Fantastical Encounters with Bare-Naked Girls

A collection by P.A. Choi

Copyright 2022 P.A. Choi

Cover design by P.A. Choi.

Table of Contents

Waiting for You

The Waifu Summoning Program

For the Birds

Intimate Sharing 3

The Strip Club Far from Nowhere

Naked Girls Are on the Moon

About P.A. Choi

Waiting for You

It was a little quiet edge of a park by the train tracks. It was a fairly well-traveled area, but the park never did seem pretty busy. Not many people cared to hear the train going by while they slept off their secret two-hour lunch or took their kids to play in the playground. But it was well-traveled, the park bench at the edge in question overlooking the tracks and a sidewalk that cut through between the town square and the more modern but less soulful business strip full of fast food and American family restaurants and AutoZones and department stores, well-traveled by people getting their power-walk in during their rigid half-hour lunch or the unemployed taking a dreary walk to color their day. The park bench was seldom used, except for an occasional drifter or lost soul, and one man in particular, who was the only regular resident of that bench, a sad-looking man in his forties who came to watch the trains. All this made the cat all the more noticeable.

It was an orange tabby with white on its throat. It visited the park bench and waited, every day for at least several weeks, seemingly watching the trains, but also expectantly looking at the empty park bench. Some people tried to feed it, though it was skittish around them. Many pondered who it could be waiting for. Perhaps a lost owner, like the famous dog of Shibuya Station in Tokyo, who came to wait for his owner every day for years after his death. Or maybe it was in heat, looking for a potential mate amongst the other lost kitties of the park, of which there were few. But besides the middle-aged train watcher, the cat seemed to be a regular visitor to the bench almost like clockwork, usually appearing around mid-day. Some wondered if it may even be a ghost.

And then there was one day when the train-watcher appeared, after a long absence, and took his usual spot on the bench, waiting for the train to come through, and on his visit, the cat made an appearance as well.

The man's name was Pete, and he was exactly forty, but looked much older. he was employed as a sales rep at the local Bed, Bath, & Beyond and was a five-year divorcee, which was probably why he looked sad. But his one love was trains, and he enjoyed—when his schedule could allow it—walking down to the edge of the park and watching the train come in. He knew its schedule, and knew that only one week out of the month, usually, he could come here and enjoy the meditative observation of the train coming through, wondering if people still hopped rides on them, not seeing how, as open cars were a rarity. But he looked for them, and occasionally did see one, and imagined where it might take somebody. Not necessarily him, as train-hopping wasn't something he could ever imagine himself doing. But it tickled the imagination.

On that afternoon, as he watched the last of the cars pass by and depart, a splash of color in his peripherals caught his attention and he turned to see the little orange tabby sitting there at the edge of a line of saplings, looking at him.

"Oh, hey there," he said to the cat, and it did not move, and did not take its eyes off of him. Pete wasn't much of an animal person, so he didn't pay attention to the cat for long, instead looking back to catch the last of the train on its way out. Sometimes he videotaped them to take to the train-lover meetups he usually went to with his friend Steve, but he hadn't been to one in over a year. He would have liked to share this one, though, since it had the rarity of a few open cars. Some other time, he thought, and turned to look back where the cat was. His heart went still.

There was no longer a cat standing there, but, much taller, a naked woman, dark-haired and long-haired, dark-haired below as well, erasing any doubt that she was nude. Nude; glorious, with a tapering at the hips and a flat stomach with its wink of a belly button. She had a wry smile on her face and an intense glare, almost like the cat's, that strange way that animals stare at you. But unlike the mysterious intentions behind an animal's eyes, this woman's portals seemed to have some definite intent, some definite intent with Pete.

"Hey there... you," she said, and her voice was high and pleasant, as high and pleasant as her seemingly weightless yet voluminous breasts, so perfectly round, not overly large, and captivating in their unabashed exposure to the sunlight which cast upon them as she stepped out of the shade. "I've been waiting for you!" she said.

Pete almost put a hand to his chest and reacted. Me? But he cast his eyes to the side, towards the sidewalk by the train tracks, looking to see if others noticed this sudden appearance of a naked woman. But nobody was near at the moment. She was, though, quickly closing the gap and standing before Pete.

"You've been waiting for me?" he asked her, managing to sputter out his words.

"Yes, you, maybe not the specific you, but... no, yes, definitely you. There is no other."

"For what? Why are you naked? Who are you?"

"Me?" she said, placing her palm between her breasts. "I am the demon of summer flings, and I have no need for clothes."

"A... a demon?"

"Angel, perhaps? Maybe I'm using the wrong word. But I come to you in your time of need."

"Need?" Did he really need anything? He was quite content. What did he need? Love? Affection? Purpose? He was happy with his trains.

"Yes, you need me. And I need you." She took another step closer and reached out her hand to trace his shoulder. Pete flinched. He looked back at the sidewalk, and this time a man stopped on his walk and watched as Pete struggled to get some sense out of this girl.

"Look.. are you on drugs?" he turned and asked her, meeting face-to-face with her heaving chest mere inches in front of him. He struggled to look up and past it to her smiling face.

"I have no need for drugs," she said. "I am not from your plane."

"No way."

The girl took a seat on the bench next to him, tantalizingly close; he could feel her hip against his, through the fabric of his slacks.

"Yes way. No doubt you think I am some vision."

"No doubt... you're not really that cat, are you?"

The naked girl nodded her head, her long hair dipping past her breasts.

"I am," she said. "It's an inconspicuous form I can take."

She looked at him, smirking. It was all Pete could do to look at her face and recognize that smirk, for he was too distracted by what lay below: a cornucopia of bare and perfect skin, belly pinched slightly, nest of fine hairs at her lap inviting him to imagine tweaking them between his fingers. She didn’t seem like any type of spirit to him. She looked as real as any girl he'd known.

He was about to open his mouth and say: "you're not a cat," when a young woman came walking up on the upper sidewalk that bordered the park and cast her eyes to Pete and his delectable bench-mate.

"Oh, how cute!" she said. "Looks like you made a little friend."

Pete was looking up at her, stupefied, as the woman reached out and patted the naked girl on the head. The girl narrowed her eyes and smiled. Pete almost imagined a purr coming from her. Then the woman went on her way as if a naked girl sitting on a bench next to a clothed man was the most normal thing to see at the park.

The girl's smile widened, as did her eyes, which were twinkling.

"So... do you believe me now?"

"I believe so. Either that or I'm crazy. So... what is it exactly you want from me?"

The girl's—or demon's—eyebrows raised.

"Why, nothing at all!"

"But why are you here?"

"I may be a demon, but I'm not all-knowing. I'll know what to do when the moment comes. I just go with the flow, you know?"

"I guess..." Pete was now watching for others, seeing how they would react to the naked girl, or to the sight of him talking to a cat.

"By the way," the girl said, "you may call me Eyjul."

"Eye... Jewel?"

"No, but that's a nice thought," she said, pivoting in her seat and admiring herself. "One word. Eyjul. I don't know how it's spelled."

"That's okay."

"So why did you come here?" she asked him.

"I came to watch the train come through."

"The train?"

Pete motioned to the empty tracks.

"Yeah, the train."

"Ah yes, that noisy thing. Isn't that a pretty normal sight?"

"Yes it is, but..."

Pete stood, not wanting to have to explain his hobby for the thousandth time in his life, and also wanting to go home, drink a tall glass of water, and lie down. Maybe when he got up, he wouldn't be imagining naked cat-girls.

"Where are you going now?"

"I'm not sure if I feel well. I'm going to go home."

"Alrighty then!" the demon-cat-girl named Eyjul said, and stood to full height, her breasts thrust forward, her nude body bravely presented to the world, though what little of the world that passed by didn't seem to notice. Pete tried not to pay it any mind and began his trek back to the Bed Bath & Beyond parking lot. On his way, he pulled out his cell phone and called his boss, telling him that he got a sudden stomach bug and had to go home. There was irritation in his boss's voice, but he let Pete go. When he pocketed the phone and neared the parking lot, Eyjul was still with him, dutifully at his side.

"So who was that?" she asked.

"That was my boss," he said. "I told him I was going home."

"Oh, you have to report to others, huh? That must suck. Well, to home, then!"

Pete stopped and looked at the girl, really looked at her. She was something to look at, but her beaming and energetic face was getting on his nerves for some reason.

"Look... are you going to be following me home now?"

Eyjul just enthusiastically nodded her head. "Yep!"

"So I guess you're like my guardian angel or something, huh?"

"Hey, that's a nice way to look at it!"

Pete's eyes drifted to the side to see if anybody was watching him. He wondered what they would see: would they see him looking straight ahead, talking to the air while a small yellow tabby looked up at him? Or would the illusion somehow be fully complete with him looking down at his subject? He thought of the lady petting Eyjul. He wasn't exactly sure how all this worked. Maybe he was crazy.

"Well, let's get going, then."

The naked girl happily followed him to his car, where he considered opening the door for her, but he wanted to observe and see what happened. She watched him intently still, a bizarre and titillating sight to see out there in the open, with the overcast sky leaving her tan skin subdued, unable to glow, but with an undeniable energy that drew the eye. She was so shamelessly naked, so innocently, even, and it was infectious.

She watched him open the door and then mimicked him on the passenger's side. The door opened without protest. Once again he wondered what the scene would look like to an observer: did the door just open by itself and a cat just jumped on in? He felt as if his understanding of reality was slipping.

Eyjul dutifully rode home with him, calmly passing her eyes over the sights outside the window as they went, making little conversation, and just sitting there as a distraction for Pete's would-be-attentive eyes, her perfectly-shaped breasts just presented there. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meat Loaf went through his head. He thought about asking Eyjul something, for he had many questions swimming through his head, but he could not grasp on one to ask, and by the time they were home, he was beginning to wonder if he really was crazy. Eyjul got out of the car and followed him to the front door of his house, and when he entered, he observed the change of lighting on her skin, now even more subdued in the shade of his unlit place until he threw on a light switch and she was bathed in orange, her skin now affecting somewhat of a glow.

She looked about the foyer and stepped into the living room, wandering, and Pete let his eyes wander, too, down to her butt, which he had not glimpsed yet, and it was a perfect heart-shaped butt that stirred in him longing. Not for intimacy or love; just plain lustful longing. It had been some time since he had his lusts tamed by another.

"Nice place!” Eyjul said, turning around to see Pete staring at her, chewing his lip, feeling the constriction in his pants which he was now certain she could see. And then, with a charming smile that was slowly melting his heart, she stepped closer, one step at a time, until she was right before him.

His heart skipped when she reached and draped her arms over his shoulders.

"You can relax, you know. I'm not a demon in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word."

Pete found himself letting out a little laugh.

"I know..." As he spoke, his hand rose, rose to the magnificent presence of her full breasts, and he palmed the underside of her left one, pleasingly soft and light, and alive enough to be from any normal woman. She appeared to like his touch, and touched his other arm and raised it so his hand flattened directly over her right breast, her nipple settling into the lines of his palm. There was heat there, body heat, or at least it felt like body heat, and a heat was building inside of Pete as well, and he rushed in with his face to kiss betwixt Eyjul's maternal globes, and in the instant found the bliss he had been missing and yearning for during the past few years. The heat of her skin on his lips, the weighted presence of her breasts on either side of his face... He ran up to her collarbone, to her throat, kissing it, until he was looking her in the face, his lips inches from hers. His hands found their way down her sides as he looked at her, at her hazel and mysteriously greenish eyes.

"Are you here to fill a hole that's been in my life all this time?" he asked her. Again she smiled, parting her lips to flash perfectly-white teeth.

"I'm whatever you need me to be," she said. With that statement, all barriers in Pete's mind fell away, and he dug his face between her breasts again, then moved his mouth to slather over the soft caps of her areolas. She felt like a real woman, alright, the soft give of her flesh unmistakable, nostalgic, even. And, roaring with hunger, Pete withdrew from her and pressed his hands down on her smooth shoulders until she followed his suggestion and fell to her knees, and he began to tear off his shirt.

Like a wildman, he ripped open his company button-up, popping all of the buttons, and quickly rid himself of the pesky garment, pulling off his tank-top underneath next, and Eyjul sat there with her hands relaxed on her thighs and her breasts prominent and thrust out and waiting, and Pete hurriedly squeezed his feet out of his shoes and started taking down his pants. He tore them down, furiously anxious to get naked, and Eyjul was transfixed and more patient than he. With nothing but his boxers on now, his urgency that had been building already burst free of the open fly, and Eyjul's lips parted in an earnestly pleased smile as he extended the waistband of his shorts past the end of his erection and freed himself of the last burden. Then, wobbling before her, Pete stepped closer as Eyjul wobbled closer on her knees and before she could initiate any form of intimacy she may have wished to dote on him, he took his dick in hand and rubbed it into her face.

A surprised laugh escaped her lips, which he brushed his head over next, flipping her bottom lip down and releasing it, then tracing her jawline, prodding her cheek, nuzzling her neck. The sensation was so soft, as if there were nothing there at all, which would have made him assume she took no physical space, but she was real, alright. He had just never pressed his penis into flesh so soft.  He was unleashed in his unusual pent-up desire now, as he tapped Eyjul's chin with his crown and pointed himself down, so that he may trace each areola with his slickening crest, but she remained on her haunches. He wanted to feel her entire body with his dick, his most finely-tuned extremity. If she was a spirit of erotic desires, then every silly desire he had would be fulfilled.

Eyjul leaned back with her hands still resting on her knees while Pete furiously stroked his Pete in his hand, making a sloppy and slippy sound as his foreskin massaged back and forth over his head. He meant to cum on her right away.

"You certainly have an unusual way of expressing yourself," she said, gazing up with amusement at his hand and hard-on at work and his strained face above. She drew her legs in and slowly stood, raising her face past his member, then coming up to face him. Leaning into him, she took his hand away from himself and replaced it with hers, the grip remarkably cool and startling, but her lips hot on his as she leaned in further and kissed him.

Her hand was working him when her lips released, and she smiled at him.

"You know I can do a lot more than just be a shooting target," she said, and Pete suddenly felt embarrassed. "Come," she said, but it was not a command to release his load. She meant for him to follow her, as her hand left his cock, wobbling and dazed, to take his, and she pulled him to the nearest thing she could find that was appropriate: the couch. Walking backwards, she let herself sit on it, with his erection wobbling above her head. Briefly she took it, twisted it with both hands, and then leaned in gently to kiss his crown, and Pete let a hiss through his teeth that signaled to Eyjul that that touch alone was plenty. She released him, twitching, trailing a stream of what was to come, and she lay down, stretched on his sofa. She beckoned with her arms outstretched.

"Come here," she said. "Come to momma."

In dazed disbelief, Pete fumbled his way onto the couch, straddling the nude and reclined goddess on his knees, reaching forward and caressing her torso, his curved pride poised above her. She motioned with her fingers this time, in a come-hither movement.

"Come on in," she said. "The water's fine."

It was a difficult exercise for Pete to lean forward and angle himself to allow entry without crushing his guardian angel, and she scooted back in the couch so she was leaning against the armrest, then he found quick entry with a pop and then velvet. He fell into her then. His face buried against the side of her neck and she gently traced his back as he whimpered with pent-up desire like a hungry dog. The sweetness of her internal embrace held him, the very real smell of her hair and her skin kept him alive, and her touch reminded him that she was indeed real. Yet sitting there atop her, feeling her body both inside and out, relishing the sight and feel of her and the insane sensations at his core, felt like a dream. And again he wondered if he was crazy, but it was a fleeting thought amidst the euphoria as his pleasure grew and he burst.

He screamed out, leaned back, almost fell completely back, but then lurched forward and found himself falling, putting out his hands to brace himself on the armrest so that he wouldn't crush Eyjul, and his face came to a stop inches above hers. She smiled, her deep eyes set on his, and then she pursed her lips and they met in a quick kiss.

"Now wasn't that something?" she said, still grinning.

"Yeah," he panted into her face. "Yeah it was."

Again it was an exercise in dexterity and also awkwardness as he withdrew from her and they readjusted to a sitting position on the couch. Eyjul draped her arms over Pete's shoulders and leaned into him, and they talked.

"Have you been going without the embrace of a woman?" she asked him, point-blank. Pete was beyond putting up appearances now.

"Yeah. For the most part, lately. Except for, well... Anyway, I haven't had much since my divorce."

"Ah... you had someone. What happened?"

Pete took a big breath. He didn't like retelling the tale. It was humiliating.

"I got married to my college crush. About five years ago."

"...Crush?"

"I was in love with her."

"Ah."

"But she wasn't in love with me. Not way back then, anyway. Or maybe she was. She dated the football captain. They kept together all after high school and through college, and I think they were even engaged, but at some point, he started being abusive. She confided in me about that. It was torture to hear."

"Even moreso for her to experience," Eyjul said.

"Yes, I'm sure. Sorry if I sounded a little inconsiderate towards her, because, well...

"...She ended up ditching him, and then we were together so much that one night we kissed, and a week later we were married."

"Wow, that's nice," she said, and she massaged his thighs with an open palm. What was once spent and exhausted now twitched and made to stand up again, like a persevering drunkard.

"I was in heaven. Marrying her was exactly what I dreamed of in high school, and now, so long after, I finally was bonded with her. There wasn't anything else in the world I wanted."

"But then..."

"But then, literally a week after we got married, I was at work and she was at home. She wasn't working at the time, and that was kind of stressful. We already had an argument. It was like what my dad warned me about: 'Don't ever get married, son, it's nothing but trouble.' And now I was feeling it. It was like all the typical jokes about marriage.

"But anyway, I was at work, and I came home early that day because I wasn't feeling good" (a regular thing for Pete, it seemed), "and I found her on this very couch, screwing one of my best friends."

He ended the story at that and sat in silence. Eyjul went from massaging his thighs to his chest, and she propped her chin on his shoulder.

"Anyway, that ended badly."

"I'm sorry. So that kind of put you off on love after that."

"Yeah, definitely. It's a sad story, I don't like telling it."

"Well now you have me," she said, increasing the pressure on his chest, running her fingers through his chest-hair. He really needed to piss.

"Lucky me..." he said, and he meant it, in a way. What he didn't tell her was that he visited a couple of prostitutes between the time of his divorce and now, but always felt buyer's remorse after he came. Now he didn't have that, and he could have everything he wanted: sex, intimacy, and someone who apparently cared for him.

And so Eyjul was a constant companion after that. When they were done lovemaking and chatting, Pete went to go clean up and got dressed, while Eyjul, with no need for hygiene and no need for clothes, accompanied him nearly everywhere he went in his house. When making dinner, when watching TV afterwards, and when lying down to bed; she was there with him, a constant and naked presence, and it was quite a presence to have around. She laughed at things he said, and showed interest in the things he pursued, and at night, cuddled up to him, not making love, but just expressing intimacy, and for the first time ever, even since during his brief stint as a married man, he had the experience of touching someone's shoulder next to him in bed and having their face lay against his chest. As she slept—and walked, talked, reclined, and did everything—nude, so eventually did he, but not on that first night, where he slept in pajamas and felt supremely silly while she was naked. When they awoke the next morning, she engaged him in lovemaking, but he was adamant that he had to get to work, so they did it quick, and it was no problem cumming in short order, and then he got dressed without showering and went in to work, wondering if she was going to follow, but she remained at home, and was at home when he returned, just like a house cat, or a loyal wife. She didn't cook or clean, but just filled his house with her presence every day. They did not have sex all the time. In fact, most of the time he was just happy with her by his side and in his eyes, and on occasion throughout the day, they would sexually play, sometimes things just as simple as laying on the couch watching TV while she fiddled with his penis, (hanging around naked with her had become tradition), and in spurts of the moment, when his lust reared its head, he pleasured himself on her as he had first attempted to do, and she acted happy to accept his rapid-shooting passion onto her face and breasts. And at night, before it got too late, they made love. Sometimes they made love all afternoon on weekends, and sometimes they just sat and Pete read a book and Eyjul was perfectly content watching him.

Pete almost forgot about the social world outside his mysterious and supernatural companion. One day his friend Steve called him up, curious if he was interested in coming to the train-lovers meetups again.

"Gee, I'll see, I've been kind of busy lately," Pete had told him, his desire for anything that didn't involve Eyjul fading away. Even work didn't hold his attention, and he sleepwalked through almost every day.

"Busy with what?" Steve had asked him. "You got some other hobby now? Or is it a girl?"

"It'd take too long to explain," Pete had said. "Plus it's boring."

"Well you aren't exactly Mr. Excitement," Steve had said. "Still, you should come out sometime, if you have the time."

"I'll consider it when I'm free."

In truth, he was free a lot, free to do anything he wanted with his own personal naked girl pal. He hadn't even gone out to watch the train like he had been doing.

And, after a few months or so of this lifestyle, the magic did wear out. It didn't happen all at once, and in fact may have started as little as a week into his companionship with the mystical cat-woman-demon, but he only started acknowledging it after it became hard to ignore.

It began when Eyjul's constant presence wasn't a delight, but a chore. Being typically an introvert, Pete was accustomed to having his alone time, to having his sanctuary, to having his time to recharge and recalibrate. Of course, the time spent after his divorce did turn into a time of monotony, boredom, and even depression, things that going to group hangouts always alleviated. But he always relied on his solitude afterwards. Now that was gone.

Every morning when Pete awoke, Eyjul was there. In his morning routine, his thoughts were often interrupted by her interjections. When he wanted to be alone to think, she was almost always there. On the occasion that he was in a room by himself, he was distracted by the thought that she was there somewhere, and by the expectation of instant conversation the second he left whatever room he was in. He wondered if this is what it would have felt like if he were still married. It felt like he was married right now. Even their lovemaking at night became mechanical and procedural, and he rarely entertained sexual pleasures during the day anymore. Eyjul had just become another part of his environment, still beautiful but no longer hypnotizing. It was as if his sexual tensions had been fully unwound and that sex meant nothing to him now. A new kind of listlessness set in.

It felt like he had been living like this forever when, one Sunday, Steve called and said he was nearby, and asked if he could drop in. Pete was hesitant, but said "yes," and then hung up and looked at Eyjul, wondering what to do.

"Is that your friend?" she asked him.

"Yes, he's coming over to visit. I better put on some clothes."

He was standing there as he’d grown used to, bare as a baby and free as a bird. Eyjul smiled where she stood in the kitchen, leaning back against the edge of the counter and heaving out her full breasts as if it were shocking to Pete still.

"If you're worried about me," she said, motionlessly acknowledging her delectable frame, “he won't see me how you do."

"I figured. How do you do that?"

"I do it without even thinking."

Pete nodded, and then shook his head clear of questions and went off to go get dressed.

Steve arrived not too long after, and his face looked strained with worry when Pete opened the door. In fact, Pete had never seen such a worried look on his friend’s face before.

"Hey dude...Have you been alright? It's like I haven't seen you in forever."

"I am, I've just been busy. come on in."

Steve entered and they went to the kitchen, where Eyjul was still circling the room, touching cabinets as if she had not seen them before.

"Oh, you adopted that cat," Steve said, looking at her ankles, where his eyes no doubt saw the infamous yellow tabby.

"Yeah, she followed me home," Pete said, not lying. Steve regarded Eyjul with a passive interest, as if there were not a beautiful naked girl standing before him, and then they took a seat.

"If I can be completely honest, dude? ...You don't look so good," Steve said.

"Oh? Really?"

"Yeah. You look peaked."

"Maybe I've been inside too much."

"Maybe."

As they looked at each other, Eyjul climbed up onto the table. For Pete, she took up the whole space, crawling on her hands and knees, but to Steve, the sight was much less alarming, for he reached out and petted Eyjul on the head and she nuzzled against his face, all while her rear-end pointed at Pete, the folds of her labia close enough to smell.

"Oh, well hey there," Steve said and touched noses with the naked girl, Pete helpless to watch. "So this is the girl, I bet," he said.

Pete blinked. He almost let his mouth fall open until he realized the joke. "Yep, that would be her."

Eyjul turned from Steve and scurried across the table to Pete, mooning his friend, who laughed and put up his hand to shield himself from the sight of what he thought was a kitty butt. Smiling deviously, Eyjul locked eyes with Pete and then nuzzled his face as well, and he let his hand raise to touch her shoulder, where there was not soft fur, but smooth skin.

"Nothing against having a cat, but you should really get out, dude," Steve said. "Consider this a prescription."

Pete looked at his friend over the back of his phantom lover and it took every ounce of strength to keep his poker face.

"I guess I've been shut in a little..."

"A little? You’re wearing sweatpants, dude."

Pete glanced down at himself and had to acknowledge that he probably could have picked something better to put on for his concerned friend.

"Okay, I haven't been communicating with people, I'm sorry. I guess I have a lot on my mind."

"It's like when you first got divorced. ...You haven't been dwelling on that lately, have you?"

"Maybe a little."

Steve leaned back in his chair and sighed, while Eyjul leaned up and sat on the edge of the table with her legs swung over, like a normal human being. Pete wondered how the table was not tipping over. It was not that sturdy of a table.

"All the more reason for you to come out sometime," Steve said.

"Trying to get me hooked up with somebody? You know I hate it when people try and do that."

Steve put up his hands defensibly. "I'm not trying anything, dude, don't get me wrong. You never know, though," he added with a hopeful tone. "You could meet somebody that would make you forget about her."

Pete looked at the naked girl sitting before him on the edge of the table as she licked her knuckles like a cat, and she looked at him and smiled knowingly.

"We'll see," Pete said while still looking at her, wondering if, to Steve, he was staring into space or looking in the eyes of a cat several feet lower. "But that's not really what I'd be going out for."

"Nor should it be. You should let something like that just happen. That's your problem, I think: you've straight-up blocked things from happening before. Remember that cute librarian-looking girl at the meetups last year? She totally dug you, you know."

Pete did remember who he was talking about. She was cute as a button, and dressed in old-fashioned, very modest blouses, and had large-framed tortoise-shell glasses that made her look nerdy, and she was super-energetic. Pete had noticed her in the passing way that any guy would notice a cute girl, with no thoughts entertaining talking to her.

"She did?"

"Yeah, dude, she was all over you. She literally asked if you wanted to hang out sometime, and you just said that you were going to be staying in the house for the time being. You totally shot her offer down without knowing it."

"I guess I don't remember that."

"That's what I'm saying. It's like you unconsciously avoid any opportunity to meet people."

Eyjul slipped off her perch from the table, and Pete did notice it shifting, and he looked to Steve to see if he noticed, but he didn't. He didn't even look at Eyjul as she walked to the kitchen counter, sashaying her naked butt in his peripherals, which to him was just a cat skulking through the kitchen below his line of sight. She splayed her hands down on the counter and looked out the kitchen window, her butt perched up but unnoticed by Steve.

"You're talking like it's a bad thing to be alone," Pete said.

"Nobody wants to be alone."

"Sometimes people are more comfortable alone."

"I call that refusing to leave your comfort zone."

"Not everybody's the same, Steve."

"I'll agree to that. Look, forget the romance stuff. Sometimes it's just good to get out a little, you know? Like the first year after your divorce. You were feeling pretty bummy, but that sure improved when you were coming to the meetups, right?"

Pete allowed himself to smile a little. There was an element of social awkwardness to those train-lovers meetups. When they had a lot of attendees, he would find himself hesitant to talk to anybody. But once there were regular faces, it became more comfortable, and he did find himself unwinding. There were good afternoons had in those meetings, and his smile appeared to reflect on that now, but he was smiling while still looking at Eyjul and her pert butt presented for him and only him, and he was unsure what he was smiling at. But he said "yeah."

"Does that mean you might look forward to coming out again?"

He finally tore his eyes away from the nakedness at his kitchen window. "Maybe, we'll see how I feel."

Steve sighed again. "Well I hope you do. I know I miss the meetups, and I'd be glad to see everybody back, especially you. It wouldn't be the same without you there."

He looked at Steve intently, directly, finally looking him in the eye and feeling something inside, something like belonging.

"Aw dude, thanks."

"Yeah, I mean it. You're part of the regular crew. Plus you always have the great footage. Have you been at the track at all lately?"

"Not lately. It's been a while. I actually was there though when I met—when I adopted her," he said, nodding his head towards Eyjul, who turned around, presenting her full-frontal view, or the pleading face of an innocent cat, depending on who was looking.

"So it is a girl that ruined you!" Steve stood, laughing. "I won't tell anybody that it was a cat, though!"

Pete sat there for a moment, debating whether or not to tell Steve the truth, but Steve looked at his smartwatch and then adjusted his collar.

"Well, I gotta go, dude. I told myself I'd hit the gym today. Hit me up later, I'll tell you when the meetup is gonna be when I find out."

"Okay," Pete said, standing, Eyjul coming up to his side as if to see Steve out with him, standing beside him as if she were his naked wife. "I didn't say I would go, but let me know all the same."

Steve smiled and clapped Pete on the shoulder. "You'll come, dude. You miss it, I know you really do."

He waited for Steve to pet Eyjul again, wondering if he would stand at level and pat her atop the head or lean down and pat the air above her feet, but he just turned without noticing her and headed for the door. Both Pete and Eyjul followed him, and Pete bid his friend farewell.

"See ya, dude," Steve said, looking over his shoulder and waving and then turning to go to his car. Pete shut the door, and he was left standing in the foyer with his naked girl companion.

"Boy, he's a bit pushy, isn't he?" she said. Pete looked at her, looked into those mysterious, moist eyes, and then shrugged and said "a little," and then turned to go back to the kitchen.

