Naked Adventures

A collection by P.A. Choi

Copyright 2021 P.A. Choi

Cover design by P.A. Choi.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Naked World

Hidden River

Dancing in the Moonlight

Work Massage

The Public Model

Bare Naked Bay

About P.A. Choi

Introduction

On the campus of Gregory University, all is still in the night. Almost. A lone pair of headlights moves around the central loop like two spirit lovers on a gallivant through the dark. Also gallivanting is a very human figure, human in every sense of the word, for she is nude. There is a high moon out, and it makes the girl glow so that she seems like a spirit herself. Indeed, she is part of a spirit that seems to live through the school's whole existence, unbeknownst to some, even to this girl, whose only concern is enjoying the crisp night air on her bare skin. She unknowingly embodies this secret spirit as she cuts across the central field of the campus, pale body disappearing momentarily under a passing cloud, then materializing again, limbs swinging free, her tiny butt (tiny from this distance) bobbing up and down as she runs, crosses the field, and climbs up to the other side, heading for the walkway between a row of academic buildings and the library and student center, where she disappears into shadow. We lose track of her and drift up to the top of one of the academic buildings, where a light warms a few windows. We float inside...

It is a comfy office. An oak desk and high-back chair (unoccupied) sits in the amber lamplight. A rotating leather seat is positioned in front of the desk, and it turns, revealing its occupant: a pretty middle-aged woman, Asian, with an impeccable bob-cut curved around her sharp facial features. She is dressed in a blazer and skirt. She folds her russet legs, tempting the eye with a perilous peek up the continuation of her thighs into shadow. She smiles at us, and folds her hands on her knees.

"Good evening. I am Kim Tan. Professor Dougherty is away tonight, on 'official' business, chasing down the elusive 'naked angels' which he believes haunts this campus.[1] I come to you tonight with some clarification. The title of our presentation is, as you have seen, ‘Naked Adventures,’ a collection of accounts curated by Professor Dougherty but discarded, for they did not match up with the unfolding conspiracy that he is researching, that of the mysterious and unbridled naked women that show up across time to enlighten or arouse those who meet them. These stories are not that. In fact, they involve a progression into co-ed nudity, something our eminent professor is less interested in, but I am. Which is why I clarify the title of our collection, for it is very similar to a previous story series you may have read, ‘Naked Girl Adventures,’ a passing amusement of Dougherty and which will have a part two coming out very soon, this time curated by Dougherty himself, for the stories within contain overlap with his studies on the obsession with the female form.

I bring up this difference to avoid confusion between 'Naked Adventures' and 'Naked Girl Adventures' only because my interest, unlike professor Dougherty’s, is in the healthy, wholesome—not always chaste—enjoyment of casual and social nudity, as I discovered while pouring through our last study, wherein I took off my professional clothes in the professor's brief absence and found myself much more comfortable for doing so. He, of course, was delighted in my wardrobe change."

At this, Miss Tan loosens the collar of her dress shirt under her blazer, but she makes no further adjustments.

"I will start tonight's study with an unconventional and perhaps thought-provoking story, about a virtual reality game that encourages players to explore a vast, wide world in the nude, perhaps inspiring them to embrace the joy of setting forth in the world as when one is born. I quite like this story, with its sexual tension of the protagonist and the girl he meets. Read on...

Naked World

Leo opened the door to his apartment and stumbled inside, the big, clunky plastic travel case hanging from his left hand as he turned the doorknob with the right. The case thunked against the door frame as he stepped inside, and he set it down in the foyer and then closed the door, only to realize he still had the keys in the keyhole, and he opened the door to retrieve them. It was safe to say he was a little absent-minded. He had nearly run a few stoplights on his way home, having come from thirty miles away, meeting the Craigslist seller who sold him the case, and what was inside it. And what was inside it was a brand new, barley-used VR headset and controls, which meant that he could now play the hottest new game that everybody had been raving about: Naked World.

Perhaps it was less a game than it was a social media application. or an experience. The premise was that you could "travel naked, anywhere in the world,” which was a weird selling point, considering that He could think of no way that a virtual reality app could really give you the sensation of walking around nude. It was the travel that drew him in, though. He was getting sick of being quarantined in his own home. Now, at least, he could travel to the beaches of the Bahamas, or climb Everest, or wander through a dripping rain forest. All of that was sure to be exciting and much better than staring at the drab walls of his apartment for another lonely night. And, from what he had heard, a lot of his friends were already playing it. It had been a long time since he had seen any of them, and perhaps meeting them in the virtual world would make up for that a little bit.

He plucked up his new toy and passed through the kitchen, letting his keys clatter onto the counter as he made his way to his bedroom. There, he flipped on the light and opened the box, running his hand along the smooth plastic. He anxiously took it out of its case and slid it on his head, feeling around for where the power switch was. Standing there by his bed like a dolt, he stared into a black nothingness until the virtual menu lit up so he could begin setting up his gateway to another world.

He spent the next thirty minutes like that, soon resigning to sitting on the edge of the bed while his head was hooked up to the device. He probably looked like something straight out of Neuromancer. It was a good thing he didn't have any pets to sit and stare at him and wonder what was wrong with their owner. Living alone was really the best, except when you were forced to stay inside.

He spent a great deal of time setting up his home environment, choosing a 360 scene (a snowy mountaintop with a ski lift) to welcome him to the virtual world every time he entered it, and he set up his avatar (a charming chap in a pirate hat) and username (Captain_Badass), and then, most importantly, his credit card information. Then he took off the headset and blinked against the ceiling lights of his room, and he pushed the thing aside and went to go use the bathroom, for he had had to pee since halfway through his small road trip. Then he changed into something more comfortable (a pocketless pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt), and he got himself a tall glass of water. And then he returned to the bedroom.

It was time to dive in. he had the whole night ahead of him. Indeed, it was already starting to get dark outside. The light of his bedroom was the only shelter against the blackness of night, but soon he would leave all that behind. He threw himself onto his bed and took up the headset and put it on. Next stop: the software store.

The menu was filled with all sorts of interesting apps and experiences, all which looked interesting to him, but he was there for just one thing. He had bought this damned device for just one thing, and now he would not be the only one in his friend circle who would get to rave about experiencing Naked World. Luckily, it was one of the top recommended apps. Its preview image was a woman walking towards a beach, her hands positioned daintily to her sides as she tip-toed on the sand, the title of the app censoring her bare butt. Leo clicked "learn more" and followed to the purchase screen. Now it was time to enter his pin, confirming he wanted a purchase, and in moments, the screen went black as he prepared to enter Naked World. 

From the black, a menu slowly materialized, and Leo saw before him a globe, with several destinations marked. A text box read: “Where would you like to go?" He fumbled for the controllers lying beside him on the bed, searching blindly until he felt the cool plastic, and he thumbed through the options. The cursor on the screen jumped from location to location, but he picked the one that jumped out at him as the most obvious one to visit: The Bahamas. When he clicked on it, the globe zoomed in and then the screen faded to black again. The sound of seagulls and a rushing surf filled Leo's ears, and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the sand in a pristine, photo-realistic beach. He began to scan his eyes around; everywhere he looked, there was white sand, and beyond that, blue ocean, and all around, there were scores of people walking the beach, all nude. They looked absolutely photo-realistic, and Leo had to take a moment to be amazed.

There were men and women, mostly young, in line with the clientèle of an internet app. Leo supposed that all these people were users of Naked World and not just pieces of software. He stood up, or at least stood up in the virtual world, leaning forward on a control stick to propel him towards the water. Besides the immersion-breaking interface that basically felt like playing a video game, the scenery itself drew Leo in, and he really did feel as if he were on a pristine beach. He could almost smell the salt air and feel the breeze against his skin, and he swore, right there, that he felt as if he were nude.

It was incredible; how this little app could make him feel such sensations was beyond him, but he chalked it up to impression. There was no other way. And with the sudden feeling of nudity, Leo began to feel self-conscious, as the other inhabitants of the beach looked at him and smiled. Instinctively he covered his privates, his hand in the real world gripping the controllers and fumbling them in front of his shorts.

He saw a familiar face coming out of the water, gleaming from head to knee (her feet were still submerged, but not for long), the nude figure of a familiar friend, and she saw him immediately and walked toward him. It was Zoe, from the pottery class he had been taking. She was radiant. How the graphics could so perfectly replicate her, down to a T—well, except for the portion of her that he had never seen before—Leo could not figure. It was at that moment that he forgot that he was in a virtual reality program completely. The controllers he held must have slipped out of his hands, for he distinctly felt them at his sides, where he could also feel (Feel! How was that possible?) the sides of his hips, and he raised his other hand to wave at Zoe. The look of, at first, confusion, then recognition, then joy, but mixed with a little embarrassment, were all clear on her face. She was now staring at him as much as he was staring at her. Her skin almost seemed to glow in the direct light of the sun, and she was an even hue, from top to bottom as she came all the way out of the water and her feet squished in the wet sand. No tanlines were evident. Leo wondered what he might look like, but he wasn't about to look down at himself now. They stopped within arm's reach.

"Hey!" she said first. "I-is that really you?"

He saw her eyes flit down briefly and then back up. How was she seeing his actual likeness? Wasn’t he a pirate? Privacy concerns briefly nagged him.

"Yeah... it's me. I can hardly believe it."

"Me either.. are all these people real?"

Beside them, scores of happy people walked along, some of them acknowledging the pair, casting a smile their way.

"Yeah, I think so. Haven't you been on this thing for a while already?"

She shook her head, her locks bouncing above her shoulders.

"No, I've been putting it off. I just got my headset today."

'Hey, me too!"

She laughed, and for a moment they stood there, eyes locked, a moment as arresting as it would have been in real life. Perhaps more, for this felt like some sort of dream. Then Leo let his eyes move away from her and he admired the endless stretch of pure ocean behind Zoe. As far as the eye could see, the water stretched on. Leo thought he could even see a boat way out in the distance. It was like he had this whole island paradise to himself, with his naked friend, a woman he had never fantasized about in that way, but sure was now, in real-time.

He looked back to her and saw that her eyes had now wandered to what was behind him, and then she met his eyes again.

"Hey, let's go explore the island!" she said. Her face was beaming, her grin was infectious, and coupled with her nudity, it made a happy, innocent image out of her, an image that Leo had not quite seen her in ever before. He turned and looked at what was behind him.

The looming, densely-forested mountain rose to the sky. It even touched the clouds. It had to be far away, but still close enough to stroll to. The feeling of wanderlust it stirred up was irresistible. It felt like something out of Jurassic Park. Hopefully there would be no danger. He turned back to Zoe.

"Looks fun... let's do it!"

Her grin got wider, if that was possible, and she skipped into step like a happy child, taking Leo's hand all of a sudden and taking him by surprise. There was the briefest of pauses as she realized just what she was doing, but she did not let go of his hand, and he didn't mind. They skipped ahead, two happy children now, and soon their feet traded the rough sand for the grass, which Leo could feel between his toes. As they skipped, he could even feel his penis flip around, which was embarrassing in a way, with Zoe right there beside him, but she didn't seem to notice or mind, nor notice the way her light little chest bounced as she ran, but Leo noticed, and he loved it all, all the sensations of this Blue Lagoon dreamland. He still could not believe how real everything felt. He could even feel the heat of the sun on his skin, and the sweat, wet on the small of his back (even though he was actually wearing clothes and laying on his bed at that exact instant—or so he thought), and as they neared the dense jungle, he could smell the bitter and floral scents of the myriad of plants and insects teeming within. And furthermore, he felt the warmth of Zoe's hand and the absence of said warmth when she finally let go of him as they slowed down, as if she had held his hand to assure he would follow her on this naked adventure.

Silently, they approached the wall of jungle. Leo felt paranoid about stepping on something sharp, a thorn or a fishhook or a glass bottle left by some other human, but he had to remind himself that there would be nothing in this virtual world that could hurt him. Or so he hoped.

There was a noticeable quiet around the edge of the jungle, and there didn't seem to be any other people up here, which was odd. Leo found himself looking back and he could see the semi-distant shapes of everybody on the beach. He guessed he and Zoe were the only ones with an adventurous spirit. In truth, he wouldn't be up here if it weren't for Zoe. The beach had been good enough.

"Let's get to the top of that mountain," Zoe then said, confirming that she was cut from a different cloth than the other people who visited this world. "I bet the view up there is great."

Leo nodded and found himself following after Zoe, a fantastical image, working her golden body carefully through the growing green undergrowth. She looked almost like the girl on the app's store image, only trading the beach for the jungle. The way her legs bent and the way her butt hung in the air above the ferns and grass was something like a piece of art. Was this accurate to how she looked like in real life? Leo wondered. Her face certainly was. Then, briefly, he looked down at himself and saw more or less what he was used to: his flat stomach, no belly, but no tone, either, but nothing to be ashamed of, and his little buddy hanging below, perhaps not as small as usual, and that might have been because of a slight flutter of excitement that passed through it at the constant sight of Zoe. He smiled to himself and looked up to see that she had gotten way ahead of him, so he hurried his step, feeling now the brief threat of an erection as she turned and looked back at him, but he gladly closed the distance, feeling like running was easier in this world, like he could just float over to her, like he could fly if he wanted to, and he thought about asking her if she wanted to try to do that. 

"Hey," he said, catching up to her and taking her hand this time. She stopped and turned to him; they were so close, hand-in-hand, nude front almost touching nude front; it gave him a little tremble. He almost forgot what he was going to say, until he said: “Let's try and fly to the top of the mountain."

Her grin was growing. "Fly? How would we do that?"

"I don't know, let's just try and jump."

She let go of his hand and they both stood there before each other, Zoe rearing down and preparing to give it a try. She launched herself up with her legs, and much to Leo's shock, she ascended into the air like a naked angel. He heard the sound of her laughing traveling up with her.

"Haha, wow, it worked! Come on up! Come join me!"

Leo was awash in the sight of her climbing to Heaven, dancing in the sunlight, and then he crouched down and prepared to propel himself up to her.

His feet left the ground effortlessly. The wind was all over his skin as he climbed, climbed up to her, and when he reached her, both of them were hovering in the air with the dense jungle below them and the bald mountain ahead of them.

"Welcome up," she said to him. The wind was whipping her golden hair, and he could feel it also on his scalp and shoulders. His feet hung in the air, and floating there, he felt all as one, his whole body exposed and suspended, and he laughed at Zoe and her image before him, took her hand again, and they both leaned forward and flew towards the mountaintop like Superman and Lois Lane. 

It felt like he was committing indecent exposure to the whole world below as he planed in the air, flying horizontal, his penis whipping like a sail in the harsh wind. he looked over to Zoe. She appeared to be laughing, but no sound was coming out. Indeed Leo was too shocked to even yell or holler; this experience was all too great. His heart seized with vertigo as they sailed over tree-tops, and up ahead was the summit they had sought. They slowed, and then their feet fell forward and they touched hard earth, as if they were naturals at flying. Once on solid ground, they released their hands and took in all that was around them.

The sound was that of a constant wind, and when they turned and looked back from where they had come, the ivory beach was but a tiny stripe on the edge of the island, and the people down there were like ants. Leo and Zoe looked at each other. They were both smiling. Then they looked out at the wind-swept rock before them and saw the most inviting thing: a swinging rope bridge. They looked at each other again.

"Let's go," Zoe said. "It's a real adventure."

Leo said nothing and just nodded, and they both headed for the bridge, which stretched an impossible distance to the next peak. They could just fly over it, Leo supposed, but part of the appeal was taking in the sense of danger, and they went, one-by-one, onto the bridge, which swung with their weight. Zoe was in front, and Leo got to delight in the sight of her before him, of her unsteady gait on the suspended planks of wood, her hands balancing herself on the ropes. They carefully made their way across, neither of them saying a word, though Zoe would occasionally look back at Leo and flash the most winning smile.

In the middle of the bridge, they stopped and looked out over the railing at the ocean so distant below, and as they stood there, side-by-side, the bridge swayed, and Leo was filled with so many swirling feelings: fear, thrill, and warmth. Zoe's bare shoulder was brushing his, and he could literally feel her heat, and once again he had no idea how a virtual reality program could impart all this sensation. Perhaps it really was all in the mind. They looked at each other one more time, and Leo was filled with the sensation that he could only figure was what love felt like, though he had never felt this strongly about Zoe, pretty and charming as she was. Perhaps it was just the sum of all the sensations he felt atop this island paradise, nude with a beautiful nude girl and a beautiful scene below him. Then they resumed their course.

He was sure that the ropes on the bridge would snap and dump them into the jungle below. Surely something like that would happen in an app catered towards adventure. But they made it all the way across, and what was on the other side was quite curious: a rocky mountaintop, with a stone shrine awaiting them. They both walked up to it.

The words were carved into the stone as if they had been there for many ages, but the language was clear, modern English: Here is a testament to all who desire to live free and embrace life. They stared at the words for a moment until Zoe spoke up.

"That's nice," she said. "It's like a universal message for all who come to this app."

Her choice of words broke the illusion that they were actually on a secluded mountaintop somewhere in Paradise.

"I wonder who put it here?" she continued.

"The programmers," Leo said cynically. The illusion was fading. But Zoe was transfixed by this message left for them. Leo, meanwhile, turned in place, acknowledging the pretty frame of his companion as she looked at the rock, and then admiring the vista before them. Out on the horizon, some ugly black clouds gathered.

"Looks like a storm's coming," Leo said, touching the smooth shoulder of Zoe and nodding his head out to the sea. "Should we get back?"

"We can just fly back," she said with a twinkle in her eye. Leo smiled and was prepared to launch himself into the air again when the storm clouds became instantly closer, right up on them now almost. The wind started whipping more violently. Zoe's golden hair was tossed on her shoulders.

"I—"

The first lightning strike came. It was deafening. Leo found himself cowering on that rock with Zoe, both of them crouched down and clinging to each others' bodies, sheltering themselves from the barrage of wind and then rain, which battered down on their backs and stung like needles. Leo feared flying in this.

"That was fast!" Zoe yelled under the storm, and Leo could barely hear her words. So violent was the storm, and so filled with fear was he, that he could hardly acknowledge the intimacy within which they were now entangled, her arms wrapped in his, the tips of her breasts tickling his chest. All of a sudden, he felt a closeness and almost sibling bond with Zoe, and they huddled there together and he felt her hands on his arms, until he no longer felt them, and he opened his eyes, not realizing they had been closed, and she was gone, and the wind whipping around him now had a cold edge to it, and he was no longer on the top of a tropical mountain, but a snow-capped one. He was knee-deep in a blizzard, and the view of the ocean—if there even was one anymore—was obstructed by a wall of white flurries.

"What the hell?" he found himself yelling, and his own voice was nearly drowned out by the howling wind. He stood up and felt the sudden chill over his naked body. He hugged himself. The shrine was no longer there. There was nothing there except snow-blown rock and the endless white beyond. What the hell had happened? A glitch. He cried out. He wandered to the edge of the precipice of the mountaintop which he could not make out and he stopped, fearing he would stumble off the edge. Not even the rope bridge was visible. He was at a completely different location, he was sure. No longer was he in the Bahamas, but now he was on the top of the Alps. Who would ever want to go naked there? Standing there gave him the feeling of what it might feel like to struggle for survival in the farthest reaches of the world where the sun's rays did not warm, but only blinded. It was a much different type of sensation than the allure of swimming on pristine beaches. Perhaps this is what the creators of Naked World also wanted to impart: that the world could be as harsh and unforgiving as it was nurturing. He wanted out. He clawed at his head and suddenly felt the cool plastic of the VR headset, and he tore it off, once again laying—not standing—on his bed, and as he was before he entered Naked World, he was clothed, in his shorts and t-shirt, and even though it was late summer, he felt a residual chill from his brief stint naked on the Alps.

He lay there in shock for a moment. He breathed heavily. He had no inkling of an erection anymore, for his cold trip had vanquished all of that. Stupid app, he said inwardly. Must have been a glitch. He got up off the bed and went to his desk and opened his laptop. He opened his social media, and saw an immediate message from a familiar face: Zoe's profile, an anime girl avatar, with the message: "Did you just experience all that?"

His fingers were on the keyboard in an instant. "Yeah," he said. "That was wild."

"What the hell happened?" She asked next.

"I don't know. I think we got teleported to one of the other locations. It got snowy all of a sudden."

"Lucky for you. I was on a volcano."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah. I got out of there in a hurry."

"Guess they have some bugs to work out."

"I guess. Hey... it's still early. Mind if I come over? I'm sick of this virtual shit."

Leo's heart rose up into his throat. It had been so long since he had had friends over. But Zoe? With the last memory he had of her in the nude? Now his heart was racing. As were his fingers on the keyboard.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Come on over."

"I'll be there in a few. I might pick up something from the liquor store. I could use a drink."

"Okay," he replied, almost stuttering with his fingers on the keyboard. "See you in a few."

When he ended the messaging session, he slid his chair back from his desk and let out a big breath. Having Zoe over on a whim was suddenly more thrilling than all he had experienced in the virtual world. He thought about all the times they had had, usually eating out with other mutual friends, and rarely one-on-one, and he thought of his virtual experience, naked, together with Zoe, close, and his breaths came in shudders, and he stood up to go to the kitchen and make some coffee, despite the promise of alcohol forthcoming. Did their encounter on the island count as a real meetup? Could he catalogue being with her naked now in his memories of spending time with her? What was real and what was not? He could no longer tell. The power of virtual reality confused his senses. He waited for the coffee to brew, the pot gurgling, as he stood there in his kitchen, in a daze, and he must have been standing there for some time, for the coffee was long done brewing when there was a knock at his door, and he left the kitchen with the scent of bitter beans in his nose and went to the door, and when he opened it, the fresh air from outside came in, as did Zoe, exactly as he had previously seen her, that is, to say, completely nude.

She stood in his door frame, pale rather than golden under the harsh lamplight from outside, and a bottle of Kahlua was cradled in her arms, below her modest breasts, just as he had seen them in the virtual world.

"Hey," she said. "Figured I'd come as you last saw me."

Leo stood there in shock, Zoe’s naked frame highlighted against the drab backdrop of his apartment community, and then he stood aside and let her in.

~

"What a knockout ending," Our host, who has taken off her blazer, now sits in the chair with her short-sleeve white dress shirt outlining her chest as she reclines. "I hope Leo and Zoe have a good time together. And in fact, I know they will.

"This next story deals with a young woman who enjoys her naked time, pursuing a dream, and at the end of the day, her dream comes true in an unexpected way. Read on, in 'Hidden River.'"

Hidden River

It had been a recurring dream for Hannah, and it had that strange quality that many of her dreams had. She found it difficult to find a word to describe that quality except that it was a "strange sense of place," in that she would often dream of being in an alternate version of her home (with much more personal space, as opposed to the house in which she stayed with friends currently), or sometimes a completely different home, or different buildings completely, and there was a comfy sense of familiarity with it, as if she knew this place, and there were always many little rooms and she would look forward to spending her time unhurried in each of those rooms, and each time when she woke up, she was soon disappointed that those locations did not exist, for she felt sure during the dreams that these places were part of her daily life.

Such was this most recent dream, though it was not an indoor location. The dream would often start with her walking through a park and approaching a little river, where there would be a wooden boat for her to climb into, and she would ride under footbridges and past the people walking around high up on the bank, until the river became lonely and eventually came out to a wide-open area. There were people here, and they were all nude, and this was the allure of this secret place: it was a place to come and relax without your clothes. Hannah would toss off hers—sometimes she didn't even remember the act of undressing; she would just suddenly be nude, or sometimes be nude in the boat, or even before getting in the boat, where clothed people could see her. She would walk onto the grounds, where there were well-manicured parks and a swimming pool with lots of kids and one or two adults just lazing in their chairs, and a little shack there, and there were little one-room huts along the paths, almost like chicken coops, good for nothing except sleeping or perhaps changing, though changing in private didn't seem to be a necessity here. She would wander these grounds, talk to no-one, and occasionally take a dip in the pool. She would always feel the odd sense of doing something she was not supposed to be doing, of being too forward by cavorting about naked, even though everybody else was doing it. It made her feel almost like an outsider, since she never talked to anybody in these dreams. Despite that, there was that sense of comfiness still, that this was a familiar place for her to relax as long as she liked, and the realization that she did not actually have such a place upon awakening in her bed and hearing music throb through her walls always made her mornings start badly.

