Naked in School-Kevin and Denise
I’ve read in some of the kids’ website forum postings about how they were woken up in the morning by a fantastic BJ. Well, not me; not this morning, anyway. We woke up, shared a garbage-mouthed kiss, and got ready for school. Today we had planned to change to our kimonos at the car and support the Program kids when they stripped. Today was to be the first full-touching day.
We arrived at school and changed at the car, then went to the main doors where a surprise awaited us. Four of the Program kids were stripping, but surrounding them was a kind of cordon of students, all wearing a bright red top or shirt of one kind or another. When we walked up, the nearest students parted for us as if we were some kind of royalty.
“What’s going on?” Denise asked the nearest red-shirt.
“Denise, we’re the honor guard. Everyone wearing a red shirt has vowed to protect the Program kids from any contact unless they want to be touched. There are about 200 kids who are doing this and it’s in honor of what you and Kevin did for the Program here. We won’t allow any abuse or humiliation, we want to honor those doing the Program for their bravery.”
Denise went to the guy and kissed his cheek. “That’s just awesome; I wish I could kiss all of you for doing this.”
The other Program kids had arrived now and began undressing; then, with the red shirts following, they entered the school. There were kids wearing red everywhere. Wow. Who arranged this, anyway.
Need I have wondered? Because suddenly Linda Grover rushed up. “Oh, there you are, Kevin. I hope you don’t mind the red. Your kimonos gave me the idea; red as the Program’s safety color.”
“I should have realized that you were behind this, Linda,” I grinned. “No, it’s a great idea. But I’m wondering what the Program’s future will be, judging from last night’s news reports.”
“Yeah, but you know, lots of kids—most, anyway—are in favor of it now. It’s weird. You hated it so much so then you went and just changed it completely around. In just three weeks. Unbelievable. Gotta run, see ya,” and she was rushing off.
Damn, forgot to ask about her breakfast again!
A few of our fellow advisors had collected around Denise and me by then; all of them were wearing something red. We went off to our meeting room and the rest of the group filtered in. Every single person was wearing a red top garment of some kind. When Fletcher arrived, he just looked around and shook his head in bemusement.
“I’m really losing control of this school, it seems. Now I’m the last to find out what’s going on—so I understand that now there’s a new Program honor guard.”
“Dr Fletcher, what’s going to happen to the Program now?” one student called.
“The school board is waiting to hear from the governor’s office or maybe the state’s education department. We don’t know yet, so let’s try to carry on like nothing’s changed. That’s a tall order, but we’ll try, ok?”
There were a few issues Fletcher wanted us to know about and Denise brought up the safety equipment issue. Fletcher told us that he would make certain that gym students could wear support items including jocks; in fact, he decided, their wearing would be required to prevent accidents, like aprons in chemistry labs. The meeting went quite well, but we decided to hold off choosing a chair and a name until the Program uncertainty was resolved.
Home room period ended and we went to Civics. About fifteen minutes into the class, a student came in with a note. Mrs Wilson read the note and shook her head ruefully.
“Denise and Kevin, you’re wanted in the office. Again. Have fun, I’m sure.”
No, no, no. What is it goddamned now? I took Denise’s hand and we trudged off to the office and we were ushered into the little conference room. Three unfamiliar people, two men and a woman were sitting at the table with Fletcher. They all rose when we entered.
I tensed and moved protectively in front of Denise and one of the men looked at us and roared with laughter.
“Dr Fletcher, you were so right! He took in the entire room in one glance and immediately went into defensive mode. I wish more of our agents reacted as quickly. Dr Fletcher had warned us that your seeing two strange men and a woman in this room might put you on alert, Mr Coris,” the guy said, grinning. “We had heard what happened to those two men who were in here the last time you were called to appear in here.”
He came over to me with his right hand outstretched in a completely disarming posture, one that would not allow any kind of offensive attack.
“I’m Special Agent Graham Witts of the Secret Service, Mr Coris and Miss Roberts, and it’s an honor to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand and then Denise’s. “These are Agent William Anderson, and from the FBI, Agent Lauren Foley,” he said as he displayed his shield.
The others greeted us, showed their IDs, and shook our hands too; then they invited us to be seated.
Agent Foley remarked, “Yes, we at the FBI were appalled that Program agents would attempt to use a taser on a high-school student, too. By the way, those are most unusual garments you’re both wearing, I must say.”
