Clever Magazine, Vol. 6, #3 " Sauna Fest " (www.clevermag.com)

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Sauna Fest:
Danger Without Clothing

by Jamie Kiffel

Scary adventures in New York City

Setting: The Gershwin Hotel, NYC

Jamie's Disclaimer: While the following was (probably) not dangerous to my person, it involved imminent danger to my modesty, ego and reputation. Thus, I had to do it.

“Sign this please,” a bouncer said as a piece of paper was thrust into my hand. “It’s strictly for publicity purposes.”

I paused.

“I thought you said, “stripping for publicity purposes,” I said.

“No,” he corrected, “but there will be filming.”

It was 8:10pm on an unusually warm fall night in New York City, and I was about to be admitted to Saunafest. This was a Finnish invention involving an oversized sauna on the roof of the wildly avant garde Gershwin Hotel; a DJ, and a performance of a classical Finnish play. All inside a sauna. Each $20 ticket came with two free vodkas.

In a fit of daring, I convinced three friends to join me: Evee, a stunning, slightly shy redhead who was studying to become a guidance counselor; Jie, a world-traveling, petite anesthesiologist with the personality of a martial artist, and Jie’s friend Oscar, a handsome, young Philippino doctor with the personality of a favorite little brother. None of us had any idea what to expect. First question: would we be dressed?

“I’m sure they’ll give us robes or something,” I speculated. “I mean, maybe it’s not like a real sauna. Maybe you sit there in your clothes.” The ad hadn’t revealed any details.

I scanned the line behind us. Corduroy, casual jackets, turtlenecks. Then my gaze fell upon an older, stern-faced, well-dressed couple at the head of the line. They looked like upper west siders, once attractive, now preserved.

Swingers was the uncomfortable word that pronounced itself in my mind. I looked away.

We anxiously looked at our watches: 8:15. “What if we’re late?” I whispered to my group.

“Excuse me,” Oscar merrily asked the bouncer. “Are we going to make the 8:00 seating?”

The bouncer made a funny face. “You’ll be fine--people are just getting up there,” he said.

Getting up? I wondered. I imagined Finnish people crawling out of sleeping bags on the roof.

Then he smirked. “Oh, you’ll be very satisfied, I’m sure. Seems just about everyone is.”

My friends and I shot uneasy smiles at each other.

“Hey, some guys dropped their drawers in there!” Jie piped up, pointing beyond the glass door.

“Where?”

But just then--

“Come on in,” the bouncer said, hustling us through. Somehow, the naked men disappeared as we were led to a small table just inside the door. A girl took our money and handed us a wristband, a garbage bag, and a tiny towel. Then Jie, Evee and I were pointed toward a closet-like room with no windows.

We all glanced at each other, trying not to show shock as we parted ways with Oscar and went inside our changing closet, where a couple of girls were trying to force their towels to cover both their upper and lower halves at once. “It’s not a towel,” one girl said flatly, holding up the scrap of material that, when wrapped, only covered the bottom portion of the breast and the upper portion of the rear. “It’s a bathmat.” My own bottom made it pop up in the back so that my psychedelic-printed bikini bottoms peeked out. Boy, I was thankful for those bottoms (I am a former Girl Scout—always prepared). In concern for Jie, who had not been a Girl Scout and was not ever-prepared for rain, snow or nuclear fallout, I gave her my tank top to wear. Evee was equipped with a lacy, black camisole.

After reluctantly tossing our clothing into the trash bags that we’d leave behind, we emerged.

Confused and mostly nude, we stumbled around the art-filled, cold-floored Gershwin lobby, which was empty except for a few unsuspecting patrons trying to check in (fully clothed). The hotel’s front face, incidentally, is covered in modernist sculptures that are lit from within and resemble elephants’ tusks. Inside, the walls are strewn with paintings and fabric hangings. It is ultra chic and probably very expensive. But I didn’t take much of this in because I was too busy wondering if I was going to get arrested or put on Candid Camera.

After a lot of “trying to blend in with the scenery,” a fully-dressed guard pointed to the elevators. We hustled inside the dark, tiny old elevator, body-to-body with other nudists. Well, towel-ists, I suppose. I noted that the guy in front of me had quite the athletic chest.

The doors heaved open and we stepped out into a narrow hallway.

Again, we looked around in confusion. A few people were already there, walking about in towels. They also looked confused. I saw a lot of bare-chested men. Most of them, I noted, had stunning bodies. Heck, they all seemed to have great builds. Then I stepped back as one man who weighed about 300 pounds walked by clutching his towel at the side; it didn’t go all the way around his hips, and he was not wearing a bathing suit or underwear. Well, this was reality, after all.

“Where do we go?” Jie asked.

“Does anyone know where the sauna is?” someone else asked.

Then... “Hey, guys!” Oscar emerged from a tiny room off the hallway, wearing only a towel, a bare chest and a big smile. He was carrying and a plate of hors d’oeuvres. “Get yourself a drink!” He looked like an Asian Hugh Hefner.

We got on line for drinks. I decided to order a screwdriver. I figured I might really need it.