Maybe she could find such a place, she thought. Their house was in the suburbs, and there were wooded areas all around, areas that she had never taken the time to wander through. Maybe there was somewhere out there, private, and special, just for her. The only thing that would be missing would be the social aspect. Hannah had been to a nudist resort before, back when she was in college, in a different town. She had gone on a whim, just herself, and found it immensely relaxing. It was probably memories of that trip that fueled her subconscious to cook up this dream.

She knew there were at least two nudist resorts a few hours away from where she lived. She just hadn't done any serious looking, and didn't see the point of it, for her housemates might wonder where she'd be going, and she certainly wasn't going to tell them, let alone invite them. They wouldn't understand. They would think she was weird. But if she could slip away for just part of the day, have her own little oasis to go to, then maybe the long hours of constant social interaction with Ruby and her boyfriend Chris, and Hannah’s college friend Tina, always wanting to watch movies, always playing music at other times, Chris always playing Xbox at full volume, machine gun fire filling the house, and Ruby and Chris always arguing, wouldn't be so tiresome. She enjoyed living with her friends otherwise, always looked forward to the nights of fun around the living room coffee table, playing Settlers of Catan or just talking gossip, but everybody needed a break, and Hannah was the type of person that most valued her alone time, so she could read or write (she enjoyed poetry) or just have some rejuvenating solitude every once and a while. So far, she only got those moments late at night when she retired to her room, but those moments were the sleepiest and most lethargic, and she would spend them in front of her computer, only to fall asleep at her desk and then not get enough shut-eye for the rest of the night, waking up bleary-eyed and with fresh dreams to tease her. She decided, first, that she would write a poem about the place in her dreams.

*****

The birds' songs flutter through the trees like leaves,

With the sun fingering through to warm me what it can.

I am naked, my bared skin breathes,

It sweats, it lives, it gets a golden tan,

And collects water droplets on its goosebumped surface,

Drank up by the sun for some other purpose,

A rain, that will come in the next few days

Until then, my time here is a daze.

Hannah sat back from her desk and surveyed her own words, not feeling that they fully communicated that strange "sense of place" that laced her every dream. She read them again, marked a few lines with a red pen for where she could improve the rhythm, and then got up to go see what her housemates were doing. It was awfully quiet out there.

They were watching a movie, this one a very low-key drama, which explained the quietness. Hannah sat down with them for a while and watched, but then when they paused to go make drinks, she followed into the kitchen and then stepped back onto their private back patio, fenced in on three sides and with the house to its back, and she took a deep breath of fresh air, imagining what she may find out there beyond. They had a tree in the patio, and it reached up to mingle with the tops of the other trees outside the fence, with the pure blue sky above. Below, a set of long fold-up tables sat side-by-side, creating a long banquet table which they used for their barbecues, and on the opposite side was a small garden which Tina tended, with bright yellow flowers and vines and a set of wicker chairs and a little elevated fire pit. It was a quite expansive patio, and actually had the sense of place that Hannah so tenuously gripped. She felt it now, all of a sudden, and then it faded, evading her direct attention just as her dream-places did. And its connection to the outside world was symbolized by those mingling tree branches above, with the sky that overlooked everything, everywhere in the world. She decided right then, that that very afternoon, she would set out and find her hidden spot. It was time for an adventure.

"Oh, you're leaving?" Ruby asked her.

"I have some errands to run," Hannah lied.

"You don't wanna watch the rest of the movie with us?"

"Nah, I missed the beginning anyway. Tell me what happens."

"Well alright."

Tina, meeting her by the back door as Hannah grabbed her purse and keys, asked her where she was going.

"Oh, uh... to the art store. I need some more notebooks. And maybe to go get something to eat."

"Hey, wanna bring back something?" Tina's eyes were alive with excitement now.

"Oh, uh, I can call when I'm at someplace. But I'm probably going to be out a while."

"It takes that long to get notebooks?"

"I might wander around a bit."

That statement wasn't a lie.

"Well maybe we'll order a pizza or something."

"Oh, you can save me a piece."

Tina narrowed her eyes at her.

"Weren't you getting something to eat?"

"Oh yeah. Sorry, my mind's all scattered."

And indeed it was; she was completely absorbed in her quest to find the spot from her dreams. It was taking on an almost religious significance, important to her as finding the meaning of life.

"Well be careful," Tina concluded. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just fine. Why?"

"It's just you seem so distant. I something bothering you?"

Hannah laughed and waved a hand. "No, I'm just thinking about a poem I just wrote."

"Ah, the ever-obsessed artist. I get it. Well go find your muse," Tina said.

"I definitely intend to," Hannah replied without the slightest bit of irony, and she smiled at her friend and headed out the door, across the expansive patio to the gate, and to her hatchback parked along a line of all their vehicles in the uncovered strip before their fence. She unlocked it and got in with the thrill of a new adventure climbing up into her heart, without the slightest idea where to go, and an almost despondent inclination to call it all off at that realization. But instead, she started the engine and backed out, not knowing which way she would turn when she got to the stop sign outside their community.

She ended up turning left, where she knew some small parks were, but it was probably fruitless to go to them; they were all very public and in the heart of the neighborhood. There would be no hidden river to undress by and frolic about as a forest nymph. Hannah slowed down when she passed the first one, full of people walking and throwing frisbees, but she sped up and kept driving. The next stop sign found her at a T-junction with a church and a playground immediately in front of her and cars whizzing past. To her right, Hannah knew, was an Ingles and a shopping center, and much hustle and bustle; completely useless to explore. To her left, she did not know what lay, except for the historic downtown and beyond that she did not know, so she took that direction.

The road was bordered by trees and it didn't look like it would go anywhere, until Hannah took a bend and the trees thinned out and there was the town square ahead of her, which she drove slowly through, watching for pedestrians and glancing out her window at people eating at cafés or walking their dogs. She got a sense of that world outside, like the park in her dream, where people would be completely ignorant of her own private world. At any time, as anybody dined with their friends or family, a girl out there might be taking off her clothes in the open sun, as Hannah was hopefully going to be able to do. Quaint as the town center was, it was of no use to her, and in another few seconds, her car had cut straight across and was heading down a tree-lined road again.

She drove for some time, realizing she was soon leaving the city bounds and would soon be driving off in the mountains forever if she didn't stop herself. It all began to feel fruitless to her. She wasn't going to find anything. She was just wasting gas. The road became bendy, and the trees became thicker, and she knew this little two-lane roped through the mountains until it came to the next big town some twenty miles away. And if she didn't stop now, there would soon be nowhere to turn around, and she would be cursed to drive that twenty miles lest she risk a three-point turn in the middle of a winding road. Her car slowing, Hannah began looking for enough shoulder or a private drive to pull off and turn around, and it was in her scanning that she saw a little paved drive with a sign next to it that read: Hidden River Park.

She almost flipped her hatchback taking the sharp turn onto the drive. Luckily, no cars were coming. She had little time to ponder her own mortality, however, as she was too focused on the new path that lay ahead for her. This is too perfect, she thought. This had to be the place for her.

The narrow little paved drive opened up into a wide parking area, completely devoid of cars, much to Hannah's delight. And yet the road continued on, and she kept driving, going slow, the trees crowding around the boundary of the parking lot like a mysterious jungle. Her imagination was going wild, imagining what may lie beyond that line of trees.

The road narrowed, took her through a dense tunnel of forest, and then opened up again at another parking area, with a tennis court and a small visitor's building. Here there were one or two cars, and Hannah's heart sank. But she kept driving. She left that semi-populated area and delved into forest again, coming out finally at a final parking area, once again devoid of cars, and here she finally pulled in and killed her engine. She sat in silence for a moment. At the end of the parking lot was the entrance to a path, sanctioned off on either side with heavy rope for the first ten yards, and then it went on. It was paved, at least for the distance that her eye could see. She got out, heart pumping. Without any delay, she set out for the path, carrying nothing with her, not even water. She beeped her car locked and entered the path, glancing at the little map pressed behind glass on a little podium, and it showed three sets of mostly straight, parallel paths. A little blue line of a river bisected the three paths, guaranteeing that on any of them, one would encounter it. The "you are here" sticker showed that Hannah was standing at the foot of the right-most path, and could jump over to either of the other paths halfway down. But she was most interested at the very end of the path, where the illustrated forest crowded in like a mysterious lost woods, and where the river appeared to flow from. She set to walking.

The path remained paved, with a rope boundary continuing on the right, overlooking a steep drop-off, nothing but kudzu below, and to her left was a formidable sidehill, none too scenic and restricting her to this artificial walkway. She had to admit, it didn't fill her with promise. Much to her dismay, as she went up the paved path, another person came from the other direction, a young man with a headband, power-walking, who nodded at her as they crossed paths. And then she was alone again. But Hannah had doubts that she would be able to be alone for long.

Soon the sidehills fell away and she reached the junction for crossing over the paths, and on a whim, she decided to take it. The juncture path was dirt, and she truly felt like she was in the woods now, the trees making a tunnel out of this passageway. She came out onto the next path, which was lightly-graveled, and rather open, enabling her to look both ways and see the long stretch in either direction. Here it was quiet, not a sound of a car rushing by or police sirens in the town outside; only the birds chirping and the cicadas, too. She turned right and headed up this new path, which descended into shadowy woods once more. She finally felt like she was isolated, but not isolated enough, for she was dead-center in the set of paths. Eventually, if the map was correct, she would pass the river. And soon she did. A footbridge crossed over it, and Hannah took a moment to stop and look down at it. She saw frogs hopping. The cicadas were getting louder, and the swampy scent of wet vegetation was in the air. Hannah spat into the river and continued walking, and after a while, the next juncture presented itself, even more closed-in on by the forest than the last, and she took it, hopping back over to the original trail, still paved, and still overlooking a deep beyond. But she swore she heard water trickling from where the river cut through some ways ahead. She kept on, feeling for sure in her heart that she would not bump into anybody from here on out.

She indeed crossed the river, and this crossing surprised her, for it ran right over the pavement, water gushing along the wet blacktop, and only a few elevated stepping stones led the way across it, somebody's idea of a fun activity. Hannah decided to take it, holding her arms up delicately for balance, almost tumbling in a few times, until her feet reached safety on the other side, and she kept going.

This seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to get to a place like she imagined in her dreams. Things were always easier in dreams. She imagined just cruising down the river as she did in her dream, bisecting all the trails and arriving at her destination, but the river ran from the top of the trail, and not towards it. And even if she could ride down, she would have to, unlike her dream, walk all the way back. This seemed like too much of an inconvenience just to be able to enjoy this place on the daily, but for just this once... She had to find out.

Eventually, the paved path curved to the left, and Hannah realized she was at the end of the trail. Her throat was dry and parchy. She knew the path would dip over to join the top of the middle one she had wandered onto, and the left-most one if she should decide to walk all the way over there, but a spot at the corner drew her eye as it did on the map earlier.

There was no railing here, and a patch of bare earth seemed to suggest a trail, and the sun filtered down through the trees above to paint the dirt in bright speckles. Birds chirped happily from within the inviting path, and instead of continuing along the paved route, Hannah stepped onto the earth.

It was narrow but very passable, as if it was meant to be part of the trail despite not being on the map. If they didn't want people to walk on this trail, they surely would have blocked it off, Hannah thought. As she continued walking, however, she could see why it was not on the map. The trail more or less disappeared, and the overgrowth became quite thick, so that she was walking in the middle of the woods and not just on a guided tour through it. Eventually, she came to more or less a fork in the road, with a rocky sidehill before her, a somewhat-walkable path to her right marked with large stones jutting up out of the earth that she would have to carefully traverse around, and to her left the way was nigh-impassable, the trees and foliage crowding right up to the hill. She thought she saw thorny vines. To the right, she told herself, wondering how far she was going to carry on this quest to find her perfect spot. But the wanderlust in her would not let go. She would not leave until she saw everything. It felt like an addiction.

Carefully, she stepped around the rocks and weaved through the narrow passage between forest and sidehill. She was beginning to wish she had brought a bottle of water. How long had she walked? And how long would it take to get back? It didn't matter. She would walk as far as she needed to; it was good exercise. And when she got back home, she would sleep like the dead, and hopefully visit her subconscious' oasis once again.

Then, much to her delight, there was the distant sound of the trickle of water. She hurried her step. The woods opened up a little and became much more passable, though there still was no distinct trail; Hannah walked freely on a blanket of leaves and pine needles. This area must have been unseen by the regular park-goers, she was sure of it. She was isolated. She was home. She came out onto a rocky clearing, branches still hanging above, and before her was the coursing waterway, with a rock face opposite. She was here. This was her hidden spot.

She stepped onto the rounded river rocks with the water coursing over them, getting her loafers wet. She kicked them off and threw them up on the bank. Then, turning around, she surveyed everything. Something in the back of her brain told her to not take off her clothes yet. Any responsible woodland streaker would reconnaissance the area first. So she turned left and walked downstream a bit, alternating between the shallow edge of the river and the muddy bank, getting her feet dirty. She could see ahead only for a little bit, until the river went around a bend, and beyond that, she knew, it would eventually be in view of the trail. But not for a while; she recalled it being a while since she crossed the river on those weird platforms, so it was safe to say nobody on the paved trail could see her for a while. She kept her eyes to the left, where the rock cliff turned into a steep hill, and she looked up top for houses or people and saw none, just a line of trees. It was indeed perfect. This had to be the safest place to get naked, she thought. She walked until she could see farther down the creek and confirm that there was nobody down there, and while it looked wide and open, the paved trail and its railing were not visible, nor was any sign of anybody on the other side. Satisfied and gratified, Hannah turned and went back upriver, coming to where she had left her shoes, and she decided to walk a little bit upstream. It was soon impassible as she eventually came to a large fall, with little room to walk on the shoulder. This was it, she thought. At the sight of the great, wide waterfall, she finally tore off her shirt, sliding it up her torso and tossing it to the side, on the bank, then looking with anticipation at the cascading water as she worked her pants and underwear down, fumbling on her feet, getting them a little wet. She threw them aside too, with not as good a throw, and they landed half-in. She laughed at herself, rushed over to get them out of the water, and then faced the fall. She waded into the deeper water and up to the picturesque work of nature, and let it wash over her. It was like hands massaging her bare body, and Hannah was fully aware of her nudity as she turned around and let the water cascade down her front, feeling at once every contour of herself. She ran her hands down her stomach, over her pubic hair, and then up again to fluff the wet hair atop her head, and through the curtain of water, she opened her eyes and looked downstream and marveled at how open everything was and how free she was to roam it. It was time to roam. She left the waterfall and waded through the pool in front of it until she was up on a shallow part, and she worked over to the right where it was mostly rocks and ankle-deep water, and she traversed down the river as she had done before, but with the absolute freedom of not wearing a thing. Her white skin glittered with thousands of water droplets, and she already felt them dripping off and evaporating slowly into air, to one day become rain, which if she was lucky, might one day fall upon her bare skin and start the process over again.

She came to the sheer rock face alongside the river and there spent some time. Moisture collected on the surface of the rock and made it shine, and she traversed across the river over to it and stood in a little hollow, the most private place in the world, leaning back and feeling the cold rock against her butt, feeling the occasional drip on the top of her head, and directly across from her were her shoes on the bank and the hidden trail through which she had found this place, with nobody in sight.

The only thing that disappointed her about this place, when she thought about it, was how it was not quite what was in her dream. There were no truly wide-open areas to cross, no complete freedom to go anywhere she wanted without fear of negative reactions to her nudity, no social aspect. She supposed real-world locales could never match the strange quality of dreams. Here, at least, she had the wide river, and she could be happy with that, and when she stepped out into the middle again, she looked downstream and decided to walk as far down as she could, where the fear of discovery would get increasingly tangible, and that was one aspect from her dream: the sense that she shouldn't be as she was, and she definitely figured that running around naked was not sanctioned behavior for a wildlife park.

Before heading out, she decided to give it some thought, or rather, drink in the atmosphere here first, to enjoy it. It had to be almost the end of the afternoon now, and the light was getting dim, but not near dark yet. Dark enough so that the sun no longer beat straight down. The more she dawdled, the more her return trip back would be cast in shadows. She should at least appreciate the atmosphere she currently had while it lasted. She sat down on a flat rock right in the middle of the river, with water coursing around each side of it, but shallower on one side, and she let her feet rest there as she rested her hands on her knees and looked out, thinking of how far she would go, and also thinking of herself and how she might look from outside her perspective: a pale, naked girl standing out like a sore thumb in the vista of nature, one with nature, something like one of those paintings you'd see of women relaxing nude, a sheet half-covering them or completely bare in the middle of a grove or a forest. It made Hannah feel fantastic, almost dream-like. Like—

"Ow!" She shouted out. One, two, three, and four or five sharp stings in rapid succession traveled along the back of her thigh. She bolted up, wavered unsteadily on the wet rocks, and reached back and felt the distinct bumps already on her skin. What the hell was that? she wondered. She looked down at the rock, but there was nothing. Gnats? Ants? Whatever it was, it sure as hell stung. She rubbed her new bites, somewhat irritated now that the rest of her adventure—the rest of her day—would be spent being irritated by them. Already they burned and itched. It seemed being nude in nature, in real life, was not without its hazards.

"Dammit," she cursed at herself, looking forlornly down the river and wanting to walk down it like she had planned, knowing that now these bites would be bugging her, as it were. She half-crouched and splashed some water on them, then thought of what to do. Something about the sudden displeasure soured her adventurous spirit, and she thought maybe it would be better to slowly make her way back. She didn't have to put her clothes on right away, afterall. Maybe she could make it all the way to the paved path without seeing anybody. She made her way to the bank where her shoes were, and then remembered her clothes were up by the falls, so she turned and made her way up, scratching at the back of her leg constantly as she went. It distracted her so that she was not aware anymore of the remarkable contrast of her pale form against nature, moving up the river, of the feeling the clean air on her skin, and the water jumping up at her knees. She would not enjoy a trip down the river in this state, she realized.

By the time she found her clothes, remembering how her pants had got half-wet, she was scratching at her leg constantly now. She freed her hand to take hold of her pants, shake them out, and then slung them over her shoulder along with her underwear and shirt, and then she looked at the waterfall once more. I'll be back, she told it, via the telepathy that all things in nature must secretly have, perhaps with the same mental energy that fueled her dreams, and then she turned and left her hidden spot. When she got back to her shoes, she rubbed the bottoms of her feet off on her shins and slipped them in, but kept her clothes off. It made it easier to scratch her bites. So boldly she set forth on the path she that had already taken while clothed and renewed that energy of exposure that she had felt on the river and in her sleep. She started to think she was crazy; anybody could walk up on her now. But nobody did. And she was so distracted by the stinging and itching on her leg that she would not be able to hone her senses to detect a possible bystander. She almost forgot to take the fork back to the paved portion of the path. Soon she was in the complete shade of the quiet forest, and she was beginning to get scared.

Her thoughts were so distracted that she was upon the paved path before she knew it. She could see it through the trees, and thankfully there was nobody walking up. She cursed at herself and stopped to put on her clothes. As she finished pulling her shirt over her head, she noticed an odd feeling in her face. Namely, that she couldn't feel anything. She worked her jaw like she was chewing gum, and barely felt any sensation. Now she truly started to panic.

What the hell is happening to me? She felt her heart beating fast. She had already been panicking in the woods just a moment ago, and it wasn't helping things. She hurried onto the paved path, and walked briskly, running her hands along her face and feeling the pressure, but not the feel of her fingertips. She probably looked a mess; her hair was probably all akimbo, and her clothes were hanging crooked on her. If someone were to come upon her, they would surely be able to tell that something was wrong. For the first time, she hoped that somebody would come. But nobody did. It was growing more dim, and this added to her panic. She squeezed her hand into her pants pocket and pulled out her phone. It was only five pm. It felt later. Still, she had been gone for several hours. Her housemates were probably going to worry. She may be out longer still. She would wait until she got to her car. She broke into a jog.

When she got to the head of the trail and the dim parking lot devoid of cars except her own, it felt like her lips were swollen, and when she raised her phone again to consider calling somebody, she saw splotches on her wrist.

What the hell, what the hell...

She nearly dropped her keys unlocking her car and she collapsed into the driver's seat and quickly speed-dialed Tina. She picked up in one ring.

"There you are. Where are you? You've been gone forever."

"Look, I don't want to alarm you, but I just wanted to let you know I'm driving myself to the emergency room."

"WHAT? What were you doing?"

"Long story. I got bit by something. Look, I gotta hurry. I just want to let you know where I am."

"Jesus Christ, should I come to you? Where are you?"

"I'm okay, I'll call when I'm there. I gotta go, bye."

She hung up on Tina and opened up her maps app to find where the hospital was, and then she set her GPS and started the car, her breathing getting more and more rapid. All this for a little naked time in the woods. She was beginning to feel that her whole endeavor was a massive act of foolishness. She may never go back to that park again.

*****

She only spent a couple of hours at the hospital. Once she arrived, the splotches on her arms had multiplied, and the receptionist at the emergency room desk recognized her symptoms right away. She was rushed quickly back to receive steroids and Benadryl. After some time waiting on a bed, now clad in a sheet open at the back, which felt silly, a doctor came in to see her, and she rolled over so that he could look at her bare bottom and assess the bites there. If he was going to be looking at her ass, she might as well be completely naked, she thought.

It turned out she had an allergic reaction to an insect bite, most likely fire ants. Fire ants? she exclaimed. On a river? She was surprised to learn that fire ants in fact favor rocky areas close to water, and come out as the sun goes down. Hannah was backed into a corner explaining what she was doing, and held no information back as she admitted she was walking around nude (there was no way to lie about getting bites on her upper thigh when she was wearing long slacks). The doctor didn't flinch at all at this information and only advised her to be careful, gave her a box of Benadryl, and a recommendation to visit an allergist. It was eight o'clock when she left, and she felt much better.

Everybody greeted her with outpourings of attention when she arrived back home in the dark, coming out into the patio and asking her if she was okay. She kept all the details vague, only saying she was at a creek and had got bitten by fire ants, which she now knew she was allergic to.

"The creek? I thought you were going to the art store and then to get food," Tina questioned.

Food. Hannah's stomach grumbled. "Yeah," she said. "Got any more of that pizza left?"

There were several slices left and she ate them at the kitchen table voraciously while Tina stared at her and Chris and Ruby, deciding that everything was okay, went off to their own devices. It was at that point that Hannah confessed to April.

"So, what I was doing? The way I got bit? I was walking around naked at the river."

A grin grew on Tina's face. "Hannah.. you crazy girl."

Hannah was pleased that Tina didn't seem to be judging. She didn't even ask why she had done it. She seemed to understand. "You gotta be careful," she said.

"Yeah, I guess I will from now on. Honestly this whole thing kinda freaks me out. That nature could just kill you just like that..."

"Nature is scary," Tina said. "But why go all the way out there? You know we have a private patio, right?"

Hanna looked at her as she chewed the last of her pizza. "Well, I never would have considered it."

"I don't see why you couldn't. I don't think Ruby would mind." She of course meant she didn't think Ruby would mind her boyfriend getting to see another girl naked. But Hannah wasn't so sure.

"It was just sort of my idea of having some time to myself," Hannah said. "A little bit of me-time."

"I understand."

Hannah thought of the social aspect missing from her adventure and semi-present in her dream. The only missing link.

"Still, let's ask Ruby. Maybe we could get an inflatable pool out there and just have naked time on the patio."

