Next thing you know, we were shopping for a real bed. One with legs and mattress and box springs. Just like real people. Dad bought a shiny new four-poster, and I bought a cute little twin with a canopy top. I told Dad I felt like a princess when I went to bed at night…in my own room and everything!
The years passed. Dad rose in the community, becoming an activist for many improvements, speaking before the city council on occasion, and generally helping to make the world a better place. He never went to another nudist event. He didn’t seem to care about that aspect of his past life anymore.
I finished high school and went to a local community college. I didn’t want the drunken, frat party, college life. I liked home. I liked my dad. We had worked hard over the past few years to keep a clean house and provide meals for each other and fill in the empty hole in our lives which Mom had left.
I was now eighteen, with a couple of months of community college under my belt. Dad and I took turns making dinner, ordering take out Chinese or pizza twice a week and watching movies at night to pass the time. I’d curl up in his arms on the couch, which was actually a real couch…the fucking futons were a thing of the past, and everything always seemed so nice and cozy. Though our nudist past had also been left behind, we didn’t try that hard to cover up around each other, but it was simple innocent stuff, like walking to my room from the shower without a towel, or just wearing a sports bra and panties while watching TV. We had spent so much naked time growing up with each other; it never was a sexual thing anyway.
Then the day came. I had gone to the store after class to buy the goodies. When I came home with five bags of candy, my father said, “What all this? You know I’m on a diet.” I laughed and told him it was Halloween.
We turned on scary music and had a fun time watching all the kids coming up the sidewalk. Halloween is still my favorite holiday. After a while the endless line of trick-or-treaters died away and Dad and I sat down on the couch with some hot chocolate and began to talk about Halloweens past. We steered clear of one Halloween though. It always bothered me, but I respected his silence. I tested the waters just slightly.
“Dad,” I gently prodded, “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” he answered.
“Do you always have to answer a question with another question?” I asked, frustrated.
“Do I do that?
We both stopped, taking in the situation, and started giggling.
“I mean,” I continued, “What happened that night you took Mom out to the nudist party on St. Patrick’s Day?”
For a moment I thought I had gone too far. A cloud seemed to pass over us and the cold made me shiver. He sat up and looked at me. I guess he was trying to decide if it was any of my business, or maybe if I was old enough to be told what had happened. He let out a long sigh and just shook his head.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked me.
Not sure what I was getting myself into, I whispered, “Yes, Dad, I think I should know.”
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