What Was Found When Lost

Going to a nudist getaway was never my idea. But to give him the benefit of the doubt, it wasn't Todd's idea either.

Todd was my boyfriend, and he was a freelance writer. His main bread and butter wasthinkpieces and experience reports for various hip websites and blogs. When we first met he called himself a 'travel writer' but he didn't actually seem to go to many far-off places, at least while we were together. What he did do, though, was get sent by editors to various quirky bars, restaurants and venues in and near to our state, to write up how they were for somebody who had never experienced their like before.

That was how we ended up visiting Sunny Rest nudist resort.

Sunny Rest was miles from anywhere, a real backwoods place, and had been operating as a nudist resort for about thirty years. Todd told me that an editor had been looking for a millennial couple to go along to the resort and try nudism for the first time, then write up their experience. Hardly Pulitzer-winning stuff, five minutes with Google could find you ten articles with the same premise, but I guess the particular site Todd was working for hadn't gotten around to doing that story yet. And, Todd explained, none of the staff writers had been exactly keen, so his name had been thrown into the ring as a hip young freelancer (he's your typical bearded, tattooed twenty-something guy, but mercifully he's light on the pretentiousness of the hipster crowd) or, more likely, as someone who would do anything short of eating live scorpions if there was a paycheck in it.

He broke the news to me almost apologetically. For the story to work, he couldn't go by himself, so he needed me to accompany him. I'd have to go to the resort with him, spend a day there -- and I'd have to be naked.

"It's just for work," he explained, "just for a day"... but he needn't have worried. While for a lot of women the idea of going up into the wild blue yonder and spending a day running around naked in front of a bunch of complete strangers would be the cause of much blushing and anxiety, I've always been rather unaffected by modesty. I was no nudist, and I have plenty I dislike about my body, but I've never really felt as though it would be a horrible experience to be nude somewhere like a nudist beach or resort. I'm a nude sleeper anyway, and so casual nudity in front of Todd was a fact of life for me -- the prospect of expanding that to be me being casually naked in front of a bunch of people I would never see again after that day didn't fill me with dread. In fact, my biggest worry was how I'd feel about seeing other people naked -- would I stare? Laugh? Get excited, even? What if I ended up behaving contrary to what was expected of a visitor to Sunny Rest -- would I be asked to leave because I couldn't stop laughing at all the exposed peen?

We'd made our reservations without disclosing the reasons why we were there. Todd didn't want to get any "special treatment" because he was a "journalist", he wanted to write about how the resort came across to a regular punter. So as far as anyone knew, we were just newbie nudists wanting to give the resort experience a go for no reason other than that it seemed like fun.

I wasn't hung up on fears of being naked in front of others, but in the run-up to our trip I did develop an uncharacteristically vain streak, booking myself in for various waxings and other grooming and body-improvement techniques. I'm average height, build and fitness for a twenty-five year-old white girl, but it understandably became important that I look my best unclothed, for reasons that I'm sure you'll understand. That vanity was a little contagious -- the night before our trip, making love to Todd, I noticed he'd taken the time to trim and sculpt the hair around his cock and balls in a manner he didn't usually feel the need to bother with. I wasn't complaining though!

Our first visit was every cliché you can think of. Leather-tanned naked old folks playing shuffleboard, an endless parade of people who looked like our parents, only naked -- but everyone was incredibly welcoming, friendly and attentive to our needs and feelings as self-confessed newbies. We both surrendered our clothes on arrival, not wanting to appear out of place given that not a single person there was dressed, but I soon grew accustomed to my nudity and lost any worry I might have had about how to act and behave when naked in a social environment.

Despite the resort's demographic skewing towards the over-50s crowd, a peculiar thing happened -- both Todd and I started to enjoy ourselves. The weather was beautiful, the woods surrounding the resort were majestic and tranquil, and being naked in the open air was both relaxing and invigorating. I didn't miss my clothes at all, especially when I was laying in the sun with a strong drink, or splashing around in the resort's swimming pool -- and nor, apparently, did Todd.

Our drive home, and some time after, was spent enthusiastically recapping our adventure, and it wasn't long before we'd booked a return trip -- no article involved this time, just for us.

