From now on, she decided, she would wear clothes like an accessory, not an armor. Because she had finally, mercifully, learned to inhabit the one thing she could never take off.
Zita, dans la peau d'une naturiste. For the first time, it fit perfectly.
An old man with a beard like a cloud walked past carrying a baguette, nodding a simple "Bonjour." A woman with silver hair and a body that had clearly borne children was playing pétanque, laughing as her boule clattered against another. A teenager was reading a comic book upside down, draped over a rock like a lizard. All of them were naked. All of them were simply… human. zita dans la peau d une naturiste
She had spent forty-two years learning to live inside her clothes. It had taken only two hours to learn how to live inside her skin.
Zita walked towards the lake. With every step, the self-consciousness sloughed off like a snake's skin. The tickle of grass on her ankles. The sun finding her shoulder blades, a spot a swimsuit usually hid. The whisper of wind across her belly. For the first time in years, she felt the weather on her entire body. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't shameful. It was just true . From now on, she decided, she would wear
She drove home with the windows down. The wind found her again.
It started as a dare. A whisper from a friend at a party: "You? You wouldn't last an hour." For the first time, it fit perfectly
When the sun began to dip, she returned to the bench. She picked up her underwear—lacy, impractical, a little tight. She held them for a long moment. Then she put on only her sundress, letting it fall over her head like a whisper. No bra. No pantries. Just cotton against skin.