Chapter 2 Tan Lines Bad

Kate's Exhibitionist Journey

Chapter 2 - Tan Lines Bad

In which Kate makes an unexpected friend or two and finds a way to push herself a little further on the nude beach.

Nobody cared.

I stood proudly on the side of the sand dune, completely nude. And down on the beach, nobody had batted an eyelid.

In an instant, all of my conflicting feelings inside changed. The butterflies in my stomach, the nerves, the fear, and that final sense of exhilaration as I had taken the plunge, pulled off my bikini and bared all, after weeks of google-fuelled planning and muscle-toning exercise and heart-pounding fantasies about what it would be like, evaporated away. In their place, I suddenly felt nothing more than distinctly awkward. Even a little ashamed. In some strange way, this complete lack of a reaction to my nudity felt way more embarrassing than if every set of eyes on the entire beach were now firmly clamped on me.

I wasn't entirely sure what I'd been expecting upon revealing myself to the world like this. Applause? Cheers? Laughter? But my fantasies had always been tied into those alluring videos I'd found online, of beautiful naked women gliding through busy European cities, attracting shocked stares and delighted attention wherever they had gone. And while I knew that this trip was nowhere near the same thing, my weeks of fantasising about this very moment had still been built around...something happening. Some sort of reaction.

Yet my nude body had been welcomed into public life with complete and total indifference from everyone present. Somehow, that felt like the worst reaction of them all.

Not for the first time since I had arrived, I had a sudden urge to call the whole thing off as a bad idea. I'd been such a fool, going through with this in the first place. I wanted to pull my clothes back on and run away. Just drive home and never mention this insane period in my life ever again. None of my friends even knew I'd come here, it wasn't like I'd posted 'brb, getting nekkid today xx' on all my socials. And if anyone at work asked what I did on my day off, I'd just say I needed to catch up on housework.

And then, as I felt another inviting tingle across my bare skin from a fresh gust of cool sea air, the more rational side of my brain caught up with what was happening. And everything made a lot more sense to me.

Of course nobody was acknowledging the nude girl up on the sand dune. This was a

nude beach

, for crying out loud! Everyone down there was just as exposed as I was. That was the whole point. On this side of the natural dividing line of sand, a nude person was normal. Boring. Mundane. My arrival would have garnered far more attention if I'd have shown up dressed in an evening gown, an ankle-length fur coat and hiking boots.

And like that, my mood switched again. I was still a little disappointed that such a major step on this journey I found myself on, my first time stripping nude in public, had turned out to be such a non-event in the eyes of my audience. But I decided that, if nobody else was going to do it, I was just going to have to congratulate myself.

Because I deserved it, after all. Here I was, finally living my best nude life. Not back in my stuffy apartment, behind closed curtains, or purely in my overactive imagination. I was outside, among other people. Completely bare! This was still, regardless of everyone's lack of reaction, the experience I had craved. And, while part of me was still trying to blame this on the cool breeze, I couldn't deny that my nipples were now defiantly hard. On some tangible level at least, below the disappointment and the neuroses, I was enjoying this.

Buoyed by that little pep talk, I gathered up my bikini and flip flops from the sand at my feet, dusted them off, and stuck them in my bag with the rest of my things. Then, feeling a little incongruous as a nude girl carrying her own clothes, I hoisted the bag onto my bare shoulder and set off down towards the beach itself.

I'd fully expected my nerves to return as I got closer to the people on the beach, even though it was only sparsely populated. I'd expected my legs to start shaking, for the urge to turn and run away to return. But none of that happened. And, in a funny way, it was the sense of indifference to my presence that was the reason. While it had been such a let down when I'd been up on the dune, it now served to reassure me. This was normal. This was fine. I carried myself with as confident an air as I could, back straight, chest out, as if I'd done this a thousand times before. The cool wind continued to caress my skin as I reached the flat sand of the beach itself.

