Rachel's Dare: a Wal in the Par

Author: This is a change in pace and style from my Dress Off series. I thought I'd try something a bit different, while I put the finishing touches to Dress Off 6. As always, comments and PMs are most welcome. I can't directly reply to anonymous PMs, but if you'd like more - or see constructive ways to improve - then I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for reading - EC.

*****

I experimentally opened one eye, as the sound of the beeps slowly seeped into my consciousness. The room was pitch dark, with heavy curtains blocking out the night. The strange world I'd just been dreaming about began to recede away, and became increasingly difficult to focus on, as the beeps seemed to grow in their persistence.

I stretched out an arm and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn in time, before the ceaseless beeping of the alarm clock finally caused me to bring a hand down on it. Fumbling around, the clock continued to beep in defiance of my best efforts, until my fingers eventually found the snooze feature, and pressed it a few times for effect.

The vividness of the dreamland I was waking up from was already fading into a patchwork of greys. In only a few moments, the real world - in all its inky-blackness, had full hold on me. I sniffed a couple of times, and then open and closed my jaw twice in an ultimately futile gesture at removing a pasty dryness from my mouth. Nothing for it, I thought to myself, time to get up. I instinctively reached for the light switch over my bed, and belatedly closed my eyes as the light sprung into life, and snuffed out any night vision I may have had.

With a couple of blinks and a muttered curse to myself, I then leaned over and gave the alarm clock my full attention.

The clock was silenced for the moment at least, and reverted to just blinking back the time at me: 4:30am.

"Middle of the night." I whispered to myself, under my breath. "Why the hell did I set the..." I didn't finish the question though. A single, overpowering image swam obediently into my memory, and that image was all the answer and motivation I needed. Rachel. That's why I'd set the clock for the middle of the night.

As my eyes opened wide, the full impact of what that meant was about to happen made my heart leap from a sedate resting rate to a brisk jog. I pulled back the covers of my bed, and slipped out. Naked, my penis was beginning to swell at the promise of what was to come, and I found myself verbally instructing it to take it easy, at least for the time being.

I stumbled over to a chair in the corner of my bedroom, where I'd had the foresight to place some clothes, and quickly slipped on some boxers. A pair of long, comfortable walking trousers were draped over the back of the chair. The shop I'd bought them from said the colour was "asphalt", although I tended to always think of them as "dark grey", but I liked how they went with the blue t-shirt I'd also left lying on the chair.

I quickly pulled the t-shirt on, and was halfway through getting one leg of my trousers on too when the small matter of the weather outside raised its ugly head. It wouldn't do for it to be raining right now, I thought, or for it to be blowing a gale. It would be nice if Rachel got wet, I admitted, but I wasn't wanting any help from the clouds on that score.

With only one trouser leg on, I immediately hopped over to window, struggling with the second trouser leg while also seeking assurance that waking up at 4:30am hadn't be a wasted effort. Triumphantly inserting my foot into the second trouser leg, I yanked the trousers up and flung the curtains open, not bothering about the zip or a belt.

A clear, night sky calmly awaited me. An occasional cloud lingered perhaps, blocking out a few stars here and there, but other than that, the scene outside was one of dancing moonlight rather than rain or wind. I breathed in deeply, and was then surprised to find myself shaking slightly. The weather wasn't going to stop what was about to happen. Nothing was.

I stood stock-still for a couple of minutes, standing in front of the open curtains, looking out of my second-floor bedroom on to the street below. No-one disturbed the peace, and the only sign of movement was the occasional cat patrolling it's territory, or heading back from hunting rodents in the bushland behind us. It slowly occurred to me that my trousers were still open, but while I wouldn't say I was embarrassed by that, it at least brought me back to the mission at hand. I walked back to the chair, grabbed a pair of socks, and then made my way to the door, pausing only to grab from my wardrobe an empty backpack that hopefully wouldn't be empty for long.

