The Bequest

This story is my take on a premise that has appeared in writings for decades: inheriting a nude resort. Hopefully, this will be at least as entertaining as all the other stories using that premise.

This story is a work of fiction. Real places and institutions are mentioned or implied, but they are used fictitiously here. As far as the author knows, no real person affiliated with any of those places or institutions has done anything akin to what is described in this story. Any similarities between any character in this story and any real person are coincidental and unintended. I encourage comments on this story, both favorable and unfavorable. Thank you for reading.

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I first met Karen Wynne when she came to my office in early May. I had left a large law firm after three years and had opened my own shop about eighteen months earlier. Any potential client was very welcome. The fact that this potential client appeared to be a beautiful young woman was a bonus.

Karen, I would learn later, was my age; just under thirty. She was about 5'7'' -- 5'8". Her shoulder-length brown hair framed a face with big blue eyes; a small, upturned nose; prominent cheekbones; and a strong jaw below a wide mouth. Although she was dressed in a conservative women's business suit, I suspected an excellent figure. She also had a dazzling smile.

Karen had been referred by a mutual friend who worked at my old law firm. "My parents died in a small plane crash while I was in college," Karen explained. "Once they were gone, my closest relatives were my Aunt Beth, Mom's older sister, and her husband, Uncle Dave. Dave passed away about five years ago. Beth died two weeks ago. The couple that helped her run her business came me these papers at the funeral."

Karen handed me a sheaf of legal-size papers. The first document I read was a trust declaration for the "Birch Trails Resort Trust." Reading that quickly, I saw that the Trust owned all the assets of something called "Birch Trails Resort." The original trustees had been David and Elizabeth Carson, with Beth Carson becoming sole trustee upon Dave's death. Upon Beth's death, all property of the Trust passed to Karen. The second document, dated only a year earlier, created the Elizabeth M. Carson Trust. The trustee was a large bank. The Beth Carson Trust said that all assets in that trust passed to Karen five years after Beth's death on condition that Karen owned and operated Birch Trails Resort continuously for those five years. Otherwise, everything in that trust went to a couple of charities.

"What is in your aunt's trust?" I asked Karen. In answer, Karen handed me a statement from the trustee bank dated in April of that year. The trust held cash and securities valued at just under $ 10 million. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed unthinkingly.

"Yeah," Karen replied.

"What is this 'Birch Trails Resort?'" I asked.

Karen blushed. "It's, uh, well, it's a nudist resort about 70 miles east of town," she said. I guess the surprised look on my face called for more explanation. "Dave was a talented electrical engineer," Karen said. "He invented some things and got a number of patents years ago. The royalties from those made him and Beth pretty wealthy. They had some hippie in them, and they didn't have any children. They bought the resort years ago, to 'get out of the rat race" Beth said. They lived out there."

"Have you been there?" I asked.

"Of course not!" Karen said sharply. "Can Aunt Beth do that? Make me run a nudist resort for five years before I can get the money?"

"Yes," I replied. "It was her money. She wasn't obligated to give you any of it so she could attach almost any strings to it she desired."

"I thought so," Karen said, a little downcast.

"What do you need from me?" I asked.

"I need advice on what to do about this and help doing whatever I decide,"

Karen said.

"The first thing I would do," I said, "is find out how Birch Trails Resort does as a business. If it is going to cost $12 million to keep it open for five years, it wouldn't make any sense to do it."

"In that case, I sell the resort and let the money go to charity," Karen said.

"Right," I confirmed.

"After Uncle Dave died, Beth hired a couple, Sam and Glenda Watson, to help her run the resort," Karen said. "Let me call them and set up a time to go out there to look at the property and go over the books." She made the call immediately. After talking with one of the Watson's and checking her calendar on her smartphone, it was agreed that she would be at Birch Trails at 10:00 a.m. on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, three weeks away. Ending the call, Karen said to me, "you will come with me, right?"

I was not enthused about visiting a place where I expected to see old, fat people naked. However, I didn't have anything on my calendar for that Friday. I could charge for the time. Spending most of a day with Karen Wynn also had some appeal. "Of course, if you want me to," I replied.