As I walked among the other beachgoers, I did start to get some attention. But only brief smiles and hellos from the couples or groups as I passed, which at least underlined what I'd read online about the general friendliness of the nudist community. I acknowledged them back as I walked, and did my best to follow the rules and maintain eye contact at all times, despite the intrinsic curiosity I had to check out their bodies. Especially the men. Without meaning for this to sound bad, having reached my mid-20s, I've seen a fair amount of penises of all shapes and sizes. But I guess that naughty rush of teenage curiosity never really goes away, especially when there was a chance to glimpse something usually kept so private. I wondered whether the men I passed, or the women for that matter, were fending off similar urges towards my freshly waxed, tingling crotch.

I also noted that I might have been the youngest visitor on the beach today. The others all appeared to be seasoned nudists, in their middle age. And with bodies very much happily embracing that age, one way or another. This provoked a sheepish feeling inside, as I thought back to the military-style training regime I'd forced my own body through over the last few weeks. The hours in the gym, the desserts I'd denied myself, the snacks I'd avoided. As I walked among these people, proudly showing off their own bodies in all their wonderful shapes and sizes, that all now seemed like farcical vanity. Like I'd been preparing myself for a Playboy shoot, not a day out at the seaside. Stupid Kate, I silently cursed to myself.

Eventually, I reached a perfect spot. A short distance away from the breaking waves ahead of me, and with enough distance from the other beachgoers not to be distracted by their conversations, without it looking like I was trying to avoid them altogether. I grabbed my towel from my bag, spread it out on the sand, and lay down with a satisfied sigh.

I was here. Entirely and unapologetically nude.

I lay back on the towel and closed my eyes, allowing my other senses to take in my surroundings for a moment. I felt the warmth of the sun on me, and the cool breeze that caused my sensitive body to tingle. I heard the gentle crashing of the waves a few feet away from me. I smelled the salty brine in the air, already adhering itself to my bare skin.

I was utterly content. And I was pretty sure I'd be utterly content forever.

*****

I was bored.

I lay on my side, with the book I'd brought along open in front of me. But I wasn't really reading it. My mind was, once again, elsewhere.

The blissful contentment I had felt when I had first laid down, the one that I felt would last forever, or at least until I eventually and reluctantly had to put my clothes back on to go home, had dissipated. In its place had developed a clear feeling of boredom. Extreme boredom. It seemed insane to say that when I was lying completely exposed like this, in view of so many people. But it was also undeniable. The spark had vanished. My nipples had softened again. And I couldn't understand why.

After all, this was exactly what I'd wanted. What I'd been building up to ever since that one morning when my towel had unexpectedly fallen from my body and my routine of eating breakfast in the nude had been born. This was surely the culmination of my nudist journey. If, in fact, that's what I was.

But maybe that wasn't what I was. Again, it seemed ridiculous to suggest that as I lay nude on a nudist beach surrounded by other nudists, as if the lady was protesting too much. But maybe I wasn't really a nudist after all. Maybe I'd just misunderstood the feelings I'd been having. All that time spent naked back at the flat, maybe that wasn't an urge for me to develop a nudist lifestyle. Maybe it was just an urge for me to do less laundry?

But then, I thought, confusing myself, maybe this boredom was actually a sign that I really was a nudist. After all, as my research had told me, there really shouldn't be a sexual part to any of this. It's not like everyone else here with me on the beach was in the throes of giddy lewd excitement. No, they were just relaxing, sunbathing, swimming, eating their picnics. In other words, behaving completely normally, just in the nude. Maybe the speed with which any sort of erotic aspect to what I was doing had vanished was a sign that I was a natural at this. Here to relax, to sunbathe, and...to be incredibly, incredibly bored.

But that didn't explain why my developing fantasies had become so focused on my own nudity. Why every time I had pleasured myself recently, it had been to scenarios where I was exposed in some way. Just as I was now. There was clearly a sexual aspect to my nude fantasies, even if there wasn't one to my current nude reality.

Then, the more I thought about it, the more I saw contradictions in all of these primordial urges I was feeling. Those videos of nude women walking around Europe had so helplessly turned me on, but I was petrified of my own nudity being captured for posterity somehow. My fantasies had revolved around the attention that my nude body attracted, yet I'd come to the one place where it had attracted no attention at all. I had even suggested to myself that this quest to embrace my nudity was an act of bold female empowerment, and yet I'd spent the last few weeks crash-dieting and lifting kettlebells to desperately ensure that my body would best meet society's standards for what a woman was 'supposed' to look like.

