This is my entry for the National Nude Day contest.
I hope you enjoy it!
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No trees. That was critical.
Well, at least, no big ones.
OK, nothing big enough to make me have to climb eight stories of spikey branches in my altogether. That was for certain.
And not blazing hot or much below room temperature for most of the year.
And not many people there. OK, maybe some, just to make it sporting.
Good scenery would be nice during the runs. Quiet. Open.
Grass - grass would be nice, too.
That's a lot to ask for, I know. It took me a long time to find it. Where, you ask? Nope, find your own. Suffice it to say that the Bureau of Land Management has like megacres of prime real estate under its thumb. Once you know your way around the database, it's amazing what you can uncover.
Doing the necessary cross-checking into weather records, aerial photographs, topographical maps and so forth -- well, it took time.
But, hey, I found the place I needed.
By some miracle, it wasn't even on the far side of the country. Open, surrounded by mountains in the far, far distance, it had a few major piles of rocks and a lot of streams and creeks. It was, I thought, ideal for my purpose.
.
Back up.
I never was much of a girly girl. My tomboy nature was Momma's despair at times.
Heaven knows that I'm pretty enough. I like boys and I've had boyfriends. I'm no blushing virgin - I certainly enjoy sex. Let's just say that, at this particular point of my life, I preferred my own company to trying to cope with half-drunk louts in bars.
There'd been too many of those.
And too many limp-wristed mama's boys. Since when had 'masculine' become something to be ashamed of? If I wanted feminine, I'd have been walking the other side of the street.
And, while we're at it, let's get one more thing straight. I am darned well not going to apologize for being an engineer. Lady engineers are not all nerds, you know.
OK, that's not quite true, I admit.
All
engineers are nerds, almost by definition. But, looking in the mirror, this was one lass who didn't look it. Not until she put her white helmet on, anyway.
.
To cut to the chase, I'd been doing the public nudity thing for a couple of years. No, not flashing. 'Audacious unobserved bareness', maybe? That would be a better way to put it. I'd been on a couple of Nude Day bicycle rides and the idea of free-hiking was something that turned me on. But generally, it was a private gig.
I had, on a couple of occasions, stripped off and left my clothes under a bush in a public park before timidly walking around in the darkness for a while. The first time, it was just a few minutes before I freaked out and scrambled for my knickers. I got bolder with more experience, but it was always at night when nobody could possibly see and I never strayed too far from my clothes.
I'd gotten really ambitious once and locked my clothes in my car six blocks away from my apartment in the wee hours of the morning, leaving me with just my house key and the pressing need to get home without being caught. I made it, just barely ahead of a slow-moving police car. I don't think they saw me; they certainly didn't speed up to catch me.
I'd been scared out of my mind until the door lock clicked solidly behind me, then I racked up about six orgasms.
It was the excitement, the
daring
that mattered to me, I suppose.
It had all been fun, some more so than others. But it was also a bit dangerous -- more than just the danger of getting caught. Even in my peaceful, dinky town, parks and late-night streets were frequented by both cops and criminals, neither of which would be good company for my, um... experiments.
And I really
didn't
want to upset anybody. Or get my naked tush splashed on the social media for Momma's bitchy friends to see. Or -- shudder - my ΓΌber-straight department manager at work. The thought of what
that
Monday morning would be like had kept me awake once or twice after some especially risky episode. Not that it ever stopped me, but I knew that there had to be a better way. And I was an engineer -- a problem-solver, right?
Sure.
.
Then one day I'd seen a weather balloon being launched and had been inspired. As I watched it soar upwards, my libido had followed. With that in mind, I started my search for the right wilderness spot.
In between looking for a suitable location, I also starting searching for the technical stuff. The Net gave me a source for balloons - biodegradable ones at that. More research found me a source for cheap, lightweight time-delay relays. And battery-powered electromagnets, lightweight but strong enough to hold a payload until the relay cut the power.
It didn't take an engineering degree to figure out. Any high school dumbass with a soldering iron could have done it. But this was me.
Well, me and my supercharged, just-slightly-bent sex drive.
Along the way, I discovered that a couple of federal agencies had regulations about balloons, but I figured I could stay under their radar if I kept mine under six feet in diameter. With helium, that would give me just about seven pounds of lift to cover the weight of the balloon, the parachute and the release mechanism - as well as my clothes. (See where this is going?) Actually, the regulations said I wasn't allowed to drop
anything