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.
