[Author's note: Asterisks signify where I would have liked to put italics. As a warning, this story contains cheating, reluctance, and bad behavior, and isn't really a feel-good story, though not as heavy as others on here. While age differences are emphasized, all characters are 18 or older. This is my first story on here, so please be gentle.]
I'm Linda, and I live in an intentional community, or commune. The housing development, or campus as we call it, is set off several miles from a main road and we're surrounded by woods. There are a few hundred people living here, making it essentially a small town.
The idea behind the community is building a sustainable lifestyle. We grow and make a lot of our own food. Picture stockrooms full of pickled vegetables and other preservable foods as well community gardens. Our goal is a self-sufficient community. We just kind of live off the land and pay taxes and bills through the community leader, but he isn't really in charge, just is another member of the community. The point is, we don't leave the community much, so it can be rather boring, which is, I think, at the root of what happened.
I'm in my late thirties, I have long, curly light brown hair. I am very tan from working in the community garden all the time and I find I keep it, at least somewhat, all year round. I'm 5'6 and I am in decent shape but I kind of have a large butt and thick legs. My breast cup size is E. I am married with kids.
Me and my husband came to the community when we were very young, looking for a sense of community and for a way of life more in line with our ideals. We are very happy here and love the lifestyle...however the past few years, as I mentioned, I find it can be rather boring. After a while it feels like everyone talks about the same thing, and the DVDs in the little library we have starts to get stale.
So, one day me and my friend Melissa went for a hike. We wore khaki shorts and tank tops and sneakers and were on the trail. About fifteen minutes in, we reached a part of the path where a smaller path sort of veers off in another direction.
"Remember that hill?" Melissa asks with a grin.
I grin back. "Yeah, sounds like a bad idea." That was the lake where me, her, and a couple of our friends went skinny dipping in a few times when we had first moved into the community. Just a few friends lounging around, swimming, having beers and a good time. Days when we used to actually do things.
"Want to go?"
I rolled my eyes. "We're too old for that kind of thing, Mel."
She rolled her eyes right back. "Are we? Come on, it will be fun to do something wild for once, GOD, Linda, I'm so bored."
"What if someone walked by?"
"What if they did?! What're they gonna do, kick us out of the community? Come on! Everyone is at school or watching Law and Order right now, no one is going to go out hiking in this particular spot, sheesh!"
She had a point. Hiking was a thing but the community was small and I felt fairly certain of where everyone was at right now. And this lake is a few miles away from camp...as crazy as it seems it did feel unlikely anyone would come see us...and it probably would let off a bit of steam to do.
"Okay, let's do it." I say.
It was a good hike to the lake. We climbed through the dirt path that wasn't really a path at a lot of points and worked up a sweat.
"I feel like I am starting to feel my age, Mel." I said, wiping some sweat from my brow.
She smirked. "You're a granny."
I rolled my eyes at her, since she is a year older than me. "Not for a bit yet, god willing."
Mel is a bit taller than me, a redhead, boobs a little smaller at C cups. She has a more athletic look than I do, blonde hair, and a few tattoos. I appreciated her tone legs as we walked. She is in better shape than me, I thought, with chagrin.
We finally reached the lake and I was feeling gross and sweaty. That's when a bit of anxiety kicked in. I had a big lump in my throat and I looked at Melissa. "Um...are we seriously going to do this?" I asked. I could tell in her eyes that she was a bit nervous too but she put in a brave face and nodded. "Yep!"
She began to strip down awkwardly, kicking off her shoes and socks first, then pulling off her tank top in a rough manner, then pushing down her brown shorts until she was in her underwear and then I saw her take a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, as she undid her bra, her breasts falling out. She then quickly pushed her panties down and there she was in her naked glory. She did a quick "viola!" gesture, spreading her arms with her palms facing the sky and a sardonic smile before running and jumping into the lake.
"Ahhhhhhh!" she screamed. "Are you okay!" I asked, going into mom-mode.
"I'm fine!" she said in a somewhat shrill voice. "It's just a bit c-c-cold!"
I looked at her hesitantly, clearly shivering. "It's fine....h-hey, I jumped in, you better!"
I took a deep breath. "I'm not in quite as good shape as you." I felt my face getting red.
