Clothes? Jackson, now there was an interesting anachronism. Until SweetSixteen, clothes were strongly frowned upon though in some distinctly retro circles still tolerated, but with general public disgust and distrust. Afterwards, adult clothing was even more strongly discouraged, being outright prohibited in all public and many private spaces. The contemporary drift was that the absence of clothing imparted a feeling of security to passersby, given that nakedness was a way of demonstrating th...

Although he wouldn't completely understand it until much later, it began well before he was born a pudgy-looking, seven and a half pound naked ball of flesh, fat, gristle and bone, screaming its head off. And why shouldn't he have protested? Every trusted thing he'd known had been ripped from him: the constant warmth; the gentle, protective floating feeling; the ruddy aura that had always surrounded and protected him, the ever-present thump-hiss, thump-hiss, thump-hiss in the background that,...