Chapter 21

There were a few beats of silence while I processed. I was determined not to freak out. Yet. I could sense Heather monitoring me, as if I was passing another test as I said, "Well. That would explain the nudity, then. And, how long have you been established here?"

"Almost twenty years," said Patty. "Let us show you around! This is the Heart Centre, our main hub for meals and meetings." She and Joe turned to lead us deeper into the seating area, their toned bottoms winking at me.

Shaking my head, as if to release the last of my judgement, I followed, Heather shadowing behind.

The wide decking caught the warm sea breezes, while sliding glass doors separated the dining from the outside. Wooden tables and benches were adorned with fresh flowers and bowls of fruit. "The kitchen is back this way," said Joe, indicating the open-plan food preparation benches. "We employ a chef to help plan meals and quantities, but everyone is responsible for helping to cook and clean up."

"We put an importance on whole foods," Patty chimed in. "We really want people to walk away at the end of their time here with the tools to provide their bodies with the best possible nutrition."

I nodded, trying very hard to focus on her intelligent face rather than her swinging breasts. "Do you serve meat?"

"We do," said Joe, "but we source from local farms and fisheries, where we know we can trust that the meat is organic. Almost everything else, we grow right here."

Stepping to the far side of the room, we emerged back onto the decking and down the stairs. A wide vegetable patch sprawled outwards, but not in the straight rows I was used to seeing. The beds were circular and arranged in a spiral pattern, expanding outwards from a central fountain, where a happy stone Buddha sat among pink lilies.

Two women moved among the beds, bending down, weeding and harvesting. Besides their broad-brimmed sun hats, they were entirely naked.

"Good morning, ladies," called Patty.

They straightened up, one younger, with lithe limbs and brown skin, the other older and far more curvaceous. "Hi! Hello! Isn't it a beautiful day?"

"What are you picking today?"

The older lady said, "There's so many zucchinis ready! And the eggplants are perfect too."

"Do you want us to move the chooks today?" asked the other, her silky hair falling forward over her perky breasts. She pointed the round chicken enclosure at the far end of the garden.

"Sure, Blair! Then we can plant more pumpkins – they take up so much room." Patty indicated the freshly turned earth beneath the black feathered fowls. "It's called Permaculture. We rotate the coop around every few weeks and the chickens make sure the soil is fertilised and dug up, plus they eat all our kitchen scraps and pulled weeds."

"Sounds very sensible," I said vacantly, watching as Blair's bushy pubic hair bobbed around between the tomato plants.

A babble of cheerful voices echoed across the grounds, causing us all to turn towards the bungalow. About twenty naked bodies poured from the building, carrying yoga mats and greeting us with gusto. "Hi, Patty! Morning, Joe! Hey, that's Evianna Moore!"

I raised a hand, a stunned smile on my face as the wave of nude bodies flowed past us. "Don't worry, dear," said Patty, patting my arm, "you'll get to meet everyone at lunch."

"We'll show you to your cabin so you can both settle in, and after lunch, you can join us for our lecture on the beach." Joe waved a long arm towards the row of aqua houses. "You're in number fifteen, down the end."

The four of us crunched down the white gravel path, stopping by the Heart Centre to grab our bags. "I feel like I may have over-packed," I quipped as I lugged my case down the steps. "Speaking of which... Is the nudity mandatory?"

"Nothing here is mandatory," said Joe. "Being here is a choice. We have a waiting list a mile long for people who want to stay at Kaivalya, but when people join us for the first time, we find it may take a few days for them to become comfortable enough to fully embrace the spirit of freedom they find here."

"Not me," said Heather, beaming as she walked up the path to our cabin. "I'm all in!"

"Evi, you take as long as you need to," said Patty soothingly. "We understand that you've only just found out about our lifestyle here – wear as much as you like."

"Thanks?" I wasn't sure why I was expressing gratitude, considering I had been involuntarily roped into spending a week around strangers-sans-clothes. "I appreciate that."

Joe helped me carry my suitcase into the pretty little cabin, giving me a full-frontal view of his parts as he lifted the case into the wardrobe. I quickly averted my eyes from the pink shape of his penis, curled gently against his swinging scrotum, knowing it wouldn't be the last set of boy-bits I'd have to face in the next five days.

The serene couple bade us goodbye. As soon as the door swung closed, I immediately spun to face Heather. "You evil wench, you!"

She exploded into helpless giggles. "Oh! Oh! Oh my god, you should have seen your face! Best moment of my life!"

"Heather!" I tackled her to one of the two double beds, covered in crisp sheets and aqua runners. "Say you're sorry!"

"Never!"

We engaged in a very long tickle battle, which resulted in us both ending up with aching abs from laughing too much. "Ow! Uncle! Okay, I'm sorry, I should have warned you." She sat up, her face alight with excitement. "But look around! How awesome is this place?"

