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“THE LITTLE ONE GROPED TAMMY,” someone yelled to Wisper.

“What?” Wisper turned on Morgan. “You did what?” The sensual mood was now completely eradicated from all parts of her body, especially the important ones. “What is wrong with you?”

“She was naked! I couldn’t help myself!” Morgan said, squealing, and began running away again, past us, around the rocks, and down the beach.

“This is why we hate it when your kind comes here,” Wisper yelled after him.

It deeply disturbed me the way she said ‘your kind’. Like a Southern Baptist saying ‘homosexual’, or a Palestinian saying ‘Jew’.

“My kind?” I said.

“Clothists,” she said, directing her anger toward me. “Textiles.”

“You mean, normal people,” Morgan yelled from fifty yards off.

Wisper scowled at him, then back at me.

“Wisper. What’s going on? A minute ago…”

“A minute ago, you were ready to walk out on any chance we might have to be together because you couldn’t take your pants off in public. But the minute I offered sex…”

It was a test!

It was a test?

“You said you could be happy with me wearing nothing,” she said, tears, again, filling her eyes. “Was that I lie?”

Had I said that? I frantically rushed through my memories of our brief time together. Everything had seemed so etched in my brain, but had I said that?

“I suppose you just meant when we were in bed together. Or heading there,” she said angrily. “Why are you here, Mister Wopplesdown? Really?”

I looked at the fiercely approaching crowd, with River pacing the pack. It was clear I needed the right answer, fast, and I was too confused to think linearly.

“Wisper, be realistic…”

Her expression darkened. Wrong answer. Realism and the heart are rarely dancing to the same song.

“Better run,” she said sadly. “The natives really don’t like it when an outsider comes on to one of the local women.”

“I know. When Morgan…”

“I meant you.”

“But…” I said, stunned. “I’m not ‘coming on’ to you. I’m with you…”

“No, you’re not.”

I was shocked. What had happened? What had I done wrong? Where was the Wisper who liked holding my penis? Moaning in frustration, I reluctantly ran off just ahead of flying sticks and sailing rocks.

As I dashed away down the beach, I looked back over my shoulder to see River and some of the others stop near Wisper and check on her condition to make certain I hadn’t done her any harm, which I hadn’t.

Had I?

As her brother touched her shoulder and questioned her with gentle concern, she sat there silently, her eyes filled with tears, watching me furiously as I got farther, and farther, and farther away.

While Morgan and I ran for our very lives, Pastor Winterly wandered calmly through town without hiding in his Bible and actually looked at things. He still clutched his Good Book tightly to his chest as though it worked on nudists the way a cross might work on vampires, or soap would work on a small boy, but at least it was no longer attached to his face and he’d stopped walking into walls and sharp objects. He was still having a difficult time doing more than just glance at the local populace. But having his vision unobscured at least allowed him the opportunity to be charmed by his surroundings, if not the actual naked people contained therein.

As far as his eye could see Pastor Winterly was encircled and enchanted by a gently waving ocean of verdant trees and sherbet colored wildflowers. Unexpectedly captivated by their tranquil beauty, he gratefully accepted the serenity they offered and meandered almost undisturbed through and around several of the unclothed locals.

Delighted by the playful sound of water dancing across time smoothed stones he strolled over a charming, weathered, handcrafted bridge that seemed ancient enough to have rested across the lazy, crystal waters flowing beneath it since somewhere around the dawn of naked people. Lush grasses spread out from the cobbled stone path leading to and from the overpass into more orderly rows of Impatiens, colorful