CHAPTER 9Helga swam with long strokes in the calm early-morning sea. The water was cold beyond pain. Her head was like a vessel, looking ahead to breathe in the light and the air. She was alone, celebrating the absence of demands, the absence of daily struggles, by yielding all of her skin to the water. It touched her as no man would; her neck, breasts, loins were whipped by a thousand cold hands, but they were also stroking, kneading, cleansing, knowing.
It was an act of sheer madness that had made her decide to spend her vacation alone in a nudist club; it seemed hard to come up with a place where she could be less protected, more at the mercy of strangers. Yet, in an odd way, she felt quite safe. In the Colony, there was a detailed accounting of everyone's actions; just as the sun dupl