As I reached the door, I had to pass a full length mirror, and I stopped for a moment to make a self-appraisal. The man who stared back at me was in his late thirties. A short burst of light brown hair graced his head, and he stood a respectable 180cm high. For much of his life, this man had been what you might charitably have called "slightly overweight". However a recent epiphany, and a healthy dose of sheer bloody-mindedness at the gym, meant that for the first time ever his stomach was nice and flat. His chest was no longer sunk-in, and there was the genuine trace of muscles pushing through the material of the t-shirt. I smiled, and the man smiled back.

Throwing the backpack over my shoulder, I bid the man in the mirror farewell, and headed down the stairs to my waiting car.

"Wish me luck." I said, to no-one in particular.

*****

It was a just under a five minute drive from my house to the park, where I'd agreed to meet Rachel. I passed only two other cars on that journey, and as the park came into view, I was also relieved to see that only one car was currently there, waiting under the only working light in the car park. From a distance I could tell it was a sedan, and I already knew who it's single occupant would be as I carefully pulled in beside it. Jumping out, I walked around to the driver's side door of the other car, and kneeled down.

The occupant let the door window slide down, and I found myself face to face with a relaxed-looking Rachel. She gave me a mischievous smile, and simply said "Hey there."

I smiled back, and nodded at the backpack that was lying on her passenger-side seat. "Got everything you need?" I asked, teasingly.

"Not yet, but I soon will do." she replied, letting her gaze drop down over my t-shirt and rest finally on the now-noticeable bulge in my trousers. "Wasn't sure you were coming." she breathed.

"Wouldn't miss this opportunity, Rachel." I responded, half-laughing. I then stood up, and opened the door for her. Rachel stepped out, and into the pool of light that the overhead street lamp afforded us.

She was beautiful. There was no more honest appraisal of Rachel than that. I'd never directly asked Rachel her age, but I had a fair idea that she was also in her late thirties. She may even have made it into the early forties already. That said, while I couldn't have definitively told anyone Rachel's age, what I was absolutely certain of was that she spent all of her years taking extremely good care of herself.

Slightly shorter than myself, Rachel's straight red hair ran down to just under her shoulders. Her

sparkling green eyes had a naughty glint to them, and as I took in what she was wearing, I was reminded again that she certainly knew how to make the most of what she had. Her c-cup breasts may not have been the most prominent around the suburb, but the way that she fitted them into her tight, white running top was a master-class in simplicity and desire. The top had very short sleeves, and the top didn't quite make it's way all the way down to the shorts, allowing the briefest hint of skin from a perfectly toned stomach.

The shorts she had chosen for this early morning walk were red, matching her hair, and the material wasn't figure-hugging. I was momentarily disappointed at this, until she gave me a wink, walked over to a knee-high fence that separated the car-park from the actual park beyond, and set about doing some light stretches. As her hips moved, the material moved with her, gracefully dancing around her backside and upper thighs. The effect was memorising, and I lost myself for a moment, imagining my hand following the same path as that material.

I grudgingly snapped out of it though, and joined her at the fence.

"So," she said, looking at me, "still happy with the playing conditions of our little walk?"

I nodded, and leaned into a calf stretch so as to partly hide the slight red flush that I felt building in my cheeks.

"Good." she said, happily, and went back to retrieve her backpack.

The 'playing conditions' were simple enough. We walk, we talk, and occasionally we toss a coin. Whoever wins the coin toss gets to take an item of clothing off the loser. The clothing goes in the winner's backpack. Repeat as necessary. We'd mapped out four vague waypoints on our walk, including the car park. Considering the amount of clothing we'd both had on, and the fact that we had to walk to the end and back again, that meant one of us was guaranteed to end up naked at some point. I closed my eyes for a second, and reflected on the exact consequences of that. Depending on exactly how many coin tosses were left when one of us did lose our last item, a nude night time stroll might be the least of the loser's worries.

She returned with her phone as well, and made a show of indicating an app that she'd had installed. "Coin toss." she said, "Heads or tails." She demonstrated the app a few times, and it quickly became evident that you simply had to touch the screen for a coin to magically rotate on the screen, before settling on either a head or a tail. I surprised myself again, as I felt a well of nervousness begin to build up inside me with each coin toss Rachel demonstrated.

"Happy?" she asked, tilting her head to one side and - whether accidentally or deliberately - managing to puff her chest out inside her straining top.

