The Warm Season
On a distant world, a daughter confronts identity, belonging, and the quiet customs of life without clothes
Editor’s note: This short story is an episode adapted from the novel ‘A Suggestion in Space’ by Alan R. Paine. The book is an interstellar adventure and romance which features nudity from time to time.
For more like this, check out Alan’s substack page Science Fiction and Such Like.
It’s hard to believe that in most places on Earth, when we left, people going swimming put on special clothes called swimsuits, just for that, and that it was considered extremely impolite or offensive to be naked. At the time I didn’t question it but looking back it’s one of those things that seems really weird. –Lucina, Untitled Autobiography
Planet Ukko, Spring, 21 local years after landing
After a New Year’s Eve colder than anyone could remember, New Year’s Day 22 dawned warm and sunny. After the traditional communal brunch, Tanya suggested that they all go to the beach. The five other children, or more accurately young people, all thought that this was a great idea.
“It’s nice today,” said Lucina, “but I don’t think it’s quite warm enough for the beach.” The other adults nodded and murmured in agreement.
“Why do you say that?” said Tanya. “It’s getting hotter and hotter and I’m dying for swim.”
“You’ll get hypothermia jumping in the sea today,” said Tanya’s dad, Berren. “We’re way behind with planting because of the weather. I know today is traditionally a holiday, but we need to spend the afternoon working on that and perhaps have an extra day off in a couple of weeks.” Berren glanced around at the adults, and again everyone nodded in agreement that it had to be done.
“Well, I think we need to go to the beach,” said Tanya, starting to move in that direction. Delcie, Vikki, Brin, Carlo, and Hale all got up from their chairs to join her.
“Tanya,” said Berren. “Come back here and sit down immediately.” She ignored him.
Lin jumped up and took her daughter by the arm. “Tanya darling, I agree that you should go, but please don’t do it this way.” They had an animated whispered conversation and then Tanya, without a hint of contrition, turned to Berren and looked him straight in the eye.
“Dad, it’s New Year’s Day, we’ve been inside all winter, cooped up making and mending from dawn to dusk, so I think it’s only reasonable that we should have the afternoon off.”
“Very well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” said Berren. “Us soft grown-ups will spend the afternoon working, but the first day that we feel that it’s warm enough to go to the beach, we’ll take the day off and you can get on with the planting.”
Berren and Tanya continued to look at each other in silence for a few moments and exchanged an almost subliminal smile.
“Thanks Dad.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re not coming with us, are you, Delcie?” said Hale. “You’re so slow we might not make it there today.”
“She can’t help being disabled. We’re all going together,” said Tanya, “or you can stay behind. What’s it to be?”
Lin and Lucina were thinning seedlings in shallow pots on Lin’s veranda. The pots were a crude effort fashioned by hand from local clay. Lucina was acutely aware that the amazing technology that had enabled them to cross interstellar space and settle in such a pleasant place would not last forever, and in years to come everything they used would have to be produced from local materials. This included fabrics which were very laborious to make, starting from the raw plant fibre, so both women, like many others throughout history, were working naked to avoid wearing out their clothes or getting them dirty.
Being naked together was routine for Lucina and Lin and they thought nothing of it. Shayla, the mother of Hale, Brin, and Vikki, walked by on her way to the greenhouses wearing a piece of material wrapped around her from her breasts to her thighs. Shayla had never been as comfortable with nudity, but when her children were young, she had been unable to keep up with the task of always having clean clothes of the right size to put them in, and they regularly played naked even in cold weather.
“Where’s Berren?” Lucina asked.
“Oh, he’s gone off to clear the North field, not in a good mood.”
“How is it that he could command a starship and sort out any disagreement between fractious adults without ever raising his voice but he can’t control his own daughter?”
“She’s very strong-willed,” said Lin, “and at home she’s seen Berren’s vulnerable side.”
“In what way is your partner vulnerable?”
Lin smiled, “I don’t think I should say.” She moved the conversation on. “Tanya’s not afraid to tell Hale where to get off either, but I imagine teenage lust will eventually drive them together, whatever their differences.”
“It sounds likely. Hale’s a good-looking guy and Tanya’s incredibly pretty with an amazing body, but you don’t think that she might prefer Brin instead?”
“I doubt it. Even if she did, she wouldn’t take Brin away from Delcie. She knows they’re soul mates.”
