Hammersmith 04: Day Two

This is a direct continuation of the previous installment. Note that while some of the characters have families, and their children are mentioned, all characters appearing "on camera" are of legal consenting age or older, 18 in the USA.

And yes, Miaz is me thirsting after Bashar Murad, the Palestinian singer.

Raechel and I walked out of her townhouse straight into a reminder that we were nude in public. We very nearly walked into the mail delivery.

"Good afternoon!" Raechel greeted the postal worker on her front step, an older woman in a somewhat outmoded Royal Mail uniform.

The woman sniffed, handed Raechel her mail, and moved on to the next townhouse without a word. Her disdainful gaze swept us like dirt.

Hello, anxiety, my old friend. I see you've come to fuck with me again.

"Don't mind her," Raechel told me, not exactly quietly, as we strolled off up the street toward the Hammersmith building. "I believe you call her type a Karen in the States?"

I was focusing on the safe space of the office building up ahead. Maybe I should see a therapist. This was starting to feel like rejection sensitive dysphoria or something. I'd been in such a relaxed vibe just minutes ago, and all it took was one disapproving glare from a textile, reminding me that while it had in fact been legal since 2016, nobody was ever supposed to actually do it. How dare I be naked in her space? And my affect dropped like a crate of glassware onto concrete.

Nigel said his first day was awful, but that it got better day by day. He'd also said that it had taken him a week before his breakthrough. I was on day one. This was not going to be a fun ride.

Raechel and I parted company at reception, her office being round the left and mine being upstairs. I took the steps rather than the lift, partly to work off the nervous energy. Thankfully, the hall on the first floor was clear. Anyone I ran into would have been a fellow naturist, not a textile, but I wasn't up to dealing with random encounters of any sort at this point.

The rest of Day One was spent on tedium. Blessed be the tedium that occupies the brain and keeps it from running in the hamster wheel. I unpacked my office stuff, and got my certs and awards lined up on top of the cabinet over my desk as was expected. I did my first login, and got my ID card keyed to all the right places. Everyone who has ever changed jobs in a white collar position has gone through this, and we'll just gloss over it in these few words.

The important thing here was I spent some time in my office, in an enclosed space. Is there such a thing as claustrophilia? I'd been a naturist for ten years or so. I'd been socially nude on a lot of occasions. Today, I seriously felt naked. This wasn't naturism, this was me parading down the street bare-ass with my dick hanging out.

By the time I joined the queue waiting for the shuttle with a dozen other naturist employees, and rode home in a flurry of introductions that nobody reasonably expected me to remember the next day, I'd thankfully settled a bit. Invitations to the pub were easily declined with a plea of jet lag. I was able to escape into my flat with only the threat of extended introductions in the morning hanging over me. A few memory tricks skimmed from a Dale Carnegie manual would help me remember names, and worked better in an extended social engagement, where I had time to build a portfolio.

No, the fun part was that, in the morning, I would be riding the bus going into town nude. A bus that would drop a whole crowd of naturists on the pavement outside the office building. Safety in numbers, I hoped.

I had to actually take out my PN cert, and read both sides of the card, to get the nervous twitches to stop.

I did sleep well that night, once I got to sleep, thank you so very much Raechel. My own company just wasn't doing it for me as far as anxiety release.

=====

Day Two started a bit more auspiciously. I'd picked up a bag of German-label coffee beans grown in Vietnam and a couple of microwavable breakfast-type meals at the Aldi downstairs, and had better coffee and hot food to get me started. How the Brits manage on a slice of toast and a cup of tea I'll never know.

Protein and caffeine needs met, I packed up my messenger bag as before, and faced the door.

Nude.

Dammit, this is what I wanted, right? Except permanent nudity meant walking down a public street, in full view of everyone, not just splashing happily in the pool at the naturist resort.

Deep breath. I wasn't breaking the law. I had the Official Government Fuck-Off Card if anyone challenged me walking around with my dick swinging. I'd had an AANR card for ten years before that.

None of which reduced the trepidation I felt just trying to walk out my door and go to work.

Fuck. I was not going to miss the bus because of first week nerves. I opened the door, stepped out into the hall, made sure the door latched, and walked down to the lift before I realized I'd left my sandals.

Back to the flat, kick my feet into my sandals, check the door, get back to the lift before the door closes. I ducked in just in time to avoid getting bumped by the closing doors, to the amusement of the three people already aboard.

Sheila Otter from Accounting I'd been introduced to in a walk through yesterday. I was surprised I remembered her name from the brief contact. Naturally wheat blonde, as evidenced by the nearly invisible tuft at her mons, she had pale skin and a dusting of freckles across her shoulders. She was also in her late thirties, and her C cup tits sagged from two children, dark areoli surrounding fat nipples that pointed at the floor.

The broad-shouldered, stocky man with the uncircumcised dick standing next to her was probably her husband, Kervyn. He looked like the photos she had in her cube, anyway. We exchanged a brief nod.

Next to him was a tall, lean man, dark-skinned but not Black, with thick black hair cut short, clean shaven all the way down, not a hair on his body below the neck, and also uncircumcised, which I was learning was much more common in the UK than in the States. He had an old appendicitis scar on his lower abdomen, but above it was another scar, with a sunken-in spot and a jagged line extending around his side.

