Of course, everyone who's been in a forest knows that there is always some sound: the wind whistling thru the trees, an animal cracking a branch or a bird chirping at the sun. However, compared to the sounds of the city, it was soothing, calming, relaxing.

The speed of time is also very different. In the race between the two of them, the city is the rabbit while the forest is the turtle. I just prayed every day that in the end, the turtle would win against the frenetic urban development.

Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and so many other groups warn us about deforestation, global warming, the ozone layer but the government doesn't listen and the throughout my school years, forests were losing ground, rapidly.

I already knew California is much more moderate than the rest of the country despite its rapid development. They impose taxes on heavy vehicles; they try to reduce the negative effects of industrialisation. I never figured out if it is because of the Hollywood idealism or simply because they are always afraid of earthquakes, but I know that California, contrary to my Georgia home state, is the place for battle between nature and civilisation.

It is not surprising that the Lauzier-Pitfield College was founded in the California "wilderness", the next frontier in the fight.

The College proudly announces it is the most liberal of the country, even surpassing UCLA and in order to celebrate their differences, they offer a series of unique graduate degrees including "Natural habitat engineering".

The program is designed to create a new breed of environmentalist: the college predicts that a lot of states will pay to have previously deforested land reconverted into natural habitats, and graduates of their new highly restricted diploma will be the front line of specialists to plan and execute the colossal task.

Nothing really new is taught in the degree. It is the mix of courses that really differentiates the program from any other in the country: environmental studies, biology, zoology, genetics, geology, computer assisted design, fluid engineering and economics.

As soon as I heard of the program, I knew what I wanted to study and applied for the course. I was lucky enough to get admitted in the first year of the program, which is only the...[Continue reading on the site]

"Hello?", she replied with her simply sexy voice.

"Hello Amanda, it's Jerry. I hope I am not bothering you"

"Not at all, I was just thinking about you!"

"Well, I realized that in all of the excitement of the night, I gave you my phone number, but I didn't get yours. I thought that perhaps you didn't want to see me again...", she laughed but with a laughter which seemed to hide a certain discomfort. As if she was afraid to sound too desperate.

"Well, I do have caller id. I just saved it in my favorites, but then again my dentist is there too so it doesn't mean much.", her tone of voice could tell me that she was clearly flirting with me, so I decided to risk it right away.

"I hope I can turn this around. When do you think we could see each other again?"

"How about tonight? Yesterday you picked the restaurant. Now it's my turn: on Sunday evenings, the restaurant on the 17th floor always has a special meal."

So it would be a nude date once more. I thought of risking saying something like "Oh, so you want to see me naked again", but I thought it was too much double entendre. I wanted to show that I was a true naturist and not a pervert wanting to see her naked at all cost.

Instead, I went with: "It's a date. When do you want me over?"

I always dreamed of living in a naturist center but all of them were far away from the city and with my real estate agent job, I really didn't need even more commute time. Amanda's apartment seemed the perfect compromise: it was like living in a naturist resort but deep in the city.

Within 10 minutes of hanging up, I was in my car, driving to her apartment.

I know, you will probably say that most New York residents prefer the subway or even the cabs, but the reality was that as a real estate agent, I had to drive my customers around when visiting.

It made me an expert at avoiding traffic jams as well as in finding good parking spots. Sure, I...[Continue reading on the site]

I make money on maintenance contracts for my old software, but also for custom modules. Once again, the hardware my software works with isn't cash registers, but it's a good analogy, so I'll keep it.

Since I managed to secure the rights to be a reseller for them, I mail a monthly check to the company that now has the rights to my software for the sales of licenses of my software. Let's call them ACME.

That is the extent of my relationship with them: they don't care about my software, they just want the money I mail them every month. They just had rules and limitations I had to respect, such as ensuring that my customers could migrate to their software but without allowing the opposite migration.

Since I am the only guy selling it and since I have limited contact, the checks I have been mailing them has been smaller and smaller.

You see, a client only needs to buy the base software once for each of his devices and he is licensed for life.

