Neil Barselksy has just found himself in a very unusual situation. On the morning of his 18th birthday, Neil woke up in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed, completely naked. After a quick search of the room, he finds there are no places for clothes to be found; he spots some of his personal things that are actually in the room with him. He then does a quick search of the building he is in, and he finds all of his possessions, minus his clothing, in the building with him. It’s a really nice building, too. He knows it’s a structure and not just an apartment because he discovered multiple doors that lead outside and a fenced yard out back. He also noticed that all the blinds and curtains in the house were closed during his inspection. It’s at this point he notices a note on the counter of the surprisingly nice and fully stocked kitchen. The note welcomes him to “Narisa’s Naked Commune,” reading through the note, he also notices a mention of how the commune is a bit special and experimental, along with a gracious thanks for signing up for the project two years prior. Neil suddenly recalls some papers his mother had him sign while he was still half-asleep and swears up a storm about her for a minute or two. A few minutes later, Neil’s new neighbor drops by to say welcome to the commune, a busty redhead with a tropical tan named Gina; she brought a box of homemade cupcakes she had made in her kitchen. Neil later learns that for every 12 women, there is one dude, and the commune has a population that is over a few hundred. Just what is the deal with this Commune? Why does Neil have a weird feeling about all this? Why does he suddenly have a job that does not care about his lack of attire? These are the most immediate questions running through Neil’s head, along with questions about why all the women he sees in the commune are knockouts, basically models, and completely okay with the state of things.
6 Responses
I feel there will be a need to expand on this relationship with his mother given the cursing out of her, I assume she’s some new age hippy thinking this is a way to be more natural and often drags her son into things without thinking of his opinions, plus if he’s just turned 18 I assume he is still living at home with her, so she lives with him in this new home? I assume to avoid custody questions the father is deceased.
If you don’t want to have to explain away his job not noticing the lack of clothing, may I suggest changing this from a commune to some form of either gated community or a small village of nudists instead, with some form of gate guard on the one road into town to prevent strangers from just coming in to gawk. Therefore he can have a new job at a new place of work arranged by his mother. To prevent questions about school or college etc I also recommend placing the time frame for this as during the summer.
Can keep the note but I would suggest making it a note from his mother explaining a few things and a brochure for explanation. Might make the cupcakes be brought by a few girls his age, all perhaps his neighbors all looking to get a look at the new male in town that rumors are already circulating about in the small community.
If we want to prevent the lead trying to make a quick escape the commune / village should be laid out where most things are in walking distance so other then emergency vehicles there are no cars in town, his mother having sold or turned there’s in so he has no wheels to get him out of town no matter how mad he may get or strange things may become.
His mother has a history of entitlement and using him for her own personal benefit, something he didn’t realize when he was little but did start to notice surprisingly quickly after he hit his preteen years. For example, she set up a joint account with him when he was still a minor for the primary purpose of using that account as her own second piggy bank; she even made it one with a debit card and told him she would hold onto said debit card and was the one who put in the first PIN then always changes it two or three days after giving it to him so he can make necessary purchases like groceries because she would rather spend that money on luxuries for herself or handwave it away as the home expenses account. After checking the copy of the agreement he signed, he finds it in the house. Eventually, he discovers that the first four months of whatever salary the community provides him will have the lion’s share going to his mother. He finds she tried to make it more, like something closer to 7 or 8 months. Still, it looks like someone in the accounting for the company at least caught on that something wasn’t quite right and put a note in everything to have the garnishing going to his mother get cut off when it does. He reasons that they probably also sent a note to legal to look into his mother, but he’ll still probably try to report his mother to legal at the job he finds himself assigned just to be safe. Of course, every time he tried reporting his mother to the people he worked for as a minor, they didn’t really take him seriously and only noticed all the stuff he said about her was confirmed when he had to leave their employ, so he had their HR departments quietly sweep that little issue under the rug.
But now that he’s literally away from his mother, who ironically didn’t meet the current standards for this community, he feels like he can finally find himself and focus on actually having hobbies. That said, he is also a bit annoyed that it came with basically being one of the first residents for a test run of a new kind of nudist colony.
