Unfortunate Exposure

It was unfortunate in more respects than one. The evening had started well. The mixed doubles tennis had been good and Jess had played well. She had great hopes that Josh might ask her out after the match, might suggest a drink at a local pub.

"I'll just go and shower," she'd called and been more than a little disappointed when Josh, together with Beth and Jon, had all said they would see her next week for another game and then had neither bothered to stay and shower nor, importantly, suggest any sort of post-match activity. Jess was left standing by the clubhouse door in her whites with her bag watching them drive off. Hot and sweaty from playing and, it being a hot summer's evening, Jess still felt like a shower. Dropping her bag on the bench she stripped off in the Ladies' changing rooms and walked to the showers. She had seen another bag and a pile of clothes and was not surprised to find another girl there.

They talked and showered. Two naked girls. Good to feel the warm water and the soap after having run around for a good hour. The other girl, Marianne, was but a nodding acquaintance, though from the same village some two or so miles away. She asked if Jess had brought her car. She had not. Jess had walked there thinking, hoping, expecting indeed -- that had been her plan - to be invited somewhere in Josh's car. Marianne had, it transpired, walked too. Two miles was not far and easy to walk back on a lovely summer's evening. Marianne had neither sought a lift there nor brought her bicycle. Two girls without means of transport other than their legs. Legs completely visible, strong and tanned, right up to where they joined, there in the steaming shower. Girls together.

"We'll have to walk back then. No problem. Lovely evening and it'll be good to talk."

Marianne might have been right about the lovely evening and it being good to talk -- and certainly about them having to walk back -- but she was not at all right about it being 'no problem.' Not right at all, as the two girls were about to find out.

Trooping naked out of the shower, dripping with water down their naked bodies, they sought their towels. Indeed, they sought their bags and their clothes (and purses with mobile phones) but where they had been -- towels, bags, clothes and hidden purses - there were just empty wooden benches. The changing room was singularly devoid of anything resembling a towel, clothes or a bag. There was nothing there. Nothing. Not even their tennis shoes.

The two girls stood dripping in a state of shock staring first at the empty benches and then at the half open door. The idea their things could have been stolen slowly coming to them along with some choice and very unladylike words. It just did not seem possible.

What were they to do?

What indeed? All they had was themselves. Absolutely nothing else. Importantly, no clothes at all. Not even some wisp of cotton panty to hide within. They had no money, no means of calling anyone, no transport -- except of course for their slim, smooth, long and very much bare legs.

"What are we going to do?"

"Do you think there's anyone else here? Anyone in the other changing room?"

"The thief you mean?"

"No, bound to be long gone, though might have thrown our bags and clothes away having found anything of value."

"My purse, my phone."

"Might be someone to help."

"We've gotta go out and see if our stuff has been dumped, but -- there's not an old towel even kicking around."

There was not.

"We can't go into the men's like this..."

"What if there's a whole bunch in there stark naked and..."

Jess peaked around the door to their changing room and listened. Not a sound. She ventured out, even as far as the door to what had suddenly become the big outside world, where she had been happily running around not minutes before -- but that had been in her now much missed tennis clothes. Being naked gave a very different prospect and look to the world. There was no sign on the path or grass of discarded bags or clothes. Nothing at all in fact.

Jess turned and looked at the men's changing room door. She swallowed and put on a brave face. She was after all just a girl with no clothes on... a tall girl with a big chest and long legs... and nothing on.

"Is there anyone in there?" She called, opening the door a little. The last thing she wanted to do was come face to face with some naked guy or guys, peek in on them as they stood there towelling themselves with their 'equipment' hanging there, as they stared back at her boobs. Worse still if they reacted in a very male way to a naked girl dropping in on them, so to speak. She did not mean they might grab her and 'take advantage,' more their 'equipment' might become turgid and point at her. That would be... unsettling.

There was no answer and when she pushed the door open no one, male or otherwise, was there. Nor were there any towels or trousers or shirts helpfully hung on pegs. The room was as devoid of useful items as the Ladies changing room. No grubby towel on the floor which might have 'done' -- perhaps with a bit of a rinse; or, and the awful idea occurred to Jess, a jock strap. Would two discarded jock straps actually set the girls up any better than being totally naked?

"Jess?"