"Very..." I said, half croaking. "I mean, yeah, sure..." I tried to say the last bit with slightly more 'cool male charm' than I'd managed with my first effort.

"Great!" Rachel paused and then looked out on to the park. "I reckon it's about a twelve minute walk to the end of the path, so how about we set the timer for four minutes?" she smiled at me again, with another one of her irresistibly mischievous looks. "We can toss twice at the far end." she winked, and playfully bit her lip. God, she was hot.

I nodded my agreement, not trusting my voice to not break, as she placed her hands behind her head, and twisted at the hips. I'd seen some people do that to warm up. She was certainly warming me up.

"Well then." she continued simply. She picked up her phone again, and hovered a finger over the app's interface. "Shall we start?"

I looked at her, and then at the app, and then back at her. Her smile slowly broadened as I hesitated. I began to grow aware that seconds were ticking by and I hadn't actually said anything. Steeling myself, I squared my shoulders, looked her straight in her gorgeous green eyes, and called it. "Heads."

Without looking at the app, Rachel pressed her finger to the screen, and the coin began it's animated trajectory. She didn't even bother to look at the screen, and kept her eyes locked on mine. She let my own reaction tell her the result of the very first coin toss. It was, irrefutably, irreversibly, 'tails'.

I sighed, closed my eyes for what felt like the tenth time, and opened them yet again to find Rachel holding a hand out, with a light laugh escaping her lips. Early days, I reminded myself, early days. Nevertheless, I reached down, undid my belt, pulled it out of the loops on my trousers, and ceremoniously handed it to her. She took hold of it, and for a few seconds, neither one of us let go.

She didn't try and grab it from me. She seemed more than happy for me to feel slightly uncomfortable, and to play through a dozen different scenarios in my head. I knew the odds of being discovered were low, and the odds of winning an unimpeded view of Rachel's stunning body were still worth it.

Finally, resigned to my initial set-back, I let her take control of my belt. I watched it disappear quickly into her backpack, and I noted the hungry look that she gave my trousers. She pointed a single finger at the top of my trousers, and I knew what she was asking. The belt wasn't quite enough, there was still a little extra payment to make. I took the zip of my trousers in one hand, and slowly worked it all the way down. Thankfully, the trousers were just tight enough that the belt had been somewhat redundant anyway. Even with my zip undone, and the top parts of my trousers slightly folded back to flash a thin strip of my boxers underneath, the trousers still protected my modesty. From a distance at least. Early days, I repeated, still very early days...

****

Rachel and I walked through the park, and talked. We'd been friends for several years now. I'd worked with her then-husband for a while before he'd introduced us, and we formed a nice, albeit distant friendship.

That friendship had taken a sabbatical for a while when her husband had finally admitted to himself and his family that he was gay. I couldn't pretend to know exactly what that revelation would have felt like, either to himself or to Rachel. More than once I half-wondered whether Rachel's stunning beauty, both physically and intellectually, might have caused even greater stress on him when he realised who he was. I steered clear of both of them for a while, not really sure on how to act. I heard second-hand that he and Rachel had separated amicably, and that their children, well into their teenage years now anyway, had ultimately accepted it. They probably didn't want to think of their parents having sex anyway.

That's the way things stayed for a while, at least until a few months back. We ran into each other while going for a walk in the park one sunny afternoon. Having make some slightly awkward small talk, we somehow then re-connected and our friendship grew. Rachel was happy again, and I was getting into some semblance of good shape. We'd started going for walks together, ostensibly to ensure that we both made sure the other got out and exercised. We covered a lot of topics on those walks, and gradually we felt comfortable talking about more and more personal matters.

That had culminated two nights back in a short, brief, and potentially life-changing snippet of conversation. Rachel had fallen quiet for a few minutes, and I was about to ask how her kids were going at University, when she suddenly piped up.

"Have you ever... have you ever thought about, showing off... more of who we are?"

"What? You mean like public speaking."

"Well," Rachel replied, pausing as if to consider both what I'd said and the next line of enquiry, "certainly I was thinking about the public part." She looked at me for a moment with a need in her eyes I hadn't often seen. "Do you think I'm beautiful?"