Hannah laughed. "That does sound nice..."

And so, they asked. That night. Hannah confessed to Ruby and Chris, and they both seemed amused, and relived, not knowing what Hannah had been up to that she had had to go to the hospital.

"That sounds pretty comfy," Ruby said. "I actually would have gone out on the patio like that already if I’d known you guys wouldn't be weirded out."

"No, I wouldn't be weirded out!" Tina beamed.

"Obviously I'm not weirded out," Hannah added. Chris just sat by silently.

"Maybe next barbecue we have, we'll get other people to do it," Ruby suggested.

"Well, now let's not get ahead of ourselves..."

"Naw, everybody I know would be for it. Sounds like fun. Whaddaya say?"

Everybody in the group nodded in agreement, and so it was decided: the patio was now clothing-optional, and before a barbecue was ever organized, the housemates bought a little inflatable pool and set it up right at the end of the patio by Tina's garden, so that it would be surrounded by flowers and greenery. Hannah enjoyed herself out there one day after having written about her experiences at the river for the morning, taking out a sweet tea and nothing else and relaxing in the pool while the sun drank the water off her skin and butterflies fluttered by. Hannah almost forgot she was on the back patio of an average house in an average community, though even when she came back down to Earth she felt some of the quality of the scene from her dream. Especially when Tina came out, suddenly, naked, her freckled, pale skin so vulnerable-looking, aspects about her that Hannah had never seen, from her flat chest that was as flat as anybody would ever have imagined it, just two little bumps of stiff nipples, and fiery hair below that matched her head, and she joined Hannah in the garden pool. Then they sat out on lawn chairs and dried in the sun while talking about a variety of things, all things except for the fact that they were naked. It was amazing how natural it was.

Chris and Ruby never joined in those nude times on the patio until the day of the barbecue. On that day, Hannah was encouraged to start the affair nude, to relax as she saw fit right when people came in, so they would be disarmed right away and get the message: clothes weren't required here. She complied, feeling just as she did in her dreams: unsure if she should be naked, feeling looked at, and as the back gate creaked open and the first guest came in, stopped, and did a double-take at her relaxing there in the inflatable pool with her Corona in hand, Hannah knew it was going to be a surreal afternoon. She merely nodded at the guest, and then Ruby and even Chris stepped out onto the patio nude, Ruby magnificent in every one of her extreme curves, and Chris like a Greek statue, his stomach chiseled and hard, his masculine extremity below soft and almost cute-looking. The male guest did a double-take at Ruby, and then averted his eyes from Chris, and the hosts explained the rules. The guest accepted a beer and sat around clothed for quite some time, until other people came, assessed all the nakedness in the same way, and to Hannah's surprise, were very open to taking off their clothes. Soon she was standing out of the pool and hastily drying herself while about half the party was naked, standing around, holding a beer, and talking like normal. By the time they were all sitting around the makeshift banquet table with glazed chicken and mashed potatoes on their paper plates, everybody was nude, and nobody seemed grossed out by the prospect of eating in the nude. Chris had cooked that chicken personally in the nude, with not even an apron to protect him. As Hannah bit into the meat, savoring it and thinking only briefly of her future visit to the allergist to see if it would be safe to ever go out naked in nature again, she looked up at the perfect blue sky, and the trees hanging there with birds darting back and forth, and an errant, fluffy cloud full of future rain, and the streak of a far-up airplane, the passengers aboard ignorant of the nude party going on thousands of miles below, she became satisfied, knowing that her sanctuary was right here, with her friends, without her clothes, and that that barbecue, rather than tiring her as most social interactions did, energized her, and when she retired to her room that night, still naked, never having put anything on once inside, favoring instead just a quick shower and then freely walking about the house nude while others had gotten dressed, she felt not tired but ready to settle down in front of her computer screen, filled with motivation to write down all the feelings that swirled within her, though when she opened up her word processor and began to type, she did fall asleep, for it had been a long afternoon full of beer and food. When she woke up, she was completely refreshed, and resumed writing:

Inside each of us, tucked away for when we need its comfort the most, is a hidden river, from which flows a feeling I cannot yet fully summarize in one phrase, though it is something closely related to the feeling of nostalgia. There is an instant nostalgia that can be summoned up by living in the moment, and by living in the moment, one can materialize their hidden river into reality…

~

Our host has lost her shirt, and her bra. She sits before us bare-breasted, quite comfortable, the pale hemispheres with their red centers resting against her, then hovering forward as she leans in to slide off her skirt. Soon, the garment is on the floor, and she repeats the motion to rid herself of her panties. Now, Kim Tan sits in the large leather chair completely bare, and she snuggles into the smooth material, drawing up her legs to hide the barely-caught sight of her pubic hair which is as dark as the sharp bob-cut atop her head. Her feet, now also bare, rest on the edge of the chair.

"You might say I got a little inspired just there," Kim says. "Hannah's story is so uplifting, that she could get to enjoy her nudity with friends, without any shame or fear of discovery. I will note, that as Professor Dougherty isn't present, he probably would not approve of my bare backside resting against his expensive leather, as much as he enjoys it when I rid myself of clothes. Towels to sit on are essential to people who practice nudism, but as I am here alone in this office, and as I am always, at all times, flawlessly clean, I prefer the feeling of smooth leather on my cheeks, rather than a shifting and bunching-up towel. What Dougherty doesn't know won't kill him, and what guests that sit in this chair wouldn’t delight to know that his naked secretary once occupied it? But perhaps I am not the only one to sit here nude.[2] Similarly, we will see, that perhaps more people than you may think enjoy time spent in the nude, as in our next story, 'Dancing in the Moonlight.'

Dancing in the Moonlight

She should have known better than to think that Hank would react to her idea of going on a vacation with anything other than cool dismissal. She needed a vacation, though. Or something. Some type of adventure. She had turned forty just last month, and Amy was disappointed to say that she had never once left the country. The last vacation she could remember taking was when she was in her mid-twenties, a road trip with friends, years before she would ever meet Hank and get married to him. Now, the droll repetitiveness of working, coming home, sitting around the TV with her husband, going to bed, and repeating it all over again the very next day was starting to wear on her. The frustrating thing was, it didn't seem to bother Hank at all.

"We can't afford a vacation," Hank said as he slouched in his recliner, dressed in nothing but his briefs, his small belly swelling above the waistband. "Come on now."

"It doesn't have to be a big one. We don't even have to fly anywhere. Hell, the coast is only four hours away."

"What's the point of driving somewhere when we got everything we need right here?" he asked, waving his Bud Light in his hand to motion to the living room windows, where outside, their small town slept in darkness. Amy stood over Hank in his easy chair and put her hands on her hips, just above the waist of the gym shorts underneath the oversized t-shirt she bummed around in.

"What?" he asked.

"Don't you ever get bored?"

"I've been saying we should get Netflix."

"No, I mean don't you get tired of just... you know? Going to work, coming home, going to work again?"

Hank burped softly. "No."

"We don't even have anybody over in the evenings."

"Who the hell would we invite over?"

That was a good point. It wasn't like they knew anybody in the town. Everybody kept to themselves, and Hank and Amy’s next-door neighbor was at a distance enough that they never even waved at each other. All of Amy's—and Hank's—friends from their schooldays lived in other states, and the only people they knew were their co-workers. Amy missed her friends, remembered all the stops they had taken on their epic road trip, and yearned to do something like that again. To just get behind the wheel and go on and on into the horizon, with no itinerary and no restrictions, free, wandering, shattering the chains that seemed to hold her in place... Yes, she yearned for that type of freedom.

"It'd be nice to even do something on the weekends other than just getting groceries and doing chores," Amy continued. Hank was starting to get irritated, and he hoisted himself forward and set his beer down on the coffee table.

"Well I don't know what you'd think we could do in this town. What? Go for a walk?"

"That's a start."

"There's nothing to see."

"We'd walk far."

"That's too much walkin'," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Well maybe I'll go on my own vacation."

Hank balked.

"Alone? Like hell."

"I need a break from the grind, Hank. I'm going crazy."

"Where the hell would you go, anyway?"

Amy did have ideas. She'd been doing research. The Bahamas looked nice. She always liked the beach, and had never been except once. The idea of a tropical paradise and endless mojitos by the sea sounded like Heaven. She had also found an interesting activity: chartered nude sailboat cruises. Just imagining coasting along the waves with not even clothing to hold her back, the sun hot on her shoulders while the wind whipped the sails and the endless sea beckoned to her sounded like the perfect vacation. She had almost suggested it to Hank before he shot her down, and she definitely wasn't going to mention it now.

"I wanna go to the beach," she said.

"That's a long way to go by yourself."

"I'm a big girl."

"A big girl with big tits, plenty for those beach studs to stare at while I'm not around."

"I can handle myself, Hank."

"What if you run off with some young, muscled guy?"

"Well maybe you ought to come to make sure I don't."

Another dismissive wave of the hand.

"Nah. Who likes the beach, anyway?"

"I do. And I'm gonna go."

"Like hell."

"What are you going to do, stop me?"

Hank stared at her for a moment.

"....Yeah, I see what you're doin'. You're trying to get a rise out of me so I'll be the bad guy, and then you have an excuse to run out on me. Well I ain't going to fall for that, no sir."

He picked his beer back up and settled back into his chair, pleased with himself. Amy just threw up her hands and turned towards the door.

"Where you goin'?"

"I'm taking a walk!"

"It's ten o'clock! Are you nuts?"

"You're driving me to that point!"

"Get the hell in here then if you're nuts, or I'll call the loony bin!"

"Better call them now. See ya!"

"Amy!" he called, the first time he had said her name that night, and whatever he said next was muffled as Amy closed the front door behind her, stepping out into the cool night and walking down their driveway towards the shaded street. Her chest rattled when she took in a breath of that night air. She let it out and felt a little calmer. She decided to just walk. She didn't feel too upset, but she didn't feel like going back inside and just sitting around and doing nothing. So she turned left out of their dead-end street and walked on the shoulder past the few streetlights and through the shadows of the overhanging trees.

It was not, in fact, that dark out. The moon was full and illuminating. Everything was visible except in the deepest reaches of the wooded patches that surrounded their neighborhood, which was really just a loose collection of little one-story houses, not cramped together like those ugly subdivisions she had seen on television but had never encountered for herself. She had wondered if there really were neighborhoods like that. Apparently there were, but she had not left the region in nearly ten years. It was a quaint town for all intents and purposes. The woods were calming and there was a great reservoir a mile away that offered a beautiful view of sparkling water that reminded Amy of the beach, save for the looming, lush green trees rising above.

But outside that, there was not much. The only store was some local old man's that sold candles. A lonely highway divided up the community between North and South and stretched on into nothingness for both ways. There was in fact not much to see on a walk, especially at night, but Amy turned up the main road that bisected all the little lanes in a grid, walking along a very wide, grassy shoulder under the trees. Each street ended in a cul-de-sac and with an entrance to beaten trails that went through the woods, but they would be too dark and scary to walk in now. Amy desired to go to them, though, because a nagging idea was at the back of her mind. Since it was dark and quiet even on this main street, she went through with the idea, anyway. Without even stopping, she pulled off her t-shirt as she walked. She had no bra underneath since she had showered, and there was so little separating her skin from the night, the cool breeze finding its way up her shirt and up her stomach, that she figured to just remove the barrier altogether. With the shirt pulled over her head and now dangling by her side, Amy took a deep breath and relished walking topless in the night in nothing but her gym shorts and her sandals.

The breeze funneling into the shirt had been pleasant, but the breeze all over her torso was even more striking. There was not the refreshing draft that the shirt helped create, but neutral coolness over all of her skin. She felt more regulated, in a way. But she also felt free, the same type of freedom she was yearning for when she made her case to her husband. Was this the type of freedom she would feel on the deck of a sailboat in the nude? Perhaps, though this had its own unique qualities. She felt on the verge of being caught, though the night was dead. She knew she wasn't supposed to be here in this state and that rebelliousness thrilled her, but she also thought why wouldn't a person be out here like this? It was pleasant and freeing. She felt more mobile and limber. It was silly to put on clothes in the summer, and even though the night was cool, there was no protection needed from the elements. So pleasant was it that Amy stopped and decided to go all the way. Taking one foot out of its sandal, she pulled down her shorts and fed her foot through, then repeated with the other foot, and feet secured back in their protective wear (the only protection she really needed), Amy rolled up her shorts and shirt and let out a shaky breath, shaky with nervousness now that she was one hundred percent nude right there on the side of the street. She stood in partial shade, though the moon and a nearby street lamp waited to illuminate her should she step away from the safety of the shoulder. So she did. On a whim, she dropped her clothes on the grass and stepped out into the light, extending her arms and turning in place like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, feeling the draft encircle her like a whirlwind of butterflies going up and down her body, which she became ever-conscious of, from the bareness of her thighs never stopping as the air kissed her pubic hair, fingering a breeze through it, to the uninhibited heft of her bosom, already having been free of a bra for the evening, but now free of its smothering covering, what little sweat that had accumulated on her breasts since getting dressed after her shower now cooling them as she spun. And as she completed her spin, she faced the road north, suddenly very conscious of just how exposed she was: a naked woman, standing right in the middle of the street under a streetlamp. It made her freeze like a deer in headlights, and she thought about running back to the safety of the shadows, but instead, when she did move, she moved forward. One foot in front of the other, she marched nude up the street, a vision for sure if someone were to peer out their window, but she was protected from the sight of the houses to her left by the cover of the trees. On her right was nothing but woods, where she heard something scamper and which made her heart flutter, but she never stopped walking. Here, on this night, she would get the feeling of freedom she yearned for. Nothing could stop her. Where she would go, she did not know. She considered taking a left and going down one of the other streets, but knew she would be passing directly in front of houses then, and did not know if she wanted to risk being seen that much. She could deal with getting spotted by a sudden car. At least then she would have the chance to duck back into the trees. Speaking of cars, she was soon at the highway that bisected the town. Now the thrill was palpable. The exposure was real. Here she stood on the vein of the region, the highway that transported people and goods to and from other towns that actually had things to do in them. And not a car whizzed by. A lone streetlamp made a halo of light on the pavement, and outside that, what was dimly lit by the moon was hard to see. The sky was faint blue far above, darker at the horizon. Amy trembled with the absolute freedom and exposure she had, here standing with her full bare front facing the road and any traveler that might want to see her. Soon her wonder turned to fear, though, when she lowered her eyes and saw moving figures coming up from the other side of the highway.

There were three of them. At first, she thought there were only two, but the third figure was darker, dark from head to toe, while the other two were pale from head to toe. Head to toe. Amy's fear subsided, as the figures she saw, and who now saw her, were three nude kids. College-aged, it looked like. Two guys, and one girl, the dark one, and two distinct stubby penises and puffs of pubic hair and a shimmering figure of bronze, hairless except for the black, straightened hair tied up on her head, featureless like a doll, except for the ruby points accentuating her excellently-shaped breasts.

They all froze, facing Amy, and Amy, seeing as there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide her body which seemed silly to conceal from others so equally exposed, raised her hand and waved. The other three waved back enthusiastically, looked both ways even though the night was still, and crossed the highway. They came up to her at a trot, all of them panting as if they had been running, and they marveled at Amy.

"Hey," the black girl said. "Funny running into someone else who's naked."

The other two guys nodded to Amy. One was tall and very lean with muscle, his jaw defined and his abs even more well-defined, and his penis hung very loose and long, now that she was close enough to observe it better, and unashamedly circumcised at a shiny crown. The other guy, shorter, a little pudge at his belly and a little thimble for a penis, wearing glasses and nothing else, casted quick glances at Amy and then looked away, as if shy. None of them wore shoes. They were as naked as the day they were born, and Amy wondered if she should have been taking walks every night, for apparently there were people with just the same mind as her sneaking through the dark.

"So what are you guys doing out here?" Amy asked.

"Same thing as you, I guess," the black girl said.

"Are you a nudist too?" the lean guy asked.

"Well, no. I just thought it might be nice to take off my clothes." She felt so self-conscious, almost shaking at being seen by them, but she knew they were all on equal footing. This was a private enjoyment for both parties.

"It is nice," the lean guy said. "I was just showing them that."

"You're a nudist?" Amy asked him.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm just interested in it. I used to walk around in the woods naked when I was a kid. I still do it. I made them come along and join me for once."

"I'm Janai," the black girl said with a winning smile and extended her hand.

"Amy." Amy shook the girl's hand. Her grip was light and delicate.

"Johnny," the lean guy said, and leaned in to extend his hand, not shy at all about standing before Amy nude, with his dangly bits dangling under her eyes, and not betraying any ounce of leeriness or fixation on Amy. She gladly took his hand, which was firm and strong.

"L-Levi," the guy with the glasses said, flitting his eyes up and down and hesitatingly sticking out his limp hand, which Any took and shook, loosley. He quickly retreated.

"So you guys are nudists, huh?" Amy said. "There must be more of them than I thought. I was just thinking about taking a nude sailboat cruise."

Johnny's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah! I was wanting to go on one of those!"

"So you're pretty privy to the whole scene then, huh?"

"How's that?"

"Well you just seem to be all about nudism. I didn't think young people were into that."

"Oh yeah," Johnny said. "I've always been interested in it, since I read about it on the internet when I was a kid. I mean, I don't go to any beaches and stuff. It's more of a private thing. But I post on the nudism subreddit all the time."

"Oh, there's a forum for that?"

"Of course, it's the internet."

Amy laughed. The other two stood around, looking up the highway in anticipation of a car coming to catch them.

"So what are you guys gonna do now?" Amy asked. "Besides walking around naked."

"We were going to go to the reservoir," Janai said. "Should be good for a night swim. Wanna come?"

Amy didn't need to think about it. A swim naked under the moon was the perfect antidote to her listlessness. She nodded her head and said: "Sure! Let's do it!"

"Alright!" Johnny said. "Let's go!"

Already, the lean, muscular boy was turning up the highway, where less than half a mile up the road, the reservoir sat, perhaps still and unpopulated in the night. Levi, the pudgy guy, seemed cautious, and fell into step behind his friends a little hesitatingly. Amy found herself walking next to him, noting his stiff neck as he stared straight ahead and tried not to avert his eyes to the naked middle-aged woman beside him, but the view in front was the pair of bare butts of Johnny and Janai, Johnny's pale and square and Janai's shapely like a heart and glowing despite absorbing the shadows. Amy saw the two reach out and hold hands, and she realized the composition of this group right away; Janai and Johnny were a couple, and Levi was their third wheel, tagging along naked and probably flustered at getting to see his friend's girlfriend in the nude, and now with a completely new nude woman walking right by his side. Amy took another breath of the night air, unfortunately laced with the taste of tar from the road-top, and they walked along the shoulder, with nowhere to hide, the land beyond a sloping field of grass, silver in the moonlight, and a brief wall of trees to their left on the other side of the highway, which would have offered good cover, but they walked the more dangerous side, at risk of being seen the instant a car would appear. Amy wondered where this group had stashed their clothes, or if they had walked out of the house straight away in the nude.

Soon there was light ahead of them, and it made Amy tense up, but it was only the lights of the local gas station, long since closed at eight o'clock, now sitting lonely on the side of the highway with its cold fluorescent lights signaling to no one. Amy and her group approached it boldly, as if there was nothing strange about walking up to a place of business in the nude, never mind that there was plenty fishy about skulking up to a closed business in the cover of night. But there were no guards lording over the small Texaco, and Amy felt like she was a character in another world, from some adventure novel as they stepped onto the blacktop underneath the lights of the pumps and passed by the dark plate-glass windows to see the darkened caverns inside and the rows of cigarettes and lottery tickets behind the gray counter.

The energy of the kids seemed to double as they traversed this place where one would normally be clothed. Amy felt weird, having many flashbacks of herself getting gas at this very station, never having imagined that she'd be sneaking through it naked. The four nude wanderers scattered; Janai peeked in the windows and Johnny walked around the corner to inspect what was on the other side, and Amy strolled by the pumps, looking at the prices, which had raised, and Levi stayed near to her, but kept a distance equal to a personal bubble.

She looked over at him with a set of pumps between them, just his head and shoulders exposed above the blank TV screen embedded in the pump that would usually display commercials and micro bits of entertainment when one was pumping gas, and she felt so observed by the cold lights, though Levi himself could not see what was concealed behind her side.

"So what are you doing hanging around with these two?" Amy asked, and Levi’s eyes darted and locked onto hers. "Just along for the ride?"

"Y-yeah, something like that. Johnny's always sort of gung ho about this stuff. I don't follow much of it, but I figured: 'why not?'"

Amy could tell that the boy was probably driven by the opportunity to see Janai naked, and to also be naked around her, and yet also paralyzed by the awkwardness of being naked around his friend, and now being exposed to a woman stranger. She could see it all in his demeanor, and the way he avoided her gaze even behind the protection of the gas pumps.

"So you've never done this before, have you?" Amy asked him.

"No, this is my first time."

Amy smiled. "Well, you're taking to it pretty well." She walked from behind the concealment of the pumps and made Levi flinch and stutter at the sight of her walking along the bare lot, turning her fanny to him.

"You're older, how many times have you walked around naked?" he asked. "You ever get caught?"

"This is my first time, too," she said, looking over her shoulder now at the poor boy standing all exposed and self-conscious but without the reflexes to cover himself before she saw everything. She smiled wider and then went to see what Janai and Johnny were up to. She found them coming from around the corner and they both looked charged with energy.

"Well? You ready for the reservoir?" Janai asked. Her dark body seemed to absorb the cold fluorescent light, and she stood out more distinctly from her male counterparts. The lights made tracings of silver along her caramel skin. She was like a naked shadow moving through abandoned civilization.

"Yeah, let's go," Amy said, and she was excited. She had forgotten all about her boring home life.

And so, the four of them made their way back onto the shoulder of the highway and walked undisturbed, once again with Janai and Johnny up in front and Amy walking beside a gradually-more-at-ease Levi, whose neck slackened, whose eyes drifted to the ground before him but which seemed much less paranoid and alert. He even glanced at Amy and they smiled in the dark.

Then the distant lights of waterfront homes on the other side of the reservoir winked into view, and the group was beyond the reach of any streetlights, and all before them was gently bathed in pale moonlight. Amy could see slivers of it reflected on the rippling water. Her sandals crunched on gravel as they entered the parking area and walked to the grassy knoll before the edge of the water. In the half-darkness they traversed down until Johnny and Janai's toes dipped into the cool water.

"It's cold!" Janai said, but she slipped in all the same. Johnny followed her in, and Amy and Levi stood beside each other observing the couple as their lower halves disappeared into the dark waters and just their light-and-dark torsos waded in the dark. Amy kicked off her sandals, submitting to the breeze on her body, now fully, one-hundred-percent naked, and she looked at Levi, who exchanged her glance and seemed to have nervousness in his face, what could be detected in the gloom. Then, she took his hand. It was such a quick and thoughtless gesture, but he accepted, and clasping each other's fingers, they stepped into the cool waters.

Swimming nude was just as Amy imagined it might be when she pictured diving off the sailboat of the nude cruise she would one day go on. Her whole body felt enveloped by the water, no tugging or pulling of a swimsuit was there to be. The water warmed quickly, but her hair and shoulders remained chill as the wetness drank up the night air. And as she looked above, she could see the stars. As she paddled out into the center of the reservoir, Levi close to her side but no longer holding her hand, Johnny and Janai faint shapes out ahead of them, Amy felt like she was floating in a black void, the rippling murk beneath her, the twinkling solar system above her. She was lost in space, naked and floating. They made their way across the great expanse, and Amy felt more free than she ever could be.

