Nothing Left to Hide

Chapter One

The email had said NUDE DAY.

In my defense, it had been written in capital letters.

That was the argument I would eventually make to Human Resources, although even I knew it wasn't much of a defense.

I was twenty-two years old, six months into a job I mostly liked, and still young enough to believe that if something sounded ridiculous, there was at least a reasonable chance the company actually meant it. Offices did stupid morale-building things all the time. Hawaiian-shirt days. Pajama days. Halloween costume contests. Bring-your-dog-to-work days. Somewhere between corporate management and whoever came up with employee-engagement ideas, apparently somebody had decided we needed Nude Day.

At least that was what I thought.

The email had gone out earlier in the week. I'd skimmed it on my computer between actual work, saw the words NUDE DAY FRIDAY, laughed, and kept going. There had been something underneath about participation being optional, keeping things tasteful and having fun with it, but apparently I'd decided the headline contained all the information a reasonable person needed.

Friday morning I got dressed exactly as I normally did.

That fact would bother me later.

If I genuinely believed I was supposed to go to work naked, why the hell had I put clothes on at home?

The answer was obvious: because driving to work naked seemed insane.

Going to work naked, apparently, did not.

I pulled into the parking lot a few minutes before eight and backed into my usual space. The morning was already warm, the kind of clear day where the sunlight bouncing off windshields made you squint. I shut off the engine, grabbed my coffee, and looked toward the building.

That's when I noticed all the beige.

Not naked people.

Beige people.

One woman crossing the parking lot had on a light tan dress. A guy from accounting was wearing khaki pants and a shirt so close to his skin tone that from fifty yards away he looked vaguely unfinished. Somebody else had on cream-colored slacks.

I stared through the windshield.

"Huh."

This should have prompted further investigation.

It did not.

Instead, I decided these people were cowards.

"Well, I'm not half-assing it."

I put my coffee in the cup holder.

Shoes first.

I kicked them off and put them on the passenger-side floorboard. Socks followed. Then I reached behind my neck, pulled my shirt over my head, and tossed it onto the passenger seat.

The air-conditioning moved across my bare chest.

That was the first moment when the stupidity of what I was doing began to feel real.

There is a substantial psychological difference between being naked in your bedroom and taking your pants off in the parking lot of your employer.

I unbuckled my belt anyway.

The zipper sounded unusually loud.

I pushed my pants down, worked them over my feet, folded them badly, and dropped them on top of the shirt.

That left my underwear.

I sat behind the steering wheel wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and stared at the front entrance.

People were still arriving.

Nobody else was naked.

Not one person.

Again, this information was available to me.

Again, I did nothing useful with it.

I hooked my thumbs into the waistband.

"This is fucking stupid."

My hands stayed there.

I could still stop.

Walk inside wearing underwear? Obviously not.

Put everything back on? Sensible.

Get completely naked and walk into work? Apparently option three remained under serious consideration.

My stomach fluttered.

Not fear exactly. Something between fear, adrenaline and the sensation you get standing at the edge of a high diving board after you've already told everybody you're jumping.

Except nobody knew I was on the diving board.

Nobody had asked me to jump.

I was doing this entirely to myself.

"Fuck it."

I pushed the underwear down.

For a moment I simply sat there.

Completely naked.

At work.

In my car.

My dick and balls were resting against the seat as casually as if this were something I did every Friday morning.

I looked down at myself.

"Well. Here we are."

The air-conditioning suddenly felt much colder.

My nipples tightened almost immediately. Goosebumps rose along my arms and thighs, and the cold produced another predictable effect farther south.

I looked down again.

"Oh, come on."

Shrinkage.

Of course.

If I was about to introduce my coworkers to my naked body for the first time, apparently my dick had decided it wanted to make the least impressive entrance possible.

"Fantastic."

I turned off the air.

Then another problem occurred to me.

Keys.

Wallet.

Phone.

I had no pockets.

This was already becoming logistically complicated.

I put my wallet and phone together in one hand, keys in the other, opened the car door and immediately felt warm morning air move across my entire body.

My first instinct was to close the door.

I didn't.

I put one bare foot onto the pavement.

