Chapter 3

Maria Lilo was different, startingly different. In fact, the entire Lilo family ranked under that category, although, when I rang the doorbell, I was not aware of that fact.

I presumed that I was doing them a favor, warning them of the school incident. I knew that Maria Lilo, with several other lovelies, had patronized the glamour photographer. Sue Landon had so intimated and I believed Sue's every word.

The Lilo home, like the Morris place, was sumptuous. But there the similarity ended. Where the Morris home faced the ocean, the Lilo place was completely hidden. In fact, it was deep in Lorenzo Canyon and the modernistic, contemporary type house was built in a dense grove of towering pines. It was picturesque seclusion at its best. Even as I waited for someone to answer the bell I was conscious of something that at first I could not quite identify; then the answer came in a flash: the song of wind, high in the those pines.

When John Lilo answered my ring, I was a bit surprised. Then realization dawned.

He was bare, except for a pair of athletic briefs and it appeared he had slipped these on merely to answer the door.

He was a well knit specimen of rugged middle-aged manhood, browned, bristling with muscle, his square face adorned with a clipped mustache, now graying. His hair was pepper and salt with a deep wave and no hint of baldness and on him it looked good.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Lilo, I'm Mike Bonner. I believe Mr. Edward Morgan phoned, hoping you would see me for a few moments?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Bonner! So he did!" He stepped aside. "Won't you please come in?"

"Thank you!"

The house was cool and shadowy. Somewhere a stereo reproducer was doing a good job with Gershwin.

"We're having a snack and a drink out back," he said "Care to join us?"

"Delighted!" I agreed.

He opened a door. I saw a patio and the flash of human movement.

Two women. They were bare. Not even a halter or a G-string.

He jerked up, smiling tightly, faced me. "Oh I almost forgot. We're nudists. I hope you aren't shocked."

"Not in the least."

That was the lie of the century, but I hoped it didn't show.

"If you would care to join us-I mean if you would feel more natural, peeling."

"I'm afraid I haven't that much time," I said evasively.

We were on the patio now and he was making introductions. "My wife Jill, and this is our lovely daughter, Maria."

"Let me fix you a drink," Jill Lilo said as we shook hands.

She was all skin, no concealment. But she seemed to be wholly relaxed and totally unmindful of the fact that she was showing me, a complete stranger, a gorgeous, unclad body, tanned golden by the sun. I presumed she was in her early forties, but her figure was good, with firm breasts and a flat stomach, attesting to rigorous physical exercise.

"Hello, Mr. Bonner!" Maria Lilo said, came forward and gave me her hand, with a frankness she evidently shared with her mother.

She looked like some Italian screen beauty who had forgotten her clothes in the rush for an Oscar. Like her mother, she was tanned a golden brown. Her breasts were high, firm, protruding and they were just as tanned as the rest of her, which told me this nudism was a daily practice. Her hips were lean and sleek, and her abdomen was flat as an ironing board.

I swallowed several times and tried to keep calm.

"Does our nudism shock you?"

"No, I'm merely intrigued."

She laughed, a very uninhibited laugh. She had a lovely, Ruebens-type face and perfect teeth.

"I know that we shock some people, especially our neighbors," she said. "That's why we live in this secluded canyon and have the high fence."

Lilo came up, dropped a fatherly arm about the satiny shoulders of his daughter.

"We've been nudists for almost ten years now," he said. "It's part of a very strict health routine we all follow."

"I won't criticize it," I said. "You all look marvelously healthy."

Jill Lilo came up with a tall, cool drink. "I hope you enjoy it," she said, handing it to me. "Let me warn you, it has no alcoholic content."

"Well, at least that's something different," I said.

"We lived in Iowa until the early fifties," Jill Lilo explained. "My husband had an insistent cough, an extreme sinus condition and finally his health grew alarming. We came out here and started worshipping the sun."

"So you see, you can't change our minds about peeling," Maria said in defense.

"Believe me, I have no intention of doing that!"

"But you are here on business," she persisted.

"Yes, I'm afraid I am."

"Why couldn't the business wait, and we'll have a barbecue and hike up to Crescent Lake in the moonlight or something like that?"

"Wonderful," I said, "but I'm afraid this particular business can't wait too long."

John Lilo came forward with a suggestion. "All right, then perhaps we can dispose with the business in a hurry, and still have the barbecue."

His graciousness was almost unrefusable.

"All right," I agreed. "Did Edward Morgan tell you about the trouble at school?"

"He intimated a few things."

