Page 53 of The Last Session

What bothered me was the lack of sensitivity. What if I had an eatingdisorder, or body dysmorphia? There was seemingly no regard for how triggering this could be for people.

And even if I didn’t have those particular issues, it wasn’t like I was magically cool with people—especially strange men—especiallySol and Jonah and Ramit—seeing every part of me.

“I’ll go with you.” Moon gestured to the hot tub. “Ready?”

“I’m sorry.” It was hard to protest—almost impossible—but I forced the words. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”

“Thea, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.” Moon’s golden lioness eyes were hypnotic. She held both my arms in a parental way, her naked flesh filling my vision.

“Okay, great.” I kept my eyes on hers.

“But,” she went on, “we really encourage radical vulnerability here. Exposure in all possible ways. You understand?”

“Yeah, I just…” To my horror, frustrated tears filled my eyes. I ordered them not to fall. Everyone was quiet in the hot tub, surreptitiously watching.

“Just a sec.” Moon let go of me and walked off, her bare feet slapping against the mosaic floor. Suddenly, the fairy lights around the pool area turned off. There was still the moonlight, but it was much darker than it had been a second ago.

“Everyone, close your eyes,” Moon directed as she came back.

“Closed!” Sol cried.

“Better?” Moon put a palm over her eyes. “I won’t look either. Promise!”

“It feels so good,” Karen called. “You’ll love it once you get in.”

What else could I do? Moon wasn’t going to give up, and this was just going to get more and more awkward by the second. And Iwasn’ta prude, or anything like that—that was the aggravating part, that everyone now probably thought so.

“Fine.” I unzipped my coat. Numbly, I pulled off my sweater and bra, then pushed down my jeans, almost tripping as I kicked off my shoes. The brisk breeze raised goose bumps on my arms. I swept past Moon, up the steps, and down into the water.

“Yay, Thea!” Moon cried, clapping. Everyone broke out into cheers. It was like a dam had burst, all the tension I’d caused—well, Moon had caused, really—suddenly defused.

And it did in fact feel amazing to be in the hot, steaming water, breathing in the bracing air.

“Good job, honey!” Dawne slipped an arm on my shoulders. “None of us should be afraid to be natural.”

I hid a smile at the “natural”; Dawne’s breasts seemed clearly fake. “Thanks.” The frustration was now shifting quickly into embarrassment. Maybe I had made too big a deal over it. After all, no one else seemed to mind.

“I like it better like this anyway, without the lights.” Mikki floated over and tipped her head back. “You can see the stars.”

Moon gathered into a little group with Sol, Ramit, and Jonah across the tub. I couldn’t see the tattoo in the steam, but knowledge of it put me on high alert.Remember why you’re here.

“Hey, hon.” Next to me, Karen spoke in a low voice. “You okay? I wanted to tell Moon to lay off, but I didn’t want to overstep. You’re a grown woman from New York; you of all people can take care of yourself.”

Was that how she saw me? “Yeah, no, thanks. It’s fine.”

“You know, when I was your age, I wouldn’t have been so happy with this either.” Karen shrugged. “I actually lived in a nunnery from my twenties into my thirties.”

“Really?”

She laughed at my surprise. “Yep. Right after college. I started grad school and was doing this project with nuns living in an abbey outside of Tucson. And something about their lives—they just seemed to have this sense of peace. I’d never seen anything like it. So I dropped out and moved in. I’d grown up Catholic, but it hadn’t ever meant that much to me.”

“How long were you there?” I asked.

She sighed. “Oh, about ten years. Towards the end I was at a conference and feeling less thrilled with the whole thing. Disillusioned. With any group there’s going to be discord and power struggles, but I felt like we weren’t able to sort it out, and it just festered. So I ditched the conference to go to a bar, and that’s where I met my husband. Art was a nice man. A little wild too. He’s the one who started signing us up for these nude cruises.”

“Did I hear the phrase ‘nude cruises’?” Mikki sidled up, grinning.

It relieved me that we’d moved on from my dramatic moment.Dawne joined and told us about a nude beach party at a Costa Rica retreat the year before.

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