk. "Something I've noticed."

Pinny stopped, and we stepped aside to let the others card through while we had our conversation.

"Oh?" she said, and suddenly I had her entire attention. She continued to find ways to be disconcerting.

"The Hammersmith people are all very informal," I said, "and on a first name basis, while the textile community around us are all British formal and surnames with gendered honorifics."

Raechel laughed, and answered instead of Pinny.

"European naturist culture," she explained. "The formality gets shed with the clothing. And you've seen Mr. Hammersmith." She leaned into the verb, making it clear that "beheld" might have been more appropriate.

"Ohh, yes." I leaned into my response to let her know that I had in fact seen the firm's resident sex god. My cock twitched to give her a clue of its own.

"Speaking of being seen, nice new decoration there," Raechel said to Pinny, putting a hand up to her own neck.

Pinny smiled, and touched the hickey I'd left. "Oh, yes, Ian was very enthusiastic," she replied. "You should give him a try."

Um.

Raechel wrinkled up her nose when she smiled and said, "Already did, honey."

Pinny looked over at me. I had a moment of feeling horribly awkward, really not quite sure about this.

And then Pinny asked, "Well. You have been rather busy, haven't you?" in an admiring tone.

Okay. This is way past informality here.

But then Pinny said, "Get the tension resolved, that's what I always say. Got an early, sorry, toodles!" And she carded through the door and hurried up the stairs.

I followed Raechel through the other door to the downstairs canteen, following her "cuppa?" suggestion in the wake of Pinny's departure.

"Having difficulty with the cultural shift?" she asked as I fixed up a cup of tea, milk, two sugars. Black coffee wasn't going to do it today.

"Is it showing?" I asked, glancing down at myself as if looking for a spot I'd missed.

She patted me on the shoulder, left her hand there, comforting, not sexual.

"I went to the States once, a few years ago under a more accepting administration." She shuddered. "I'm so very sorry, and you've got a lot of adjustment to do, but I think you'll feel better once you've adapted. We just like having everything out in the open, you know? Not just our bodies, but our relationships and the entire jumbled mess of being human."

She glanced off back toward Reception, then back to me.

"I went home with Pinny once," she said, "and won't again. She's way too hetero, and does not know how to make love to a trans woman. The thing with Stafford?"

She shrugged. "I've known a few pups in the gay community before. If that's what turns them on, that's their thing and she's not going to piss on it. I won't pee on your tree if you won't pee on mine, you know."

Thus fortified, tea and shared experience and a few tips on the rules here, I felt a bit more ready to deal with Pinny upstairs.

"The sex was good," I told her when she flatly asked me how I felt about last night, "although Stafford was a surprise."

She gave me a cheeky grin. "Well, if I tell people about Stafford up front, if they don't already know, they don't usually understand, and it gets weird. It's better just to introduce people to him directly, and let opinions form on their own from the experience."

I remained a bit diffident on the subject, and said nothing.

"At any rate," she carried on, "we should definitely keep it down to no more than once a week, or people will start thinking we're primaries, and that would bring our sex life into the office."

"True," I responded, sounding rather Boolean about it.

"Shall we pencil in for eight days hence?" she asked. "That gets us past the weekend and well into next week."

I found myself once again disconcerted by how brisk and efficient she was with her sex life. It was like she couldn't step out of her professionalism even to fuck. Felt a little off putting. Having a firm date to get laid, on the other hand, does have its comforts.

"Sure," I said, and added "Pinny in the evening" to my calendar.

When in Rome?

=======

While a great deal happened between there and the evening, the greater lot of it was routine work activities. I made considerable progress on my deliverables, and if that sounds boring, that's why I'm not going into details.

I did have two e-mails on login that weren't automated HR reminders to check my tax paperwork, maintenance notifications from Facilities, or vendor spam. I'd only had this e-mail three days. How the hell was I already getting vendor spam?

The first desirable e-mail was from Shota Pocoli, the CIO and my direct boss, in London. I'd never met her in person. Not surprisingly, the transatlantic interview was virtual, and something of a foregone conclusion given they'd already made an offer based on the strength of my CV. She asked if Accounting had sent me the budget number for hiring the cloud admin. I wrote back that they appeared to have, but the language had been unclear, and I appreciated her letting me know to go ahead and action the hiring. I attached the e-mail from Accounting, as you do.

