The next time I woke up it was daylight and Annie was preparing to leave the tent in last night's t-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans. I could hear other people stirring outside.
"What time is it, " I asked.
She came over and gave me a quick good-morning kiss before answering. "It's about six-thirty, Hon; breakfast will be ready in another hour. There's probably some coffee now though." With a little wave and a smile she disappeared out the door. I lay back, listening to the sounds of people moving around me and the quiet murmur of voices. It was odd to have the private and public spheres separated only by a thin sheet of nylon fabric.
Finally I rose and, like Annie, donned a pair of cut-offs and a t-shirt and ambled down to the dining tent. There were about fifteen people sitting around drinking coffee or tea and talking. Annie was busy making french toast so I got my own cup of coffee and sat on the outside of the circle and listened to the conversation. After about fifteen minutes Heather appeared and, after speaking to Annie for a couple of minutes, brought her cup of coffee over to sit beside me. She was wearing a long purple and black dress that was made out of a diaphanous, almost transparent, material. The fact that I could see the vague shapes of her large breasts shifting under the gauze and the shadow of her full pubic patch unnerved me. Somehow she seemed more naked than the nude women I'd seen yesterday. I was extremely aroused, especially after the fantasy session with Annie last night, but I didn't feel comfortable revealing this to Heather. However, adding to my distress, I had the distinct suspicion that Heather was well aware of my turmoil and was intentionally playing on my arousal. And succeeding. Even though we managed to maintain a mangled conversation our words conveyed the least of our communication.
At one point Annie came over and brought Heather and me each a plate piled with scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and french toast. As she set the plates in front of us I happened to catch the rather enigmatic glance that passed between them.
"You've got a very sweet husband, " Heather said, placing her hand on my bare thigh and giving it a squeeze.
I felt flushed and flustered. I had an almost full erection that, because I'd been unable to adjust it, had snaked down the leg of my cut-offs and was threatening to stick its head out the bottom. I looked at Annie with a pleading expression. My dear wife just giggled and headed back to the stove.
I tried to focus my attention on eating but it was hard to concentrate with Heather's nearly naked body so close by. I couldn't help but wonder what she'd look like without the dress on, what the true extent of her hairiness was. Annie had talked about Heather's "hairy cunt" last night but I didn't know if she was speaking of something she'd seen or was just trying to excite me. I was hoping I'd get the chance to see for myself sometime during the weekend.
Even while I was entertaining these thoughts, and we ate, Heather and I continued to talk. As she stopped being so flirtatious and the conversation deepened I began to feel more at ease. I asked her about her involvement with the Wylde Wymyn and what it meant to her and, as she answered my questions, I realized that what I'd taken to be a kind of joke was actually a disciplined search for life-sustaining values. We finished eating and kept talking.
"What is the meaning of not shaving your legs and armpits?" I asked. She gave me a brief, but knowing, look of amusement and then became serious.
"I've felt for a long time that it's important for me to accept and respect the form my body naturally takes. This means, for me, accepting that I'm a big woman, what many would call fat; it also means accepting the fact that due to my genetic makeup my body sprouts great quantities of hair. I choose not to fight those things. But it's been hard. There have been people who've felt they had the right to say some pretty nasty things to me." There was a slight catch in her voice that I sensed indicated the presence of a hidden well of pain. "And yet, on the positive side, it moved me to seek out others who view life the same way I do. As the poet Charles Simic puts it, 'He who cannot howl will never find his pack'. I've found my pack and I've never been happier in my life. "
At some point Annie joined us with her own plate of food. Then Cassie showed up. The conversation flowed off into directions that didn't really interest me and I grew restive. One of the kitchen assistants came by looking for volunteers to help collect and haul the garbage and I offered my services. This occupied about an hour and a half.
It was about 10:30 when I got back to the tent. Annie was nowhere in sight and there was very little activity around the tents. After considering my options I decided to try my luck at the "Old Swimming Hole" again. Taking an old blanket and a book, A Guide for the Perplexed, I headed down the path I'd taken yesterday.
This time I was in luck. There was a small group of naked men and women splashing in the water and several children playing among the rocks at the river's edge. Feeling a little guilty about being here only to watch the naked women I walked past them a ways and settled myself in the shade of a large evergreen whose lower branches had been lopped off. I sat looking around with my book in my hand pretending to be absorbing the marvels of nature, which I was, but I was more intent on catching glimpses of the naiads playing in the pool than the trees, rocks, and sky. All the women had dark patches under their arms.
After about fifteen minutes I began to feel increasingly conspicuous being the only one dressed. I've always been a fairly modest person so the idea of taking off my own clothes was slow in forming. But finally, figuring that everyone else was naked so I might as well be naked too, I pulled off my t-shirt and slid out of my cutoffs. It was a peculiar sensation at first. To be exposed in a public setting, even if everyone else was exposed too. And yet, as I lay there, I began to feel the same deep sense of relaxation I'd felt yesterday afternoon. Gradually I became less focused on the people in the water and actually began to read my book. A couple of hours later the population in the pool had dwindled down to one couple sitting chest deep in the water gazing into each other's eyes. I decided, somewhat reluctantly, that my time could probably be better spent working on the training manual so I put on my cut-offs, gathered my things, and walked back up the path. As I neared the tent I heard the pealing of female laughter. I pushed through the door and was greeted by the abrupt descent of conspiratorial silence. Heather and Cassie were sitting on two of our camp stools while Annie, completely naked, was stretched out on the bedding and leaning against a couple of cushions. Heather was wearing the same purple and black dress she'd been wearing earlier and Cassie had on a yellow cotton sundress. Each of them was holding a glass of white wine. They were looking at me and I felt an indefinable sense of tense expectation.
"Hi Sweetheart, " my wife said, "why don't you pour yourself some wine and join us?"
"What's going on?" I asked as I took the glass Annie handed me and tipped the jug to fill it. The three women giggled, a bit hysterically I thought.
"Oh... just having some girltalk," Heather said and they all giggled again. I looked at each one of them in turn with growing suspicion. I couldn't imagine why they were acting this way, like little kids with a guilty secret.
"Annie, what's going on?" I asked again.
"Somebody's got to get this thing rolling, " Heather said. I couldn't tell if she was talking to herself or to the two other women. I knew I wasn't the recipient. "And it might as well be me. "