Our second visit was just as enjoyable as the first, another day of clothes-free bliss in the sun and the trees and the water -- with just one fly in the ointment.

Her name was Christina.

She'd not been there the first time we visited, having been away at college. The daughter of the resort's owners -- 19 years old.19 years old and drop-dead gorgeous.19 years old, drop-dead gorgeous, and as enthusiastic a nudist as anyone else in her family.

She was vivacious, engaging, funny, confident, intelligent without being condescending -- and totally thrilled that some younger folk had opted to visit a resort where most of the regulars were the same age as her parents. She was lovely, excited and welcoming.

I hated her immediately.

It wasn't just her headful of luxuriant, shining blonde hair, wide blue eyes and winning, adorable smile. It wasn't just her perky, lush, youthful breasts, her slender waist, flat stomach, subtle curves, tight butt, perfect bikini wax and flawless golden tan. I mean, it was those things -- I couldn't help compare my own petite, imperfect figure to hers and come up wanting. But it was more than just simple vanity that set me against her -- it was the fact that as soon as she appeared on the scene, I became invisible to Todd. It's not exactly a good feeling to be completely naked in front of your boyfriend and yet have his attention entirely elsewhere, especially if that elsewhere is a woman six years younger than you who has been given, by God and nature, a rack that you could only achieve with the help of Miami's finest cosmetic surgeons and a sugar-daddy's bank account.

What made it worse, a million times worse, was that she clearly found Todd's attention not just flattering but welcome, and appeared to find my boyfriend just as fascinating as he found her.

Very quickly, as it became apparent that Christina intended to be our close companion for the whole day, I began to feel like a third wheel. We sat by the pool, the three of us, Todd between myself and Christina -- but I might as well have been on the moon for all the attention I was paid. My subtle, and less-than-subtle, efforts to steer the conversation -- and my boyfriend's eyes -- back to me were all failing to hit their target, so I sat and pouted, which in hindsight I realise probably only made Christina shine more in comparison.

Eventually though, I even got tired of pouting. The resort boasted woodland trails, wild but still within its grounds, which patrons could hike and wander through without needing to be clothed. It had promised to be the ultimate "back to nature" experience -- a nude sojourn into the woods -- and Todd and I had been very keen to sample it this visit.

I reminded my distracted boyfriend of this, and to my relief it seemed to work, as Todd responded enthusiastically to my suggestion that we take a walk and we both stood up to make a move. Relief turned to annoyance, though, when Todd turned to Christina and asked if she would like to come along.

The blonde goddess smiled thoughtfully. "No, thank you," she said at last. "I would, I love the trails, but I had a late one last night and I'd rather just chill by the pool today."

I almost sagged with relief -- as Christina had declined, I could now take Todd off by himself to an isolated spot, and if necessary beat him to death with a tree branch. Well, that's maybe a bit drastic, but I was definitely going to give him a piece of my mind, and a reminder that he was supposed to be dating me, not Miss Nude USA there.

But then...

"Um, actually babe," Todd said, awkwardly, "I'm, uh, not really feeling it myself. Maybe we could hang out here a bit longer?"

He probably thought I didn't notice his eyes darting over the entirety of Christina's naked body as he stammered his excuse out.

I said nothing. I fixed him with a look that I hoped said "how stupid do you think I am?" and he had the good grace to at least blush.

Then I smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a woman who has HAD ENOUGH of sitting and watch her supposed-to-be boyfriend flirt his way through the day with a naked blonde co-ed.

"Okay," I said eventually. "Fine. Well, I am 'feeling it'. So I'm gonna go for a walk. In the woods.By myself. You two stay here." My smile grew wider and more humourless, until it was practically a grimace. "Enjoy each other's company," I said through gritted teeth. Then I turned on my heel and stormed off in the direction of the gate that marked the entrance to the woodland path.

--

I barely noticed my surroundings. The woodland was wild and beautiful but all I could think about was how pissed I was at Todd.

