A Nude Troubadours Production

Kate stopped talking and watched her words smack her parents in the face like a soggy burger someone might have tossed in a middle school cafeteria. Tim gawked at her silently, with a single half-eaten french fry still clinging to his lips. Kate cringed inside.

"Nude..." her mom repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah..."

"Honey... what--" her dad started to say before his eyebrows tried to criss-cross and he became stuck on his words.

"Wait, wait, wait, I have so many questions..." her mom said, flabbergasted and waving her hands in the air.

"Are you a nudist?" her dad asked. It sounded almost like a joke someone would make but he was serious.

"Dad-- no," she gasped.

"We sent you to New York City, not Vermont or San Francisco..." he added.

"No, no... I mean, there are lots of nudists in New-- well, that's not the point," Kate fumbled.

"How exactly did you come to this decision?" her mom asked sternly.

"Well, as I said, the opportunity was there, I checked it out, saw that it was legit..." Kate answered, trying to shrug it off. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tim's head ping-ponging back and forth between them, following the discussion and very wisely staying out of it.

"But honey... other opportunities will come along. Heck, we're happy to support you until you get things going. We know how hard it is. You don't have to resort to this."

"It's not like I'm performing sexual favors, mom. This is a group formed to promote healthy attitudes toward nudity and--" Kate snapped back, becoming defensive.

"But honey, think of all the people that will find out. People you know might see you in this..."

"I know, I know. But if I believe in their mission, then so what? Maybe I can educate people. Besides, as I said, you don't have to go, obviously."

There was total silence for a while.

"Well... we'll have to talk about this," was the last thing Kate's mom said.

Kate wondered what that meant. Talk about what? It was her decision and she'd already made it. Or did she mean talk about whether they'd come to see? "God, no..." she thought. Honestly, she didn't know what to think. She just wished the whole thing had gone down smoother.

The conversation didn't really find its conclusion until a couple of days later on a phone call Kate received from her mom.

"Well, we all talked about it..." her mom had said.

"Okay..." Kate said, cautiously.

"Your dad was, um... understandably uncomfortable with the whole idea. I told them that I was willing to go on everyone's behalf to support you so that you don't feel hurt that none of us came. That way they're not put in an awkward position."

Kate felt trapped in a brief silence, during which a reply was expected, however, she had none. Fortunately, her mom went on.

"Dad asked if you actually wanted him to go. To be honest, I didn't really have an answer for him. I wasn't clear on that in the first place. Would you... want your father to... see that? I can't imagine you'd want him to actually see you... um... without any clothes on..."

Again, there was dead silence on the line. Kate was torn. Her head had recently become crowded with visions of a brave new world, full of normalized, respectful, non-sexualized nudity. However, here she was, put to the test and faced with the reality of what that actually entailed.

She reasoned that he probably wasn't intending to go in the first place, so she cautiously admitted, "I'm not entirely against it. You know how it is. Women are constantly body shamed, objectified, and made to feel inferior in so many ways. There's not exactly anything wrong with fighting back against that and changing attitudes. Not that it wouldn't be totally weird, but the whole point is to change how we think about nudity."

Kate stopped herself there, worried she might be laying it on too thick, so she reigned it in and quickly emphasized, "But if he's uncomfortable, then he doesn't have to go. I certainly won't be offended. This is the fight I choose for myself and I would never force him to be drawn into it." She concluded with this, deciding that she might successfully be able to have it both ways.

"Oh-okay, honey..." her mom said with a stutter after several moments of silence. "... Because I was going to say that he decided to leave it up to you. He said if you felt strongly that what you're doing is for a good reason, then he'd not judge you for it and keep an open mind and go."

Kate realized that she'd just talked herself into a corner and now she may have to face her father naked on stage. At least, she thought, her brother couldn't possibly go. She rushed to ensure that was the case.

"Okay... so should I... um... reserve two tickets then?" she replied, hearing her own voice breaking on the line.