"Gunshot," he said.

I blinked. "Sorry, rude of me to stare," I apologized.

He waved it off. "Everybody asks. I was at a protest a few years back and took a stray round." He shrugged. "Could have been worse. There was a kid behind me."

i wasn't really quite sure how to respond to that.

"That's a collector's item, isn't it?" he asked, breaking the awkward silence, and pointing to my Pitney Bowes thermal mug.

"Sharp eye," I complimented him. "Yeah, they only did the one run before the supplier went broke defending an IP suit against a tool manufacturer. Pitney Bowes was nearly pulled into the lawsuit. Legal convinced them that logo mugs were a bad idea."

The elevator jolted to a stop, made a couple of grinding noises, then dinged, and opened its door in a series of arthritic lurches.

"And that's got to be on my agenda this morning," the man said. He stepped aside, and put out a hand as we exited. "Damien Springett, Facilities, which means the lift is my problem."

I shook his hand. "Ian McCormick, IT, but you probably already knew that."

"Right," Damian said, "the undercover Scot."

I sighed. "My parents had some kind of pretension or other, but I've got so many nations in my ancestry there's not enough of any one to claim."

Our quartet passed through the inner doors and into the wide hallway that led outside. I distracted myself with the Aldi, on the right. I wondered how the employees dealt with the tower's requirement they work nude, in respect to the tower's naturist rules. Of course, Aldi insisted they had to carry the company logo, and so by compromise they all wore the official work apron, and nothing else, while on duty.

I'd met one of the staff last night, Erma Hotchkiss, a single mother in her early twenties. There being no line, we had a moment to chat when I checked out. She'd been living in the tower when Hammersmith bought it, in a subsidized flat with her three year old son, and couldn't find work. When the firm bought the tower, she said the hell with it, got her cert, tossed her clothes, and promptly got a job at the Aldi. Her son attended the tower daycare and had adjusted faster to full time naturism than she had, as children often do.

But then we went through the next set of doors, and were out on the pavement. A damp breeze blew past, putting forth the possibility of a more serious effort at precipitation. Sheila shivered. Her husband put an arm round her for the few steps down the pavement to the shuttle.

"If you want to run back inside and get your ponchos," the driver told us as he opened the door, "I can wait a minute or two. The schedule's not that tight." He winked.

The other three conferred quickly. I got a questioning nod from Damien, gave him an affirmative. We all set off back into the tower.

Across the entrance hallway, signs proclaimed LOCKER ROOM to either side of a set of double doors. Beyond, lockers lined either side of a long room with benches down the middle. The ones on the right, I'd learned last night, with yellow doors, were for visitors to stash their kit while on the premises. Anyone wanting to visit had to go nude, tower rules. Exceptions were made of course for first responders and the like.

The blue doors down the left had card readers instead of padlock holes. I found mine, swiped my card, and opened the locker. Inside was the welcome kit I'd been issued - two shower towels, one washrag, two sitting towels, all with the HF logo embroidered on a corner, a pair of rubber flip-flops in a plastic bag for the showers round the far corner, and another plastic packet that I pulled out and stashed in my messenger bag. Folded up inside was a clear plastic rain poncho, again with the HF logo.

"Must keep the wet off," Nigel had said, when we confirmed that my card opened the door of the half-height locker on the upper tier. "You'll find you don't get chilled quite so easy after a few days, but getting wet tosses that in the bin."

I closed the locker, and caught up with Damien, who was following Sheila and Kervyn out.

"So what I read," i said, picking up the conversation as I fell in step beside him on the walk back to the shuttle, "said it should be a lot cooler and more wet than this." I waved a hand at the air in general.

He shrugged. "Ought to be, but hasn't been this year, nor last year for that matter."

We boarded the bus, laid our sitting towels on seats behind the Otters. They'd gotten into a conversation about one of their children. Damien seemed to welcome the distraction so that he didn't accidentally eavesdrop on a family matter. I welcomed the distraction because it got me out of the building a second time and onto the bus. A bus that was going to take me down to the middle of the village. At the same time that everyone else would be on their way to work.

I was about to meet rather a lot of people while nude in public. A trickle of ice water dripped down my spine. I ignored it, knowing it wasn't real, just a physical reaction to the anxiety spike.

"Climate change?" I asked, partly as a probe. Let's see how he reacts to the phrase.

He shrugged. "Fuck if I know. I just know I'm having to rebalance the office and tower HVAC every week. Automated systems aren't handling the weird weather properly."

"You'd think the developers could have seen it coming or something," I said dryly.

He snorted. "One would think, yes." He stared out the window for a long moment. I'm not sure if he was going to say something, as Kervyn took that opportunity to wrap up whatever argy-bargy he was having with his spouse (do Brits still use that word?) and turn round in his seat.

"I'm sorry," he said, sticking a hand out. "Me manners got left in the sock drawer this mornin'. I'm Kervyn Otter."

I shook his hand, a little awkwardly through the gap between the seats. I started to reply, but Sheila cut in.

"Well, there's the problem," she said. "You don't wear socks so you forgot to check the drawer." She poked him in the ribs, playfully, with a fingertip. He recoiled, obviously ticklish.