The asphalt was rough and warmer than I'd expected.

Then the other.

I stood.

That was the moment.

Sitting naked inside a car was one thing.

Standing completely naked in my employer's parking lot was another.

Every exposed inch of me seemed to wake up simultaneously. The breeze against my chest. Sunlight on my shoulders. Air moving between my legs. The roughness under my feet. My own heartbeat.

I glanced around.

Nobody appeared to be looking.

"Okay."

I closed the car door.

The click sounded very final.

I started walking.

I had gone maybe twenty feet when I heard someone behind me.

"Blake?"

I stopped.

I knew the voice.

Darren.

I turned around.

Darren was standing beside his truck wearing khaki pants and a beige polo shirt.

He stared at me.

Not my face.

All of me.

Then back at my face.

Then down again.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

I lifted my hands slightly.

"Nude Day."

There was a pause.

Darren's mouth opened.

Then he laughed.

Not a chuckle.

He bent forward with one hand against the side of his truck and laughed so hard he couldn't speak.

I stood there naked holding my phone and wallet while my coworker lost his mind.

"What?"

He pointed at himself.

"This!"

"What?"

"This is Nude Day!"

I looked at his clothes.

Then toward the building.

Then at another coworker crossing the parking lot in a flesh-colored blouse.

Then back at Darren.

"Oh."

He straightened slowly.

"You thought it meant actually naked?"

"The email said Nude Day."

"It means nude colors!"

"Well, that's fucking misleading."

That started him laughing again.

I looked back at my car.

My clothes were right there.

Maybe thirty feet away.

This was my opportunity.

All I had to do was walk back, put on my underwear, pants, socks, shoes and shirt, and accept that Darren would tell everybody what almost happened.

For some reason, that possibility suddenly felt worse.

I'd already gotten naked.

I'd already stood in the parking lot.

Darren had already seen everything.

Going back to the car felt like admitting defeat.

Which was ridiculous, because there was no contest.

Still.

I looked toward the entrance.

Darren stopped laughing long enough to notice.

"No."

"What?"

"Blake, no."

"What?"

"You're not going in there."

"Why not?"

"Because you're fucking naked."

"It's Nude Day."

"It's NUDE-COLOR Day!"

"That's not what the email said."

"You're seriously going inside?"

I shrugged.

"I've come this far."

"You've come thirty feet!"

"Exactly. No sense wasting the trip."

"Blake."

I started walking.

"Oh my God," Darren said behind me. "He's actually doing it."

That sentence followed me across the parking lot.

The building had a glass front.

I had never given that much thought before.

Now I could see the receptionist before she could technically see all of me.

She was looking down at something on her desk.

A woman near the front counter looked through the glass first.

Her eyes widened.

She stopped talking.

The person beside her turned to see what she was looking at.

Then he stopped talking too.

I kept walking.

By the time I was ten feet from the door, at least six people were watching me approach.

Someone's hand went over her mouth.

Someone else visibly said, "Oh my God."

I reached for the door handle.

The receptionist finally looked up.

Her mouth dropped open.

I pulled the door open.

Cold air hit me immediately.

And I mean immediately.

It rolled over my skin from head to toe.

My chest tightened. Goosebumps rose across my arms again.

And, once again, my dick reacted to the temperature by trying to retreat into my body.

Perfect.

The lobby went almost completely silent.

I stepped inside.

A woman gasped.

Somebody behind her laughed.

Another person said, much too loudly, "Holy shit."

I stood there with my phone and wallet in one hand and my keys in the other.

"Good morning."

That broke the room.

People started laughing.

Not everybody. Some stared. Some looked away. One woman turned completely around as if refusing to acknowledge my existence might somehow restore order to the universe.

Darren came through the door behind me.

"I tried to stop him."

"Traitor."

"You did this to yourself."

A coworker named Melissa was staring at me with both hands over her mouth.

"Blake!"

"What?"

"Where are your clothes?"

"In my car."

"WHY?"

"Nude Day."

"It's not actually Nude Day!"

"Yes, Darren has explained the fine print."

"Then why are you still naked?"

I had no good answer.

So I gave the one that had begun forming somewhere between Darren's truck and the front door.