Kate heard her mom sigh. "Well... your brother... he didn't seem to have a problem either way with the idea. I guess he's like you. So he said he'd do whatever your dad ultimately decided." Kate's heart sank.

"I mean... I can't tell him to go or not to go, Kate. He's an adult now," her mom added, suddenly sounding mildly defensive and not wishing to be blamed for Tim's attendance. "If you're going to be parading yourself naked on a stage for all of New Haven, then people are going to see you. Whether it's your parents, or friends that you know, or your teachers from school, or even your brother. You have to learn to take responsibility for that." Now she sounded somewhat upset.

Kate couldn't let her win the argument. "I know, I know, mom. I've thought about it and that's part of the hurtle of repairing our concept of nudity in this country..."

"Okay honey... I just hope you know what you're getting into..." her mother relented.

The conversation left Kate stressed and dissatisfied. Her whole family would be there on opening night to see her romping around the stage in her birthday suit. It got worse in the days that followed. An old schoolmate posted a link to the Nude Troubadours site on their high school class Facebook page, pointing out that Kate was going to be in a new production. He made no mention of her being nude but the intent of the jerk who posted it was more than obvious to her. The news spread like wildfire and she soon found out that more than a few people she knew from high school had bought tickets.

Kate had no choice but to take the final step; a full embrace of her new identity. Was she a nudist? She wasn't quite sure. But she was all-in on whatever her membership in the Nude Troubadours made her.

It could have been worse. She could have disagreed with the whole idea of it philosophical grounds-- but in truth, she did not. What Gwen was doing with this group was special. She was promoting something good and right. As long as she kept reminding herself of that, Kate knew she could power through it.

This was now a path forward in life for her and it needed to feel good.

***

Needless to say, opening night finally arrived and tensions still rode high between Kate and her family. She paced back and forth backstage, listening to the murmur of gathering crowds outside, feeling the cool, flat floor beneath her bare feet, a stark reminder of the nudity that she had become so accustomed to, only to have to face the same fears all over again. Kate told herself that all would settle down afterward and focused on the task at hand: to put on a top-notch performance that would sweep all the drama under the carpet.

Only it was not so easy. The jitters were undeniably there as the big night finally commenced.

Eyeing them secretly through the curtains of the stage as soon as she had the chance, Kate saw her family file into their row and begin to take their seats. They each had a program. It read, "Shakespeare's 'Three Gypsies of Bracciano' - a Nude Troubadours Production."

As Kate scanned the room, she began to spot one familiar face after the other until she had recognized an alarming number of old high school friends and acquaintances. Some of them sat there by themselves, glancing around the room nervously as if afraid to be caught demonstrating an interest in the affair. Others sat together, whispering occasionally to each other and nodding rapidly. Kate couldn't help but wonder what they were saying.

Backstage, she began to rev herself up, performing vocal exercises and jumping in place like a lunatic, just to get her energy up and distract her mind from nervous thoughts. However, the resulting bounce and wiggle of her breasts only served as a reminder of what she was about to do.

The lights began to dim and Kate heard the audience begin to settle down. There was an electric feeling in the air. She imagined it was the same feeling both for her and for the audience as it began to sink in that the spectacle of full-frontal nakedness they were awaiting was about to arrive. She began lining up with the other gypsies at the edge of the stage, fueled by nervousness and excitement.

The lights went fully dark. Nicholas slipped by, then headed out onto the stage in the dark to recline on the floor and assume his role as the sleeping Prince Felix. Moments later, the lights faded back on and the audience found themselves observing a nude man fast asleep alongside an artistic stand-in for a horse. While Kate could not see the audience, nor their faces, she heard the audible gasps. For many, they were not used to seeing such extreme nudity in a theatrical performance. Even though they had been expecting it, she imagined it must have been quite a shock to see him there, bare as the day he was born, with his thick, flaccid penis resting comfortably on a pair of sturdy thighs.

Kate felt a queasy feeling in her stomach as she saw the gypsies in front of her begin their movement and creep outward onto the stage. There were always some nerves before a show, especially on opening night, but she never experienced it quite to this degree. However, this was a whole new territory for her and she knew it was coming.