*****

Steve had come on Sunday. The following week was boring routine, with Pete leaving for the day and Eyjul bidding him farewell to resign to doing whatever it was she did when he was gone, whether it was returning to some other plane of existence or just sitting naked on his furniture, and she was there to greet him when he returned, where he would make dinner amidst her floating about the kitchen and asking him about his day, and where afterward, she would sit on the couch with him, and him remaining clothed now, no longer happy to cavort about naked with his virtual wife, and then they would retire upstairs, and Eyjul would cuddle up next to him, but they would not make love, for Pete was not in the mood, and Eyjul seemed content to just lay against him and pretend to sleep.

When Friday evening hit, he announced he was going out, for now the solitude was beginning to wear on him. Perhaps it was Steve's words that really made him think about it, but it was Eyjul's constant presence that he really wanted a break from. She even said: "oh, I can come with you," but he said no, he had to meet someone for business, and that he couldn't have a cat at his heels.

"Well okay," she said. "I'll be fine here."

"What is it you even do here when I'm out?" he asked her, finally looking at her, really looking at her, for the first time all week.

"Oh, I just explore the house and go through your stuff. You have an interesting pornography collection."

"I—you... what?"

"Yeah it's all good with me, I'm not jealous."

Pete raised his hands, ready to lecture her, but just dropped them.

"Sure, whatever. I'll be back. Just... don't touch my stuff, okay?"

Eyjul put up her hands and made an exaggerated facial expression. "Sure, don't worry about me. I didn't mean to pry into your secrets." The way she emoted, it almost made her seem like a normal person. A normal, nagging wife.

"Sorry, just... I gotta go, okay?"

"I'll hold up the fort!"

And with that, Pete turned and walked out the door, looking back one last time at Eyjul standing there, unassuming in his foyer, the stove light from the nearby kitchen tracing orange crescents on her bare shoulders, her full breasts almost in full shadow. He felt like he was leaving a cat alone all by itself, which was not too far from the truth. He also thought about changing the password to his computer but wondered if that even mattered for a demon cat goddess. He closed the door and stepped out into freedom and solitude. Moreso than when he was at work and away from Eyjul. Here he did not have to concentrate on helping customers. He was fully alone now. He walked to his car in the crisp darkening evening and backed out and drove straight to the local bar, a smoky redneck place with plenty of regulars, and a place that he had only been to once and was turned off by. But now it would be his sanctuary.

He felt out of place right away when he stepped in and all the regulars turned around to look at him. Many baseball caps and familiar red caps and plaid shirts and standard accessories of Bud Light cans and a cigarette in hand adorned most of the guests. And yet there were some that didn't look too different from him: bespectacled, unassuming, perhaps even a little nerdy, but not shy. Almost everybody there sat with a level of assuredness and comfort, perfectly happy to sit there and drink and smoke and chat, except for the younger guys, who leaned in and tried to chat up the women who came to the bar to order drinks. A rather attractive female bartender in a strategically tight black tank-top took the orders. Pete took his seat. When the bartender zeroed in on him (rather quickly; for a seedy bar, they had good service, Pete thought) he stalled for a moment and then asked for a Scotch on the rocks. He wanted something hard.

And so he sat there and drank and twitched his nose at the ever-present smell of cigarette smoke and listened to the regulars complain about something the President was saying on TV or about so-and-so and their drug problem back at home. He was comfortable in his public solitude and even approached a state of semi-meditation, until it was broken when a guy who pulled up a stool next to him started talking. He asked Pete what he thought about the President's latest gaffe, and Pete said he didn't have much of an opinion on it, and the man kept talking. He talked so much that there was finally a point where Pete figured he'd dispense an opinion about the next topic: the previous president, and that got the conversation more involved, but Pete was quickly losing energy to engage. Eventually, someone pulled the man's attention away and Pete was alone again, but he did not talk to anybody else, man or woman, except for the bartender when she asked if he was good. His whiskey was halfway down. He said he'd have the check. He was beginning to feel bored there. He decided to drive home before he could risk getting too tipsy. Instead of going straight home, he drove around aimlessly for a little bit and finally arrived home well into the night. Though the house was mostly dark, Eyjul's presence there was like an alluring shadow, and with no need for light, she stood happily and welcomed him back. He went up to bed soon after and he didn't remember if she joined him or not.

*****

The next morning, he called Steve and said he'd commit to going to the next meetup, and Steve reacted as if he had expected it, though his joy was not well-concealed. Neither was Eyjul's, as she leaned back on the couch where she had been sitting and looked at him with a smile.

"Going to meet some friends soon, huh? That'll be nice."

"Yeah, I really should get out."

"Maybe that girl will be there again. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"I'm not going to hold out hope for it," Pete said. "...You wouldn't be jealous?"

"No, why would I be?"

Pete shrugged and looked at her. She didn't seem to betray any hidden emotions. Then again, she wasn't human. They didn't make love that night, but she laid by his side, and the next day, Monday, Steve called him to inform him that the next meeting would be this coming Wednesday night. Though he still wasn't sure he really wanted to go, he said he'd be there.

*****

He left Wednesday night straight from work. Eyjul said she wouldn't mind waiting. She did not suffer boredom for the same reasons that humans did. So he went.

The meetup was held at a friend's house, an older married guy who had the whole basement converted into a man cave, or a train lover's cave, as it were, as the company there was mixed. Quite a few people were there, and the old man showcased footage of local trains passing through on his big projector screen. Steve welcomed Pete with a clap on the shoulder, and a few familiar faces welcomed him as well, including the one very familiar face of the librarian-looking girl. She was all smiles, and even gave Pete a hug, which made his heart flutter. She ended up sitting next to him when they all were watching the train footage, and Pete sat with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap for most of the time, barely able to look at the girl even out of the corner of his eyes. Why was he so nervous? She didn't mean anything to him. But she was very talkative, and when Pete did hazard to glance her way, there was first the flutter of his heart at the immediate eye contact, not all too dissimilar to the deep embrace of Eyjul's eyes, and the chance sight of Steve sitting several chairs down, smiling down the row.

When things wound down and everybody was standing around the big poker table that the host had centerpieced in his man cave, Pete found himself chatting with the librarian-looking girl, who asked him how he had been. He learned her name was Connie, and that she in fact was a librarian, all things he may have learned in the past but didn't listen to. And then, hardly to his surprise, remembering what Steve had told him, she asked him if he wanted to hang out sometime, and what he was doing in the evenings. To his astonishment, he agreed to meet her for coffee some weekday evening, and that was that. Before people were trailing out of the host's basement, Pete had her number. When she left, Steve came up to him, grinning, and he didn't have to say anything. Pete didn't feel like saying anything, either.

When he got home that early evening, Eyjul was not there. He at first figured she may be wandering around upstairs, but after touring all the rooms, there was no trace of her. Pete collapsed on his couch afterwards, tired but not a bad kind of tired, and he did not trouble himself with where Eyjul may be. He figured she had served her purpose, or at least she had figured as much. He went upstairs and took a shower, remained nude when he got out, air drying and feeling pleasant, and then he curled up under the sheets. He relished the scent of the soap and the clean feeling of his bare skin sliding against the cotton, but he suddenly wished he could turn over and feel Eyjul next to him, to touch the nape of her neck with his lips.

*****

The start of that week was as listless and boring as ever without the naked girl's presence. It reminded him of the week after his divorce. He got up, made breakfast in the quiet house, and went to work. The only thing that was different was that the boredom was complemented by a growing anticipation to meet up with Connie. When the weekend came, he was petrified by both anxiousness and boredom; empty house, full future.

They saw each other on Monday at six o'clock at the local coffee shop in the historic downtown just down the sidewalk from the park bench and the train tracks. Connie bowled Pete over by showing up not in her usual attire, but in a loose and flowy orange summer dress. She was energetic and outgoing as ever, which made him feel better and loosen up after a while. They talked freely, mostly about trains, and movies that featured trains, and what their favorite movies were. Pete felt so at ease that he wanted to admit to his past, about his marriage and divorce and resulting depression, but this was a positive conversation, and neither of them really touched on their histories. Eventually, when their coffees were low, Connie perked up.

"Hey, you wanna see a cool spot where the train comes through besides the park? There's a real pretty overlook, and it should be coming through soon."

"Sure."

They finished their coffee and left the coffee shop, and Pete walked beside Connie through the downtown, his hands in his pockets and imagining one of them holding hers all of a sudden, as his heart was fluttery and his body felt like it was floating in air. This was a nice, exciting feeling.

They cut across the square and walked down a sidewalk out of town, beside a two-lane highway and some small gas stations, until they got to an intersection, and Connie motioned her head to the right.

"This way."

The evening was starting to set and the sky turning orange, and Pete wondered how far out they were going, and if they would be caught in the dark. There was a warm breeze and it ruffled Connie’s dress, teasing Pete's eyes with her calves. Her bare feet flopped in her sandals as she carefully stepped onto gravel and then weed-ridden grass, and Pete followed. They were on a little trail, and soon came to a small clearing and a hill, and just ten feet below them were the tracks. Connie stopped.

"Here. Isn't it beautiful?"

Pete had to take a breath.

"Amazing."

"Man, I should have brought my camera," Connie said, then she looked over to Pete. "Hey, you ever fantasize about hopping the trains like the old hobos?"

Pete laughed.

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"I always wanted to do it. There are hardly any cars with open sides anymore, though."

"There are some. I've seen them come through."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, about every few trains that come, there are a couple."

In the distance, the whistle of an oncoming train carried over the hills. Connie flashed Pete a grin.

"If there's one on this, let's do it," she said.

"What? I don't know—"

"Where's your spirit of adventure? Come on, let's get closer, at least."

With that, she started to inch forward on the gently sloping hill, slipped on her feet a little, and then kicked off her sandals and trotted down towards the flat land. Pete began to follow and then stopped right a the precipice of the drop-off, because Connie stopped as well. The train was coming into view around the bend, out of a line of trees. Its whistle blew again. It looked magnificent in the amber evening light, its black iron like a smudge of chalk on a landscape painting. Connie looked over her shoulder and grinned up at Pete, then quickly looked back. She seemed less set on going to jump the train, and for that, Pete was relieved. The front of the train passed them and the engineer blew his whistle, no doubt seeing the barefoot girl in the flowing dress standing halfway down the hill. She briefly waved after the locomotive had already passed, and then she was shielding her eyes and looking up the length of the train. Suddenly she spun her head back at Pete.

"There's one! Come on!"

So much for her changing her mind, Pete thought. He moved forward while Connie tottered down the hill, and then he saw her slip. Her feet went out from under her and she landed on her butt, laughing wildly and sliding downwards. He was on his feet long enough to see the bottom of the dress get pulled back and then flap behind her like a cape, with her pale naked butt looking back at him, sliding on the grass, and then he took a fall. The sky and the ground turned and turned over his in his view, and he came to the bottom in a crumple next to Connie, who was already getting to her feet, the hem of the dress falling back down to her knees but then unfolding, falling away from her back to reveal seamless skin and a rosy fanny. Pete sat up and stared, and Connie, feeling the draft, looked over her shoulder and laughed in a different way, like someone who had been caught stealing from the cookie jar. And the train kept going by.

"Welp," she said, and she brushed the torn dress off her shoulders, and it fell in front of her like a dropped curtain, leaving her standing there, tall (at least from Pete’s perspective on the ground) and proud, golden in the sunlight, her butt gently thrust outward and her shoulders rolled back, her small, bare chest, unseen at the moment by him, facing the passing cars. Then she turned and that small chest faced Pete, like two little pears, and his eyes fell down her flat stomach and briefly looked eye-to-eye with her stark black pubic hair, obtusely trimmed, until her hand thrust into his face.

"Hurry!" she said, and he let her pull him up. Suddenly they were running, Pete running only because Connie was, running because he was helpless to follow, and they were right by the tracks as an open car came into view.

Connie stopped, and Pete had just a moment to look beside him and assess her up and down, wondering if he was dreaming or if she was yet another demon spirit of summer flings, but then she turned and prepared to pace the car. He was pulled along with her. She let go of his hand (he had forgotten she was still holding it and for a split second he thought back to his previous vision at the town square only twenty minutes ago), picked up her pace, and then grasped a handrail and bounded up into the car as effortlessly as he would have ever imagined someone doing without clothes. He was left running in place, and suddenly imagined the train going on its way, taking Connie with it and out of his life all of a sudden. He pumped his legs. Connie stuck out her hand and he took it again, glad for its warmth, distracted by the twin pear breasts looking down at him along with her sparkling eyes and her glasses which still remained on her face, and he kicked and jumped, and his foot caught the edge of the car and he feared falling and taking Connie with him, but she leaned back on her heels, using her weight to hold him, and he pushed until his thigh shot with pain and then he was in, tumbling over Connie and landing on her other side, with her rolling over and looking down at him. They were surrounded by crates, strapped down. She was panting, and then laughing, and Pete couldn't help but laugh, too. Connie leaned back and sat on her butt, folded her legs before her, framing her pubic hair in the lotus position, as Pete sat up and marveled at her. He shook his head with a grin, but couldn't think of anything to say, instead thinking that the nude demon cat woman was now but a distant memory. And whether or not he had a long adventure with Connie, she was here now, and they were riding off together to a potential new future.

The Waifu Summoning Program

It appeared on Kickstarter one day, and nobody knew where it came from. As far as anybody was aware of, there were no online communities where this would have been talked about prior to its mysterious appearance on the crowdfunding site. And it obviously had to be a joke, for it was called "the waifu summoning comp." It was a mini-computer that could be worn on the wrist, like a smartwatch. A slightly oversized rectangular (not circular) face displayed minimal icons and alerts, but could be unfolded to become a touch-screen about the size of a typical smartphone. It looked rather unwieldy. And what was promised was this: with this "comp" one could download a base program, called, appropriately, the "waifu summoning program," and with that program, users could load an infinite amount of modules that were user-created. The modules would recreate, to the minutest detail, any porn star or model, perfectly, and then "summon" them into reality. Your favorite star, right in your room with you.

"Is it a hologram?" some users would ask. "It is an evolution of the hologram," the mysterious creator would respond. "I have recently gained access to a very new type of technology. It requires no projecting lens, and your waifu would have full range of movement in any room in your house. It uses ions in the air to fabricate into reality any type of being you want."

It sounded like complete bullshit, of course. But amazingly, the waifu summoning comp began to get pledges, some of them for several hundred dollars, possibly from people with too much money. The target monetary goal was the max of ten thousand dollars.

Nobody knew much about the creator, whose online name was simply "Stan." He (or she) appeared to have no online presence anywhere else, and responded to e-mails seldomly, though he was good about responding to messages directly on Kickstarter. Some people would post not questions, but statements, and even warnings. "This sounds like some dangerous stuff," one esoterically-knowledged individual stated. "I'm pretty sure this would be summoning a demon or a succubus into your home, and you definitely don't want that."

"Stan" did not shy away from answering these concerns. "There is no magic here. Only science. you have nothing to fear. I have tested it myself. You can look at the pledge video."

The video in question showed a dimly-lit room, with a computer monitor in the background, as well as bookshelves and a display case full of comic book figures. The creator's hand appeared in frame, along with a rudimentary version of the comp that was proposed on the Kickstarter. This one had many-colored wires leading from the wide touch screen to the attachments on the wrist, and another hand appeared in frame and tapped the screen, which filled in with a blue gradient background. Some text and symbols flashed on the screen, but they were hard to read. The finger (assumedly Stan's) tapped a few more times, and a shimmering light took up the field of the camera's view. A glowing blue figure of feminine shape began to materialize like a pointillism picture, and then the light faded, and standing there, familiar to all, was Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson. She looked about the room as if sizing up some new surroundings, and then looked towards the camera (or rather, at Stan behind it) and smiled. It was very reminiscent of an internet meme featuring the actress, where a reserved smile turns into one of joy.

"Hello," she said, in a voice that sounded like Scarlett Johansson's (though some people debated that), and then the video cut off.

Of course people said it was fake, but the pledges kept coming in.

"With this comp, you can summon any waifu you want, provided that someone has made a module for them," Stan instructed on his intro page. "I have shared my code for creating a module. It uses AI, and requires base data, i.e., pictures and video and audio, and a field of character traits, and it "builds" your waifu. I have compiled a dozen modules for use in the comp right away upon release, and they include many top performers in the adult industry. For my video, I merely showcased Scarlett Johansson to keep things PG."

And below his intro was a list of adult film star names, many recognizable and exciting to the potential pledges. There was a famous softcore nude model that merely went by the name "Kristy." She was famous among internet horndogs for her appearances in MET-Art, Galitsin Archives, and Femjoy. She never did hardcore and always kept it classy. There was famous pornstar Riley Randy, who had done about every unimaginable act imaginable on camera, and there was Sasha Lily, another softcore model, and favorite of many, who was famous for appearing in movies and who had had her start in Playboy. She had even produced some mild hardcore videos, with high production values, much to the joy of her fans. They were all there, and the pledges rolled in.

"Doesn't this introduce a whole bunch of privacy concerns for the models you're using?" one concerned user asked. Stan did not reply to that question.

*****

By the end of the month, the ten-thousand-dollar goal was met, and the waifu summoning comp was available for purchase, and for free to the top tier of pledges. Young Blake Geoffrey was one of the lucky recipients of the device, and he opened his door expectantly one afternoon when the doorbell rang, and sitting there on the front stoop, rife for porch pirating for any lucky individual, was a discreet cardboard box. He collected it and took it inside.

His heart was thrumming. All the chores in his little one-bedroom apartment had been done, and he had no other plans for the day, except to dive in and play with his new toy. He quickly cut open the packaging tape, opened the box, and gazed at the innocent-seeming device nestled inside, between rolled-up newspaper and packaging peanuts. He could hardly believe it; the waifu summoning comp was now his. it looked just like it was advertised on the Kickstarter page. He lifted it out of the box and was amazed at how light it was. Good thing, since it was supposed to be worn on the wrist ("to keep your hands free, hehe," the Kickstarter page had said). Blake was almost worried that he and all the other pledges had been jipped, that they had just spent all that money on a cheap toy. But when the power button was pressed, the alert icons on the folded-up face of the device lit up in pale white, and he pivoted the rectangle and it unfolded like the Lament Configuration into a dual-screened touch display alive with the gradiated blue seen in the video. A menu appeared with rows of module entries and a scroll bar. The top twelve entries had the names of the models and porn stars advertised, and there was a long stretch of blank entries below, where Blake could presumably load more custom mods. Then a help window appeared, and read: "welcome to the waifu summoning program!" and he read a quick intro on how to use the device.

The light outside was already getting dim after he read the intro and then plugged the device into his computer via USB to give it a full charge and to open up the possibility of loading modules. his head swam with all of the girls he would want to add.

He lived a solitary, but not a lonely life. Nor was it very fulfilling. He worked during the day as a call center rep and made extra money selling cheesecake art, his true passion. He was a dedicated "coomer," as it was called on certain online communities, and he dedicated his attention and energies to purified eroticism, obsessing and cherishing the unbridled work of porn stars like Riley Randy and nude models like Kristy. He had paid access to several adult websites, including Femjoy, and the personal site of Sasha Lily, his favorite, and his definite "waifu." It was their model work that informed his art, scenes of seemingly innocent but beautiful and enticing nudity in erotic settings: a bedroom, the shade of a beach cabana, all in an anime style, which pulled him in lots of fans. it was his second life, and he could not talk about it much. He still socialized, sometimes with people at his call center job, or with his sister or cousins, and from all of them he kept his passions hid, for they would not understand and think him a sheltered pervert in need of a good lay to free him of all this, but to them he was as boring as boring could be, or a potential serial killer. He sometimes worried about what others thought of him, but he didn't think about it much.

He was truly himself with people online, in an anonymous forum where he still used a name (promoting his artist page), and with a few bulletin boards dedicated to the models and porn stars he obsessed over. It would be where he would share his experience within the next hour. Or longer, depending on how immersive the waifu summoning program really was. He would have spent the next hour talking about it with others and searching for modules to load, but as the device was fresh on the market, there were no user-provided modules made yet, and he had only one he wanted to try out for the moment: his favorite, Sasha Lily.

Sasha Lily was perhaps the most famous model for anybody that crawled the same communities that Blake did. Charming, with long auburn hair and a winning smile, and an innocence about her as she cavorted nude on beaches or in shaded patios for her legions of fans. She was in fact an avid nudist, and would sometimes just post vacation photos on her Twitter for her fans to gobble up, vacation photos of her traversing a beach, her rosy butt red from the sun, probably drawing the eye of every person there, and drawing millions more online. She even had an innocent edge when she was doing something more racy, like holding an erect dick in her hands. Unlike some softcore models, Lily did not shy away from doing hardcore shoots, but even they seemed classy, as the production values were always on the level of a Hollywood production, the camera bringing out every detail, every subtle twitch of the lucky member in her soft grip until it was bursting geysers down her knuckles. These were shoots she did seldomly, only once in a while, and the shock they jolted to the heads (and other heads) of her fans made them all the more special. She was a true angel come down to Earth, existing to be beautiful and to extract every last ounce of pleasure from those who beheld her. Blake himself was not a fan of hardcore videos, though he did have one shameless addiction: amateur facial videos. Some bukakke, but he did not like those as much, as they soon turned from erotic to disgusting once the model's face was an even glaze. It was more about the complete shamelessness and exhibition of the matter that turned him on, but primarily he just enjoyed the female form presented in the most natural and graceful of manners, though every time that Sasha Lily went beyond that was almost a spiritual moment. She had done a few simple handjob videos, with some muscly model lying on a table while she twisted his rod until it burst; she had done a few cunnilingus videos, where she got to lay back on a bed and just enjoy the affections of her male co-star, but she had never done a facial video. Though they crossed the line into sleaziness, Blake had often fantasized about Sasha Lily's smiling face being graced by ropes of cum. Maybe one day she would do something like that. But with the waifu summoning program... could something like that be possible?

"Using the technology of manipulated ions, not only can a holograph-like image be present with complete independence, it can also engage in limited touch and feel. It won't just be a strip show. You can actually interact with your waifu." So the Kickstarter description had read. How far did that interaction go? Stan was ready to find out.

The comp only had a seventy-five percent charge, but he deemed that to be enough as he unplugged the device from the USB cable and slipped it over his wrist. It fit comfortably, and he adjusted the velcro strap so that the device was secure. Then he opened the foldable touch-screen and thumbed down until he saw Sasha Lily's name, and he tapped it.

The chart on the screen disappeared and a whirling logo came up next, then with Sasha Lily's headshot appearing. It glowed and then faded away. And then the air right in front of Stan began to glow.

He looked away from his wrist, lowered it, and leaned back in his chair. A real sense of fear rose in his chest, fear of actually summoning a demon and being dragged to hell, fear of causing an explosion or getting electrocuted. All sorts of fears. But they faded as the light before him took shape, as sizzling into existence were patches of skin, and then all the glowing, fizzling spheres arranged in a familiar outline: sensuous, from slender impressions of legs to the width of hips, then narrowing at a waist, and an equally-wide outline of a busty chest came into view, and long hair in motion, spilling over a pair of shoulders, and there were the impressions of eyes.

Then, as his eyes went down and traveled up again, the darkness of pubic hair appeared at the center of the hips, the pink of Lily's areolas filled in, and the sizzling spheres connected and the bare skin became seamless, and the last thing to materialize out of the impressions was a smile, below two eyes that looked intently at him, and then Sasha Lily herself was standing before Blake, mere feet away, nude from top to bottom, just as he'd seen her on his computer screen, but better. She loomed over him. Her closeness made his heart leap. She possessed all three dimensions now, and not just the flat glow of an LCD. All glowing at present ceased, save for the figurative glow of Lily's amazing appearance. She now looked like any normal person standing there before him, yet impossible to comprehend. His left hand trembled and slowly rose from his thigh, ready to reach out and touch his goddess.

"Well hi there," Lily said. Blake wouldn't have known if her voice was accurate or not if he hadn't had seen her small appearances in the movies, and hearing her voice, directed at him, made his heart flutter again.

"H-hi."

"What a wonderful afternoon," she said, stepping just an inch closer, her nudeness daunting to him. "It makes me want to dance."

She lowered her arm and traced the knuckles of his hand. Blake felt a faint sizzling, like concentrated energy, and the faint registration of human touch. Trailing her finger away, Sasha Lily twirled, presented her backside to him, her marvelous backside, now in full detail right in front of his face, and she threw her hair down her back and canted her hips to an unheard beat. Blake stared in awe. Right here was the butt of Sasha Lily, sashaying back and forth in so much detail and depth that he thought he must be dreaming, and there was not a blemish on her cheeks, save for the faint texture of gooseflesh, and the ruddy complexion of buns that had been baked in the sun. He leaned forward. She continued to dance-mime, seemingly oblivious to him as he brought his face mere inches away from her cheeks. He was breathing heavily. If she were a real person, she might have felt his breath on her skin, but Blake noticed his breath reflecting back at him. Or maybe it was just the radiance of the charged ions or whatever it was that made this illusion possible. It made it feel like body heat.

He raised his hands and brought them level with the sight in front of him, her butt pivoting and wiggling just inches away. His palms hovered over her hips, and slowly, tenuously, he met them to her iodized skin. He felt the heat, and he swore he could feel the smoothness of her under his palms, and her pivoting stopped. Then his mouth went in. He pursed his lips to plant a kiss right on the crevice of her two cheeks and nearly had a heart attack when he could feel the contours of her. His penis constricted within his jeans at all the excitement, and he more forcefully kissed a cheek, but this time there was give, and his lips passed through and there was the feeling of warm skin changing to just formless heat. He expected to see through her, but her bumpy gooseflesh cheek was right in front of his eyes, and he went no further. He pulled back, and it was then that she turned around.

He looked up just quickly enough to see her smiling down upon him, but the up-close view of her bush before him was too hypnotizing. He brought his face in and instantly felt the bristlyness of her hairs on his lips, and he sought for her pussy lips, anticipating their heat, but then he quickly passed through them again. This time he was so forceful that his eyes did enter her body, and all was just black. His eyes actually burned a little, and he quickly retreated.

Lily was now laughing, looking down at him.

"Someone's eager!" she said. It sounded canned, like something from a list of expressions she could say in any given situation, but it worked for this one, and Blake was almost fooled.

"Why don't you relax?" she said, and she reached her hands down to caress his shoulders. She did it lightly, and he could feel her individual fingertips working against his shirt, seeking his bare skin as he gazed up at her breasts, two things he never would have ever imagined to see this close.

"Just relax..." she repeated, and traced her fingers down his arms, and then returned them to her sides. She stood there, looking at him as if she expected him to do something, and he quickly got the message. He madly fumbled at his fly, tore the zipper down, and fished out his erection, struggling in the tight constraints of his boxers. it flipped out with pent-up force and wobbled free and tall before the virtual Sasha Lily's eyes, which seemed to light up.

"Ah, there it is," she said next, making Blake wonder if these were indeed canned expressions or if she did somehow possess the ability to observe and interact with her subjects. The latter must have been true, because she dropped to her knees as Blake twitched and wobbled before her face.

"Very impressive," she said, like a teacher congratulating a student, and her right hand reached forward and her fingers gently closed around his shaft.

Like with his shoulders, it was a light touch, but a light touch was all he needed to shiver and take in a sharp breath with the sight of the model he had stared at in awe so often now tracing her grip up his dick. Her touches were feathery and electric, phantom feelings working their way up until the more pinpointed and urgent sting of pleasure on his crown, which pulsed. Precum already leaked from his tip. He breathed another ragged breath as she traveled her fingers down again, and he was afraid he was going to cum in seconds. Not that it mattered; with her, there would be no embarrassment, and he could repeat this experience as often as he wanted.

He watched as she reached forward with her other hand and fanned his head with her fingers. They passed through him a little bit, but with each passing he felt the bumps of her digits like cards on a bicycle spoke, and he trembled. She repeated this, then brought up her grip hand again and gently wrapped his crown in the embrace of her fingers. More and more he felt like he could feel her touch. it was not just phantom sensations. Or perhaps it was all in his mind. Then she lowered her head, stuck out her tongue, and licked his shaft from base to tip. He shuddered and as her tongue reached the top and flicked, a small spurt of his brimming orgasm launched out, watery, the prelude to the big one.

"Stop!" Blake breathed, and the Lily program listened, leaning back, a knowing look on her face.

"Don't want to cum just yet?" she asked. It was definite now that the program had the ability to observe and interact. Blake shook his head and felt his heartbeat through his cock, felt it rattle and vibrate with the threat of ejaculation and then calm, only slightly, twitching every second or so before the sight of Lily observing him, her breasts framed behind his struggling arousal like two perfect spheres.

"I have an idea," Blake said, and he knew he wanted to try what he had fantasized about, that one thing that the real Sasha Lily did not do. It would probably mean spilled semen all over his carpet, but he didn't care, and he was too in the moment to kill it by going and getting a towel. Still, he leaned back in his chair, waiting for the raw sensitivity in his helpless penis to subside so that merely standing, with his part waving in front of her, wouldn't set him off. He took a deep breath. She waited. The reality that the most amazing and alluring nude model was sitting there with him—in some way or another—kept him from calming down. So he pushed back his chair and stood, his lesser self stabbing the air. Lily remained on her knees, for she seemed to know what he had in mind. Placing her hands on her thighs, she waited patiently with an expectant smile and a cock of her head as Blake took himself into his own hands and stepped forward, brandishing his upward-curved dick like a weapon. He jacked off quickly, bringing the ebbed pleasure back into his loaded chamber, getting himself right to that edge, while Lily's pretty face waited and watched. Then he stopped. He stepped closer and Lily adjusted herself on her knees as he brought his cock to her face and dragged it along her cheek.

