Adventures In Nekkidness: Bring In the Entire Neighborhood

I went through a peeping tom phase when I was 14. It started when I discovered that all I had to do was sit at our back bedroom window at night and wait for the 40-something woman across from us to appear naked in her back bedroom. She left the curtains open. She entertained various gentlemen callers — usually old guys, fat with gray body hair. The woman was slim, nice body, nice bush, blonde perm like Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born. She must’ve thought of me as a potential future customer. Free samples for teenage boys!

It takes so little to please post-pubescent boys. I swear to God, if I had been exposed to naked females at an early age, I wouldn’t have spent so much time looking for them in my teens and twenties.

Community Theatre

They should’ve sat me down at the ages of four, five, and six, and said, “Greg’ry, here’s your Aunt Martha.” And I’m not talking about pictures, either. I’m talking about the real Aunt Martha walking in nekkid, doing a full turn, and taking a bow. “That’s what a 40-year-old woman looks like nekkid.”

And I’d have responded, “Humph!”

Next!

“And here’s your Cousin Ruth.”

Enter Ruth, to applause from me and my parents.

“This is what an 18-year-old girl looks like nekkid.”

And I’d have responded, “Humph!”

“Matter o’ fact, let’s just bring in the entire neighborhood. Here’s your little league coach’s hot wife. Your piano teacher. Your best friend’s mom. And my secretary; you know, the nice lady who fixes hot chocolate for you.”

“Humph . . . everybody kinda looks the same.”

“That’s the point here, son.”

Touching Distance

In reality, Cousin Ruth was kind enough to put on a show for me around the same time as the woman in the back window. Our bathroom door wouldn’t close all the way, and there was a mirror on the wall that allowed me a view of the shower. So once, when Cousin Ruth — who spent her college freshman year spring break with us — finished her shower and pulled back the curtains, I was suddenly presented with my first full gander of a nekkid adult female right there more or less in touching distance.

Our eyes met. And I thought, Oh no, I’m gonna die! She’s gonna scream and tell my mother and I’m gonna git whipped and reminded of what a worthless sinner I am. But that didn’t happen. Ruth looked away and continued her post-shower routine; albeit in decidedly meticulous movements. She flexed and stretched and posed. She played a part in my own custom peepshow. And she played the part well. She got a standing ovation.

To this day, over 40 years later, neither she nor I have mentioned this to one another.