"Well, let me brief you."

I told him the facts of the matter, nursing the drink. I was rather blunt, hoping that he would realize the seriousness of it all.

But I saw by his unconcerned face that he wasn't even impressed.

"Mike," he said, grinning, "that smut peddler might be in clover, working his racket with some of these disillusioned people, but not with the Lilo family."

For the moment I couldn't follow his line of thought.

"I don't quite understand."

"It's so obvious that you can't see it. Something like that old cliche, Tfou can't see the woods for the trees.'" He laughed, as if he was highly amused. "don't you see, Mike, how can he incriminate us with his nude pictures when we are practicing nudists?"

At least he had a point. But I was afraid that he didn't know all the implications.

"You see, I posed for that glamour shot just as a lark," Maria explained. "Dad and Mom knew all about it. I figured the guy was an out-and-out phony, but if he had film and time to waste, that was okay by me."

His hand descended on my shoulder. "Don't read me wrong, Mike. I'm ready to help clean up this matter-to prosecute and things like that. But as for it being a personal menace with Maria, I think we've defeated this guy before he even clicked the shutter."

"So you see you really haven't any business with us at all," Jill Lilo said. "We'll still have that barbecue."

I shrugged. "Who am I to refuse?"

"Wonderful!" Maria said, and clapped her hands in glee. She jiggled very nicely, I noticed.

"Now to really enjoy this," Lilo insisted, "you'd just as well peel and become part of us. Then you won't be so self-conscious."

"I'm afraid-"

"Come on!" he said and pushed me inside. "Here, undress in my bedroom. You'll find some clothes hangers in the closet-"

He was gone.

"So what?" I said to the full-length mirror. "I'm a nudist!"

I stripped down, took one quick look at the mirror, decided that I was a bit pale, and started for the door.

And then the buck fever struck me-but hard. It took a lot of nerve to walk out on that patio, bare. But somehow I gritted my teeth and made it. And once I was outside, the feeling slowly passed.

Maria Lilo was chuckling. "Did you have a rough time-those first few steps?"

"Whew!" I said, "Like going to the guillotine. I'll admit it-I sweated!"

"But now the feeling is dissipating."

I nodded.

"A thousand years of clothes," she said. "It builds up a pretty strong pattern, doesn't it? But in five minutes' time, the pattern disappears."

She had a very definite point.

"Come help me get this grill hot," she bid.

I had imagined that just being near an unclad girl-a voluptuous girl like this young Italian beauty-would race my blood pressure to the sizzling point. But strangely just the opposite took place. And that led to a thought that had occurred to me many times: a woman looks much more provocative and sexually enticing in transparent black lace or a wispy garment, half revealing, than when she is totally nude.

The grill was ready at last and John Lilo brought out the steaks and the sauces.

"You kids play volley ball or take a dip in the pool," he advised. "Jill and I will take care of the food."

I found a soft feminine hand in my own. "Last one in is a wet blanket!" Maria said, and ran for the pool still deeper in the pine grove.

I sprinted to keep up with her. She ran like a nymph, then she was sliding through the blue green water graceful as an eel. I dived deep and came up beside her.

In a bathing suit she no doubt would have been a sexpot. Her breasts were elongated and steeply coned. Huge, dark aureoles further added to their exoticism. But somehow her very nudity robbed her of sex at the moment. Perhaps the sex was too obvious. Perhaps she viewed my own unclad form the same way. I didn't know. This was the first time I had ever played at nudism. But it was far, far different than what I had supposed. The sex was here, but it wasn't compulsive. The absence of clothes, if anything, detracted from rather than augmented the sexual allure and desire.

"Don't look so serious!" Maria admonished, swimming alongside me.

I'm merely thinking, comparing."

Her laugh was gay. "Want me to read your morbid thoughts?"

"Are they that obvious?"

"I would say that you're thinking about us-our nakedness-about me. You're wondering why you're not tingling each time I jiggle, all this sexual exposure."

"You must be a mind reader," I grinned. 'Those are my thoughts exactly."

She swam closer, rolled over on her back. Her breasts broke water.

"The same thing happens to everyone who turns nudist," she said. "They imagine it's an exotic, dreamy sex world-dozens of men and women, all playing together, absolutely nude. This should be sex in its most dynamic state. But it's the opposite, somehow. Am I right?"

"I'm afraid you are." I said.

"That's why nudism is growing," she said. "And it's one reason why the law will never stop it. Nudists are just people-decent people."

I could not disagree, at least not with these nudists.