The ocean views beyond our window and the calming natural silence of the camp seemed to magnify her words. "It is gorgeous here," I admitted, "and I like the idea of getting back to nature and clean living. But, jeeze, Heather, all those wangs and nipples and bikini zones!"

"Oh, grow up," she said, standing up and stretching. "They're just body parts. I'll give you warning this time - I'm going to be stripping off after lunch, so be prepared for that."

"I've seen you in a bikini before - I think I'll be fine." I walked to the wardrobe and started sorting through my clothes. "But what the hell am I going to wear? Will this work?" I asked, holding a rainbow-coloured sarong up for her approval.

"It's a good start."

***

We ended up unpacking and chatting for so long, we missed lunch. As I procrastinated in the bathroom, tying and retying my sarong, Heather called through the door, "Okay, I'm going to head down to the beach for the lecture. Are you coming?"

"Um..." I still wasn't sure if I was quite ready to handle all the sand and the nude, so I chickened out. "Go down without me. I want to head to the kitchen first and grab myself something to eat anyway."

"Okay!" Her bare footsteps pattered away and I breathed a sigh for the temporary reprieve.

With my sarong knotted firmly over the top of my swimsuit, I headed for the Heart Centre, hoping to nab an apple. The dining area lay silent and empty as I scanned for fruit, but came up empty. "Dang it..."

"Are you hungry?" said a male voice in a laid back American accent.

Startled, I flinched, bracing myself for more exposure. Instead, all I saw was a man smiling at me from the kitchen, wearing a natural cotton apron. "I've just washed some strawberries, if you'd like them?"

"Yes, please." I moved towards the bowl he offered, and plucked a few berries out. "Oh my God, these are huge!"

"We grow them ourselves," he said. "I'm Eli. I take care of the kitchen."

"I'm Evi," I replied, studying my new friend. With his blond dreadlocks neatly tied back into a pony tail, and his bronzed tan, he looked like a surfer/hippy poster child. His toned arms showed what the rest of his physique must look like under the apron, and I felt myself blush like a giddy teen in the presence of a rock star. "I like your accent. West Coast, right? Maybe Californian?"

"Good ear," he smiled. "I'm from Oregon originally, came out here a few years ago chasing the surf and I never left."

"And, you're a cook?"

"A fully qualified chef, actually." As I watched, he deftly began slicing through vegetables, his brown fingers skilful. "I used to work in five-star kitchens, but the pressure and the negativity and the stress... I didn't know a single person I worked with who wasn't heavily drinking or taking drugs every night, just to make it through."

I recalled stories from a cousin who worked in the Marriott kitchens and reported the same. "So, how did you find yourself at Kaivalya?"

He looked into me with his magnified chocolate eyes. "Sometimes, you just find yourself exactly where you need to be. Life happens for you, not to you. I was hitching a ride up the coast about a year ago, and Joe picked me up. He said they were looking for a chef for their retreat and I was missing my work. I truly love food."

"Me too," I said, grinning. "What's not to love? My problem is loving food too much."

"I don't believe there's such a thing as loving food too much."

"You've never been a woman," I snorted. "It's practically forbidden to declare a love of food."

"It's always been verboten for women to have passion in one form or another," Eli said, his glowing eyes meeting mine. "In years gone by, women weren't supposed to have a libido. Now, sex is seen as more socially acceptable, but a love of food has become the new illicit craving."

Eli turned around, reaching for the industrial fridge in the corner, giving me a clear view of his back; aside from the slender straps of his apron, it was totally bare. I blushed as my gaze skimmed over his beautiful brown backside, which waggled at me as he leaned down for a low shelf, saying, "Tell me, Evi: what's your favourite food?"

"Um... I'm not sure if I could narrow it down. Probably a three-way tie between cheese, bread and pasta. And sometimes, I can eat all three at once – garlic bread and lasagne."

"Can you tell me why?" He returned to my side of the kitchen, bearing armfuls of fresh greens. "Like, what emotions do you attach to those foods?"

"Emotions... Probably comfort," I mused. "And a feeling of warmth and family."

"Much of the time, what we eat is dictated by what we feel, what our souls are craving. Comfort foods are called that for a reason. Cheese, bread and pasta themselves aren't necessarily bad foods, but it depends on the quality and quantity that we eat them in."

I nodded slowly. "In my defence, the last few weeks, I've been eating really well while I'm travelling. Lots of salads and fresh stuff."

"And how do you feel?"

"Good! Brighter, more energetic."

Eli's fair eyebrows lifted. "Great to hear. But it's a bit like when people come here for a week, or go on the Biggest Loser, or do a 12 week body challenge; you can eat well when someone else is doing the hard work, or forcing you to do the right thing, or you know it's only for a limited time. The real magic happens when you can make the best choices for your body every day."