They paddled quietly in the night for some time, working out to the center, and Amy did her best to keep up, to make sure that Janai and Johnny wouldn't get out of their sight. At all times, at least sixty feet ahead, she could see the pale shoulders of Johnny, and Janai hardly at all. But she could hear their voices rise up every now and then. She was surprised how far they were going out, and wondered if they were trying to get privacy to make out or make love while floating. Six feet to her right, Levi carefully paddled, his glasses still on his face and the water that was splashed against his frames reflecting moonlight so that his eyes were concealed. As Amy looked at him, she involuntarily drifted closer, and soon those moonlit lenses looked like a surprised anime character as she bumped against him. He literally stopped swimming, and almost started to sink. Amy grabbed for him.

"Whoops, careful there," she said as he fought to tread water, and his arm braced against her shoulder and her breasts pushed against his chest.

"S-sorry," he said, as they both kicked their feet. Amy could feel his toes brush against hers, his thigh bump against her thigh. Somewhere under that dark water, his penis was floating free and probably very close to her, but she felt nothing. She looked ahead, searching for the others, then nodded in the direction they had gone, towards the faint, twinkling lights on the other side of the reservoir.

"Come on," she said. "Let's catch up."

She drifted back and he released her, and slowly, they began paddling forward. Soon she could see Johnny's pale skin, and Janai next to her, faintly perceptible. They were near the edge of the water, not where the houses were, but over to the side, where under the moonlight, the silver reflections of several cars stood sentry in a gravel parking lot like the one they had entered the water from. Janai and Johnny stopped paddling, and Amy and Levi quickly caught up.

"What are all those cars there?" Amy asked a little breathlessly as she kept herself afloat.

"That's the make-out spot," Janai said with a flash of her teeth. Johnny kicked his feet wordlessly, peering up at the edge of the water and grinning as if he was having the time of his life. They all four hovered there, the water lapping up at their chins.

"Think they can see us?" Amy asked.

"I don't know, probably not. Wanna swim all the way to the houses there?" Janai asked. Again she flashed a toothy grin. Amy was about to say "hell yeah." The idea sounded scary, but who would be looking out their back window in the night, and what were the chances they could see out into the water? Still, the moon was very bright...

Before Amy could say anything, though, a warmer, more direct light cut into the water.

"Oh shit!" Janai yelled with a little bit of a laugh. Then the light darted towards her. It was a guy standing out of his car, aiming a flashlight at the water.

"Let's go!" Johnny yelled, and he turned and began breast-stroking. Janai followed suit, and Levi looked so panicked, ready to freeze up and sink again, but Amy slapped his shoulder and leaned forward into the water, locking eyes with him for just an instant—or so she hoped, for his eyes were hidden behind the glare in his glasses. "Come on!" she shouted, and she heard him splashing behind her. There was no more stealth now. The guy on the shore didn't shout out, or if he did, Amy could not hear it above their frantic splashing. The light cut ahead of them to catch them making their escape. Janai and Johnny just stroked faster. Soon they were out of the reach of the flashlight, but they didn't stop. Amy's arms were aching, and she paused just enough to look over her shoulder and confirm that Levi was still there. Soon, faster than they had gone out into the center of the reservoir, they reached shallow water, and stamped out onto the gravel, shaking off the wetness. Amy found that she instinctively hugged herself as if to hide her body, and she noticed Janai doing the same thing, too. Perhaps it was instinctual. Janai was laughing, though. They all looked back across the water to see if any headlights were turning on, and one set did.

"Let's make a break for it," Janai said.

"Yeah, party's over, let's go!"

Amy and Levi followed the two as they trotted back onto the shoulder of the highway and back where they had come from, Amy’s sandals abandoned and the rough gravel and then blacktop biting on her bare feet. In mid-trot, Johnny paused at the edge of the road and looked both ways before motioning his friends along.

"Come on," he called. "Let's get under the trees so we can hide if we have to!"

He rushed across, with Janai following him like his more shapely and feminine shadow, the impression of her butt faint, like an after-image. Amy started across and looked at Levi, who seemed petrified, turning on his heels and looking back at the water. She extended her hand to him. "Come on!" He shook the lead out and took her hand. She led him across the road just as a set of headlights appeared from the left. "Hurry! Hurry!" she yelled, and pushed against Levi's back. Then she was caught in the splash of the lights as the truck neared, and she scampered to the side, but was too late to hide. She heard Johnny and Janai's voices ushering her from within the trees, but she froze, partly because of shock, but partly because she recognized the sound of the engine and the fact that it was not a car, but a pickup, the red paint dull in the moonlight but recognizable. It was Hank's truck, and it slowed and came to a stop beside her. She heard the others scamper into the woods like frightened animals.

Hank's voice was animated with astonishment. "What in the hell are you doin'?"

Amy just shrugged.

"Taking a walk. Remember?"

"I don't even know what to say. Get in."

She walked right up to the driver's side door and leaned against it like a night-walker. "Came to take back your bride, huh?"

Hank just shook his head.

"I don't know what's gotten into you." His eyes darted up to the trees behind her, though she did not hear any betraying sounds of her new friends. "You meetin' up with somebody here?" he asked.

"No. No. Just felt like walking."

"Naked? For fuck's sake, why?" He seemed almost afraid of her, as if he hadn't seen her naked hundreds of times.

"'Cause it feels nice."

"Well I guess you got your vacation. Get in, dammit."

"Oh no, I still want to take a vacation. We haven't finished that conversation."

"Christ..."

"...But we have time to talk about it." She had the idea of the nude sailboat cruise in the back of her mind, and she was getting ready to proffer it to her husband.

"So where are your clothes?" Hank asked.

"Back on the main street. We can stop and pick them up. Oh, and my sandals are just up the road."

"What the hell were you doing?"

"Just walking, like I said. I'm my own woman, you know."

"I realize that, Amy, but I was scared."

It was evident in his face. He was frightened for her.

"So are you going to get in or what?"

"I'll get in, but I want to talk to you about a really nice vacation we both could take."

"Sure, sure. I didn't realize you wanted it so bad."

"I do. And I think you'll like this idea, too."

She left the driver's side window at that, leaving Hank perplexed as she walked around the front of the vehicle in the splash of his headlights, walking the catwalk almost for him, and then she approached the passenger's side, opened it up, and climbed in, looking forward to sailing in the Bahamas without a stitch on, husband in tow, whether he liked it or not. But she was sure he would. Just a taste could make one a believer. She had become a believer, and as Hank moved the vehicle forward, she thought she saw the faint shapes of Johnny, Janai, and Levi sneaking through the trees, but Hank did not see them, and they drove forward into the night with Amy sitting calmly naked beside her husband.

~

The leather chair is empty, the naked woman once delectably occupying it no longer there. We look around; beyond the cozy, amber-lit office is a whole library, hidden in shadow. The moonlight from an unseen window bathes the floor in silver. Like a ghost in the shadows, Miss Tan emerges, pale in the different lighting and bare still, standing at her full height and not hiding anything of her enticing features, the moonlight tracing her back, her twin-round breasts weightlessly hovering before her, the dark patch between her thighs just another shadow in the darkness.

"Sorry, I was just looking out the window there to see how Professor Dougherty's studies are going. It seems our campus is alive with streaking students at night, both male and female, which is interesting to point out. I quite liked 'Dancing in the Moonlight,' didn't you? It showcases a co-ed enjoyment of nudity that I see happening right here at Gregory University. I should hope that Amy and her husband get to bond with this kind of enjoyment."

Kim exits the library and returns to the cozy office, but walks over to the desk and leans forward (her ass protruding out and looking at us, just the barest teasing peek of fur below between the gap at her thighs) to shut off the lamp. We (and she) are thrown into darkness. Kim turns to face us, looking ghostly and erotic.

"I am going to go out and see if I can find Professor Dougherty, and since the nighttime dress code appears to be nude, I think I shall be okay. But let's move on to our next story while I head out, if we will. It is a story about how one unorthodox woman changes the attitudes of all she works with. It is hardly an adventure in the conventional sense of the word, but it is adventurous in spirit: one girl, baring all without a care, and influencing others to join in her carefree attitude. Come..."

Kim walks out of the office, reaching for her keys on the desk and walking through the shadows with nothing else, just jingling the keys in front of her bare body until she gets to the door, where she exits into cold, harsh, florescent lights. She quickly locks up and turns to see a quite-shocked janitor, in the middle of vacuuming the carpeted hall, his machine roaring in place as he stares.

"Good evening," Kim says. "Just stepping out."

She smiles at him and leaves him as she makes her way for the elevator. She stands there, quite natural despite the sight of her in this setting being quite unnatural, with the slopes of her breasts not just hinted at by the fabric of a shirt but fully revealed, as is the rest of her. She must be cold. She turns to us as she waits for the elevator, and the eye cannot help but pass quickly down—past her trim stomach to the oddly-shaped triangle of finely entangled dark hairs—and back up again, where she is still smiling.

"Enjoy this story while I dip out for a minute."

The elevator rings, and our nude host dips in, leaving the janitor to stare at the space she once was in.

Work Massage

It was one of those unfortunate inevitabilities of social interaction, the fact that nobody talked to Laura, the latest temp-hire at the Swank ad agency. They had plenty of freelancers come and go, many of them more comfortable within their headphones than with making small talk, so anti-socialism wasn't too out of the norm. But the regulars often talked to each other, and occasionally chatted with the temporal faces that flowed through the brightly lit open office space. Few ever talked to Laura, though, and that was because Laura was weird.

She kept to herself, spoke very little, and spoke so softly when she did speak that one could hardly hear her. She spoke in a stumbling mutter, her words often tripping over each other. She wore very old-fashioned librarian's glasses that made her look like she was in her fifties, though she was really in her late twenties. She dressed very plainly in plaid blouses and grandma jeans, though sometimes she wore a sleeveless blouse. She was modest, but not prudish. The others definitely figured that out, as one time, passing behind her, another girl was shocked to see that Laura was scrolling through a web page full of nudity, completely full-frontal men and women crawling up the screen. The co-worker didn't say anything, but kept her distance from Laura, as did others.

At office celebrations for birthdays or client wins, Laura always stood at the edge of the room, privately eating her piece of cake or brownie or Chick-fil-A biscuit and looking at the others guardedly from over her wire-rimmed glasses. Some felt bad for treating her like the weird kid in a grade school classroom, but she was probably only going to be at the office for another month. Tom, the office manager, doubted she would get hired full-time, as her work was slow and full of errors. Plus, it was better to err on the side of caution. For everybody that felt sorry for the quiet, mousy girl, twice as many pegged her for a serial killer, or at least a pervert. It was better to not get too associated with her, but the least they could do was let her be part of the special office events that cropped up regularly.

Swank was a fun agency to work for. Despite a closet stocked with peanut butter M&M's and pretzels and a Keurig supplied with all manner of outlandish coffee varieties, they regularly had catered food brought in, if not Chick-Fil-A, then the local Mexican joint, and every week, food trucks would assemble in the office campus outside. Workers often let off steam by playing cornhole on one side of the room, and every Friday at four o'clock, they opened the beer fridge, which Laura excitedly took from. On one afternoon, Tom came into the office and called everybody to attention, announcing they would be having a pair of masseuses visiting the office with their massage chairs to give free massages to everybody who wanted one, as promotion for their business down the street. Like with every special perk, Laura lit up like a child, and she was especially animated about this one.

"Ooh! A massage! That's great! That's fantastic! Who would have thought you could get a massage at work?" she said aloud to nobody in particular, and nobody responded. They just focused on their work, trying to get ahead to make up for the fifteen or twenty minutes they would sacrifice. Laura looked around and then went back to her computer, not really working on anything at the moment and just surfing the internet. She opened a chat window and rapidly typed something to a friend.

Less than an hour later, the masseuses appeared: a handsome, middle-aged man and a dark-haired woman of the same age, both wearing black and carrying in a large, folded-up massage chair.

"Stress relief is here!" the woman called out as everybody stopped what they were doing to watch them set up the first chair in the space between the rows of desks and the kitchen area. The chair was made so that one would sit face-forward in it and brace themselves as the masseuses massaged their backs. It was erected in short order; they just unfolded it and slid in a pin. And then the two masseuses nodded to the office workers and headed to the front door to get the second chair. All the while, Laura had turned from her computer and was watching excitedly as everything was set up. Soon they were back and unfolding the second chair while everyone watched in anticipation. Tom walked through and surveyed everything, nodding in approval at the quick set-up of the chairs. He glanced at everybody's computer screens and noted that a lot of work had ceased, except for the most diligent of workers, who acted as if there was nothing special going on. And, of course, Laura sat with her back to her computer screen, which had Instagram showing. Tom wrinkled his nose at that.

"Alright," the male masseuse announced, wiping his brow as if the setup had been exhausting. "Who's first?"

"Oh, me, me!" Laura shouted and bolted to her feet. A few quiet laughs traveled the open office as she rushed up to the man and his chair, while others looked around to see who would take the other one. Before the next lucky person could go up, though, all eyes went back to Laura, as, standing before the male masseuse, she suddenly pulled off her button-up shirt without even undoing the buttons. She was thin enough for the shirt to slide off, and she wore no bra underneath. The male masseuse froze and looked up at Tom, his eyebrows raised, as Laura pulled the shirt over her head, her hair all over the place and her glasses crooked on her face, though she quickly straightened them, standing before the man now topless, her breasts very small and almost not there, and she quickly undid her belt buckle and took down her jeans before anybody could say anything else. All around the office, mouths hung open as Laura lowered her pants to the floor and kicked off her shoes at the same time, nearly tripping, until she kicked those items away and stood straight and sighed, and then said: "Alright! Well?"

The male masseuse was at a loss for words. His partner was equally petrified, though the corners of her shocked mouth turned upwards a bit in amusement. Laura stood patiently for the man, not shy at all that his eyes fell to briefly observe her large and wide pubic hair, and for everybody else, they looked at her butt shockingly facing them, only imagining the full exposure presented to the masseuse.

"Well..." he said. "Hop on." He stood aside and motioned to the chair, and Laura, like an excited child, slid in between him and the apparatus and turned to face her nude front to the office, carefully lowering herself onto the chair. She rested her chin on the support there and let out a pleased sigh while the masseuse rubbed his palms and Tom stood in the center of the office with his jaw on the floor. The male masseuse's partner shook her head and looked out at everybody else, and then said: "Well?" Eventually, a young girl stood and slowly made her way to the woman's chair while casting glances over at Laura, who lay with her head sideways and her eyes closed, moaning subtly as the man's hands touched her bare back. Tom was poised on saying something, then looked to his other workers, who all wore the same look of shock, and some shrugged. The male masseuse didn't seem to have any reservations, and just went about his job, a job which probably saw many a nude body before him.

The other girl stopped by the female masseuse and stared at the landscape of Laura's tawny body splayed out before the experienced male's hands, and she flinched when the female masseuse looked at her and motioned for her to get in the chair. The girl complied, walking around to lower herself down, keeping her clothes on and keeping Laura in her sight as if she were a wild animal that might spring up at a moment's notice, and then she lay her head down and shut her nude co-worker out of her sight.

The rest of the office tried to get back to work, and Tom looked over his workers again and at the odd sight before them all. He scratched his scalp, looked at everybody again, and then shrugged and quickly retreated to his office to think. What he left was a roomful of people half-invested in their work, almost all-invested in the strange situation. Laura, meanwhile, was lost in her massage, cooing contently as the masseuse's hands worked into her tired muscles, working lower to her mid-back, flinching not as they lowered even more and kneaded the spot just above her butt, which phased him not, though his working hands made it flex and move, shameless before his eyes. He went about his work professionally, massaging the sides of her legs, down to her calves, working everywhere except her gluts, which looked teasingly up at him. Meanwhile, the man's partner massaged the other girl while occasionally glancing over and smiling at her friend and his irregular charge, and above the soft moans and sounds of plied flesh, keyboards rattled and people pretended to be working. Nobody asked why someone hadn't stopped Laura, why she was allowed to continue staying nude. It seemed that there was no point, as she had already shown everything without warning, and nobody seemed outright offended. Just weirded out, as they usually were by Laura's demeanor. But she would probably only be there another month, some reminded themselves, and by next summer, they would be telling stories about her as they did about all the other odd characters that came through their doors. It was hard to put Laura out of mind, though, as she would constantly let out little pleased moans. They weren't sexual, but they were obnoxious. The clothed office worker getting her massage, by comparison, was completely silent. Laura's constant audible pleasure led many an eye to drift over to the massage chair, where the hard-to-digest reality that one of their own had stripped down completely naked was confirmed. From their vantage point, all they saw were her bare shoulders, and the careful hands and attentive face of the masseuse. Some wondered if he was getting a kick out of all this, but he had a poker face while he worked. He was, in fact, turned on, but he did not allow himself to do anything inappropriate. He performed his duties the same as he always did, only pleased to be gracing his hands along such tight and flawless flesh; the girl had obviously spent some time nude, for her skin was chestnut-tanned, with only the faint stripes of tanlines down her back and a slightly-lighter triangle surrounding her taut butt cheeks, which looked so inviting to touch as he lowered himself to massage her feet, her butt only a couple of feet away from his face. It wriggled as he worked her soles and she cooed, and the masseuse found himself sighing and wondering if he was going to massage any other nude girls in this office. Laura was strange, but she was attractive and erotic under his hands. The office had a few lookers, and the masseuse could only hope that he would be treated to the shameless sight of them stripping down as well.

The massage lasted only about fifteen minutes—it was only a sample, afterall—and he finished up by chopping his hands along Laura's back, and then announced: "Next!" Laura pushed herself away from the chair and eased to her feet, turning and blushing at the male masseuse, and he almost felt like blushing as well for how shameless she stood exposed, not covering up a thing, so that he could observe the lighter shade of skin that began at the nape of her neck (shaped like a tank-top) and around her very thick, brown pubic hair. She bent down to pick up her things and her mostly-flat breasts filled out slightly and pointed to the floor. Then she shyly nodded at him and, carrying her items under her arm, headed for the front door, which led out to the hallway of the office building and the public restrooms available there. A few people stood up to try to say something, but her bare butt was looking back at them as she opened the door and rushed out to the sound of gasps and an older woman from outside hollering before the door fell shut. Then everybody just looked at each other, and the masseuse looked at them, shocked. Then his partner finished up with the other girl, who got up off the chair and stared in disbelief at the empty one next to her. "Did she just really?" she began.

"She did," the male masseuse said. "I guess nobody cares, huh?"

"She doesn't care," the girl said. "She's weird as hell."

"Should someone go get her?" the masseuse asked.

"Forget it, she probably just wants to get dressed in the bathroom. Like it matters now. Hey Tracey, come on up, this was great! Thank you," she concluded, looking at the female masseuse, who nodded with a smile.

"Tracy" came up, walking assuredly, but with a little trepidation, as if she wondered if she should take off her clothes as well. But she didn't. She went over to the female masseuse and laid down in the chair normally, and the woman went about her work.

Another girl stood, one of the regular employees, a very pretty Asian girl named Tina, who approached the male masseuse with a weird, nervous energy in her eyes, and when she got near him, she surprised everybody by wordlessly pulling off her shirt. The male masseuse only smiled; he guessed he was getting lucky today. His partner only shrugged at him.

There were one or two gasps, the office workers obviously not expecting this from one of their own. Tina wore a black bra underneath her blouse, which matched the jet-black hair atop her head, and she quickly and unceremoniously undid the straps in back and let the garment fall to the floor, revealing pale, sizable hemispheres, a nicely-shaped chest, and then she removed her shoes and took down her light cotton pants and was soon as nude as Laura had been, settling into the chair so that the masseuse could marvel and touch her skin as well. Her butt looked up at him, and he so wanted to touch it, but he went about his start at her shoulders, feeling the sharp shoulder blades underneath her skin, and she did not make a sound.

"What is this, a nudist office now?" some guy said above the heads floating in front of their computer monitors. Tracy, over at the other chair, lifted her head in disbelief, but the masseuse carried on like normal. Tom came out of his office, beheld Tina splayed out nude on the chair, and turned around and walked back to his abode. It was at about that time that Laura came back in.

She was fully dressed now, her hair a little frazzled but otherwise looking normal, and she was quite surprised at what she saw. She froze in the doorway, others looked up at her and turned their eyes back to their monitors, and Laura slowly made her way to her seat, stopping near where Tina was being massaged and just staring as if to confirm that what she was seeing was real. She almost said something, almost opened her mouth, but she kept moving and went to her seat, constantly looking back. She looked unsure about returning to work, and stared at the space between her monitor and her keyboard for a moment. Then she rolled back in her chair and pulled her shirt off all over again.

"Oh Jesus Christ," someone muttered. "Can someone just stop her?"

Laura's face was blushing when her shirt came over her head and she quickly turned in her chair to the source of the voice.

"O-oh, I'm sorry, s-should I not have taken off my shirt? I-I was just gonna get comfortable..."

She didn't get a response and nobody else said anything, and it was remarkable how everybody tuned Laura out. And Tina, for that matter, but Tina's masseuse raised his eyes to the scene Laura was making and smiled and shook his head. His partner seemed concentrated on clothed Tracy, perhaps tuning out the weirdness of the office as well. They didn't need to ask questions; they just had to come and do their job. Tom entered again, summoned by the noise, and he shook his head at the sight of Laura shimmying out of her pants where she sat.

"No, no, I'm sorry, you gotta put that back on," he said as he approached her desk. Laura didn't even seem to realize he was talking to her until he was right by her.

"O-oh, I figured I might as well, I mean, since she's undressed too, I d-don't see the harm in it, uh..."

Tom looked up to Tina, lying prone with a pleased smile on her face and her eyes closed, and he tore his eyes away from the gentle slope of her back and the rise of her snow-white butt.

"For a massage it’s okay. I mean, it isn't, but you went ahead and did it anyway. You can't work naked, though. Get dressed right now."

"Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I uh, I didn't mean to do an office faux pas..." She picked up her pants and just sort of held them in her lap, covering herself and suddenly looking self-conscious, whereas she didn't care at all if people saw her naked before. The sudden admonishment made her ashamed, and Tom turned from her to give her the decency of getting dressed without him staring, just in time to see Tracey getting up from the female masseuse's chair and being replaced by a guy walking up, and Tom did a double-take, because this guy had taken his clothes off, too.

"What the fucking hell?" Tom yelled. The young man flinched and glanced at his boss.

"Oh, sorry. I thought it was okay." He looked past Tom at Tina getting up out of the chair, standing gloriously nude and unashamed and thanking her masseuse, who looked flustered in her company. Tom looked back, gulped, and looked down to see that Laura had gone back to work, her jeans just gathered in her lap, her bare butt on her chair with nothing between her and the fabric. The nude young man approached the female masseuse, who was laughing, noting an obvious erection raising as he shyly stepped up to her. She exchanged glances with the male masseuse as her charge tried to settle into the chair. "It's a little hard to get in," the young man said. "Cause, uh.."

"Well I'm not having you lay on your back," the masseuse said with a laugh and patted his shoulder. Tom looked all about him in disgust, disgust that nobody even seemed to care anymore, and in fact, another employee was now standing up and unbuttoning her blouse to be next in line for the empty chair, and Tina sat at her desk nude just as Laura was doing. Tom had had enough.

"Alright! That's it! Sorry guys, but massage time is over!"

The girl unbuttoning her blouse stopped and just stood there with her cleavage half-exposed, and everybody else finally looked up. Tom moved over to the massage chairs.

"I'm sorry guys, but pack up, this is too distracting, I didn't know this was going to happen."

The female masseuse seemed taken aback, as she had already got started on the young man, but Tom shoved him and forced him to get up and stand nude and now embarrassed as Tom commanded the female masseuse to break down the first chair. Boos were now rising up in the office.

"Not fair, only like four people got to go!"

"I really needed a massage!"

Tom stood in the sea of discontent, putting his hands to his temples, and he looked directly at Laura, who sat calmly in her chair, her bare shoulders and breasts so commonplace-looking next to her other coworkers, and she was looking directly at him, a smirk on her face. Behind her, other employees were standing up and getting undressed, perhaps in protest, or perhaps as a compromise if they couldn't get a massage. What kind of monster had he created by offering a relaxing distraction? Or was the monster Laura's? It was out of his control now, though.