"Please?" Karen said, a little pleadingly. We agreed to meet at my office at 8:00 a.m. that Friday. I'd drive us to Birch Trails.

That Friday was sunny and unseasonably warm. When Karen arrived, she said, "I'm nervous about this. I've never been to a nudist resort. I called Sam and Glenda back and made it clear we are not taking our clothes off."

Birch Trails was in a rural area where Appalachian foothills crept into our state. All but the last twenty miles were divided highway, but the holiday weekend traffic was thick as were the state troopers. It took about two hours to make the trip. During the drive, I learned that Karen had been a gymnast in college, that she had an MBA from one of the more respected business schools, and that she worked in finance for the global consumer products company based in our city. In other words, she was a very talented person.

We turned off a winding two-lane road into a driveway that went up a steep hill. The drive was barred by a closed gate. I had to call on an intercom and identify us before the gate swung open. We drove about a half mile uphill before we came to level ground. To our left was a parking lot that was already about half full. Straight ahead was a two-story building designed in an alpine style.

I parked my car in the closest space to the building I could find. As we got out of the car, a very tan and fit couple wearing tee shirts and shorts came up. "You are Karen?" the woman asked in a friendly voice.

"Yes," Karen said. Nodding at me, she added, "and this is the lawyer, Will Stone."

The man and woman both extended their hands to shake. "Glenda and Sam Watson," the woman said.

"Working here," Sam added, "we usually don't wear anything, but we thought you'd be more comfortable if we were dressed." Sam and Glenda were immediately likeable people.

"Thank you," Karen said.

"We're going to be full up for the holiday weekend," Sam said. "Why don't we give you the tour now, before everyone gets here." That made sense.

The building we were standing in front of was called the "Inn." There were twenty guest rooms on the second floor. Sam told us the Inn building was ten years old. We saw a guest room, which was modern and surprisingly luxurious. The first floor held a small restaurant and kitchen, a bar, and a spa with sauna, steam room, and jacuzzi. Walking out the other side of the Inn we found an Olympic-size swimming pool, an outdoor jacuzzi, and a smaller pool with a volleyball net across it. Maybe a third of the lounge chairs on the pool deck were occupied.

My vision of a bunch of naked old, fat people was, I saw, dramatically wrong. The people around the pool appeared to cover a wide age-range. There were some obviously older people, but everyone looked reasonably fit. No obesity to be seen here. Everyone was naked, except us. Echoing my thoughts, Karen softly said, "not what I expected."

It took over an hour for us to see the rest of the facilities, including tennis courts, volleyball courts, cabins, and some of the trails through the woods. We ended at what looked like an old Victorian house about 100 yards south and slightly uphill from the Inn and pool complex. "This was Beth's house," Glenda explained.

"It looks old," Sam added, "but Beth had everything updated." Inside, the rooms were large and tastefully furnished. We also got the impression that Beth had been a fan of technology. You could get water in the kitchen sink by simply saying "water."

We followed Glenda and Sam to a small one story building just south of the Inn. "This is the office," Glenda said.

"The office is Glenda's domain," Sam said. "If you'll excuse me, I've got some maintenance items to deal with. Nice to meet you. I look forward to working with you Karen."

Glenda showed us the computerized reservation system. The resort's overnight accommodations were almost sold out through Labor Day with reservations booked through the New Year holiday. "It tails way off in the winter," Glenda said. "We're too far north to go nude outdoors that time of year, but Beth insisted we stay open year-round so we can keep staff."

Glenda had printed out ten years of income statements, balance sheets, and various ledgers. This was more Karen's area of expertise than mine. I had already verified that there were no liens recorded against the property. Karen spent several hours going over all the financials at least twice. Around 4:00 p.m., she leaned back in her chair, looked at me, and said, "you're not going to believe this."

"What?" I asked.

"This is a wildly profitable business," Karen said. "There's no debt. Before the pandemic, this place averaged an annual net profit over $ 1 million. It just broke even the first year of the pandemic, but last year, the net profit was $ 250,000! It doesn't look like Dave and Beth have put any money into the place since they built the Inn. This place pays for itself and generates a nice profit besides!"

"It seems like a nice place," I said.

