Irving Wallace - The Prize

‘Then it’s all right for me to be with you?’

‘It is all right.’

They started for the inner door. The receptionist, still standing, bowed her head in welcome, and then they went through the door. Craig followed Lilly, and wanted her more than ever, but restrained himself from touching her. They reached two more green doors.

Lilly pointed to the right-hand door. ‘That is to the gymnasium. When you are ready, come in. I will be waiting for you. Try to hurry. The lecture begins soon.’ She indicated the door to the left. ‘You go in there. That is the locker room for men and women. You will find an empty locker for your clothes.’

She started to leave, but Craig grabbed her shoulder.

‘What do you mean-locker for my clothes? What am I supposed to do?’

She seemed surprised. ‘Undress,’ she said simply. ‘This is the nudist society. I am nude. Everyone is.’

‘Lilly-for God’s sake-I’ve never done anything like that.’

‘I have seen you naked. You were not ashamed.’

‘Of course not. But this is in public-men and women-’

‘Mr. Craig, you will find it is easier than you think, and normal. There is nothing indecent about human anatomy. Clothes, even a little clothes, that is what makes people curious and lascivious. When everyone is unclad, there is nothing to it. It is so natural, you will see. You will not be curious and think evil thoughts, and you will feel different. Now, quickly undress, and come so we do not miss the lecture.’

Craig knew, as Lilly spoke to him, that some of her phrases had the quality of pamphlet phrases being recited. But her face was earnest, with a kind of religious fervour, and Craig did not dispute what she had to say.

Having finished her sermon, Lilly hastily opened the gymnasium door and was gone. Craig stood drunkenly by himself, trying to make sense of this comedy. Then he remembered that Lilly, in all solemnity, was waiting, and that he could not disappoint her. My God, he thought, do all drunks have these strange adventures, all drunks and rudderless people? And then he thought, what the hell, they’re here for kicks, so give them some and have a few yourself, and get it over with. With that resolve, he went into the locker room.

Inside the narrow locker room, that resembled all the locker rooms he had known in boyhood and in the army years, and that smelled of wet shower floors and slippery soap, he removed his overcoat and jacket. Seeking an empty grey locker, he opened three that held garments, two that were filled with men’s suits and one that held a woman’s skirt, blouse, and underthings, and for another moment he hesitated, wondering if he dared give in to Lilly’s caprice.

The fourth locker was vacant, and in it he hung his overcoat and jacket. As he sat on the bench to remove shoes and socks, he tried to articulate to himself what bothered him. Despite Gottling he was a man of importance, in a time of importance. What if Sue Wiley or some other member of the press, or even Jacobsson, should learn he had been here? It would prove the suspicion, held by some, that he was a hopeless alcoholic. He could see the headlines in the American papers: DRUNKEN NOBEL WINNER GOES NUDIST. No honour would counteract this damage. Decidedly, Alex Inglis and Joliet College would not have him on their staff.

Once he was barefooted and shirtless, he knew that his fear was not of scandal but of something else, and that, as ever, he had been rationalizing his hesitation. He unbuckled, and unbuttoned, and unzipped his trousers and stepped out of them. What remained was his blue shorts, and what remained was his real fear. Mentally, the evening had depressed him, but physically, drink and despair had stimulated him. He had wanted Lilly’s body, in nudity, and he had wanted it savagely, and he wanted it still. Now he would face her disrobed, and see her stark naked, and the emotional charge would be uncontrollable. And there would be other girls, perhaps as beautiful as Lilly, and he would see their private parts, and be a slave to wild imaginings, and would react sexually. Would it happen to him? Did this happen to men at nudist gatherings? If it did, God help him. What a spectacle he would present.

He took off his shorts, threw them into a locker, and now he was a nudist, the nudist laureate.

He strode into the corridor, looked off to see if the receptionist was watching for him, but no one was there. At the gymnasium door, he wavered a last time. He stood straight and unclad and wondered what you did with your hands. Where were modesty’s pockets? He would keep his arms dangling straight down at his sides. Well, the hell with it. He yanked at the door and went into the gymnasium.

The lights-not the overhead lights, but the banked sunlamps across the floor-blinded him, and he shaded his eyes. Before he could adjust himself to the vast hall, or to who or what was in it, he saw Lilly. She was advancing towards him, carrying a pad and pencil in one hand, and she was smiling. He had not seen her completely naked in the light before, and now there was nothing to conjure up in passion’s mind. It was all there before him, revealed, obvious, matter-of-fact, and natural. The two young-blown fleshy breasts bobbed as she walked, and the nipples were not points, as he had remembered them, but circular crimson stains, flat and soft and the texture of velvet. Below the navel fold, the body rose and fell and swelled in perfect lines of classical Hellenic female maturity.

Craig was moved that this was his, and yet, to his relief, he was not moved with desire. It was as if, with many others, he was sharing enjoyment of a wonder of nature. There was detached, objective pleasure, but there was no sexual involvement.

‘Now, do you not feel better?’ Lilly was asking.

‘I’m still a little drunk.’

‘I know. But it is good to have your clothes off and be like God made you and be healthy, is it not?’

‘I suppose so… You’re incredibly lovely, Lilly.’

‘We do not speak or think of such things here,’ she said, but enjoyed the compliment. ‘All nudists are lovely in one way or another.’

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, looking off. His eyes had become accustomed to the glare, and now, for the first time, he could make out the nudists in the gymnasium.

There were bodies everywhere, and of every description, at least two hundred men and women, young and old, some lying on mats beneath the sun-lamps, some sitting on the rows of wooden benches communing with one another, some standing about in conversational groups, and a dozen or more playing volleyball. There were lanky men and chunky men and skinny men and fat men. There were middle-aged women and young women, and small immature breasts and mountainous breasts and some as perfect as Lilly’s own. There was no self-consciousness, no inquisitiveness, no atmosphere of sexuality. Almost no one looked at Craig, as he moved towards the front of the row of benches with Lilly, and soon he found that there was no need to study or stare at anyone else.

Lilly indicated the third bench, and they seated themselves, and she crossed her bare legs to support her pad.

‘Well, what do you think, Mr. Craig?’

‘I’d never have believed it possible,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘To see so many females in a state of undress and not be a bit aroused.’

‘I told you it would be so,’ she said. ‘It is clothing that arouses. If a woman wears a dress, there is always a man who thinks of what is beneath it. And little pieces of clothes are the worst, like the low-cut gown or bathing-suit or bikini, because they put your eyes and attention on certain places of the body. But if you are nude and see those places of the body revealed on everyone else, there is no mystery or stimulation, and you take it for granted, and you are healthy. Mr. Tapper-he is our director you saw in the entrance-he has said it is suggestion that makes all the trouble. He has said millions of dollars are made through suggestion of sex, because people are curious about the mystery. The burlesque in the night-club, the fadeout in the cinema, the asterisks in the book-they are to tease you about the anatomy. But if you are a nudist, you are not teased, and it is open and better.’