Marianne pushed in behind her. Perhaps not wanting her to face men alone: perhaps unhappy at being left alone. The touch of wet, naked woman to her back sort of startled her and brought home their predicament the more.

"Nobody here. Nothing I can see outside. Nothing in here. The thief seems to have taken everything."

"What can he have wanted with our stuff?"

"Money, phones, young women's underwear... there are funny people about."

"To dress up in?"

"Or to sniff."

"Jess!"

"Well, we don't know and..."

"And what?"

'And,' indeed. What were they to do?

"We can't stay here. We can't walk back along the roads. We can't do anything."

Jess reached out and held Marianne's shoulders. "We could stay here until morning, or someone comes. It's summer and it'll be warm all night. But... that seems stupid. We can't go back by the roads. Who might come by? And I'm not going to have all those cars hooting and people stopping -- and staring. What we could do, you know, is go back over the fields, sneak along hedgerows, get back after dark. We might even make it -- get back to our houses without a soul seeing us. Get some clothes and report the theft to the police."

"We couldn't do that... could we?"

"A bit of a challenge but, hey, maybe. It's a lot further, I think, that way, not by the road. Better looking back on the adventure than doing it, I'm sure. You game?"

Marriane looked both perturbed and nervous about the prospect but she said, "No other option, I suppose, Jess. I don't want to stay here all night. At least you're not a man. I mean how awful would that have been had my clothes been nicked and just a man in the other changing room. The two of us creeping around the countryside with nothing on. I mean how embarrassing and..."

Jess could not help thinking it might just have been fun with Josh -- had it been him and her, she meant, not him and Marianne! The idea not totally unpleasing. Naked Josh and her.

"You might have ended up liking it, Marianne. Quite a few men here who play tennis I wouldn't mind being naked with! Or two. Two big men to keep you company. I'd feel happier if we had two men to go with." She smiled, "two naked big men."

Marianne did not look convinced.

"We'd better start then. Across in front of the courts, across the playing field to the wood on the far side. Do we run?"

"I'd be happier," replied Marianne. "Perhaps start slowly but once past the tennis courts then really run."

Having made up their minds the young women did not hang about. It was hand in hand that the girls left the safety of the changing hut, eyes on the look-out for people and for their clothes and bags. Neither could be seen. They crept in that strange half crouching way people adopt when trying to look inconspicuous and rather failing. At the corner of the tennis nets they broke into a run. Not holding hands anymore because there were other things to hold. A delight to men but a nuisance to women. Generous breasts do oscillate or bounce around when running. A brassiere or sports bra are sensible items of clothing. The girls had no clothing, sensible or otherwise. They ran with their hands clasped over their breasts. They ran with their bodies still wet from the shower. No towel, no means of drying - though wet girls running on a warm summer evening will dry -- in time.

There was no one to see but, had the old groundsman been there, what might he have seen to his pleasure and delight? He never knew what a chance he had missed. He would no doubt have been helpful as he ogled. Arranged some sort of covering for the girls -- eventually. All would have been well. Only he would have seen and the girls could hardly have begrudged that, had he been there to help. He was not. There just was nobody at all.

Jess was a tall girl, an advantage in tennis and with the sort of long legs that turn heads. Long legs that give an advantage in running but, alas, served to accentuate the ungainly way of running with hands or forearms clasped to chests. Marianne a little shorter but not a lot, perhaps a little wider but just as generously breasted as Jess, so had similar problems. Two long legged girls running holding their boobs.

They reached the edge of the playing field, climbed over the simple wooden fence and were in the stretch of woodland beyond. Not really much of a wood, more a belt of conifers planted against the prevailing wind and sheltering the playing field. Pine needles and old pinecones and dead bits of branch underfoot. The girls, breathing rather fast from their running, slipped between the trees.

They had made it that far. The first stage of their plan. Well away now from the safety of the changing room where they could legitimately be naked. They no longer had that protection.

"Stage one complete. Now we pick up the footpath. It runs along the other side of these trees and then it forks. We go left, otherwise we end up on the road."

The girls neared the edge of the pine trees and slowed, looking out for someone walking. Maybe a man with a dog, maybe men with dogs, maybe a group of men rambling. Women would not be much better, with or without a dog. Perhaps, on reflection, better -- women would not gawp and make ribald comments. Still, it would be tiresome to answer questions and unlikely the two girls would be given anything to wear.