"Principle."

Darren barked out a laugh.

Melissa stared at me.

"What principle?"

"The email said Nude Day."

"That isn't a principle."

"It's the beginning of one."

Someone farther back called, "Put some pants on!"

I turned toward the voice.

"No."

More laughter.

And that was when my phone rang.

I looked down at the screen.

Human Resources.

The laughter around me got louder because several people could apparently see the caller ID.

Darren leaned toward me.

"That was fast."

I answered.

"Hello?"

"Blake?"

"Yes."

"Can you come to HR, please?"

I looked down at myself.

"Right now?"

There was a pause.

"Yes, Blake. Right now."

"Okay."

I hung up.

Darren grinned.

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

"Want me to get your clothes?"

"No."

His smile disappeared.

"You're going to HR naked?"

"That's how they called me."

"Jesus Christ."

The walk to HR was the longest walk I'd ever taken inside that building.

People who hadn't seen me enter heard about it before I reached them.

Heads appeared over cubicle walls.

A guy stepped out of the break room holding a coffee mug, saw me, and simply stopped.

"Morning."

He looked at my face.

Then down.

Then back up.

"Morning."

I kept walking.

The strange thing was how quickly my body became the center of my awareness.

Not sexually.

Mechanically.

I could feel my balls move slightly with each step. I could feel air across skin normally covered by underwear. I could feel the temperature change when I passed beneath a vent.

And I had absolutely nowhere to put my hands.

If I held them in front of myself, it looked like I was covering up.

If I let them hang naturally, I felt ridiculously exposed.

If I crossed my arms, it looked defensive.

Pockets had apparently been doing a tremendous amount of emotional labor for me my entire life.

I finally reached HR.

The door was closed.

I knocked.

"Come in."

I opened it.

The HR manager looked up.

Her eyes widened despite the fact that she obviously knew why she'd called me.

"Blake."

"Morning."

"Close the door."

I did.

She pointed toward the chair across from her desk.

"Have a seat."

I looked at the chair.

She looked at the chair.

We both looked at me.

There was a long silence.

"Maybe don't sit."

"That's probably better."

I remained standing.

She took a breath.

"Where are your clothes?"

"In my car."

"Why are they in your car?"

"Because of Nude Day."

"Blake, Nude Day refers to nude-colored clothing."

"I have recently been made aware of that."

Her lips tightened.

"Then why didn't you get dressed?"

"Because the email said Nude Day."

"We've established that."

"Right."

"Go get dressed."

I hesitated.

She noticed.

"What?"

"Can you show me where the policy says I have to?"

She stared at me.

"Where the policy says you have to what?"

"Wear clothes."

"Blake."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"Okay. Show me."

Her expression changed from embarrassment to irritation.

"You need to wear clothing in the workplace."

"I'm asking where it says that."

"It's understood."

"Apparently not."

She stared at me.

I immediately knew I shouldn't have said that.

But there was no taking it back.

She turned toward her computer.

"We have a dress code."

"Right."

"It requires professional attire."

"Okay."

"Being naked is not professional attire."

"Technically it isn't attire at all."

She slowly looked back at me.

"That isn't helping you."

"Fair."

She pulled up the policy.

We read it.

No torn jeans.

No clothing displaying offensive language.

No open-toed shoes in certain work areas.

Employees were expected to maintain a clean and professional appearance.

There were guidelines about shorts, skirts, shirts and footwear.

What there wasn't, because apparently no policy writer had anticipated me, was a sentence saying:

Employees must wear clothes.

I pointed at the screen.

"That's what I'm talking about."

She leaned back.

"Blake, nobody writing this policy thought they needed to explicitly state that employees have to be clothed."

"Then maybe they should have."

She rubbed her forehead.

"You're enjoying this."

"I am extremely uncomfortable."

"Then put your clothes on."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because, truthfully, I wasn't entirely sure anymore.

It had started as a misunderstanding.

Then embarrassment.

Then stubbornness.

Now I was standing naked in HR debating policy language because somewhere along the way I'd become genuinely interested in whether everybody's assumption was actually a rule.