It passed through, but he felt the unmistakable softness of skin, an actual give of her flesh as he made contact and then clipped through. He brought it across her lips, bumping the underside of his crown over each of them, actually pulling her lower lip down slightly, and it flipped back into place like a normal person's. He felt the electric thrill of the contact on his crown, and the illusion was complete. Release was imminent. He took himself into his hands again.

Where to shoot? Across her lips? On her cheek? The cheek. A pretty, dainty cheek. He stepped around her so he was facing it, and she intuitively knew what he was doing and kept her head forward, glancing up at him from the corners of her eyes. Blake jacked furiously again, his palms now slick with his lubrication, the surge coming fast, shooting up his shaft, and then: the sweet release.

With that last burst of pleasure in which time stood still for a half a second, there was always the sudden post-orgasm regret, the loss of all desire, and in this particular moment, that feeling was spurned by seeing his load, so painful and excruciatingly pleasurable to shoot out, pass through Lily's dainty cheek like a ghost, just as he predicted. But as the second and third shots expulsed, him holding himself pointed at her until it was all done, stripes of semen materialized on her cheek. Not his, surely, but the program's, undoubtedly, reading the feedback from his launching load and recreating it as it would appear if Sasha Lily were really flesh and blood. In that, the illusion was now truly complete, and the low-down feeling was replaced by that split-second timelessness again, now extended as his last shot just dribbled off his tip, but the remnants of what he had done were there on Lily's face, plain to see. She cocked her head and smiled, showing her teeth, the prettiest thing in the world, two crisscrossing trails of white on her cheek. Blake let go of his cock and his arms fell to his sides, and he let out a breath.

"Greeeat!" Lily cooed, and turned to look down at his spent cock. She leaned forward and planted a sweet little kiss on it, and Blake felt it, felt it more than anything in his post-nut state, and it was like lightning. It made him hard all over again.

He too was petrified, thinking "what now?" as Lily stood and brushed off her breasts, each giving a subtle jiggle, and then she looked at him.

"Feel better?"

He just stared at her. She continued to smile, then seemed to notice the warm feeling of his spunk on her cheek, and she lifted her hand to wipe it. It disappeared from her face as cleanly as if it were erased in MS Paint. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Her breasts gently pushed into his chest, and his dick brushed and then passed through her thigh. When she leaned back, she folded her arms in front of her and bounced on her feet.

"Well, I think I might relax!" she said, and with that, she spun around and observed the room, and then made a beeline for his bed, her butt bouncing below. As Blake's eyes fell to watch it, he noticed his mess on the floor, a full yard away from where he stood: a long stripe on the carpet. Lily walked through it but did not disturb it. She threw herself onto his bed, and reclined on her stomach, kicking her legs up, the lamplight tracing beautiful orange crescents on her butt, and she looked at his posters on the wall, gaming posters pulled out of magazines. Blake collapsed in his chair and watched this angel, this beauty, relax on his bed, and realized she could be a constant companion, always hanging around the apartment nude, entertaining him with her beauty. Feeling the sudden weight on his wrist, he lifted up the comp and looked at it. The screen was dark except for the battery meter in the upper right, and it was at twenty-five percent. he decided he would let it run out, and he took the device off his wrist and stood, putting his penis back in his pants.

"I'll be back," he said, and Lily looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. Blake left the room to go clean up and pee, and when he returned, she was still on the bed, relaxing for what seemed like would be eternity. He thought about returning her to the comp and charging it so he could have her lay in bed with him all night. Would that be possible? Boy, he was a lonely guy, he thought.

*****

Many people had similar experiences as Blake did, and the discussions sprang up just a day after everybody had their private fun time with their virtual waifus. Blake sat at his computer and observed some of those conversations.

"Man, it kinda sucks," one poster said. "You can't really do anything. I want to eat mine out but it doesn't feel real."

"I was able to fuck mine. Kinda. It kinda worked."

"I don't know, I just like having mine hang around my place naked. It's like a virtual companion. I love it."

"Well that suits you, maybe," someone else said. "But real men want to fuck their girls."

Blake smiled and leaned forward to type a message. "I like having Sasha Lily just be in my house all the time. It's super comfy." And indeed it was, as he looked up from his computer and watched Sasha pass by the open door, her rosy butt seen and then not seen as she moved on, exploring the apartment. "Though I got to get a handjob, and I could even give her a facial."

"Oh man, that's possible?" someone replied.

"Yeah, it renders your spunk. It's really is amazing."

"Well if all you wanna do is stare at a naked girl and cum on her, I guess it's perfect, but some of us want more."

And so a division seemed to form: those who were content with just looking, at being awash in beauty, and those who wanted to do every single act their imagination and libido could allow. They would come to be labeled as the "hard" and "soft" alignments, and a good-natured (most of the time) rivalry seemed to have started up.

After the first week, the first new additions to the waifu summoning program were released. User-created, they included more recognizable pornstars, but also camgirls. Streamers, Instagram models, and all manner of solo content creators were added. For some, it was the ultimate realization of all the virtual, faked affection spent together online with their idols. Others were quick to jump on those fans with their own criticisms.

"Why do you simp for these loser bitches whoring themselves out on their webcam? They don't even look good."

"I love Teeny Trini," someone replied.

"If you're gonna summon somebody, summon a pro model, someone who's way above your league."

"Teeny Trini is above his league."

"Isn't that the whole point? Let us enjoy what we enjoy," (“stop liking what I don't like” meme appears).

"I'm just saying, there's tons of good shit out there, for free, mind you, that you don't need to be throwing your money away to some average thots on Twitch."

"Well I don't have to pay anybody now. I got my waifu summoning program."

"Someone should write a mod for Roxy, she does dirty stuff."

"You can make Trini do dirty stuff, too."

"It doesn't feel right."

"Man, you simps are weird. They're just normal people, not angels or something."

"You just don't understand, man," (insert Joaquin Phoenix 'you wouldn't get it' meme).

And so the debate raged. While some people preferred kinky and nasty things, others preferred supposed tasteful, "artsy" media, and amongst those two alignments there was still a divide between those favoring professional models or do-it-yourself amateurs. It was fully spelled out in an alignment chart which one humorous poster made, using the template form the popular Devil Summoning games, where a player could choose many paths that would lead them along many affinities of chaos and law. The chart looked something like this:

And it was with this obsessiveness that the users of the waifu summoning program convened on a convention one weekend, a convention dedicated to anime, where young twenty-somethings and teens lounged around the hotel lobby, drawing eyes from older guests, and it was there that the debate raged on vocally. Many of them proudly brought their waifu comps with them, wearing them on their wrists like a prize they had gotten out of a cereal box. And predictably, there were waifus walking about, literal waifus in the sense of the slang word: anime characters, uncannily inhabiting three-dimensional space and stopping and talking to people as they passed in the most cooing and childlike voices, which were like nails on chalkboard to some. Eventually the owners of those waifus were asked to put them back.

In the center of all the activity and commotion, a group of young people sat in the leather chairs of the lobby, circling around a small polished wood coffee table, where some people's comps sat. Others wore them still on their wrists. They were debating their favorite models.

"Riley Randy is the best, she's not afraid to do anything!"

"She's a nasty slut, Kristen is the best, she's so classy."

"Man, has she even done a set lately? It's like she dropped off the face of the earth."

"That's why camgirls are best. You can communicate with them."

"Nobody cares about your waifu, loser."

"This is literally called the waifu summoning program," one of the teens said, leaning forward and picking up his comp.

"Yeah, more like the skank summoning program," the Kristy fan shot.

"Take that back! Riley is a goddess!"

"I was talking about their camgirls. But Riley's a skank, too. Kristy has class."

"She's too stuck-up. A goddess should do anything she wants!"

"You have no taste, man."

"Oh yeah? Well taste this!"

The defender of the hardcore porn star Riley Randy grabbed his comp, flipped open the screen, and stood dramatically.

"Riley Randy, I choose you!"

In a shimmering expulsion, the porn actress appeared in the flesh, all of it, as it were, as she stood nude in the middle of the hotel lobby, and her face was devious; she bit her lip and ran her hands along her thin body as she looked at her surroundings. She was very flat, and shaved below, with black hair and exotic eyes that charmed her millions of fans when they watched men masturbate on her. A dozen sets of eyes turned and stared at the sudden disturbance.

"Oh yeah?" the other young man said, grabbing his comp off the table, standing, and strapping it on. "Kristy! Go!"

Another shimmering blue blob of light appeared and took the slightly curvy form of Kristy, more filled out than Riley Randy; the swells of her breasts, the fullness of her thighs, and a landing strip between all took form. And Kristy flipped her long red hair behind her and pivoted her head, looking at her new surroundings with curiosity and wonderment. It was a surreal sight to see her standing in the middle of a hotel lobby, like it was any one of her normal photoshoots, and with Riley Randy standing nearby, leveling her eyes at the other model. It was a moment straight out of any exhibition photoset that the users of the waifu summoning program no doubt looked at.

"What is this, a Pokémon battle?" an incredulous teen said, leaning back and snorting, picking up his can of soda and watching the show. Already a hotel staffer near the information counter was raising her voice. But Riley Randy and Kristy only noticed each other.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

The images of the two models squared off on each other, and both stepped closer and closed the distance. There was bated breath as the two nude visages stood before each other, one scrawny, one with more hypnotizing curves, and they both reached out their hands.

It looked like they were about to interlock fingers, but instead Riley Randy's hands traced the taught sides of Kristy, and Kristy's palm traced the flat chest of her opponent. All the guys sitting before this spectacle just stared, and the two champions of their respective waifus just watched in a daze. Riley traced her palm next down Kristy's abdomen, and she fell to her knees, following the path until her palm was flattened over the other actress's mound.

"Whoa, dude."

Kristy took a step back, looked over her shoulder, saw a free chair there, and backed up into it. The young man sitting nearest to it shifted in his seat and his eyes widened as Kristy braced one leg over the armrest and opened her thighs. And Riley Randy was down there in the next moment, kneeling before Kristy's altar. In the very next moment, her face was buried in it.

"Kristy wouldn't do that!" her fan stammered, flabbergasted, and he raised his comp to look at it and prepare to put her back.

"Don't return her, dude, it's just getting good!"

"Yeah, I got a good one going on," another guy said, fishing into his now-open fly to retrieve himself for pleasure.

"Sirs! Please put them away!"

It was the desk clerk, now standing close and craning her neck and trying not to look too closely at the lesbian scene before her, with Riley licking and lapping at Kristy like a curious kitten and Kristy leaning back and mewling. When the clerk's eyes averted, she unfortunately saw the one young man's penis flop out of his fly and into his hand.

"No! Put that away! Put them away! NOW!"

The personification of Riley stopped in her tongue worship and actually looked at the clerk incredulously, making the clerk step back. The boy with his dick out quickly stuffed it back in his pants, suddenly embarrassed, though he had been so bold just moments before. And the owner of Kristy tapped his comp and Kristy vanished from the chair, so that Riley's face collapsed into the seat, and she puffed and dropped her chin onto the cushion in exhausted disappointment. Then she vanished, too. In the next moment, the clerk was ushering the kids out of the lobby.

*****

In the wake of that incident, the waifu summoning program got some attention in the media. Senators expressed their concern, citing the program as a threat to decency and an open door to degeneracy and hedonism. But it also caught the attention of one other man, a porn producer named Jim Jackson. His role in the journey of the waifu summoning program was noticed when a Pornhub video gained a lot of attention. It showed Kristy, the apple of every softcore-lover's eye, kneeling in the middle of a hotel room while a half dozen men, nude, portly, pasty, and not worthy of being with Kristy (in her fans' eyes) stood around her, masturbating. They closed in on her and rubbed their erections on her cheeks, and even though they occasionally passed through her formless skin, the illusion and the spectacle were monumental. And then, one-by-one, they ejaculated onto her face. Kristy, the famous softcore model, who would never be in a production like this, happily accepted the spurts of white pleasure as they launched at her face, passed through, but then had representations of them displayed on her cheeks, across her lips, wrapped on the contours of her breasts. Kristy, the most classiest of erotic models, now knelt in the middle of a bukakke circle, accepting load after load until her face was rendered as a gleaming shimmer of semen. The fans ate it up. Others were mortified. Kristy would never do this. But she had, because the porn producer, Jim Jackson, had his own waifu summoning comp now.

He had snatched it up off of eBay the second it became available for auction, with dollar signs in his head. Here was a device where he would summon models—the catalog growing greater day by day—and he would not have to pay them a cent! Or sign release forms. Here, with one initial investment, he could host videos of everybody's favorite models, doing things their fans could only hope they would do, like sit in the middle of a bukakke session.

But Jim was not technologically literate and had no idea what to do with the strange device that arrived at his doorstep. But luckily, his twenty-year-old nephew Johnny was more than happy to help out.

"So here, Johnny, how the hell do I turn this thing on?" he asked him when Johnny came to his penthouse the afternoon of his purchase's arrival.

"It's already on. It's always on, it just goes into sleep mode."

"How did you know that?"

"I didn't, I just figured."

"I see. So how do I get some bitches loaded onto this thing?"

"It should already have some base models loaded on. Look..."

Johnny showed his uncle the main menu with its catalog of modules, from Sasha Lily to Riley Randy and Kristy. After a few thumb presses, Kristy herself materialized before the two men, in the flesh, all bare flesh, looking about the wide-open room with its large picture windows as if she were disoriented. The fact that here before him was the complete and perfect visage of one of the internet's most beloved nude models mystified Jim. He began to laugh.

"Perfect!" he yelled, as Kristy turned her eyes to him and looked at him with a concerned face. "Absolutely perfect!"

*****

The website of Jim Jackson, or "Jack Off Jackson," as he was called, netted millions of views and one-time payments for his custom videos of popular models. Blake had looked, curious, though he had his own personal Sasha Lily to keep him company. He had also toyed around with other popular models, like Emily Bloom and Katya Clover, who inhabited his bedroom from time to time and entertained and pleasured him. But on the computer screen now was a preview of Kristy's video, a quick sample of her surrounded by jacking dicks right before the first load was dispensed. It turned him off, but also turned him on. It was weird and shocking to see her in such a scene. Such was the power of this new technology.

Despite the large viewership of Jim Jackson's custom videos, fans on the various internet communities were dismissive.

"Why the hell would I want to watch a video of someone using the waifu comp when I can just enjoy it for myself?"

"Not everybody is lucky or rich enough to have one."

"This is fucked up," another poster said. "They shouldn't be making Kristy do a thing like that."

"That's the appeal, bub."

And the debate raged on. And the views counted up. All this sensation brought on the attention of some cam models, particularly the model named Roxy, who was always present on social media. When she found out about it, she made a grand post calling out Jim Jackson on his practices. "This is money stolen from me," Roxy wrote. "And this is a breach of consent. Unacceptable. Cancel Jim Jackson."

"Shut the fuck up, bitch," some less-than-savory characters answered. "You fuck yourself on camera for money. You're just a whore. You don't have any autonomy."

"Leave her alone, dude," others came to the defense.

"Well, if you're gonna pay money, you might as well be paying money to the model, and not some guy taking advantage of her image."

"Who the fuck pays money for this shit?"

But some people were, whether it was to buy a waifu summoning comp, or to donate to cam models like Roxy directly, or to get access to all of Jim Jackson's videos, which were growing by the day with new models in all sorts of uncompromising situations. Soon other models joined the discussion, with Tiny Trini—known for doing her simple video game streams where she sat naked and just chatted with her friends--adding her voice, though she was met with as much disdain as Roxy was. "You're not even in these videos," someone said. "Why do you care?"

"It's the principle of the matter," Trini said.

A lot of scrutiny was cast at Jim Jackson, but also at the creator of the waifu summoning program as well, though he seemed to have disappeared from the internet. His Kickstarter page was gone, and there were no other social media profiles to contact him at, and he did not answer any e-mails. It seemed that the mysterious creator of the waifu summoning program vanished as quickly as he had appeared, with his creation his only footprint in the world. So people turned their eyes on Jim Jackson. Eventually, much to Blake's surprise, when he saw the post, Sasha Lily joined the fray. She was in unison with the amateur models, saying that this was an unprecedented threat to their livelihood. Some people jumped up to say "all you do is take naked pictures for a living," but those were directed at Trini and Roxy more than at Sasha Lily. Few people dared criticize her, and her involvement helped the cam girls' campaign gain momentum.

Strangely, the softcore legend Kristin, who was the one featured most heavily in Jim Jackson's videos, was absent from all this debate. If she was watching these developments, she was watching from the shadows, and offered no comment, even though it was her image that was being defiled the most.

A negative publicity campaign against Jim Jackson and the waifu summoning program flourished quickly, bringing Senators back into the discussion, claiming fear of inappropriate use of the technology, such as what if somebody were to create a module based on a child model or actress? The possible negative usages of the device were overwhelming. But the politicians just talked, and in the meantime, a formal lawsuit against Jim Jackson and Jack Off Jackson productions was issued, with the cam models Trini and Roxy and Sasha Lily herself as the plaintiffs. Blake watched all these developments with keen interest, not a fan himself of videos that Jim Jackson produced, but feeling guilty meanwhile for owning the waifu summoning program and essentially taking money away from his favorite model, Sasha Lily. Still, he thought he had one last use for the device, and went searching online for a specific module, knowing he was going to have to teach himself code a little bit...

*****

A court date was soon set, and Roxy, Trini, and Sasha Lily were to appear and testify against Jim Jackson, who appeared in an impeccable suit, alongside his nephew Johnny, who wore his suit much less gracefully. The models rising against him were also dressed modestly, in contrast to how they appeared in their professional lives. It all underscored the fact that all assembled that day were there to talk about the business sensitivities of taking one's clothes off and engaging in sexual acts for the camera. It was a most uncomfortable and uneasy trial.

Outside the courthouse, protesters grew, many in support of hanging Jim Jackson in public, and of destroying every waifu summoning comp in existence. Blake was there, walking through the crowds, which included counter-protesters in support of the models, but still proud owners of their waifu summoning comps. Many models were materialized on those streets, including Sasha Lily herself, contrasting from her appearance inside the courtroom, and also present were models from eras past, like Valentina from Mosteroticteens, who was like a spirit in the crowd, the spirit of eroticism, a graceful curve of her spine from her small but prominent breasts to her elegantly-shaped pubic hair, and Mascha from Domai, who walked through the crowd and charmed people with her bubble butt. Nobody stopped them.

Few were admitted into the courthouse, but Blake was lucky, because as an owner of a comp, he was considered to have vested interest in the trial, and after a long wait in security, he was allowed in. He didn't usually go out and do things like this, but this was a case he wanted to see. He was conflicted about it, for his own beloved Sasha Lilly shot down the waifu summoning comp as a means to rob her of income, and he felt guilty for being a part of that. At the end of the day, he was hoping for some form of legitimacy to his actions, or an opportunity to change his ways. But more than that, he wanted to see his favorite models win over the predatory producer.

He found a seat in the courtroom, sandwiched between an old man and an old woman, with his comp tightly strapped to his wrist, the folded-up display screen reading the time and nothing else. Inside resided a new module he had spent the night putting together. He had barely gotten sleep and was deathly tired, but he had to be there. And before him, the trial went underway.

Trini and then Roxy were the first to go up, and the defense attorney was very demeaning towards them. "So your profession is... what do you call yourself, again?" Trini called herself a cam girl. Roxy, later, would call herself a sex worker.

"And do you pay income taxes on that?" the attorney asked Roxy, making her shift uncomfortably in her chair. "If you're making this money underhanded, then it isn't legitimate income, is it? How can you claim damages on something that isn't legitimate?

Roxy had nothing to say, and it seemed like she was defeated. When she got off the stand, she hung her head low, and Blake felt incredibly bad for her. The cam girls always got ridiculed, even by people that liked them.

Jim Jackson took the stand next, and he was asked to describe how he decided to use the waifu summoning program for his videos. He explained, saying he was interested in the product, and got one through the help of his nephew, and he saw himself as an entrepreneur, striking a new vein that nobody else yet had. The attorney was very congratulative towards Jim, but then the attorney for the plaintiff questioned him. She was a young woman—appropriately so, being it was women she was representing—and she was very pretty, which was distracting, at least, for the defense attorney, a portly old man who leered at her from his seat.

"Mr. Jackson, did you consider, at any time, the copyright issues of using someone else's image in your videos?"

"Well no. They were already available on that toy there, so if it was fine there, I figured it was no problem to use them."

"You do know that the 'toy,' as you describe it, was not an official product, correct? It was community-funded."

"I think I knew about that, but I don't really understand this stuff."

"You said your nephew helped you attain it and set it up. Did he not explain these things to you?"

"Well, he may have mentioned it, but like I said, I don't understand this stuff..."

Johnny, his nephew, could be seen sinking into his chair, probably wishing he was anywhere else.

"As a businessman, though, you do understand the rights and privacy of your talent, correct?"

"Well of course."

"For instance, release forms are almost always a standard practice with adult entertainment. And contracts. I assume you have signed contracts with your models in the past?"

At this, it was Jim's turn to go silent.

"You're telling me you don't write professional contracts for your models? Is this why you chose to use the likenesses of others? So you wouldn't have to worry about all that?"

"Objection!" yelled the defense lawyer, on his feet.

"Sustained," the judge said. "Miss, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to tone it down."

"This is relevant to the case, your honor."

"Nevertheless, the tone is unprofessional and I will not accept it. Now, if you have anything further to ask Mr. Jackson..."

But she didn't. The female attorney wrinkled her face, gave one last glaring look at Jim on the stand, and tapped her heels back to her seat. It seemed the judge was not too sympathetic towards the plaintiffs.

Blake perked up when the next person to take the stand was Sasha Lily. She looked sharp and dashing in a dark pressed pantsuit, and it was weird seeing her in such an outfit, or any outfit at all. Her hair was even tied back, and she looked like a completely different woman than what he had idolized on the screen and even "in person" with the summoning program. She settled into her seat and swore on the Bible and awaited the stocky lawyer to approach, and he approached almost like a snake, ogling Lily with hungry eyes. Perhaps he knew exactly who she was before the trial. Perhaps he was a fan. He obviously had to look at her work in preparation for the case. Was he imagining her naked now?

The lawyer asked for Lily to introduce herself and explain her career (which he almost inflected in air quotes, but not quite). "Thank you, I'm a professional model, I'm partnered with several agencies, and I do pay taxes, thank you very much."

The lawyer smiled. "Of course. About how much do you make, being a model?"

"I'm quite comfortable."

"Now have you experienced any losses as a result of Mr. Jackson's endeavor?"

"It's hard to say... this past couple months was a little light, but there are slow seasons, you know."

"Do you think Mr. Jackson is to blame for your current slow season?"

"Well, that's not the point."

"Do you, though?"

Lily sighed. "I can't speak for the others, but for me, personally, no, I don't think so."

"It's true that you aren't even featured on Mr. Jackson's videos at all, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"So then why press charges on him?"

"It's the principle of the matter. I am a model, and I stand with other models whose images are being used. That's the issue here. Everybody has a right to defend their intellectual property, and Jim Jackson is definitely taking advantage of it."

"Is your body intellectual property?"

Lily narrowed her eyes.

"My image is part of my brand. It's any model's. So yes, it is intellectual property. You're a lawyer."

"But if you are experiencing no losses, then what's the issue?"

Now Lily sighed. "I said, I can't speak for the others. But besides that, this man has these models depicted doing things they wouldn't normally do. He is putting them in hardcore scenes, which some don't wish to do, and that's a breach of consent."

"But it's not them doing it."

"It's their likeness, that's enough. Some people don't want to be depicted in certain ways, you can understand that."

"But you do, um, 'hardcore' scenes, do you not?"

"I feel this is getting inappropriate." She shot her eyes at the judge, who said nothing.

"It's hard not to feel that way considering what we're talking about," the attorney said. "But you do, don't you?"

"Yes, on occasion. In a limited fashion."

"What kind of scenes?"

"Well... mostly... handjob scenes, and—"

"Objection!"

"Overruled. Continue."

"And the like. Why?"

"Well if you were to be depicted in one of Mr. Jacksons' videos, it would not be outside the realm of your current work, would it?"

"Well that depends. One actress was portrayed doing a bukakke scene."

The judge's gavel slammed.

"Let's keep it PG, please," the judge asked.

"Do you know what this trial is about?" Lily shot back. The judge frowned. "Anyway, that is beside the point. As I said, it comes down to intellectual property, and having control over who shows your likeness. Simple as that. It doesn't matter if it mirrors my work or not. But if you wanna press that, I've invited somebody to talk, and I think she's just arrived."

All eyes looked to the back of the courtroom to see a young woman standing with her hands folded and her red hair flowing over the shoulders of her modest blouse. She wasn't dressed as sharp as Sasha Lily or the camgirls, and she radiated shyness, as her eyes looked to the ground in front of her, which contrasted from her public image, remembered by many, Blake included, as he craned his neck and recognized her as Kristy, the reclusive and celebrated softcore nude model. There was a hush in the courtroom as she walked down the aisle.

The female lawyer stood. "Plaintiffs request that Kristina Jefferson take the stand."

"Go ahead," the judge said. Sasha Lily stood from the bench and walked back to the plaintiffs’ table, meeting eyes with Kristy briefly and smiling, and on Kristy's mouth, the faint upturn of a smile appeared as well. She went up to the bench, sat, and quietly swore on the Bible. Then the defense attorney began asking questions.

"Now I believe you were depicted in Mr. Jackson's videos, weren't you Miss Jackson?"

"That's correct," Kristy said in the smallest of voices. "And I'm not too happy about it."

"Should this really be an issue, though? Seeing as it's not you, but just the summoning program?"

To answer this, Kristy reached for something underneath the view from the bench and pulled out a recognizable device: her own waifu summoning comp.

"Ah, I see you have one of your own."

Wordlessly, Kristy slid the device over her wrist, flipped open the expandable screen, and tapped her finger on it.

"What are you doing there?"

Suddenly, shimmering in blue light next to the attorney was an indistinct shape, soon to be distinct, and quite recognizable, as before everybody's eyes, Kristy's nude doppelganger appeared standing next to the flabbergasted attorney. The light faded, and she occupied the space that where at once there was nothing, and now she was the center of attention in the room. The lawyer took a step back and gaped, while Kristy's likeness looked at him, and then at the hundred or so people assembled, staring at her nude visage, and she smiled. Blake's jaw dropped. It was weird to see Kristy, normally depicted in beautiful nature scenes, standing now under the harsh fluorescent lights. She looked out of place. And apparently, bared breasts and vulvas were not appropriate for the courtroom, for the judge didn't even slam his gavel, but stood to his feet and shouted.

"Put that away at once, this is a courtroom!"

Kristy merely glanced up at him and raised her eyebrows.

"You say that like it's me. That's not me. I don't have any control over it."

"You summoned it, now put it back!"

"We're here to talk about protecting our image, your honor, we shouldn't be shy about looking at it. Consider it evidence."

The judge was taken aback, and in the time that he stood, shocked and at a loss as how to reply, the nude image of Kristy drifted away from the bench, approaching the defense and plaintiff tables, smiling at everybody who looked at her, and not hiding a thing.

"Now isn't this almost exactly as if I were standing here before you all, and not just some imitation? Is anybody really going to not assume that this is not me when she appears in one of Mr. Jackson's videos?"

The defense lawyer had gone silent, because he was staring the summoned Kristy up, eyes drifting down to her butt, which faced him, which was mere feet from him, and it seemed like for a moment the man might completely forget himself and reach forward to grab it. It was in this lull that Blake thought he had to act. Now was the time. He unfolded the expanding screen on his comp at his wrist, and the two old people next to him looked down, which was easy to do because they had been tearing their eyes away from the shocking sight of the nude woman standing in front of the courtroom. Their eyebrows shot up in alarm when they saw what he was doing.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the old woman on his right said in a lowered voice. But Blake was already tapping the name of the latest module he had made, and now, in a shimmer of blue light, it formed right before him and his elderly aisle-mates, standing between their seats and the backs of the next row. When the light faded, the exact replica of Jim Jackson, in his cheesy lounge suit, appeared and fell forward, bracing himself against the backrests. He was able to straighten himself and look about the room, bewildered until he saw Kristy standing up front, and he grinned like a wolf. Hurriedly, he made his way to the end of the aisle. Everybody in the front of the room was trying to crane their necks to see what was going on, and Jim Jackson was only able to see his doppelganger when it made it to the front to stand before the Kristy apparition.

The judge's gavel slammed. "Order! What is this?" he asked, but before he could say anything else, the Jim Jackson apparition and the Kristy apparition faced each other off and seemed to like each other. Once the real Jim Jackson was able to see his double, he recoiled, and sputtered: "what the hell?"

Kristy sat at the bench, quite surprised by the developments, but not too surprised. "How does it feel to have your image displayed without your consent?" she asked. In the stands, Sasha Lily could be seen stifling a laugh.

Before the whole courtroom, Kristy—or rather, Kristy's double—smoothed her palms down Jim Jackson's shoulders, until the tacky coat he wore was slid off. Then she fell to her knees, and before the shocked audience, Jim's "Jim" came out, quickly fished out of his fly, and a curved and crowned cock was presented towards Kristy, who normally wouldn't be seen before such an obscenity, but who now smiled at it and brought those smiling lips closer until they wrapped around his crown.

"...That's pretty awesome," the real Jim Jackson said.

The gavel slammed again. "Dismissed! We are in recess! Summon back your programs... or whatever, and meet back here at two!"

All across the room, people stood, but Kristy's apparition continued to fellate the Jim Jackson, until Kristy raised her comp and tapped the screen, and her image disappeared, leaving a disappointed virtual man with a bouncing and twitching erection. Then Blake tapped on his comp, and the indecent porn producer too vanished. And by then, the court police officers were bearing down on his row.

