Although she was a seriously distracted driver, Carla was relieved to at least be putting her fiasco of a visit to the county park and several of its hot spring-fed pools behind her. She had plenty to be distracted about, between the events of her last few hours and her uncertain prospects for the next few.
Carla's current state, stark naked except for her pink Crocs, had her driving in something of a daze. It took a few minutes for the warning light next to her truck's fuel gauge to break through the fog to receive her attention.
She hadn't noticed how low the fuel gauge was reading before she stopped at the park; it really hadn't been a problem before, she had more than enough to make it to the town the driver had given her directions to. Now that she'd be arriving in the nude, depending on what options the town had she might be forced to fill up in an uncomfortably exposed location.
She trembled as the image stuck in her head, but somehow in her imagination she always pictured herself at a newer mini-mart, standing next to the truck under a canopy full of bright lights, with other customers coming and going all around her since she'd chosen the busiest pump, near the store entrance, and stayed to fill the tank instead of just pumping enough to get by until she wasn't naked.
The nature of her surroundings began to change in the usual progression when approaching a town, from farmland or woods to a few scattered houses and businesses, then becoming more dense as whole neighborhoods and small shopping centers began to line both sides of the road. The road changed from two lanes to four, and a few traffic signals marked larger intersections, making another of her truck's quirks, formerly just a bit annoying, now a serious problem.
Sometime during her second day on the road, the two map lights at the edge of the front window had begun refusing to go off whenever the truck was running. Other than having to deal with a few distracting reflections while driving at night it hadn't made much difference to Carla. Now the reflection she saw, and more importantly, the view available to approaching vehicles and any sitting next to her at a red light was of herself, brightly lit and naked, all the way down to her navel!
At the second crossroad with a signal, Carla caught a red light. The first ten seconds of sitting still made her a little tense, but real anxiety began as she was joined at the intersection by a pickup truck next to her in a left turn lane and then an SUV in the lane to her right. She held the steering wheel with her right hand and crossed her left arm over her boobs. She looked straight ahead, determined to avoid finding out whether the occupants of the other vehicles had caught on to her nudity.
Despite her attempts to cover up, the SUV driver leaned on his horn. Her determination to ignore her fellow drivers crumbled as the horn continued wailing; she turned to her right, hoping that acknowledging the SUV's driver would get him to stop before he drew even more attention to her state.
Making eye contact with the SUV's driver did get him to let up on the horn, but not before he'd made the driver of the pickup look over to see what the fuss was about, distracting him enough to make him miss his green arrow entirely, causing the two cars behind him in the turn lane, who had no idea why he had zoned out, to lean on their horns in frustration.
When her light finally changed to green, Carla eased forward slowly, trying to encourage the driver to her right to pull ahead and get on with his evening. "If it's going to be this crazy before I'm even in the busy part of town, what's it going to be like where I need to go?" she worried. Coming over a rise and seeing the commercial strip the tow truck driver had mentioned, she said, "ready or not, I guess I'm about to find out!"
She slowed down to take in her options, but there were so many stores and gas stations to consider she ended up passing completely through the area and had to turn around. She lucked out and was able to turn around at a left turn lane, catching a green light and avoiding having to hang around waiting.
On her return trip through town she came up with a strategy; if everything she needed was available at the right side of the road, she'd stick to right turns to avoid being on display while waiting for a left turn arrow. To avoid needing to double back and make yet another trip down the busy strip, she planned to turn in to get the things she needed in whatever order she found them
Her first trip past all the businesses had reminded her how long it had been since she'd had anything to eat or drink, so she added food to her list of necessities, thinking she might be able to get a meal at a drive-through without too much exposure.
Cruising slowly along in the right lane, the first one of her necessities Carla spotted was a fast food place, not her first, second, or third favorite chain, but good enough in her current situation, and without much of a line at the drive-through. She turned in and got in line. No more than a couple of minutes later she had ordered a combo and was approaching the pickup window. Covering her boobs with her right hand and forearm, she pulled up to the window, belatedly remembering that her wallet was still locked in the glovebox!