The play opened with the band of gypsy girls slowly advancing upon the prince, each of them masked to obscure their true identity. They fashioned themselves like strange creatures; hissing, evil spirits to spook the man and send him fleeing out of their domain, back to the world from which he came. As such, out they paraded, one after the other.

For a moment, Kate found herself comfortably hidden by a magical world, protected by a grinning, toothy mask before a backdrop of sinister trees, reaching up like creepy skeletal hands. However, it would only be for a brief time that Kate's family and friends would not recognize her, so she made use of it as best she could in order to swallow the initial shock. She wanted to laugh when she saw the expressions of those gathered in the audience, wide-eyed, innocent and scandalized, taken aback by the stark display of raw female nudity.

Kate and the other girls ambled out onto the stage performing crab-like walks, hyper-aware of the pendulous swing of their loose breasts and protruding nipples. Their yawning, hairy pussies, split by pink gashes, left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Their vicious snarling was in full effect and they flexed their fingers like claws as they approached the sleeping prince. For a while, she avoided looking at her family but she couldn't help herself. There they were, doing the same thing everyone in the audience was doing, frantically absorbing the sight of the gypsy girls, their eyes darting from body to body, assessing breasts, sheepishly examining female genitals, and shifting nervously in their seats.

She saw Tim struggling to maintain his composure, frequently switching which side of his body he leaned to, then finally placing his hands in his lap. Kate cringed, not wishing to think about what he was experiencing. She caught her dad's eyes momentarily as he cast a bewildered expression at each girl, no doubt realizing that he'd just seen his daughter naked but unsure which one she was. His eyes lingered on her just long enough to cause Kate alarm.

Did he somehow know? She reminded herself that she had no tattoos that he would recognize. The tree branches woven up into her hair seemed to sufficiently obscure any clues in that regard. He looked away and she breathed a sigh of relief.

The gypsies slowly descended upon Felix, having completed their whimsical dance across the stage. They fawned all over his youthful body, studying it, reaching out toward it curiously, fighting over it. One of them, thinking him deceased, teasingly made as if she wanted to nurse him back to life with her breast. This signaled the moment when all would be revealed.

Kate took a deep breath.

Paige ripped off her mask first. "This youth is no more dead than I! See how gentle sleep weighs upon his pale eyelids," she announced, giving the first line of the play.

The rest of the gypsy girls tore off their masks, seeing that the occasion for scaring away a wayward hunter had become momentarily unnecessary. They all tossed the masks toward the backdrop; a painted curtain depicting a wall of dense forest. And just like that, Kate stood there trembling, her identity finally revealed.

Kate thought that the staging of the gypsies entrance was brilliant. Gwen was well aware that there were those in the audience that would only focus on the actress they knew, especially if they were seeing her nude for the first time. By being masked, the audience was initially confronted with bodies that were just bodies. And Gwen didn't shy away from that either. The way they came out, bearing themselves from every angle, without shame, without hiding a breast or obscuring a vulva, she wanted to show the world the authentic and uncensored physicality of the female form and, throughout the play, declare that it was worth revering and celebrating.

As true as that was, it still left Kate standing there in a half-squat, her hands still outstretched like a tigress ready to strike, with the heavy weight of her breasts somehow feeling exaggerated as she thrust her chest forward. She felt the deep wellspring of embarrassment as she wrestled with the awareness of her parted knees, cringing at the fact that she was basically spread beaver, her vagina slightly agape in front of the entire audience.

Kate's family was quiet and stone-faced. Their eyes became penetrating the moment they identified her and became fixated on the shocking reveal of her body and all of its intimacies. However, she knew their struggle was something that they would have to own. It was on them to see her differently than they might normally see a naked person. That was the mission after all. It had transformed her and now the challenge they faced was to let it transform them. She repeated this like a mantra.