We swam some more, dived and through pure accident we surfaced so close our bodies touched. She was there in my arms. All I had to do was pull her into my embrace.

I kissed her very lightly on the lips. She hesitated just an instant, then her lips pressed tightly against my own. But almost immediately she pulled back.

"Are you married, Mike?"

"No."

"But you are a cop?"

"Not exactly. An investigator, with some legal privileges."

"Mike, you're really concerned about this smut thing that broke out at school, aren't you?"

"Shouldn't I be?"

She shrugged. "I suppose so. Perhaps, to girls like Sue Landon, Marilyn Brown, Lisa Cummins it might be a real menace. But not to me!"

"And why not for you?"

"For one thing we're nudists and his work had no purpose. Another thing, I love my parents, they love me-we're a secure, compatible family."

"Which makes me very happy," I said, and meant it.

"Sue's home life is zero," she said. "Her father is forever away; her mother is in love with herself. Marilyn Brown's folks are rotten rich and she's so rotten all she thinks of is kicks. If I was worrying about anyone, it would be Lisa Cummins."

"Why Lisa in particular?"

"Oh, I don't know. Lisa is, first of all, a very neurotic girl. Sometimes her despondency is terrifying.

This was news. 'What is back of it?"

Maria was long in answering. "I'm not too sure. There isn't any love between Lisa and her parents, for one thing. She's highly sexed but for some reason not too popular with the boys."

There was the sound of a gong and Maria's seriousness dissipated and she swam for the edge of the pool.

"Food's on!" she said. "Don't waste an instant. Dad never hammers that gong until the right moment."

The steaks were delicious. We sat there and ate, making small talk and suddenly I realized something that was little short of amazing. I was more relaxed than I had been in days. And somehow there was a warm camaraderie between the four of us, as if we had known each other for years instead of a few short hours.

At last John Lilo rose, rubbed his hands across his bare chest. "It gets a bit cool at this time of the evening," he said. "We're sun worshippers more than nudists. When we get chilly, we go back to our clothes."

"Good idea," I agreed, and followed him inside.

Dressed, he looked just as easily at ease.

"The name John Lilo rings a bell," I ventured, "and still it's too faint to register at the moment."

"Pizza," he said. "Italian Chef Pizza."

"Of course," I'd seen the commercials on TV.

"It's a cheesy business," he said, and chuckled at his own pun.

Maria and Jill came out of the house now, both fully clothed. And I had the sudden thought: they both look far sexier than when they were nude. Jill was in lounging pajamas; Maria in a white cardigan over a form-fitting jersey dress.

The phone rang, deep inside the house. John Lilo excused himself.

He came back to the patio, minutes later, his face sober.

"Who was it, dear?" Jill asked.

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. Whoever it was is sending over a package by messenger. The call was merely to check if we were home."

I was ready to leave. I had come her on a business visit. I had remained for a steak. There is such a thing as infringing on gracious hospitality, wearing out one's welcome. And still I hesitated. There was something telegraphic in Maria Lilo's eyes that held me, puzzled. And suddenly she made the first move.

"Mike, I've just thought of something. I borrowed a textbook from Lisa Cummins that must be returned before morning. Will you ride along? It won't take a half hour."

I'm your guinea pig," I said and we walked out to her car.

"Maybe someone got a bad pizza, Dad," Maria joked.

TU drive," I offered.

But already she was pulling me toward a snazzy hardtop that was painted a fire engine red.

A moment later, I knew something for a certainty. We were not going to the Cummins' place. Lisa Cummins lived in High Acres and we were heading the opposite direction, on a lonely canyon road.

I'm kidnapping you," Maria said, grinning. "What shall I say to that?" She didn't answer at the moment. In fact, she said nothing until we turned off the main road to a narrow logging trail that looked as if it had not been used for months. And suddenly she pulled up and parked.

"I'll tell you what you may say to that," she said, a sultry smile on her lips. "You can say that you are the victim of an experiment."

This promised to be interesting, to say the least.

I waited. "What's the experiment, doll?"

For an answer, she leaned into my arms and mashed her lush lips against my own. It was quite a vigorous kiss and she knew how to administer it. She didn't pull back for several long moments.

"Lesson one," she said enigmatically and the smile on her face was even more sultry.

"I like it, teacher," I grinned. "Let's experiment some more."

Her lovely face moved nearer and this time I felt her tongue. It was a very naughty tongue and if I was its first guinea pig it had inherited a lot of instinctive knowledge in the art of arousal. The tingle started. I felt it deep in my own loins and I knew she felt it as well, for I felt her tensing body, the slow arching of her own hips against mine.

