Note to readers: Since I'm never sure which stories and characters I'll eventually return to, none of my stories have chapter numbers. I try to make them work as stand-alone stories, but if you'd like to see what preceded the events of this story or read them in the order they occur, please see "Karen loses control, and likes it!" This story picks up right where that one ends.
Thanks for reading!
Karen woke up very late, dragged into consciousness against her will by a variety of sounds; people fooling about at a nearby pool, brunch dishes being cleared away by a busboy at the restaurant's tables in the courtyard below her balcony, the drone of several vacuum cleaners and, finally, a loud knock at her room's door followed by a young woman yelling, "Housekeeping!"
"Why didn't I put out the damn do-not-disturb tag last night?" she mumbled to herself before shouting a reply to the maid; "Later, please!" Wide awake now, the memory of her wild balcony show the night before came back to her; it seemed more like a dream, but as she remembered what she'd done, forgetting to plan for a quiet morning and late wake up seemed understandable.
And what a memory! She had never done anything remotely as raunchy anywhere, let alone in public, and was sure she never would again. Still, she couldn't stop smiling as she thought about her one crazy night; nobody here knew her and she'd had an unexpected adventure. If she ever put together a bucket list she could leave doing a public striptease off; been there, done that! She showered and dressed to go out in search of some lunch.
Deciding to keep a low profile for a while in the resort after her behavior the previous night, Karen got some suggestions at the front desk for restaurants in the nearest town and took a cab a mile or so down the beach. She found a cafe from the list of recommended spots and enjoyed a leisurely lunch and a single glass of wine. She had resolved to not go overboard on alcohol intake today, thinking having had more than she was used to last night might have played a part in her unprecedented behavior. Having invested in a cab ride to get into town she decided to browse at a few shops as long as she was there. She bought a few souvenirs and a silver bracelet made by a local artisan which seemed to be a bargain.
She was about ready to head back to her resort when a small shop with some bright swimwear on display caught her eye. While some of the suits in the window were way more revealing than she could see herself wearing to the beach, some looked like the fairly conservative bikinis she used to wear when she was in her twenties; having seen what the women at the resort were all wearing, she thought the one-piece suits she'd packed were a little too boring and decided to go inside and see if anything in the store would actually work on her 44 year-old body.
Stepping into the store, Karen found she was the only customer in the shop at the moment. A young woman at the register looked up from her phone and greeted Karen; she asked if she could help her find anything. "Just browsing, I'll let you know if I have any questions," Karen replied. The clerk seemed relieved to be able to get back to whatever she was doing with her phone, so Karen began her search for a two-piece suit she could be comfortable wearing to the beach. There was quite a variety and the prices seemed very reasonable, but most of the suits were haphazardly mixed in several bins so it took her a while to find a matching top and bottom she was interested in that appeared to be the right sizes.
She took her potential purchase, a fairly conservative dark blue bikini, to one of the three fitting rooms, stripped down to her panties and tried it on. She was amazed that a fitting room in a shop specializing in swimwear didn't have a full-length mirror, but figured it was in keeping with the general bargain-basement vibe of the place. The bottoms fit pretty well, but the top was way too small, so she put her blouse back on, buttoned a couple of buttons and stepped back into the quiet store.
Karen dug through the bins near the fitting room, searching for a matching top in the right size. It took a few minutes, but eventually, she found a likely top and brought it to the fitting room to try it on. She peeled off her blouse again, wishing she'd worn something a bit looser; her blouse's sleeves were a little tight and turned inside out every time she took it off. The new top fit better, but was a little larger than she needed. The labeled sizes seemed to be almost totally random; "Maybe that explains the bargain prices?" Karen thought. Keeping the not-quite-right top on for the moment rather than deal with her blouse again, she left the fitting room and began searching for a just-right top. She expanded her search to some bins farther from the fitting room, eventually finding a cluster of matching tops in a variety of sizes.
Gathering up six possible tops, Karen was about to go back across the store to the fitting room when she noticed she was near the only full-length mirror she'd seen anywhere in the store. Thinking about having to go back and forth to the fitting room until she happened to find a top that fit, she looked around the store; "Still just me and the clerk here, and she's paying me no attention at all," she thought. Keeping one eye on the shop's entrance, Karen took a deep breath as she unhooked the ill-fitting top and slipped it off, dropping it into a nearby bin!