Hmm not a bad concept for the mother but given the setting of him waking up there alone it still doesn’t feel right, there just seems to me to be to much of a hole in the narrative on how he got from where ever he started to waking up in a strange place. I feel like tweaking the proposed mother idea may work as a better starting point. I feel that the sort of new age, absent minded type may work better. Where the lead is used to his mother getting them into troubling situations due to a bit of a naïve nature or jumping into things without thinking where he always has to be the one to drag them out of whatever financial or other form of hole she digs them into. All his attempts to instill some restraint and common sense in her have failed.
The hole their mother has dug for them has cost them there place to live, but his mother shows up like the proverbial Jack with her latest set of magic beans, she has managed to find them work in some boondock’s community that comes with room and board. As the contract has already been signed by his mother with some steep penalties for default Neil has no choice but to pack up their things and accompany his mother there. They drive through the night and arrive in the wee hours of morning, the house is surprisingly furnished and Neil turns in. I see this as perhaps a more fleshed out start point to place Neil in the bed, where his mother is responsible for discarding his clothes, and leaving all others behind to be donated somewhere.
In your scenario which does work, Neil would presumably drive himself to the community to get away from his mother, but then the missing clothing would have to factor into the locals breaking in to pilfer them.
I kind of like the idea of Neil’s mom not actually knowing where he is and trying to force him into telling him where to find the location is over the phone since that’s the only contact of his she knows (and is annoyed that whatever tracking software/tech she had on his stuff has been disabled, destroyed, or removed) only to learn he doesn’t even know the coordinates, only for his mother to start her own cussing marathon and let slip she helped pack up his stuff and him while he was sleeping in the belief that the movers would also come back to pick up her things as well; at which point Neil finally comes to terms with how abusive his mother really is, and also ironically finding a note in the house while on the phone with her and reads it allowed to her and himself, noting that of the twenty or so points on the bulleted list for unacceptability for the community during this time his mother meets over half while it states anyone who meets 3 or more can not appeal to join the community at this time, even with a recommendation of one of the community members for such a thing to happen; ending with Neil hanging up and telling his mother that she will never recommend her to join when the rules for who can join relax a bit and sarcastically thanking her greed for getting him away from her and the potential for an actual career before hanging up.
Its a nice bit of revenge but I just can’t see that kind of character letting him out of her sight to create that situation. If your that set on this scenario and type of mother I think it might work better if the two travel together and reach some checkpoint, a ferry or private air strip maybe where a final processing is done where the two are separated at that point, maybe throw in a medical exam to separate the son from his clothing which he never gets back. Perhaps the docs knock him out where he then wakes up in the community without his mother, who has failed the final screening and been held back at that point.
I mostly just don’t like this scenario as it doesn’t say much for the protagonist, true he gets out from being under the thumb of his mother, but it occurs through none of his own effort, it just I feel sets up a character that is clearly easily dominated, as while you do have him shaking free in that phone conversation I feel that removes a lot of impact on the matter. One would assume then he would turn around and accept anything one would normally find odd in the village simply because staying there equals safety from his mother and getting kicked out meant falling back into her hands, it gave me the impression of conforming out of fear of the consequences and not questioning anything. True as you stated you can play the naive card where he just accepts things as normal because he’s told it is, perhaps an extension of the concept of a nudist beach but maybe its just me I just don’t favor this sort of protagonist.
That was why I was proposing the troublesome not thinking things through mother, where it can portray Neil as a son who loves his mother but has a long suffering history of having to find creative and adaptable ways to keep things together. I just thought it created a character that would have a basis for perhaps taking the sudden change in his living situation more in stride and maybe still ask a few questions out of curiosity. Plus his ability to problem solve can result in him becoming the communities handy man giving him an excuse to visit anyone or where in the community and be invited inside for the women to properly thank him for his efforts.
This was just my thinking.
I understand what you’re saying. She could have tried to follow him, at a distance to keep from being noticed, then lost track of him a good distance from home, and ironically, a far bit shy of the halfway point, like maybe managing to follow him a few towns over before completely losing track of him in city traffic.