"Just the small detail that everyone's running around naked," Karen added with a smile.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I don't know," Karen said. "I'm going to have to think about this."

We thanked Glenda profusely for her and her husband's cooperation. To get from the office to the car, we had to go past the pool again. It was packed with people in the water and on lounges on the deck. Everyone but us was naked. There were quite a few very attractive bodies. "Damn," Karen said softly.

We were about twenty minutes into the drive home when I said, "Glenda and Sam seem competent enough. You could let them manage the place for five years and be an absentee owner."

"There's something else I haven't shown you," Karen said. She took a sheet of paper with handwriting on it from her purse. "This letter from Aunt Beth was with the trust documents," she said. She began to read. "Dear Karen: You know by now that I've left Birch Trails to you and created an incentive for you to keep it. Dave and I made a leap of faith when we bought the resort. We also committed that, if we were going to run a nude resort, we were going to live nude. That was the best decision we ever made. I know you will hesitate, but I beg you to make the same commitment we made. Trust me, life is much better once you take your clothes off and leave them off. You cannot appreciate that until you've tried it. Please don't lose this opportunity! Love. Beth."

There was silence in the car for a few miles. Finally, Karen said, "Beth wanted me to live at Birch Trails and become a nudist."

"Have you talked this over with your significant other?" I asked.

Karen gave a sort of laugh. "There is no significant other," she said. "The guy I was dating broke up with me just after Christmas."

Unthinkingly, I said, "poor judgment on his part."

"It would be easier if I had a partner who was dead-set against this," Karen said. "That would, sort of, take the decision out of my hands. As it is, I have to make a decision."

We drove on silently for several more miles. As we came into the outer suburbs of the city, Karen said, "can we stop somewhere for dinner? I'm starving."

Not knowing what Karen did and didn't like, I stopped at one of those mid-market chain bar/restaurants. It was busy. We got a table quickly, but the service was very slow. By tacit agreement, we talked about anything but Birch Trails. Karen was a delightful person to talk to. She could be funny and witty. We also discovered we had broadly similar backgrounds and similar views on a lot of subjects. We had common interests in sports, history, and mystery novels. By the time we were finished a couple of hours later, I'd decided the guy who had dumped Karen had screwed up royally. She was an incredible woman.

I didn't hear anything from Karen Wynne for about ten days. She called in early June. "Will, I'm going to do it," she said. "I don't know whether I'll be going naked like Beth wanted, but I feel I need to keep Birch Trails going as a tribute to her and Dave. I think being an absentee owner would likely cause more problems than it solves. I've given my employer notice that I'm leaving at the end of the month."

I did the things necessary to get title to the Birch Trails property into an LLC I created with Karen as the sole member and to document her authority to run the business. I notified the bank that was trustee of Beth's trust that Karen intended to comply with the conditions. The trust officer told me someone from the Bank would come to Birch Trails quarterly to verify it is still operating and Karen still owns it.

Given how Beth had furnished the house, Karen decided she didn't need to move any furniture. Her stuff went to Goodwill. I took a day in late June and helped her move her clothes, books, and other personal items to Birch Trails. I didn't mind doing some free labor if it meant spending time with Karen.

I doubted I'd hear from Karen again. However, she called just after July 4 and asked to meet me for dinner. I offered to come out to Birch Trails, but she preferred to go somewhere on the east side of the city. I offered to come out there and pick her up, but she wanted to meet me at the restaurant. I assumed Karen had business she wanted to discuss, but it turned out to be purely social. I wasn't complaining. Karen is a very engaging person. We talked about many things, but not Birch Trails. When I asked early in the dinner how things were going for her at the resort, she just said, "it's been interesting" and laughed. As we were walking to our cars after dinner, Karen asked, "same time next week?"

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Dinner," she said. "Are you free the same time next week?"

"Of course," I replied. That earned me a smile.

Karen and I had dinner together once a week through July and early August. It was always somewhere in the City's eastern suburbs. I was impressed, and a bit perplexed, that Karen was making a roundtrip of over one hundred miles each time. I came to look forward to our dinners. I hadn't had a girlfriend since I'd gone out on my own and become a lawyer with little income. Karen was also the most impressive woman I'd ever met.