Interviewing people for the cloud admin position ought to be amusing. "You'll need to already have your PN, or be willing to get one, and go full time. The interviewer will be nude."

The second was from James Molyneaux, the new convert who'd been singled out by name but not video on the town hall yesterday. Nice of them to not put him on the spot. He addressed me as Mr. McCormick, and asked if I'd mind if he stood me a pint at the pub tonight, as he'd like to talk with me about the similarity of our situation.

James seemed like a good person for me to have a pint with. That would get me into the pub for the first time, not with a large group of experienced naturists, but with one other guy who was going through a similar experience to mine. Being on equal footing in terms of comfort level and experience might actually be calming, and help me get through the evening.

I told him that "Ian" was fine. I'm American, at least until the paperwork gets done, and Hammersmith runs by European naturist rules, or so I'm told, and both allow informality. Would 5:30 be good for him?

I got back a confirmation from Shota to go ahead and hire a cloud admin for Phase 3, and to put onboarding out six weeks if at all possible. She noted that if there was anything I needed for the process, to reach out to Raechel, who, in her words, had singlehandedly hired most of the Trewinney staff already.

A reply from James came in just moments after that, asking if 6 was fine. I said sure, that would leave me time to eat dinner before drinking. My stomach was still on an American schedule and had not adjusted to the four mealtimes of the British day.

And with that, the interesting bit was done, and I spent several hours doing what I was being paid to do.

=======

I hadn't thought it out entirely. Going down the pub straight from work and eating there meant going in by myself. If I went to the chip shop, I could use the takeaway window and not have to go in. Walking into a textile-owned shop nude still felt all sorts of weird and wrong.

Thankfully, getting a paper cone of fish and chips and strolling down the one block to the roundabout with it turned out to be nearly anticlimactic. The only thing that happened was me being startled by a beep-beep behind me, and Nigel zipping past on a Vespa with a young woman I didn't recognize riding behind him. They both waved as they went by. I waved a chip at them. Helmets seemed somehow superfluous when you were riding nude and risking an all over road rash, but the law was the law and was sometimes peculiar.

The Saddlery had not functioned as an ostler's for several generations, I was pretty certain. The only actual saddle in the pub was the one up on the top shelf above the expensive booze, and it was in dire need of a dusting. The trestle tables, however, probably dated from the building's days as a road house. One of the carvings in the tabletop where I sat was dated 1732. Talk about perspective. The bar had graffiti older than the country I came from.

Walking in wearing nothing but a pair of sandals had been anxiety producing, but all that happened was a few Hammersmith people at one of the big tables waved to me. I gave them a deferring wave back, and took a seat at a vacant table off to the side. They were the only people in the pub nude other than me, but given it was early, there weren't a lot of textiles either.

James arrived just a few minutes later., a short, stocky, typical Cornishman, not a lot of body hair to start with, no manscaping but tidied up to be presentable, and an uncircumcised cock. Put him in a lineup with the local footie team and you wouldn't be able to pick him out.

I stood. We shook hands, confirmed our names, did the usual social rituals. He went to the bar and came back a minute later with two pints of the local bitter.

We bantered for a few moments as new acquaintances will do, before he got down to the reason for the evening.

"I've sought you out," he said, "as someone being in about the same situation I am - going through your first week or so as a full time naturist."

"It's been an experience, yes," I said, taking a sip of a beer I felt I could easily get used to. "I've been a naturist for ten years, give or take, but the States don't allow this." I waved a hand at my nudity. "All my experience has been at campgrounds and resorts and such. Being here, like this?" I shrugged.

He nodded, took a sip of his own beer, put the glass down.

"I'm not the nudist in m' family," he said. "That would be m' twin daughters, who got in wi' Jelly Otter an' started askin' questions at home. Why do we have t' wear clothes? There's no law that says we have to. They wanted to go over to th' Otter's flat at th' residential tower after school, but were barred entry without parental permission due to the nudity requirement." He shook his head ruefully at the awkward memory.

"That's Emelynne Otter, right?" I asked. "She goes by Jelly, like on the TV show?"