"Sure." I said, not wishing to argue against a mass of overwhelming evidence.

"I feel beautiful too." she paused again. That could easily have come across as conceited from anybody else. From Rachel though, it seemed like the belated realisation of something that was absurdly self-evident. She then cast an appraising eye over me. "You're not bad looking either." she conceded.

"Thanks", I added drily.

"I haven't taken many risks in my life, you know." Rachel continued. "Safe job, nice family, good house, every day is nice and comfortable."

I decided against raising the issue of the whole 'gay husband' thing and settled for seeing where this went.

Rachel's talking quickened now, as if she was trying to get something out before she lost the confidence to do so.

"I want to take a few risks. You're a nice guy. I trust you, mostly. Maybe we could take some risks together." she bit her lip, and I was once again reminded of just how sexy my thirty-something friend could be when she wanted to be.

Rachel fell silent again for a few minutes and we continued our walk uninterrupted. As we neared the turn-around point, where we'd start heading back, she then said. "I have... an idea... on how to spice up our walks." Boy, did she ever have an idea...

****

The moonlight bathed the park in a soft glow as we made our way along. Every now and again, a lamp shone overhead, creating little pockets of scattered bright light.

Rachel practically had a skip in her step as she made her way along the path, and I could see my belt bounce around in her backpack. We'd been walking for a few minutes now, and mercifully we seemed to have the park to ourselves. We lived in a quiet enough suburb, and I was trying to convince myself that any slight embarrassment I felt due to walking around with my zip undone was harmless and would ultimately go undetected.

We were chatting about some minor trivial details of our work days when Rachel's phone suddenly sprang into life. With a girlish giggle that was at odds with her age, Rachel quickly turned off the timer on her phone, and spun around to face me. Her eyes were alive with excitement, and she wordlessly handed over the device, waiting expectantly. Having been the loser in our first round, I was slightly more apprehensive, but the sheer vision in front of me inspired me to press on. After all, I was one coin toss away from those shorts being my property.

I looked enquiringly at her, and Rachel seemed lost in thought for a second. Just as I was about to prompt her again, she looked straight at me, and called "Tails."

Fine, I thought. It's due for 'Heads' to show anyway. I tapped the screen once, and again Rachel stared deeply at me as my own reaction betrayed the app's response. Even before I'd said anything, Rachel broke out into a small round of excited applause, before coughing discretely, and holding out her hands. The damn thing had come up 'Tails' again...

Damn it, I swore under my breath. I looked hard at Rachel's red shorts, almost willing them to come off anyway. Eventually, Rachel's insistent ahem'ing interrupted my novice attempts at telekinesis, and I looked at her seriously. "I take it you're enjoying this?" I asked.

Rachel giggled again, and pointed at the very noticeable bulge around my crotch. "I know you certainly are!" she said, happily.

I couldn't help smile at that and, nodding my head in acknowledgement of a temporary defeat, I grabbed my trousers in both hands, and slide them down to my ankles. Rachel gave a small round of applause again, and I stood back up and gave a slight bow. "Thank you, thank you." I said, and then returned to the serious business of taking off my shoes so that I could totally remove my trousers. That task completed, Rachel and I again went through the ritual of me slowly handing her my clothes, without entirely being able to let go. Rachel was more insistent this time, and it wasn't long before I saw her stuffing my trousers into her bag again.

"Well," Rachel said, with mock concern tinged with an element of caring relief, "at least your belt isn't alone any more!"

As the fact began to settle in that I was now standing in the middle of a public park with only a t-shirt and boxers on, I couldn't help nervously look around. Part of me knew that no-one else would be around at 4:45am in the morning. We'd been walking for 4 minutes already, and seen absolutely no-one. Still, I was now getting progressively jumpier at any sound that breached the serene silence of the night. Rachel theatrically reset the timer on her phone, and then briefly inspected me. She tut tutted at my black boxers, and said they simply didn't go with my blue t-shirt. "They'll have to go obviously, a complete fashion disaster." she said, with a big grin. I politely disagreed, and suggested I was looking forward to seeing if her bra and panties matches. I feared they wouldn't, and would similarly have to be removed.