Sipping away, I observed the artwork that lined the walls: a woman exposing one breast; some nondescript shots, and, off the hallway, a small room where a claymation movie was being shown. Finally, we ventured out onto the rooftop. Astroturf, a few tables, a tent and something like a tiki bar were set up. A 50-something, stout, wild-eyed Finnish man was DJing from behind the tiki extravaganza, interrupting the songs with what I thought was Finnish, but later realized was broken English. He was doing some form of imitation Michael Jackson arm dance. I believe he was missing a few teeth.

“Don’t look at him,” Evee hissed. “You’ll encourage him.”

I looked: he had a pendulum swinging from the edge of the bar, and he was waving his hand back and forth to make it move on the air currents. And he was grinning maniacally.

“Don’t look!” she hissed again.

I laughed. “I like to encourage him! He’s funny.” Besides, he probably rarely has the chance to see chicks in mini-towels. As the vodka kicked in, I found myself thinking, This body is just a rental anyway.

I smiled at a thin, long-haired shirtless guy with a pierced septum and yin-yang lizards, reminiscent of the Sobe label, tattooed on his back. He definitely did not have the best pecs there, but...

“You go for those androgynous guys, don’t you?” Jie piped, catching me looking.

“Should I introduce you?” Oscar asked excitedly. “Come on! Let me introduce you guys! Who is he? Where is he?”

Thankfully at that moment, Jie and Evee pulled me away, toward the white tent. The sauna tent. A young Finnish guy wearing a turban and a Turkish towel drew back the flap with a flourish, and we were faced with an approximate 12-foot square of dim, thick heat and wooden benches four levels high. The Finnish dude poured water on the coals, and the whole place steamed up.

“Oh, yeah,” we all smiled, climbing onto the top bench and sidling in between sweating bodies.

Then, as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I realized that the guy above me was completely naked. The guy next to him wasn’t. I wondered if he knew that.

My eyes adjusted further: another naked dude was sitting right across from me! Still, I couldn’t see IT while he was sitting. I couldn’t help looking at his rippling abs and broad, firm pecs. Then he stood up to put some water on the coals, and I did see it. Well, what there was of it.

“Wow, I’m amazed he’s not embarrassed to be naked--I’ve never seen one that small,” I whispered to Evee.

“Hon...” she said, confused, “that isn’t so small.”

“It’s not?”

“You must have been really lucky so far,” she shook her head.

Really lucky, I thought. Like several inches lucky.

“Even flaccid?” she asked.

“Yeah. Hell, yeah.”

“Wow,” she nodded.

Still, I considered the fact that no one was really hitting on anybody. Perhaps we all needed to see a little less in order to stay interested.

Suddenly, I was getting splashed. “Eww,” Oscar piped up. We looked--someone was hitting someone else across the back with a bunch of leaves dipped in a bucket of water.

“Cool!” I exclaimed.

“Ugh, dirty sweat!” Oscar the doctor said, and Jie agreed. They went outside to cool off a bit.

We surreptitiously tested the Norse bouquet before joining them outside. We weren’t that easily disgusted, I guess.

“So where’s the play?” Jie asked.

“No idea,” someone said.”

And then came more nakidity. I was glad I’d had that drink.

We entered the sauna, and this time, my vision had adjusted. Now, there were a few small-framed topless girls sitting beside each other, more or less oblivious to anyone looking. And really, no one was--at least, not overtly.

Not so with The Naked Lady.

We saw her when we exited the sauna and stood on the roof, in the bright artificial light.

She was blonde, she was about 40, she was naked. NAY-KED. Huge, flopping breasts. Manicured pubic hair, I noticed. The whole thing. Nude. And she stood right there, amongst the bathing suited, the toweled, even the fully-dressed press people in wool hats for goodness’ sakes, and she was carrying on conversations. Every time she turned my way, I felt like her enormous nipples were staring at me. It was unnerving, yet freeing in some way. Kind of like National Geographic.

And, as with any good party, I was approached by a jerk. He wore blue boxer-briefs, had a great body, a good looking face. I was standing in the hallway, minding my own business, when he flicked a lock of hair out of my face. I looked up. He gazed into my eyes. For a solid thirty seconds. Slack-jawed, like he was about to fall forward, out cold. I wondered if I should step aside, so I did. “Do you want to go to a party with me?” he said drunkenly.

“No,” I concluded.

The next I saw of him, he was running his hand down the butt of the cute guy with the Sobe tattoo. “You have a hot body, dude,” he said. “I mean, first-rate. You should like be in magazines.” I later learned that he hit on Naked Lady, too.

“Which dude?” Oscar asked enthusiastically when I explained what had happened. “Do you like him? Do you want me to introduce you to him?” Jie stopped him in time.

There really is something to meeting people while nearly naked, I must say. You get a very honest, er, view of them.

By 10:00, our experience had ended, but Oscar did have the chance to introduce me to one very straight-laced, good-looking Finnish guy. He was about as interested in me as in a door post.

That’s all right. I realized then, as I looked at him and recognized him from inside the sauna, that I could do better. I mean...a few inches better.