"I'm not sure I'm there yet," I admitted, allowing my eyes to slide away. "Hey, is that a cheeseburger?"

He smiled, and said brightly, "Yup, that's my pet, Hamilton." Eli picked up a clear Tupperware container from the other side of the bench. Inside lay a slightly flat, but completely edible looking McDonald's cheeseburger, one of my favourite midnight treats.

"Your pet?"

"I've had Ham for over a year now." He handed me the tub and explained, "I wanted to see how long one would last for before it would start decomposing. Twelve months on, and we're still together."

Simultaneously fascinated and horrified, I lifted the burger to my eye level. "Are you kidding me? That's insane!" The cheese wasn't mouldy, the patty still looked about normal – even the pickle peeping out the side looked fine.

"The thing people have forgotten is that food is fuel. Ham clearly isn't fuel – he's practically a mineral. This kind of food is simply filler, a chemical hit for the brain. But where's the energy or the vitamins your body actually needs when it consumes food? It just isn't there."

"So weird," I said quietly shocked.

"Western society has this distorted idea that eating is about putting stuff into our mouth until our hunger is gone, and we'll use whatever works. Fried foods or sugar-loaded treats or fatty meat or processed dairy. Our bodies try to process this junk, looking for the nutrition, but it isn't there, and then our energy drops and we think, 'Oh, I must need to eat more,' and the cycle starts again.

"Meanwhile, our bodies are badly malnutritioned, so they start storing excess fat, and our colons fill up with unprocessed goop, and we feel heavier and less inclined to exercise. Add some sugar addiction and alcohol, and you've got your perfect storm for all kinds of disease and disorder."

Embarrassed, I keep my eyes on Ham. "Yeah, that sounds like my life. So, how do I fix it?"

Eli placed a warm hand on my shoulder. "First of all, accept where you're at: there's millions of people around the world who are in exactly the same place as you, and most of them don't even know it, or want to do anything about it."

I smiled at the dread-locked surf god. "Thanks."

"I don't like to hand out advice," he said, continuing to chop, "but Joe has me lecture once a week to the guests and I have three tactics that seem to resonate with people. The first is to remember that food isn't about consumption – it's fuel. Your body is an incredible machine, which performs thousands of functions a minute, and we're not even aware of them. We have to reward this machine with the right energy sources.

"When you're thinking about giving yourself what you need, it gets easier to make better choices. Even comparing bread becomes easier – why do I care if I buy white or whole-grain? Because white flour turns to glue in our systems, and whole-grains help with digestion. The less energy our bodies spend on digesting food, the more energy they have to aid with weight-loss, muscle building, mental clarity, disease fighting. Does that make sense?"

"It does," I said, absorbed in his logic.

"Then comes awareness. How often do we eat at a table and actually look at our food?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're always so busy – we rush from place to place, stuffing food into our mouths while watching TV, browsing online, driving, working, playing on our phones. Have you ever eaten a full meal, and not tasted a single bite?"

I thought about all the meals I'd eaten at my desk at work, or on planes, wolfing food down without even thinking about it. "More often than I'm proud of."

"When we stay aware of our food, taste every mouthful, we appreciate it more and we fill up faster. The only other point to consider is where we're at emotionally. The next time you're craving something fatty or sugary or salty, take a moment to ask yourself how you're feeling. So often, we've conditioned our emotions to link to our stomachs. I'm happy, I eat, I'm sad, I eat. Pausing for a second to really analyse where you're at emotionally can make all the difference."

"You make it sound so easy," I laughed.

"It's not. I know it's not. What we put into our bodies is influenced by so many factors: our emotions, our habits, our budget, our families, our tastes, our society, our friends, our conditioning. I always say that if Oprah - one of the richest and most intelligent women in the world - struggles with her food intake, then it shows there truly is no easy way out, no short-cuts. There's only the choices we make every day."

He handed me a plate with a chunky guacamole dip and a pretty row of carrot sticks. I used one to scoop up the other and said, "Every day, huh?" I bought myself some time to think as I ate the snack, enjoying the creamy avocado blended with tart lime and dried chilli.

His words were like an evangelist's message beaming straight into my soul, impossible to ignore, but painful to absorb. For as long as I'd been an adult, I'd been blaming everyone else for my eating habits, from my parents, to fast-food society, to my fluctuating emotional patterns. Now, I knew so much more, and it was time to grow up and start taking real responsibility for what I put into my body.

"Hey, Eli? Can I stay here and help you prep for dinner? There's a few more questions I'd like to ask you, if that's okay."

"Sure." His teeth were bright against his sun-kissed skin as he smiled and said, "But you'll have to wear an apron."

"Not a problem."