"You there! Hand over the comp!"

Blake attempted to stand and get out, but it was hard with all the people currently seated, and there was no escaping the cops, who grabbed him fiercely by the wrist and raised his comp to display to all. One of the officers grabbed it and tore it off his wrist, leaving a soreness behind where they had gripped so tightly.

"Come with us," one of them said, but another voice cut in: "It's alright. I asked him to do it."

It was Sasha Lily. Here the girl he had pleasured himself to shamelessly so many nights now stood, much less shameless, and her presence eased the police officers.

"We can't have disturbances like this in here, ma'am," one of the officers said.

"I understand, and I'm sorry. I thought it was necessary."

The cop holding the comp just shrugged and handed it back to Blake. "Whatever," he said. "Just don't bring it back in."

Blake took it gladly, and then nodded at the officers, and then to Lily, whose gaze he held on for a little bit, trapped in the realization that here stood his waifu. But then a surging crowd passed through, and they were lost in the jumble, and Blake made his way for the exit and lost sight of Lily completely, and the next thing he knew, he was standing on the sidewalk outside.

As his eyes scanned about, he saw various other nude models walking about. It looked like a regular naked bike ride or pride parade out there, and nobody seemed to care. Mascha of Domai fame walked among the crowd, turning to smile at people admiring her and even posing for some pictures together, as if she were a real person. Her bubble butt perched on her canted hips to the delight of people standing behind. And, in the middle of the street, down waltzed Sasha Lily, as brave and bold as any exhibitionist, and cameras flashed wildly.

Then the real Sasha Lily stepped up to Blake's side, not nude, but in her pantsuit, and she smiled at him.

"That was a neat trick you pulled back there," she said. "Where did you get that mod?"

"It was floating around after the trial got announced," Blake lied, his heart beating rapidly at the opportunity to talk to his cherished waifu for real this time. Starstruck was hardly the word.

"Well it made our point, I think," Lily said. "This is really technology gotten out of hand."

"Yeah..." Blake said, raising the comp in his hand.

"So after all this is said and done... are you going to keep that thing?" she asked him, and Blake looked into her eyes, very alive eyes that he had never truly looked into, unable to look into on the images and videos on his screen, and incomparable even to the fake eyes of her double which he summoned night after night. Now he was looking at the real person, the person who made her career out of this, and in a moment of truth, he dropped the comp to the pavement.

"No," he said. "I guess I won't," and in an excruciating moment, he brought his foot down on the device and shattered it into a dozen pieces under his weight. This made Sasha Lily smile.

"You won't need that thing as long as you're subscribing to my channel," Lily said.

"Yeah.. that felt weird."

"The whole thing is weird."

Blake couldn't help but think that nothing Lily could produce would compare to the novelty of having her nude, in the flesh, right in his bedroom. But he had just kissed that all away on a whim.

"Don't be sad," Lily said, perhaps sensing his regret. "Hey, maybe we could use another stand-in on my next shoot. We usually use my boyfriend, but people have been asking for variety, so..."

He couldn't believe it. Was she really insinuating that? Could he be one of the lucky guys to receive pleasure from her?

"Uh, I... what?"

"You'll need to sign a release form, of course, but if you're not shy about being on camera, well..."

Blake was flabbergasted. He did not know what to say.

"And of course, you'll stay subscribed to my channel, I hope. If you aren't already."

"Oh, I already am," Blake said.

"Nice. Well, here's my card—" she fished a business card out of her pocket and slipped it into Blake's waiting hands. "I'll see ya sometime."

And with that, she turned and disappeared into the crowd, and Blake was left contemplating the meaning of what he held in his hands at that moment. The crowd eventually dispersed, gong back into the courthouse, and Blake was the last one to go back in, still clutching Sasha Lily's card, which just bore her name on a white background and had no indication of the nature of her profession except for a sensual outline of a woman sitting nude with her knees drawn up on the back side, prominent breasts thrusting forward. He would pocket and cherish that card, especially after what he was to experience.

Before that happened, the trial went on, and Kristy and Blake's stunt seemed to have paid off, for in the proceedings afterwards, the defense attorney had much more difficulty making an argument for his client, and judging from the changed demeanor of the judge, a sort of resigned acceptance, the trial ended in favor of the plaintiffs. Jim Jackson was forced to pay Roxy and Kristy $250,000. The atmosphere outside the courthouse was celebratory, with crowds of supporters cheering, and more and more nude models were summoned onto the streets, even though it seemed to go against the impetus of the trial. Nevertheless, the streets were a scene of unabashed nudity, at least from the summoned models. Nude art and erotica seemed to have won that day.

*****

Blake found himself, weeks later, in the house of Sasha Lily. He could not keep his heart at bay, for it beat rapidly against his chest, especially when it was time to disrobe.

There was a cameraman there, a young male, not Lily's boyfriend, but an associate of hers, and that made it awkward. But Lily instructed Blake on what to do: just strip down and lay on the bed. This was a simple handjob scene, similar to what she had already done. It would be the easiest thing in the world, an easy fifty bucks, but he would have gladly done it for free.

Standing in the bedroom, with nowhere to hide, Blake had no privacy. The cameraman was setting up at the edge of the room, and Sasha Lily was already getting undressed, which shouldn't have shocked Blake, considering he had interacted so much with her waifu summoning program counterpart, but this time it was for real, and all the starstruck feelings he had in front of the courthouse were multiplied. Her garments, here a t-shirt and some shorts, much less formal than what she wore in the courthouse, disappeared, falling off her body until she stood before him as he had always known her. And now it was time for him to disrobe as well, but his body was frozen with hesitation, his cock hardening in his pants and making him hesitate even further, though it was obvious that hard was how he should be for this moment. He had nothing to be shy about; it was okay to display his arousal so shamelessly. So he went on with it, taking off his shirt and feeling like he was being looked at, though neither the cameraman nor Lily, now nude and checking herself by a mirror, seemed to care. So he took down his pants and his underwear. He had already taken off his shoes once he had stepped foot in Lily's house. And with the garments down, he waved free and unburdened, stiff in the still air. Not knowing what to do, he stood there with his hands folded in front of him, half-obscuring his arousal when Lily turned to notice him. A small smirk seemed to grow on her mouth.

"Great, now just lay down. And don't worry, okay?"

Her smile was warm and reassuring. Blake nodded and made for the bed, noting the cameraman pointing his lens his way and looking at the bed and soon him to make sure everything was to his liking. Blake tried to ignore him and let himself slide onto the clean and fresh-smelling sheets, so pleasant against his bare skin, sheets that Lily no doubt slept in. He counted himself lucky on many fronts, but his luck was yet to materialize. He knew it was coming, as he rolled onto his back and felt his cock wave rigidly in the air, before Sasha Lily, who stepped up to the bed as the camera rolled.

It was like the realization of a dream, and an actualization of the identical scenes that occasionally played out on Sasha Lily's channel, only Blake was now the lucky POV as his waifu put her knees on the bed and hoisted up, shuffling closer and closer to him, smiling warmly and seductively as the cameraman walked behind him, keeping everything in frame, but Blake hardly cared about him anymore, as his eyes were locked on his goddess's, and her twin swells below, hovering over him, and it was then that her hand gently reached out and took him in her grip. How many times he had enacted that with the summoning program, it paled in comparison to now, where he firmly and concretely felt her warmth and her hold on him, and the cameraman circled around him to zoom up on the contact, and Lily gently played. Blake could only let out a ragged breath, and he let his head back for a moment, just a moment, and then leaned up to watch Lily do her work. Gingerly she stroked, slowly reaching the summit and fanning her fingers on his head in little lightning bolt sensations, then back down to firmly grip him around the base. She made many pretty faces for the camera, but for Blake, it felt like it was all for him. Her eyes would alternatively look a the lens and at his eyes, and in the latter moments his heart skipped a beat, and he could feel it through his dick, which twitched in her gentle fingers. He could hardly believe he was so lucky; surely this had to be a dream. But it was not, as his wincing pleasure confirmed. He hit a sudden euphoria, where he could lay here all day with his idol stroking his cock, but soon the realization of all of it overtook him, and his cock, for it swelled, lurched, and up traveled the surge of semen, which exploded up and past Lily's graceful fingers, touching her chin and causing her to laugh. It would be a magnificent shot (no pun intended) later, when looking at the actual video, which was played twice over, once in slow motion. But for Blake, it was all an instant, as his orgasm burst and graced Lily's face and then fell back down to Earth, or, as it were, his belly, as her hands still worked and urged out the last few spurts out of his spent penis. He let out another breath, and then, to put a wonderful cap on the whole endeavor, Lily leaned down and planted a kiss on his slippery crown, something she had never done in her videos (mouth-to-penis contact, that is), but now reserved for him, and even though that was something he had experienced with the waifu summoning program, here it was all too real, all too sweet, and it nearly made him pass out, that one pure instance of heightened pleasure at the pursed ends of her innocent lips, with the glaze of his orgasm coating them. He was sore, sore from the raw contact of her mouth in that moment of release, and sore from her touch. She leaned back then, and relaxed her body as if to communicate that the shot was done.

"Well, that was short work, wasn't it?" she said, and Blake felt immediately embarrassed.

"I-I'm sorry.  I should have lasted longer."

Lily just laughed. "That's okay, it's fine. It'll make a great video."

Blake was suddenly aware of the guy holding the camera, zeroing in on his dribbling dick, and all the euphoria still hung but mixed with a feeling of the surreal. He had really done this. He had really done a porn shoot with his most favorite model.

And just like that, Lily got off the bed and left the room to go clean up, and the cameraman pointed his camera away to check the viewfinder, while Blake was left to lie in the afterglow of what he had just experienced. And afterward, he would watch the video again and again with a point of pride, watching the view counts climb, and knowing he was there being pleasured by his goddess. Though in the events that led up to this, she was humanized more than ever in his mind, and in combination with that, and the reality of what he just experienced, he had no need for a waifu summoning program from there on out. The phenomena was still a thing, and videos were still shared by users, but the novelty of it soon died off, as it definitely did for Blake, who would forever hold this moment in his mind as the ultimate fantasy, fully realized.

For the Birds

Charlie's roommate's cat swished its tail as it watched the little nuthatches hopping along on the back deck. Charlie, eating his late breakfast (more like brunch, or even lunch) smiled from the little barstool kitchen table that sat between the kitchen and the living room. The nuthatch searched around for fallen birdseed, found nothing, and then eventually flew away. Then the cat, Ink Stain, turned to Charlie and meowed.

"Yeah, I'll go get you some more food. Them, too."

The bird had been searching the deck because the feeder was empty, and Ink Stain's supply was getting low, too. Arnold would kill Charlie if he didn't keep his pet fed, so he made it a point to actually get up off his ass and go out. Afterall, the birds needed to be fed, too, and that was Charlie's department, because he liked watching them. But first, he leisurely finished his leftover Little Caesar's Batman Calzony.

It was hard for him to get motivated to do anything, because for the first time in a while, he had the giant house that he and Arnold rented all to himself while Arnold was off on vacation. Being one to love his "me" time, Charlie relished every minute like this. But he and the animals needed to eat. He finished all but the last few bites of his greasy calzony and then decided to throw the rest out over the edge of the deck. Ink Stain tried to wriggle out as he opened the door, but Charlie shooed her away with his foot. Outside, the deck overlooked a small backyard and a line of woods beyond that, with a shallow creek that only ran with water when it rained. It felt like he was in the middle of the woods, but in fact there were houses close on either side of him. He and Arnold lived in a subdivision, and the back deck was positioned so that part of the chimney blocked the view of the neighbor's backyard on the left and the neighbors on the right could only be seen if one leaned out over the rail far enough. It was pleasantly isolating. Arnold always boasted about sunbathing nude out here, which Charlie thought was weird, so he always avoided walking by the porch door in the morning when the sun beat down on the deck directly. For now, though, he chucked the leftover bits of calzony as far as he could and already heard the crows cawing to come in for a meal. He smiled and went back in, where Ink Stain was patiently waiting.

"Alright, you wait here, I'll be back."

Ink Stain only meowed.

Charlie went upstairs to grab his wallet and put on something a little more presentable than the moth-eaten shorts he bummed around in, and he walked through the grand house, marveling that he and his friend had made it out so lucky to live in such a nice place (Arnold made the bigger bucks and thusly contributed to the majority of their rent, which was how he was also able to afford the vacation he was boasting about: The Big Nude Boat, an entire nudist cruise; he had invited Charlie, but Charlie didn't think he'd be comfortable being naked with his male friend, or in front of a bunch of strangers, or having to avoid looking at penises and fat bellies the entire time). His keys hung on a hook in the kitchen and he grabbed them and bid Ink Stain one more farewell before heading out the door and walking to his car parked on the sun-baked driveway. The neighborhood was alive in front of the house and looked the complete opposite of the wooded back lot. Charlie waved at a woman power-walking along and then got in his car and carefully backed out, making sure not to run over her, or any kids, or dogs, of which there were plenty in his neighborhood.

He drove the five minutes it took to get to town and pulled into PetSmart. He would have gotten his birdseed—and a few groceries for himself—at Ingles or Kroger, but Arnold was picky about what his cat ate, and he could only get her fru-fru high-priced cat food at PetSmart. At least Charlie could get birdseed there, too, and if he was lucky, maybe a candy bar. Or he'd go through the Arby's drive-thru nextdoor. He didn't really feel like going into two different stores.

He got out into the harsh sun and already felt tired making his way to the front of the big store. Running errands was one of the things he most disliked; it took up so much time and you got exhausted from the sun. He didn't know how people enjoyed walking around all day shopping, or sitting at the beach, or, like Arnold, hanging out on a cruise ship for several days. Charlie preferred the indoors and to be off his feet. It was amazing he wasn't overweight. Rather, he was rail-skinny, an amazing feat considering his diet. He figured he was blessed with an awesome metabolism, and dreaded his middle-age years. He should start seriously trying to bang hot chicks while he could, he always thought, before he got a pot belly and man-boobs. Love, though, like everything else, was something he was lazy about.

As he neared the front of the store, Charlie slowed and looked at a table that was set up in front, with a strange man sitting there. He had a long, scraggly beard and a straw hat on his head. He also wore an ice-cream suit, no doubt stifling in all this heat. He looked like the old stereotype of a Jewish mobster. As Charlie got close to the doors, the man made eye contact with him, grinned, and beckoned him over.

"Come, come," he said. "If you desire high-quality birdseed."

Great, Charlie thought. He could just get the birdseed here, rush in and get Ink Stain's food, and get the hell out of there, because he was pretty sure the bird stuff was all the way on the complete opposite side of the store from the cat food (as if the store employees were consciously separating cats and birds as natural enemies of each other). Charlie stepped up to the man's table and saw that he had stacks of birdseed bags behind him, and a little postcard on the table, which was lined with a cheap red tissue tablecloth. The card had a photograph of a happy bird at a feeder and the logo of the brand floating over the image: Lady Bird.

"It is ten dollars for a bag," the man said without Charlie needing to ask.

"Wow, that's a little pricey."

"It is premium seed. Grown only in this state. If you love birds, you will love Lady Bird."

"Well I'm not the one who's gonna be eating it," Charlie joked.

"No, of course not," the man laughed, and he waited and looked at Charlie intently. He was about to pass it up, but something inside of him finally said why not? He was springing extra money for the cat, he might as well treat his birds as well. He just hoped they weren't picky.

Charlie dug in his wallet for two fives. "I'll take one bag," he said.

"Excellent. You will not be disappoint."

He couldn't quite place the man's strange accent, vaguely Middle-Eastern or even Eastern European. He wanted to ask the man where he was from but figured it would be rude. He wanted to at least know where he had come from locally, where he sold besides here, and where he could get the seed next time, but he was too bashful. He just took the heavy bag from the man, and then thanked him, and when inside the store, he plopped the bag in a shopping cart so he wouldn't have to carry it, and he rushed to go get the cat food. He hoped the cashier wouldn't be suspicious of him shoplifting when he didn't ring up the birdseed, and he explained he had bought it out front, and the cashier just wrinkled her eyebrows and glanced to the front of the store and then shook her head. Then she rung him up without saying anything. He left the store and waved at the man as he left, and then he did go through that Arby's drive-thru on the way out.

*****

Ink Stain was demanding as always when he entered, meowing over and over until he put some food in her dish, even though it was far from dinnertime. She ate as she pleased. Then, he took the birdseed out onto the back deck and slowly filled the two feeders he had placed out there, and he could hear the birds chirping happily in the background, which made him smile. Then he went in, put the remainder of the seed in the pantry, and walked past the window, already seeing little birds come to feed, and he plopped down on the couch again to take a nap, the last things he heard being Ink Stain's dry munching and the songs of the birds through the nearby sliding-glass door.

*****

He awoke, probably not too much later, to the sound of Ink Stain growling deep down in her throat, and when he raised his head, there she was, looking out the window and swishing her tail. He didn't have time to laugh at the cat's obsession, however, because a lot of movement on the other side of the glass caught his eyes and soon was impossible to ignore: a slender pair of legs, and a naked fanny, long, bare back, and wavy black hair spilling down it. Then the woman turned and faced the window. All at once, Charlie was greeted with the full-frontal sight of a random naked woman on his deck. Her breasts were sizable, not huge, and she had a flat stomach and wide wedge of black pubic hair, which Ink Stain seemed to gaze up at. She had a sparkling, grinning face, like she was amused with something, and curiously, over her eyes, there was a black stripe like The Lone Ranger mask, only painted on, it seemed. She grinned through the glass but did not seem to see Charlie or his roommate's cat, yet she gazed in as if she was curious. Behind her, too, were other women, one tall and slender, with very long and straight light-brown hair, small, barely protruding breasts, and as she turned and moved her mouth, the first girl looked back at her. This girl had a painted strip across her face that was much narrower, barely going around her eyes. And a third girl, standing beside that one, was leaning into the bird feeder there and scooping seed out onto her palm, which she then threw to her mouth, chewing hungrily, and the curly dark locks on her head moved up and down as her jaws worked, tickling her golden shoulders, the sun kissing rather puffy nipples at the ends of her fat cones. Charlie sat up. Then the first girl turned to the storm window again and attempted to walk right through it. The glass shook and both she and Ink Stain jumped back, and the girl marveled at the window as if was something she'd never encountered before. Charlie finally got up.

He stood there for a moment and marveled as the girl did, and then her eyes lowered and she seemed to notice him, for they lit up and she moved her mouth. He could hear her voice, muffled through the glass, but he could not tell what she was saying. She was grinning, though. Charlie wiped his eyes, knowing this had to be a dream. How lucky could he seriously be for three naked women to appear on his back deck in the middle of the day? If it wasn't a dream, then they must be neighbors, perhaps drunk or just adventurous. He looked at the first girl, the black-haired woman, from her soft-looking locks to the hypnotizing swells of her breasts, then back up again before he could be hypnotized by the rest of her, and looking at her face, especially with the Lone Ranger-style mask painted on it, he could not recognize her. He stepped up to the door, put his hand on the handle, looked down and brushed Ink Stain aside with his foot, and stepped out into the warm summer afternoon. All three women instantly turned to him, and this could not have been a dream, for the sun baked on his scalp and he smelled the cut grass from down the street, and a gentle breeze tickled his ear lobe and tossed the free-flowing hair of the girls, who either stepped back or stayed their ground, depending on the girl. The one by the feeder watched him closely, while the brown-haired girl stepped past the retreating black-haired girl to investigate him closer, her slender body moving like a snake, his eyes falling to her small, faint breasts and his tongue suddenly licking his lips. His throat was dry.

"Umm... who the heck are you?" He asked. The brown-haired girl chirped something—literally chirped, from deep in her throat, and the black-haired girl turned to her and rattled off so many syllables it didn't even sound like a language, only chattering, and she ended rolling an “R” in her throat, and then she looked at Charlie, and her grin grew.

"Is this some sort of prank?" he asked, his eyes wandering, helpless to find something polite to settle on, but there was desire and allure everywhere. Then, to his right, some motion in his peripherals caught his attention and there was a fourth girl climbing the porch stairs. She had vibrant red hair and no mask of any kind, and she was very tall and her hips moved hypnotically, framing a wedge of fur as red as the hair above. She looked at Charlie with a smirk, and then slowly made her way behind the black-haired girl to the feeder, where she carefully placed her palm and with the other hand shook some birdseed out. She quickly brought the meal up to her mouth and threw it in, chewing voraciously, and bits of seed fell on her breasts, which were about as large as the black-haired girl's, only paler, beset with freckles, and her areolas a bright pink. Then the black-haired girl stepped up to Charlie and brought her face right to his. She lowered and sniffed—audibly sniffed—his neck, placed her lips on the fabric on the shoulder of his shirt, and explored him. Reflexively, he put his hands up, and he did not know what to do.

"Uh...."

She buried her face into his neck, and he looked at the other girls and then to the side, terrified of his neighbors catching a glimpse as the red-haired girl leaned on the railing and looked out at the back yard, her butt thrust out and facing him, rosy, a glimpse of her sex visible just at the bottom.

Charlie placed his hand on the black-haired girl's shoulders and she pulled her face away and looked right at him, still grinning. Her lively breasts below were mere inches from his chest. He tried not to pant.

"So like, are you guys on drugs or something?"

She only stared at him blankly. Charlie was beginning to wonder if he should call the police, for something definitely wasn't right. It was not normal for a group of girls to wander on someone's porch, be unable to talk, and be hungry enough to consume fistfuls of food meant for animals. He started to back up towards the door, and the black-haired girl followed his steps. The others began wandering the porch. The red-haired girl turned from the railing and walked gracefully to the left side, casting a sidelong glance at Charlie. One of the other girls threw herself down on the lawn chair out there, which squeaked with the force of her gravity as she stretched her body out, putting out her arms and legs and then bringing up one knee and seeming to enjoy the fresh air on her skin and the remnants of the sun as it passed over the roof of the house. And, to Charlie's right, coming up the steps were even more girls. He jerked his head away from the one in front of him to marvel.

"What the hell..."

Another red-head, but in a pixie-cut, spiked a bit at the top, and thinly-built except for some voluminous tits, ascended with a grin, and just behind step to her left, a caramel-skinned goddess with long, straight, black hair. And even beyond them, Charlie saw more motion of bodies lining up to come up the stairs.

"What the hell, what the hell..."

He broke free of his black-haired girl and went to the railing, where one of the original three stood by the feeder and looked at him as if in greeting, but he ignored her and leaned over to look, and on his lawn, like Night of the Living Dead, were at least half a dozen girls wandering, of varying shape and color: some of them very pale, others dark-skinned, some thin and almost child-like, other voluptuous, and various markings adorned their faces, accents of colors across their eyes or up their foreheads. Who the hell were all these girls? He backed away from the railing in somewhat of a terror, and he bumped into the black-haired girl, who looked at him with a little bit of concern, though she was still smiling.

"Better call... better call someone," he said aloud, but to himself, and he turned to the door.

Ink Stain backed up and reared her head as Charlie entered, with the black-haired girl right behind him. He looked back and found himself laughing and nodding and he let her enter, then he quickly closed the door, even though some of the other girls were coming close out of curiosity. All he needed was Arnold to give him hell for letting the cat out, amidst whatever other mess he was about to get into. He went to the kitchen area, where he thought he had left his phone, and the black-haired girl followed, looking all about the wide-open room in wonder. Ink Stain suddenly disappeared, perhaps freaked out, as was Charlie, for he could not find his phone. He stood by the kitchen counter and looked at the nude girl wandering through the living room, her butt passing by the top of the couch, hovering over the glass coffee table, the interior light gracing her bare back, a sight he never would have figured he'd see in this house. He was beginning to feel less like calling the police as he stared at her. He cleared his throat.

"Can I get you something at least?" he said, and she turned around and stared at him from across the space, her face quizzical now, her body delectable. "Do you want water? You know... water?" he said, miming a drinking motion with his hand, but she just stared at him. As he let his arm fall, his palm rested against his hip and he felt his phone there in his pocket. Oh, duh, he thought. I had it on me the whole time.

The girl began to walk from the living room to greet him, and he put aside the need to call for help for the moment to go close the space. He came from around the kitchen counter and walked towards her, passing by the porch door, where he saw a mass of nude girls gathering, some peering in, others faced away with just their bubbly butts presented toward the window. He met the black-haired girl between the glass dining table and the back of the living room couch. She put out her hands, and he instinctively took them. She looked at him with a tinge of worry now, and her smile faded, like she seemed unsure of being here. She kept looking up at the ceiling and swiveled her neck about.

"It's okay, do you want to take a seat?" he asked her. He gently tried to lead her around to the front of the couch. She moved her feet at the last moment, lest she fall over. He still held her hands. Slowly they walked around the furniture, the girl's head still panning over everything in the room, Charlie hardly believing her bare body was so close to his; he almost wanted to free one hand from hers and place it against her taught and perfect-looking skin, and again he licked his lips at the sight of her buoyant breasts below his gaze, the close presence of her sex next to his hidden in clothes. He for some reason thought of Arnold, on his Big Nude Boat cruise, and wondered how he would be acting in this situation. He decided to slowly guide her to sit. He lowered himself onto the sofa and gently pulled her hands. Her head was darting all around, and then she looked down at him and their eyes met. She yanked her hands free and let out a short yell; it almost sounded like "help!" but was most likely not a word at all. Charlie quickly leaned forward and made to stand up, but this just seemed to terrify the girl further. She yelped two more times and turned and ran from him.

Great, Charlie thought. Now he had a panicked naked girl in his house. How would he explain that to the police if he called them?

The girl was circling the living room looking for an escape and yelping all the while. Charlie stood but did not pursue. In fact, he didn't know what to do. He saw that Ink Stain had come out of hiding from under the couch and was laying on her belly, observing the girl, tail swishing. He stepped over her and around the couch and did the only thing he could do: he opened the sliding glass door.

The girls on the porch had dispersed except for two of them, the two originals who had come up with the black-haired girl, and they smiled and slowly approached, but Charlie put out his hand. They didn't seem to understand that gesture, though, and made like they wanted to come in. He looked back and saw the black-haired girl helplessly circling the living room and he called "hey!" and stood aside to show her the exit. A pair of breasts appeared at the doorframe and he put out his arm, the chest of the curious girl pressing into him like the softest pillows. He looked at her and blushed and then called for the girl trapped inside again. The one at the door saw the situation and made a commanding yelp sound, not panicked, but authoritative. This got the other girl’s attention, and she made a beeline for the door, with Ink Stain suddenly jumping at her and trying to nick her ankles. She hardly noticed as she trotted over, her chest bouncing, and Charlie dropped his arm and the girl flew out of the house, leaving the other girl standing there in her wake, but then she too turned. Charlie stepped out and saw them running down the porch steps, and the one other girl on the porch brushed past him and hurried down as well. Charlie rushed to the railing and looked out to see all the girls rushing towards the treeline. Their feet crashed through the fallen branches and then they were gone, just a memory. Charlie slowly backed away from the railing and stood there for a moment, then he turned and got startled as Ink Stain dashed out from the open door and brushed past his legs.

"No you don't."

He reached down and just managed to catch her by his fingertips, lifted her up to a displeased meow of protest, and took her inside and closed and locked the door.

*****

He didn't call the cops. He thought about calling Arnold. But instead he just sat there on the couch, processing everything. By the time the sun went down, he hadn't even made dinner. He eventually turned on the TV, looking at the local news channels, figuring he'd see a story about streaking girls or strung-out college kids. There was nothing. When Ink Stain meowed at him insistently, he realized he needed to feed her, and as he stood and went to go get her food, his stomach growled and he figured he should make himself something, too. But then, his phone rang. It was his mother.

"Hey Mom, what's up?"

"Charles, I'm so sorry..."

"What? What happened?"

"I don't want to ruin your evening, but your grandmother passed away today."

If there could have been another shock to his system, this would have been it, but Charlie was still reeling from the day's events.

"Are you there, sweetie? I'm sorry to have to break it to you."

"...Yeah, I'm here. I'm just shocked."

"I know, we all are. She was only seventy-two. It was a stroke. I don't know anybody who lived more healthy than her. I guess it can happen to anybody."

"Yeah, wow..."

"Are you going to be alright? I know you're all alone this week."

"Yeah, I... I just need some time to process this."

"Why don't you come over tomorrow if you're free?" she asked. "Come say hey to everybody else."

Charlie bit his lip.

"Gee, I'll try, I got a little something going on..."

"All by yourself? I know you like having your alone time, but please set aside some of it if you can. This is family."

"I will ma. I mean I'll let you know."

"Okay, honey. Take care."

"I will, ma."

The call ended and Charlie stared at the wall. Ink Stain was still meowing for her dinner.

*****

Don't let a bird enter your house or it will herald the death of a family member. So the old wives' tale went. Charlie only now put all the dots together: the behavior of the girls, running into a window, being terrified of being trapped inside, and assuming superstitions were true, one would also have to accept the supernatural possibility that those girls were in fact the birds he fed every day. But how could that be? The only thing that had changed was obvious: the new birdseed he had bought from the strange man. It was a ridiculous thought, but what if the birdseed had somehow caused the birds to transform? He thought of going out and driving straight back to the PetSmart to confront the man, but that would mean going out, and he wasn't feeling quite up to it yet. Instead, he went out onto the deck, cool in the early-morning light before the sun hit it (he was surprised he was up this early), and checked the feeders. After the girls' gorging from the day before, they were nearly empty. A few nuthatches hopped along the railing, and he studied them, wondering if they were the ones he met yesterday. He decided to go back in and dump the remainder of the bag into both feeders, feeding Ink Stain along the way, and he went back inside and sat at the dining room table with a cup of coffee to watch. Guiltily, his grandmother didn't enter his thoughts much, but when she did, Charlie reminded himself he should call his mother, at least to say he didn't feel well enough to come out. He was too embedded in this little mystery. Soon, the birds came.

