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.