"Woman!" he said, mock angry.

"Ian McCormick," I said, "but again you probably already knew that."

He gave Sheila a bit of a look. Their post argument play was obviously not quite over.

"You won't see me round the office much," he said, cautiously taking his eyes off Sheila. "I'm lead engineer on the factory site. I'm out there most days. Got to do the town hall today, so I'm in office until after that at any rate."

Oh, right. The virtual town hall for the Trewinney project. I had to be on a team video call today. More ice water. If it had been real, the seat would have been overflowing onto the floor by now.

And then the bus pulled up to the Hammersmith building. The driver opened the door, and called out, "All ashore as goin ashore!"

And I had to pick up my towel and follow the Otters out of the bus and onto the pavement. Sure enough, there was a group of half a dozen men in t-shirts, waterproof overalls, and boots, going by on their way down to the harbor. Both groups used Ignore. It wasn't very effective. Glances were exchanged. Not unfriendly, but not accepting either. Guarded. Tense. Maybe weary. This was a month along now, the Trewinney experiment.

I was just glad they were tired of us and kept moving. I also kept moving, following the Otters into reception and carding through the door to the stairs. And then I was safe, inside, in a naturist only building, and I took a moment to let the shakes pass.

"You all right?" Damien asked, concerned.

Dear God, he'd been right behind me. I'd forgotten about him when I let the anxiety have its way.

"I'll be okay," I reassured him, although it seemed obvious, to me anyway, that I was going to be anything but. "They don't have PN certs where I come from."

He blinked, focusing on something I couldn't see, sighed. "You've been isekai'd."

"I've been what?" We started up the stairs while he explained. There was a canteen up there, with coffee wedged into a corner by the lavish tea service.

"Oh, sorry, Japanese word, from anime." He waved off the confusion he'd caused. "It's when a character gets dropped into another world, and has to learn a whole new set of rules quick like a bunny."

"Good times make bad stories," I quoted.

He laughed. "Adventure is someone else having a hell of a tough time a thousand miles away," he quoted in return. We exchanged nods of nerd recognition.

"The isekai'd character usually turns out to be the pivot point of the story," he went on, as we walked down the hallway to the canteen. "There's a prophecy about a stranger, or they have some sort of ability they brought or gained. Sometimes they're just the Maguffin, the thing everybody is trying to gain possession of."

"Doesn't sound like a comfortable role," I said, drawing a cup of coffee into the HF logo mug I'd left in the drainer the evening before. A bit of label tape on the back side proclaimed IAN MCCORMICK in square black letters on a white field.

"Isn't usually," he admitted. "But in the end, they're always better for the experience."

"Would be nice if life worked that way," I groused, and stepped aside so he could fix a cup of tea.

He shrugged. "Sometimes it does." He glanced round at me. "I never expected to be with a firm that had a dress code of None, but here we are."

Here we are indeed. That phrase kept turning up, like a bad penny.

Beverages obtained, we parted company and headed for our respective offices.

=======

Technical specifications make non IT people's eyes glaze over. I'll just say that I spent the morning familiarizing myself with the firm's architecture. As data librarian, I would be working directly with the architect to design the systems that would run the manufacturing division. Their concerns would be flow and efficiency. Mine were process and protection. The goal would be to balance all that off to create an optimized environment where people and manufacturing equipment could get their jobs done quickly and easily, with a reliable and resilient platform.

And if you got lost in the cloud of buzzwords, don't worry about it. I get paid to deal with that bullshit so you don't have to.

Thinking through this got interrupted a few times, bathroom breaks, tea breaks, and Miaz, the Oracle guy, dropping by to introduce himself. Each time, I was suddenly reminded I was in a naturist environment.

The first time I sat back and thought, okay, trip to the loo, it suddenly hit me that I was sitting in my office in nothing but a pair of sandals and a wristwatch. A moment of blind panic tried to form, and I looked down at the HF logo on my deskpad and reminded myself that this was okay. This was fine. I was supposed to be nude. I was at a naturist firm now. I got up, managed to go out into the hallway without first checking to see if anyone else was there.

The bathrooms were another thing. One had a seated stick figure icon, and the new Go handicapped access icon, the one with the stick figure leaning forward like the wheelchair is in motion. The other had a standing stick figure, and another Go icon. Nigel had explained it to me.

"Sitting and Standing," he said, pointing to the icons as if it was obvious. "There's really no point trying to segregate by gender in a culture with no nudity taboo, and not much respect for the gender binary. Instead, we segregate by function, in the interest of efficiency. If what you need to do can be done standing up, please use the standing loo, it'll be faster. Yes, there are stalls in the Standing loo, but they're for when the Sitting loo is full, and to maintain disability access. We're only hiring people with a PN cert or a nudist resort membership card so that we don't have to keep explaining this. You're the only non-European naturist in phase 2, which means we only have to explain European naturist culture once."

I started into the Standing loo, then hastily stepped aside as someone started out at the same time. A tall, thin woman with a shaven head, who managed to project "Goth" with only a pair of earrings and a smear of eye shadow, gave me a brief nod, and strode off without a word. I watched her assless, titless, pale skinned body departing perhaps a moment longer than I should have. Didn't remember seeing her before. She was heading in the direction of the call center, so I'd be seeing her again at some point if not working directly with her. Telecom is part of IT, because it's a weird animal and nobody really knows what stable to put it in.