Nothing about my feelings, or my actions made sense to me. And furthermore, if I wasn't a nudist, then what was I?

What the hell was going on with me?

I was so wrapped up in a confusing maze of my own thoughts, that the voice startled me completely.

"Excuse me?"

I nearly jumped clean off my towel in fright, then snapped my head up from the book I wasn't really reading in the direction of the voice. The sight that confronted me was a lot to take in.

A man and a woman, holding hands, had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, standing above me. Unlike the rest of the people I'd seen at the beach so far, they both looked to be around my age.

In keeping with the theme of the occasion, the man was as naked as I was. Still shocked by their sudden appearance, I forgot the correct protocol, and cast a long glance over his body before I could stop myself. And I was secretly glad I did. He was tall, with a healthy head of blond hair. And he was built like a Greek god. Even down to the sort of rippling six pack I had previously assumed only existed on television. Although, with a touch of guilt at the extent of my wandering eye, I was forced to note that his penis was a little smaller than I liked.

My cheeks instantly flushed at my social faux pas, though I noted that his own gaze was awkwardly off to one side, out to sea. As if he was deliberately avoiding looking down at my own naked form. I wasn't sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

Either way, I forced myself to switch my focus to the woman holding his hand. The one who had spoken to me in a rich, lilting Irish accent. She was just as stunning as he was, with piercing blue eyes and long brown hair that delicately flowed over her shoulders.

Aside from her looks, two things stood out about her immediately. One, very much not in keeping with the theme of the occasion, she was clothed. She wore a patterned string bikini and sandals, and even had a thin pink cotton sarong tied around her waist, which fluttered gently in the breeze. And two, unlike the man next to her, she apparently had no issue with taking a long look at my nude form as I lay out in front of her.

I felt a sudden rush of giddy nervous tension as I watched her eyes flit up and down my exposed body. Part of me felt the urge to cover myself, to curl up into a ball, wrap my arms around my breasts and cross my legs tightly together to protect myself from her gaze. Part of me wanted to irately grab my phone and call up one of the websites from my research into nude beach protocol, chiding her for staring at me, even if I had been at least partly guilty of doing the same thing at the sight of the hunk next to her.

But I didn't do either of those things. I didn't cover up, or get angry. I just allowed her to look me up and down. As she did so, it felt like a crackle of electricity was spreading across my skin. I didn't want to think about what this meant, but as she looked, I felt goosebumps break out on my flesh, and could feel my nipples start to harden all over again. I prayed it wasn't too noticeable, but given my state of total undress, it wasn't exactly easy to hide.

I'll just blame the breeze, I told myself.

"Sorry," the woman said eventually, the Irish lilt sounding almost sensual to me in an odd sort of way, "We didn't mean to startle you."

"N--No," I managed, relaxing a little as the clothed woman returned to a state of eye contact with me, as the man continued to stare out to sea, "I was just, um, reading."

I hadn't been. I'd been tying myself up in knots in my mind as I'd been ruminating on the deeper meaning behind my nudity. But that wasn't the sort of thing you told a stranger. You told them you'd been reading.

The woman smiled at me. I was surprised by the fresh shiver that passed through my body as she did that.

"Well, I was just wondering," she said, gesturing to the sand next to me, "If it's not too strange, could I sit with you for a bit? Liam's been wanting to go for a swim ever since we arrived, you see."

I stared in confusion at this non sequitur. I wasn't necessarily opposed to having some friendly company. If anything, having someone to talk to for a while would distract me from this sense of boredom that had unexpectedly settled in. But I didn't quite follow why her partner wanting to swim meant that she had to sit with me.

"Um, sure," I nodded eventually, "That's fine, I guess."

"Ah, you're a star," she smiled, before turning to the nude man next to her, "You heard the girl, I'll be grand here. Go enjoy yourself."