The worst part was, this wasn't an isolated incident. Oh, the fact that everyone was naked was new, but the whole experience of having my boyfriend more interested in blatant flirting with other women than he was in spending time with me was, tragically for me, not. In fact, it had been a factor in our relationship from the early days and although we'd not been together all that long, it had been long enough to have finally taught me that he wasn't going to change his habits. Many's the time we'd been out in a bar or club and I'd come back from the bathroom to have him introduce me to Misty or Lisa or Sia or some other chick that he'd gotten talking to in my absence, who just so happened to be a phenomenal looker with a great personality.

Oh, nothing would happen. Todd wouldn't go off with these girls. He'd still go home with me. But I'd spend my evening playing second fiddle to a woman I couldn't help but feel he would prefer to leave with.

Of course, I'd confront him about it. I'd get mad and yell, or I'd get hurt and cry, and he'd soothe me and reassure me. He wasn't interested in anyone but me, I was crazy to think otherwise. He was just being outgoing, friendly, meeting new people. It didn't mean anything, it was just his personality, he couldn't help but "connect" with people very easily and quickly.

And I would dry my eyes and calm down and I'd nod and say, yes, that makes sense actually, after all, we did connect very quickly, our first date ended up with us spending an entire day together -- and the night, too. And why shouldn't a guy be "friendly" to women, just the way he was with other guys? Todd had a big personality, everybody loved him -- was it really so surprising that other women wanted to get to know him? I should be proud to have such a great guy in my life -- and he was in my life, he was still sticking with me, even if he was a bit of a flirt with other girls.

This is what I'd tell myself every time I suspected that my boyfriend was a hair's breadth from cheating on me, to make myself forgive him and stay with him.

But now, as I walked briskly through a strange forest wearing only a pair of sneakers, leaving Todd sitting by a pool making goo-goo eyes at a naked blonde teenager, I was finally waking up to the idea that maybe my boyfriend was kind of a jerk.

I think it was the nakedness factor that had made it hit home for me. It was one thing to see him in action in the sort of meat-market environment of the local bars and clubs -- full of people turned out in their best get-up, determined to attract the opposite sex. You couldn't help but act up in that sort of environment, with all the pheromones in the air, the alcohol flowing and the music playing.

But the nudist resort was such a sexless place, in spite of all the nudity. It was a place where, we'd come to understand, the interplay of smuttiness between the sexes just wasn't really on the cards. In both our visits, in spite of the fact that (until Christina had appeared) I had been the youngest, and most attractive, woman in attenBriance, I'd never been made to feel like an object of lust by the numerous, older, men in attenBriance. I'd not been offended by that -- it hadn't caused me to doubt my own attractiveness. I look pretty alright, clothes on or off. While it's true I don't have the sort of body a girl like Christina has, neither do ninety per cent of the women on this planet. And in that remaining ninety, I'd put myself in the group of people who look, well, pretty good. I don't struggle to stay slim, even if my belly is a little soft. My skin is clear and my hair, although a mousy brown, largely does what it's supposed to when I want it to. I'm shorter than average but not to the point where I feel like the "little woman" in a crowd. I don't have big tits, but I've never felt that what I do have is cause for complaint to Mother Nature either. My butt maybe needs a little toning but I've also had the word "cute" applied to it by more than one person, so who cares?

My point is, dressed as I currently was -- well, undressed -- I felt pretty good about myself, and had I walked into a club in my present naked state, I didn't think it egotistical of me to say I would have had no shortage of approving attention. But at the nudist resort my youth and attractiveness held no particular importance, no matter how naked I was. The folks there were so accustomed to nakedness, and so relaxed and comfortable about their own state of being, that there didn't seem to be any overt sexualisation of mine or anyone else's bodies during our time there.

But now, Todd had met Christina, and he'd managed to overcome the entire chilled-out, sexless atmosphere of the place to fall back into his typical manner of interaction with an attractive member of the opposite sex. He'd been on Christina from the moment she'd skipped her naked self into view and he was doing that here, where naughtiness, despite the constant nudity, was the last thing on most people's minds. That had finally opened my eyes to the fact that, if I was to list what I actually needed in a serious partner, the ability to control their need to undisguisedly eye-hump and blatantly flirt with every hot piece of ass he they met would be high up there.