The Standing loo had a wall, like the Welcome Break, and one large stall at the back of the room, with a wide door that swung outward. I took care of my business, and got out before anyone else could pop round for a wee.

A few minutes later, I was head down, working on a swimlane diagram, and bopping along to the song in my head as people do, and doing the drums vocally, as you do, boom chikka boom chikka bo-boom ba-boom chik.

"Nice bols."

I sat back fast, looked up, no clue as to what I had just been doing.

"Excuse me?" There was no way I had heard that right.

The short, thin Middle Eastern man with the neatly trimmed beard set off my gaydar at first contact. Our eyes met, and a bell went Ding in both our heads. The only things between us and acknowledging a mutual desire to fuck were the horrified expression on his face, and my dawning realization of who this must be and if so this was a No in absolute terms.

"Oh my God," he said in that plaintive way that only certain accents can do. "Spoken percussion. It's Hindi. It's an Indian music thing. I am Miaz and I am so sorry, I.... " He trailed off, having just introduced himself to his new boss with a double entendre.

I took a deep breath, then burst out laughing, and brayed like an ass for a full minute. Miaz just stared at me while I got it out of my system and maybe got a little hysterical over the rude joke. I watched his face progress from abject horror to cautious relief to being a little worried about me. That was fine. That kept me from watching his dick, or thinking about mine that had tried to stir before I saw myself having to explain to Raechel that I had fucked my direct report. That killed my erection and brought my body into alignment with the No decision my mind had already made.

But oh my God, he was beautiful and he was queer and he felt the same way, and we absolutely could not do anything about it.

"So did you follow the ODI this week?" he asked, a little desperately.

Yes, let's talk about sports. Cricket is safe, right?

"Australia hosting Pakistan?" I asked. We covered a few details of the match. Yes, thank you. Let's talk about batting performance and pretend there's no veiled metaphors there.

"I tried to put myself on your calendar for this morning," Miaz said, after we'd gone over enough sports numbers to divert ourselves. "It came back saying I was not a delegate, which I should not have to be to send you a meeting request." He made it almost a question.

"Was that last night or this morning?" I asked. I saved the swimlane diagram, minimized it, brought up the database overview.

"Last night," he said, taking a seat in one of the visitor chairs. Thank you, let's get your cock down out of my line of sight. I really need to be thinking about anything other than your cock right now.

I nodded, turned the screen around to where he could see it. "Account was borked last night. Helpdesk had to recreate it. Should work now. So you're Oracle. I didn't see anyone on the org chart for cloud?"

He shook his head. "There is no one for cloud as of yet. I am doubling on cloud for right now."

"Mm." I frowned. "You're not scalable."

He shrugged. "Right now, the work load is still very light. I am doing installs and patches and upgrades, oh my. The heavy work will come later when you and Pinny have completed the requirements translation. By then, we will need a cloud person."

That would explain the cryptic mail from Accounting about budget numbers and allocations. Whoever had written it had spoken fluent Accountant but really poor English.

"I'm meeting with Pinny this afternoon," I told Miaz. "I'll take it up with her and find out if I'm expected to be interviewing yet."

We continued on for a bit, keeping the conversation carefully on topic. I did learn that Miaz was tremendously into music from his part of the world, not just Palestinian, but anything in the region. He recommended an Iranian santoor player for me to check out. I recommended The Rumpled, a North Italian Celtic punk band I'd run across recently.

As he left, I couldn't resist.

"Boom chikka boom," I muttered, not quite to myself, then had a chuckle as he winced.

Could have been worse. He could have gotten a boss with no sense of humor.

=======

I had just figured out where I was in the swimlane diagram, and was reaching for the next template shape, when a popup reminder stole the system focus, telling me I was due in the town hall video call. This would be the official welcome to the Phase 2 people, and a review of the Trewinney project in general.

Oh hooray. You could run a hydroelectric plant on all the ice water flowing down my spine today.

I clicked the link in the popup to launch the video call app, then dismissed the popup, determinedly staying on top of everything else. The headset took a bit of arranging. I'd discovered if I laid the cable down on the side it connected on, it tended to get caught on my left nipple. Not a distraction I needed in the middle of an office call. If I laid the cable round the other side, though, it dropped a loop of slack down and got caught on my dick, and that was a lot worse. Putting it on the left, and then stashing a bit of slack to run it up my side instead of across my chest, appeared to take care of the nipple problem. We'd see if it held up under the pressure of an hour long town hall.

Deep breath. This was becoming a ritual.

I connected to the bridge call, half expecting the Big Reveal, thanks naked guy for going along with the joke, we've all had a lot of laughs at your expense. Suddenly, my screen was full of naked tits and bare chests. The ice water stopped. If I'd needed proof that I was in fact working for a naturist firm, here were forty-someodd people all attending the call as nude as I was.