When I release new versions, they need to pay me a maintenance fee for the new version, but otherwise, the only time money will go to ACME is when they increase of the number of devices they have or when I sell to a new client.

With the recession, there are no new clients and existing clients do not increase their number of machines, causing months without any revenues for ACME from me.

Fortunately for me, that doesn't mean they can stop paying their maintenance fees or that they stop needing custom modules.

Last December, ACME flew me to their head quarters. This was the first time I met them in person and I was rather nervous.

They explained that they were running a deficit for 2012 and that my software was no longer bringing the revenues they expected and that they wanted to sell it to someone else, possibly me.

We spend 2 excruciating days negotiating a price and a payment plan, but after I remortgaged my house and borrowed money left and right, I was finally the owner of my own software, which I had begun writing over 15 years ago and which is now installed in machines around the world.

The good news is that now, I control 100% of the software, not just the code, but also how to name it, how to price it, and I get 100% of the revenues.

The bad news...[Continue reading on the site]

David Lloyd, 2011.

"R.F., I think that's enough for today."

The boy set his text book down on the blanket and rolled over. His mother was heading his way carrying a tray, on which lay a thick sandwich and a glass of orange juice. She bent over at the waist to offer the refreshments to her son, and he sat up to receive them, knocking the tray with the cast on his right arm as he did, thus sloping the orange juice.

"It's a good job that cast is coming off tomorrow. If there is one think I know it is that you are no leftie." she said, half chiding, half laughing at his clumsiness. She knew it wasn't his fault.

He looked about the garden, "I'm gonna miss this place. Do we really have to move? ", said R.F., settling back in the sun.

"You know we do dear." replied his mother, tenderly. "You know you can't go back to that school, not after the way they treated you, and we can't afford to keep home tutoring you whilst we sue the local authority for damages. I can't stay working as a teacher here either, not whilst I'm suing my former employers. It's a nice enough house that we've found, and that's a good school that you'll be going to."

"That garden isn't a patch on this one. It will be hard to get an all-over tan there." R.F. scowled.

"We'll be keeping an eye out for another house, once we've got you settled in at your new school, if we can't make the garden more private. Besides, we have been thinking about joining a landed naturist club, so you can enjoy greater freedom and make new friends."

"Bloody Anne! Why couldn't she keep her mouth shut? ", stormed the boy.

"Now, now. You know it wasn't really her fault. Those boys that bullied you have an intolerant streak a mile wide. You know Britain has a poor attitude to social nudity. "

"Anne knew that too. She should have known that her friends wouldn't understand. Stupid cow! "

"Hey, just you stop that, young man! Just remember how upset Anne was when she realised how her revealing that she was a naturist backfired on you. You know she dumped her boyfriend and half her friends because they couldn't get their heads around it."

"Oh, look! Suddenly my cast has gone, and I didn't suffer those other broken bones, or the cuts and bruises. ", the boy shot back, sarcastically.

His mother said no more, but just turned and carried the tray back inside. She reflected on how...[Continue reading on the site]

I wished him a good morning, but he reminded me to ignore him as much as possible.

I hate breakfast, well, two toasts and a glass of orange juice, and in silence thought of my upcoming day in school.

It wasn't so much the fact that it was a naturist school that scared me but rather the idea that I had a multi-level class with students of all ages.

I had the student files for each of the 14 kids on my kitchen table. I spread them and realized it might not be as bad as I would have thought.

The oldest, Sally and Isabelle, were identical twin girls in 5th grade and Jeremy was roughly the same age. That meant that I had 3 solid students to help me with my tasks. All three had very good grades so far and were judged to be responsible.

I didn't have any 4th grade student, which was odd, but I had five 3rd grade students, three boys and two girls. That left me with three 1st and 2nd grade students, many of which were younger siblings of my older students.

There was a lot of literature on integrating a 1st and 2nd grade because in both cases, the kids mainly have to learn how to read, count and write. The 1st graders learn how to print letters and in 2nd grade, how to write in cursive.