I marched through the forest, giving little heed to my direction or the terrain, mentally listing all the wrongs Todd had done me. In a way, I think I was psyching myself up for what, I expected, would be a conversation on the car ride home that would lead to Todd and I no longer being a couple. I wasn't going to dump him purely because he'd come to a place like this -- a place where we had come specifically to be naked and enjoy one another's company -- and spent the entire time ignoring me in favour of a girl who had a better body than me. But that was the final straw, the icing on the cake, the icing on the straw, on top of a pile of other things that I'd previously written off and brushed aside, telling myself, he's a great guy, cut him some slack when, in truth, I now rather suspected I'd been a bit of a doormat the entire time.

--

At this point, if someone else was telling this story, they would draw attention to the fact that I didn't notice the missing fencing, the gap that I passed through without realising, and that that I remained unaware that the trail I was following had suddenly become a lot less well-trodden. That omniscient narrator would be able to explain exactly how I managed to leave the relatively anodyne grounds of the nudist resort, and enter the true wilderness beyond, where I went after that, and how it was that I came to be completely and hopelessly lost.

But there isn't one, so you'll just have to figure it out for yourselves, like I did later.

--

Realising I was lost in the woods was a gradual process.

At first, I thought I'd doubled back on myself. Where I stood, alone and naked under the vast and silent trees, seemed like somewhere I had been before, and I took that as a sign that I was on my way back to the resort proper. Having been walking for maybe forty minutes (I wasn't wearing a watch -- or anything -- so I had no idea of the actual time) I reasoned it was probably about the time to head back, and so I set off in the direction I thought the resort was.

Another fifteen or twenty minutes later, having passed by no familiar sights, I had to conclude that this wasn't the way to go after all. But I didn't feel worried yet. After all, the whole area of the resort wasn't exactly vast, if I walked around long enough, I was bound to get back to where I could at least see the buildings. So I changed direction and headed off to where I thought now I needed to go.

Another five or ten minutes or so and I began to suspect I might not be where I thought I was at all. Five minutes of now more hopeless wandering later, surrounded by apparently identical trees with no clear idea of the direction to head in, panic began to rise in me.

I was in a forest in a strange part of the state, where I had never been before.

I didn't even know exactly how long I'd been walking or how far away I was from where I needed to be.

I had no food and no water.

I had no suitable outdoor clothing.

I was in fact not wearing any clothes of any kind.

And now I was lost.

I clutched at hopes. I ran back along the way I had come, hoping to retrace my steps. When that didn't help I picked a direction at random, my leg muscles and bones jarring as I bounded over the uneven, unfamiliar terrain, telling myself the familiar sight of the resort would be just around the next corner or up the next bank, heart sinking each time it wasn't.

Eventually I realised that none of that was helping and, suddenly terrified and miserable, I sank down, sitting bare-assed on the loamy forest floor, and began to cry.

--

That didn't last long.

I'm not the sort of person who gives up that easily. Soon I was clearing the tears from my eyes with the back of my arm, getting to my feet and brushing myself clean.

I needed to take stock of my situation, I told myself. What did I have?

1) A forest. Big.Possibly vast. How far did the forest go? We'd driven up tree-lined highways for several dozen miles before we arrived at the gates of Sunny Rest, and there was no telling how much more forest lay beyond the resort's grounds. I had no idea what the local terrain was, whether there was water nearby, a river or creek or stream. I had no idea if there were cliffs or canyons. I didn't know what the native wildlife was. Were there bears in this forest? Cougars?Wolves?Bigfoot? I was clueless.

But, I told myself, the forest wasn't exposed. There were trees here, plants, wood. If I needed to, I could find or make some kind of shelter, however crappy or temporary that might be.

Still, it wasn't exactly reassuring. What else did I have?

2) Me. A twenty-five year old woman.Someone who has lived their whole life in towns and cities. Someone who, until today, had viewed the wilderness as something to be watched on television from afar, not experienced up close. Oh, I'd been fine with walking the well-kept, signposted trails at the resort, but now it was as if I'd broken through the side of my kiddie pool and found myself adrift in the open ocean. I was woefully under-prepared for this experience. I had no idea how to navigate in woods like these. I could barely see the sun and even if I could have, I wouldn't have known how to use it to find north or south or whatever. And even if I did know that, I didn't know which direction the resort lay in.