It was just the little nuthatches at first. They hopped down the railing to the feeder and dipped their beaks in, taking bits of seed up, visible between their sharp mouths before they swallowed them, and then they went back for more. Soon other birds were gathering, and Charlie sipped his coffee.

A cardinal came, sampled the food, and then left. More nuthatches and a little wren came next. They were all feeding happily. It looked like any mundane morning scene on the back deck. Charlie began to think that his encounter the previous day had been some fever dream. Maybe he had actually slept the whole day but didn't realize it.

Then there was a great flash. Charlie raised his hand to shield his eyes and spilled a little coffee on himself and cursed. When he looked back, there was a thinning cloud of smoke, and standing there were at least five naked women, some of them, like the black-haired girl, recognizable from the day before, and others were new. He had seen so many naked girls on his porch already that it was hard to keep them all straight.

"Son of a bitch..."

He watched them, gazing upwards as if they were glad to see the sun, passing their eyes over each other as if they were glad to see their friends, glorious and glowing, so much bare skin that Charlie again licked his lips and slid out of his chair. He came up to the glass and peered out, and the girls didn't seem to notice him. They only multiplied; a few other birds tested the feeder, and soon there was a puff of smoke and now at least a dozen naked girls were crowding his deck. Charlie slid open the door.

They all turned to him and chirped happily. The black-haired girl was somewhere in that whole mess of girls, but she was hard to make out. All were smiling, though. He closed the door behind him.

He couldn't think of anything to say, feeling—knowing—that they could not understand him, so he just sat at the outdoor table, wishing he’d taken his coffee with him, and prepared for a morning of gazing at beauty. And there was plenty to look at. The girls went about their business, scooping handfuls of birdseed out of the feeder and throwing it into their mouths, while others just wandered the porch. A few came over to him, leaned in their heads to investigate, and then moved on. He just enjoyed all the sights, all the passing bodies of bare, uninterrupted skin, the soft bounce of breasts in motion, the flexing of thighs and dark triangles between, the slight jiggle of their butts as they moved. Their hair brushed against their bare shoulders as they turned in the breeze, and delighted faces marveled all around. Charlie, his grandmother far distant in his thoughts, thought that this must be what heaven was like. With a ten-dollar purchase of  Lady Bird seed, one could transpose paradise into their very home. What a wonderful product, he thought, and reminded himself that he would need to go out right away and buy some more, as many bags as he could afford, for he would be out of it now after this feast was done. And then he got an idea.

Unburdened by any guilt that he was dealing with drug-addled junkies or inebriated party girls, fully in the belief that what he was dealing with was a fantasy world that had landed in his lap, Charlie got up, passed through a sea of naked bodies, and went to the feeder. He put out his hand and tipped a handful of seed into his palm, all while the girls crowded around him and made chirping and barking sounds. They followed him like hungry dogs back to the table, where he sat, and, with the seed filling his hand, he pulled at the waistband of his pants and dumped all of the food down in. Then he leaned back and waited, and the lady-birds swarmed.

No shame, he thought as they all took a knee around him and began pawing at his crotch. It's about time I do something nice for myself and indulge. If this was a fantasy land, he was going to milk it for all it was worth. The girls seemed agitated when they couldn't figure out how to get to the seed, and they ran their fingers down the denim of his jeans and the delicious friction filled the crotch. To assist them, Charlie tugged at his zipper and pulled it an inch downwards, and then the girls seemed to get the idea. Instantly hands swarmed over his fly, grasping for the zipper, fingers trying to pry their way inside. Nails scratched against his trunk and Charlie winced, but he sat there and tried to relax as two plucky fingers found a grip on his zipper and got it down. Birdseed spilled out, and hands dove in, and an infinite number of fingers were crawling over his growing erection as breasts hung in his face and the scent of their hair hung in his nose. The deft hands withdrew his penis, which came out of his fly with a thwap and surprised all the lady-birds with gasps and "oohs" and "awwws". At the sight of his arousal, they all dove in, quite alarmingly, like a feeding frenzy about to start, and Charlie tensed. Mouths came down at the base of his dick to suck up the birdseed that gathered around it, while other curious lips pecked and prodded at his rigidness. The black-haired girl's face appeared before the masses, with her mouth poised right over his crown, and she lowered her lips and pursed them over it. Charlie took in a breath and she took him in, the heat and friction of her mouth upon him, but then he winced as she pressed down her teeth, and he reached through the women to push back on her forehead, and she retreated and looked at him quizzically.

"No, it's not food," he said. "no bite."

Other mouths were soon swarming his member, lips pursing against the side of his trunk, a few more teeth prodding, corrected with a pat on the head, and soon the message was communicated, for they were all just slathering his trunk with their pursed lips, those that were not gobbling up the birdseed scattered across his lap. His cock bumped against cheek and lip and forearm and finger in a tangle of a frenzy and Charlie could only hold his breath and thank the birdseed man for the gift he had bestowed upon him. His heat was building, and it was all too much. Arnold would never believe him.

When all the seed was eaten and another pair of teeth pinched his head, Charlie motioned them back and then took matters into his own hands. He grasped his penis and the faces raised, waiting, as he stroked furiously before the assemblage of eager women. He let out a ragged breath, took in another and held it, and felt the heat billow and his crown swell, and he bit his lips through the sudden burst of pleasure as he erupted before them, so painful he almost closed his eyes, so blissful that he was glad he didn't, for the sight of his ribboning and rocketing first shot bounding up before delighted eyes and glancing an arrant chin was pure bliss, and then they all swarmed in. Cheeks and lips pressed against his dick as he burst forcibly onto their skin and groaned, knowing the neighbors would hear, and going into a trance-like state as the ebbs of pleasure traveled from cheek to chub, streams of pleasure streaking their faces and trailing down his trunk, and the mouths covered his cock, lapping up every last bit. Long licks traveled up his length, lapping licks collected what had fallen at his base, and pursed lips closed in on his tip, and finally Charlie did finally close his eyes, and sighed. Hands pressed on his shoulders and his chest and a dozen mouths kissed and flurried over his pulsing passion. He was glad he carried forth with his idea.

Then a commanding call, a caw! came from the wind, and the girls scattered and dispersed away from his dick, which was left waving in the wind, and another girl came through the crowd. She was tall, freakishly tall, almost seven feet, and her skin was as pale as a snowdrift, but her hair as black as night. Her eyebrows were thick and defined, and she had an intimidating glare and a grin that made Charlie shudder. She cawed again, and the girls pressed to the edges of the porch, and the tall goth-looking girl descended on him, and Charlie knew she must be a crow. With ruby-red lips parted, she came down on what was left of his passion and slid his wholeness into her, all the way to the back of her throat, where he found friction and bliss, and she brought her mouth all the way to the tip, ending in a smacking of the lips and slaking what semen was left off of him and leaving him with a shudder and a groan, and he twitched in his chair and reached out for her, and she descended upon him and his face was staring at her pale chest, her sizable chest, and soon his lips were buried between her breasts. She hugged him like a mother comforting a child, and Charlie was lost in her. Then he thought he heard the faint "ding-dong" of the doorbell heard through the glass door, and he opened his eyes—he didn't even realize they were closed again— and stared into the crow's pale skin and heard the doorbell again.

He sat up, and the goth girl backed up quickly, issuing forth a caw and looking at him as if he were a sudden threat, her body poised dominantly above him, her hand placing itself on her hip, where framed was a strip of raven-black hair. She looked at him as if he were mad, and then the doorbell rang again.

Shit, he said, stuffing his dick into his pants. Shit, shit.

As he stood, the girls scattered but stayed on the porch. He nodded to all the faces staring at him, thankful for what they did, but now he needed to go inside, and they watched him curiously as he stumbled to the porch door, the crotch of his pants growing damp.

He made sure to close the door securely behind him and he stumbled past the living room to the front door, limping until his cock settled comfortably in his jeans. Ink Stain was circling him and he stepped over her and went into the foyer, where the doorbell rang once more. Charlie feared the worst: that one of the neighbors had seen the girls or heard his moan of pleasure and was coming to complain. There was no peephole on the door, nor did they have a doorbell camera, and he felt like he had no choice but to answer, in case it was trouble. His mother was standing there when he opened up.

"Sweetie, you didn't pick up your phone, I was worried."

Shit. "O-oh hi, Ma."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I've just been busy."

"Oh, what could you possibly be busy with? you're just trying to hide from things. Here..." She held up a stack of what looked like journals. "These were your grandma's old photo albums. She always wanted you to have them. Take them."

She thrust them towards him before he could even think to put his hands up. They were very heavy, and he held them close to his chest.

"T-thanks. I'll take care of them."

"You don't have to come out today if you're busy, but we'll let you know when the funeral is. You might have to buy some good clothes to take."

"I have decent clothes," Charlie said, noting the uncomfortable feeling at the crotch of his jeans and suddenly fearing that he had left a mark on his t-shirt, but he didn't dare look down.

"Mind if I come in for a bit? I'd like to sit."

"Oh, well, I uh..."

"Come on! I'm your mother!"

Charlie was helpless to stand aside as his mom pushed her way in and let the door softly close behind her. When she entered the foyer, she sniffed the air, wrinkled her nose, and sniffed again, but she didn't say anything.

"What were you so busy with anyway that you couldn't even answer your phone?" she asked as Charlie slowly walked with her down the foyer, hoping to steer her to the right towards the kitchen, as far away from the porch window as possible. "Were you just playing video games? Oh, hi kitty!"

She bent down to pet Ink Stain, who stood indignantly at their feet, and Charlie glanced towards the porch door nervously and saw the girls were still there, almost all of them, shoulder to shoulder on the deck, a mass of bodies that could not be missed. He bit his lip and readied to steer his mom away, but when she leaned up from petting the cat, she froze.

"Oh my."

Charlie looked at his mom, at the mass by the windows again, and then back to his mother, hoping that this would be the moment where he found out that only he could see them, but his mother's reaction was obvious.

"So this is what you've been busy with."

"Look, I didn't invite them, they just showed up. I don't know who the hell they are.”

"You don't have to lie to your mother, Charles. Now I see why you like having the place to yourself. I'll just... I'll just get going..."

She backed away from the main room, back into the foyer, stumbled when she almost tripped on Ink Stain, and then she turned and practically fled for the door.

"Mom!"

Before she opened it, however, someone knocked. It was more like a quick, rapid rapping, not alarmed, but distinctly like the sound of a woodpecker hitting a tree. Charlie's mom looked back at him, and Charlie just shrugged. Then his mom turned and opened the door.

The crow girl was standing there in the open frame, her hand still raised and her fingers stiffly out; she had been prodding at the door rather than knocking like a normal human. His mother reeled back at the sudden nudity, cleared her throat, and said "well I'll just leave you to it." She stepped forward to move past the tall girl, who hopped back but stood poised on the stoop.

"Don't let her in!" Charlie shouted and rushed forward.

"It's okay, honey, Momma will get out of your way. I'll call tonight, for sure.”

The crow girl was already coming forward to take his mother's place at the door and Charlie rushed forward and stuck out his hand to keep her from entering, his palm settling directly between her breasts. The girl looked at him incredulously. His mom, almost to her car, looked over her shoulder and shook her head. The girl tried to push her way in, but Charlie kept pushing back, and he looked into her eyes and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You can't."

As he stepped back and brought the door closed, the last three things he saw were, one: the crow girl giving him an offended look; two, his mom climbing into her car and starting the engine rather quickly; and three, a neighbor standing on the street, staring at the naked woman on Charlie's doorstep. Then the door was closed and locked and Charlie collapsed against it while the crow started rapping on it again.

*****

He sat there at the door for what seemed like almost an hour. The rapping stopped shortly after he closed the door. When he got up and went to the living room, the porch was empty. The birds were gone. It was now only lunchtime. he didn't see Ink Stain for a while and was afraid she had snuck out when the door was open, but he didn't care at that moment, and just collapsed on the couch. Eventually the cat came out and hopped up to snuggle with him, something she rarely did, and Charlie petted her and thought numbly over the morning's events.

After an hour, he no longer worried about his mother and was eager to make up with the lady-birds, and feeling suddenly motivated, he grabbed his keys and wallet to head out.

"I'll be back," he told Ink Stain, and left the house. He got in his car to drive straight to PetSmart to get more of the birdseed. As he got in, he looked for any neighbors who might be staring at him, but nobody was out.

He was extremely disappointed when he pulled in front of PetSmart, because the man with the table wasn't there. He stood staring at the empty space where he had been set up, and then finally went in to talk to a cashier. The slightly-perturbed young girl at the customer service desk narrowed her eyes at Charlie when he asked about the man.

"He was here just yesterday. Does he only come certain days of the week?" he asked. The girl sighed.

"He's not supposed to be here. He was here for three days straight until we threatened to call the cops, and then he just picked up and left."

Charlie blinked. Who the hell was that guy?

"Where'd he come from? I wanted to buy more birdseed from him."

"I couldn't tell you. He's just some local nut. Try asking around on social media."

Charlie sighed and thanked the girl and then limped out of the PetSmart, defeated. He drove around for a while, looking for any tables set up on the roadsides or at other stores, and then went home. It was almost dinnertime, but he sat and put on the television and stared at it as Spring Break reality shows came on full of girls in bikinis, which made him think of the birds, and he turned off the TV and just thought of them again until Ink Stain hopped up on the couch and meowed for dinner.

*****

Arnold came back home a few days later, much tanner-looking and full of energy.

"So how was everything here? Any emergencies happen?"

Charlie thought about telling his roommate of the strange encounters he had had with the lady-birds, but bit his lip and withheld it instead. "No, nothing out of the ordinary." It was probably obvious, though, that he was hiding something.

"All good," Arnold said. "Tell you what, I had a great trip. You should really come sometime. It's great to be able to walk around without worrying what to put on, and you get so much sun. And of course, there are naked women all around you!"

"I bet..."

"Say, are the neighbors alright? When I pulled in, Stacey next door kind of glared at me. I don't know what I would have done to make her mad, but it might be my imagination. You sure nothing happened while I was out?"

"Nope. Just sat here and watched movies."

He was sitting on the couch now, though the TV was off. Arnold shrugged and busied himself in the kitchen for a minute, and then came to the dining room table and looked out at the deck.

"Damn, what's got the birds all riled up?"

Charlie didn't have to look, for they had been swarming the porch ever since the day his mom visited, chirping angrily and even pecking at the window. He lived with that sound for several days already, and it never stopped.

Intimate Sharing 3

Madeline took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and felt her heart seize as she un-draped her robe from her shoulders and let it fall, and then there was no turning back. Before her were the dozen or so students of Mr. Lindbergh's art class, a fairly balanced mix of males and females, all gazing intently at her nude body on display as she stood on a small two-foot platform and raised her arms above her like Venus.

She shouldn't have been that nervous. Outside of the two quick relationships (okay, one failed relationship and a rebound fling), she had been naked without the motivation of sex in front of Carter, the kid who lived across the street back home. But even that turned into sex eventually.

She sighed, thinking back to when she had first disrobed in front of Carter in her own home, and how shocked and mystified he was by the vision of his longtime crush nude, and how that apparently got his wheels turning, with him inviting her over two days later and offering to get nude. And then... Well, she instigated what happened after that, she supposed.

But Carter's demeanor did seem to change, she noticed. Innocently jacking him off and having him reciprocate with his face between her legs had somehow freed him, it seemed. She was worried it would be the opposite, but Carter, the boy who was always knocking on her door as they grew up, now seemed to not need to be ever-present. After that last encounter, Madeline went a whole week and a half without hearing from him, but perhaps it was out of embarrassment from his father walking in on them that day. She didn't think Carter was in trouble; the old man seemed amused. But the memory of those few seconds of his eyes passing over her completely bare body, slouched on the couch, with nowhere to hide, tingled her with a mix of emotions, from embarrassment, disgust (for she did not like the idea of a friend's father, an old man, holding her image in his head, though he didn't seem to look at her with any held attention or lust), but also excitement, and a dawning sense of freedom. The freedom was freedom from embarrassment. From immodesty, even objectification. She couldn't control what other people thought when they looked at her. She couldn't control whether or not Carter's father masturbated to his brief nude memory of her, or whether Carter went to sleep imagining her naked and in bed beside him, but she could control how she depicted herself. And with body positivity in mind, she signed up to be a life model for Mr. Lindbergh's class, knowing that some of her peers would be in the seats, but yearning to truly feel the freedom she thought she had briefly experienced. The terror was real at first, but she must have gotten used to it, for Mr. Lindbergh called for rest, and Madeline realized that she had been going through all these thoughts for a long time, and only now did the faces of her peers appear before her, and her own vulnerable nakedness was felt as her hands fell and brushed against her bare skin. The heat of a blush filled her face and she bent down to pull up her robe.

"Alright, guys, just take five and get some water or use the restroom, and we'll start again," Mr. Lindbergh's voice cut into the silence, bringing Madeline fully into reality, the reality that she was naked under a robe in a room full of people. But those people leaned back from their easels, some stood and stretched, and others left the room, none of them seeming to be aware of her. Mr. Lindbergh came to her and asked her if she needed anything, but besides that, she was not talked to or stared at or flirted with or treated like anything other than someone who was there to do a job, and she felt relaxed. The only other set of eyes that went in her direction were Vicky's, Madeline's roommate, with her long black hair and devilish smile that made her the object of every manic pixie dream girl-lover's desires, and she grinningly gestured with a double thumbs-up.

"You were great, Maddie," Vicky told her after the class—and her second pose, lying flat on a table, her knee drawn up, staring at the ceiling, which was much easier than looking at her spectators. "The stuff of dreams."

"Heh, thanks," Madeline said. "Do you think it was a little racy?"

"Yeah, a little bit, but that's what made it great!"

"I guess..." Madeline chewed her lip, thinking about how she presented herself in situations like these and how she couldn’t control what other people thought. She didn't want to be objectified, and she did not choose the poses...

"It was classy, though," Vicky said as they walked through the halls of the art building, Madeline now dressed in jeans and a simple blouse, a little form-fitting above and below, and she was now painfully aware of her body underneath. "Too classy for The Girl Factory."

The Girl Factory was a strip club that Vicky liked to visit, usually with guy friends. She wasn't a lesbian; maybe she was bisexual. Madeline wasn't sure, but she seemed to enjoy seeing naked women strut their stuff. She even enjoyed objectifying herself, having just started a nude video game stream. This may have been the first time Vicky had seen Madeline naked, but Madeline had certainly seen Vicky naked many times by this point. And eventually, they might both be naked together, with hundreds of other naked people, for finally, the long-asked-for event was coming to their campus: a naked 5K run. It was in lieu of The Naked Bike Ride, which was something that had been done in the past but which was deemed too hard to control. It was also something that Carter, back home, was insanely interested in.

"Hey, what about your young guy friend," Vicky said as they stepped out into the blinding sunlight. "Wasn't he going to sign up for that class?"

Madeline swallowed, said "I don't know," but knew he was looking forward to it, because as of this semester, Carter was enrolled as a freshman.

*****

"No way... she took off her clothes?"

Carter's new roommate, Keith, sat on the edge of the bottom bunk and leaned forward on his knees, listening to Carter's recounting of his intimate sharing with Madeline.

"Yeah dude, it was super-casual. She just asked if she could relax naked. What was I going to say? No?"

"And did you do anything?"

"No. Not then."

"What? Man, how many times—"

"Just twice. We just hung out the first time. We even laid on the bed. Dude, it kept me awake for days. But then she came over to my place, and I, well..."

"Nice dude, keep going."

"I asked her if I could get naked."

"Nice!"

Carter went about telling his roommate, a little guiltily, of his experience with Madeline, both naked, his arousal impossible to hide, her hand perhaps involuntarily reaching out towards it, and the resulting fun that transpired.

"That's incredible, dude" Keith marveled. "That's like something out of an erotica story."

"Kinda. I guess I'm pretty lucky. Anyway, that's why I'm gonna do this naked 5K thing. She told me about The Naked Bike Ride before and since I've already been naked in front of her, I figured, why not?"

"Oh man, I don't know if I could do that."

"It's no big deal, really, when you get down to it." He said that, but he still wasn't sure if that's how he felt, for it was kind of a big deal.

"You go to nudist beaches or something?"

"No, never been. It's just something I've always found crazy."

"Sure is crazy. I don't know how you could get naked in front of a bunch of other people. I'll watch, though."

"Even if I'm out there?"

"Well... that would be weird, but there are going to be plenty of girls to look at. There are going to be girls, right?"

"I'm assuming so," Carter said, knowing Madeline had shown interest in the event, but she had obvious hesitation when she talked about it. Carter was worried she felt uncomfortable around him ever since their encounter before the start of the semester. But maybe she was just not sure how to process all of what happened. Carter had an easier time processing it. All his pining had seemed to dissipate. Once his dad laughed off catching him and Madeline in their post-orgasm glow, he had clapped his son on the back and got him in the mindset for what he would see at college: scores and scores of beautiful girls to talk to. His shyness had disappeared, and likewise, his attachment to Madeline loosened. Now he just wanted to be her friend.

He saw her at the food court later that day and waved and went over to her table. She was eating with her roommate… Vicky, he thought her name was, and she was captivating enough to make him forget he had ever had a crush on Madeline. Her hair hung long and straight and black, and she had piercing eyes and a sly smile that showed off slightly-elongated canine teeth, making her look predatory. And he had the uncanny feeling that he recognized her from somewhere.

"How're your classes going?" Madeline asked him, with a little flatness in her voice that made Carter sad, for it didn't seem like she wanted him there.

"Good," he said. "Kinda boring, but I guess it's supposed to be like that."

"Freshman year is just like high school," Madeline said. "It'll get better."

"Hey, how's the sign-up going for that art class, babe?" Vicky asked him, and her voice was pure Satanic silk. "You gonna come see your friend show it all?"

"O-oh, yeah, I'm uh, waiting to hear back from the professor..."

He watched Madeline blush and look down at her chicken sandwich. He had signed up for the class, and he did know Madeline had become a model for it, and he couldn't deny that he looked forward to gazing up at her, as he'd already seen her, but now with the opportunity to immortalize, a little bit, the effect she had on him. It was with no forward intent, but he felt Madeline shrinking inwards as the topic was brought up. He didn't want her to think he was chasing her. He was actually more interested if she was going to take part in the upcoming naked 5K, not because he wanted to see her naked again, but rather to see if they could run together out of solidarity, since they had already shared so much together.

"You should have seen her today," Vicky cut in, leaning forward with her hair hanging over the table, her devious face framed there, her eyes almost hungry-looking. "She was great."

"Vick, please..."

"I'm just whetting his appetite!"

"I-I'm just interested in the class, really."

"Right..."

Carter thought hard about how to word his next question, for he was interested to see if Madeline was going to take part in the 5K. He opened his mouth and tried to form words amidst Vicky's alluring stares.

"I-I was actually going to ask, semi-related, i-if you were going to do the 5K this Friday."

"Awww yeah," Vicky said. "Wanna see her and all the other hot girls shake their stuff?" Vicky asked.

"I-I was just interested in going..."

He watched Madeline's face shift, watched her raise her eyes from her food and look at his imploringly, looking for any trace of bad faith there. Then, the longer she held his gaze, her face softened, and she almost smiled.

"Yeah, I'm probably going to be there. You?"

"I was planning on it."

Now her smile filled out fully, and Carter felt nothing but relief and warmth.

"It's gonna be a fun time," Vicky said. "I'll be there, too."

Carter looked over to her and trembled slightly at suddenly imagining her as he'd seen Madeline. It wasn't what he was going to the run for; he honestly wanted to experience casual, non-sexual nudity, but the thought of her out there suddenly made him tremble with anticipation.

"G-great, well I can't wait."

He watched Madeline's face subtly shift between a varying number of emotions that he couldn't fully decipher, but finally she smiled and said: "Well, I guess I'll see you there."

*****

The night of the naked 5K loomed, and Madeline finished her studying for next week's exam and sat back from her computer while Vicky circled the room in a nervous, anticipatory walk.

"Ready to go soon, babe? It's almost time."

"Yeah, first I need a shower, though..."

"You do you, go get clean."

So, despite the fact she was about to go outside and be naked for hundreds of spectators and participants, Madeline grabbed her robe off the hook by her bed and walked out the door with it and her bag of soaps and shampoos.

In the large communal bathroom, she stripped off her jeans and blouse and embraced how she would be presenting herself in just a few minutes. There was nobody in the bathroom at this hour, but she still felt on guard for some reason. She was not one to flaunt about in there like some of the other girls did. She didn't know why, but it was strange. Life modeling would help that feeling, she knew. As she stepped into the shower bay and picked a stall, however, she felt more secure, felt more sure of her body. This is who she was, this is what she looked like. She shouldn't need to feel self-conscious about it. As the steaming water washed over her, it washed away those feelings of self-consciousness along with the grime and sweat of the day, so that when she stepped out of the stall amidst clouds of steam, she felt reborn. She thought of how she looked to Carter on the two occasions she had gotten naked in front of him, and wondered what she looked like in his eyes. Surely it couldn't match what she looked like now, a freshly-clean erotic vision drifting through steamclouds. As she exited the shower bay, she grabbed her towel and dabbed at herself and walked to the sinks without putting her robe on so she could look at herself in the mirror. From just the chest up, she liked what she saw: a seemingly-innocent girl nextdoor, dark red locks flattened against her shoulders that would soon dry out and curl, twin winks of her bubblegum-pink areolas looking back at her... she thought she looked charming. Not that it mattered what she would look like. Events like the naked 5K were to encourage freedom and body positivity, no matter the gender or body shape, but this was a college campus, and eyes would be assessing. She assessed herself well, then went back to retrieve her toiletry bag, finished drying her hair and then brushed her teeth, and then she had the idea to walk back to the room without the robe. She would grab it later. All she grabbed were her dirty clothes and her toiletry bag and she stepped out into the hall with the most heightened sense of exposure, but nobody was there. She just marched down the empty hall in the nude until she got to her and Vicky's door, and Vicky was not at all surprised when Madeline walked in nude.

"Got into the spirit, huh?" she asked. "Are we going to leave the dorm like that?"

"Yeah, why not?" Madeline said. "Might as well."

"I like your thinking," Vicky replied, and stood up from her desk to peel off her shirt. She had been so comfortable naked live-streaming at her desk lately that Madeline was surprised that she wasn't nude already. But soon, she matched Madeline in immodesty. She was built similarly to Madeline, with a smallish chest, but she was a little taller, and consequently thinner-looking. Lanky wasn't quite the word; it was graceful. Vicky was very hypnotizing in her nudity, all the way down to her wide-angled pubic hair, jet-black as the hair atop her head. She smiled calmly as she stepped out of her last piece of clothing and assessed Madeline, saying: "ready to go?" They both made for the door.

Even though she had her roommate with her in solidarity, stepping out into the hall naked and making the long march to the stairs and the lobby was terrifying. But she knew nobody would stop them. It was the naked 5K, afterall. They were allowed to be nude. Nobody had said the dorms were off-limits. When they got down into the lobby, they saw their first people, for there were a few girls hanging out, watching TV. Only one turned her head and noticed the two, and when she shouted "shake a leg!" the others turned as well, and Madeline and Vicky exited the building amidst cheers and whistles.

More soon followed as they walked away from their dorm room and headed downhill towards the rest of the campus. Vicky could hardly believe she was outside. The air was warm and it was now dark, though Madeline didn't feel they had the cover of darkness. There were plenty of lamplights and headlights from passing cars—each one honked—that there was no hiding. And there was no use in hiding, for in a minute, they would be expected to be on display. They walked down to the center of campus and past the closed-up dining hall, passing a group of guys walking from the other direction. They slowed and quickly noticed and admired the sight. "Damn," the lead one, with a backwards baseball cap, said. Another pulled out his phone. Madeline was struck with a slight note of terror, but she knew there were going to be a lot of pictures taken that night. Vicky just seemed to eat it up, and grinned and waved.

"Hi guys, you aren't going to miss the naked run, are you?"

They kept walking past them and Madeline saw the guys conversing with each other, overhearing a "yeah dude, let's go check it out," and then they were behind them, and the feeling of eyes on her was somewhat gone. Public nudity was still something Madeline was not accustomed to. She was glad that she had Vicky with her. Or, at least, she thought she was glad. There was something about her tireless energy that was overbearing, like how a constant talker is annoying to somebody with a hangover. But without her, Madeline doubted she would have the courage. They climbed up the hill, past a few other random people walking about, who all froze and silently watched the two girls pass, and soon they were at the edge of campus, stepping onto the sidewalk and following it to the center of town, where soon Madeline's fears were allayed, as up ahead were dozens of others already naked. She let out a sigh of relief; she wasn't going to be the center of attention now. Or so she thought. As they neared the gathering, guys standing on the sides whistled, more cameras flashed, and even other naked runners turned their heads to the pair, male and female. Madeline saw a great many people she recognized: a nerdy girl from theater history class, surprising in her complete bareness save for her glasses still on her face, with breasts quite large, a slight paunch on her belly and hair untrimmed, but shameless. She saw the handsome guy who was in the Army, who had left to fight in Iraq, now back and leaving no doubt about his physical prowess, chiseled in stone, nor his endowment, swinging with ample momentum. Madeline found her eyebrows raising and now found herself to be the voyeur, but they quickly passed him. Soon they were surrounded by other naked people, too many to focus on, and everybody's nudity soon felt natural. There was no need to stare; everybody was in the same boat here. Despite it all, she looked for Carter and did not see him yet. She humorously thought that it wouldn't be a problem of not recognizing him without his clothes, for she had already seen him naked.