Denise briefly explained the Program Counselor job. Then she asked uncertainly, “Are we in trouble?”
“Oh no! Not at all, Miss Roberts,” said Witts. “I work for a certain person in Washington who wants very much to meet the two of you. You are quite the celebrities in government law enforcement circles too, you know.”
“Damn, I had hoped that Dan Hollander would have kept my name...”
“Oh, your Indonesian lawyer. No, he didn’t say anything about you,” Agent Foley remarked. “Actually you’ve been running a number of federal agencies into the ground trying to keep up with everything you’ve been doing here since you arrived. The FBI first became aware of your Program investigations when your lawyer here began checking into the status of the Program official at this school. He had contacted a Justice official for some information and she alerted us, since it appeared that a private person was investigating a federal official.
“Before we could do any real checking into that situation, suddenly you came to the FBI’s attention again when you disabled those two Program enforcement agents and involved the U.S. Marshals Service; when the marshals arrested them, they found all kinds of irregularities in their identity records. On top of those events, the president had become involved and yet again, your name was associated with the details of that inquiry. Then your attorney hit Justice with the data you had compiled from that student website and that sent everyone into a frenzy when it became apparent that you had uncovered a massive kidnaping plot. Again, when local law enforcement officials detained one Boris Abover, federal agents were notified and your name once again was mentioned. Hell, son, every federal agent in DC from three agencies knew who you were.
“And finally, we had other sources, the social chatter coming from this school; every single person in this school must be aware of what you did and there’s been innumerable texts in the last twelve hours about you two. So it was easy to confirm that almost everything that occurred in this case could ultimately be traced to you. You seem to want to keep your part in this case private, but, son, that’s not happening. The press is hunting for you too now, I’ll bet.”
Great; just what I wanted to hear.
“Tell us, now, Mr Coris. There’s a theory in the FBI that you’re behind that website, too. The shell companies behind the domain registrations are all in the Far East and that’s where you’re from,” Foley continued. “You won’t be in any trouble at all if you are; running a website is no federal crime if it only contains information.”
“Agent Foley, I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question to either confirm or deny any role,” I said.
Fletcher spoke up now. “You recall I mentioned a missing student from Cedarwood High? She was among the students who were freed, and her parents want very much to meet you and thank you two. And I’ve also gotten a call from the U.S. Education Department. They want to interview you about your Program experience and observe the Program as we have modified it at our school. It seems that they will be assuming the management of the Program under an entirely different set of rules, and they want to use what we’re doing here as their model.”
Agent Witts continued. “No doubt you’re wondering why a bunch of law enforcement jocks would be sent to see you. The powers that be debated who should be sent; they ultimately decided that if a civilian came, your past experience with government civilians would make you so suspicious, possibly even antagonistic, that would get us off on the wrong foot. So we were sent since we could prove our identity; you’ve also showed trust in law enforcement officials.”
I nodded, “Ok, but why the visit?”
“The president would very much like to meet you, both of you,” Agent Witts said. Denise gasped. “He’s had reports not only about your helping to crack the kidnaping ring, but of your courage and resourcefulness in dealing with your experience in the Program. He also thinks that the way that the two of you seem to have rescued the Program at your school can help the country rescue itself from the blow to confidence in the government that was inflicted by this episode.”
Fletcher convinced me to bite the bullet and acknowledge publicly that I had been responsible for realizing that the forum posts that mentioned students who had disappeared meant that a kidnaping plot existed, and Denise insisted that she had little to nothing to do with that insight; that I should stop trying to share the credit for my insight. I reluctantly agreed to schedule a trip to Washington in a few weeks; there was a long weekend coming up in October and the plans were made.
~~~~
The next few weeks passed in a blur of activity. I had to meet with the press. I wanted to do this in a controlled environment, so the school arranged for a group interview to be conducted at a Friday school assembly with a selected group of media representatives and the event was televised. I was able to beg off going on any national talk shows; their offers of large amounts of cash to appear interested me not at all.
Even though the media’s questions sought to lionize me for my martial arts skills and courage, I was able to play those down by claiming that I had been incredibly lucky. When the interviewers realized that they wouldn’t be able to draw me out into giving any details about the things I had done, I guess I was no longer an interesting interview subject. Oh, yes; they wanted to interview Denise too, and wanted us to appear for the interviews naked or else in our kimonos. Denise declined being interviewed and we politely and very firmly refused the nudity or wearing the kimonos, but photographers were hanging around the school so much that all naked activities were quickly moved indoors and media requests to come into the school were declined.