"I guess the point is that you're telling me I'm violating a policy, and I'm asking which policy."

She looked at me for several seconds.

Then she picked up the phone.

"Wait here."

"Okay."

She made a call.

Then another.

At some point my nervous system decided the situation wasn't sufficiently humiliating.

Warm face.

Butterflies in my stomach.

Heart beating faster.

And then the unmistakable beginning of an erection.

I felt it happening.

"No."

The HR manager looked up.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I turned slightly away from her desk.

This was not sexual.

There was nothing remotely erotic about standing naked under fluorescent lights while Human Resources tried to determine whether your existence violated company policy.

My body didn't care.

Adrenaline was adrenaline.

Embarrassment was stimulation.

Being intensely aware of being naked in front of another person was apparently enough for my dick to make an executive decision without consulting me.

I tried thinking about anything else.

Taxes.

Car repairs.

My grandmother.

That last one worked remarkably well.

The reaction subsided.

The HR manager had either not noticed or had chosen the kindest possible response and pretended she hadn't.

Eventually she hung up.

"Management is reviewing this."

"Okay."

"And legal."

"Legal?"

"Yes, Blake. Legal."

"Because I'm naked."

"Because you are refusing to get dressed."

"Those sound like the same thing."

"They aren't."

Fair enough.

She told me to return to my workstation while they figured out what they were going to do.

That surprised me.

"I'm going back to work?"

"For now."

"Naked."

Her stare could have stripped paint.

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Blake?"

"Yes?"

"Please don't make this worse."

I looked down at myself.

"I honestly don't know how."

I returned to work.

The first hour was awful.

Every laugh sounded like it was about me.

Every time somebody walked behind my chair, I wondered where they were looking.

I became acutely conscious of my posture, my hands, my legs, the angle I sat at, the fact that my dick was simply there in the open like it had been invited to a staff meeting.

I found a clean towel before sitting.

That decision required no policy debate.

Bare ass on shared office furniture was disgusting.

By ten, something unexpected happened.

People started getting bored.

Melissa came to my desk with paperwork.

She stood there talking to me for almost a minute before suddenly stopping.

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

She gestured toward me.

"That."

I laughed.

"Progress."

By lunch, conversations were happening around me that had nothing to do with my body.

Someone complained about a customer.

Somebody else wanted to know where we were ordering lunch.

A coworker asked me to fix something.

I fixed it.

Then came the customers.

One man walked in, saw me and immediately looked back toward the entrance as if checking whether he'd entered the wrong business.

"Can I help you?"

He looked directly into my eyes with heroic determination.

"Yes."

He never looked below my chin again.

A woman stared openly.

Another laughed.

One older guy looked at me for several seconds and finally asked, "Is this some kind of protest?"

"Not originally."

His eyebrows rose.

"What does that mean?"

"Long story."

He nodded slowly.

"All right."

Then he completed his business.

That was when something changed in me.

I stopped waiting for catastrophe.

The building was still standing.

Nobody had died.

I was still doing my job.

Yes, I was naked.

Yes, everybody could see my body.

But eventually there was only so much information in that fact.

By three o'clock I was more annoyed by the air-conditioning than the staring.

At five, I logged out.

People were leaving.

Darren walked past my desk.

"You made it."

"Apparently."

"You going to do this Monday?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

He looked down at me.

"You going home like that?"

"No."

That answer came automatically.

Of course I wasn't.

That would be insane.

I walked back through the lobby.

The receptionist barely reacted this time.

"Have a good weekend, Blake."

"You too."

Then she looked up.

"Please wear clothes Monday."

"No promises."

She shook her head.

Outside, the warm air felt good.

I crossed the parking lot and reached my car.

There they were.

My clothes.

Exactly where I'd left them.

I opened the passenger door and picked up my underwear.

Finally.

Normal.

I stepped into one leg.

Then the other.

I pulled them halfway up.

And stopped.

The fabric felt strange.

Not painful.

Not even particularly uncomfortable.

Just unnecessary.

I stood beside my car with my underwear halfway up my thighs.

"What the hell?"

I pulled them the rest of the way up.

The waistband settled around me.

Immediately I wanted them off.

I laughed at myself.