After that, Laura was not so unpopular. 

~

In the front of the history building, the night is still, save for some fallen leaves blowing by like tumbleweeds. Then the front doors open, and Miss Tan steps out, presenting the night with her pale-bare skin quite bravely, stepping out as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She comes up to the sidewalk and looks left, then right, honing her eyes for others, and then she meets ours once again.

"Wasn't that a wonderful story?" she asks us. "There is nothing wrong with being nude, as the workers at that ad agency discovered. It is not only natural, but it is folly to clothe ourselves for anything other than protection. You can see I don't need any protection tonight." She motions her hands up and down her sinuously-curved body. "It is a little chilly, but hardly harsh. Let's see if we can find the professor..."

She turns to her right and walks towards the walkway that runs between the art building and the library and student center, where we saw our previous streaker disappear before, though Miss Tan makes no effort to hide. She just walks along the sidewalk like a naked ghost.[3]

At the next juncture, where she looks uphill and sees mysterious shadows, Miss Tan glances back at us, and the close proximity to her naked body sends a shiver down our spine. Her smile adds to it, as she seems to be recalling something.

"This reminds me of our next story, 'The Public Model,' wherein one student who poses nude for an art class begins to realize she needn’t cover up outside of it, and soon is walking about the entire campus naked, as I am. Let's read on, while I try and find the professor."

Kim turns and marches up the hill, leaving us with the back-profile of her shoulder blades and butt, constantly moving and enticing as she works her legs.

The Public Model

At the art department at Gregory University, nestled in a small tourist town and lined with lush trees and sunshine, many looked forward to the life drawing classes. One could say it might have been for the wrong reasons, for the most popular model to keep coming back was an unassuming girl outside of the classroom, with distinct blonde hair but conservative dress—usually plaid shirts and jeans, even in the height of the summer as it was at the time—but who was a stunning vision when she came into the classroom wearing a robe and nothing else, and soon nothing at all. It might be unfair to claim that the students' enthusiasm was for the wrong reasons. Though art was about the celebration of beauty, the beauty of all types of bodies, the main reason the model was so popular was because of her infectious personality.

Her name was Jane, and she cut it up with her observers, cracking small jokes and eliciting laughter and always smiling as she so unabashedly sat in a little chair and held her hands at her knees, covering not the acute angle of flossy hair at her lap with those hands nor the the red caps to her majestic, almost sentient-looking breasts with her arms, staring out at the rows of easels as her likeness was reproduced on them, or when she stood, her ankles crossed, the line of her body from head to toe like the painting of The Birth of Venus, she would look off into space above the students' heads, a faint smile on her face, as if remembering some funny scene, or as if she were perhaps amused at the complete, silent adulation that the students gave her, and the instructor, Mr. Burris, standing nearby at the side of the classroom, casually, almost apathetically, surveying the scene of a nude, beautiful young woman standing before his students, and she would break the silence by revealing what she was smiling about: that on the way down to the building, she had seen the dean getting a ticket from public safety, and everybody laughed, because nobody liked the dean. She said he looked pretty angry. This laughter loosened up those who were having artist's block, and they were able to let their creativity flow.

The thing that was unique about Jane, compared to some (but not all) of the other models, was that when she was allowed to release her pose, or even when the drawing was done for the day, she did not make any haste to put her robe back on. She would just let her slender limbs fall to her sides, swing them a little, and turn in place, looking at Mr. Burris, and at the other students, some of them averting their gaze shyly, others challenging her gaze and challenging themselves not to stare, and yet others more concerned with their work. Jane would sit and accept a bottle of water from Mr. Burris, who brought it over and handed it to her without batting an eye, and she would relax while Mr. Burris summed up the day's lesson with the remaining time they had, often letting the class out ten minutes early, where most of the students would come up to Jane and thank her, some shaking the nude girl's hand, all of them treating her as if she were still clothed, but some shaken, nervous, like they were meeting a celebrity. And in a sense, she was a celebrity, as her beauty and charm lured many to sign up for Dr. Burris' art class. And life drawing classes were always something talked about with snickers and blushes at schools of higher learning, knowledgeable as many were of the fact that the models ran the gamut of many different body types, and that artists loved in fact to draw and paint people with more fat, with rolls of flesh that lent well to opportunities to experiment with shading. But an Adonis or Adona would almost always be guaranteed, as since the dawn of mankind, artists have been immortalizing the perfection of male athleticism or the femininity of a virginal girl. Well, in Greek and Roman and Victorian English society, some liked to point out. Statues from other cultures and eras would depict maternal women with long, low-hanging breasts and sloping bellies. But nevertheless, it always came back to some students' favorite muse: a pretty young woman, fair in skin and slender in shape, and those who posed would sometimes be pointed at with recognition outside of the studio. She poses naked, they would whisper, though in Jane's case, hardly anybody identified her when she was about the campus, unassuming as she was. In the art department, however, she did become something of a familiar fixture, an ever-present and welcome sight, for besides her warm personality and care-free nudity while posing, she also had a penchant for carrying her nudity to the halls.

It had started one afternoon in mid-session, when Jane announced unabashedly that she had to use the restroom, and Mr. Burris called for a break. She lowered her legs from where she had been sitting backward in a chair, her slender back and sloping rear having been presented to the class for twenty minutes so far, and her feet met the carpeted floor and she rose to full, regal height, her spine straightening but her butt still thrust out, naturally, unashamedly, before the eyes that now raised from their work to behold its sensuous curvature and its ever-so-faint outline of a swimsuit bottom along her pale cheeks. Then she would turn to where her robe was slung over a chair in the corner, and then to Mr. Burris, asking with a lively face if people would complain if she just stepped out into the hall nude.

She explained that taking the robe to the bathroom was a nuisance, that having to hang it on the hook on the stall door was inconvenient, that it got in her way, and that it was nasty, often touching the floor. Mr. Burris stroked his chin, and so started a debate. How silly was it, that in the classroom they celebrated the body, but when stepping outside, it must be covered up because of how unused to it in a social setting others were? Many students agreed. How hypocritical was it to say that the body was God's artful creation, only to say it is wrong to display it in public? How ridiculous was it that people even put on clothes in the sweltering heat of the summer? These were the thoughts of many of the students, the most vocal of them male, while some girls rolled their eyes, except for one, who grinned almost devilishly at the thought of Jane shamelessly marching out into the hall to the shock of the unprepared. Mr. Burris seemed troubled with the proposition, though he agreed with all the points made. The most important plea was of Jane's, however. Afterall, she was the model, and they were in debt to her willingness to be vulnerable for all of them. And, understanding of the nastiness of public restrooms and having to wrangle long, flowing robes in such a setting, and knowing it would be silly and time-consuming to make her change into her normal campus attire, he relented, and looked up to Jane and said: "Go ahead, just see if anyone cares." And with that, Jane flashed a wide, happy smile and slipped her feet into her shoes.

She did not encounter anybody on that trip. In a thrilling but slow-paced walk, she marched past other classrooms, all empty except for the one at the very end of the hall, where she could hear the muffled voices of other students, until she got to the women's room in the center of the hall. It was a harrowing, suspenseful walk, and Jane felt even more naked with her shoes on, but once in the bathroom, she felt calm and secure, and took care of her business, only fearful when she washed her hands and waited for somebody to barge in on her. But she was lucky, and made her break out of the bathroom and back to the class. The trip was thrilling, no less thrilling than un-draping her robe and presenting her bare body and soul to a room full of strangers had been, but it was of a different quality: in the classroom, she was in a situation that was hard to imagine but was happening all the same, and which was allowed, but in the hall, she was in a situation equally unimaginable and definitely not sanctioned. It was an interesting dichotomy. That first naked trip set a standard for future breaks and excursions, as the class of Mr. Burris' life drawing sessions all accepted that it was okay for Jane to leave the room nude. Or come in and undress. She soon lost the need for a robe. On days she was invited to model, she simply walked in and undressed, and didn't dress again until almost every student was out, and in those classes, she would take trips to the restroom, or to the water fountain, and it wasn't long before she was seen.

The art department was not a very big building (Gregory U didn't receive much funding for the arts). Besides Mr. Burris' class, there were about four other classrooms for graphic design, photography, and others, and the entire second floor was taken up by the theater class. Rarely ever were all classrooms at use at the same time, and Mr. Burris's class ran parallel only with Mrs. Austin's pottery class at the end of the hall. It was a young man from that class, on his way to fill up his water bottle, who froze in his tracks when he saw that somebody was already using the fountain.

She held her hair aside as she bent down and her breasts even then resisted the pull of gravity and remained perfectly round, and when she stood up straight and let her hair fall over her shoulders, she attained a remarkable outline, the outward slope of her breasts and butt between the gentle curve of her spine bringing to mind the letter “S” in pale beige. Then she turned her head and looked up the hall at the student.

She turned her body to face him, as if to confirm for him that she was one-hundred-percent nude, evidenced by the neat little wedge of dark hair complimenting her pale thighs, like decoration, like a mantelpiece on a fireplace. She raised her hand and waved daintily, her fingers twiddling and the corner of her mouth raised in a sort of smirk or half-contained smile, and she turned away from him, her hair flipping and the cheeks of her rear-end bobbing as she padded her bare feet down the carpeted hall and disappeared into the life drawing classroom on the left. The young student stood there for a moment, blinking, before finally approaching the water fountain that the naked girl had just used. It felt weird occupying the same space she had been in just seconds ago.

*****

"There's a naked chick out in the hall," the student whispered to his friend as he came back to his workstation, where a crudely-formed clay jar was drying. His friend was in the middle of spinning his, and his hands faltered a bit.

"What?"

"She's not there now."

The wheel shut down and the other young man wiped his hands on his apron. He wanted to check, anyway. Quickly, he grabbed an empty bottle of water to give him something to do, and he left the classroom, his immediate departure so soon after his friend was not lost upon Mrs. Austin, who narrowed her eyes from the side of the room.

*****

It didn't take long for other students to see Jane on her bare trips to the drinking fountain or restroom, trips she was regularly taking midway through class to give herself and the artists a break, and soon everybody in the pottery class knew, including Mrs. Austin. She was annoyed at first, seeing Mr. Burris' failure to contain his models as a distraction to her students, as when they started figuring out the naked girl's schedule, almost everybody wanted to go to use the restroom or get water at the same time. She thought about confronting Mr. Burris about it, but she did not fully like him and didn't look forward to the conversation, especially if he had been given permission from higher up, which he probably had, seeing as Mr. Burris was in good with the university president, often bypassing the dean to speak directly with him. Mrs. Austin didn't want to get involved with that. So she let it go. Luckily, her students seemed to get used to having a naked girl wander their hallways from time to time. Most of her students, anyway. There was one young man, one of the university's star soccer players, who would still make regular trips to the drinking fountain in hopes of catching the naked girl. At this point, he was more distracting than the girl herself, for everybody knew what he was doing when he stretched and headed for the door every afternoon. This put the naked girl back on everybody's mind, causing one young girl one day to ask: "I wonder how she gets away with it?"

Mrs. Austin wanted to butt in; Because the instructor gets away with everything, she wanted to say, but one young male student summed it up accurately: "Because none of us have complained."

"Sheesh, who would?"

There were no challenges to that statement, though Mrs. Austin was sure that not everybody in the classroom was comfortable with the idea of sharing a hall with somebody that wore no clothes. But then again, artists—creative types—generally were more accepting of the human body as itself a work of art. Still, Mrs. Austin was surprised when the quietest and meekest girl in the class, who hid behind her glasses and whose jet-black bob cut and pretty, modest blouses made her look so old-fashioned, spoke up and said: "I sure am envious of her."

This caused a few confused glances to turn her way, but then another student would add: "Yeah, it sucks that you have to put on clothes in the summer. I always try to show up ten minutes early so I can go wipe off the sweat in the bathroom. Sure would be easier naked. Imagine if you could just hop in a shower and rinse off real quick."

A chorus of mumbles flurried up in agreement, and some quiet glances, imagining their classmates in the nude. But some guys spoke up: “When it's summer, I'm never clothed in the dorm, even with the A/C. I hit the shower and stay naked all the time."

Now we don't need to know about that is what Mrs. Austin was going to say next, before another flurry of mumbled agreement followed.

"Hey, what if we could do this class naked?" some guy asked. This seemed to get the others energized, but Mrs. Austin bit her lip.

"I'm pretty sure that the students in the other room aren't unclothed," she countered.

"Well it just seems silly. If that girl can walk around naked, why not everybody else?"

"I don't know if I could get approval for that..." Mrs. Austin went on. Her mind was now racing with thoughts of release forms and other precautions. But her students seemed all for it.

"Why would you need approval? If we all agree to it and nobody's here during our class anyway except for the one with a literal naked girl... why not?"

"Imagine how easier cleanup would be," another young woman with an apron caked with clay said. Mrs. Austin looked them all over, and they looked at her expectantly.

"Okay, well if everybody is for it, then we can try it, strange as it is." She wondered if she really wanted a bunch of young, hormone-charged college kids to do their pottery in the nude. Surely it would be the most distracting thing of all. "Let's take a vote. If it's unanimous, then you may come to class nude."

There were cheers, and people started congratulating themselves excitedly.

"But don't walk here without your clothes!" Mrs. Austin added, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"Fine, fine," someone said.

"So let's take a vote. Who here is all for doing our class in the nude?"

Nearly every hand went up, not surprising the teacher, but the hands that remained down confirmed for her that this awkward proposition would not come to pass.

"And against?"

No hands went up. Mrs. Austin frowned and put her hands on her hips.

"Now not all of you raised your hands in favor. So what are we to do with that?"

The few dissidents stood quietly by their workstations, avoiding eye contact with Mrs. Austin or their other classmates. They included a preppy blonde girl and a quiet, nerdy-looking guy, who eventually spoke up in a stutter.

"I-I'll put my vote in with 'in favor.'"

Mrs. Austin looked at the rest of the group. The preppy girl raised her hand and said: "add me in favor."

The rest of the dissidents eventually raised their hands.

"In favor," one said.

"For. I mean in favor," said another one. And whether it was peer pressure or an honest change of heart, Mrs. Austin had to accept that the next class would have her students disrobing. And would that include her? She hadn't thought about it, but she supposed she would have to, in solidarity. She was not shy about her body, and would not think twice about joining somebody at a nudist resort, but this situation was so strange. Nevertheless, a deal had been made.

"Alright. It is decided. No, don't start now." A few students had already started to pull up their shirts, so eager to get naked, it seemed. "On our next class, Friday, come in clothed, and you can undress once in here. It will be our clean start to this little experiment.”

"Huzzah" the voices of the students more or less collectively communicated, and the pact of the nude pottery class was solidified.

*****

The first day in Mrs. Austin's class was nervous and exciting; the few people who arrived early began to disrobe right away. It was a young man and a young woman, and Mrs. Austin was left standing by her desk in complete shock at the absolute willingness these two kids had for getting naked in front of their peers, so that when others began to arrive, some were taken aback that there were already people nude, and this left Mrs. Austin in a tight spot, as she still wore her dark, floral-patterned dress, and as more and more students spilled in and instantly began to take off their clothes, she felt that it was soon time to owe up to the promise she had internally made, though nobody pressured her to get naked. In a few minutes, she was standing before a class of at least a dozen students, all naked, all going to their work as if nothing was amiss, though the preppy girl from the previous class, as well as the nerdy guy, looked about nervously and they instinctively lowered their hands to cover themselves, and the preppy girl also tried hugging herself herself to hide her tiny breasts. Then, before the sea of skin, Mrs. Austin unceremoniously pulled off her dress, wearing nothing underneath, as planned, and the feeling was an odd sensation that she should not be doing what she was doing, the stark realization that she was now standing stark naked before her students, and she felt frozen, helplessly petrified with nothing to cover her. But nobody, save for a random pair of eyes, looked her way. The class went on as normal.

And so the two classes co-existed in partial nudity, the students of Mr. Burris' class remaining clothed and unaware of the nakedness going on down the hall. One afternoon, one in which Jane was not present and Mr. Burris' students were working on drawing fruit, one young man got up to go fill his water bottle. He was quite surprised to see another nude person already there, filling his own.

The lean, tall young man turned from the water fountain and looked at the other, who was a bit taken aback by the brazenness with which the nude man faced him, penis hanging very loose and long and obvious from its nest of dark pubic hair. The nude guy just waved, and then turned to walk down the hall, leaving the startled young man blinking at his muscular butt as he reached the end and turned into the pottery classroom. The remaining young man took a hesitant step, slowly approached the water fountain, and filled his bottle while glancing back at the end of the hall. When it was filled, he let his curiosity get the better of him and he walked all the way to the end where the naked man had disappeared. He crept up to the door and looked through the glass window in the center of it.

He could hardly believe it. Not only the tall guy, but everybody in the class was naked. They stood around the room, spinning their pottery, men and women, some with smears of clay on their breasts which hovered over their work. Even Mrs. Austin was naked, standing in the back of the room, looking quite marvelous. She was the only one not standing in front of a piece of work, so besides the bare butts of people facing away from him, she was the only one he saw from head-to-toe. She had a very wide, shaggy bramble patch of pubic hair, and her skin was fair and pale, and she was very slender, her waist surprisingly thin. Her arms were folded, cradling her breasts so softly pressed together. The young life drawing student never would have imagined he'd see Mrs. Austin naked, and he was a little unprepared for the sight, along with the numerous, shapely breasts of girls he had seen on campus, and the bare, broad chests of guys he also recogized.

He stepped away just as Mrs. Austin looked up, and he hurried back to Mr. Burris' class.

"They're all naked over in the pottery class," he announced as he re-entered the room. Several people looked up from their work, looking at him as if they weren't sure what he had just said, so he repeated it when they asked him to.

"Really, huh?" Mr. Burris replied, stroking his chin. "That's funny. I guess we must have influenced them.”

"Even Mrs. Austin is naked," the young man said. He could see Mr. Burris' eyes change ever-so-slightly, as if he were now imagining the other teacher naked. No more discussion was had on the matter, though people soon found it hard to concentrate on their work, and before long the class was dismissed. The students of Mr. Burris's class spilled out into the hall and made for the exit, though some stopped and watched towards the end of the hall, expecting Mrs. Austin's class to come out next. But they didn't, and nobody braved walking down to the end of the hall. Mr. Burris left thirty minutes later, after going over grades, and he happened to see Mrs. Austin, not naked, but in her pretty dark dress of her similarly-tailored wardrobe, as she was locking up, and he caught her eye and they both looked at each other from the long distance, and Mr. Burris gave a small half-wave, half-salute, and Mrs. Austin did not return the gesture and quickly exited out the side door.

*****

It was an interesting day when Jane returned to model for Mr. Burris' class. As usual now, she came in, returned all the happy hello's that accompanied her entrance, and unceremoniously got undressed, unbuttoning her shirt casually as she soon learned of the other class's new dress code.

"Oh really?" she asked as she opened her shirt, revealing her light-colored bra, which she twisted around to unstrap after setting her shirt over a chair. "You think that's because of me?"

"I don't know," Mr. Burris said. "but it is pretty amusing."

Jane digested this new information as she got undressed and stood soon completely nude before the classroom as usual, taking a seat on one of the tables as suggested, positioning herself mere feet away from the nearest student, a young man who tensed up a bit at her closeness as she loomed over him with her legs crossed and her hands folded neatly on her knees, her back straight and the fullness of her breasts thrust forward, floating in air.

When Jane stepped out into the hall on her usual mid-class break to get some water, she saw one of the fabled nude students of the pottery class step out as well. They briefly acknowledged each other from the opposite ends of the hall and then approached each other. The pottery student was a portly boy with long, greasy hair tied back in a ponytail. He was round like a giant meatball, and his belly hung over his crotch and took attention away from his small, stubby penis. He appeared self-conscious, taking very slow steps as he neared the very intimidating Jane, and she reached the drinking fountain first. Awkwardly, the young man came to a stop and just stood there, waiting for her to finish, taking in the view of her in side-profile as she bent forward and held her hair back with one hand, her spine curving, her flat belly pinching, her breasts hovering in front of her. Then she stood up and smiled and motioned for the drinking fountain. "All yours," she said and stepped aside. The chubby boy nodded and inched closer to the drinking fountain, keeping Jane in his sight. She did not turn and leave. She decided to engage the boy in some conversation.

"So you guys just started doing your class in the nude, huh?"

The boy raised his face from the water and looked at her from the corners of his eyes, fighting to keep them above the elevation of her weightless breasts.

"Yeah, all of us. It's an experiment. It's..." He glanced at her body more directly and then looked at her eyes again. "Nice."

"What made you all decide to do it?"

He had dipped his head down again to drink some more, and then he stood up and faced Jane. She could see that the stub of his penis had stood up a bit and gained a half-inch or two, now stabbing air. His hand reached down to cover it covertly, then it retreated to his side.

"We just figured if you're gonna leave the classroom like that, then we might as well do the same. We just figured 'why not?'"

Jane smiled wide, which seemed to scare the young man. "That makes sense," she said. "My hat's off to you guys."

"T-thanks. Well, I better be getting back."

They nodded at each other, the young man almost bowing, and he quickly turned and shuffled up the hall, Jane watching him go, much, probably, to his embarrassment as he waggled his wide ass at her, and Jane was left standing there, no longer afraid of being out nude in the hall, with ideas running through her mind.

She expressed those ideas to Mr. Burris when the class was packing up. Standing nude by his desk as he sat, she proffered up her new idea: she so much enjoyed being able to uninhibitedly walk around nude, and so much enjoyed posing for the class, that why not do a session in the outdoors, at the park in the center of the campus? Mr. Burris grinned at the idea, and said if she really was all for it, he could ask the university president.

So he did. One morning, he took the walk up to the main administration building and was admitted into the president's office and was granted an audience with him as he always so easily did. The president greeted him with a clap on the shoulder and they chatted about family and fishing for a bit and then got down to business. Mr. Burris laid out his plan and admitted to the wanton nudity he had already allowed to spill outside of his classroom. The president had a good laugh about it. Then he expressed that he liked the plan. College was about learning and also confronting new ideas, so the idea of a nude model posing out in the open and challenging students' feelings about the body tickled him. He gave Mr. Burris full permission, and Mr. Burris stood and took his handshake with both hands.

*****

Word didn't travel about this idea, for Mr. Burris and even the president wanted it to be a surprise. They wanted to see how people would react without expecting it. It was something the professors over at the sociology department would drool over. The stunt would no doubt supply that department with inspiration for many future lessons. So, as such, Mr. Burris didn't tell his class anything about it, except to bring plenty of water. This got them wondering what was going on. He contacted Jane by e-mail and wrote out a detailed plan of what would happen that day, and then he looked forward to the show.

Elsewhere, in Mrs. Austin's class, the students had become fully comfortable with their new routine, coming in and getting undressed and greeting each other and talking with each other more openly and warmly than they had before. It was almost as if removing the barrier of clothing and getting past the hurdle of looking at each other, of looking at classmates who may have always drawn their eyes, had enabled them to commune more genuinely. Mrs. Austin stood and marveled at the excellent socializing going on in her classroom, as she too stood by in the nude, no longer self-conscious about being the center of attention as the head of class. And after the day's work was done, her students would clean up, and the classroom would become a childish arena of rambunctiousness as some took the spray nozzles from the basin sinks and shot at each other to aide in cleaning off the clay from their bodies, and they would be shiny wet with tap water, hands running down their stomachs and letting the sediment of their work dissolve away. Some of the prettiest girls would take turns spraying each other, making Mrs. Austin's class look more like a softcore porno shoot, drawing a little bit of her ire. But everybody seemed to be having so much fun.

