A legend or a joke?

Near the north entrance to the city, there was an old sign etched in stone -- so old that it was written in Latin. It said, "Sexus Femineus Maneat Nudus in Conspectu Hominum". Alice never knew what it meant when she first moved there and today she wished that she still did not know.

For that sign was a warning. A dire warning. And if Alice had only heeded it, she could have saved herself a lot of trouble. But she was young and ignorant and determined to live as far away from her parents as humanly possible.

Her boyfriend Charles didn't know what it meant either. Though he had an impressive degree from old Misanegra U, he was not up enough on his Latin to translate it. Or at least so he claimed.

Alice asked the lady who rented her her first apartment what it meant and she just shrugged. "You'll find out soon enough. Just be grateful it's still winter. The townspeople don't really get serious about that sign until springtime."

Springtime? What did that mean?

Alice asked her upstairs neighbor about it, a friendly blonde girl named Elsa who was working her way through college as a life model. "Oh, it's no big deal, really," she said. "Just an old town joke started by an ancient legend."

"What ancient legend?" Alice asked.

"The legend of the town's founding," said Elsa. "Apparently this place was supposedly settled by people fleeing persecution by the Puritans. The sign was allegedly erected to warn off the Puritans and show them that they did not rule this territory."

"Oh, really?" asked Alice. "How come I have never heard of it before now?"

"The history of this place is a special thing," said Elsa. "There are many things here that are not commonly discussed with outsiders. I'm sure it's the same thing where you come from. After all, this would not be the first place that I've lived in that had a secret history."