The coast was clear. The girls hopped up and over the fence bounding the playing fields site. A barbed wire fence would so not have been the thing to deal with. Getting hooked on one of those barbs was bad enough when it just ripped jeans or a shirt. What was exposed to the upper rail of the fence and, had the fence been barbed wire, to the barbs of the wire, just did not bear -- and bare was the word -- thinking about. Instead, the smooth, greying old wood forming the top rail was briefly graced, as the girls went over, by the soft touch of two girls' labia. Lucky fence!

The young women went along the side of the trees and hurried past the fork in the footpath, going left and headed up a small valley of trees with swathes of bracken.

"Ooh-er." Jess pulled Marianne off the track and into the green bracken. "Down, she hissed." Lying together, actually rather close together, given how Jess had pulled Marianne down, the girls were motionless and silent. Along the track came, not that they could see, a man whistling to himself.

Both girls flinched as the bracken was suddenly parted. It was not the man but his dog. The collie's black and wet nose sniffed at them with interest. Her nose cold and personal -- very personal to Marianne; her tail wagging at the unexpected meeting. Well, unexpected to Jess and Marianne. Most likely the collie dog had a very clear idea of who or what she might find hidden away. To a dog's sense of smell the girls were probably equivalent to how it would have been to the man had they leapt up and down, shouting to him 'look at us, look at us.' Remarkable what a detailed picture a dog gains from its nose compared to most people's sense of smell -- barely able to distinguish a roast dinner from lavender.

"Leave 'em rabbits alone Jess. Come you on."

'Jess?' Talk about a co-incidence. A dog Jess and a girl Jess in the bracken.

The dog was having too good a time to obey, sniffing and wagging its tail at its newfound playmates; the girls trying to silently shoo it away.

"Or is it a cat you've found? Here pussy, pussy."

Most certainly Jess -- the dog Jess, not the girl Jess -- had found a pussy, indeed had its nose right up close to Marianne's as the girl attempted to get it to go away.

"Look -- do you mind," said Jess rising to her full height. "Take your dog away. I'm here with my boyfriend on...." Bare breasted there was not much else needing to be said, "personal business."

The man was open mouthed at the sudden apparition rising out of the bracken. A girl naked to the waist, leastways that was as far as he could see. Open mouthed, indeed opening and closing like a fish.

"I... sorry. Jess, here girl."

Here? Oh, yes, thought Jess - he meant the dog, Jess, not her. She watched him stumble off, followed by the collie. The dog did not look back, but he did. No doubt at her breasts.

"You can get up now."

Marianne got to her feet. The supposed boyfriend very much not a boy! "I suppose dog walkers are an occupational hazard to girls in an enforced state of nudity trying to get home."

"He was more than a little surprised."

"The dog's nose..."

"Well at least she didn't lick. Dogs have long tongues!"

"Jess!"

Had it not been for their predicament it would have been a rather lovely stroll in the evening sunshine. The shadows getting longer and the light golden. At the top of the low valley they crossed the ridge of the hill finding, all at once, rather a lot of country set out before them. The bracken had petered out behind them and left them rather at risk if another dog walker came along. It was not really an 'if' as, coming up the other side of the hill, was a figure with three dogs not so much in tow as leading.

"Oh," said Marianne.

"Just act natural."

"Natural?"

At least it was not a man. Undoubtedly female, the figure nonetheless strode towards them.

"Oh no... anyone else..." Jess said as an aside to Marianne. "Good evening Mrs Heysham."

The woman halted a look of considerable surprise upon her face. Coming up out of shadow and with the low sun behind them at the top of the hill, the girls would have had the appearance of mere silhouettes appearing to the squinting woman. Now up close their natural appearance was suddenly clear, vividly clear, in the golden light. A photographic opportunity if there ever was one. The woman did not have a camera.

"I...but... Jess you have no clothes on, nor your friend." Her look of surprise seemed to Marianne to turn to one of delight. "You look absolutely delightful. Turn for me, my dear, turn."

What else could Jess and then Marianne do?

