Chapter 1: The naked humiliation
The concrete steps of the Central Metro station were cold, even through the soles of Anya’s leather flats. She clutched her small, state-approved clear plastic pouch to her chest, feeling the pathetic weight of its contents: her ID card, a single credit stick, and a folded sheet of paper with her client’s address. Everything else she’d left at home. Bringing more was pointless. You couldn’t take it with you.
The air inside was a wall of sound and sterile light. The shriek of arriving trains, the murmur of a hundred conversations, the sharp echo of heels on tile. And the stares. Always the stares.
Her eyes, against her will, went to the nearest poster. It dominated the wall beside the ticket kiosks. Three women, digitally perfected, laughing and chatting as they stood in a train carriage. They were utterly, casually naked. The slogan beneath them in cheerful, bold type: TRAVEL FREE. TRAVEL TRUE. THE NEW EFFICIENCY. Smaller text bullet-pointed the rules: Present ID at entry. Surrender all personal items. Removal all clothing. Submit to search. Proceed directly to designated carriages. Compliance ensures smooth transit for all.
A man in a business suit glanced from the poster to Anya, his gaze a physical drag over her clothed body, calculating, stripping her in advance. He smirked and turned back to his tablet.
Her stomach was a tight knot. She hadn’t done this since the laws were enacted. She’d paid for cabs, she’d worked remotely, she’d done anything to avoid it. But today, her car had sputtered and died on the expressway, and the client meeting in the Capitol District couldn’t be rescheduled. The train was the only option.
She joined the line for the women’s checkpoint. A few women ahead of her, their postures rigid. Behind her, a younger girl, maybe twenty-two, was breathing in quick, shallow gasps. “It’s okay,” Anya heard herself say, her lawyer-voice calm and automatic. “Just follow the procedures.”
The girl just nodded, her eyes wide with terror.
The line moved forward with a dreadful efficiency. Up close, the checkpoint was a brutalist masterpiece of metal and polished stone. Two uniformed Transport Officers, a man and a woman, stood with bored professionalism. A series of large, black industrial bins lined the wall, their openings yawning like mouths.
“Next. ID and pouch.”
Anya stepped forward. The female officer, her face a mask of impersonal courtesy, took the plastic pouch and scanned Anya’s ID card on a pad. She looked at the screen, then at Anya’s face.
“Anya Petrova. Twenty-eight. Destination: Capitol District. Platform Seven. You have a pre-booked transit window. You understand the procedure?”
“Yes,” Anya said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Proceed to bin fourteen. All clothing, footwear, and any external items. Everything goes in. Once deposited, it becomes property of the state for sanitization and redistribution. Step to the marked square for physical scan.”
Anya’s feet carried her to the bin. The cold air of the station seemed to focus on her, a spotlight of shame. Her fingers, numb and clumsy, went to the buttons of her blouse. She fumbled the first one. A low chuckle came from a group of men waiting at the regular ticket gate, watching the line. Her cheeks burned. She didn’t look.
She undid the buttons, slipped the silk blouse off her shoulders. It whispered as it fell from her fingers into the dark bin. Her skirt, a grey pencil skirt, was next. The zipper sounded deafening. She stepped out of it, out of her flats. The tile was shockingly cold and gritty under her bare feet. Finally, her underwear—plain, practical cotton bra and briefs, a last pathetic shield. They joined the rest. She was naked.
She turned, trying to keep her spine straight, and walked the three paces to the yellow square marked on the floor. The male officer approached, holding a scanner. His eyes were empty, routine. “Arms out to the sides, please. Legs apart.”
She complied. The scanner beeped as he passed it over her front and back. “Turn around.” She turned, facing the wall, feeling the eyes of the line behind her, of the whole station, on her bare back, her ass. She saw the girl who’d been behind her beginning to undress, her hands trembling violently as she reached for her sweater.
“Pat-down for contraband,” the officer stated. His hands, gloved in thin latex, were impersonal but thorough. They smoothed over her scalp, behind her ears, under her arms. They cupped her breasts, checking beneath them. His fingers traced the line of her spine, the cleft of her buttocks, parted her labia briefly, clinically, before running down her legs to between her toes. Anya stared at a crack in the tile grout, her mind a perfect, white blank. This was the procedure. To object was to forfeit transit and face fines she couldn’t pay.
“Clear.” He stepped back. “To the desk for your band.”
The female officer was already holding a dull metal armband. It looked heavy. She clamped it around Anya’s right bicep with a mechanical click that felt permanent. It was cold and snug. A small digital screen on it flickered, displaying her name, ID number, and DEST: CAPITOL.
“Carriage G, Platform Seven. It will direct you,” the officer said, nodding toward the armband. “Do not attempt to remove it. Do not enter other carriages. Upon verified arrival at your destination, it will unlock. Have an efficient day.”
Anya moved away, her naked body humming with exposure. She was acutely aware of every shift of muscle, every jiggle of flesh that clothing normally anchored. The air conditioning was a constant, chilling kiss on her skin. She saw the other women. The terrified girl now naked, her body slim and pale, small breasts tipped with hard, tight nipples from fear and cold. A older woman, perhaps thirty-five, with a powerful, athletic build and fierce eyes that dared anyone to speak to her. A woman with lush, heavy curves who tried vainly to cover herself with her arms, her skin flushing a deep, mortified red.
They were all just bodies now. Assets in transit.
Anya followed the signs for Platform Seven, the armband feeling like a brand. She passed another poster. This one showed a naked woman smiling, pointing to a similar metal band on her arm. The text read: YOUR TICKET, YOUR KEY. NO FUSS. NO FUSS. NO SEXUAL CONDUCT PERMITTED IN TRANSIT ZONES. REPORT VIOLATIONS.
No sex. As if that was the main concern, not the utter annihilation of dignity. The world around her continued. People in coats and suits drank coffee, scanned newsfeeds, argued on phones. A mother adjusted her son’s backpack. The boy, about ten, stared openly at Anya as she passed, his mouth slightly agape before his mother gently turned his head away. This was just a mundane, inconvenient rule. A fact of life. The profound wrongness of it was buried under layers of bureaucratic language and cheerful posters.
She found the stairs to Platform Seven. Here, the signs were explicit: CARRIAGES A-F STANDARD. CARRIAGE G DESIGNATED TRANSIT. A small, open-backed electric cart sat nearby, driven by another officer. A few naked women were already sitting on its bare metal seats, arms crossed over their chests, eyes down.
“You for G?” the driver grunted.
Anya nodded, wordless.
“Get on. We go when it’s full.”
She climbed onto the hard seat. The metal was icy against her thighs. She sat beside the athletic woman, who gave a short, grim nod of solidarity. They didn’t speak. What was there to say? The cart filled with silent, naked women. The driver took them down a side tunnel, away from the main platforms, to where a single, unmarked train carriage waited, its doors open.
The carriage was different inside. The seats were a smooth, easy-clean vinyl. There were no advertisements, just more copies of the rules. The windows were frosted opaque. It was a naked, rolling cell.
Anya took a seat by the door, the vinyl sticking unpleasantly to the back of her thighs. The armband dug into her muscle. She thought of her destination. The band would be removed. And then she would be… what? Just naked on the platform in the Capitol District. She had a two-block walk to her client’s office. She’d have to do it naked, carrying nothing but the knowledge in her head. The apprehension was a cold stone in her gut, heavier than any clothing.
The doors hissed shut. The train began to move, plunging into the dark tunnel. In the sterile, silent carriage, surrounded by the sound of breathing and the low hum of the rails, Anya Petrova, a successful lawyer, sat utterly exposed, her future nothing more than a cold walk through a city that no longer saw her.