"You have lost your mind."

I took them off.

Fine.

Maybe pants without underwear.

I picked up my pants.

One leg.

Then the other.

I pulled them up.

No.

Worse.

After eight hours with nothing touching me, the fabric around my legs felt restrictive.

I took them off too.

Now I was standing naked in the parking lot after work, holding my pants.

Nobody was making me do this.

Nobody was watching.

There was no principle left to defend.

I simply didn't want to get dressed.

Then I looked at the driver's seat.

"Absolutely not."

Driving home naked was different.

Wasn't it?

I looked around.

Could somebody see into the car?

Obviously.

What if I got pulled over?

Was driving naked illegal?

I had no idea.

What if I got into an accident?

That would be an interesting conversation with a paramedic.

What if somebody at a red light looked over?

What if I got home and one of the neighbors was outside?

What if Megan was home?

Especially Megan.

I pictured opening the apartment door.

Hey, Megan. Funny story.

No.

Clothes.

I picked up the underwear again.

Then put it back down.

"Fuck."

I stood there another thirty seconds.

Finally I opened the driver's door and got in naked.

The seat had been baking in the sun all day.

"JESUS CHRIST!"

I shot halfway back out of the car.

Someone across the parking lot laughed.

I looked around.

Darren.

Of course.

He was standing beside his truck.

"Problem?"

"Fuck off."

"You are going home naked!"

"I haven't decided yet."

"You're sitting in the car!"

"I'm evaluating."

He laughed and got into his truck.

I lowered myself carefully onto the seat.

Then pulled the seatbelt across my chest.

That was another sensation I'd never considered.

Seatbelts were designed with shirts in mind.

Apparently everything was.

I started the engine.

Air-conditioning blasted from the vents.

Immediately:

Goosebumps.

Tight nipples.

Shrinkage.

I turned the vents away from myself.

"Not today."

I sat there with both hands on the steering wheel.

My clothes were beside me.

I could still put them on.

I didn't.

I backed out.

At the first red light I became intensely aware of every vehicle around me.

A truck on the left.

SUV on the right.

Could they see?

Probably not.

Maybe.

I sat unnaturally upright.

Then I realized sitting unnaturally upright probably made me look more suspicious.

I tried to relax.

At the next light somebody honked.

My heart jumped.

I looked left.

Darren.

His window was down.

He was laughing.

"YOU ACTUALLY DID IT!"

"GO HOME!"

"PUT SOME PANTS ON!"

The light changed.

He drove away still laughing.

I laughed too.

After that, something loosened.

The drive stopped feeling like an emergency.

Sunlight came through the windshield.

Warmth touched one side of my body while the AC cooled the other.

The seat felt different beneath bare skin.

The belt crossed my chest.

I could feel every change in temperature.

And, strangely, I liked it.

Not sexually.

Not because anybody might see me.

I simply liked not wearing clothes.

That realization was much bigger than the stupid office argument.

By the time I reached my apartment complex, I had another decision to make.

My clothes were still on the passenger seat.

I could put them on before getting out.

I should put them on.

I looked toward the building.

Maybe forty yards.

Car to apartment.

I picked up my underwear.

Held it.

Put it back down.

"Apparently we're doing this."

I got out.

The walk to the apartment was considerably faster than my walk into work that morning.

Keys in hand.

Phone.

Wallet.

Still no pockets.

I reached the door, unlocked it, and slipped inside.

Cool apartment air touched my skin.

I shut the door behind me.

Safe.

Home.

I dropped my keys and wallet onto the little table.

"Megan?"

Her voice came from the kitchen.

"In here!"

Of course she was home.

I stood in the entryway.

This was my final opportunity to run to my bedroom.

Put on shorts.

Anything.

Instead I walked toward the kitchen.

"Megan, you're not going to believe what happened at work today."

"I swear to God, if you got fired--"

She came around the corner.

And stopped.

Her blue eyes went immediately to my face.

Then down.

All the way down.

Her mouth fell open.

For several seconds neither of us said anything.

Then her eyes snapped back to mine.

"Blake..."

And that was when I realized explaining Nude Day to Human Resources had been the easy part.