The big window in the middle showed an empty stage with a couple of freestanding vertical banners someone had borrowed from Marketing, the kind you see in the tourism offices with photos of the facilities and the Hammersmith logo, and not a single human visible. Although I'm told that since the Malpeth Act, the UK now has banners with happy guests enjoying the facilities.

A young woman, maybe mid twenties, brown hair cut in an asymmetric pageboy, pubic hair trimmed down to a landing strip, tightly round B-cup tits that made me wonder if they made implants that small, stepped up onto the stage, and said "Testing" into the mic. She glanced off camera, nodded, and spoke to the audience.

"Good morning," she said, and waited for a chorus of good mornings to come back before continuing.

"I'm Cindy Ashlake, I'm in Marketing here at the London office, welcome everyone. Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this town hall, as we mark the completion of the Phase 2 onboarding for Trewinney!"

She paused for applause but got only a handclap or two. Unruffled, she moved on.

"Right, so without further ado, please welcome Mr. Hammersmith."

Mr. Hammersmith walked onto the stage, and I had an erection, just like that. One hard pulse and my cock was up like a rocket.

My God, he was hot. In his early fifties, or so I remembered from the company bio, Mr. Hammersmith defined silver fox. His body had the well-toned physique only long hours with a personal trainer could maintain at that age. Not heavily muscular, more lean and agile. His cock, larger than average but not intimidatingly so, rose, not erect but at full length, from an immaculately groomed nest of pubic hair, enough to establish adulthood without risking pubes in your mouth. He moved with a grace that made parts of me ache that I didn't need to be thinking about right now. This was a man that avowedly straight men would happily go gay for, and who could lead confirmed lesbians to question their sexuality.

There was something magnetic about him, something that clearly said he could satisfy your deepest desires and would greatly enjoy doing so. I was immediately convinced that the man was a psychopath, but was thirsting so hard I was nearly panting. And this was just over a video call. I began to understand why so many people were willing to take such a huge risk, and live nude in public in a formerly textile only village as a social experiment.

Mr. Hammersmith took the mic from the stand and stepped up to the front of the stage. He had everyone's attention already.

"Let me start off," he said, in a baritone that would have sung the pants off everyone in the audience if they hadn't already been nude, "by thanking those employees who do not live full time for doffing their kit for the meeting. Your solidarity is greatly appreciated."

A round of applause went up, as people noted each other on the call. Yes, there were more people than in Trewinney, and not a stitch to be seen among them.

"We started the Trewinney project," he said, "for three purposes: creating a headquarters for the new manufacturing division, revitalization of a seaside village, and the social experiment of an integrated village with textiles and naturists living and working side by side. I'm personally deeply committed to achieving all of the goals on all of these parallel tracks, and would like to remind the call attendees of the firm's open feedback policy.

"The first goal has been easy. We're already in Phase 2, as noted in the introductions. Let me take a moment to welcome Dr. Margarete Immerwahr. Marga is a materials chemist, and has relocated from Germany with her family to head up the research lab at Trewinney."

Marga's square flashed with a yellow border, and she waved politely to scattered applause.

Oh, shit.

"Let me also welcome our final arrival for Phase Two, Mr. Ian James McCormick, who will serve as our data librarian and one of the two heads of IT for Trewinney. I promise you, he's not an undercover Scot. He really is American."

That got a bit of a laugh as well as some applause. I waved to the camera, knowing that for that moment, my square was flashing and everyone was watching me.

I'm a naturist, not an exhibitionist. I just like being nude. I don't get off on it. As we've seen.

"Phase 3 is on schedule," Mr. Hammersmith picked back up, and I sat back and tried to relax, "and should be opening in Q3.

"The second goal is well under way. We've dropped a significant amount into the parish coffers by taking the residential towers, the office building, and the factory off their hands and moving them back to the tax rolls."

He paced slowly, obviously looking directly at the people in the live audience on site. It had the effect of him looking directly at everyone on the call in turn.

"Every day, those of you living in Trewinney are contributing to this. I've seen a volunteer effort organized to clean up the beach, thank you Damian and Tamara Springett for taking the lead on that."

Damian's square lit up, and he waved.

"Our children are contributing simply by attending the village school, raising the head count and thus raising the matching funds being sent by the Crown. With the parish council's permission, I can tell you that they've now scheduled a road crew to see to the potholes on School Hill Road."

A bit of cheering went up.

"Thought you might like that." Mr. Hammersmith flashed a grin, and I'm pretty sure someone in the audience came. It wasn't me, but it was a near thing.

"Which brings us to our third goal, an integrated community. All of you have taken a tremendous step in agreeing to move to Trewinney, to live as your authentic selves in public, and form the core of this new community. Congratulations to each and every one of you in Trewinney. Just being visible makes a difference."

Ugh, did he have to say being visible? I thought I was an exhibitionist until I moved here. See previous comments in that regard.

"I'd especially like to single out the Phase 1 crew." Mr. Hammersmith returned to center stage, leaned forward a little toward the camera, grew serious. He held the attention of everyone on the call in the palm of his hand and we loved him for it.

"Your being willing to be the first naturists on the streets of Trewinney broke the ice, and helped folks there get used to the reality. We've had a couple of rough patches already, and there will sadly be more, it's unavoidable, but your gentle patience and continued presence have won over the larger majority. Let's get a round of applause for the first people to have skin in the game, shall we?"

