Dr. Penelope Stoddard stretched out her long body--her long arms and especially her long legs--under the transparent cover as she woke. It was a specially designed material: as she stretched and moved under it, it warmed up. It must have been just after seven, but her early-bird students were already entering the converted old theater. They simply loved being there as she got up and went through her morning ablutions.
It certainly helped that they all especially enjoyed the fact that she was always totally nude.
She stretched out her upper body and raised her arms above her head as she sat up. "Good morning early birds!"
"Good morning professor!" They all sounded so energetic and happy. Penelope knew that it was her naked state that energized them. She was a unique specimen to them--and she loved it!
She pushed off the cover and sat at the edge of her queen bed. As usual, her long, muscular legs were casually open; her deep pink openness visible through her thick mat of silvery hair pointed directly at her students.
"How is everyone doing this fine morning?"
The first solar rays were peeking through the window over her shower and toilet area. Both were behind glass on the sides but open in front.
"Fine, professor!" "Great, and you?"
Penelope made a show of shading her eyes and looking all around the old theater seats. "So: where is Cal with my breakfast?!"
That got a laugh as usual.
"It's early." "Don't worry." "You have time to shower."
The shower suggestion came from Ben, as always. He had never been a morning person... until he had learned that his fifty-three-year-old, not-unattractive female sociology professor was going permanude.
It was 2029, and Dr. Stoddard saw all the signs that the 2030's would be a time of a great sexual revolution--especially regarding acceptance of female nudity. Women's fashions were becoming more and more revealing, and major motion pictures were featuring big-name actresses quite literally baring it all.
Penelope saw women going totally nude in public in just a few years; what challenges would they face? Who would be in the vanguard, who would be among the first to dare to go bare?
She saw herself as that woman. And she also saw a golden research opportunity.
The trustees did not see it... until Penelope offered to pay for her permanude project by granting the college an endowment from her father's estate.
It had been quite a shock three years back: not just her father's unexpected death, but the discovery that that goofy inventor/entrepreneur--whose endearing creations used to be featured on late-night infomercials--had somehow amassed a fortune exceeding fifteen million dollars.
Stoddard only gave the college barely over a million... that, it seemed, was the minimum amount required to get their attention. Suddenly, they were "all in" on her plan to convert the old theatre into her permanude pod.
The theatre had been built in 1923. It had fallen into serious disuse by the time that the new, state-of-the-art theatre was unveiled in 2001. (Unremarkably, it's first public event was a screening of the Kubrick film.)
The old theatre building became nothing but a depository of excess junk. The theatre itself was only rarely used for classes.
Penelope wanted to change all that.
Dr. Stoddard sat with an architect. They walked through the building as he shook his head. Then, she told him what his budget would be.
They shook hands. "When do we start?" he asked.
Penelope was there every day during construction. She would appear at the top of the stairs between the seats and walk down to the stage. She would invariably be wearing flats and a sundress, as both were easy to slip off.
She would slip them off and step up on the stage, totally nude.
At first, the all-male contractor crew would stop, stare, leer and comment. But Dr. Stoddard would simply smile and stroll around--acting as if her nudity was natural. She would make a point to speak with each worker. She would ask what his specialty was; she would ask intelligent questions; she would compliment him and his work.
Eventually, the workers came to view her as their lucky charm who was showing off all of her charms, or as their untouchably naked touchstone. Penelope had to randomize the timing of her daily nude appearances as the men came to live for those precious moments spent with a statuesque, brilliant, and totally bare lady.
When the time finally came to not only unveil the good doctor's permanude pod--but also the good doctor--Penelope was stunned. All of the Board was there, as well as at least fifteen of her colleagues.
Once she was down at the bottom step of the theatre seats, she looked up the few steps to the converted stage--her new, nude home for at least the next three and a half months.
She slipped off her flip-flops, then she shrugged her body out of her sundress. Totally nude, she pulled the very last garment that she would wear for a long, long time off her bare feet and handed it to Dean Charles.
"Hold on to this for me."
"I will!" The Dean's voice was unexpectedly choked with emotion.
And that got Penelope started.
She climbed the three stairs to the stage. She turned around.
Dr. Penelope Anne Stoddard, possessor of a dual Masters and a PhD; author of three acclaimed books on female nudity and female sexuality...
"The Female Nude: In History and in the Now."
"From Ishtar to Aphrodite: Female Goddesses as an Early Expression of Female Sexuality."
"The Shock of the Clitoris: The Pleasure and the Power of a Nub of Flesh."
...stood on that stage, head down, blushing down to her heaving breasts, tears running down her cheeks.
Somehow, in her goal of becoming the nude female equivalent of Neil Armstrong, Penelope had glossed over the fact that she was very female in every way. She was--occasionally--a whirling mass or more a whirling mess of swirling emotions.
As her audience applauded and cheered her bravery, she--at that moment--did not feel very brave at all.
Dr. Penelope Ann Stoddard felt like a very shy, very scared girl; a girl who had gotten in way over her head.
Dr. Stoddard smiled and shook her head in the present as she headed--stage left--to her very open bathroom area. The shower was right there, with only a wall of glass between the theatre seats, and another glass wall between her toilet area.