James rolled his eyes. "Both of 'em, insist on bein' called Jelly an' Peanut. Gilbert got into a scrap at school t'other day over refusin' to sign his real name on his paper. Got told he wouldn't get credit for it if he didn't. Kervyn got a call about it at work. He was tense about it all day."

That would explain the conversation on the bus.

"The whole school has been tense," he went on, fortifying himself with a sip of beer. I matched him, to be polite. "Of course there was a suit brought in court when the Hammersmith people first arrived, an' the school had to be integrated. I mean, it wasn't goin' to take that much. Th' building's only got two classrooms. There was only fourteen children attendin' at that point. Th' parish only kept th' school open cos the commute to Mevagissey was too long."

"Lawsuit?" I prompted him when he seemed to have lost his point.

"Oh, aye. The firm won, of course. Th' details are complicated, as it involves children, and there are special circumstances for naturism for those who are under age, always have been to allow the family resorts. What it come down to, of course, was the 'deeply held beliefs' clause of th' PN cert. That put raisin' your children as naturists, teachin' them your beliefs, in the same channel as raising 'em Anglican. There was a great deal of shoutin' and general outrage, but the argument stood. Suffice to say th' school in town remained integrated, with naturist and textile children attendin' side by side. A few families moved away."

James looked away, out where a window ought to have been at that moment. "The company offered 'em relocation assistance, but not all accepted."

He took a long pull at his beer. I followed, toasting "to absent friends", and picked up the conversation.

"The same thing happened with the residential tower, from what I understand," I said. "Although there two people got their cert, and here you and your family have got yours, so there's been some adaptation."

"Aye," he said, "but I wonder when people will start moving in, other than your lot. Our lot now, I suppose."

He sighed. "So our daughters started arguin' me and the missus round into thinking about it. Well, one night she says, t' me, not where the girls can hear, I talked with th' parish board, she says, an' they said that th' harbormaster ain't a uniformed position. As long as I carry my ID and use th' proper safety gear around th' water, they don't give a toss what I wear, or don't."

Allison stopped by our table just then.

"Good night, Ian, good night, James."

"Making an early night of it?" I asked.

She laughed. "I'm such a lightweight to start with, and we all have to be in tomorrow, so right, one pint and we're out. Toodles!" And she bounced out with the rest of her friends.

James watched them go, shook his head. "They make it look so easy, ass an' tits out like they haven't a care in th' world."

I shrugged. "If it wasn't for the whole in-public thing, I'd be a lot more carefree." More beer seemed like a good idea.

James nodded. "That's been a thing. Ohhh, that has been a thing." He took a pull at his beer, checked it, found it down by more than half.

"So th' next day, I went in to Hammersmith. I told 'em, I'm a machinist. I been out of work near a year now. You say you're hirin' local for th' factory. If I come in with a PN cert, would that make a difference? And Raechel says yes, actually, this early in th' game, it would."

That took another pull at his pint. I gave him a moment. He had more story left.

"So I come back from Hammersmith, an' I told my girls, I hope you're ready to see your parents naked. They rolled their eyes an' told me it was only weird if I made it weird."

I nodded. "In the USA, most of the resorts and campgrounds are family, and don't allow unaccompanied men. I've met fourth and fifth generation naturists, people whose grandparents were raised in the culture."

He gave a sigh, and a slow nod of acknowledgment. "So we went as a family th' next day, an' got our certs. Walkin' out of th' house naked that morning was one of th' biggest things I've ever done in me life, on th' level of gettin married or bein' told it was gonna be twins. We walked into th' clerk's office, got our certs, an' went over to Hammersmith, where th' wife an' girls waited while I did th' hiring paperwork. Then we got fish an' chips an' went down to th' upwind end of th' pier for an outdoor dinner. Made a whole family outin' of it. Weird as hell but it worked, an' it was one of th' best days we'd had as a family in a long while. Da had a new job. Th' twins could go over to their friend's flat after school, Th' household budget just got such a relief from not havin' to buy clothes for teenage girls any more."

The table the Hammersmith people had been at now had two women in grease-stained long sleeve shirts and dungarees. As James took a pause, and I gave him a grin at his joke, they were joined by a third, with loud and effusive greetings.

"You got off lucky," I told him. "You just had to walk out of your house and down to the clerk's office. I had to walk through Gatwick."

"You didn't!" James was aghast. "They made you strip off in the airport?"