Bit of a laugh with the applause at the joke.

"Phase 2 people, now it's your turn."

Ohhh crap.

"You've doubled our presence here in terms of sheer numbers. Going from eighteen to thirty-six employees may not sound all that impressive, until you consider the cannery we're converting had a total staff of forty at its most productive. And that's not just eighteen more employees in the village, working, going round the pub of an evening, spending money at the local shops. No, some of you brought families, and that's brought the balance of naturist and textile children in the school to just below even. With the recent converts, welcome to the Molyneaux family, I understand James started at the factory last week, we've reached parity in the village school already."

James Molyneaux was not singled out. Mr. Hammersmith went on.

"What's more important is what I see on the street in the village. We're all having to make some adjustments for living in a mixed society, but the effort is getting made. Yes, it's going to take work, and I am proud of each and every one of you for being willing to take your sleeves off and get the work done."

He paused half a beat for the snicker.

"In the end, the firm can make all the grand plans it likes, but it comes down to the people actually doing the work to make those plans succeed. We're finishing the implementation of Phase 2 with every single one of the metrics in the green, and you deserve to give yourselves a round of applause for that. "

A bit more cheering.

With that, he turned the stage over to the CFO, and my attention slipped. I was too busy watching Mr. Hammersmith off to the side to pay any attention to numbers outside my own departmental budget. Sadly, he seemed to realize he was drawing attention by his presence, and stepped out of camera range.

And then I was busy checking the company calendar to see when his next visit to Trewinney might be.

=======

Lunch was something microwaved eaten at my desk. I'd been told the village chip shop was actually pretty good, but I was going to get this damn swimlane diagram done.

Third time was the charm. I got the fool thing completed, and filed in the documentation portal for review, with five minutes to spare before I was due in the conference room to meet my counterpart, the system architect. Early is good. I gathered up my laptop, phone, notebook, and sitting towel, and headed down the hall.

The one conference room on the floor theoretically seated eight, but one of the mismatched chairs was in the corner with a sign on it, like a misbehaving child. Aislinn had told me that they'd scoured the local rummage shops, in Pentewan and Mevagissey as well as the one church-run shop in Trewinney, before ordering new furniture to be shipped in. Not all the results had been completely successful, but they'd gotten the office up and running quickly. Some bits were obviously still awaiting replacement.

I picked the further of the two middle chairs down the near side, put down my towel, sat cautiously to make sure the chair was locked against leaning back, and got my gear set up. I'd just got the meeting heading written on a blank page in my notebook when a woman came in, carrying similar kit.

She looked to be in her late thirties, maybe just over forty. Everything about her could be described as "lush". Her tits, full and well rounded, her hips, curved and nicely zaftig, her gingery-brown hair that fell in waves past her shoulders.

"Good afternoon," she said, in a somewhat plummy Northern accent. "Pinella Brightmore, system architect, but please, call me Pinny." She put down her stuff and offered a hand.

I'd stood when she entered, and shook her hand. "Ian McCormick, data librarian."

She very frankly looked me over once, nodded to herself, and set about getting her towel arranged, herself seated, and her gear set up.

"Very nice," she said, and I wasn't sure whether she meant the situation in general, or my physique, or what.

Then she looked up from her laptop, met my gaze, and asked, in the same tone she'd have used inquiring as to my luncheon order, "Do you want to fuck me?"

Well, that removed all doubt.

I blinked. "Um," I said, brilliantly. My thoughts ran and hid under the furniture. "Not, um, right this moment?" I ventured. "We're not exactly in the right place for it, but, um." I gave her the same obvious survey she'd given me. "I'd be interested, certainly."

"Good answer," she said, returning her attention to her laptop. "You'll go home with me tonight, all right?"

I gave her a tentative nod, taken aback by how brisk and efficient she was in organizing her sex life.

"Good," she said again. "Work relationships are better once you get the sexual tension out of the way."

She looked up, again with an unsettlingly direct gaze. "Go ahead and fuck," she said, "and get it out of your system. Resolve the tension. If it's not good, eh, at least you know. The tension is resolved. If it's good, you're now coworkers with benefits. Just keep your sex life out of the office. Now, let's put a pin in that and focus on the requirements implementation."

I found myself a bit stunned at how well she was able to compartmentalize her sexuality, and just calmly set it aside to be played with later when she had time. We got through the user requirements, the vendor requirements, and the proposed basic platform structure in just under an hour. Pinny gathered her things, and went off to write it all up. I sat for a moment, working through what had just happened.

Her personality could have also been described as lush. It lingered in the room after she left like a strong perfume.

=======

Two taps at my doorframe. I looked up past curving hips and full breasts to Pinny's face. She gave me a smirk that clearly said, yes, dear, I'm up here, about time your gaze arrived.

"Ready to go?" she asked. "I've already made our apologies for the usual evening pub stop. Everyone hopes your jet lag clears soon and you're able to join them of an evening. "

"Um." Wow. "Uh, thanks. One sec, let me save and quit out here."

She leaned against the door frame, let her head rest against it at a somehow provocative angle. Her gaze swept over me lazily, and her eyes slid half shut. My cock twitched. Down, boy, I thought, and worked quickly through the shutdown routine.