It was one day, as they were spilling into the classroom and doing away with their clothes, that a student, freshly undressed, stepped out to fill her water bottle to carry her through the class, and as she stepped out nakedly into the hall, she was surprised to see Mr. Burris's class spill out as well, one-by-one, and file for the front door. A few glanced back and looked at her. Some stopped for a moment and took the sight of her in; others merely glanced as if she were a sight no stranger than if she were clothed, and they, all wearing t-shirts and blouses and shorts, all filed out through the front door. The young pottery student wondered what they could be getting up to, and took her new information back to the class.

"Is there something going on today?"

"No, I don't think so," somebody said.

"Well the other class just all up and left."

Mrs. Austin didn't seem too concerned; Mr. Burris was obviously a lax teacher and probably gave his class a surprise day off, though making them come all the way down to the art building first was kind of inconsiderate. Nevertheless, curiosity got to some of the students, and a few went over to the windows in the back of the room, which looked out to the central park of the campus and which had the blinds closed so as not to advertise to the rest of the school that a dozen of them were naked inside. Now, the blinds were partially parted, and the students saw Mr. Burris' class all walking together to the shady area of the park beside a great weeping willow.

"I wonder what they're doing?"

*****

The students of Mr. Burris's class were only mildly curious about what they were doing, figuring they would be practicing landscapes today, something they hadn't talked about. They were just glad to be able to spend the class outside. But when Jane met them by the great weeping willow, their curiosity peaked again.

Six wooden fold-out chairs had been set out, along with easels and pencils. Mr. Burris greeted Jane and then told the class to get comfortable. They all looked at each other, slowly getting into their seats. The other students relaxing and playing around in the park cast looks over at the group by the tree, wondering what was going on as well. A game of frisbee was being played not too far away, and others lay in the grass, some reading. On the sidewalk above, a pair of female students walked slowly, observing Mr. Burris' class as Jane stepped into the semicircle of easels and without further ado, unbuttoned her shirt. The seated students shot glances at each other, then looked to Mr. Burris for explanation, mouths opening to ask what was going on, but Mr. Burris just smiled and looked towards Jane, who had already dropped the shirt onto the grass and was undoing her bra. The girls up on the sidewalk stopped now.

Out in the open, in full public view, with the sunlight dotted on her bare breasts through the leaves of the willow, Jane stood topless, surreal to see, her breasts hovering like orbs of some mirage, for they must have been a mirage; nobody would be so bold as to undress in the middle of campus, but sealing away everybody's disbelief, Jane bent forward to take down her jeans, letting her feet slip out of her loafers as she took her legs out one-by-one, and the sight of her kicking those jeans away in nothing but her panties was not as unbelievable to all assembled as when she stripped them down next, now tip-toeing out of her undergarment and standing shockingly nude before the six life drawing students and the rest of the student body that was out on the field that day.

An errant frisbee sailed past Jane's nude vista, between her and the easels, and she cast a sideways glance and smirked, then looked in the other direction at the person that had thrown it and the other who had failed to catch, both now staring dumbly.

Mr. Burris's students were staring dumbly, too. They could hardly believe the situation. Jane, standing almost shyly with her thighs pressed together and the neat little tangly triangle of her pubic hair looking so different in the sunlight compared to the fluorescent lighting of the classroom (little details like the goosebumped flesh around its perimeter and the traces of her labia and skin seen through now exchanged for reversed highlights of almost every hair, and a more opaque, defined shape to her delta of Venus), crouched down in the grass and put her hand behind her to steady herself, and sat, folding her legs in a meditative posture, her triangle now the center of her body in the lotus position as she covered up the sight of it with her folded hands, her symmetrical breasts framed by her upper arms as she smiled at the class. She suddenly spoke.

“Here, maybe if I sit still like this, nobody else will notice me.”

This got a laugh out of the class. It was nervous laughter, but laughter all the same. It was a start.

"Go ahead and begin," Mr. Burris told them. "This is your pose for today."

Gradually, they all picked up their pencils and tried to begin. It was difficult to concentrate, though, because of the spectators closing in. The girls up on the sidewalk were now fully invested in the sight below, and the two frisbee guys were creeping closer. The art students felt the guys’ gaze over their shoulders, with their blank canvases before them, and the muse beyond that.

"Is this some sort of sociology experiment or something?" one of the frisbee guys asked, flitting his eyes between Mr. Burris and his nude model.

"It is our life drawing course, we asked for permission to do it outside for once. You may watch, but please don't disturb my students or our model."

The frisbee guy who spoke swallowed and nodded, and cast his eyes to Jane, who sat with a smile and nothing else, a perfect picture of peace and comfort under the hanging leaves of the weeping willow. She even looked in his direction while she maintained her pose, her smile stretching just a bit wider, and the guy flinched, as if he had been caught staring at somebody, which he was, only in this case he was invited to stare. So he did, until he turned to look at his frisbee partner, who was lost in another world, a world of naked angels.

Mr. Burris's students still found it difficult to continue. Some managed their first defining lines of Jane's geography, while others stared at blank canvases. Concentration got more difficult, however, with the arrival of a booming voice.

"What in the hell is going on here?"

Pushing past the girls on the sidewalk, in his stuffy sport coat and tie, no doubt stifling in the summer heat, was the dean, his face red and beads of sweat decorating his shiny forehead.

"Clean up this scene right now! What in the hell were you thinking?"

The frisbee guys fled, and Jane faltered only slightly in her pose, but maintained her posture as the dean took a wide berth around her to confront Mr. Burris. She turned her head upwards to look at the dean and he recoiled at her attention.

"Calm down," Mr. Burris said. "I got approval from the president. Now please don't disturb my class."

"Don't disturb your class? How about you don't disturb this campus? You're always doing shit like this, Tom. You need to come to me first."

All attempts at drawing Jane had stopped, as all the students stared at the altercation going on.

"Well nevertheless, we have approval to do this, no matter who it upsets, so unless you want to upset the president, I suggest you back off."

"I will not back off. Get out of here at once."

The dean made a step towards Jane, hesitant, but getting ready to attempt to hoist her to her feet, unsure, however, of the optics of grasping a naked girl in front of everybody. She recoiled, leaned away from him, and that's when one of the frisbee guys returned and stepped up to Jane and the dean.

"Back off, man, they're just doing a class."

The dean gulped, took one step back, and weakly attempted to square off with the young man. Behind the frisbee guy, other spectators were approaching. Soon a mass of young students circled around the group. The dean pulled on the neck of his dress shirt.

"Y-you have to disassemble. At once!"

Nobody said anything. Now people were staring at the dean more than they were at the nude girl seated on the grass by his feet. Jane looked up at the man, then at the art students, and then at everybody else, wide-eyed, concerned faces, some looking at her, but more than that, eyes narrowed at the angry man above her, and she couldn't help but keep smiling.

*****

"Hey, something's going on out there," one of Mrs. Austin's students said, peeking through the blinds again. Not much work was getting done today.

"Whoa, they're doing a life drawing class outside!"

"What do you mean?"

"That model girl is out there naked!"

"What?"

Now nearly all of the students stopped what they were doing, assembling at the windows, a giant row of naked butts and bare backs lined up on the wall, bare hips lightly touching. Mrs. Austin made her way over, hesitant about leaning close to the naked bodies of her young students, but curious all the same. Someone pulled the blinds up, covertness now abandoned, throwing the light of the summer day into the classroom and the sight of their naked voyeurism out onto the campus for anybody that might happen to be passing by. Out on the bright green grass of the campus' central park, there was a mob of students, and Mrs. Austin didn't quite understand what her class had deduced. All she saw were people standing. She could then see the brown coat and slumped shoulders of Mr. Burris, and there were people sitting in chairs. Were they really? Yes, they were, as when some of the assembled mob shifted, she saw the dean, grasping hands with some young student as if they were wrestling, and lower, when the young student backed away, Mrs. Austin saw the stark-white bare flesh of Mr. Burris's nude art model, sitting in the grass like a sage, from this distance her folded-up body just a blink of beige in the near-distance, but enough to determine that yes, she was posing out in the open, in the nude.

"Unbelievable," she muttered.

"Is that the dean? he looks pissed."

"Oh man, they're screwed."

"They're alright," Mrs. Austin said. "He got permission to go out there.”

"What is he trying to pull?" a young woman asked. "Just trying to get a shock out of people?"

"It does seem pointless," one observant-sounding young man said. "I mean, what's the point?"

"He does seem to enjoy making a spectacle out of his models," Mrs. Austin said, folding her arms and suddenly remembering that she, too, was nude, as she felt her breasts settle on her forearms. "I don't quite like it."

"Yeah, he's got it all wrong. He thinks the body is to be flaunted around, not something people should just get used to."

"Yes, we have it right, don't we?" Mrs. Austin said with a warm smile, glancing over to the student that spoke, the chubby guy who had initially been shy about getting naked in the classroom. She smiled wider when he looked away from the window and met her gaze unflinchingly, and she realized this whole experiment had been for the good of them all.

"But still, though," one of the girls added. "It's not right that they get stopped."

"Yeah, the body's the body," the chubby guy added. "It's not supposed to be shameful." He said this without even looking over at the girl who spoke, a thin and very attractive girl, now revealed in full with her fist-full size breasts and tan-lined butt that the chubby guy stared at during the first week of nudity but no longer, and she only cast a sideways glance at him when he spoke up, normally reeling at any attempt of social interaction from him but now agreeing that the thing he had said made sense. It made her spring an idea. "We should help them," she said.

Mrs. Austin was surprised and a little alarmed when the other students rose their voices up in solidarity.

"Yeah, that isn't right."

"Fuck that dean!"

"Let's give him what's for!"

Mrs. Austin stepped back and watched the nude assemblage of her students scurry away from the windows and towards the front door. She had not the strength nor the authority to stop them.

*****

"Police! Police!" the dean cried. "I mean, Public Safety! Somebody! Stop them!" But the public safety officers who usually crawled around campus to give parking tickets to students too lazy to walk to their classes and who had most recently ticketed the dean were nowhere to be found, and the dean was helpless to try to control the unwarranted public nudity being conducted in the center of his campus. The students had actually fought him—fought him!—and he now was stumbling back from the mob of dissenters who apparently were okay with this wanton nakedness, and all the same, the model who drew the crowd sat as if nothing were going on, a pretty smile on her pretty face as she posed for the art students who still sat stymied over their canvases, with their teacher standing and trying to pull back the dean from challenging the others. Then they both stopped, turned their eyes up the hill towards the art department, and looked just as shocked as the students.

"What the hell?" they both stammered.

Coming down the hill towards the group was a mass of naked bodies, the student body, the student body, specifically, of Mrs. Austin's pottery class, bare as Jane, sun gracing their skin, drawing even more shocked looks and wide eyes as they left the sidewalk and tramped their bare toes in the lush grass, the air free over their bodies so unashamedly revealed. Mrs. Austin stumbled behind them, also nude, but much more shy, half-covering herself as she jerked her head left and right, looking at all the passers-by observing her.

Mrs. Austin's students flooded into the mass, come to observe what was going on, which was apparent. What wasn't apparent, to anybody, was what Mrs. Austin and her students were doing.

"Jane, what in God's Earth are you doing?" the dean leveled at her. "Don't tell me you have approval for this, too."

All around him, the art students had abandoned their pieces, gaping at all the people that decided they wanted to be naked. There was quite a chatter from the clothed crowd, too, and the frisbee guys' heads were on a swivel, turning around and around and acting surprised at each new body they saw, bodies that belonged to people they knew, both male and female.

"Yes," Mrs. Austin said. "I do have approval."

Mr. Burris smiled from where he stood behind the dean, knowing, perhaps, that Mrs. Austin wasn't telling the truth.

"We thought we'd do a field trip of sorts," Mrs. Austin continued, “and enjoy the day."

"Well I certainly am going to have to speak to the president about requests like this," the dean said, folding his arms. All around him now, the dozen naked students took their attention away from Jane and the group and directed it to the pleasant park. Jane was sitting there grinning the whole time, completely beside herself. Before Mrs. Austin could wrangle her kids, they broke away, some going into a run and sprinting across the sun-baked field, past clothed students who stood back to clear the way.

"Well we were going to come to observe your class," Mrs. Austin told Mr. Burris, avoiding his wandering eyes, "but I guess my class wants to have some fun."

"Perfectly fine. I think we've been a little distracted so far," Mr. Burris said, turning his eyes to the dean, who spun to face him. "Can we get back to what we were doing, sir?" he asked the dean, who just stared, wiped his balding scalp, and nodded to the naked Mrs. Austin, darting his eyes quickly away from the scandalous sight of her shaggy pubic hair. Before he rid the group of his intrusion, though, a curious thing happened. Watching all the unbridled nudity scampering through the field, the two frisbee guys peeled off their t-shirts, which wouldn't be such an odd sight except for that they dropped them and took down their shorts as well. Before all, they stepped out of their garments and into the light, pale, long-dormant skin instantly warmed by the sun, uninterrupted color from the strong lines of their backs to their athletic bare backsides, and as they turned, bare everything else, marked by the spots of darkness of their own pubic hair and the sudden strip of their freed penises. The dean's mouth fell open, and in response to the two young men stripping, others dropped what they had and shed what was on them. Bare breasts and all the rest joined and added to the growing group. The girls who had been watching from the sidewalk hurried down the grassy hill, throwing off articles of clothing as they went. A frisbee game resumed, albeit in the nude, the act of leaping and jumping aided by the lack of clothing. A girl resumed laying in the grass with her book, her porcelain-white butt set out to bake. The dean had his hands on his head in worried disbelief.

Mr. Burris was grinning now. "As I said, sir, may we continue?"

"You all are going to catch hell for this," the dean said, and finally marched off, practically limping back up the grassy hill. Mr. Burris's students were finally smiling, and some of them were standing up. Jane fidgeted in her position and asked for a water, because she knew it was going to be a minute before everybody was adjusted, as now the life drawing class was getting undressed to put them on equal footing with everybody else. Clothes were traded for nothing, bare fannies were seated on cool, polished wood, and pencils were taken back up as the art class resumed their study, and this time, as nobody now crowded around them, the class was able to concentrate, though some bare laps of the male students found themselves with an exciting display of arousal below them as they tried to concentrate on a bare, beautiful girl while bare themselves, they soon subsided as they lost themselves in their work. And when the pictures were complete, Jane stood, and this time she did not put her clothes back on, as neither did anybody else, for it was unofficially decided, that day, that the central park of the university was now clothing-optional. The president saw that that right was protected. And in the heat of the summers, everybody was thankful for that protection.

~

Kim Tan now sits at a metal chair at an outside patio area beside the student center, a lone nude diner in the middle of the night, dining on nothing but her comfort.

"Now that was an inspiring story, wasn't it? A whole campus, realizing clothes were a crutch, and doing away with them. I must say, I think the same thing is happening on this very campus right now. Oh, I haven't spotted the professor, nor any other student. I wonder what they may be doing?

"Are they shipwrecked, perhaps? the characters in our last story certainly are. Their boat wrecks on a deserted island, where they must fight to survive, and shed their clothes as unnecessary in the tropical heat. What they then unwittingly create is a paradise, much like what is happening here, at our campus. Isn't it great that I can sit here nude and refreshed and nobody bothers me? Well, nobody has discovered me yet. Let's wait to see who might come up while we read our longest story, ‘Bare Naked Bay.’"

Bare Naked Bay

"Savor this, my dude. When you start making the big bucks, you'll be doing this every weekend."

"Uh-huh."

Danny looked out at the pristine blue waters and the beach way in the distance as his mentor in stock brokerage, Peter, leaned back on a wooden bench built into the side of the deck. The good-looking, slightly-older man tipped back a Corona while watching his voluptuous secretary, Venice, stand by the bow and look out at the open water. The sailboat rocked gently and the warm wind buffeted the sails and tossed Venice's black, buoyant hair about, and nearby, Peter's current office fling, Donna, from the media department, tried to splay out on a mat in her summer dress, and she looked remarkably uncomfortable. The ship's captain, a man who's name Danny forgot, but who Peter just called "Skip," turned the wheel and trained his eyes on all ahead, occasionally looking over at Donna trying to get comfortable and shaking his head.

They had chartered this sailboat cruise to celebrate a big sale. Donna had wanted to go on a cruise, but it was Peter who had suggested a sailboat cruise because it "would be interesting to try." Everyone else was enthusiastic about it, especially Venice, who longed for adventure always. But Donna had spent every day since the announcement of the trip with a sour discontent.

"Ugh, why don't they have loungers on this thing?" she asked as she rolled over on her back and sat up. "I thought this was supposed to be luxury."

"No room for that," the skipper said. "This is a barebones voyage, ma'am."

"Why would anybody find this leisurely? I'll remember this, Pete!"

"Just check out the scenery, toots," Peter called out from his spot by the leeward side. "Appreciate the beauty of nature!"

"Hmmph." Donna resumed trying to lie down in some way in which she could be content. Danny slouched in his seat. The bench was hard, and he was getting thirsty. He didn't have a nice cold drink like Peter, and he was getting ready to ask for one. He didn't feel proper getting up and going to the cooler without asking first.

Venice, at the bow, turned around and leaned back on it. "How far are we going out?" she called to the skipper.

"We're gonna go around the horn and then dock up in Robinson's Lagoon," the skipper said as he steered.

"Will we be far off the coast?"

Danny gulped. It looked like they were plenty far off already. He looked behind them and could see a thousand beach-goers like ants.

"A little far out, but not too much," the skipper said. "Don't want to get swept away in a current. And it's supposed to storm this evening as well."

"But we'll be way out of sight of the shore, right?" Venice pressed. The skipper wrinkled his eyebrows and said "yes, why?"

Having been given all the confirmation that she needed, Venice grinned big and pushed away from the bow. She wore a black dress, which looked much too stifling for the heat, but that was no matter, as she now reached down and pulled it up over her thick body, her heaving breasts released with a hefty bounce and the garment passing over her head so that the only black on her now was her bouncing curls and her curly, wide growth below. She let the dress fall to the deck and she looked at everybody briefly before turning around to brace her arms on the bow and lean her heavy chest out over the water, presenting on the other side, to them, her pale bottom.

"H-hey," the skipper said. "You can't do that.

Venice swung back around, the inertia making her chest swing.

"What's the big deal? Nobody's going to see us out here, right?"

"It's against the rules. If you want an au-naturel cruise, you can certainly charter a private—"

"But there's no harm in it, though, right?" She smiled, and braced her hands on the bow, leaning back and presenting herself.

"Well, I can't guarantee another ship might—"

"Oh, let 'em look," she said with the wave of one hand. "The sun is meant to be enjoyed this way. Who wants to sit around all stuffy underneath some clothes?"

Donna had rolled over and craned her neck to see what all the fuss was about, and her jaw dropped. Then she looked to Peter.

"What'd I say, the wonders of nature, eh?" Peter said to Danny and nudged him with his elbow. Danny was at a loss for words, staring at the hot secretary who had drawn his eyes ever since she had started at the firm with her tight, form-fitting dresses and thick frame that he never would have imagined he'd get to see like this. And better yet, it seemed perfectly alright to stare in this situation. Well, except in the viewpoint of Donna.

"Pete!" she cried from her spot on the mat. "So this is why you wanted to go on a sailboat cruise!"

Peter stood up, Corona in hand. "Wasn't my plan, babe." He waltzed over to Venice and put his free hand around her shoulder, and she smiled up at him. "But I can’t argue with the results.”

The skipper just shook his head and re-trained his eyes back on the water. He turned the wheel.

"Hey Pete, uh, may I have a beer, too?" Danny finally asked. He needed one now.

"Sure bud, help yourself," Peter said, taking his arm from around Venice and adjusting his obnoxious ascot which he wore over his white polo. Danny had expected his mentor to take off his shirt, at least. It was something he'd do, for he liked to show off, but apparently in his mind, getting naked under the sun was reserved for the ladies. He strutted across the deck with his beer while Danny got up to get his own. "You oughta take her example, Donna," Peter said next. "Maybe then you'll finally get comfortable."

"Get fucked, Pete," Donna said miserably from her spot below his eyes. "We're through."

"Heh, whatever. You'll have some fun at some point."

She leaned up on her elbow. "This isn't my idea of fun! And I'm famished! Don't they serve caviar on this ship or anything nice?"

"Caviar!" the skipper cried out from his spot by the wheel, and he shook his head. Peter now turned his attention to him, while all other male eyes, skipper included, flitted towards Venice leaning back over the bow, the seamless shade of her skin surreal to see.

"Hey Skip, how's about we go farther out? That way we can have as much private fun out here as we want."

The skipper shook his head. "Can't do that, I told you. There's a storm comin’! Tide is already dangerous. If we get caught out in it, you'll be swimming naked in the deep!"

"Oh, nonsense, I've driven a yacht before. Lemme steer."

"Sir, step back."

"Look at those reefs out there," Peter said, raising his beer hand to extend one finger from his grip. "I bet we could even get out there and sunbathe. it'd be like The Blue Lagoon."

"Sorry, this isn't a movie, now—"

"Oh come on, let me take it."

"Sir!"

Danny watched as Peter pushed the skipper aside and took position behind the wheel, his Corona cradled in the spokes. "How do you drive this thing, anyway?" he asked.

"Give me back—"

"Oh, I see."

Peter gave the wheel a big spin and the sailboat turned out towards the endless sea and the faint lines of land out in the distance. He hooted and hollered with excitement, and Venice, at the bow, pointed ahead and yelled "land ho!" Donna was screaming for them to stop, and the skipper was wrestling with Peter to get control back over the wheel, and Danny just stood there, his beer in hand, turning his attention between the scuffle and bare Venice with her many curves.

The boat lifted as a heaving waved tossed them up and then dropped them.

"See what I mean?" the skipper yelled. "That's from the storm comin'! We'll capsize if you try to fight 'em. Now give me the goddamned wheel!"

"Alright, alright," Peter said, stumbling away as if he was drunk, but it was the chop of the water that made him unsteady on his feet. The beer didn't make him look all that trustworthy, though. The skipper got hold of the wheel and then shouted "Jesus Christ!" and they were sent into the air again by a massive wave that came upon them, and then thankfully they landed upright onto the waves. Danny was hanging onto the rail with all his life, Venice was now moving towards the center of the craft, bracing herself against the mast, her boobs swaying this way and that way as she went along, and Donna was sitting up screaming at Pete. Danny could see the "land" that Venice had pointed out, a set of reefs that were now much closer, and the skipper frantically spun the wheel to put them back on course. But then there was a wrenching, awful sound, and the boat lurched, then freed itself of whatever obstruction kept it, and went along lopsided. Danny pressed against the railing, and Peter fell over, his Corona rolling along the deck.

"That tore a hole in the goddamn hull!" the skipper screamed. "We're gonna sink!"

Donna was still screaming, not at anybody now. Danny's voice was caught in his throat.

"Brace for impact!" the skipper yelled.

"What?"

Then the boat shook, and Danny felt himself almost being flung over the side. His butt landed painfully down on the bench, and his beer fell from his hand, shattering. Venice, stumbling past him, fell on top of him, and her breasts smothered his face before the sudden slam of cold water enveloped him.

*****

It seemed like he awoke suddenly to the crying of seagulls, but Danny in fact had not passed out. He did not remember much except for thrashing through resisting water—and occasionally slapping his palm against the pillowy give of Venice's breasts—until his hand found purchase on sand, and he began to pull himself out of the water. Then, a brief period of unconsciousness may have elapsed, because the next thing he remembered, the skipper was pulling him to his bare feet. The sand under them was hot from the sun.

That sand belonged to a small island, which all of the party now took in. Everybody had made it through the wreck, it seemed: the skipper, Donna, and Peter were all soaked through, and Venice stood bare and dripping like some native girl they had just befriended.

"Is everyone alright?" the skipper said.

"Phone is shot," Peter responded, chucking his iPhone into the sand.

"Mine too," Donna said. "Goddammit, Pete!"

"I was able to salvage the radio," the skipper said. "Maybe I can get it working and we can radio for help."

"Where the hell are we?" Peter asked.