Denise and I continued to mentor each new Program group and two more peer Counselors were chosen; actually they were Wendy Burrows and Mitchell Jones from our first peer group. They turned out to be incredibly empathic and supportive of the new Program students and Denise and I became fast friends with them.
And the Program prospered at our school. Kids were actually trying to find ways to become more noticeable to teachers in the hope that they would get chosen; of course the selection process was supposed to be random, but that didn’t keep students from trying anyway. After only two months of the new Program’s operation, the need for the Guardian corps gradually faded but it was replaced by a combination of guardians and the impromptu “honor guards”; students taking care of each other and offering emotional support to the shyest of the Program participants.
In fact, in one case, a girl was so terrified of being naked, despite our carefully working with her when she disrobed, when kids in the honor guard were told of her fright, a group stripped in the hall and greeted her naked when she emerged from the office. After that, most students in her first few classes themselves stripped and remained naked during the period to support her as well, and it worked. She was so grateful that her peers demonstrated their care for her feelings in that way that she was able to face the rest of her Program week with much less fright and anxiety.
True to Fletcher’s words, a group from the new reconstituted federal Program office visited to observe our reinterpretation of the Program; that’s why the national rules have been completely revamped to stress student growth though peer emotional support and building community by facing challenges through cooperative teamwork. It builds on using a person’s sexuality and sensuality as simply one human emotion to be used to achieve those goals.
~~~~
Finally, our meeting with the president came and it was no big deal. He wasn’t a stuffed shirt—he was a cool guy; funny too. A Secret Service SUV delivered Denise and me to an entrance in the West Wing where a Marine opened the door for us and once inside, our IDs were checked—for maybe the fourth time that day! We were greeted by a really delightful lady whose chatter put us totally at ease as she walked with us down a hallway, pointing out as we passed them, the Roosevelt Room and Oval Office, then the Cabinet Room, out into a covered pathway into the Palm Room and then down a grand corridor she said was the Center Hall and then led us through a number of rooms off the hall, telling us that these were some of the rooms that were on the White House tours.
“I’m actually delaying you guys,” she said, “because the president is still on the phone with the German chancellor, so I’m giving you the cheap tour. I’m also supposed to cure you of any jitters you might have. He’s really a sweet guy and I think you’ll be totally at ease when you meet him—oh, there’s my pager, so let’s go see the boss now.”
We retraced our steps back to the West Wing and to the Oval Office where Denise and I were ushered in. President Gerston rose from his desk and came over to greet us.
“Ah, Mr Kevin Coris, Miss Denise Roberts. It’s a delight to finally meet both of you. Mr Coris, let me first express my utmost condolences for the loss of your parents; I had the honor of meeting your mother Audrey last year at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Tokyo and her tragic loss—your father’s too—was not only a personal one for you, but also for our nation.”
“Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate your kind words,” I said.
“And you, Denise, I’ve heard about how courageous a young woman you’ve been throughout your ordeal and I really appreciate your willingness to come see me today.”
Denise gulped and murmured, “Thank you, sir.”
“Please,” he said, indicating a sofa, “come sit here and let’s talk about some incredible current events that the two of you’ve been involved in,” he finished with a broad smile. “Kevin, you’re apparently a chip off of the old block, according to my old friend Roger Vickers. He knew your mom and dad, too briefly, he told me, and from them he learned something about you and your background. He told me that it seems that you’ve inherited the totally single-minded approach to life that made both of your parents so successful in their careers. And the way you handled yourself in school and helped our country out of a really awful situation—for that you have my gratitude, and that of our country, for your outstanding services. But that’s not the reason I wanted to talk to you today. I want to talk about you guys personally, about your lives and about things that make you feel good as well as not so good. I fear our leaders have lost touch with our youth, and the recent debacle about this whole Program situation has really highlighted the problem.”
He spent an hour talking with Denise and me, the three of us alone, first about general topics, but then wanted to know what the two of us really thought of the Program, especially the new version that the Program had evolved into.
I told him that I had an interesting, but difficult, time being involved in it but I still thought that all that public nudity was weird. But I had other personal concerns too.