Vicky began talking to people and saying "hi," or sometimes "subscribe to my streaming channel!" and Madeline loosened up and soon saw familiar faces looking towards her, searching for a hello. She slowly became social. She said hi to a girl from her literature class, and, more awkwardly, a shy, quiet guy who was her partner in biology labs. He quickly looked down to avoid looking at her, then found the bravery to meet her eyes without being afraid of hers drifting down to his body. She was surprised he had come out for this. This was a chance for everybody to show their true selves.

Soon an organizer, a senior, clothed, strangely, came through with a megaphone and thanked everybody for coming and told them where to line up. Nude bodies moved past him, him unaffected, and mingled around the starting line. The man went over the route: through the historic downtown, then down the highway that led towards the Walmart and other shopping centers until they would take a right, cut through the town park, and then up the road that led into campus, where they would circle before finishing in the front of the dining hall, where Madeline and Vicky had just passed, which from there they could easily walk back to their dorms without trouble.

"So where's your buddy?" Vicky asked, finally turning her attention back to Madeline and making her suddenly aware of her nudity all over again.

"I don't know," Madeline said, running her hand briefly over her bare skin and getting a wave of goose-flesh at the realization that her body had nowhere to hide. "We didn't really agree on a place to meet."

"Maybe he chickened out," Vicky said. "Shame."

Vicky held that last word like she was going to add something else, but then she suddenly said: "Oh, there he is," and Madeline turned to where she was looking and saw Carter and his dweeby roommate push through the clothed crowd at the sidelines. He was still dressed, and he looked out at the mass of naked people with something like awe, and he didn't even see Madeline. His roommate said something to him and they both leaned in close to each other to exchange words, and then Carter looked back out at the crowd, directly at Madeline but not looking like he noticed her yet, and he pulled off his shirt. She watched his roommate step back as if the naked male body were radioactive, and Carter's pants dropped as quickly as his shirt fell to the ground. Through the crowd, Madeline saw him bend down again to take down his underwear, and then he came up with all his clothes in a bundle, which he turned to hand to his quickly-retreating roommate. He practically had to force the clothes into the kid's hands, and Madeline found herself laughing. Then the organizer was calling for everybody to get ready, and Madeline looked away just as Carter returned to where he had undressed and crouched again, obviously putting on his shoes.

"Crap, Vick, we didn't bring shoes," Madeline said. Vicky didn't seem too concerned.

"Oh yeah... whoops."

Madeline lowered her eyes, something she hadn't done too much of while surrounded by private parts, and saw that everybody had running shoes on, a funny sight with the rest of the body bare.

"How could I forget something like that?" Madeline said. She had felt the distinct feeling of the pavement on her feet when she had stepped out, but just accepted it as part of the feeling of nakedness.

"It's okay, people run barefoot all the time," Vicky said.

"They do?"

"Yeah, Kenyan runners train barefoot. And there's a whole subculture of 'barefoot enthusiasts' who do everything barefoot, even running. They're like the nudists of the podiatry world."

"Cute."

"The trick is to run on the balls of your feet, like our ancient ancestors did, not heel-to-toe."

"Okay."

"It'll come natural. Think of yourself like a gazelle."

"What about glass and nails and crap?" Madeline asked. "Maybe we should go back."

"Too late. Here's your little friend."

Carter then came through the crowd and found himself beside Madeline and Vicky.

"Hey Maddie," he said with a faint tremble in his voice. "I made it."

"Just in time."

Madeline was helpless to let her eyes pass over Carter's lean body. His stomach was trim and his arms had faint, boyish definition to them, and through a small puff of black pubic hair, his penis rested, small, at ease, unlike how she had seen him when his excitement could barely be contained. It was kind of cute this way. Vicky apparently thought so, too, because when Madeline looked over to her, she was grinning that devious grin she sometimes wore, and her eyes were pointed downwards.

"Hey there," she said to him. "Ready for your run?"

Madeline watched Carter look up at her roommate and visibly shrink away.

"Y-yeah," he said, turning into the shy schoolboy that Madeline remembered him as.

"Your friend doesn't want to join, huh?"

Carter turned and looked back at his roommate, who stood on the sidelines and looked to be in awe that Carter was talking so easily to two bare-naked beauties.

"Nah," he said, turning back and composing himself again in the face of Vicky and Maddie's nudeness. "He's too bashful."

"Well you sure aren't!" Vicky cast her eyes down again, and out of the bottom edge of Madeline's eyes, she thought she saw that his penis lengthened. Carter's eyes fell downward—quickly past the torsos of the two girls—and settled on their feet before looking back up again with an arched eyebrow that dashed away some of his shyness.

"No shoes?" he asked.

"No,” Vicky said, looking at Madeline and then grinning at Carter. "We're one hundred percent au-natural."

"I forgot 'em," Madeline explained.

"Are you going to be alright to run? I can go get them, if you want."

He was falling into his usual subservient self in the face of female accompaniment, and Madeline was about to tell him it was alright when the organizer shouted and said "Alright, on your marks!"

"Too late now."

They all faced forward and waited for the go-ahead. Madeline bounced on the balls of her feet and felt the springiness there, felt her chest bounce too as she did, and her nervousness was a combination of her exposure and her unsureness of her abilities.

"Get ready... go!"

And they were off. The sea of shoulders and necks in front of Madeline dispersed forward and soon there were bounding naked butts in front of her. She sprang on her feet like Vicky had instructed and found it surprisingly doable, even comfortable, and already people passed her, parting around her, Vicky, and Carter. And then she was out in the open, not in the protection of the crowd's concealment, and she looked to the side to see people cheering and jumping up and down, phones being held up and flashes going off, and her chest buzzed with excitement and exertion. Vicky was to her left, and Carter to the left of her, separated from his crush but part of the apparent group.

"You don't have to stay with us," Madeline said breathlessly. "You can go ahead if you want.”

Vicky answered for him. "Solidarity!"

"Solidarity," Carter repeated, but with labored breath. And so they ran. They entered the town square, where there were even more spectators waiting. The terror built up inside Madeline again, but she kept her pace. There was no turning back. She was a nude spectacle now. The town square was like a gauntlet; everywhere Madeline's eyes turned, there were wide-open eyes and grinning teeth, all of them directed at her body. But she ran, and the more she ran, the more she got used to doing it barefoot, even though the rough pavement felt like it was cutting into her soles. She pushed through, imagining the callouses already forming. She was strong. She could do this. She was doing this. Only Vicky seemed to falter.

"Ow, this is a bitch!" she yelled out. Carter, reflexively, asked if she was okay.

"Yeah, this just hurts like a mother. We sure were stupid, huh, Maddie?"

But Madeline was too out of breath to answer. She just focused forward. The end of the square was in sight, and then they would have a nice, easy downward progression towards the business district. But as she ran, Vicky fell out of step. Madeline heard her voice call out "I need a break, keep going!" and Madeline did, even when Carter, in her peripherals, fell out of line as well. Then she was by herself, and she felt more exposed than ever in her new solitude. The last of the spectators cheered her on, and she was now the center of attention, running past flashing cameras and cheers and pumping fists, feeling her chest bounce, her bare thighs working, and suddenly feeling very exhilarated, and she pushed through the square and found herself on the darkness of the country highway, legs and lungs pumping, alone and naked...

*****

"Ow, sorry, I need a minute."

Carter didn't know why he found himself slowing and staying with Vicky, Maddie's roommate, but he did, and Maddie kept going. Maybe it was gentlemanly instinct, or maybe it was the pure allure that she exhibited, only the second girl he had seen naked, and, though he harbored the biggest crush on Madeline since forever, Vicky was a vixen in the flesh, tall, sinuous, raven-black hair above and below, and with an air of confidence, confidence in her own nakedness so that she didn’t care who was looking or leering. The only thing she apparently wasn't confident in was running barefoot, and she came to a stop at the corner of the old barbershop and an antique store across the intersection, and there she slowed, crossed the street, and then limped down the slope of a sidewalk that bordered one of the roads which led back to campus. He followed her instinctively and wanted to put his hand on her shoulder to make sure she was okay, but kept himself from doing so. He just kept behind her, her bare butt wiggling below his vision, and despite earnestly caring for her well-being, he found himself rising below...

She had taken him aback when he had first seen her naked, for sure. And with her direct eye contact, she was the thing of many boyhood fantasies. A motherly maven, a goddess unaffected by modesty. And stepping up to her and Madeline, as radiant as ever in the new light (he was only used to seeing her in the subdued lighting of her bedroom or his living room) was equally intimidating to face with his body completely bared. But he went through the motions. He adapted well to his own nudeness, and Kyle was probably impressed with his bravery. And that's when he knew where he had recognized Maddie's roommate from: he had seen her, curled up naked in a swivel-chair, chatting with followers and playing through a game of Doom Eternal in the most unaffected state, perfectly natural. She was Vicky Slain, naked steamy streamer. He actually felt a little bit starstruck.

"Let me just catch my breath..." she said, and she stopped at the end of the back of the antique shop, right at the entrance to the alley between that and the flower shop next to it. She leaned forward on her knees, her small breasts gaining gravity and weight as they pointed down to the ground, and then she lifted a foot and massaged it.

"You're awfully sweet to stick with me," she said. Carter was a little taken aback. He almost felt himself blushing, as well as a rush of blood still coursing its way somewhere else, which he tried to prevent mentally. He tried not to notice it, hoping it may go away.

"I guess I'm just a gentleman," he managed to say. Vicky looked up at him and grinned.

"So I've heard! Maddie's had a lot of good things to say about you."

Carter gulped, gazing at Vicky half-hunched over, her sinuous body bent at the mid-section, creating straight wrinkles on her stomach and captivating him with her smallish breasts still giving in to gravity. He wondered what Madeline had said. Was he a "gentleman" because he... He trembled suddenly at the memory of it, of his lips pressing against her netherlips, and the heat and the taste, and Maddie's hand pressing his face in further. The memory was suddenly shaken when Vicky stood up straight and looked up and down the street, and then, surprisingly, took Carter's hand.

"Come on, I feel awkward with people staring at me."

She pulled him towards the end of the building into the grassy alley between the antique shop and flower shop, and Carter looked over his shoulder to try and see who she was afraid of seeing. He only saw one or two people walking, their backs facing them. The race had moved on, and so had the spectators.

In the shade of the alley, Vicky let go of Carter's hand and they faced each other. Vicky let out a big sigh and swung her arms by her sides. "Whew! I'm not cut out for running I guess. Not that I ever thought I would place."

"M-me neither," Carter said, faced with her visage so close in the shade. Even in the alley, light from the town square crept in and highlighted her body in gold accents. Her areolas contrasted in the dark against her pale skin, and the tangly triangle below was but a teasing impression. And despite the shade, there was no hiding his erection now. He tried to ignore it by adding "that's not what the run is about, anyway."

"No, you're right," Vicky said, seeming not to notice. "It's about having fun, right?"

"Right." And then, trying to think even more: "It's about body positivity. Good clean fun."

Now she snickered, and her eyes cast downward.

"Good clean fun, eh? Is that what that's about?"

Carter's mouth went dry. he was caught, red-handed, but Vicky didn't seem to mind. She actually raised a hand—he was waiting for it to grace his most urgent and sensitive extremity with excruciating anticipation—and placed it on his shoulder. Despite the mundane contact, he shivered, and below, he twitched.

"I..."

He wanted to reach out, to reach out and touch her, to place his hand along her side, to cup a breast, but he was frozen, petrified, to use a word, and Vicky's gaze kept him like that, like the trance of a vampire. And then, with her other hand, she reached forward and grasped his erection, and he didn't have time to tremble; he just throbbed in her warm grip, and then, she pulled him in by his penis, and he fell into her and his mouth pressed into hers (he had to stand on his toes, for she had a few good inches on him), and they kissed passionately, while Vicky wrung him out. As his head poked through her grip, it touched her thigh, and he pulsed and savored the kiss, his first kiss (he hadn't even kissed Maddie, except for below, and the memory only made him harder as Vicky squeezed and pulled and savored him). Their lips stuck together for a second as they released, and she breathed into his face as she twisted on him. Now he had permission, he thought, and he raised his hands to touch her, but Vicky descended. Her free hand traced his chest, and soon she was on her knees, with her other hand working his helpless erection in a swiveling motion before her face, and her other hand joined in the work. Carter let out a ragged breath.

"All you have to do is relax," Vicky said. "You sure got yourself worked up, didn't you?"

He worked his mouth to say something in response, and internally could only think "uh-huh..." in a helpless tone, but he was unable to speak as the waves of pleasure hit him, Vicky's constant hand-motion, and the warm touch of her lips suddenly on his crown. That about did it for him; not even Maddie had applied her mouth to him. All it had taken was a simple stroke and he had lost it into her fingers, but here an equally-beautiful girl parted her lips and passed his tip into them, and all he felt was warmth, passion, yearning, and the realization of every porno dream he had ever had. When she puckered her lips on his crown and gave his dick a little smack of a kiss, he thought he was going to lose it then, but he didn't, and everything beyond that point may as well have been a dream.

"Mmmm," Vicky hummed, as if his dick tasted good, as if she were in fact a porno star from any of the videos he had watched for the entirety of his adolescence, and she rubbed his dick into her face, over her lips, pushing into her cheek, every throb of his heartbeat transmitted to her, the both of them connected through his dick. She closed her eyes in pleasure, he pulsed, and when she opened them again and flitted them upwards to him, meeting his eyes, that's when he lost it. He had a clear picture of her smiling face before and after the first shot burst onto her cheek amidst his straining to keep his eyes open and the unbearable pleasure of his ultimate crisis. Her lips parted into a toothy smile at the contact, and the second and third shots spattered on the cleft of her lip and draped over her open mouth respectively, and then she stuck out her tongue and the last burst of any worthy distance landed firmly on it, and she retracted her tongue and swallowed while the final feeble shots tumbled out and Carter tried to find his breath. Before he did, though, Vicky pulled him in again and rubbed his throbbing member across her face, sending waves of post-orgasm bliss through him and making him groan. He was suddenly aware of where he was and hoped he hadn't voiced his pleasure too loud. Vicky didn't stop, crossing his slick head from one cheek to the other and then finishing by wrapping her lips over it to suck him dry, and then his porno dream was truly fulfilled.

When she finished and leaned back, Carter let out a breath, and Vicky stood, rising up past his head and looking down at him, the amber streetlights casting glare on the slick of his semen on her face.

"Now I feel better," she said, and she leaned in again to kiss him. Carter almost thought to resist, but then her wet lips were on his, as was the unique taste of her which he had just gotten used to, mixed with the taste of himself. She did the kissing this time, and when her lips left him, he felt the moistness of his own semen on the cleft of his lip. He wiped it away immediately, but she did not clean herself. Instead, she let out a little burst of laughter, turned, and left the alley. Carter was left standing in a daze, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Immediately he heard cheers rise up as Vicky made her appearance on the street, no doubt clearly displaying the new addition to her face. He stood there panting, ready to run out, but realizing he was half-erect, moist with brimming, leftover orgasm. He breathed, deep and long, taking in the humid night air, which smelled awful in the alley, like must, festering condensation from the air conditioning unit there, the musk of something dead or discarded, and he suddenly felt the need to leave before he puked, so he left the alley. Immediately he was met with cheers, and his heart froze up and he ran, what was left of his erection waggling in front of him. He pushed forth past the onlookers, looking for Vicky, but she was already gone, and humiliatingly, he passed through the town square and the last bit of spectators watching him at his most vulnerable point, until he was on the country road leading away, in the cold light of the moon and nothing else, just him and nobody else, nothing on his body, and then the air was sweet in his lungs, and he picked up his pace, and suddenly felt alive.

*****

Madeline had made it to the finish line by the dining hall and slowed to catch her breath amidst the other nude runners milling around, and she felt naked and exposed all over again, and without her moral support. She put her hands above her head, an exposing gesture, and paced. Others were doing the same, but the ones who finished early had already caught their breath and were talking to each other. A few happy congratulations were shouted Madeline's way, and she met eyes with the naked friends who said them and nodded. She felt again more at ease. By the time her hands fell back down to her sides, she was calm, and felt in her zone. But where was Vicky?

She soon had her answer, because there was a bit of a commotion, and when Madeline looked in the direction that everybody else was looking, there was Vicky, making her lonely victory lap, hardly even running, just sort of power-walking. Madeline quickly made her way over to meet her, shaking her head at how much of a celebrity she was being treated as; she knew Vicky was hot, but this was a bit much. She almost felt jealous. But then she got close and saw why the others were cheering.

Vicky faced her and grinned wide, and the marks on her face were almost as white as her teeth. Madeline's jaw fell open as her roommate came up to her.

"Hey there, I got slowed down, you could say."

There was not much left of what might have been a bigger display from earlier, but there was enough shininess and opaque whiteness on the cleft of her lip and on her chin that there was no mistaking what was on her face.

"Vicky... holy shit, when? How?"

"Let's just say a little friend came up to say hello."

What the fuck, Madeline thought. Did somebody just come up to her and do that? No, of course they didn't. Madeline knew exactly what happened, but she could hardly believe it...

"Wipe that off your face, oh my god," she said, and already people were circling around, raising their phones, and Madeline blushed, for once not at being naked, but at being seen with her randy roommate. Vicky relented, though, and wiped the spunk off with her wrist.

"Alright, let's get out of here," Madeline said.

"What about your friend?"

The clothed organizer from before was walking around as if the race was over, handing out little badges to the people who had finished in the top three. He didn't make any concluding announcements and didn't seem to have noticed Vicky's racy display. As far as it was concerned, the race was over. Hardly anybody noticed the last, lone runner coming around the corner of the dining hall to cross the finish line. Only Madeline watched as Carter crossed over and slowed to a trot, his chest out and his penis noticeably longer at rest than when he had first undressed, and he looked more confident than she was used to seeing him. He looked sort of triumphant and athletic. She opened her mouth to call out to him, but he instead locked eyes with someone and his roommate stepped out of the crowd, his shoulders hunched, looking like he was feeling awkward around so many naked people, not to mention his male friend. He handed over his clothes and Carter took them but didn't get dressed, he just tucked them under his arm and patted his roommate's arm (making him again shrink back uncomfortably) and they walked off. Carter seemed in a hurry. Madeline dropped her hand which she had begun to raise in order to wave him over, and Vicky patted her on the shoulder.

"I think he's embarrassed. Come on, let's go."

And though the naked runners were slowly becoming not naked anymore, standing on alternating legs and climbing into their pants, Madeline and Vicky veered off from the group, up the hill back towards their dorm, two nude girls setting themselves apart from the herd. Nobody stopped them.

When they got back to the dorm, they found themselves celebrities, greeted by more cheers and twice as many people who had cheered them on their way out. Madeline didn't know if it was because word of Vicky's display had traveled, or just because people were excited to see that they hadn't put their clothes back on yet, but whatever the case, Madeline and Vicky ended up talking in the lobby with their new fans for a while. Well, Vicky talked, quite openly, standing without covering herself, as if she were standing there clothed, while Madeline stood there and folded her arms, effectively covering her breasts, at least, but leaving her lower half exposed, and she felt like lowering a hand to cover her bush, but it all seemed pointless in the end. Standing there naked for those few minutes was the most uncomfortable she'd been all night, and she began dancing on her feet until Vicky got the message, and she bid farewell to the other girls and joined Madeline as they hurried up the stairs.

They came out onto their quiet hall and made their way to their unlocked door and rushed in, and even then, Madeline did not feel comfortable. She wanted to put her clothes on right away, but Vicky fell into her chair and slouched, and Madeline eventually went to her chair and sat. She quickly made herself get used to the idea that it was naked chill time. She wanted to get into her bed, but she had a film of sweat on her. She needed a shower again. But first, she questioned Vicky.

"So you and Carter... You...?"

Vicky laughed.

"It was all me. All the kid could do was stand there in shock. You should have seen how hard he was, though! He was so cute..."

Madeline swallowed, but said nothing. She just imagined Carter standing with his erection proud and pointed towards Vicky's grinning face, such a different picture than she had when she looked back to her innocent encounter with him. Vicky observed her silence and spoke up.

"...That doesn't bother you, does it? I know you mentioned you had a little casual naked time with him. Do you like him?"

Madeline shook the cobwebs loose.

"No. I mean yes. I mean, he's like a little brother. I'm not jealous. Just... surprised, that's all."

"Should anything I do surprise you at this point?" Vicky said with her trademark grin once again, gracing her chin with her fingers as she leaned forward in her chair.

"Not you. Him. Maybe I unleashed him a bit..."

"What do you mean by that? He hardly did anything. It was all me, baby." She said this as she raised her hands and flexed her fingers in twin grabbing motions, showing off the digits that did the dirty work on Carter that put the white marks on her face. And so Madeline, only having had vaguely told her roommate about her getting naked for Carter, fully disclosed to her what had transpired afterwards, when he had invited her over and they were both naked together...

*****

"No way, man. Really?"

Kyle sat in his chair while Carter took off his shoes at the edge of his bed (clothed, and sweating) as Carter recounted what had just happened twenty minutes ago.

"You probably think I'm a serial liar," he said.

"Before, when you told me about Maddie, maybe, but I know it's true. Her roommate came through the finish line with the proof right on her face!"

Carter blushed, both at the frank discussion and the thought that his own seed was seen by his roomie, which was a weird thing to be embarrassed about. Telling the brief story of his first-ever blowjob—in public, no less—was also unreal. He could hardly believe that he had experienced it. It also gave him some weird feeling of guilt, guilt about whatever his relationship with Madeline still was. He had already gotten over his attachment to her, strangely, after they had enjoyed each other sexually, but after the absolutely shameless and raw encounter with her roommate, Carter wasn't sure he could look Madeline in the eye again. At least not right after the race.

"You're like some mega pimp or something," Kyle went on. "You gotta teach me your ways."

"To be honest," Carter said. "I never have a fucking clue what I'm doing. How am I so lucky I don't know."

"Maybe rooming with you, some of that luck will rub off on me," Kyle said. Carter laughed, and then his phone buzzed in his pocket. He had already habitually checked it the second he got in the dorms, looking for a text or call from Maddie, but there had been nothing. Now, though, his closure was in sight, but when he looked at his phone, his eyebrows raised.

*****

The smallness of the room was stifling with all the other students seemingly crowded around him, even though there was more than four feet between each seat, and the easels propped up in front of them. The whole room felt small, because right in the center of it, Madeline sucked all the attention and focus so that it felt like she pulled everything towards her, like a gravitational pull once the robe dropped and her bare form was before him. Carter quickly took up his pencil and observed Maddie, his Maddie, his crush since he was old enough to respond to thoughts of her with lust, and his crush who he had blissfully seen naked, and then more, and then again in the company of other naked people, but at that point, it was nothing special. However, up there on her pedestal, as she put her hands on her naked hips, framing the neat little strip of aesthetic pubic hair that had mystified him a year ago when he had seen his first live naked girl (so beautiful that it was her and not just anybody), she took on all the mystique and wonder that had captivated him before, and with it, there was no lust, only wonder. There was nothing lascivious or overt about her nudity; she was just perfect as she was. It was, in fact, the most perfect light, both figuratively and literally, that he had seen her in, ever, and as he put his pencil-tip to paper, he tried to psyche himself up to capture that exact quality which revealed itself to him so fleetingly that he was afraid he was going to lose sight of it. That was impossible, though, as Madeline wasn't going anywhere for the next hour, and she was impossible to ignore, and she looked down at him with just her eyes, met his, and her mouth subtly smiled, and he felt incredible warmth of love and friendship. He had patched up his troubled feelings from the night of the race, and he felt at ease now, a new person. And then he looked to his left, past the pudgy guy who sat right next to him, to a few seats over, where Vicky leaned forward in her seat to flash her usual devious grin, her black hair hanging down and almost obscuring her devilish face, which seemed to goad him to react to the nudity of his longtime crush before him, and tease him of delights soon to come. She was part of his life now too, and there was plenty of intimate sharing to go around in only his first semester of college life.

The Strip Club Far from Nowhere

"So you don't go partying in town at all?"

Tess was sitting in the lap of a young man in the VIP section of Starlets Gentlemen Club, six feet from the stage where one of the other dancers was performing, having stripped off her G-string and now freely strutting nude through a shower of dollar bills and the drone of Eurobeat music. The young man's attention was equally divided between the girl on stage and the girl in his lap, and Tess helped gain his attention by rubbing his shoulder and then his thigh through the denim of his jeans. It was easy to seduce guys at the club, especially newbies, guys who came to the city to gamble and party and had no idea of the world outside the glitz and glam. It was all part of the business: collect some dollars up on stage, but then rope in eager men with mounting fees and tips for a private lapdance, and sometimes more, depending on the girl. Tess didn't consider herself a prostitute, but if the guy was right, sometimes she entertained him a little... more. It was all part of the business, and it was the only time her world bisected with the party city just ten miles away, between the strip club and the abandoned, dusty streets outside the apartment complex that Tess called home.

"No," she told the guy, massaging his back. "I just like hanging here, making money, and having fun. I don't really mess with all that tourist scene."

"Got something against tourists?"

Tess laughed.

"Of course not, baby, you pay my bills."

Now the guy laughed. Up on stage, Randy Roxy took a twirl on the pole, and her breasts pulled to the side with the inertia, which was always funny to see. The young man's eyes drifted to the sight, but Tess touched his chin and guided his eyes to her.

"Did you want to spend some time with me?" she asked him. It was how it went: cuddle up, make conversation like you're genuinely interested in the guy, and then lure him up to open his wallet.

"Gee, I'm kind of comfortable right here with you on my lap."

"Wouldn't you like to get comfortable upstairs?"

She hated using the obvious sales pitch speech, but it was how things were done. She massaged the guy's thigh again, and cuddled in close so that his face rested against her chest, against her breasts through the thin and minuscule nylon top she wore, hiding hardly at all her A-cups, and coupled with her G-string, she might as well have been naked. But the dancers weren't permitted to come down in the seating area in the nude. Nakedness was for the stage and for the private rooms, not for the seating area. Tess kind of wished for the freedom to strut around the tables and chairs as she was on stage, when she hypnotized young men with her gyrating act, where she did somersaults and twirls and tossed off an article at a time as she went until she felt fully free, and she never felt more free than when she was completely nude on stage, despite the arresting male gaze holding her there, holding her in a trance until the music stopped and she fell to her hands and knees to scoop up the money that had been thrown on stage, crawling towards the end and shoveling the money in front of her. She felt more at home naked, felt more at ease. How easier it would be to tempt men if she were naked sitting in their lap. But despite it all, the young man licked his lips and said yes, and Tess smiled and leaned in close enough to kiss the man, whose breath stank of beer, and she whispered "come with me." She stood off his lap and took his hand and gingerly led him away from the table and past the stage and through a line of other scantily-clad girls waiting for their next prey, and up the stairs. The club was alive as they passed through and would be alive for many hours, all the way up until sunrise, when the sun scorched the neglected and decrepit parts of town, where the homeless hid under bridges to escape the searing sun and the tourists just ten miles south awoke in their posh hotel rooms, looking out at the expansive desert and rocky mountains, going outside only to walk up and down the strip of bars and arts-and-craft stands and never-ending performers. At least half of them came to Starlets eventually, though, where it was always a party. At least, from sundown until sun-up. It was all the party atmosphere that Tess needed. She had her colleagues, most of which were friends, but others jealous competitors. She had her favorite bartenders, and when she wasn't strutting up on stage or prowling the floor, she hung at the bar, chatting with Steve, the longest-serving bartender at fifteen years, and smiling and greeting other guests, and wishing she could be completely naked, which would have to wait until she was up on stage again. Working at the club consisted of those time-freezing moments in front of the people and the long drone of the night going through its course as she mingled and the club got more and more crowded with both guests and newly-arriving girls. For now, though, she led the young man up the stairs, through a VIP lounge with girls doting on men on couches and a bartender working his own area, and through a curtain to the private booths. And it was there that the young man signed a sheet and agreed to buy a bottle of liquor and probably was realizing that he was beginning to sign away half of his savings as Tess then led him to a private booth, a circular felt "room" partitioned off with a curtain, and it was there that the young man splayed out on the seat and Tess began to get naked again, disrobing before his wide-open and disbelieving eyes.

Here was the part where she cuddled up against him, her bare skin against his face and under the touch of his hands, letting him explore her, within reason, as she danced and grinded upon him. This was the part where she would cup his crotch and feel his member twitch underneath his fly, and if the client was bold enough, he would take his cock out, or, if he was shy, he would sit there petrified as Tess did her thing. This man leaned more towards the latter, and Tess just amused herself by massaging his cock to full hardness underneath his pants, feeling it get constricted in its constraints, and feeling his hot breath on her neck, and then in between her small breasts as he buried his face in them. It was just another night at Starlets. Tonight she felt that she could do pretty good with this guy, and she crept up to his ear and asked him if he wanted her. "Yes," he breathed into her ear. She tightened her grip on his crotch. "You want me to take care of this?" she whispered. Again he repeated "yes." They almost always did.

"That'll be extra," she said.

"Whatever it costs."

"We'll take care of it when we're done.”

And with that, she tickled her finger down his fly until she gripped his zipper between thumb and forefinger, and slowly, she let it go down. His bulge struggled inside the fly, wrapped in the cocoon of his boxers, and deftly, carefully, she freed it from those constraints and pulled out his proud erection with a pop and a wobble, and with him breathless, she traced his trunk with her lips.