This time when she pulled back, she was breathing like an Olympic runner.

"It figures," she said.

"It figures," I agreed. "You are a very warm, cuddlesome young lady and the sleeping hormones are awakening to the call of spring."

"You are so right!" She pulled back in the seat, eyes on me. "Mike, will you be entirely honest with me?"

"Of course."

"All right. See if you agree."

I'll at least agree with one thing. You are very lovely, very desirable at this particular moment"

"You mean I'm sexy at the moment."

"You're not exactly a cold stone."

She chuckled. "But all evening, when we were completely nude, you didn't even think of sex, did you?"

"I thought about it, but not in a compulsive way."

"We swam together, we played, we sat around bare and we didn't even have raised blood pressure."

I'll argue one thing. I didn't go up to you, pull you into my arms. Don't you think, had I done that, both of us peeled, the response would have been cyclonic?"

"You are evading the true issue," she said. "The desire wasn't there, as the nucleus to further petting. What I am trying to say: a woman is more seductive in clothes than peeled down to the bare skin. And come to think of it, so is a man."

I'll go along with that," I admitted. "I don't think there is such a thing as a beautiful male body."

"That is the viewpoint of a man."

"What's beautiful about a hairy chest, muscles or a paunch?"

"You don't have a paunch," she said coyly.

"But you," I gushed in admiration. "You're tanned golden, you're built like a goddess. And your breasts are lovely."

"Mike, be real honest in this one question. Does a man really go all out for a woman's breast, like some of our writers insist?"

I pulled her up close. It was instinct to worm up my hand inside her dress. Her satiny skin was warm, and still tense.

"Honey, I don't know about all men-but me, I'd walk a mile, just for a glimpse of delectable cleavage such as yours."

That pleased her and suddenly she was in my arms, pressing hard. And now she drew my tongue into her own mouth and moaned deep in her throat. There was no stopping at this point.

She pulled back finally, as if frightened at her own actions.

"Mike, I'm acting like a tramp!"

"Why did you say that?"

"Honey, don't torture yourself with cruel words; just love me!"

"I am loving you! I have an incessant desire to love you. But I also have a conscience!"

'Well, isn't it true?"

"Back at your home, you mentioned a thousand years of clothes and a changing pattern created by the simple expedient of peeling. Don't you think that love might have a changing pattern in our society as well?"

Her eyes questioned. I'm not sure that I follow you, Mike."

"Well, let's take love back just a 'ew short decades. A man had a yen for a girl then, just as he does today. But he was so chained by convention and prudery that he kept licking his chops, ogling at her, desiring her, but never going beyond a kiss. And at last he married her to get his first sex thrill."

"Wowie, you're going back to grandfather's time."

"That's right-way back. But that was once our society, remember? Now I think people are more honest, young people in particular."

"You mean a boy and a girl kiss, pet, suddenly desire each other-and they go all the way?"

"Don't you think so?"

"You're using a lot of alibis to cover up the tramp label."

"Honey, my definition of a tramp seems to be different than yours."

"I'm listening."

"A woman who would use her body for exploitation, to gain an end, to sell it, abuse it or exploit her sex to make a point, I'd call her a tramp."

"You wouldn't call a girl who actually wanted to love a boy, even as you and I at this moment, a tramp?"

"What do you think?"

"Mike, you make this sound so honest."

"Isn't it honest? Honey, look at sex in all forms of life, not just in humans. Look at animal sex, for instance. An animal reaches maturity and suddenly it is conscious of natural sex and the sex union follows. It is the same in humans-except our society has always held us in restraint."

I pulled her face closer to look into her eyes. "Maria, when did you have your first sex impulse?"

She chuckled. "I don't really know, Mike."

"Of course you know."

Her eyes were dreamy. "All right, if you pin me down I won't lie about it" She pushed back in the seat, thinking. "I suppose I was about thirteen. We lived near Pacific Grove and had just moved there from Iowa. The sea entranced me and almost daily I went to the beach. And one day, shortly before dusk, I blundered onto this couple in a sheltered little cove. I was almost on top of them before I even realized they were there. I didn't know what to do. So I just crouched down and watched."

"You were a bit shocked, evidently?"

"I was petrified. They weren't kids. He must have been as old as my father. I'll never forget. She was a tall, statuesque woman with carrot hair. This man very methodically unbuttoned her bathing suit and rolled it down, until she was nude. I remember her breasts, so huge. And then he was kissing her. And at last she took off his trunks. And they lay there and performed the sex act and it seemed so hideous."