"Some bumfuck island. There are a hundred of them out here. We're not too far off, but, like I said, storm's coming. I doubt anybody is gonna come for us right away."

"Wait, what?" Donna said, now growing panicked. "What the hell are we going to do?"

The skipper raised his hands to calm her. "Now don't worry. First thing we'll have to do is get some shelter. The storm is gonna batter this little island. Look."

He pointed behind him and already there was a line of black, ominous clouds gathering in the distance.

"Now if we just weather it out and get somebody on the horn, we'll be out of here tomorrow. Now follow me."

"Tomorrow!" Donna shrieked. "How are we going to survive until tomorrow?"

"Just follow me."

Venice seemed to be the only one unconcerned with their situation, as she stepped ahead from the sand to the wall of jungle ahead of them, moving forward bravely in the nude, like a native accustomed to this land. She appeared beside herself, not even registering that the others were there. She was lost in the setting. The skipper hurried up to join her while the others stood shivering. Danny felt like he was in shock; he did not expect that his venture into stock brokerage would take him here. But Peter marched on, leaving now just him and Donna standing there, and Danny soon realized he had no choice but to follow along, and to listen to the skipper, who was much more knowledgeable about all these things, knowledge that Peter had not listened to.

"Hey, wait for me!" Donna cried, and went off after him.

At the edge of the jungle the others stood, and as Donna and Danny caught up to them, Donna opened up right away. "Why do we have to go in there?" she asked. "Can't we stay on the beach?"

"We need shelter," the skipper said. "Won't be a good time on the beach when the storm comes. We gotta look for a cave or something."

"A cave? I'm not staying in a cave!"

"Got no choice."

"Peter! You're the one that got me into this!"

But Peter was distracted by Venice, who looked every bit the part of a wild girl of the woods, stepping into knee-deep foliage which brushed against her thighs, her cream-colored body standing out against the lush green. Apparently now motivated enough, and probably feeling rightly gross with his soaked polo and slacks, Peter untied his ascot and began to pull off his shirt. Venice turned and surveyed him, pleasantly surprised that he was joining her in her nudity.

"Peter!" Donna cried. "What are you doing?"

"Might as well get comfortable," Peter said, tossing aside his shirt and standing with his chiseled, gym-body abs and pecs revealed. "It's hot out here." He went about unbuckling his belt, and Danny had to avert his eyes, for he did not want to see his mentor in this way, but he had no choice, just as he had no choice but to stare at the delectable secretary. Now he was seeing Peter in his entirety, peeder and all, which swung freely as he kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants.

"Charming," the skipper said. "Come on, we better hurry."

The party followed, Donna lagging behind, staring in shock as her friend-with-benefits tromped off into the jungle naked with a naked woman. Danny once again was the one to lead second-to-last, just rolling with the situation. There was nothing else to do.

So the five of them trudged forth into the jungle, three clothed people and two nude people, all following the skipper as he pushed his way through thick vine and tree. He looked like he would be right at home if he had had a machete to cut away the overgrowth. But they made due. Soon Peter was complaining about thorns scratching his bare skin, as Danny looked on, trying to ignore the sight of his naked butt in front of him.

They took a trail that climbed above the jungle, taking them past the trees until they were traversing a rocky cliffside, and there they found their cave, just as the sky was darkening with the coming storm and the wind was picking up.

"Here we go," the skipper said, holding out his arms to keep the others back. "Let me check it first."

Before he charged forward, the skipper took hold of the wet sleeves of his captains' shirt and started to roll them up, then decided he wanted to be rid of the whole thing, and pulled the garment over his head, so that he stood bare-chested, sun-spotted skin left to take in the last of the sun as he prepared to investigate the cave. The others stood back, Donna clinging close to Danny for some reason, which made him nervous, if not for the naked sight of Venice nearby, and Peter, both looking as savages.

The skipper approached the mouth of the cave, then crept inside. Everybody stood in hushed silence for a moment, until, one minute later, the skipper came rushing out, with a very small black bear on his heels.

They scattered; the bear cried at the skipper and then looked at everybody in the scared group before running off, leaving the skipper's laugher in its wake.

"Just a little guy," he said, not phased at all. "Come on. It's gonna get bad."

There were some doubts; Danny and Donna looked at the swaying ferns where the bear had just departed and looked back at the cave. But they all ended up following the skipper, single-file, Danny unfortunately right behind Peter, until they were all inside, where it was not as dark as one would have feared, thanks to the way the setting sun angled into the mouth. They found themselves in a quite comfortable—looking hollow. Outside, the thunder began to rumble.

"We got here just in time," the skipper said. “And now we wait. Let's see if I can get this radio working."

He un-slung his bag off his bare shoulder and took out the ancient-looking radio equipment and began turning dials while all the others stood around, taking in their surroundings. The light was already dimming as the sky gathered clouds. The Skipper's flashlight came on and he held it in his mouth and looked over the radio.

"What about a fire?" Donna asked.

"All depends on the circulation, but I don't think it's good," the skipper said, still tinkering. "Damn, I'm not going to be able to get through to anybody because of this storm."

"So what? We're stranded?"

"For the time being, yes."

And so they spent an hour in that cave, sitting down and huddling close to each other as the wind howled at the opening and branches and leaves flew by. In the half-dark, the skipper sat, and then grunted, and then stood again to undo his belt. It was clear to Danny that the man was now getting nude, too.

"Damn belt is cutting into my belly," the skipper said.

And so, in the low light, the skipper was now nude as well, though he was hard to make out. There was a faint glow to his skin from what light was left outside that confirmed that he was now naked, which left the clothed shipwrecked friends down to two: just Danny and Donna. They sat in stillness while the winds raged outside.

An hour passed, then the winds began to let up, and light returned to the sky. Led by the skipper, the group came out of their hiding place and observed the new calm.

"So now what?" Peter asked.

"Let's go back down to the beach. We need to eat."

The five of them marched down the mountain trail into the jungle, Danny feeling rightly disgusting and uncomfortable in his damp clothes, and Donna behind him, complaining all the way, while their nude compatriots sallied forth. The fresh scent of the jungle rain was in the air.

When they were on the beach again, the skipper un-slung his bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the sand.

"You, and you," he said, commanding both Peter and Danny. "Go get the driest branches and limbs you can find. We gotta start a fire.

"A fire! We're camping out on the beach?" Donna yelled.

"We have no choice, until somebody comes to find us. Now go."

Danny nodded, and turned to look at his now-nude mentor, then shrank into himself and walked into the jungle with him, looking for appropriate firewood.

"This is some adventure, huh?" Peter asked him, but Danny remained silent, a little irritated that they were in this position to begin with, and a little apprehensive to gaze upon Peter as he bent down to collect tiny twigs.

When they came back onto the beach, the skipper was brandishing a newly-made spear, looking like a savage standing nude before the two women, one of whom unclothed but still not as savage-looking as a naked man with a spear. "And now," he said. "I will teach you how to fish. Come on."

All followed him into the surf, where he stood still and after much patient waiting, thrust the spear into the water and brought it up with a wiggling bass on the pointed end.

They sat as the skipper prepared a fire, and soon the flames were roaring before them and he had the fish turning on a spit. The radio sat before them, assembled again, and squealing out occasional static.

"So you can't get a hold of anybody?" Donna asked, averting her eyes from the skipper's nude physique and the nude physiques of Peter and Venice near her.

"I'll keep at it until it gets dark. Nobody will be able to get to us until tomorrow, anyway," the skipper explained. "We got it alright here now, though, I think."

"Alright? We're shipwrecked!"

"Try some fish."

The skipper slid the bass off the twig and started slicing off portions with a knife from his bag, and Donna shrunk away when a piece was handed to her. The skipper took a section in his bare hands and bit into it voraciously, the juices running down his face "Good, huh?" he said. the others tentatively bit into the fish, and soon were singing hums of pleasure, so Donna eventually permitted herself to try, and found it delicious.

"Wow," she said. "This is actually good.” She took another bite. Then, after she swallowed: “If I had utensils, this would be as good as anything I'd eat in the city."

"Chef's pleasure," the skipper said, bowing his head, and then he resumed eating his fish, as did all of them.

The sky was slowly beginning to darken; none of them had any idea what time it was. Eventually, the skipper stood up, his body and his penis lit with fire, and he made an announcement. "I'm going to go inland before it gets too dark, to refill our canteens so we have fresh water. I know there's a stream in there somewhere. You four sit tight. I'll be back."

And so, he marched off into the woods with the bag slung over his shoulder and nothing else, leaving the rest of the crew sitting there in a daze. Donna seemed to be finally enjoying herself.

"So you guys are really comfortable like that, huh?" she asked Peter and Venice.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Peter said. "You finally gonna join us as a savage?"

"Yeah!" Venice shouted. "Be a savage!"

Danny just watched this with complete mystification. With his belly full, he was very comfortable now, though his clothes were still damp on his neck and shoulders. Much to his surprise, though, he saw Donna stand up and finally tug at the damp fabric of her dress. There was a little hesitation, but then it yanked up, baring her pale body to the firelight, save for the protection of her panties. The dress pulled up part of her bra and freed one small breast, and as she let the dress fall to the ground, she looked down at herself and blushed, taking the bra all the way off. Peter hooted and hollered, and she looked a little bashful, almost covered herself before changing her mind and taking down her panties instead. She stepped out of them and tossed them straight on the fire. "So much for that," she said. She had a little strip of black for her pubic hair, and Danny stared at her, surprised at the ease with which the prissy girl had cut loose, and realizing that he was the only one now clothed. Peter stood up.

"All we need now is some drums," he said. "And we could have a tribal dance by the fire."

He clapped his hands and began moving his hips, grinning wider and wider and looking at everybody. As he moved his waist, his penis flopped to his rhythm, and he clapped more rapidly. Venice pulled her knees up and smiled at Peter, watching with rapt attention as his member lost its floppiness as it gained rigidity. Danny couldn't help but stare. He didn't want to stare, but there was nowhere else to look, as Peter worked his feet over towards Donna, who stood demurely between him and Danny, the firelight tracing shadows along the crack of her butt. He moved his hips towards her, attempted to engage her in a dance, but she stepped back. The look of dejection on his face was priceless. His dancing slowed, and she turned her back on him, walking over to a log so sit, very closely, next to Danny. Peter just shrugged and turned to face Venice, putting his hands on his head and gyrating his hips. She was clapping.

Donna now turned her attention to Danny.

"Are you comfortable like that?" she asked him. Her face was piqued with interest, canting to the side as she looked at him.

"I'm still wet," he said. "Starting to feel a little cold."

"I'm not cold at all, believe it or not."

"The fire helps with that, I guess."

"I guess so. But I imagine it's not good to sit through the night with wet clothes."

He cast a glance at her, directly at her face, not even distracted by the way the firelight flickered on the curvature of her breasts.

"You trying to get me to take off my clothes?" he asked her.

"I was just wondering."

"Not feeling it."

"I think I should have taken that dress off from the start, like Venice did."

Danny looked past Donna to where Peter was now circling his hips in front of Venice's face, his erection bobbing up and down mere inches from her nose.

"We really are a bunch of savages already, aren't we?" Danny let himself say, and when he looked back at Donna, she was smiling.

"Why resist it? That's what I figured. Might as well embrace it."

"You weren't keen on Peter just a second ago."

Now Donna looked over her shoulder at her former lover's exhibitionism. Even with her face turned away, Danny could see the muscles at her temples move as she frowned. She turned back to face him.

"I'm mad at him," she said. "He's a real bastard."

Danny shrunk into himself, still not comfortable with criticizing Peter. "Yeah, I guess."

"You're nice, though," she said. "I always thought you were a nice kid. It's a shame you have to work under such an asshole."

Danny let out a little nervous laughter. "Gee, thanks."

"I mean it, you're cute. I always thought that, too. It's driving me nuts that I can't see you naked. I think it might kill me if I saw someone as cute as you naked."

Danny could feel himself tensing up. It almost killed him to see Donna, naked as she was. Her breasts looked so soft, and easy to fit into one hand, and her skin was so perfect, unblemished, a seamless fantasy landscape. But maybe that was the fire making it look that way. Either way, he had not ever given her a second glance before, unlike with Venice. But now, naked, she came alive, and it also nearly kill him to have her so close, and now, with the urging that he too get naked... What to do? What to do? he thought, but her expectant look urged him on, and he stood up. Her face seemed to glow and her smile widened as he pulled off that wet, clinging shirt and revealed his thin but toned abdomen. That was no big deal. It was just like going to a swimming pool. Except for what would have to happen next. He went through it without stopping, unbuckling the belt on his khaki shorts and sliding them down, hooking his thumbs on his boxers as he did and taking them down at the same time. He was already erect with the anticipation, feeling his penis jumping out as his shorts passed down it. It embarrassed him. He barely saw Donna's face as he leaned down to step out of his shorts, but her grin was toothy now, and her eyes cast themselves up his body as if undressing him, but they had no need to do that.

Before he could sit back down, her eyes lowered to his rigid, curved erection, and her hand sought it out. The rest of his body stiffened as much as that one particular part, and he took in a sharp breath as her cold-then-warm grip closed around him, and she laughed. It was all surreal to him. He hated to admit he had never had a girl touch his dick before, let alone being naked with one. She passed her grip to his glistening head and he thought he would explode right there, for he was raw-sensitive and quaking with desire, but then a voice shouted out.

"Now what in the goddamn hell?"

The skipper came marching back into camp and threw the bag down. Past him, Peter was masturbating furiously before Venice's calm and waiting face, and he stopped mid-jerk.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ... I leave you alone for five minutes and you're already grab-assin'. Cut that shit out!"

Donna let go of Danny's dick and it lurched and throbbed in the air as she resumed her posture, like nothing had changed since the skipper had left. Danny was left standing there dumbly while the skipper bent down and took some canteens out of the bag, tossing them each way to the others.

"Here. Here's your goddamn water."

Danny collapsed onto the sand and reached forward for the canteen, but Donna got it first, plucking it up with a slender hand and unscrewing the cap while looking at him with the most devious eyes, and then she handed him the canteen first. He drank, with her watching, he still erect as he gulped down the much-needed water.

There was not much conversation for the rest of the night.

*****

They laid down on the bare sand, bare bodies faced up to the cool night, and they slept. They let the fire go as they passed out, to keep them warm throughout the night. It was already smoldering when Danny awoke in the dark to the strange sensation of something wet and slathering on his cock, which was painfully erect. He raised his head and in the dim light was Donna, sucking him off. Her eyes flitted up to him as she saw that he was awake, and she massaged his belly while never leaving the feast of flesh in her mouth. Danny grimaced, overwhelming pleasure taking over him mere seconds upon waking up, the sharp pangs of ecstasy every time her tongue lashed against his head sending shivers through him, until he shivered uncontrollably and unloaded into her mouth. He surged, felt the growing warmth, and then the unbearable pleasure as she sucked his tip clean. When she smacked her lips, he collapsed his head onto the soft sand, and looked up dazily at the stars. Donna patted his belly and then got up, drifting past him to go back to her sleeping spot. He wished she would have cuddled up next to him instead. A warm, soft, feminine body next to him would surely carry him off to sleep, but now he lay with a soreness in his member and sighed as he realized he wasn't going to fall asleep again unless he peed. So he sat up, his lesser self still sitting up before him and slackened with spit and ivory, and he got to his feet and went to go pee in the ocean. When he got back to his spot and settled down, he heard the skipper’s voice, grumbly, almost half-asleep: "goddamn grabassin'."

*****

He awoke in the sunlight to the skipper speaking into the radio.

"Yes. Yes, shipwrecked off the keys, last known location: twenty-five degrees north, seventy-nine west. Please respond."

There was nothing but static in response.

"Goddamn radio."

Peter sat up. The skipper was sitting cross-legged before the smoldering fire, gripping the receiver in his hand, and Venice was sitting up, her magnificent breasts hovering before her, accepting the warmth of the sun as she fanned herself with a palm frond. Donna was also sitting, with her knees drawn up, watching the skipper attempt to make contact with land, and she cast a sly look Danny's way. At the water's edge, Peter stood like an Adonis with the spear clutched in his hand, ready to strike as the skipper must have taught him.

"Can't get through," the skipper said, throwing down the receiver. "I don't know why. All I keep getting is dead air."

"Are we really that isolated?" Donna asked.

"No, I don't get it. We're not that far from the mainland. I should be able to reach somebody."

Peter pulled up his legs and sat cross-legged as well, watching the skipper, sitting nude and sun-hardened (his skin was a cooked brown and leathery, with sunspots dotting his neck and shoulders, and a fine wisp of gray hair flourished on his thin chest), and the women waiting for a change in their fortunes, no longer pale but a little reddened as they sat under the sun. Danny could feel it burning him, the morning hours spent laying unprotected now exacting their toll on his chest, thighs, and his groin, which was sore for other reasons.

"Why can't we just build a raft?" Donna asked. The skipper brushed that idea aside with the wave of a hand.

"We're not that far out, but it would take forever on a raft. We'd end up in the middle of the Atlantic, probably run over by an oil tanker. No, that's not a good plan. It would go to shit."

They all sat in contemplative silence until Peter returned to the group with a fish wriggling on the end of his spear.

"I got breakfast!" he called, even though they were close enough that he didn't need to yell. He stood proud, his tanlines now reddened, his loose cock hanging low and not excited anymore. And the fish continued to wriggle in its last moments of life. He looked like a true savage.

"Gee, I sure could go for some eggs," Donna mused.

"Well you'll have to get them yourself," Peter said, sliding the fish off his spear onto the sand in front of the fire. "Where's your knife, Skip?"

"I'm just saying, fish for breakfast after fish for dinner is kind of repetitive. Plus, I always like eggs for breakfast."

"I'll go," Danny blurted out, in an attempt to impress his apparent new lover. Was she his lover? Or did she just want to suck him off and be done with it? Either way, he was overtaken by a desire to impress her.

"Go where?" Peter shot.

"I'm sure I can find a nest with some eggs," Danny replied, now feeling eager to carry out an adventure.

"That's not a bad idea," the skipper said. "If you think you can do it."

"It's easy," Danny said, as if had done this before. "I just climb a tree and steal some eggs. Should be the easiest thing in the world."

"I'll go, too," said Venice, sitting up more prominent. The skipper just laughed. "Alright, you two adventurers. Have at it." He reached to the ground and picked up his satchel and tossed it their way. "You can put the eggs in this."

Danny was a little taken aback. He had figured he'd go himself, or that Peter would offer to go along, which he wouldn't have minded now. He was getting used to seeing both sexes nude. He even had hopes that Donna would accompany him, and they could have a romantic walk through the woods. But Venice... he had to admit, it made him a little nervous. As she approached, her breasts trembling with the vibrations of her step, her thighs working and making the black shag there twist and turn, he found himself getting a little hard again, like a kid. It was impossible to hide, but maybe not that noticeable. He picked up the satchel and nodded to Venice, then bid farewell to the others. He noticed Peter was scowling a little bit.

"If you just walk straight into the woods and keep left around that ridge, you'll be where I found the creek," the skipper called to them. "Be careful."

"We will," Danny said, and Venice was silent, but gave a happy wave, and they were both off, walking on the sand, then onto the rocks and the soft grass of the entrance to the jungle. They walked side-by-side, and Danny kept his sights ahead, but finally looked over to Venice, who was also looking ahead, a light smile on her face.

"So how come you wanted to come along?" he asked her. Now she looked at him, smiling a little wider.

"Because it's an adventure!" she said. "I love an adventure."

"This whole trip has been an adventure."

"Yeah it has. I've been having a great time."

Danny shook his head. Venice must live on another plane of existence.

"But I was getting a little bored," she continued. "I wanted to stretch my feet a little."

He shrugged, and they walked on, entering the dense canopy of the jungle. Danny tensed up a little, remembering the bear that had chased the skipper out of the cave. What other type of wildlife lived on this island? He imagined perhaps boar, and wished he had brought a spear. If there was any danger though, he realized, the skipper would have warned them. Perhaps it was safe at the lower elevations.

Venice did not seem to be scared at all (of course) and walked with her head tilted up, looking at the sun filtering through the treetops and smiling the whole time. She even closed her eyes and let out a little sigh. She was really in her element, Danny thought, and he thought that she did look magnificent, with the sunlight filtered through the leaves and covering her shoulders in translucent spots. He noticed too that he was a lot more calm. Down there, that was. He no longer was getting aroused like a horny teenager. Perhaps he had gotten used to the naturalness of the situation. He took his eyes away from her, away from the jungle ahead of him, and he looked up, too, at the treetops, where he was supposed to be on the lookout for birds. Of course, the second he looked up, he stumbled over a tree root.

"Oh, be careful!" Venice cried, and grabbed his hand. With her help, he steadied, and they stood there for a moment looking at each other. Then Venice's eyes shot upwards and she pointed. "Up there! A bird!"

Danny followed her finger and saw a rather large bird, a hawk, maybe, leaving a perch atop a tree.

"Think there's a nest up there?" Danny asked her, as if she were a nature expert.

"I bet you there is," she said. "Either that bird's or some other bird's."

"Sure is high up," he said, and it was rather intimidating. It looked like it was sixty feet tall, when in actuality it was probably only twenty feet. It was farther than he had ever climbed in his life.

"Think you can climb it?" Venice asked him.

"Well..." he looked at her, imagining making her climb it, and imagining her breasts pressing against the bark and getting scraped up. Then he imagined himself, hugging the tree and having his dick flattened against it as he pulled himself up. Perhaps nakedness was not the best for climbing trees. He would have to be careful.

"I'll have to be careful," he said, approaching the tree from where the hawk had fled.

"I'll be right underneath to catch you."

"It's not so much falling that I'm worried about, it's getting my, uh, soft bits all tore up."

Venice had a good laugh at this. "Yea, I guess be careful. It's probably not as bad as you think, just stick to the branches, it looks like there's plenty of hand-holds."

"Well alright," Danny said, spitting into his palms and rubbing them together. "Here we go, I guess."

He approached the tree, where the closest branch was well above his head. Rubbing his palms once more, he made a mighty leap, but missed it. Venice laughed.

"Damn."

He tried one more, then realized he would need to shimmy up the trunk. He stepped up onto the sizable root to give him some elevation, and then he hugged it. His dick was flattened, pointing downwards against the trunk, and he imagined that in the next moment, it would be torn off. But he got a grip with his feet (it was amazing how dexterous he could be with them) and took his waist away from the tree to hoist himself up, dick still intact.

Two more hoists like that and he was able to reach the large branch, which he pulled himself up onto.

"So far so good," Venice called from below.

Yeah, not bad, Danny thought to himself. His heart thrilled at the height, but he also felt remarkably calm. In control, even, and standing there on the branch, observing the jungle eight feet below, free of all clothes and with his [still intact] lesser bit hanging free and cool in the morning air, he felt liberated, unleashed, somehow, like a noble savage, perhaps like a man who had once inhabited this island eons ago. It made him feel both proud and humbled at the same time. Then he looked around for the next branch, and was able to pull himself up one more level easily.

The jungle floor was looking farther and farther away. Danny closely observed each branch as he climbed, hoping to find a bird's nest halfway up so that he would not have to climb all the way to the top. But so far, no dice.

The next level found him with what he wanted. Danny let out a sigh of relief as crooked in the base of the branch was a small robin's nest, the owner of which fluttered away, leaving him looking upon four, small, blue eggs. "Jackpot," he called out, and he steadied himself on the branch to take the satchel off his shoulder. One, two three, the eggs went in. They were light and delicate, hardly a hearty breakfast. He hoped Donna wouldn't complain. The last egg looked back up at him, the sole child left, and he felt a little guilty. He decided to leave it. There weren't enough eggs for everybody, anyway. He would give all three of these to Donna. He closed the satchel and was about to put it over his shoulder when a massive shape instantly took up the space before him. "Gah!"—he stumbled.

The giant wings flapped once and then settled down against the hawk's body, and Danny's foot slipped on the branch below him. The last thing he saw was the bird's face staring at him.