“Everyone knows that except perhaps Brin and Delcie.”
“They’ve been inseparable playmates since birth.”
“I think that they’re about to discover a new game.”
It was almost dusk when Lucina got home. Delcie was in the shower, and Lucina went to the bathroom to use the toilet, which was behind a partition on the other side of the shower from the door. Like all other doors in the village, there was no lock, and it was normal for members of the household to go past anyone having a shower in order to use the toilet. Lucina couldn’t understand why the door wouldn’t open.
“Delcie,” she called, “there’s something blocking the door. Can you move it, please?”
“You can’t come in, I’m in the shower.”
“What are you talking about? I really need a pee.” Lucina pushed harder on the door and moved the box that Delcie had put up against it, enough that she could squeeze through the gap and get to the toilet. Delcie was mostly hidden by the shower curtain but still turned to face the wall as Lucina went by. Delcie turned the water off and wrapped the household’s only large bath towel around her. She started to dry her hair with a second towel about 25 centimetres square.
“You look worried,” said Lucina, “What’s up?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Come on, you can tell me, I’m your mother.”
“Are you sure about that?” Delcie said.
“Sure about what?”
“That you’re really my mother.”
“Why are you asking this? What have people been saying? It’s Hale, isn’t it?”
Delcie looked down, “Yeah.”
“What the hell did he say?”
“Well,” said Delcie, fiddling with her hair as she spoke, “after we’d all been for a swim, Brin and I were sitting on a rock talking when he …Oh, there’s a special word for it.”
“He had an erection,” said Lucina more as a statement than a question.
“That’s it, and I’d never really seen that happen close up before, so I was kind of looking at it, but he got all embarrassed and put his hands in his lap to try and hide it.” Delcie paused, uneasy about going on.
“I suppose Hale made a caustic remark about it.”
“Yeah, he said, ‘I don’t know why you’re excited about little Miss Tiny Tits here but don’t worry you can always fuck her with the lights off.’ That means having sex doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Lucina, “but it’s an unpleasant word that means just doing it for the physical sensation without any real feeling for the person you’re doing it with. So, what did he say about me?”
“He said that the reason I’m so underdeveloped is that I was stunted in the womb because I was Lin’s embryo growing inside you. That’s why I have trouble walking and talking and that I don’t really have a proper mother.”
“Why, the little …” exclaimed Lucina. “You know perfectly well that the reason you’ve got cerebral palsy is because of a difficult labour, and if it hadn’t been for Ruban, we might have both died, but problems can happen in any birth.”
“I know,” said Delcie, “but he still managed to get to me.”
“Hale’s a very clever guy, but unfortunately, he uses his cleverness to get under people’s skin just like he’s getting under mine right now,” said Lucina, breathing deeply to try and calm down. “When I set out from Earth, I never imagined that I would ever have children, and even when Lin offered me some of her frozen embryos, I wasn’t sure about it. When I lost the first two, it was utterly devastating. Both times the foetus was only about that big,’ she held her fingers about 10 centimetres apart. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much it messes with you physically and mentally. And when you got going, I was continually sick and felt terrible, but I literally prayed every day, ‘please, please, don’t take this one away from me,’ and finally, after a year of that, I had two days of trying to get you out.”
“Sorry to have been such a trouble,” said Delcie.
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Lucina, “After you finally made it out, I held you on my chest waiting for the afterbirth. It felt amazing feeling you there even though you were very sticky. I could cover your whole body with two hands.
“One more thing, I breastfed you even after you bit my nipples so hard that they started bleeding. So don’t have any doubt that I’m your mother, alright.”
“Sorry, I was just being silly because of Hale.”
“And all that stuff about being underdeveloped. You’re not as old as Tanya and Vikki, and girls develop at different speeds. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve seen you with your clothes off since before winter, so let’s see how this body of yours is coming along.”
“No,” said Delcie, pulling the towel closer
“Come on, I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
Delcie shyly dropped the towel.
“Arms down by your side and stand up straight,” said Lucina. “You are growing up into a lovely-looking young woman, and I honestly mean that. You’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s hardly surprising Brin got aroused.” A concerned look passed across Delcie’s face. “But boys of that age have erections all the time,” Lucina continued, “don’t read too much into it.” 🪐
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