[
Note: This is a sequel to my story "
T-shirt Weather
." You probably don't need to read that one to understand this, but if you're curious about what went on with John and the magnolia tree, that's where you can find out.
]
*
Senior year of college I moved off campus, like everybody else. But as a budding exhibitionist, I was more ambivalent about it than most. I missed walking to the bathroom wearing only a towel (or, when the hall was empty, carrying the towel). I missed leaving the door open just a crack so that I could watch strangers pass by as I lay in bed and quietly masturbated. I missed those late, drunken nights when I would sneak down to the boys' floor naked to knock on a random door and then bolt, so that the boy saw only an unidentifiable streak of bare girl-ass disappearing up the stairs.
On the other hand, since my roommate Alice and I were close enough to have seen each other naked a million times, there wasn't much need for me to ever be fully dressed in our apartment. At first she teased me for walking around naked in the mornings and lounging topless on the couch in the afternoons. But before long, it became just the way we were together, and she started doing it too. It wasn't uncommon for us to eat dinner together in our panties, or have heart-to-heart conversations while we shared the shower. When I lounged topless on the couch, she would be there too, tits out while she dozed with her head in my lap. When one of us was feeling particularly needy, we might even crawl into bed together and stroke each other's hair until we fell asleep.
I knew her body like I knew my own—with the one big exception of the naughty bits. We were like friends with benefits, if the benefits only extended to cuddling. We were pretty much the Amazons from
Wonder Woman
(my favorite movie)
,
living in our own little sapphic/platonic paradise.
All that changed after things got serious between Alice and her boyfriend, Jake, and he started sleeping over all the time. At first I made the most of it—I'd let myself get "caught" in a t-shirt and nothing else when she brought him over, or I'd "forget" to close my door while changing clothes when he was there. I couldn't be naked nearly as often, but it was a lot more exciting to expose myself to someone who shouldn't be seeing me. Whatever I did, Alice laughed it off; she was used to my antics by then and saw them as an endearing quirk.
Or so I thought, until I finally took things too far. I had noticed that Jake got up to pee like clockwork at 1 a.m. every night, so one night I arranged to be in the kitchen, gathering a naked midnight snack, at that time. As Jake passed by the kitchen door, he'd see me dramatically lit by the refrigerator light, and I'd deliver my prepared line: "Oh god, I'm so sorry, I didn't think anyone else was up." But when the moment came, I realized that Jake was saying the same thing to me, because he was naked too!
We both froze. I couldn't do anything but stare at his cock as it inched up toward half-mast. Before either of us could break the spell, Alice appeared, the only non-naked person in a room with her boyfriend and her best friend. Jake ran back to the bedroom under a barrage of Alice's curses, but I got it worse: as soon as he was gone, she went totally silent and just stared at me, as I helplessly tried to cover myself with a tupperware full of ham. As I squeaked out my line one more time, Alice turned and walked away.
Jake was quickly forgiven after, I assume, being sternly admonished to put his boxers on before he left Alice's bedroom. But with me it was different. Alice stopped laughing at her goofy nudist roommate and started glowering and not speaking. I had maintained enough plausible deniability that she couldn't confront me, but it was obvious she was seriously jealous. I cleaned up my act, wore so many layers I was sweating whenever Jake was around, but things still didn't go back to normal between us. She was polite, but the old intimacy of our friendship was gone.
After a few weeks of awkwardness I couldn't take it anymore. I decided I had to talk to her, even though I was petrified of what might come out in the conversation. I waited for a weekend when Jake was out of town, and I caught Alice sprawled out on the couch binging old TV shows. I arrived with a bowl of popcorn as a peace offering. Alice grudgingly made room for me on the couch but turned down the snack.
"Hey, Alice," I said, after gathering up my nerve for half an episode of
Gilmore Girls.
"Is everything OK with you and me?"
Alice just sat there staring at the TV for what seemed like forever, or at least long enough for Rory and Lorelei to order breakfast at Luke's and then leave without eating. Finally she spoke, not turning to look at me. "You mean aside from you wanting to fuck Jake?"
My response was reflexive, almost shouted: "I don't want to fuck Jake!" As guilty as I felt, I was genuinely offended that she would think I'd do something like that. I really didn't want to fuck Jake, I just wanted him to see me naked—and I wanted
everyone
to see me naked. I couldn't exactly offer that as an excuse.
Alice abruptly turned off the TV and headed to her room, but I couldn't let the conversation end there. "What can I do to make it up to you?" I pleaded after her.