It was something not all girls did, and something hush-hush. Tess didn't mind, within reason. It was always a guaranteed payday as she felt his pure heat on her lips until she reached the top and kissed his rubbery crown. And then the man let out a little breath and a faint moan, and he was all hers. She reached up and put her finger to his lips as she pursed her own and let them slip over his crown, tasting the copperish taste of him as her tongue slid underneath his crest and then trunk and she took him in. Pulsing in her mouth, the man shifted in his seat and squirmed as she made short work, feeling a throb, and then hot release into her mouth, where she liberally swallowed and then pursed her lips over his oozing tip until he gasped and she pressed her finger to his lips again. And just like that, she made five hundred dollars.

Leading him down from the private room, Tess was dressed again, as little as could be considered dressed, and the young man's hand was in hers, and he was in a daze as she led him to the bar to collect his debit card which was held to keep his tab open, and then to the ATM. The club was more crowded than ever, and she had to shout to talk to the man. And then, after he handed her crisp, fresh bills, he wandered back to his seat, and Tess leaned against the bar and watched the current girl up on stage perform, a dancer that could be considered an enemy, for she never liked Tess all that much. Trixie was her stage name, and she was the only dancer besides Tess without tattoos, and currently, fully nude. She kneeled before a guy sitting right at the foot of the stage and she snatched his baseball cap and put it on backwards. She sat up and swayed her hips, looking like a punk girl from the ball ground as bills showered down her abdomen and fell into her open legs. Everybody was having a grand old time. Tess made her rounds again, and took up several more men before the night was through. She only had her one dance, and that was early on in the night. The latter half of her shift was spent like this, and when she felt she had enough money in her pocket, she paid her own tab (which she kept open to imbibe and prepare for each private lap dance she earned) and then walked out into the slightly-crisp night in her stripper clothes and a coat over them, walking past guys standing outside chatting and smoking and not even paying her any mind as she entered the dark parking lot and quickly got into her car. Then she would hit the road with the light pollution hanging above the field of lights that was the town outside the party city, until she turned into the gate for her apartment complex and got out, walking up to her single-story apartment building and entering the musty-cold smell of her place, where she would take a shower and then walk straight from the bathroom to her bed, where she would collapse. The next day would be half spent in bed and half spent out running errands in the difficult traffic, staying clear of the hotels and bars, until it was time for her to head out again.

*****

And so her nights went on. She looked forward to every one of them. She didn’t always open with a dance, sometimes already crawling the floor for hungry men, but she always looked forward to the nights when she opened, for even though they were less profitable than private dances, they were the moments she felt alive. Up on stage, with the inclination to cover herself at the micro-realizations that she was completely nude, and then surrendering herself to the flashing lights and the drone of the music and the thousands of eyes on her body, and then it was down to patrolling the room, looking for suckers, and entertaining herself a drink every now and then.

Her shtick for her dance was simple: she appeared on stage in her bra and G-string, and wasted no time in getting them off, as opposed to other girls who milked the anticipation. Tess primarily enjoyed performing nude, and that was the breadth of her show, after sitting down and teasingly taking off her G-string, sometimes walking bottomless across the stage, which felt more naked than actually being fully naked. And the guys ate it up. Dollar bills showered when she was on. She would practice her pole moves, climbing as high as she could, always feeling a little bit of vertigo when she did, and never quite braving going all the way up to the ceiling as she saw some other dancers do. She compensated, though, with some eye-striking moves, like falling down the pole and clapping her heels on the dance floor so hard that it made the guys sitting in front flinch, and she would also do a move where she spun on the pole with only her hands, throwing the rest of her body out almost parallel to the ground, a display of her perfected form in rotation for all to see, eventually falling to the floor and writhing amidst a shower of dollar bills.

And afterwards, it would be time to suit back up in the little garments she wore and seduce impressionable men, always still wishing she could be nude down on the floor. She always thought it would be a good idea, to have a club where gentlemen could relax and have nude girls come up right to them and serve them drinks or just give them attention. It was an idea she even offered up to the owners of the bar, but there were laws restricting that kind of conduct. Never mind that straight-up prostitution was going on upstairs.

Tess had her moment, though, on one fateful night, where she opened, as usual, and the DJ would announce her arrival, "and here we have the fan-favorite Tess Swain!" and she would march on stage and begin disrobing right away, starting with the bottom, the best part.

But then a man rushed up to the edge of the stage, with staff trailing him, and he shouted and opened his shirt, revealing a vest of what looked like dynamite. So many strange characters came through Starlets that Tess wasn't sure if he was just showing off or was legitimately a threat, until his words echoed over the music: "Death to you! Death to all this hedonism!" And he held in his hand what looked like a remote control, but which was clearly to Tess a detonator, and, without thinking, she marched to the edge of the stage, her bra falling off as she did, for it was in mid-undoing, and completely nude, she dealt a swift kick to the hand that held the device, and sent it sailing across the room. The man, in a sudden daze, stood there for a moment and suddenly reached into his coat, where then Tess, on intuition, grabbed the dancing pole and threw her weight up, twirling her body parallel to the ground as she always did, until her feet were pointed at the man, and she let go, delivering a double-footed kick to his chest and sending him flying. As she let go of the pole, she too went flying and landed right on the edge of the stage on her butt, sending sharp pain all the way up her spine, but she sat there, in a daze herself, as the shocked patrons looked up at her and down at the would-be terrorist writhing on the ground until security swarmed him. Then there was applause, and Tess slipped off the edge of the stage and stood among the throng of men and women and meekly bowed. And then, when she raised her bow, she was looking over a field of seated guests all clapping for her, while she stood in the nude right in the middle of it.

The man was quickly apprehended, and it was found that he was hyper-conservative and religious and saw the Starlets club as a hedonistic hovel rife for destruction. A nut. One saw all types in this town. In this club. No need to venture out. And as the man was lead away in handcuffs, Tess was awash in the attention she now got, standing before the edge of the stage, fully nude, with a chorus of applause directed her way. She never felt more alive, wanting to lower her head and bow to all her supporters, and ever-conscious of her exposed body. Nude, she stood before the crowd and bowed.

*****

That incident sparked a new paradigm for Starlets, and for Tess' show as well, as she became the local celebrity, even interviewed on the news despite the racy background she inhabited. She was now allowed to walk around the floor nude. And, additionally, she modified her act.

She would come out on stage wearing more than she was accustomed to: a one-piece leotard, bright blue, with a bright red faux belt bisecting, and hanging on her shoulders was a red cape. A Mardi-gras style mask rested on her nose. She was Super Tess, erotic protector. The crowd, those who knew of her heroics, ate it all up.

Tess would slink up and down the stage, closing her cape around her to hide her body (after standing proudly with her hands on her hips in a very heroic pose), and as she moved, she'd slip the shoulder straps of her leotard off and shimmy her hips until the garment slipped down her stomach, and with a little assistance from her hands, the leotard fell to her ankles from underneath the cape, and she'd step out of it, daintily turning on the balls of her feet to face one side of the crowd, and holding her cape close around her like a cold and abandoned waif, she would throw the cape open for just a second to give the briefest glimpse of her nude form, a split-second sight of her squared and dark pubic hair, existing now only as an after-image, accompanied by a tremble. She would twirl in place and let the cape lift and twirl with her as she faced the other side, giving an even longer glance of her body unburdened by clothes, those behind her seeing the cape gently fall to hide her petite butt, and then she was covered again. Then, she attempted the stunt she'd been practicing: she climbed the pole. She'd stop halfway up to twirl and let herself fall, but then ascended again, the cape billowing and falling all about her, still offering only teases of her underneath, until she was finally at the top. Way up at the top, touching the ceiling, she would pivot so she was facing down, her back against the roof, her cape hanging down but open for all to gaze up at in wonderment of her body sprawled out above, her legs braced on the ceiling almost as if she were climbing around up there like a Spider-girl. From her vantage point, the faces seemed thousands of feet away, and the lights pointed up from the stage made her squint. Then, with one deft hand, she pulled the string on the back of her neck that held the cape together and she let herself slide and twirl down, the cape coming loose and leaving just a spinning nude visage descending to the ground, where she landed in a careful split, bare for all except for the mask on her face, and the cape would fall down next, gently across her thighs, and the crowd would erupt. Amidst a shower of dollar bills she stood, the cape sliding off her thighs, and she was now completely nude and how she liked to be. She turned, she strutted, she let the bills fall against her chest and stomach and didn't acknowledge them, like a hero standing in a shower of confetti after saving the day. Then she would lift up her mask and hold it way out, revealing her face, and the announcer would cut in.

"As always, Tess Swain shows up right when our hero has left the scene. Who was that masked girl? I tell you what, have you ever seen Tess Swain and Super Tess in the same room together? I'm not into conspiracies, but it sure is suspicious."

The audience didn't seem to care whether it was Tess or Super Tess on stage, as the applause was louder than the music, or so it seemed, as the music was actually fading. Tess gave a last few happy waves and then picked up her cape and scooped all the loose dollar bills into it, as well as the discarded leotard, then slung the bundle over her shoulder like a vagabond's pack. She left the stage, leaving all with the last departing sight of her tiny butt swaying and the uninterrupted skin tone of her back and shoulders. Then she was in the upper staging area with the other girls, some who smiled politely at her and some who openly grinned and clapped. Only Trixy frowned. But that was okay. She was on next. She couldn't top Tess's show.

Tess went in back to take her money to her locker, dropping her mask on top of the cape bundle, and once the money was secured, she turned and walked straight out of the locker room with only her heels on her feet.

Trixie was pirouetting around in her knee-high socks and nothing else, playing up the schoolgirl image she was cultivating, while Tess drifted through the crowd and diverted eyes away from her rival. There were many shouts of "you were great!" and "you're awesome!" and a few hands reached out to grace her hip with their fingertips.

A few guys opened their arms and beckoned and Tess passed them by because she didn't like something she saw in them. And then she found a pair of guys whose heads swiveled as she circled around behind their table, and she chose the skinnier of the two and with his eyes following, she slid easily into his lap.

"How you doing?" she asked him, massaging his shoulder and watching his eyes lower to her bare breasts and back up to her face again. "Did you enjoy the show?"

The man was petrified and sat with his hands at his sides. "You bet," he said, marveling up and down at her. Tess looked over at the guy's friend, who was grinning in amusement and leaning into the table as if he needed a closer look.

"It doesn't have to be over. Wanna come to my secret hideout?" she asked him next. His eyes fell and rose again, and finally he had the bravery to place his hand on her side, feeling the tautness there. His palm was hot.

"How about I buy you a drink?"

Tess smiled and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "That would be nice," she said. She hadn't stopped by the bar yet, though inwardly, she now wanted to do that more than ever, rather than having someone buy one for her, because she wanted to stand naked by the bar and all the flabbergasted guys. But soon one of the [clothed] waitresses came by, and the man asked Tess what she wanted, and she had him order her a vodka tonic. She thanked him and then pressed his head into her breasts so that he laid against her like they were pillows. The guy's friend was absolutely beside himself. Finally a hand graced her thigh, traveled up as far as it dared go, touched the ends of her pubic hairs, and retreated. The drinks came, and Tess cradled hers in her free hand and then toasted with the young man and they drank. Then she leaned into his ear.

"Wanna go up and enjoy these alone?" she asked. The man's eyebrows raised and he laughed. She felt his body tense.

"Gee, I don't wanna leave my buddy..."

"He can take care of himself. Or maybe he'd like to come up, too? It'll cost extra, though."

The man's countenance began to change.

"Nah, I'm alright just sitting here, I'll be honest."

Tess gave him a teasing look, but he did not relent, so she just shrugged and enjoyed her drink. After it was halfway done, she patted him on the shoulder and said "thanks for the drink, I'll come back if you change your mind," and standing, turning, she lightly patted her tiny behind and looked over her shoulder to see the man lick his lips. Then she giggled and walked off. Her heart was beating fast. There was something so exciting about enticing a guy in public with her full nudity, her bare skin against his clothes, out in the open, that rivaled anything that went on in the private rooms, which were to Tess procedural and somewhat boring.

Up on stage, Trixie was marching to the back in just her stockings, and minutes later, as Tess maneuvered over to the bar, Trixie came out nude, just like Tess, and started working the floor. She watched Trixie slide into various men's laps, or hang over their shoulders, her tits beside their faces, as she talked to them. She spent about a minute at each table, moving on, until she looked bored wandering there naked, lost in a sea of not-completely disinterested patrons, for they ogled her as she passed, but none took the bait. Tess smiled and sipped her vodka tonic, conscious again that she was standing nude just like any other customer amidst the guys half-turned in their barstools and admiring her, or watching the stage as the next girl came out. Then her eyes drifted to the entryway to the stairs, where several girls were lined up, all dressed in black lingerie or leather one-piece swimsuits, none of them adapting the nudity-allowed code, and Tess realized why: it was actually harder to entice up a customer if you were already showing all the goods. A guy would be just as happy with a naked woman on his lap for the duration of his stay as he would following one up to get a tease. Tess watched one of the black-suited women approach a guy, do the whole routine, and lead him to the stairs in record time. Like fish in a barrel. So that was the consequence of allowing full nudity on the floor, Tess realized, and she suddenly decided she was okay with that, for it was being looked at that she enjoyed more than actually being used. If it perhaps put an eventual stop to the under-the-table prostitution and made Starlets a classier place, then maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing. She alone could make enough money off her sets now that she was a highlight of the venue. She hadn't counted her money, but the bundle was heavier than usual. How long could she ride that fame, she wondered? Maybe she could become proprietor to the place. She imagined a classed-up version of the club she had worked at all these years, trading rap and Eurobeat for slow jazz and R&B, trading the cigarettes for cigars, and trading the costumes for nothing at all, just true beauty and pure appreciation for the female form, a quiet and erotic place where men could come to unwind after work, rather than party after gambling. She thought she'd like to start a place like that someday.

But for now, she embraced once again the noise and the flashes and bottomed out her drink and walked back into the floor again, to find one more man, one sensitive soul perhaps out of his element that she could snuggle up to and make his heart melt and get at least another drink and just relax and watch the show. She'd spend the rest of the night like that, just talking to the guests, not trying to sell them, and she would hear their stories and tell some of her own, and she had a good night.

Naked Girls Are on the Moon

For all his life, Chet Ramos had wanted to go to the Moon.

The nineteen-nineties of Chet's childhood and the turning of the century brought disillusionment to him. We weren't going back to the Moon, that was clear, for even if we wanted to, we would have to build everything from the ground up all over again. It was a little-known fact, but the United States was not capable of going to the Moon anymore. The wonder of his childhood turned into cynicism as a young adult, cynicism towards modern culture which didn't seem to value space exploration. But there were people who did value it, and despite not having a human on extraterrestrial soil in over fifty years, great work was still being done, and Chet pursued a career in NASA anyway. It took a lot of dedication and effort, enough to lift him past his cynicism until he felt the joy of his childhood again.

It didn't happen all at once; when he first entered the offices of NASA, he was a little taken aback at how mundane it felt. It felt like the first day on the job at any office, and he always hated the feeling of an office. But then he got to go up for the first time, to the ISS, and with beaming pride, after gritting his teeth through the intense ride out of the atmosphere, he gazed at the vacuum of space and realized that he was an astronaut now.

And now, as he stood on the platform with his teammates, waiting for the gate to the catwalk to open, he was finally going to the Moon. His heart beat with nervousness, not just with the realization that he was going to be traveling farther than he ever had in his life, but also from the fact that he didn't know anything about this mission.

It had been planned in secrecy. The United States was capable of going to the Moon again, Chet discovered, at least more capable than he realized. The time had just not come yet to return, until now. But nobody told him what the goal was on this mission. Was it just to do it to say they could? Was it to show off to Russia again? It didn't seem like it, for others alluded to a concrete goal.

His team consisted of another fresh young astronaut, notable for being African American. He was named Harry Boener. He got a lot of ribbing for his name, and today, he seemed even more nervous than Chet. There was a female team member, Emily Bastion, also young, but no nervousness, apparently. She kept a stern face and a professional demeanor and seemed determined to prove herself as an eventual leader in the field of space travel.

And then there was the senior member, Ted Garrison, and he was every bit as stern as Emily, though he failed to hide a bit of nervousness, as if he was anticipating their mission, and it was he who, when Chet asked, would tell him that he would fill everybody in on their long journey to the Moon. It all made Chet incredibly nervous; he began to wonder if some of the conspiracy theories were true. Maybe there really were aliens on the Moon. Maybe mankind really never went and this was in fact the first time. Maybe the Moon really was made of cheese. The secret wasn't going to be that the Earth was flat, for he already proved that idea wrong when he went up for the first time. But there was something that was being hidden from the public, something so important that not even he could know in his many years at NASA, couldn't know until his feet were off the ground.

Soon, they would be, as the gate opened, and the four team members made the triumphant walk to the rocket, knowing that, in front of screens back in the base and across living rooms and bars throughout the country, people were cheering, and Chet almost thought he could hear those cheers.  They walked to the end of the catwalk, met the technicians standing by the rocket, who opened the hatch and let them in, and then they were inside, strapping themselves in. It was all familiar procedure for Chet, only the circumstances were now very grand. Nevertheless, the feeling of excitement suddenly faded, and he felt like he was going through the routine as normal, and felt like he was in a dream. He could hardly believe he was really going to the Moon, but he couldn't dwell on it too much, for he had to make sure everything was in check. Ted handled most of the diagnostics. The rookies just did what they were trained to do, which was monitor everything. Truly, though, they were at the mercy of the technicians clearing the craft for launch, and the engineers who had designed it.

Soon, the countdown commenced, and Chet sat back and gritted his teeth and waited for the explosive force that would pin him to his seat and propel them up to the heavens. Only then did he think of his childhood dreams and he clearly had an image in his head of the landscape of the Moon, as seen in HD footage retrieved from the Apollo missions, and at that exact moment, with his imagination putting him there already, they blasted off.

The ship rattled, Chet instinctively closed his eyes, all he heard was the roar of the exploding jet fuel behind him, and then the sky turned black and they were climbing, climbing, ascending to the court of the gods. He had that sense of wonderment again. It never left you. But soon it was time to start monitoring the control panel and prepare for separation from the main craft. All the while, Chet wondered when Ted would fill the crew in on what exactly they were doing.

That moment didn't come for some time, when they were shooting through space and everything was calm. They had done all they needed to do; everything was in check. All that was needed was for somebody to break the ice, for somebody to ask, but nobody had the courage to do it. Then, finally, Ted cleared his throat.

"So I guess you all are wondering what exactly we are going to see up there."

His voice came in through Chet's earpiece like a buzzing insect, and it did not sound like the familiar voice of his leader. It was tinny, robbed of his gravity (to use a word), and also, Chet noted a hint of fear.

"Seeing? How about doing?" Harry said sarcastically.

"Yeah, what do you mean 'seeing?' Chet asked bravely. "What exactly is up there?"

Only Emily was strangely silent during all this. Chet didn’t notice at first.

"I'll tell you. You won't believe me, but you will soon."

Ted tried to turn a little in his seat to be able to look at Chet, though he was still strapped in. Harry and Emily sat behind them. Chet could not see their faces but imagined they had the same expectant look as well.

"You probably don't know this yet, but we've had a probe landed on a distant planet out of our solar system for some years now."

It is aliens, Chet thought. Holy shit.

Ted continued. "Well a while back we finally lost contact with it. It got stuck in a ravine and eventually cut off. Some say it was struck by lightning, but others think it was outright attacked, for there was definitely something on that planet. We had been monitoring it continuously."

All the other astronauts were silent, waiting for the next shocking statement.

"...And that is why we are going back to the Moon," Ted concluded.

There was a silence, and then Harry, in back, said "I don't get it. Why the Moon?"

Ted sighed, his voice loosening as he warmed up to his crew.

"I'm sure you are all familiar with the stories that the Apollo 11 astronauts felt like they were being watched up there?"

"Yeah," Chet said, remembering the stories, which had captured his imagination as a child. "I even heard they found footprints."

"They did. Bare human footprints."

Now the silence was not out of anticipation, but of shock.

"No way," Harry finally said. Ted just nodded, looking ahead out into the vastness of space outside their window.

"It's true. They found the footprints, a single pair of them. They led off into the mountains. They stretched out so far that they didn't think they could follow them. And they did feel like they were being watched. They even recounted for sure sensing movement, like something was ducking behind one of the distant ridges, watching them. They stayed long enough to take samples and plant the flag and talk to Nixon, but the longer they stayed there, the more creeped out they got, so they got the hell out of there. It seemed like a waste, to come all that way, but they were not prepared for this. That's why we went back."

Again, Chet and the others waited for the next leg of the story, wondering what would happen next. Ted took in another big breath.

"When we went back again, it was to go back prepared. But the footprints did go out very far, and everybody was afraid to venture that far beyond the landing pod. But we were certain we had a photo of one of them."

Holy shit, holy shit, Chet thought. Just say the word, say it! Say “aliens!”

“It wasn’t until Apollo 17 that we actually met them,” he added.

Another unbearable pause, then Chet couldn’t stand it anymore. "Who?"

"...The women of the Moon."

Chet could only imagine what his teammates' faces looked like behind him, because his own expression was of complete shock.

"Women?"

“This time we had a rover, and the crew used it to go out to where the footsteps ended and when they got there, they came out to greet them. They were perfectly-normal looking human women, completely nude. Their bodies were apparently adjusted to the extreme cold of the Moon and had no need for oxygen, I suppose; they were completely adapted. The astronauts naturally thought they had lost their minds.

"There were at least six of them at first, but there were many, many more inside the mountain itself. They were very friendly and led the two men on the rover inside, and it was there that the cave was found. In this cave, there was a spring of pure water, and there was light emanating from luminous stones in the cave walls. There was even a relief carved into the wall, above the spring, and it was the relief of a man, nude, like a Greek god, sitting on a throne. We called him the First Man."

"Are you saying that these women are where we came from?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. All we know is that there is life there, some semblance of a civilization, even. The crew took samples, taking some of the luminous rocks, which were actually more like jellybeans. You know how they say that current technology comes from the advances made in the space race? Well, that's true, but you also have those missions to thank for glowsticks and stuff like that. We took a lot away from that mission. We even tried to take one of the girls."

"No way, really?"

"It didn't turn out well. On that trip to the cave, one of the men took a liking to a particular girl. They all looked like they were in their thirties, in human years, if they aged like normal humans, which they most certainly did not. They all had long hair, wavy, not frazzled... it looked like they took care of themselves somehow despite living on a barren wasteland. They did not look like wild people. They even had some semblance of a language, sign language. They were very sophisticated."

"Were their legs and pits shaved?" Harry asked, and Chet tried to turn his head to shoot an admonishing look.

"Yes," Ted replied, surprising them both. "They looked like... well, they looked like Playboy models. They were very attractive, if I may say that. Apologies, Emily. But yes, it was easy to see why they captivated Chuck Thompson so much. The only hair was atop their heads and, well, you know...

“Wait, Chuck Thompson?” Chet asked. Ted now sighed again.

“This is the awkward part... You know the three men who went up there, of course. Well, there was an additional crew member as well: Chuck Thompson. You don't ever hear about him. And that's because they left him up there."

Chet's mouth was hanging open and he began to fear for his own life. He wanted to blurt out "are we expendable?" but he just let Ted tell the rest of his tale.

“So they got one of the girls to ride on the back of the rover with them to the ship. When they got back, they stupidly tried to bring her aboard. She died instantly. Her body was not adapted to our type of environment. Chuck lost it at that point, practically crying. Shamed, they took the woman's body thirty yards out and buried her there out on the Moon. Her grave is still marked with a pole. When they were done burying her, a whole host of women had arrived. There were at least twenty of them, and they did not look happy. The crew had to flee, get in the ship, but Chuck was not among them. He ran to the women and soon disappeared in the mix of bodies. It was too dangerous to remain behind; they were crowding around the capsule, so they took off. Some of the women may have been burnt up when the rockets ignited. The crew ditched that place and never looked back. And that is why we haven't been back to the Moon."

He concluded his story, and all was silent. Ted sighed and unbuckled his straps. "Well, let's get out of these."

"But what's this have to do with the probe we sent out?" Chet asked, remaining in his constraints. Ted slouched in his seat.

"Long after that incident, when the probe landed on AN-16, for that's what we called the planet, it picked up images of... well, the same thing."

"Naked girls?"

"Yes. A planet inhabited fully by them."[i]

"Jesus Christ."

"With that, we had little need to go back to the Moon, for we had a similar civilization to study even farther out. It's our belief that the naked girls on the Moon came from that distant planet, perhaps some of their genetic material arrived on a meteor and they evolved separately there. And now, with our probe out of action, it is time to go back. Our mission is to see what has changed, what became of Chuck Thompson, and of course to take samples, non-disruptive this time. We don't want another clusterfuck. We can only hope that the women don't hold a grudge with us."

Ted then loosened his straps and freed himself from his seat, floating into zero-gravity. The others followed suit, and finally Chet freed himself, and they all took off their helmets.

"And what about this "first man?" Chet asked, hearing his own voice much clearer. "Where did he come from?"

"We don't know. It's figured that he was born from one of them, or was their "king," like ants have a queen. We're thinking maybe that with this race, only a certain percentage are born male, and they regard that person in high regard. Or he's a traveler just like Chuck. An ancient astronaut. Who knows? Maybe we'll find that out."

With their helmets off and all floating free, Chet was finally able to see the faces of his teammates. Harry had a dazed look on his face, like he could not process the things he was being told. Emily, meanwhile, who had been silent, had a poker face. Harry began to spout out his thoughts.

"You're awfully silent," Harry told her. "Doesn't anything phase you?"

"She already knows," Ted cut in. "Because of the nature of the mission, it was felt she needed to know before coming up.”

"You knew about this shit?"

Emily looked at him as flatly as ever. "Yes, for a while now. Don't feel slighted."

"I do, a little bit."

"Let's just focus on the mission."

And indeed they did. Hit with the feeling that their government wasn't honest with them, that they were just pawns in a game of which they didn't know the rules or even the board, they had no choice but to carry on, for there was nowhere they could run to. They spent the following days charting their course, trying to concentrate on the immediate tasks, and in their downtime, Chet would look out the porthole window and look at the vacuum of space with a new element of mystery to it. They went over the plan for when they would arrive: they would land exactly where the last mission had fifty years ago and head straight for the cave, looking for signs of life along the way. Ted detailed them more on the denizens of the Moon, advising them how to act, how to not make sudden movements or to give the women any reason for alarm. He detailed what their culture seemed to be like from what little data they had, and, of course, at the guys' request, he described them more physically. Below their long, wavy hair, they had full-figured bodies, busty, all of them, the only apparent difference between them and Earth women being that their breasts were not affected by gravity, nor was their hair, which floated about their heads when they moved, and their chests bounced in slow motion as they traversed the landscape, making them look like nude models moving about underwater. Emily was awkwardly silent during these descriptions, and Ted quickly moved on to more pressing topics, like checking the security of their oxygen supply.

Three long days passed as they rode to the Moon, with Chet having plenty of time to ruminate on the fantastic story and wonder about what he was going to see, almost looking forward to it on a base and hormonal level. And back home, people sat and watched the evening news and its updates on the astronauts' journey, celebrating the country's return to the Moon, but unaware of the mission's true intent.

*****

Sleep was fitful, and filled with dreams of nude women on a barren plane, erotic dreams with an unsettling aura, and Chet would wake and be in the cramped interior of the cockpit and look out at the emptiness outside the glass, realizing there were more mysteries in that void than could ever be comprehended. And then, one day, the Moon loomed in the distance.

All anticipation of what was on the surface went away as they focused on the tasks necessary for a safe landing. All four astronauts became animated, talking excitedly as they read of numbers and measurements, making sure the math was exact. Unlike in the past, there was no command module; their pod would land and would take off again. Now, as it shook, they drew close, and then landed with a thud on the surface of the Moon. They had made it. Now the adventure begins, Chet thought. They all donned their helmets and prepared for exit.

Chet's heart rate was picking up as he rode the short lift down from the bottom of the craft until it settled securely on the dusty surface of the Moon. He was finally here. Finally, after pining for it all his life, he was about to take his first step for all mankind. And hardly had he ever imagined what he would find up there. But for now, he was simply in awe as he stepped off the platform and felt his boot sink into the soft soil. He stepped out from under the craft and marveled at the lunar expanse before him. It seemed to go on forever, motionless and quiet as a tomb. Far out were a ridge of mountains on which he imagined beings hiding in wait, and considering what he had recently learned, there most definitely were beings out there. And beyond those mountains, cresting above it like a blue sunrise, was the Earth, his home, so far away.

“Out there’s the grave,” Ted's voice cut in on his intercom. Chet turned back and saw Ted pointing. He followed his finger and out on the flat expanse to the right of the mountains was a clear, shining pole. Chet gulped down a feeling of solemnity. Somehow it felt disrespectful to even be here.

“Alright, let’s get to it,” his leader’s voice cut in next, dashing the last sense of wonder. When Chet turned back, he saw the rover being lowered onto the soil.

"Alright Chet, you're coming with me. Emily and Harry, you know what to do here."

"It still sucks we gotta both stay here," Harry complained. "Figures the minority and the woman get the unimportant job."

"Your job is very important," Ted turned to him. "You're making sure that we can get off this rock. Who's to say a mob of women doesn't try to attack the craft while we're away?"

"And what are we supposed to do then?" Harry asked.

"Reason with them. That's part of why Emily is here."

"Roger that," Emily said over the intercom. She was still inside the capsule and Chet looked up and saw her in the window giving a thumbs-up.