The exercises might have differences, but it all boiled down to roughly the same curriculum but with different objectives.

Third grade was a lot harder, with more grammar rules and more importantly, multiplications and divisions as well as more advanced geometry. The fifth grader would also have different material but they were also more mature, hopefully making it better.

As soon as a plan had formed in my mind on how to tackle the class, I picked up my files and promptly left for the school, not even bothering to brush my teeth or take a shower. I was focused on my task and didn't care about anything else. I didn't even solve the problem of the lock on my door and simply left the front door unlocked.

Plus, it's not like I really needed to pack a lunch anyway: the school was a two minute walk from my house!

The school wasn't locked either. I began wondering if in this place theft simply didn't exist, but I quickly discovered an envelope in my desk with the key, so I could lock up behind me.

The key was attached to a pink spiral coil keychain and I realized that without pockets, this would probably prove very...[Continue reading on the site]

I know that my brother kept saying that people usually fit with their jobs, but I simply couldn't accept that working in an office as a collection agent necessarily meant you had to be unattractive.

Part of his theory matched however. There are 3 main positions at Thompson & Wilson : scout, closer and account manager.

Everyone starts as a scout. There are no exceptions. That's where I met Emily: she was my primary closer. I would make calls to find the delinquent debtors and once I would have located one, I would transfer him to Emily who would negotiate a payment plan.

I quickly noticed that almost every closer was dynamic, healthy, relatively young and, well, attractive. The account managers were usually older man, while all of the younger kids and the older woman were still scouts, and would remain so until they would leave for other jobs.

I expected it would take me 6 months to get a promotion and be Emily's colleague. Emily predicted it would take me 8  months to do so. I was told by her account manager I wouldn't get a promotion until my first year anniversary.

Do you think that held me back ? After 3 months, I was a junior closer and was acting as one of the secondary closers for Emily's team. I still did a lot of scouting, but as soon as one of Emily's scouts got a call while she was already on the phone, I would get it.

In theory, we were two secondary closers assisting Emily, but Brian, my competitor on the ladder of success, was too slow for my reflexes.

Two months later, I became a primary closer and received my own team of scouts. By then, Emily and I were good friends, which sadly meant I got to meet her husband, Jake.

That's part of the frustration. You flirt with a girl for 5 months, only to discover she doesn't wear her wedding ring at work because she feels it would hinder her promotion chances.

But the biggest part is realizing you've been so wrong. That all your signals which told you she might be interested were just wishful thinking. She had only seen me as one of her close friends while I wanted to date her.

Not that I can complain, I met Bianca a year later and we've been happy together ever since. And with Bianca, I knew from the first moment I met her that she was interested...[Continue reading on the site]

I knew it was a trick question. I had been one of the rare still textile students until recently and my mother is especially vocal against naturism. My conversion and subsequent application to become a DeriMark employee did sound suspicious.

"No Mrs Page. I decided to try becoming a naturist quite a long time ago. Even last year, during the last real confrontation on the subject in high school, I had decided that naturism was for me. I was always an outspoken person and frankly, I admit I love the way the town now operates. Naturism really helped everyone and I think it's a very healthy lifestyle. Since I first removed my clothes a few weeks ago, not once did I feel the need to turn back and wear them again."

I had met Mrs Page in school a few times and she always had seemed to be warm and affectionate. Like most of the DeriMarks employees that move to the town after the transition, I had never seen her wear clothes but I couldn't imagine her wearing a dull grey office suit. She looked more the type to push the boundaries of the dress code to the limit.

"But you didn't try it until recently", she responded with just as much care and positive vibes as I had remembered her.

"Well, you have to understand that my mom was pretty much the most vocal anti-naturist still in town and the only reason she no longer bickers with everyone about it is because I finally got the courage to stand up to my mom about my convictions."

"And how is she taking it, your mom?"

"It's hard. She barely speaks to me now and that's why I want a job. I want to be able to perhaps live on my own once I am 18 so that I can support myself. Slowly, she seems to accept it. She once again cooks for the both of us now and starting this week, she places herself a towel on my chair if I am late. I guess it's a good sign."