"How did you feel?"

"I was terrified. It was repulsive, shocked me."

"Yet you felt something, some awakening."

She nodded. "I was weak and ill. I stayed there until they left. And I thought the ache would never go away."

I kissed her lips. "Maria, you are a very honest, wonderful girl."

She shrugged. "I see no point in evading the issue."

I liked her more by the moment.

Her hand raised to my own face now, caressing. "What about you, Mike?"

"Hey, what is this-a confession?"

"Isn't turnabout fair play."

"My initiation to sex has a more primitive flavor," I told her. "I grew up in El Centre The railroad tracks were the only playground I knew. There were three of us that day, Joey and Petey Dennis and me. Joey was eight, Petey nine. I must have been thirteen, but still a scrawny kid. We were underneath this trestle when we met this Mex girl. She was hunting coal that had dropped off the train."

Maria cuddled closer. "Now be honest," she reminded-

"I'll be honest. This gal, if I remember, was stacked. Her breasts were pointed and pushed at her dress. We got to talking and suddenly she told the two Dennis boys to beat it. They didn't want to and she picked up rocks and started them on their way."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. I just watched her. She had on a very thin dress and nothing under it. Each time she threw a rock, her breasts jiggled.

"When the two other boys were out of sight, she came up to me, smiling.

"TJid you ever have a soul kiss?'" she asked.

"I didn't know what she meant, so I just shook my head.

"She came up close and kissed me. I didn't know anything about kissing, but she was sure a good teacher. Her tongue pushed into my mouth and it felt wonderful. Soon I was pushing at her own tongue.

"She pulled back and looked at me. 'You're nice,' she said. "You got a girl?'

"I didn't have a girl and I told her so.

"She pushed close to me again and this time she rubbed her body against mine. 'You got a quarter?' she asked. 'If you have, I let you love me."

"I didn't have a nickel and I showed her, pulling out my pockets.

"She shrugged. 'Maybe if I let you love me now, for free, you come again tomorrow with a quarter?'

"I was scared for one thing. I wasn't sure that I wanted to love her now or that I would come back tomorrow with a quarter, but I told her that I would."

"What a young hussy she was!" Maria ejaculated.

"She was earthy," I said. "She put one of my hands on her breasts and I nearly blew a fuse. And then she took over. She lunged at me-and it hurt-but I knew about sex."

Maria was strangely silent. "Did you go back the next day?"

"I never saw the girl again."

"But she did awaken something in you."

I had to agree with that, as well.

She was very lovely. And now an earthy, impelling passion rode both of us. This was something like a banquet table, laden with food. It incited hunger and it was impossible to walk away.

I crushed her lips under my own and her arms tightened around my neck with a strength that was uncanny. Her breasts were rigid now and as I touched her she arched to meet me. I bent my head kissed her, listened to her heart, hammering so wildly in her chest. She wouldn't let go and in another moment it was too late to withdraw.

Her body was tawny, like a whip. And suddenly we were violently together in that wonderful ecstasy that is old-and new-as life itself. She was fiery now, moaning deep, fingers clutching. And we rode the glory train in mad abandon until the stars dipped down and exploded in our laps. Then we lay still, exhausted, relaxed in each other's arms, the silence so great that our own labored breathing sounded as loud as the surf.

"Mike, I'll never forget this wonderful moment."

I kissed her. Her tongue flayed my own and it started all over again. She was a tiger, sultry, demanding and wonderful.

We were strangely silent as we retraced the canyon road. We had had an exciting time and the magic still lingered. She pulled the car into the lane, flipped off the lights, turned the key and her lips brushed my own in a quick kiss.

"Mike, will I see you again?"

"I hope so."

A door closed and I saw John Lilo come down the flagstone walk. His face was stern now, he looked older, and his eyes were worried.

"You were right, warning us," he said to me. "How right you were!"

"Dad, what's wrong?" Maria asked alarmed.

"Flip on the car's map lamp," he said to her.

As Maria did so, he held a photo down inside the car's interior, so we both could see it.

Maria let out a shriek that was both fear and rebellion.

They had changed that innocent nude, all right! It was the same old thing, superimposition. But very cleverly done. A man faced Maria Lilo's nude body now-a man ready for sexual action, just as nude as the voluptuous girl.

John Lilo's curses were unintelligible. I knew he was cursing in his native Italian.