“You know, sir, that the whole idea of the Program was totally opposite to what I learned while growing up. So when I walked into the principal’s office in high school that first day—it’s hard to believe that was only six weeks ago—that first day, the culture shock was enormous. My folks had taught me that my personal rights, my ability to be myself without the interference of others, was one of the most basic rights of personhood and that I must never let anyone ever try to deny me my personal rights of self-expression. Then I learned that the federal government had passed laws that effectively made me into a non-person, that is, a minor child had become a non-person, having no rights of self-expression.”
“Interesting, Kevin. Please continue,” Gerston said.
“I’ve been called strong-willed and I guess I am. I saw first-hand with my father how people who can’t stand up for their legal rights can be trampled by others who are richer or more powerful and I resolved that I’d never let that happen to me—and to any others who I could help. That was Dad’s influence on me. He set up his foundation to help people like that and I guess his concern for others must have rubbed off on me.
“But that abomination of a Program did something to me! Just that brief exposure that I had to it changed something in me and I don’t know what happened... It’s supposed to make the student, um, I’m trying to remember the actual words, help them be more comfortable with their body and sexuality as both an individual and a sexual being. What could ‘more comfortable’ possibly mean? More comfortable than what? Teens have all kinds of personal issues, from insecurities caused by body image acceptance to issues involving differences in reaching physical, intellectual, and social maturity. Using coercion to try to force a change in a person’s innate nature can only result in psychologically scarring that person rather than helping them.
“For myself, I was dead-set against cooperating with the coercive elements of the Program and highly dubious that it could offer any benefit to a teen-aged kid. But I got sucked into cooperating, in my own way, that is...” Gerston laughed at that, “...because I couldn’t stand seeing other kids suffer while I could walk away from the situation. I knew that I could attend school and ignore the Program totally. I couldn’t be forced to take part. But I couldn’t extend my protection to anyone else if I didn’t get involved at some level. And that involvement changed me. And I’m still disturbed by that change, because it makes me appear that I was turned into a Program supporter, when I’m not. I still think that the psychology behind it is nuts.
“I’m still absolutely opposed to any coercive forms of Program activities, especially those that seem to humiliate the participants and I strongly believe that there are too many cases of where Program activities, like Relief in classes, detract from the academic goals of the school. Teaching about human sexuality doesn’t belong in the math classroom, like I heard happened a few weeks ago when the math exercise was to measure a girl’s breasts to calculate their volume...”
“What? Is that what happened?” Gerston exclaimed.
“Yes, sir, and that was a very mild example. Teaching sexuality belongs in classes like psychology or human health. And even there, the students must never be coerced into doing anything that they find disturbing. So if changes are made to control and limit the coercive and humiliating elements of the Program, I suppose a case might be made for keeping very a limited version in the schools. Denise, do you have any thoughts?”
“I’m so ambivalent about the Program’s value. I was totally unable to participate the two times I was called...”
Gerston interrupted, “Two times? How could that be?”
Denise briefly explained how she had gone into shock and was taken out of school the first time she had been selected.
“So my psychological condition would have been devastated if I had been forced into it. But I saw other kids who were terrified about having to take part open up and totally change as a result of participating, maybe because of what Kevin said, that their perception of their body image changed. But, yeah, the coercive parts and the humiliation are totally wrong. I found that I love helping the other kids to learn to just be themselves and to accept who they are; that way they can grow in developing self-confidence.”
The rest of our conversation with the president continued along the same lines and then he wanted to hear about what we thought about ourselves and our future educations. Soon we were interrupted by a staff member who popped in to remind Gerston about his next event.
I was going to skip over the next event but Denise insisted that I should mention that after meeting with the president, he brought us to the White House’s East Room where a huge crowd was gathered. He gave a nice speech about what I had done for the country and then presented me with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Then he said a few very nice words about Denise and how she had contributed to the recovery from the federal disaster and awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal.
After that came a really unexpected surprise, because attending the event were many of the kids who had been kidnaped together with their parents; 38 of the 47 had been able to attend and it was a very emotional, overwhelming experience greeting the kids I had only read about on the website forum postings.
It’s the end of my junior year now and it seems like I have my choice of any college in the country to attend. And I hadn’t even begun to send out applications yet, either. Denise was being recruited also; this was just amazing. And I’m still in the Program, too, still helping scared and anxious kids entering the Program as a Counselor. I wonder... Perhaps colleges might want to consider starting the Program as adapted for college campus life? Just a thought. I don’t think I would want to inflict something like the Program on anyone again. After all, didn’t they all have to do it in high school?
The End
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