By the time I'd packed my laptop, cleared and locked my desk, and was ready to stand up, my dick was behaving itself (for once), and I didn't bounce on rising. Not that Pinny would have objected, and everyone would know what was really going on when the two of us walked out together, but I didn't need to be waving a flag. Especially not out on the public street.

Yeah, that kept things deflated.

At Reception, we got a couple of knowing looks from a few people as the two of us went right, down the street, instead of left into the queue for the shuttle. Pinny didn't even react. I just shrugged and went with her. If you're not willing to be open about the relationship, you probably shouldn't be having it.

We walked in silence for a block or so. We passed one of the locals, an older man out walking his dog. Pinny made a fuss over the dog, had to stop to pet it. The old man said very little, just watched, shook his head, and moved on as soon as Pinny was done. The entire thing was surreal. Such a normal scene, except two of us were nude. Well, we're redefining normal here in Trewinney, aren't we? Mr. Hammersmith said so.

"I should mention Stafford," Pinny said, as we turned the corner onto a cross street. The shops came to an end, and we were decidedly in residential surroundings. "I have a pet husband, you see."

That raised my eyebrows, although nothing else. I glanced down at her left hand.

She raised it obligingly. "No," she said, "I don't wear a wedding ring, and neither does Stafford. The rings we used in the ceremony are put away in a box for safekeeping. He wears a collar, and that establishes the relationship enough for the both of us."

"Pet husband," I repeated. A little more definition and context on that would be appreciated, yes. What was I walking into?

"Oh, yes," she stated matter of factly. "He was my pet before he became my husband. I married him so that I had papers for him, and could take care of things if he needed to see the vet."

That last word was still echoing in my head when we arrived at yet another townhouse style home. There must have been a residential building boom here in the late Eighties, as much of the newer housing in Trewinney seemed to be all the same floor plan. The front garden was scarcely more than a postage stamp, enough to put a three-stone walkway through up to the front steps. The back garden was enclosed by a high privacy fence, like all the other townhomes on the block.

Pinny led the way up the steps, unlocked the ironwork security door, then the inner wooden door. An excited large animal backed away from the door, greeting her with enthusiasm.

And then I got inside, and realized it was a short, thin, nude man with brush-cut brown hair and a dog collar, down on all fours, sniffing at my legs. I wasn't sure whether to pet him or back away or what, but yeah, I would have had the same reaction if he had been the large dog he was acting like.

Pinny strode down the hallway. Stafford forgot me and followed eagerly, moving on all fours with an ease that spoke of long practice.

"Walkies!" Pinny trilled, as she took down a leash from a peg by the back door. Stafford obediently offered himself up to be leashed, and she let him out into the back garden, going out with him. I followed to the doorway, and watched, curious as to how far this was going to go.

Sure enough, Stafford sniffed around a little, then lifted his leg and pissed in the grass.

"Good boy," Pinny baby talked him, and petted him when he was done. "Such a good boy holding it until Mommy got home. We had some rough patches getting you housebroken, but you're such a good boy now, yes you are."

Stafford wagged his ass and licked her knee, currently at face level.

She looked round to me.

"So this is Stafford, and the reason I live in the village rather than the residential tower." She brought him over. "Put your hand out."

They really were doing the entire thing. Okay, fine. I put my hand out for Stafford to sniff.

"This is Ian," Pinny told him as he got my scent. I tentatively scratched him behind the ear, and he cocked his head and picked up one hind leg, obviously enjoying it.

Pinny reached out as I finished, ruffled Stafford's hair, and made a kissy face at him when he looked round at her. "Momma takes care of her special boy, doesn't she?"

Stafford wagged his ass, and licked her hand.

"You know," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "I can't remember the last time he spoke. Before we moved here at any rate." She shrugged.

"All done," she told her pet.

Stafford obediently went back inside, Pinny close behind. I followed and closed the door on the way in as she hung up the leash.

And then she turned around, and was standing close enough to me in the back hallway she was able to casually reach out and take hold of my cock. I gasped a little, surprised by the suddenness of the move.

"Are you ready for this?" She stroked my cock once, then closed her hand loosely around and pumped twice. I sprang to attention, growing hard nearly as fast as during the video call earlier. Might have had some residual arousal from that still unresolved.

She glanced up into my eyes, apparently saw an affirmation, and led me by my cock to the front parlor. Stafford followed, remaining on all fours as I was beginning to understand he would. I've fucked with a dog in the room before. A glance back at his slightly vacant, somewhat eager expression suggested this wouldn't be all that different at first, but might take a turn along the way.

"The leather couch, I should think," she mused, as she led me into a room clearly planned for both entertaining guests and fucking them. The couch in question occupied the room like an eight hundred pound gorilla, sitting out in the middle where it bloody well wanted to and the rest of the furnishings just having to work around it. Long enough to seat three spaciously and four cozy, it spanned nearly wall to wall.

Pinny let go of my cock, and with a few careless flicks, disposed of the doilies covering the arms and back of the black leather beast, revealing broad straps wrapping up and over at key points.