He managed to catch the next branch with his hand and hung there a bit on his fingers as his feet kicked to try and find something to brace on. He heard Venice call up but didn't hear what she said. The satchel was still hanging in front of him. Then his fingers slipped. Branches clawed at his bare skin and his feet scraped against the trunk, which pushed his body away from the tree so that he landed square on his back with a solid thunk. He let out a giant wheeze as his lungs were emptied and he thought he blacked out for a second, but he had only forced his eyes shut. When he opened them, Venice was looking down at him, and so was her chest.

"Are you okay, hun? I'm so sorry, I couldn't catch you."

All he could do was nod; he had no breath in him, but it didn't feel like he had broken anything. His whole body burned with scratches, but at least his dick didn’t hurt. That was a good sign. He finally leaned his head forward and touched the satchel, and could feel the smooth eggs inside.

"Eggs... okay," he wheezed.

"Come on, let's get you up," Venice said, and her breasts descended on his face, robbing him of air for just a little bit longer, not that he minded. He knew he would make it because his senses were working: the heat of her bosom was like a furnace, and he could smell her sweat.

*****

"Holy shit, I knew he'd get hurt," Peter said as Danny came limping back onto the beach, hanging on Venice's shoulder.

"Oh my God," Donna cried, standing up along with the skipper, and the two of them approached with obvious concern. Questions abounded: was he hurt? Did he break anything? Danny took his arm off of Venice's shoulder and regained his balance, and then raised the satchel, smiling.

"Lord, Danny, you didn't have to go through all that just for me," Donna said.

*****

The rest of the day was inactive for Danny as they had a nice breakfast of fish and robin's egg (the skipper scrambled them all and split them evenly between everybody; so much for giving them all to Donna) and then went about chores, collecting more firewood, more twigs and branches to make lean-to's, which Danny would soon lay under while everybody else did their work. By mid-day, the skipper was able to get a static-filled signal on the radio, with the hint of a voice on the other end, and he sent out their SOS.

That night they lay by the fire again, Danny on his side by a log, and Donna was now snuggled up next to him, caressing his bare skin as he felt hers through his abdomen. There was no indication anybody would be coming, but there was always hope for tomorrow. Donna didn't seem to mind anymore. The skipper sat by the fire and recounted a story of one other time he was lost at sea, to instill the others with confidence that they would make it through this. Nobody seemed to be listening, though. Danny was listening, half-attentively, the other half of his attention devoted to Donna. Peter sat near the fire, legs drawn up, and a bored, irritated expression on his face while the skipper droned on.

Venice appeared out of the shadows, carrying an armload of thick twigs for the fire, which she dropped on a pile and then brushed the debris from her breasts with a sharp jiggle issuing from the touch of her fingertips. Peter looked up at her and patted the ground next to him.

"Why don't you take a break?" he said, cutting into the skipper's story. "I'm lonely."

Venice just smiled and shook her head, and then walked over to the other end of the fire where Danny and Donna lay.

The skipper cut short his story as he looked on with a smile, and Danny couldn't help but widen his eyes with wonder as Venice stopped in front of them and sat down beside them, so that she was right by his head. Donna shifted her position a little, but she did not seem bothered, and she did not move further. Venice reached out and massaged Danny's scalp, and in a few minutes, he found his head in her lap, the fine bristles of her pubic hair scrubbing his cheek as she stroked him like a puppy. Donna snuggled in closer.

"Oh, I've just about had it," Peter spat, and he stood up. The skipper visibly tensed, but did not stop the man. "I've just about had it with your schmoozing on this guy. He's just a schmuck! I hired him because he was an idiot fresh out of college."

Danny narrowed his eyes at him. Gee, thanks, he said internally.

"He's a better guy than you, schmuck!" Donna spat back, then passing a massaging hand over Danny’s chest.

"Oh, just because he falls out of a tree, you two are going to dote on him? I get it." He was beginning to sway on his feet as if he was drunk, drunk on anger. "You girls like an underdog, a little, vulnerable guy to root for. But you're preying on him. You skanks."

Now Danny was the one to move, sitting up, though he hated to leave the pleasant nest of Venice's lap. "Now you just listen here," he found himself saying, chest pumping with bravery. "Don't you talk about them like that."

"Oh, whatchya gonna do? Go trip on a rock so they'll fawn over you again?"

Now Danny stood up, brushing Donna aside and leveling with his nude mentor.

"Now don't you go grab-assin'..." the skipper muttered.

They met face-to-face, nude body to nude body, though Danny was no longer self-conscious about that anymore.

"You think you're some big shot now, huh?" Peter asked him. "Don't forget who you answer to, buster. Unless you think you're the boss now?"

He gave Danny a gentle shove, pushing against his chest with this fingertips. It was enough to piss Danny off, but he kept his cool.

"I'm not the boss of anybody."

"That's right. And it'll always be that way, because you got no spine, son."

"Who the hell are you calling son? You're like twenty-five."

Peter didn't like this. His knuckles cracked as he balled his fist, and if Danny would have been wearing clothes, Peter probably would have grabbed the scruff of his shirt.

"Cool it, Peter," Donna pleaded. "He doesn’t have any beef with you."

"Oh I think he does," Peter replied, not taking his fierce eyes off of Danny. "Don't ya?"

"I got a beef... with how much of a prick you are." He couldn't believe he said it. He saw Peter's eye twitch. He couldn't help but to keep prodding. "And how you think you're so much better than everybody else, but look who the ladies like more."

"That's it!" Whatever nerve that was swelling had now popped, but he didn't pop Danny in the face. He was surprised at that. He was totally prepared to get a black eye and then get doted on by the girls again. Instead, Peter turned and walked ten paces away from Danny. "Fight. You, me, right now. Come on, chump! Let's settle this like in the olden days!"

By now the skipper had stood, and so did Donna and Venice, who came up behind Danny to put assuring hands on his shoulder. "Don't take his bait," Donna whispered into his ear. "This is the type of shit he does all the time."

"Come on, pussy!" Peter began to taunt. "I ain't got all night. Let's see who's the alpha! Let's go!"

A sudden motivation filled Danny, a motivation that seemed to be aided by the fact that he was nude. Nevermind that so was his opponent. He felt limber, free, but still strong, as if he were wearing armor. It was the armor of the strength of his ancestors long past, and long past before that. He stood with the uniform of a fighting early homosapien, after they had split from the neanderthals and kept their ferocity but gained a measure of regality. he felt like a Fabio romance cover, with a chiseled chest ready to take on any spear or arrow. He felt pumped. He actually beat his chest. He thought he heard himself screaming. That was a little embarrassing. Nevermind, because he and Peter were now rushing towards one another.

There was a gasp from the women, or maybe it was the skipper. Peter and Danny locked arms with full brunt force and Danny felt like his wrists were going to snap. Peter pushed against him and Danny's heels dug in the sand. Then he was twisted around and put in a headlock.

"Little fucker. I'll show you."

He began giving Danny a knuckle-rub. He tried to squeeze out of it and found his escape with a sharp elbow to Peter's ribs. Then the fight turned truly savage. Peter was charging at Danny, trying to knock him down, but Danny was deft and dodged out of the way, sending Peter eventually onto the ground, wherein he jumped on his back, not caring that his ballsack was resting on him, and he shoved Peter's face into the sand. Nobody stepped up to stop them, though the skipper was observing nearby. Danny thought he even heard both Donna and Venice cheer.

When Peter rolled Danny off of him, Danny planted his feet in the larger man's stomach and heard the satisfying oof as his breath left him. Then he was on his feet and tackling him. When he went down, they landed right in front of the girls, and Peter's head thunked against the log. He stopped fighting back and lay there half-conscious. Danny stood triumphantly over him. He wanted to say something, some concluding one-liner, but he was at a loss for words, so instead, he retreated to the log and sat down, and instantly Donna and Venice draped their arms on his shoulders while the skipper came up to make sure Peter was okay. Danny sat there, proud, A hefty breast of Venice pressing into his upper arm, and the dainty, pointed breasts of Donna snuggling on his other side.

"He's alright," the skipper said. "Get on up, son, come over here and rest."

And so the sleeping arrangements were thus set: The skipper sat with Peter as he held his head by the fire, while Danny laid back down and Donna and Venice smothered him. They laid like that for some time until the excitement between his legs nuzzled against their thighs, and Venice was the one to change positions and straddle him, hovering her voluptuous body over him until he found entry into her. He braced his hands on her hips and worked his own the best he could, and the former fling of Peter was now his steady, steadily riding him. Meanwhile, Donna stood and walked over to Danny's head, and there straddled him as well, lowering her lower lips onto his face. All he saw was her puffy mound closing in before all went black, and all he had was his senses of touch and taste. And hearing: behind the subtle moans that worked up, he heard the skipper mutter: "Goddamn grab-assin'..."

*****

Danny was surprised to awake the next day to the skipper hooting and hollering. He fluttered his eyes open and could only see the endless skin of Donna and Venice laying on either side of him, and his hands confirmed they were real. Then they sat up, and he did too. By the smoldering fire, Peter lay, awake and moving but not motivated to sit up, while the skipper was rushing to the shore, his sun-burned red ass and square shoulders framed against the endless ocean, and out on that line of water was a large ship, a coast guard cruiser, getting closer through the haze.

"Haaaaaah!" the skipper shouted with joy. Now Danny and the girls were on their feet, going to join in the welcoming party.

"Told you we just had to be patient!" the skipper cried. "Gather your things, we're goin' home!"

Hope filled Danny's heart. Or rather, the fulfillment of hope. He supposed he had had some hope tucked away inside of him, but in the past day, he had abandoned thoughts of going home. Now that his ticket back was looking right at him, growing larger and larger, he yearned for a hot shower and a hot meal. And clothes, he guessed.

Donna and Venice appeared to be in a daze, and as the skipper turned to face them, they did not seem to share his enthusiasm.

"What's the matter?" he said. "Ain't you excited?" Then, not waiting for a response, he went over to where Peter lay. "Hey son, get up! "We's a-goin' home!"

Peter now sat up, rubbed his head, and looked confused. The skipper urged him up and then went around the camp, picking up his satchel and contemplating the radio. They all stood and watched as the ship appeared to approach cautiously, perhaps the people on board hesitant at what looked like to them an island full of savage natives. In a few more minutes, they were coming ashore in an inflatable raft. Their eyes were large and unsure, passing quickly over the naked skipper and Danny, over the women and the attractive man still rubbing his head.

"Captain Chambers, United States Coast Guard," the tallest man in the raft addressed the group as they came to shore and he stepped out to full height. "You folks appear to have been shipwrecked?"

"Yes, take us home!" old Skip said, and slung his bag over his shoulder and approached the captain, who humorously seemed to be leery about a buck naked old man coming towards him.

"Where are all your clothes?" the Coast Guard captain asked.

"Didn't need 'em," the skipper replied, and happily strolled over to the raft, where men shuffled away for him to sit. Danny followed, feeling self-conscious all over again as the men who came to rescue him looked at his little, flipping dick. He looked back at the others. Donna and Venice were still standing there, motionless, and Peter came up between them, and he was holding a large rock.

"Begone!" he cried, and he hurled the rock. It bounced and splashed into the water to the left of the raft, and some of the guardsmen drew pistols.

"No!" Danny cried, throwing up his hands and falling naked against the uniformed captain.

"Peter!" the skipper called. "What the hell has gotten into you?"

"Get out! This is our home!" Peter cried. He turned from the rescuers and searched for another rock, bending down and giving them all a look at his ass and nutsack hanging there. Several men averted their eyes, but Danny looked on, pleading with his eyes at the girls, who looked at him sadly.

"What the hell's wrong with them?" the Coast Guard captain asked.

"Gone completely stir-crazy," the skipper said. Danny wondered if he had knocked something loose when he had thunked Peter's head on the log. He was now climbing into the raft, which bobbed and weaved in the water, and he called to his two lovers.

"Donna. Uuuh... Venice! Come on!"

They only looked at the group blankly. Another rock splished in the water next to the raft.

"Come on!" the skipper yelled. "Don't you wanna go home?"

Donna finally spoke.

"I'm fine here," she said. "I like it here."

"Christ almighty."

"Danny," she continued. "Won't you stay?"

Danny could only look on with regret, wishing he had not gotten in the raft, as both the girls seemed dead set against getting into it. Then Peter broke through the two of them again, holding the spear.

"Goddamn," one of the guardsmen said. "Let's get out of here."

All were in the raft now, but the Coast Guard Captain looked on with doubt. Peter was charging at them, spear raised, and he was screaming.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" the skipper cried. "Leave 'em!"

And so they pushed out, and Peter heaved his spear and it landed right at the spot where the raft had once been, and soon they were sloshing on the waves, headed for the ship, and the last sight Peter had of his friends was them standing on the beach, three in a row, three natural nude forms, the wide and male one heaving with rage. And then he looked away.

*****

They were given blankets to put on and were soon back on shore, Danny bewildered at all the civilization surrounding him, all the dressed people, and the blinking computer panels and moving vehicles and sunlight glinting off of concrete buildings, and they spent some time in an office with cold fluorescent lights, relating their story, and then they were both set out upon the world. Danny did not see the skipper ever again. He was given a taxi home, wherein he had to break in because he no longer had his keys. He no longer had his phone. He had to start over. He spent a month canceling cards and getting a new driver's license and having an awkward first day back at work, but he soon quit, turning in his two minutes' notice and going back home to figure out his life from now on out. The darkness and stillness of his apartment was maddening. He sought refuge in the written word, having always had an affinity for expressing his thoughts on paper rather than with his voice, and he found himself writing about his experience. After a month, the writings turned into the outline of a novel, and after a year, he was focusing on completing it, living off the savings he had in the meantime.

The novel transformed from a mere memoir of time spent outside of society and then morphed into an awareness campaign about the people who still resided on that nearby island. It was called "Life by Bare Naked Bay," and Danny hoped to raise awareness enough to get another rescue party to go back for his friends. He missed especially the tender touch of Donna, and the loving rhythms of Venice atop of him were special, too. He had not sought any intimate relationships in his time back on the mainland. He was focused on the world he had lost.

Unfortunately, political world events going on at the time distracted people from the story that he wanted them to experience. Though he did sell many copies of the book, it seemed to take an eternity to get public interest in sending out another voyage to that island. A full four years later, though, one was finally formed, and Danny made sure he was part of that voyage, as author of the memoir of this lost land and its lost inhabitants. he found himself standing on the deck of a rocking ship with a group of disinterested-seeming crewmembers: scientists, anthropologists, some military people, men and women, perhaps a dozen or more varied personas, none of them perhaps ready for what they would face, chief among them all Danny himself, who now yearned for that simpler life he had lived for only two and a half days, and who wondered about how his friends were doing.

Then, when the shore came into view, the sight was somewhat surprising. On the shoreline where Danny had last glimpsed the three nude people, there now were several structures that looked to be made of twigs, like the lean-to's they had begun putting together, only these were full-fledged shacks. As the boat drew nearer, Danny could even make out shapes moving in the water, but they were small. It was only when the boat touched land that he saw a third shape, a man lying in the sand, soaking up the sun, a long beard nestled on his chest. That man sat up when the boat arrived, and his beard hung well down to his stomach. The figures in the water before him did not look like Venice, her ripe breasts still fresh in Danny's memory, or Donna, slender as she was, not as petite as these figures. Playing in the water before the bearded man were two children, one girl and one boy, their sexes apparent, as they were both nude. Both stopped as the crew made preparations to make land, and the bearded man was marching up to meet them, now brandishing a familiar spear which had been embedded into the sand near him and which was now adorned with some colorful feathers. As they rode in a dispatch boat, Danny drew some eyes as he frantically waved his arms to try to stop the man from hurling the spear. The man appeared to get the message, and stood ready.

Peter's face was barely-recognizable now under his weather-beaten skin and scraggly beard, but his eyes had recognition in them. Even still, he held out his arm and kept the children back. They peeked from behind him with innocent eyes.

Before anyone from either party could say anything, another person came from one of the huts: a woman, belly full and small breasts swollen, and when she saw the group, she beamed and rushed over.

"You came back!" she cried as she approached Peter's side. Donna, despite her changes, was instantly more recognizable than Peter. Danny wanted to rush up to her, but Peter held out another arm and stood imposing.

"We just came to check on you," Danny finally said. "You don't have to go back. But I was worried."

Peter, his mouth hidden behind his beard, finally spoke as well. "Sure took you long enough."

Danny mussed his hair. The others on shore just exchanged glances. Some gripped cameras, not sure whether it was safe to take any pictures.

"Yeah, well things back in civilization are a lot more complicated, as I'm sure you remember."

"You ever make it as a stockbroker?"

The phrase was so alien. Danny was surprised that Peter even remembered what it meant.

"No, I quit."

A smile now crept from behind his graying, crisp facial hairs.

"Good man."

Peter finally let down his guard enough for Donna to rush past him towards Danny and embrace him in a hug, her firm breasts digging into his shirt. She smelled so different than he remembered; he smelled not only sweat but dirt, dirt that felt baked in and part of her essence. She had taken on the scent of a savage. Now the cameras started to flash.

"I never thought I'd see you again," she said into his neck. Then, releasing him and looking into his eyes: "Are you going to stay?"

"I don't know," Danny said. He hadn't planned on it, but he didn't tell her as much. he touched her swollen belly. "You guys re-starting civilization?"

Donna smiled and placed her hand overtop his and then glanced back at Peter and the two children.

"No, it just happens."

The kids stepped from behind Peter's protective stance. They looked barely five years old, baby fat receding and the lean tone of their coming adolescence already characterizing their torsos and limbs, perhaps aging faster because of a life in the elements. They were cute as buttons, though, and stared at Danny with curious, dark eyes and no shyness about their nudity.

"They're yours," Peter said plainly, and Danny took a breath. He looked back at his party, then at Donna, who smiled and nodded. He dropped to his knees. The two nude children approached him cautiously until he put out his arms, wanting to say something but settling for a big, toothy smile and a stream of tears. They quite naturally threw themselves on him for a hug.

More camera flashes, and then the rest of the expedition stepped further inland, taking everything in. When Danny released the kids, he stood, and looked at Peter and found for the first time a mutual respect in his eyes.

"I would have told you," Peter said. "If there was a way to contact you. They don't have a mail service here."

Danny couldn't help but laugh, and as he looked at his clothed compatriots walking through the little makeshift village, he saw another figure come out of the treeline, instantly recognizable, though her skin was now tawny rather than pale, but her breasts were as buoyant as ever under the sun, and she wore a wreath of flowers on her black hair. Venice stopped at the sight of all the people, spotted Danny, and then happily waved.

Before the expedition team, and his old friends, Danny dropped his bag and peeled off his shirt. Some stopped and stared as he took on the attire of the people of this island, taking down his pants and letting his diminutive lesser self free to take in the air and sun again, and completing the image of an uninhibited native, though he had much more tanning to do compared to the others. He kicked his pants aside, then looked at Donna, then Peter, and the two children who now set off to go scamper in the surf again, and Venice drawing near, walking quickly, and Danny smiled and said: "Okay, show me what you've done with the place."

Peter smiled and stepped forward. The two nude men, once physical opponents, now stood with no guard, and Peter clapped his old protégé on the back.

"Come on," Peter said, and Danny walked with Donna on one side and Peter on the other, while the crew observed and took pictures. Those pictures would find their way back to the mainland, to tell of what the author of Life by Bare Naked Bay had encountered on his return trip to that fateful place, but he would not follow those pictures back. He remained on the island, and even a few of the expedition stayed behind when their boat left, and so, the beginnings of a new civilization sprouted.

~

Kim is still sitting quite comfortably under the moon, her legs crossed and her hands folded atop them as all her bare skin slides against itself or against the cool metal of her seat.

"Now that was fantastic, wasn't it?" she says, referencing the story. "A creation of Paradise.[4] When we let our inhibitions fall away—oh, I see Professor Dougherty now."

Kim looks ahead, where walking around the corner of the building is one middle-aged man with a scruffy beard and a sport coat, our illustrious Professor Dougherty, and a young woman, dressed much less than he, that is to say, dressed not at all, bare from the top of her auburn-shaded head down to the pale torso accentuated with twin swells of femininity and a puff of dark maturity, all of which the often-obsessed professor seems oblivious to as he chats with this naked girl.

"So you come out here, every night?" he asks her.

"Every night," the girl says. "This isn't the first time I've been caught." She speaks with slight nervousness, reaching to cover her feminine features but withdrawing her hands to instead walk un-hid next to the esteemed professor. Then they both catch sight of Kim, sitting unassuming but just as flagrant as the younger girl.

"Oh... Kim... fancy seeing you like this out here."

The younger girl is shocked, even though her current lack of dress should be shocking to anybody else that may see her, but in the presence of one other naked woman, her demeanor quickly goes at ease.

"Hi, Professor. We are done with our study, and I thought I'd come out and see how you are doing."

"Well, I am doing just fine, as you can see." He motions towards his naked companion. "It seems there is a spirit overtaking everybody in this campus, a spirit that may stem from you-know-what."

"Yes. The Naked Angels."

"I thought this young woman here was a naked angel at first."[5] Again he motions to the younger girl, who now covers herself finally, embarrassed, perhaps, at the attention. "But she is just a normal, naked girl. It is quite curious!"

"Well, Professor, I have found, in my studies of your rejected works, that casual social nudity is something enjoyed by all, and that any naked person you may encounter may not be necessarily tied in with your ever-reaching story of female worship."

"I—I'm gonna go," the young nude female says, glancing at the significantly older nude female sitting there, and then throwing one more polite glance at the professor before bounding off to the end of the patio, youthful, nude profile blending in with the night. Professor Dougherty lowers his eyes to his nude secretary.

"Well, I will say, this campus is sure full of revelations." He steps closer to sit down.

"Many kinds of revelations," Kim says. "Why don't you strip down, Professor? You may find an all-new type of revelation yet."

He looks at her incredulously. He looks as if he is recalling his teleporting trip to Junioress Park.[6] "Well, perhaps it will help me attain some insight into all this. Why are students throughout this campus running about nude?"

Kim smiles at him. "Perhaps it is because it feels good?"

Dougherty's smile broadens underneath his growing beard, which he has neglected to trim in the pursuit of his studies.

"That's a good observation, Kim. Maybe you have a better bead on things than I do."

And with that, Professor Dougherty loosens the buttons on his sport coat and works on the lengthy task of undoing the buttons of his dress shirt, and Miss Kim sits and enjoys the night, waiting to enjoy it with her boss, both as natural and unmarked by rank as when they were born, letting the moon bathe their skin in nourishing light. After that, they will head back towards the history building, side-by-side, both nude, boldly out in the open for the roving public safety officers to possibly discover them, and they will grab their items that they cannot part with and head home, where they will still spend the rest of their separate evenings in the nude. 

Get naked with these other P.A. Choi collections!

”We’re Naked, What Now?” “Center of Attention” and ”Life’s More Fun Naked!”

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

[1]See the collection "The Mystery of Naked Girls" for a look into the unfolding web of the Naked Angels and to properly get introduced to Professor Dougherty.

[2]One woman almost did, as seen in "A Naked Girl Walked into my Office," a story chronicling Professor Dougherty's first encounter with a so-called "Naked Angel." This story is also chronicled in "The Mystery of Naked Girls."

[3]Not unlike the apparition in “The Naked Ghost of Valentina Beach,” which got a whole community stirred up with her unabashed nudity.

[4]In a much less grandiose but no less dramatic way, a character named Silvia accomplishes this in the aptly-titled story "Paradise," also to be chronicled in “Naked Girl Adventures 2."

[5]Indeed he did, at the height of Annabelle's naked wanderings, as seen in "In the Dead of Night."

[6]As also chronicled in “The Mystery of Naked Girls”, where he remained in his stuffy clothes while youths unburdened by fabric gallivanted about him.