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Pendulum, Pudendulum

Jim Dodds

    Was he an exhibitionist? Well... he was nude, in a public place. But there was no one else there. And he would never have done this if anyone had been...
    He’d always enjoyed being naked, especially outside. But he’d never tried to show himself off. It was always in isolated places, or at night, in the dark. He’d always been careful, and he’d never been caught. But it sure looked like he was going to get caught this time. It looked like there was no way...
    Okay, let’s back up a little. Or quite a bit, actually.
    The first time he took off his clothes in the open field back behind his house in Ohio he was maybe ten. It was summer, naturally, and he checked to make sure no one could see him. He couldn’t see his house, or any others. He knew someone could show up. But he was pretty sure they wouldn’t. He didn’t want to be seen, or be caught, just wanted to try being naked, with all his stuff hanging out. So he did it.
    And it felt great! The sun was warm, the sky was blue, and there was a soft breeze, all over him. And down there, where he wasn’t supposed to touch.
    The next time he was three or four years older, after they moved to Florida. He started going out of the house at night, whenever he could. He’d pile his clothes carefully, and walk around his backyard. It was dark and cool, the shadows of the trees moving against a deep blue sky full of stars, the grass wet on his bare feet.
    The hedges were high, and no one could see him. He couldn’t see anything either. A few windows, but just ceilings, light fixtures, nothing really. He didn’t want to see. Or be seen. What if he got caught like this?? But he didn’t. And he loved the feeling of all of him being there. Of the parts his Mom had made him so self-conscious about moving freely. Just out there, with everything else. Almost.
    Exhibitionism is exposing in public parts of your body that are not normally exposed, for your own amusement or sexual satisfaction, or to shock whoever may see you. Hmm. Amusement, yes. Sexual satisfaction? Maybe he would masturbate as he thought about it later. But there was never that compulsive desire to be seen. Thinking back, yeah. He wished sometimes that people would see him, and not care, and just think it was fun, and fine to be naked. The way he did. He didn’t want to shock anybody. Or get caught. He was usually already in trouble for something, anyway. Like when he had cystitis and his Mom thought he was playing with himself, and told him he was a dirty boy.
    So life went on, and finally, after years of being sure he was never going to have a girlfriend, it happened, several times. And then it stuck. And sex got started. And suddenly someone was seeing him, seeing all of him, and liking it. But did that change the—umm— “habit” of wanting to be naked, outside, in the sun, maybe even with other people? Nah.
    They’d been married for about a year when he talked her into visiting a nudist camp. He loved it. She didn’t. He got her to go one more time, and that was that. They were Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty, but their courses were diverging, even after they moved to Vermont and got to be sort of hippies, and there was Woodstock and skinny dipping and all that sexual freedom. They’d both gotten jobs at the college that was epicenter of the counter-culture. But he was pushing boundaries too hard, and when he pushed her into a foursome, she decided to push him out of her life. Oh. And get some heroin.

    So that’s what led up to this craziness. It was Sunday afternoon, and he’d gone to the college. He was high, and he was alone in the big, modern library. All the doors to the outside were locked, and it just came to him. Maybe if life hadn’t been so bad right then, he wouldn’t have done it. But it was. And he did. He went into the darkroom and took off his clothes, thinking about what a kick it would be to wander around the big empty building nude! And he walked out of the darkroom. And the solid oak door closed behind him. And locked.
    Oh, shit!
    As soon as he heard that click he knew it was, as they say, all over. Everything was in that locked room. Not just his clothes, but his car keys. His house keys. It was five miles to his house, and it was cold. A million crazy ideas went through his head. He wouldn’t freeze if he waited for darkness and tried to walk it. But he’d probably get caught on the road. Oh, hell. Certainly. Who was he kidding? And if he didn’t, he’d have to break a window. He thought about wrapping himself up in a big sheet of cardboard and going to the guard shack, throwing himself on the poor guy’s mercy, hoping he would help, and not turn him in. It was the 60s, after all.
    Oh, shit. A million times over. He was finally going to get caught, and exposed, and all the things his mother had said about him would come true. Pervert. Bad boy. Dirty thing. So disappointed.
    And then he had a great notion.
    The rooms, the whole building, had suspended ceilings.

    Crawling naked through the pipes and wires above that network of metal straps and fragile, almost weightless panels was a delicate maneuver. It was nasty up there. And getting himself down into the locked room wasn’t easy either. No cuts or scratches though, or damage to dangling parts. And he was saved. Saved himself, in fact. It had to be the most resourceful thing he’d ever done. God. Maybe this would “cure” him.
    But it didn’t.

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