NervousMan Gets Naked

NervousMan walked quickly down the hall to his small studio apartment, feet padding over the tiles faster and faster as he neared the door.

"Quickly! Quickly!" NervousMan thought! "Or else someone might see me and my frightful nervousness!"

NervousMan's face grimaced in a harried mask of distress and terror.

NervousMan dropped the book on the ground and with trembling fingers fishing the keys out of his pocket.

He thought of movies where the heroine is pursued by some sort of menacing shape, getting closer and closer and closer until the last minute when...

NervousMan turned the key and bending down to get his book, he pushed his bulk to open the heavy door and rushed inside, slamming the door behind him.

"Oh! Not so loud! Someone might be disturbed! They might complain about me!" he thought to himself. "Then, I will get thrown out of my apartment, and I will be homeless myself! No one will give me potato chips and I'll starve!"

Sweat was already starting to cool on his forehead and his chest heaved mightily. He could feel waves of heat pour off of him.

"So hot!" thought NervousMan.

The hallway inside was dark and cool and quiet. NervousMan started to relax. Just a bit. He was safe. Apparently.

NervousMan ran a shaking hand over his face and breathed deeply.

"Must... breathe... must breathe..." he thought. But I am breathing. I am breathing. He thought to himself.

NervousMan let the book drop to the floor and his shoulders slumped. He took a few steps into his darkened apartment and then looked over to the light switch.

NervousMan took off his shirt. He was very warm. Then he took of his shoes, then his pants. Then walking into the bathroom, he sat down on the closed toilet and and took off his socks.

"I made it... I made it..." NervousMan said to the walls around him.

NervousMan took off his underwear, then got up and walked over to the shower and slid the sliding door back on its tracks so he could get in. The door hit the wall with a THUD.

NervousMan grimaced. He hoped his neighbors didn't complain about him. Maybe someone heard.

NervousMan felt ashamed. Naked and ashamed.

NervousMan got in the shower and turned on the water and forgetting it came out cold, NervousMan jumped. "Oh! I must be careful! I might slip in here!" he thought.

Fear cluched NervousMan's guts like a giant freezing scaly claw.

After a moment, he stepped into the stream cautiously and the water flowed over his naked body and slowly got warmer and warmer until it was fully hot. NervousMan reached over to the knob tentatively and turned the temperature down. The water might scald him!

If it did, he might slip and his leg might break, the bone sticking out of his thigh, he would have to lie helpless in the shower, screaming piteously for help from someone passing by outside.

"Help me! Help me!" he would scream.

They would have to call an ambulance, thought NervousMan, and then they would have to break down the door and the paramedics would see him naked! And for weeks, he would have to walk around with huge blisters all over his body and in a cast. People would laugh at him and call him 'that idiot who slipped in his own shower'.

NervousMan was tired.

Pushing the thoughts of getting scalded by hot water from his mind, NervousMan lathered himself up and washed himself everywhere. His chest, his hair, behind his ears, especially his ears, his face, his stomach... and... down there. All the while being very careful not to slip and fall. NervousMan eyed the handle of the door in case he felt his legs going and he would have to reach out and grab it suddenly.

"This will get me clean. Real clean." thought NervousMan. "I have to go see Mr. Deedle, my Chinese Stepfather, about more money".

NervousMan scrubbed his legs furiously.

After rinsing off NervousMan got out of the shower, stepping onto his lime green bathroom carpet, and dried himself off with his big yellow towel.

Stepping out of the bathroom, he saw himself for a moment in the hallway mirror.

NervousMan walked up to his reflection and looked at his own eyes, examining his pupils. Then, he looked at his own nostrils. Something NervousMan just couldn't do without a mirror.

"I'm naked now. Yes. I'm naked. Yes. I'm naked now". NervousMan said to himself.

NervousMan walked in the living room, passing the picture of his late mother. NervousMan blushed and carefully turned the picture to the wall.

"Good", NervousMan thought, "the blinds are drawn". If they weren't someone might look into NervousMan's window and see him naked and then call the police on him. He would get sued by the person, and then led out under a police blanket completely naked. There would be photographers from the media and he would be on the evening news and called a pervert for all to see!

NervousMan sat on his unmade bed.

"I'm naked now" he said one last time to the dark walls around him.

Looking over to the drawn blinds, NervousMan thought of the poor homeless man somewhere eating his bag of potato chips.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." said NervousMan softly to the blinds.

Then he laid back on his bed, shaking so badly he feared that he might fall off and hurt himself.

"I'm sorry" he said once more, barely above a whisper.