I took a step toward her, and she faced me, took both my hips in her hands. Pulled me to her, reached up, pulled my head down and kissed me. Her lips parted mine, and her tongue slipped into my mouth, questing, probing, demanding. I met it with my own, not battling or wrestling, but caressing, welcoming. She made a pleased mmm sound, and took a step back, obliging me to follow.

She sat down on the edge of the couch, insisted silently that I kneel to her with a hand on my shoulder. Her other hand pinched my nipple as I knelt, hard, and I gave an "Ah!" of surprise.

She smiled, and her eyes narrowed. As she laid back and spread her legs, both hands went up to my head, ran their fingers through my hair, took hold, and guided my head down.

I needed no such urging, but it did feel nice, and she obviously was enjoying it. I sank my tongue into her pussy, tasting wetness between her labia meeting my mouth's own. As she gripped my hair, and made happy throaty noises, I ran my tongue down between her left outer and inner labia, then back up on the right, hitting both horns of her clitoris before passing my tongue over the nub at the top center.

"Ooo," she cooed. "A man who knows what he's doing with a pussy." She relaxed her fingers, let up on the tension on my hair, but kept her hands in place, guiding me.

I kept up the cycle, down, up, and a stroke or two across the little girl in the boat, for another three licks, then probed at her opening. A tickle around the verge, pushing at her clitoral nerves to make her pussy tingle, then I pushed the tip of my tongue into her.

She arched, pulled my mouth off her cunt.

"Let's have something more suited for penetration, shall we?" she asked, and slid her hands down to my shoulders, guiding me up and on top of her as she laid back. Her hair spilled out across the black leather of the couch, setting off her buxom figure and skin tones in ways that made me ooze precum.

"Mm, yes," she purred, as she stroked the droplet off the end of my cock and rubbed it into her left nipple. Then she took hold of my hair again, and guided my mouth down to lick my precum off her tit. I took her nipple between my lips, wrapped my tongue around it, savored the salty taste of her skin and my fluids. I nipped a little with my teeth.

She bucked, and her hand in my hair clenched. I pulled my mouth back off her nipple, and she immediately pushed my face back into her tit.

"I didn't say stop, did I?" she hissed. I took her nipple between my teeth, chewing gently, licking across the tip and trying to keep my grip without biting down too hard as she writhed and moaned under me.

Her other hand slid down my flank, under me, between us, dipped a finger into her cunt and wiped her wetness around the head of my cock. I groaned as I felt my cock surge in response. She gave a low chuckle, deep in her throat, pleased at her ability to provoke such a reaction from me.

Both hands went to the straps, and she pulled herself partly out from under me and up fully onto the couch.

"Fuck me," she demanded. and reached for me, encouraging, as I slid up on top of her. I ran my tongue over her other nipple, then on up the side of her neck. Her hand guided my cock into her pussy, and I rocked forward, starting to work my cock in.

"Did I say slow?" she hissed. Her other hand cracked me on the ass. Startled, I lunged forward, ramming my cock into her in a single stroke.

Pinny threw her head back with a cry, then wrapped her legs and arms around me, encouraging me to drive on. I pulled back, dropped my weight into the thrust. She gasped. grabbed the back of my head, shoved my face against her neck.

"Bite," she demanded, as I pounded on. I took a big mouthful of her neck, let her feel my teeth, not hard enough to draw blood but she'd have a hickey. She rocked her hips, thrusting back at me as I continued to plow into her.

A rising pressure in my groin warned me. "I'm gonna come quick like this," I gasped out around a mouthful of her neck.

"Yes!" she cried. Another spank, driving me on. "Come!"

There was no holding it back anyway. I clenched, pulled back, drove my cock into her cunt one more time and came hard, pumping into her. She gasped, and made a happy mmm sound as I clenched again, pumping in a second surge. Twice more, and then I was spent. I let go of her neck, rose up on my hands, sucked in great lungfuls of air as I tried to catch my breath from a short but strenuous effort.

"Off you go then," Pinny ordered me peremptorily, and pushed me off to the side. She slid to the edge of the couch, hung her legs over, got her feet onto the floor.

"Stafford!" she called. "Time to tend to mummy!"

Stafford eagerly scurried over, and shoved his face into her pussy with a total lack of grace. Pinny sat partly up, glanced round, pointed to a nearby cushion.

"Put that under my back," she ordered me. I reached over, still recovering from my orgasm, shoved the pillow under her as she pushed up on her arms briefly.

"Now I can see my good little boy," she cooed to Stafford, watching as he ate her out with loud slurping noises. Her back arched, and she reached out to either side and took hold of the conveniently placed black leather straps. I watched as Stafford licked Pinny to orgasm, no technique to speak of but his eagerness to lick every drop of our mixed body fluids out of his wife was clear.

Then Pinny tensed, gripped Stafford's head with her thighs, and hissed out a long, slow breath that wasn't quite a "Yesss" as she came. Stafford made happy noises and wetter slurping noises. If Pinny was a squirter, Stafford had caught it in his mouth.

She pushed him away with her foot, then, and he backed off and curled up on the floor, licking his lips. Pinny rested her foot on him, and lay gasping for air on the couch for a long moment.

"Good boy," she finally, said, and I had no idea whether she was speaking to her pet husband or to me.