She was shaking a little as she stood half-naked in the middle of the store and fumbled a bit with her first new candidate, but managed to get the top on fairly quickly. The latest top fit pretty well but had an ugly stain on it she hadn't noticed until she checked herself out in the mirror. After another quick check of her surroundings she took off the top and picked up one of the others she had set aside, getting it on without incident, but realized immediately that despite being marked as being the same size as the top which fit well, it was way too small.
After a quick glance towards the clerk, Karen took the second top off. She was about to try on another one but paused as a new idea came to her; since the first top she'd tried on out on the sales floor had fit her well, she just needed to see if one of the four left matched it. She picked up the stained top and began comparing her remaining candidates to it. One by one she compared them, each one proving too small or too large. Having found one top that DID fit, and loving a bargain, she wasn't quite ready to give up, so she dug into the bin and began checking a few more in the cluster of matching tops.
She bent over the bin and compared a few more tops to the stained one; she was about to give up when her persistence paid off; she finally found a matching top in the correct size with no apparent defects. She was in the process of trying to separate it from a tangled wad of tops, savoring her triumph over the store's disorganization, when she heard two voices, one female and one male, coming from the direction of the entrance!
"C'mon, hon, I'll just have a quick look around and then we can go," said the woman.
"You always say that and then you end up looking at everything in the store," said the man.
"You exaggerate," she replied.
"Just a little, you have...hey, wow, look!" he said, pointing at Karen, who had frozen in place as she watched the couple come into view less than fifteen feet from where she stood. Still naked above her bikini bottom, she held the tangled clump of tops over her breasts with one hand and bolted off to the fitting room, flinging the curtain shut as she dashed in. A glance at the small face height mirror was enough to confirm what she already felt; she was blushing deeply. Despite having shown far more of her body to far more people the night before, something about being so near to the couple, it being the middle of the day, and the sudden nature of this latest exposure made her shiver uncontrollably for a full minute or two in the fitting room.
Once she had calmed down, Karen went back to untangling the clump of suit tops to free the top she wanted to buy. Hanging up her hard-earned prize and the matching bottoms, she got back into her bra, blouse and shorts and peeked out into the store. The couple who had seen her was still browsing, though only the woman seemed interested in the goods on sale; the man spent much of his time looking in the direction of her fitting room. Karen brought her two items to the register, hoping to pay for her purchase and slip away without crossing paths with her fellow customers. She was almost at the sales counter when she heard the woman say to the man, a bit more loudly than needed, "I'd like to try this one on, let's go over to the fitting room; it might take a little longer than changing out here but that's a little too slutty for me." Karen gritted her teeth and set her new suit on the counter.
The clerk smiled and said, "I think this will look good on you, but did you not see the signs? Everything in the store is on sale today, buy one, get one free. I can hold these here for you if you'd care to look for another suit you like." Karen had been thinking she just wanted to pay and leave, but the catty remark from the other woman shopping irked her; she thanked the clerk, but knowing how badly labeled the merchandise was, she kept her selections with her as she went back to the bins full of suits, practically bumping into the couple on her way. She couldn't help enjoying the appreciative look the man gave her, and even kind of liked the frosty look the woman gave her.
Using the suit she'd gone through so much to find as a guide, it only took Karen a couple of minutes to find another bikini top and bottom which seemed likely to fit her. She wouldn't normally have stopped looking as quickly as she did and settled for the thong in her hand, but her new plan required her to move fast; she took it into a fitting compartment and quickly undressed completely. She got into the new suit, a decidedly racier style in bright yellow, as fast as she could, finishing getting it on as she heard the curtain of the other woman's compartment slide open. She eavesdropped on the couple's conversation; as close as they all were to each other she couldn't really have avoided overhearing them, but she actually wanted to know what they were up to.
"What do you think, hon? Does it look good?" the woman asked.
"You look great in it, I like it!" he answered.
"Really? You're not just saying that to make me happy?
"Absolutely not! Sexy as hell!"