He nodded back and gave her a peck on the cheek, before turning towards the water. I allowed myself a further guilty breach of protocol as I checked out his tight rear end, and noted that the woman was doing the same. In fact, she watched her nude partner all the way down to the surf, before she pulled a towel from her own bag and settled down next to me.

"Thanks," she said, "I owe you one."

I smiled back, setting my book to one side to focus on our conversation. But I was still confused. Why did I owe her one?

And then I remembered the sign back on the other side of the dune.

No fully clothed groups permitted

. I still wasn't entirely sure of the exact definition of a 'group' in this case, but I could see how that would explain why she had sought me out.

She was cheating the system. She was staying on the right side of the rules.

When she had been with Liam, his nudity had been enough to fulfil the vague social contract of this section of the beach. But if he left her to go for a swim, she was in a bit of a predicament, clothing-wise. Unless she was to, say, sit down with a nude woman she happened across. Then she was in the clear. No rules were being broken.

I wasn't totally sure that was what she was doing. I still wasn't sure myself how the rules and protocols of this place were being enforced. I hadn't seen anyone walking around with a badge and a taser, officiously making sure everyone present was adhering to the laws of the nude beach. There was probably nothing stopping her from just sitting in her clothes while he was away. But that explanation made sense to me.

"I'm Lara, by the way," she offered with another warm smile.

"Kate," I replied, my heart beating a little faster and my prior boredom now forgotten as I found myself settling in for my first proper conversation as a nudist.

If that's what I was.

I tried to focus fully on what she was saying, but now I was in a close social interaction, the ever-present sense of my own nudity began to dominate my every thought. My skin was still tingling with excitement. This was all so new.

"So, Kate," Lara continued, "I know this is gonna sound corny, but: What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

She laughed at her own bad joke, and I found myself joining in. If anything, to buy myself some time to think of an answer.

I mean, I felt like I couldn't exactly tell the truth. That I had started playing around with being nude, escalating things to the extent that I had now driven for three hours across the country after weeks of planning in order to strip naked on this beach.

So, I opted for a much simpler answer.

"I, um, don't like tan lines."

It wasn't entirely untrue. I hated that post-holiday look in the mirror of my freshly-tanned skin contrasting with my milky-white boobs. Spending the next few weeks experimenting with fake tan to cover the worst of it, or otherwise having to strategically check every outfit I wore to make sure I wasn't showing any ugly tan lines off inadvertently.

But it's also fair to say that getting an even tan on my chest hadn't even been close to making the shortlist for reasons I had come here.

Still, Lara seemed to buy it. She laughed again and shook her head.

"Really? Tan lines bad? That's a good enough reason to do all this?"

I shrugged a little self-consciously, and then flushed slightly as I watched her look my nude body up and down again.

"Yep," I echoed, ignoring how feeble a reason it sounded, "Tan lines bad."

"Well," she continued as she stared at me, "I guess you've got no risk of those."

In the back of my mind, while I was still getting a curious kick from the attention she was lavishing on me, I grew a little more irritated. It didn't feel like she was really playing fair, openly checking out Liam as she had done, and now me. All from behind the dignity of her own clothing. That wasn't how this place was supposed to work.

Not that I wanted to see her naked, of course. I mean, her body admittedly looked fantastic under her bikini. Her breasts were at least a c-cup, that magic size my own had never quite reached. Her hips were also delightfully curvy in the way I wished mine were. And she had long, slender legs elevating her to a height well above my own. But I definitely had no interest in seeing this tall, beautiful, buxom, curvy woman in the nude. I was certain of that. I liked men, after all. Gorgeous men like Liam. Not beautiful women like Lara.

It was just the principle of the matter I was concerned with, I affirmed to myself. Her refusal to disrobe while she kept openly checking me out didn't seem right. After all, if those teenage boys I'd seen earlier, the ones I'd been fearful were trying to ogle me as I'd removed my dress on the border of the nude beach, were here now, staring at my naked body like Lara was with their clothes resolutely still on, I'd feel mortified. Offended. Violated, even. So why should it be any different if the clothed person ogling me happened to be a woman? A tall, beautiful, buxom, curvy woman I had absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent zero interest in seeing without her clothes on?