Still, it was challenging to see her friends here and there throughout the audience. Unlike her family, they had received no explanation. She was just this girl they knew from high school, standing there, completely naked on stage. The ones that came together became flushed and whispered to each other, smirking and nodding. The guys that had attended, people she knew, some of them so well, had red faces, gazing at her in wonder with startled or joyous expressions. For a moment, this filled her with confidence. She clung at that. Due to her family's presence, Kate had almost forgotten that her friends' sexual excitement was secretly one of the things she wanted to privately enjoy for herself...

Kate dug her heels in and grew determined. She had to carry on. She had a mission to complete.

For all her brooding, the production began to move along smoothly. Eutropia fell in love with Felix on the spot. She began seeking the assistance of her closest friends, Livia and Phryne, to aid in his pursuit. It wasn't long before Kate found that she could easily dismiss the various familiar faces in attendance and embrace her role exactly as she was supposed to; the wonderful, wicked glee of the mischievous Phryne who always seemed to be one step ahead of the others and with a keen eye on the goings-on about her.

Everything seemed to lead up to Kate's shining moment; the one that would place all focus entirely on her.

The stage was empty except for Kate, playing Phryne, as she wandered the deep forest alone, hunting for the magical herb that would be used to intoxicate Price Felix and make him susceptible to the power of Eutropia's suggestion. Only it was Phryne's secret plan to use it instead of another; a young stud she once spotted passing through the forest.

Kate plucked an imaginary herb from the ground... then turned to face the audience, laying bare all her femininity with nothing and no one else to distract the attention of the vigilant crowd.

There she stood on stage, feeling the cool, hard floor beneath her bare feet, knowing that all eyes at that moment were upon her body and hers alone. She felt her nipples hardening, poking outward toward the audience with feverish excitement as she prepared to deliver her lines. She even caught a brief whiff of her own personal fragrance, knowing full well of her secret arousal, the subtle wetness beginning to make itself known only to her. Kate wondered if the women in the audience would realize just how tickled she was, if they were aware of the way her fuzzy labia had swelled in front of everyone's prying eyes. She could feel the hunger of the men in the audience as they grappled with their own sexual instincts, on their journey to learn how to control them.

Kate began her monologue as the audience watched and listened attentively. Her body shone bright and hot under the theatre lights, illuminating her nakedness in all its glory. The shadowy faces before her remained partly obscured by the tunnel of the spotlight, however, their shifting, curious eyes could be seen making their way across the landscape of her body, delighting in every nook and cranny. She became an anatomy lesson: her plump breasts and the thickened lips of her hairy pussy, a study in the body of a real woman.

But not only that, she felt beautiful and desired by everyone present.

Kate gave her long, yearning account of that time she had stumbled upon the object of her affection, in secret. It was an account of a deep, painful desire. A woman's desire, more revealing and genuine than was typically expected in a lighthearted work of Shakespeare. The audience seemed to empathize with her craving, observing how her body transformed along with her words, lighting up from the inside as much as from the powerful lights. They watched her body swell and burn with a real and honest lust as she projected her voice across the room.

The monologue gave Kate the experience she didn't realize she was looking for. It was a confession, not just by Phryne, but by Kate herself. It was just her and them and the thick cloud of sexual desire forming between spectacle and spectator, which they would have to work through together.

And together they did exactly that until the very last words of her speech dripped from her mouth like the juice of a forbidden apple.

Eventually, however, Kate came to the scene that she'd been dreading. It stood as the final personal challenge of the performance for Kate to get through. If the management of sexual arousal so far had been a personal matter for herself and for each person watching, this was the one moment that it would finally come fully to the forefront.

Sexuality exposed. Confronted. Honest and laid bare. The floodgates were about to open and consume everyone, all together.

Time seemed to slow as she watched Terrence preparing to enter from stage right. He stood in the shadows, doing his private ritual, working himself up into a state of arousal. Kate's heart pulsed in her chest as she focused on what she was about to do. Right on cue, Terrence waltzed back onto the stage with the thick, meaty projection of his swollen penis extending outward and upward from his body in dramatic fashion.