"Maybe the women might be more understanding if they see we have another woman among our team," Ted said. "That was the thought, anyway."

"If they can tell she's a woman," Harry said.

"Whatever the case, keep this craft safe. We'll be back. Chet, come on!"

And so Chet climbed onto the rover, mere feet away from Ted as he got in his seat, and they were off, trolling down the flat expanse towards a set of ridges looming in the distance. Ted pointed out to it.

"There," he said. "There is where the cave that was found is."

"How do we know anybody is there?"

"We'll just have to wait and see."

"Should we get out and look for footprints?" Chet asked. "I didn't see any when we landed."

"It's not important," Ted said. "We know where their activity is. If we find anything of importance, it will be in that cave."

And so they rode, and the ridge loomed ahead. Soon they were upon it, and Chet's sense of wonder expanded. He had to keep reminding himself that he was actually on the Moon, riding in a rover across a landscape so alien he had only seen it in media. But now he was actually here. It was a surreal feeling. Soon they were right at the base of the ridge. The rover stopped.

"Here," Ted said. "Here we get out." And so they did. Chet was nervous about what danger they may be walking into, feeling like an adventurer wandering into a long-forgotten tomb. The mountain loomed over him, and far above, the sky was pure black. And yet, the soil glowed with the illumination of the distant sun.

"Here," Ted said. "Just around this bend. Look! There are footprints."

Chet looked down and confirmed that a cluster of footprints marred the soil around the edge of the ridge. There were a great many footprints, some of them melding together, but the isolated ones showing the unmistakable form of a human foot, toes and all. This was obviously an area that was frequently traveled.

Chet was getting ready to ask a question, to ask how old these footprints could possibly be in the windless and undisturbed surface of the Moon, but he looked up and soon saw the owners of those footprints.

It was such an out-of-place sight that Chet didn't know what was real anymore. Afterall, he was on the Moon, somewhere he had only dreamed of being. And what was before him was certainly from a dream. Four girls stood at the edge of the outcropping of rocks, where they had apparently been hiding. The fourth one was still peeking around, her hand against the rock, but the others stood out in the open. Their skin was surprisingly tan, and their hair straight, unlike the wavy hair that Ted had described. It was dark brown on all of them and fell on their bare shoulders, but did not hide the very youthful and tender-looking breasts, cone-shaped on one girl, pleasantly round and weightless on another, yet unmarred by any apparent age; ageless breasts, on girls that looked to be teenagers, as their faces, wide with wonder, were unmistakably fair and youthful. These were not the women that Ted had described. All of them bore crisp collections of fresh and dark pubic hair at varying angles of growth, between soft thighs that moved as they tentatively took steps forward.

"Uh, Ted..."

The fourth girl stepped out from hiding, and she was just as captivating as the rest. Her breasts were the largest, and shifted like helium balloons in the minimal atmosphere of the Moon as she stepped forward, and her hair was lighter, her face a little chubbier, the hair between her thighs lighter to match, almost indescribable against her skin, and she seemed the most nervous and unsure, and when Ted took one step and put up his hands, she turned and ran. She took great, bounding leaps in the low gravity, and her particularly well-shaped and rounded butt flexed as she fled. The other girls, however, stayed behind.

"Just act friendly," Ted instructed Chet, and he gestured to the remaining girls, though even Chet couldn't tell what he was trying to communicate. It looked like he was trying to tell the girls to take the two of them to their leader. They approached, craning their necks to try to see the faces behind the faceplates. Ted looked a little overwhelmed as they came right up to him. One of the girls plucked at the sleeve of his suit, and the other tapped her finger against his faceplate. The third approached Chet, and he began to walk backwards, putting up his hands. This was not a situation he would have ever imagined facing when he dreamed of going to the Moon. The girl's face was aggressively curious; she was almost smiling. They were not all identical. This girl had very captivating eyes, a pale baby blue, and very high cheekbones that framed a wedge of a nose and a wide mouth from which within shined very bright teeth. Slightly taller than the other girls, she leaned forward and looked intently through Chet's faceplate, her small, cuppable breasts hanging forward with what little gravity there was. Chet stopped walking backwards and froze as the girl was right upon him. Her eyes were inches away from his faceplate, and her wide mouth widened further in a toothy grin as she recognized the human face within. Then she grasped his arm, looked down and moved her hand into his, and met his eyes again. In quite possibly the weirdest way for it to occur, Chet felt himself instantly falling in love. She gently pulled him forward.

"Ted, what do we do?"

Ted was trying to walk past the two girls examining him, one with hair as long and dark as Chet's companion, but fuller, bouncier, and she had remarkably red and full lips and pointy breasts. The other girl, more rounded in the chest, had similarly full lips which were poutier, and her eyes were dark and beckoning and there was something intimidating about her. Neither of them seemed as delighted with Ted as Chet's girl was with him, which was lucky for Ted, Chet guessed. He was not sure what to feel.

"Just keep walking, they'll tag along and show us where to go."

Chet's girl seemed pleased with this as he let her pull him forward, and all of them, three girls and two puffy-suited men, walked around the edge of the ridge and almost instantly bumped into someone else.

The girl who had fled was there, fumbling her hands in front of her, but directly in front of them was a tall and intimidating woman, a true woman who looked to be in her fifties, with curly black hair, melon-sized breasts and a wide wedge of pubic hair, and a stern look on her face.

"Whoa," Chet said.

"Keep calm," Ted replied and put up his hand, but the woman wildly gestured to the girls, who instantly stepped away from the men. Chet's girl's hand left his rather reluctantly, and she looked over her shoulder at him with a yearning look as she joined the older woman's side. That look, placed over the smooth and tanned shoulder and the slender bare back and pleasant swell of a sizable rear-end filled Chet with both romantic yearning and lust. But then the tall woman took his attention.

She walked past Ted and pushed his back to urge him forward, then looked commandingly at Chet and grabbed his arm.

"Okay, okay," he said, though he knew she could not hear him. He and his leader bounced across the ground with an escort of naked girls all around them. They walked along the ridge, looking down its incredible length at the featureless horizon ahead, featureless until they saw other girls standing across the lunar surface. Walking such a distance in low gravity was arduous, and to Chet felt like a dream where you can't run fast enough to escape the monster chasing you, but the girls seemed to effortlessly float along, the younger girls taking big, bounding strides and moving up and down next to them in a hypnotizing slow-motion display, their bodies elegant and weightless and their hair streaming behind them like banners, and the tall woman strode along with short steps, and her long legs kept the pace with her younger compatriots so that it looked like she was walking on water.

"The cave's here," Ted said, and indeed, the woman stopped, and the girls swirled around them like sharks around a cage, and there against the rock was a large opening. The woman gestured.

"I guess she wants us to go in," Chet said.

"No shit," Ted replied, breaking his formality. He went in first, followed by three of the girls, and then the tall woman, and Chet, reunited with the blue-eyed girl, walked in side-by-side with her.

What they came into was a cave that was remarkably well-lit by some unseen illumination. A large, circular room was filled with girls sitting on the floor, many of them young, some even younger than the ones Chet and Ted had met, and standing along the walls were older-looking women, as if on guard. Some of them folded their arms in front of hefty chests and stood with their feet squarely shoulder-length apart, dominant and feminine at the same time. And still the men were urged on, to the right, towards another opening.

"Wait," Ted said. "Wait," and he put out his arms and tried to stop the girls from pushing him along. "We have to try to communicate with them."

"I don't think it's going to do any good," Chet said, and the gentle hands of the blue-eyed girl pressed on his back, but he resisted, and she then hung on his side, her head nestling on his shoulder as she half-hugged him.

"This is some sort of trap," Ted said.

"I don't think they mean us any harm..." Chet tried to turn his head so he could look at the blue-eyed girl, and she moved herself so that her head hung in front of his visor and she grinned her now-trademark toothy grin at him. His heart fluttered.

"You're just being seduced by them," Ted said. "This is no different from sailors and sirens. Let's get out of here!"

"But what about finding—"

"We'll come back in the rover, quick. This is out of hand."

Ted turned and tried to break out of the half-circle around him, but his girls closed in and held his arms.

"Wait, what—"

The tall woman stepped in and pushed against Ted's chest. He tried to take a step forward, but she pushed him again, and the two young girls at either side gently took his arms.

"I don't think we can—"

But Ted broke into a run. He easily threw off the girls and leaped to the side, escaping the reaching grab of the tall woman, and he bounded for the cave entrance in comically long and arcing hops.

"Let's get out of here!" his voice shouted into Chet's earpiece, full of panic and tremble now, quite unlike his superior's voice as he was used to, but Chet was rooted to the ground, and the blue-eyed girl got in front of him, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face to his visor. All he had to look at were her sparkling eyes and smile, which seemed to say "come on..." and he felt his feet move and he was soon following her into the next portion of the cave.

*****

"I got a bad feeling," Harry said.

"It's only been twenty minutes. Chill."

Both he and Emily sat in the capsule, looking out past the control panel at the endless, barren gray desert.

"I don't know, I just don't like sitting here being a sitting duck," Harry continued. "What are we going to do? I didn't sign up for this."

"Relax. I'll handle it if something happens."

Harry sighed and looked over at Emily. She seemed so calm, despite everything they knew.

"So you really knew about all this before coming up?"

Emily clicked her tongue, distinguishably loud in Harry's intercom.

"Yep."

"How did you manage to hold all that in? How did you still have the nerve to come on up? How did you get so privileged?"

Now Emily sighed, and answered only one of the three rapid-fire questions.

"Ted said. Because I'm a woman, they thought it'd be important for me to know."

"Why though?"

"So I wouldn't be suddenly uncomfortable."

"Why would you be uncomfortable?"

"Oh, I don't know, landing on a rock a million miles away from Earth, with a bunch of men, and tasked with investigating a population of naked women. Wouldn't that be kind of weird?"

"This is weird," Harry said. "I still don't know if I believe it."

"It's real," Emily said. "All of it."

"How do you know, though? It sounds like something a kid would make up."

Emily was silent, for she did not know. She only had her faith in the higher-ups who were open enough to reveal to her the truth. She couldn't shake the sense that this was some practical joke, as irresponsible as it would be to pull such a prank during a high-risk mission. She looked out at the Moon while Harry chewed his lip and thought on his next question, but then, her next answer appeared.

"Well if it's made up, then dreams do come true. Look."

Harry turned his head to the window and he cursed, for out there on the spooky flat landscape was a row of women, just as Ted had described. Over a dozen women, somewhat older than the astronauts had been told, middle-aged women, if they even aged in human years, completely nude and without protection from the harsh cold and lack of oxygen. They all stood proud, dominant, and all were built exceptionally well; all of them were well-endowed on their chests, all of them were sturdy and strong, none of them fat, none of them skinny. They reminded Emily of cheesecakey movies about Amazon women on distant planets.

"Oh shit..." Harry cursed. Emily looked at one of the monitors on the control panel and saw an almost identical image, a line of nude women standing and facing them down.

"They're all around us," Emily said.

"Shit, shit."

"I'm going out."

"What? Are you out of your mind?"

"Ted said I might be able to reason with them."

"They're just as likely to string you up on a stick and cook you over a fire."

"There aren't any sticks on the Moon, not to mention an atmosphere that allows fire."

"That's besides the point!"

"You can stay here. This is my mission."

"Let's just stay in here, they can't do anything to us in here."

"There are rocks on the Moon. They can smash this capsule up."

"Shit."

"I'll be back."

"Shit!"

Harry sat by, helpless, as Emily got up and went to the hatch that opened up to the lift that would take her down to the surface of the Moon. Her heart beat fast, but she was confident. She knew these women probably were not happy that the murderers of one of their kind had returned, but she hoped that a common ground could be reached, hoped that they would recognize her as one of them, if that was indeed who she was. The mechanical lift worked silently in the vacuum of space, and she touched down. From her vantage point, she saw the underside of the ship, and women circling around on all sides. She ducked her head and stepped out from under the capsule and she put up her arms.

"It's okay," she spoke, knowing she couldn't be heard, but speaking anyway, for it made her feel more confident, and the women closed in. "I come in peace." She felt so stupid saying it, but she let herself say it anyway.

One of the women came right up to her, peering into Emily's visor. She felt her chest tense, but stayed her ground. She wanted to give the woman a chance to see that she too was a woman, if that could be determined by her softer facial features alone. The nude woman's eyes came right up to her visor, peered in, and she saw the remarkable shade of silver in her irises and she felt the terror of prey about to be pounced on by a wild animal. Up in the capsule, Harry was no doubt clenching his fists, but he was silent; he thankfully did not fill her ears with babble, which could be fatally distracting.

Then, the woman staring at her turned to the others and waved her hands, and Emily watched the circle loosen, the women relax their posture, and she let out a breath, but they continued to close in to observe her. Emily thought of what to gesture, what to try to communicate to them, trying to remember what the suited men down home at NASA had instructed her to do, but the women were active and didn't seem receptive to taking in any attempt at communication, and instead the lead woman turned to Emily and gestured to her, motioning her to come with them. She took a hesitant step forward, but then a voice but into her earpiece.

"Guys! Emily! Harry! Start up the ship! It's all fucked!”

It wasn't Harry, but Ted, his voice high-pitched in panic, and as Emily turned around, she saw, through the gap between two women standing there, Ted bounding for the capsule in giant leaps, and behind him a whole line of naked moon women pursuing.

"Shit! Harry, start it up!" she cried, and she made a feeble dash for the lift as the women suddenly closed in.

*****

Chet was led deeper into the cave by his nude and youthful companion. She held his hand firmly and kept looking over her shoulder and grinning at him, a delightful image to see through his increasingly-fogging visor. The rock walls were narrow but somehow there was still light in the cave, and as Chet looked from the arresting sight of the lithe, nude body leading him along, he saw spots of luminescence in the walls, and quickly ascertained that the rocks themselves gave off light. Amazing, he thought, but his amazement at this unknown discovery of the Moon was overshadowed by his charming escort. Soon they came out into another large room, which had a blue haze about it, as sprinkled all over the walls were those luminescent rocks.

Unlike the room at the entrance, this room was hardly featureless. A large pool of water sat at the center wall, and it glittered with motion that should have been impossible on the Moon. Above it, the rock wall took on interesting features, fissures and cracks amidst the glow from the rocks, and quickly, as Chet stumbled into the room with the girl pulling him, her butt wiggling below his vision and distracting him from the revelating image, he quickly saw that the fissures were carved, that the features were not just random, but a picture, and as they came to a halt in front of the pool, he gazed up at a relief of a man, just as Ted had described. The First Man; this was his tomb. Or temple. And only then did he notice, as his eyes lowered to the glittering water, the astronaut suit sitting there, propped against the wall on the edge of the pool.

His breath escaped him and he exclaimed: "oh my god!" and the girl turned to him as if she could hear him. Then, to his astonishment, she said something. She moved her lips and he could hear a muffled voice through his helmet. She spouted off something else and motioned him towards the pool, and the suit. She let go of his hand and Chet came up to the edge of the pool and put his hands on it and leaned in to see better. The visor of the suit had a glare on it and it was hard to see if there was a skull underneath, but the name tag on the breast was clear: "Thompson." Chuck Thompson. The Second Man. Had he rotted away in this cave for all this time? Chet could not tell unless he got in the water, which he was not urgent to do, but as he leaned away from the pool, he was met with the sparkling face and captivating body of the blue-eyed girl as she took his hands and nodded her head as if to say he should take off his helmet.

This is where I die, he thought. Being convinced by a naked girl to take off my protective gear on the Moon, but she was insistent, and spoke again, and Chet looked at the rippling water, then back at the girl, and quickly put it all together: there was atmosphere in the cave somehow. The girl was able to speak. The water was able to move. Could he survive in this place? As if answering for him, the girl reached up for the neck of his helmet, but he put up his hands and stopped her. They stood in that embrace for a moment, like lovers finally alone. Then Chet let the girl's hand guide him, and then he was unfastening the clamps on his helmet on his own accord, or so it seemed. He held his breath and knew somehow that he was going to die at that very moment, so he beheld the girl before he pulled the mask off, so he would have one last heavenly sight before he choked and died. She looked at him with the sparkling energy of an expectant child. Her flawless skin was flawless all because of the lack of interruption by any article of clothing, flawless from smooth shoulder to soft breast to below, which he could not see in his limited sight from within the helmet, and he slowly lifted it off to see the girl in full before he died.

The obstruction lifted, and like a cinematic wipe, the girl went from a foggy vision to a clear, dream-like sight clothed in blue light. He lowered his eyes to see her trim stomach, and the acute angle of fur between her thighs, and her knobby ankles and bare toes, then back up to her face, alight with joy, and Chet took in a breath, and did not die.

"How..." he began to ask, but the girl stepped closer to him, clutching at his uniform and seemingly begging him to take it off. She rattled off some unfamiliar language, and her voice was high and bright like the sun, and sweet to his ears, and he obeyed her obvious commands, slave to her now, and he struggled out of his suit.

She breathed heavily as he unzipped his sleeves, as he yanked down the shoulders and revealed the undersuit he wore underneath, and he could smell his own stench, the stench that festered from four days riding in a rocket. He slid down his head covering, feeling cool air on his scalp, and he took in a breath again. How could this pocket of inhabitable air exist on the barren surface of the Moon? It was a mystery he may never solve, and he could have cared less, for the more enticing mystery before him urged him out of his cumbersome uniform. Soon he was pulling the puffy suit down his waist and managed to wriggle his feet out of it, popping his soles out of his boots and pulling his legs free, and he stood before her in his undersuit, which she quickly assisted him in getting off. The air in the cave was cool, but not as frigid as one might think. Chet wondered if the bioluminescent stones gave off heat. And maybe, with the heat, oxygen, somehow. He also wondered how the girl could be in this room and also out in the vacuum outside, and he chalked it up to adaptation. She was still breathing heavily, and he realized now that it may not have been from excitement (though she certainly seemed excited and eager to see him as naked as her), but because the air was thicker in here. He suddenly had the fear of her dying in here, and for the other women to enter and blame him for her death, like the death of their compatriot over fifty years ago. Those fears were easy to ignore, though, as the girl aggressively tugged at his long johns, yanking them down and baring his lower half immediately. She made a weird exclamation at the sight of his dick, small from the cold but rigid with excitement.

"Just you wait," he said jokingly, and he tore off his top, feeling ridiculous to be standing bottomless, and as he tossed it aside, he watched her face travel up his body, well-toned from his training, and alight on his eyes, and she grinned. She took his hand.

"Sorry if I smell," he said.

"Wa. Jo-hawa," she said, and Chet just let her take him to the edge of the pool. She hoisted herself up, sitting on the ledge, looming above him with her thighs neatly pressed and forming a "V," and she swung her legs over and stuck out her hand for him to join. He took it and got his knee up on the ledge, and then carefully put himself into the surprisingly warm water with a sploosh.

A second sploosh accompanied him as the girl dropped by his side, and she instantly embraced him, got her face close to his. Their lips brushed. His penis brushed her thigh. She nibbled on him. And looking into those baby-blue eyes, he could not help but glance over at the possible remains of Chuck Thompson to his left.

"One moment," he said, trying to pull away from her and putting up a finger to tell her to hold on, and he waded over to the end of the pool. He could hear her thighs slicing through the water behind him. The splashes echoed across the walls. Acoustics were no problem in this room.

He made it over to the astronaut suit and leaned in, almost afraid to touch it. It hardly looked aged at all, and was like it was preserved in a museum, exactly as he had seen it in photos and footage from the Apollo missions. He leaned in, brought his face to the visor, and finally was able to see through it, and only saw the back of the helmet. Wherever Chuck Thompson was, he was not in his suit anymore.

The girl's arm braced over his shoulder and she rested her chin against his neck. She said something unintelligible, but with an interrogative note that was clear, and her voice vibrated against his skin. Then he turned to her and knew that she and this place were his destiny. He embraced her, feeling her cool and incredibly smooth skin, like soft porcelain, feeling her breasts begin to brush against his chest, and his lower self raised and extended, scraping her thigh and tickling her crotch. She leaned back and looked down and burst out with another exclamation, for he was now rigid and proud at five-point-five inches, curving up to greet her. She happily greeted him, reaching in and wrapping her fingers firmly around him, and she looked up and beamed at him and said some one-syllable word of amazement. Chet was overcome with desire and leaned in to kiss her, but she placed her free hand against his chest and held up her finger just as he did to signal for him to wait. Then she turned and reached for the wall, past the empty suit of Chuck Thompson, and plucked one of the glowing stones out of the cracks. She held it in her hand and the round object cast blue light on her fingertips, and she brought it to his lips.

He looked into her eyes to make sure, and she nodded, so Chet parted his lips. What entered was the softest and sweetest thing he had ever tasted. It was no rock. It squished between his teeth and he felt juices run along his tongue. Then he swallowed and grinned.

The girl smiled and plucked one out of the wall for herself. She chewed open-mouthed, and he watched as the bright-blue liquid burst and sloshed before her lips closed and she swallowed. Then she lowered herself into the water, waving about her hands, her face just inches away from his rigid arousal, and it made him twitch, but then she rose again, holding water in her cupped hands, which proceeded to dump over his head.

The water was soothing and chased the chill out of his body as it traveled down his back, and the girl lowered again and brought up another scoop. Chet leaned back his head and wondered if he was in heaven, and with his eyes away, he felt her bump against his protruding dick, and he winced, and then her hands took his. He looked into her eyes again and she gently pulled him down into the water, and he let his legs bend and knelt with her, and she proceeded to dump water over his head and massage his scalp. He leaned into her and nuzzled her neck as she washed him, ran her hands over his shoulders, and down his sides under the water. She massaged his thighs and grasped his dick and pulled on it, scrubbing it clean, and then she was running her hands over his back. He almost fell asleep with his nose falling just below her collarbone, but she gently pushed him back and then rose before him, water sheening down her taut stomach, her dripping pubic hair right before his face, and she touched his shoulder. He looked up at her and she was looming. She nodded her head over to the end of the pool, towards the astronaut suit. Chet slowly got his feet under him and stood, feeling refreshed as his skin touched the air again. The girl took his hand and led him over to the end of the pool.

There, before all that was presumably left of Chuck Thompson, the girl motioned for Chet to sit, and he did, lowering himself once again in the water with the beauty looming over him. He placed his back against the wall, Thompson's suit behind him, his sin (or soul?) in front, and the girl slipped into the water, on her knees, and nudged closer to him. Instinctively, he put out his legs, spread them, and she found her seat between them. She massaged his chest, and then finally rose again, and when she lowered, she found purchase against his tip. He reached down into the water to guide himself into her, and she slid down, and he entered the sweetest embrace he ever felt.

*****

Rocks were pelting against the window and Emily was screaming for Harry to take off. She didn't know if he was more scared of the naked girls or of her at that moment, for he yelled back that she was going to burst his eardrum, and his voice had a little tremble in it. So did his hands, as he pressed buttons and got the capsule ready to launch. Just moments ago, Emily watched as the advancing line of savage women overtook Ted. He fell forward into the moondust and sent up a puffy cloud, and then they were upon him. It was almost comical, like a cartoon fight hidden in a cloud of dust, but she saw enough; she saw them pounding their fists on his faceplate and kicking his ribs through his padded suit. These women were savage, and there was no way to save her superior without endangering themselves. The last thing he said through the intercom was to take off, so that's what she commanded Harry to do.

Another rock struck the window, and Emily foolishly prayed that it would not crack the glass, even though she knew it couldn't. But what the Moon women could do was tip the capsule over, and then they would be rightly—

screwed was not quite the word for what Chet and that girl did, nor was it properly described as "making love;" it was something on another level, a transcendental experience, with him hardly having to do anything while the youthful moon girl writhed on his rod, and his hands glided against the friction of her wet skin to cup and grasp her small breasts while the surges of pleasure pulsed through—

the noise of the rain of rocks and the growing hum of the escape rocket preparing to launch, Harry still had the hesitancy to yell "what about Chet?" and Emily, feeling bad, just yelled "Forget about him! Ted said to go! Go!" Harry nodded feebly and hit the last switch, and the craft rumbled and the escape rocket burst—

into her, a painful and excruciating pleasure as her vaginal walls pulsed on him and he lost himself, all of himself, in sweet ribbons emptying into her, and he let out a groan, and for a split second, his vision went—

black was the sky as they rocketed upwards, leaving the Moon's surface behind, and perhaps the charred bodies of whoever was caught in the blast, making humankind enemy number one in the Moon peoples' eyes, and Emily let out a sigh of relief tinged with guilt. But all that mattered was that they were going home. Only now she had a four-day trip with Harry, Who at the moment was rattling off again.

"I can't believe it," he said. "We really left them. How are we going to explain this? What are we going to say?"

"Always with the questions."

"Huh? How can you be so callous?"

"Let's just relax. There was nothing we could do. Let's just be glad we're going home."

And Emily knew, while looking forward to landing again on Earth, that mankind would again cease going to the Moon.

*****

The blue-eyed girl collapsed against Chet, breathing forcefully against his neck, and he knew he didn't have to ask if it was as good for her as it was for him. Eventually, after the glow faded, she raised her head and smiled at him. He wanted to kiss her, but she leaned back and rose off of him. He felt his dick leave her with a pop, and it fell over on his thigh. Then, as he gazed up at her and marveled at her, she stepped to the side, and Chet saw that they had a spectator in the room.

It was the lighter-haired girl who had run when they had first met. She crept closer to the pool, keeping her eyes on Chet as if he were a dangerous animal, her innocence belayed by the full adultness of her body, by the fullness of her giant breasts, and as she reached the edge of the pool, the blue-eyed girl met her and leaned against the edge, her butt protruding out and facing Chet as she exchanged quick and laughter-tinged words with the other girl. Then the light-haired girl carefully climbed in, and the blue-eyed girl got out. Chet was torn between the two sights, the departing of what he thought was his lover and the arrival of a new and enticing one. And before the light-haired girl got close enough so that she was impossible to ignore, Chet saw the blue-eyed girl exit and be replaced with yet another girl, the pouty-lipped one, followed by her friend, and then the light-haired girl was before him, the water lapping at her thighs and her delicate delta right before his eyes, and then she lowered and knelt between his legs.

Well, here we go again, he thought, knowing that he was not yet ready to perform again, and as the light-haired girl leaned into him, he reached for her and let his face press in between her large but pillowy-soft breasts.

*****

The trip back to Earth was long and monotonous, but thankfully Harry had given up on his mounting questions. They had run out of things to talk about and were spiritually spent. Emily recalled sleeping a little, though fitfully, always with flashes of raging naked women rushing at her before she snapped awake, with only the emptiness of space to greet her eyes. She would need some therapy when she got back, for sure. She began to regret ever agreeing to go on this mission once she was told the truth, but she doubted she ever had a choice at that point.

On the fourth day, Earth was large in their window, and they leaned into their work despite the fogginess in their brains and they attempted to contact home. They should have been able to communicate with them long ago, but ever since leaving the Moon's orbit, but all was silent on Earth. They had given up until now.

"Houston, are you there?" There was no response. Panic began to mount in Emily. They needed guidance, but it looked like they were on their own.

"What the hell are we gonna do?" Harry said.

"We're fine," Emily said. "All we have to do is fall. We're right over the Gulf of Mexico."

Quietly, though not privately, because his hushed voice was still clear in Emily's earpiece, Harry said a prayer. Soon they entered the atmosphere, and the craft shook. Emily closed her eyes and accepted that the next moment could be death, or salvation. She kept them closed until she felt a sudden shock, and it was of the craft hitting water, for when she opened her eyes, there was bright sunlight coming through the window and a familiar Earthly lapping sound.

"We made it!" Harry shouted. They both climbed out of their seats and made for the exit.

Opening the hatch and climbing out was an ordeal, and they were greeted with the ocean blue looking up at them.

They were not far from shore; they could see the strip of beach and the buildings beyond.

"We're okay, all we have to do is wait," Emily said. "They'll come for us."

But they waited and nobody came. Emily went inside the craft and tried to radio to base several times, then just gave up and came back to the hatch, watching the shore come closer.

"Should we swim?" Harry asked.

"Don't bother. The tide is pushing us in."

"Where the hell is everybody?"

Emily of course didn't know, and it was pointless to say so. She just watched the shore closing in. Hours later, their craft bumped on sand, and Harry, eager to put his feet on terrestrial soil, hopped out without even taking off his helmet. Emily called out for him to wait, but it was too late. She wrenched off her helmet, took a breath of sweet Earth air, and despite knowing how difficult it would be to swim in her suit, she jumped out after him. They paddled furiously until the shore was within reach, and their feet touched ground, and then all they had to do was trudge through the sand until the land was dry. But before they got there, a party was already waiting for them. At the sight of them, though, both Emily and Harry froze, for who greeted them was not people from NASA or curious citizens, though maybe they were the latter, if the citizens had suddenly eschewed clothes, for what they saw was a line of women, from left to right, standing in a line, all nude, as if Emily and Harry had never left the Moon. The sun shone on their skin and the wind tossed their hair dramatically.

"Uh..." Harry began.

"Houston," Emily followed up, to herself more than anybody, "we have a problem."

Even more fantastical adventures await in these other P.A. Choi collections!

“Naked Fantasies,” “Naked Trouble,” “Life’s More Fun Naked!” and “Why Be Clothed?”

About P.A. Choi

P.A. Choi has had a long, proud career of writing erotica for seven years, where he has mainly pursued his favorite themes of exhibitionism, public nudity, and the fine line between naturism and eroticism.

Press flesh with P.A. Choi at:

twitter.com/PAChoi4

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Or shoot an e-mail at pachoierotica@gmail.com

[i]As seen in Planet of the Naked Girls!