I hung around the kitchen for the next few hours, following Eli's directions and storing up as much food knowledge as I could. He was full of fascinating opinions and common sense advice, and I knew much of what I was learning, I could implement at home. It wasn't about cutting out one single food type, or a magic formula. It was just about choosing the simplest, most natural foods available.

As dinner time approached, more naked guests began filtering into the dining area, donning cotton aprons and chatting excitedly. Eli expertly assigned tasks to small groups, and the kitchen began to buzz with happy activity and delicious smells. Heather appeared to assist me with the roast garlic dressing I was working on, and it was a non-confrontational way to ease into seeing her nude, with her front covered by a pale pink apron.

When the food was ready, everyone moved to the tables, but rather than the traditional group dining routine of set seating, people sat, filled plates, chatted, moved on, moved back, called out – it was like a Mad Hatter's tea party, if Lewis Carroll had decided to write an R-rated nudie Wonderland.

Weird though... It doesn't really feel R-rated anymore... As I conversed with almost everyone, I realised at some stage, I'd simply stopped noticing that people were nude. I was aware of it, but it was a saturation effect; there was too much and I just couldn't feel anything about it. Instead, I found myself concentrating on people's faces and what they actually had to say.

For a few hours after dinner, I spoke with the other guests, blown away by their stories, then Joe jumped up and made an announcement. "Our evening asana practice will begin in half an hour at the bungalow."

"Asana?" I asked Patty, who was sitting across from me.

"Yoga. The physical practice of postures." She smiled pleasantly at me. "I hope you'll join us!"

"Why not?" I'd done Pilates years before at uni, but never ventured into yoga; it all seemed too hippy-dippy, and couldn't possibly burn off the calories I needed.

That night, I learned how wrong I was. The large sliding doors at the front of the bungalow were closed over and infra-red heating beds in the ceiling were activated, creating extreme warmth in the space. A round Indian woman called Ebony led the class in a gorgeous lyrical voice, and any worries I'd had about watching a group of naked people of all shapes and sizes bend into downward-dogs was burned away as I stripped off my sarong and sweated buckets in my bathing suit.

It was a perfect form of meditation; I couldn't worry about how I looked or how other people looked because I was too occupied with following the directions, holding my balance, staying in the postures. Perhaps it was the heat or the camp or the culmination of my whole journey, but as I dripped from every pore and stretched my body beyond its limits, I felt my life shift again.

After the hard work was done, Ebony directed us to lie on our backs with our eyes closed. "Take this time to simply breathe, and allow everything we don't need in our lives to fall away. Any fears, any anxieties, any feelings of inadequacy, any worries for the future, let them all evaporate. In this moment, you are whole, you are complete."

And, as I lay there, I truly felt as if that was so. I experienced a peacefulness like nothing I'd ever known and I melted into the floor, released to the sensation of pure freedom.

After the class, I rewrapped my sarong, and stealthily slid my swimsuit off, throwing it in with the towels for washing. Floppy as an al dente strand of spaghetti, I wandered out from the heat of the enclosed room to the cool night air.

"How do you feel?" asked Joe in his rolling deep voice as he passed by on the way back to the cabins.

"Incredible," I responded honestly. "I didn't expect to like it at all, but I... that was unbelievable."

"You're a natural yogi," he said, nodding his silver head. "You'll blossom if you continue to follow this path."

"You know... I think I will."

"Good." He paused for a moment to say, "Isn't it a marvellous thought that everything in your entire life has led up to you being here, at this exact moment?"

"It is. But you could say that about being anywhere at any particular moment, couldn't you?"

He winked. "You could. That's what makes every moment so special: you are exactly where you're meant to be."

He wandered off, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Heather came looking for me a few minutes later, her pale freckled skin shining in the dim moonlight. "Hey! Do you want to go for a walk along the beach before turning in?"

I smiled serenely at my closest friend. "I'd like that." I untied the knot on my sarong and allowed it to flutter to the ground as I stepped onto the sand and walked naked under the stars by Heather's side, wholly content.

I feel as though Evi's journey could almost end here - she's finally reached a place of peace with herself, and is ready to bring changes back into her every day life.

But I don't write these stories - I am only the vessel.  For all the thought and hours and proof-reading I do, at the end of the day, my characters make their own decisions, and sometimes events happen within a universe I've built - and I don't really have a choice about them.  That might sound a bit meta for some people, but it's the truth.

So, this story will continue, because Evi has more to experience.  I hope you'll come along for the ride over the next few pages as the tale wraps up.  Thanks so much to everyone for reading - special thanks to the readers who've added this story to their reading lists and voted for every chapter.

If you'd like to leave me a comment, I'd love to hear about your thoughts on Eli's food theories - does emotion play into eating?  Do we consume without mindfulness?  Have we moved away from food as fuel, to food as filler?  And then please click the star and show me some lovin' with a vote!   :) xxoo Kate