The young woman working at the window said, "That'll be $7.85, do you need any ketch...uhhh...what the...?" Carla stretched over the storage cubby between the seats, her left hand hanging onto the steering wheel to hold her up and her right hand reaching for the glovebox button, showing the drive-through clerk her naked backside from her head to the back of her thighs.
Finding the glovebox door locked, Carla whispered every bit of profanity she knew as she sat up straight. She turned off the engine and took the key out of the ignition, then bent over again to unlock the glovebox. With her wallet in her right hand, she pulled herself back up, giving the small crowd of employees now crowded together at the window a view of her front almost as good as they'd had of her rear.
She was about to hand over her credit card to pay for her meal, but thought better of giving the man who'd taken over from the young woman at the window a name to go along with everything else she'd just shown him. She pulled a ten-dollar bill out and held it out the window, blushing but not bothering to try and conceal what she'd already shown. "Nah, no charge. Come back soon!" the man said, grinning.
Carla pulled away from the drive-through and looked for her next destination, and saw a convenience store not too far down the road, with gas pumps and a good-sized lot where she could park in relative privacy while eating her burger and fries. She pulled into what would be a pretty inconvenient spot for customers and turned the engine off, and with it the cursed map lights. While eating her dinner she kept an eye on the truck's mirrors, both to be aware of anyone approaching and also to just get an idea of how busy the store and its gas pumps were.
Once she'd finished, wolfing down her dinner, Carly worked out her plan to gas up her truck with as little risk of more people seeing her naked as possible; mostly she was dismayed by how many people had already seen most or even all of her unclothed body in the last few hours, but a part of her was beginning to think it really didn't make much difference at this point.
A small voice inside her was telling her since there was no way she could avoid risking being seen, she might as well relax and enjoy the range of reactions to her nudity, laughing as it pointed out, "Being caught in the nude got you a free dinner!"
Carla tried to tune out the voice urging her to enjoy her situation, pulling her truck to the pump farthest from the store entrance so she'd be blocked from one side by the pump and the opposite side by the truck. "Nothing much I can do about the narrow opening between the pump and the truck but hope nobody else wants to use such a remote pump," she said. She took one last look around before opening the door, amazed that even though she'd been seen naked today several other times, her pulse still shot way up the second she set a foot on the ground.
Standing between her truck and the gas pump wearing only her bright pink Crocs, it seemed to Carla that time was passing more slowly than she could ever remember. The seconds it took for her credit card to be authorized, the few seconds it took the pump to recognize her choice of Regular and reset the readout, and especially the pace the gas was flowing at all seemed to be taking way, way, more time than normal.
She considered quitting while she was ahead, or at least unseen, but not knowing yet where, when, or even how she was going to acquire some form of clothing, she wanted enough gas to be sure she wouldn't need to do another naked pit stop just a little later. "Just a little longer," she thought, "besides, nobody has come near seeing me here so far."
"It's like I cursed myself!" Carla whispered when only seconds after she concluded her choice of position was safe, a car pulled up on the opposite side of the island her pump was on. As soon as she saw it approaching she shifted closer to the pump to stay out of the driver's line of sight. A glance at her pump showed she had only put in a bit over three gallons; considering the way her truck went through gas she felt like she needed at least six gallons to make it to the next town where she might be able to find some clothing if she failed to get some in this town.
She decided to just try to keep the pump between her and the man on the other side, whose face she could see over the top of the pump. "He's got no reason to come over to my side of the pump, so I'll just ignore him, stick close to the pump and wait for him to leave before climbing in."
She was being careful to look anywhere except across the island at her fellow customer, but she heard him grumbling to himself, then say out loud, "Sorry to bother you, but I've never used one of these contact-free cards, do you know...OH, sorry, I , um, I didn't..."
Carla turned quickly and found herself face to face with a tall, lean grey-haired man, who was still stunned at seeing a tall, shapely naked woman nonchalantly gassing up her truck. Without stopping to think twice, she followed the instinct of her inner daredevil voice, answering him, "sure, I can show you how they work, can I see your card?" Still in shock, he handed her his credit card as she stepped over to his side of the pump.