Naked High is a novel that will contain four books, each tracing one year of high school for my characters.

This is an outgrowth of the Naked In School premise that I, and other people, have written about; starting with Karen Wagner, who started it all. Naked High is specifically a spinoff of my Naked In School stories, as it stars younger siblings of some of my NiS characters.

The way I see Naked High is this—it takes place in an alternate universe. I’m starting the story in September of 2003—actually, I’m starting with the preface, which is in February of 2030—but the story proper I’m dating September of 2003. But this isn’t our 2003, many things are different.

All STDs, including AIDS, have been cured. Birth control is easily available and completely effective. Kids start having sex much younger. This is a sociopolitical development, as the events recorded in the Preface will make clear.

My NiS stories took place in a fictional town called Westport, and that’s where Naked High will take place. I needed a location for Westport for Naked High, so I’ve decided it’s on the coast of North Carolina. It’s completely fictional. Westport’s a city of about 40,000 people and there are no cities like that on the NC coast. Wilmington comes closest, but it’s about twice as large and I see Westport as being further north than Wilmington. Any geographic details given to Westport are completely fictional. But I needed an actual place to put Westport for ‘wider world’ reasons. Example: my NiS character Maggie Benson decided to attend a school within commuting distance so she could stay home with her younger brother, Joe, who is a point-of-view character in Naked High. So, Maggie’s attending East Carolina University.

I also needed Westport to be in an area that gets an occasional hurricane. You’ll find out why <G>.

As I’ve said, the story has a Preface, which is actually the first part of Book One, Chapter One. The preface takes place more than 26 years after the start of the story. The preface is mainly to make a political point, not to Build A Mystery. There will be a few mysteries to come out of the preface, for sure, but they’re mild. One mystery is completely eliminated, though—you will know right from the preface that Amber and Joe, my two POV characters, do NOT end up together. In fact, the preface concerns Amber’s daughter Karen and Joe’s son Keith; who are dating. The contents of Naked High are Amber and Joe’s journals from their days there. Karen and Keith are reading them. Why, is detailed in the preface. As I said, there’s sociopolitical commentary there.

Naked High is the colloquialism given to Westport Regional Academy, a magnet high school that draws students from Westport and seven other surrounding school districts. As the nickname implies, WRA is a nudist school. Everybody—students, staff, visitors—is naked. This, of course, is an outgrowth of the Naked In School Program. There are differences. They’ll be detailed in the beginning of the story itself. But one thing that’s not different—the nakedness encourages sexual exploration, and is supposed to. However, it’s different when everybody is always naked. It becomes more ho-hum. The nakedness, I mean—not the sex <G>.

As I start this story, Naked High is brand-new. The class I’ll be following—Amber, Joe, and their friends—is the first class to ever attend. Since this is considered a four-year program, when they enter as freshmen, only freshmen will be there. They don’t open up the school for upperclassmen ‘transfering’ in. By the time they get to be seniors, the school will be filled.

How I’m going to write this story is the tricky part. I have two POV characters—Amber Woodard, little sister of Lily; and Joe Benson, little brother of Maggie. I’m going to be switching off between the two, alternating by chapters. The time period covered in each offsetting chapter will be the same. It’s usually going to be about a month. So, if Chapter One is Amber’s September of Freshman Year, Chapter Two will be Joe’s September of Freshman Year. The disadvantages two this are: first, how do I write it when Joe and Amber interact with one another? Now, their regular interaction—they are required to meet on the last day of every month and trade and discuss their journals—we’ll probably get mostly from Joe’s point of view, mainly because Joe is the one who tells his story second. As for other situations involving them, I’m going to play it by ear. It might get a little confusing, but I’ll try to keep it as un-confusing as I can. The other problem with doing the story like this is the lag-time. I get to the end of Chapter One, which is Amber’s story. Amber’s story won’t pick up again until chapter Three. That might be a little difficult, but I’m going to give it a shot. This is really two books in one, but I’m going to try to keep it as smooth as I can.

As for content—well, there’s a little bit of everything. First of all, there’s no ‘taboo’ between teachers getting involved with students at Naked High. As long as there’s no coercion, and as long as there’s no ‘trading off’ (for grades and the like), it’s not forbidden. There will be some. I expect that to be a wee bit controversial, but there you have it <G>. There will also be many combinations—threesomes, foursomes, bi—and that does include at least one MM scene. So, be forewarned. I don’t think I’ll get too extreme—I haven’t planned on any beastiality <G>--but there’s a lot of sex, and in various combinations.

Though romance creeps in here and there—and will get more prominent as my characters grow older—this isn’t a ‘boy meets soulmate at 14’ story. Both of my POV characters go through a lot of partners—especially Amber. Will they eventually meet a soulmate? Maybe. We’ll see <G>.

One other thing….the character of Moose is based in part on an old friend. It is NOT my intent at ALL to disparage anyone who share’s Moose’s ethnic background. His real life counterpart really did talk like this <G>. And in real life it was hilarious. I hope I get that across on the printed page.

I think that’s it for now. I hope you enjoy it!

--Frank Downey