I was having dinner with Karen the week before Labor Day. Karen never talked about Birch Trails during our dinners, but she brought it up that night. "We're booked solid for Labor Day," she said. "But it drops off the next weekend, so I decided to have a party for the staff that Saturday afternoon. They've been great and I want to thank them."

"That sounds like a great idea," I said.

"Will you come?" Karen asked.

That threw me. I stammered, "well, yeah, sure, if you want me to."

"I do," Karen said. "There's one other thing. I'm asking the staff to go nude for the party so they can experience Birch Trails the way our guests do. Almost everyone's said they will."

"You want me to go nude too?" I asked.

"Yes," Karen said.

"Are you going to go nude?" I asked.

"Yes," Karen said. "I already have been. I started going nude a couple of days after I moved to Birch Trails. I felt out of place with clothes on. About the only time I'm dressed any more is to come to our dinners."

"How has the nudity gone?" I asked.

"Beth's letter was right. Going nude is wonderful. I love it." Karen reached across the table and put her hand on top of mine. "Please Will? I want you to experience it too. I promise, you will not regret it."

I am a soft touch for an exceptionally beautiful woman. I promised Karen that I'd come to Birch Trails and that I'd go nude. "Please come out Friday and stay the weekend," she asked. I agreed that I would.

I spent most of the next two weeks wondering whether I'd imagined it. Had that the most wonderful woman I'd ever met really had invited me to run around naked with her for a weekend? Things like that didn't happen to me. I had largely convinced myself that I had imagined the invitation and that Karen would be really pissed off if I showed up at Birch Trails uninvited. Then, Karen called the night before I'd imagined she had invited me to come.

"You're still coming out here tomorrow?" Karen asked.

Damn! I hadn't imagined it. She really had invited me to her nude resort. "Of course," I replied.

"Don't pack much," Karen said with a laugh. "I can't wait to see you."

When I pressed the intercom button at the resort gate that Friday afternoon, Sam Watson's voice came through. "Will, I'm glad you're here. Karen was sure you wouldn't show up. Don't come all the way to the Inn. Take the right opposite the parking lot. That take you straight up to Karen's house."

I followed Sam's directions and ended up in a small parking area behind the Victorian house. Karen was waiting in a flower print sundress. My face must have registered surprise, or disappointment, that she was dressed because she laughed and said, "I thought I'd better ease you into it." I grabbed my small overnight bag and followed her inside. Something about the house seemed more vital than when I'd seen it before. I mentioned that and Karen said, "it got dusty after Beth passed. I've cleaned things up."

I followed Karen into the large front room. "Put your bag down, Will," she said. I did as I was told. Karen stood a couple of feet away, facing me. She looked at me for a moment, smiled again, and said, "are you ready to start experiencing the reason this place exists?"

"I suppose," I said.

"I'll start," Karen said. She took the hem of her dress in both hands and pulled it over her head. She wore nothing underneath. She tossed the dress on a sofa, posed for a moment, and then slowly turned 360 degrees. I had suspected Karen had a good body, but she was way beyond my expectations. Her breasts were each about the size of one and a half grapefruit, firm with upturned nipples. Her stomach was flat. She wasn't ripped, but here was some muscle definition. Her hips were, perhaps, a bit wider than perfect, but that accentuated the curves. Her legs looked great, and her bare ass was very alluring. She had also shaved off her pubic hair so I could see vaginal lips between her thighs.

Karen let me look for a time before she asked, "what do you think?"

"I think you are, by far, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," I said.

"Thank you," Karen replied. "I like you looking at me, but I want to look too. Get those clothes off, please."

I sensed I was about to do something irrevocable, but, what else can you do when an extremely beautiful naked woman asks you to undress? I slid off my shoes, loosened my belt, and pulled my polo shirt over my head. "Damn Will," Karen said, "you work out a lot, don't you?"

"I try," I replied.

"Keep going," she said. I unzipped my trousers, pushed them down, and stepped out of them. I lifted one foot at a time and rolled off my socks. I straightened and looked Karen in the eyes as I pushed my boxer shots down. They fell to my feet, and I stepped out of them. I stood, naked, with my hands at my side, facing Karen.