"I understand. We do not have a lot of openings for minors at this moment. We already hire more of the students part time and what we really need are full time employees. I mean, we have a enough students already doing janitorial work so we initially thought to simply tell you that there was no job opening. My superior however, thought of a position for...[Continue reading on the site]

The tall apartment building looked nice but being new to the city, it was the first time I had seen it. It did surprise me at first that the elevator only had even numbered floors on it and thought that perhaps there were simply two elevators, one of odd floors and one for even floors.

I understood a little better when we entered her apartment and I saw the mezzanine: all apartments, she explained, were on two levels.

"Cool", was the only word I could get out as she removed her dark wool vest which had covered her elegant black little dress.

Instead of being wowed by her beauty however, I froze in fear when I realized that Amanda had been armed all night with a revolver in a concealed holster hidden by the vest. As far as I know, in New York City, it was illegal to own a revolver and to carry a concealed weapon.

For a moment, I could not see any way that this night could end well now. Was I about to get killed? Robbed?

In seconds, I reviewed how we met.

She had a profile on the dating for a little while and various comments had been left by other dates but, as she had explained at supper, none of them really interested her and it usually ended in the restaurant.

Was she a cold hearted killer and I was simply the first guy she brought home to kill?

I tried to remember our chit-chat and I realized that I didn't really know that much about her. We spoke of her dead husband, but all I knew was that he got shot, did she kill him? We spoke of vacation but even thought I shared what I did for a living, she didn't and I was in the mystery as to what she did for a living.

She did laugh a lot of my jokes and comments. She was delighted to hear that my ex-girlfriend was in another state and that I was the one who had left her. "You'd be surprised at how many guys are basically just trying to find another copy of the one that got away. It's annoying because if a girl agrees to date him anyway, he doesn't end up dating her, in his mind he is still dating his ex and anytime his new girlfriend will do something out of character it will push him away"

She was really curious as to how it ended and agreed that Lucy's immaturity had forced my hand.

For a girl about to kill me, she certainly was curious on my perception of what constitutes a couple and...[Continue reading on the site]

Fortunately for me, I managed to keep my weight in check for the last decade or so meaning I was still able to wear until recently the same things I still had from my previous life as a textile.

But it was now changing. I was very pregnant and my figure was definitely changing. I hadn't gained much weight, but it still needed me to shop for a new set of clothes I might barely wear.

I did ask Peter Green to restrain my hours in court, requiring minimal presence on my part outside of the naturist center. In fact, between the 4nd and the 6th month of pregnancy, I didn't wear a single piece of clothing, with the exception of the one time I took a ultrasound to ensure the baby was in full health.

It wasn't so much voluntarily as because I was almost devoid of energy. My first three months went well, but my second trimester left me tired and exhausted most of the time leaving me going through my day's work like an automata. Susan was rather scared, but everyone was very supportive.

Eric was nice enough to do all of the shopping and Peter removed my requirement to meet the staff in person. 

I did have to file reports after reports, but Susan helped me a lot and the lack of court pleadings meant a smoother workload.

When I  do plead a case, my analysis time becomes fractured. I might have a big case to study for a full month, but broken in half by a 3 day presence in court.

But with my full time now devoted to reading and commenting on reports from other lawyers, I was able to completely focus on each of them and come up with original strategies on how to fix them faster than normal even if I thought I was slower than usual.

This wasn't lost to Peter who commented that either long term nudity or pregnancy seemed to increase my productivity. A few of the lawyers I prepared briefs for even sent me gifts for my future baby after they managed to turn a desperate case around and win against all odds.

Do you remember I told you I had 4 lawyers assisting me now ? Before the pregnancy, we used to meet on an almost weekly basis at the R.K.D. office but now, most of their faces seemed like distant memories. We still exchanged e-mails and occasional phone calls, but the further apart we were physically, the less important I seemed to be for them.

Well, except for Samantha. Samantha really wanted to be made partner...[Continue reading on the site]