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As we ate our potato soup, the weight of getting naked hung over my head like a punishment. And then I said it: "I'm afraid. I'm afraid of seeing and being seen." I told Elisabeth I must have been born with a turtleneck on. "Aren't you worried?"

She slipped off her glasses. "No, I'm as blind as a bat without these."

I decided the only way I could handle this new stage of nakedness was to look around the bathing area. I led a blind Elisabeth into the darkness, down the trail. Crossing the street in our robes and slippers, we entered the small, wooden deck area.

Under the roofed area the first thing I saw was a large woman sitting naked. Then I spotted a couple of people in one of the three long, rectangular pools. Not a bathing suit in sight. No one was in the sauna, and the outdoor pool was half-drained. No one in the cold plunge either.

I tried to reassure myself that I would be naked for a purpose, like a visit to the doctor's office or sleeping with a lover, but all I kept thinking was that I had been sent away to a rigorous kind of training camp: naked camp.

Elisabeth dropped her robe and slipped into the middle rectangular pool. A hip-looking couple in their 30s kissed in the pool ahead of us. Standing on the side of the pool, I whispered loudly that there was not supposed to be any intimate behavior. "Or talking," Elisabeth added and closed her eyes.

Finally, after playing with the belt on my robe, looking at the sky and debating about whether I should go back to the library, I took down my robe and rolled it into a small wad next to me. The hook on the wall seemed unbearably far away. Then I slid into the pool. The bottom was rough stone. My skin felt slippery in the sulfur water. The moon was almost full. And because it was dark, I knew no one was looking. I could breathe a little easier. But I still don't know if I'll ever be ready for the group room at Macy's.
salon.com | Sept. 28, 1999

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