"Why? A dare? A challenge? Naturism -- surely not here? Not..." her eyebrows rose and a smile came to her face, "Not something a little romantic, a little... carnal?" To Jess the thought came that Mrs Heysham's smile was a 'knowing' smile as her eyes darted here and there over the girl's bodies. "Such a picture in this light, oh you dogs, do leave them alone."

Wet, cold doggie noses once more.

"Ooh," squeaked Marianne as a dog did what dogs do rather do, right behind her -- with its nose.

"Haven't you grown, Jess. I had not realised." Her hand reached out and touched Jess's right breast, a momentary cupping, a touch of fingertips to nipple. "A fine young woman; and your friend?"

"Marianne, we..."

"Such lovely skin," her hand patted Marianne's bottom. "A pity we are not walking the same way," her arms were around both their naked bodies. "You know, I'd so like to walk with you girls like that. Such pretty bodies. So lovely. Ladies together, eh? Sometimes I... do you know Saphy's Health Spa?" She carried on without stopping. "Sometimes I go there for treatments and have lunch with my friends. Desmond doesn't come... not his scene, or really a spa for men." Her eyes looked up enquiringly, they had been looking down, very much down at the girls' feet, or perhaps a little higher up.

Jess did not want to say anything, but Marianne said she had been there, had won a prize, and it had been very 'nice,' a lovely massage and pedicure -- and the steam room and sauna had been lovely. All women together.

Mrs Heysham smiled, "Yes, the sauna, so lovely to sit with friends as we sweat. Sometimes," her smile became conspiratorial, we let the towels slip a bit. So much more comfortable to sit on a towel on those benches and just talk. No men, no worry about towels slipping or... being worried quite how one sits. Just girls together. And then the steam room. So lovely and damp," her eyes flicked up at Jess, "so wet..."

"We left our towels outside for the steam room," said Marianne. "I liked the stars on the ceiling. A bit of a shock the swimming afterwards. The water warm really, but not after the steam."

"Like a mermaid in the water, no doubt!"

"No tail, Mrs Heysham."

"Hardly scaly skin," again her hand touched Marianne's bottom, this time her fingertips perhaps sliding a little into the crack. "Just the evening for a swim. But not on the top of a hill! I'd so like... if we were by a river or lake and I joined you... naked. Just girls together."

The dogs were clearly getting restless, perhaps they had had enough of the scent of young women and had sensed something even more interesting. Rabbits perhaps. Jess grabbed at the sudden distraction of Mrs Heysham's attention. "We'd better get on. We aren't meant to be like this. A mistake and we want to get home before we get cold and..." Mentioning the possibility of the evening cooling was a mistake.

"You could come back with me. Desmond's out and... perhaps a bath. We have a large bath. Well filled, plentiful bubbles, all girls together and..."

"No, really," Jess grabbed Marianne's hand and pulled her away from Mrs Heysham. "I'll no doubt see you, with Mother, at the market on Saturday." Jess was heading down the hill as she spoke back over her shoulder giving Mrs Heysham a friendly wave.

"Phew!" Jess's breath came out in one long relieved stream. "The old dyke is a bit in your face. She's nice but... her reputation..."

"I rather liked her but... she's a lesbian?"

Jess gave Marianne a surprised and quizzical look. "And the rest! No, bi I think. Well, she's married and Mr Heysham, Desmond, is as nice as anything. They are as loving couple as you could meet only... only she is a bit... quite a lot really. Swings both ways I think you'd say. Be careful."

"Oh."

The two girls reached the bottom of the hill, crossed a field and found themselves at the river. Their way took them along and then over the bridge.

Jess and Marianne had seen the river from the brow of the hill, had seen their whole route set out before them, just before they had met Mrs Heysham. A clear route of footpaths with few obstacles. The bridge over the river was one, but all being well it would be free of anyone on or near it. All being well... that is, but all was not well.

Down they came from the hill, down through more trees to the riverbank. At other times of the year, it could be quite churned up by horse riders where the bridleway followed the bank for a hundred yards or so but now it was merely very uneven to girls not in stout walking boots -- indeed nothing at all.

The girls stepped gingerly, their bare feet moving across hoof marked dried mud, taking care not to twist a pretty ankle or anything else for that matter. They went hand in hand, which was sensible, helping each other move across the ground, their feet and ankles picking up all sorts of angles that boots or even trainers would have dealt with easily.