"OH GOD, Linda, who cares? We're just too friends relaxing, nothing to feel self-conscious about, there aren't any guys here to impress! I'm sure I have a ton of wrinkles on display right now."
I didn't see any but I appreciated that she was trying to make me feel better in her tense, I'm-also-nervous-about-this way.
I started to undress as well, and she looked away as I did, which I also appreciated. When I was stark naked, I took another deep breath.
"JUST DO IT!" She yelled, still looking away. So I did.
And then I screamed too. "FFFFFUCK that's cold!" I cried out.
She laughed still shivering. "We'll get used to it!"
After shivering and squeaking for a few minutes, we DID get used to it and started swimming around. And it was actually really...exhilarating. I had not had a good swim in a while and it felt good to use those muscles again...but also it felt so intense in the wilderness, feeling like we were alone here.
After a few minutes we got out of the lake and laid on rock that was in the shade off to the side to dry off. "That was kinda fun. Probably should be a one-time thing." I said. Mel smiled. "Of course."
But next week, we did it again. then the following week. And the next one. We would undress, swim for ten or 15 minutes then sit on the rock and chat. We started to bring towels each time when went on our hikes. Me and Melissa started hanging out more. We'd often sit near each other during community dinner, which happened twice a week, and our husbands would chat about sports while we talked about books we were reading or other things, and then we would steal away and gossip, which is...technically against the community rules (gotta keep up a good rapport with everyone in the community!), but we were having fun. One day, we were talking shit about Jessica, one of the women we gardened with and something came up.
"Hey...do you feel like some of the younger guys have been different lately?" Mel asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked, kinda knowing what she meant wanted to hear her out first.
"I feel like they *look* more." Okay, I definitely knew what she was talking about.
"I know what you mean. A bunch of them have turned 18 recently. I hope they aren't looking for dates." We both laughed at that.
"It's crazy to think I used to watch them when they were kids. Remember when Jason was like, 5, and obsessed with tickling everyone?" I asked.
"Yeah, it was cute then, would be weird now, haha."
"Seriously though, I think his mom has to keep an eye on him, he's making eyes on all the girls in the community like a little puppy dog."
"Lock up your daughters! Mine thinks he's cute."
"Really? Hard to think of him that way, he's like a nephew to me." I said, though I guess the way I said it was clear I wasn't being completely truthful. Mel shot me a devious look and I snorted and we both laughed.
"Okay, he's kind of cute." I admitted. And we changed the subject awkwardly.
We kept up our ritual, skipping some weeks but more or less every week or two we were at the lake. "Should I be worried?" My husband would ask, seeing me and Mel spending more time together.
"Absolutely!" I would respond brightly and we would both laugh. Me and my husband kept a good and cordial relationship throughout our marriage. He was always a good, dependable guy and I never had any reason to complain. Lately, of course, as we got older, our sex life has decreased somewhat, but that's okay, that's what masturbation is for, right? I was happy with that.
One day, as I was doing garden work, I saw Jay staring at me. He was really burning holes in me. I was bent over digging out a rock that was in my way and he was staring to the point of making me uncomfortable. No one else was quite in earshot so I stopped what I was doing and walked to him quietly and said. "What's going on Jay?" Trying to come off both somewhat serious but also not too harsh, like maybe I was just asking him casually.
"Nothing much." he said, grinning. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me with the grin or genuinely innocently didn't know what he was doing was wrong. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
"Can you do me a favor, sweetie?" I asked lightly. He seemed to genuinely get exited at that and said, "Yeah, for sure!"
"Can you just focus on your work and not on mine? It's a little bit distracting."
"Oh, okay," he said, obviously disappointed and embarrassed, blushing a little. I couldn't help but feel a little bad though, so that when he stole more looks and glances as the day went on, I just ignored them and was happy he wasn't being too obvious about it anymore.
About a month later, as me and Melissa were drying ourselves on a couple of towels, we were chatting and having a smoke (she had gone to town to score some weed for us) we suddenly realized we weren't alone.
"Who's there?!" I yelled shrilly as we both frantically covered ourselves with our towels. Our minds racing, not sure whether to assume the worse, some psycho had stumbled upon us to murder us or something or...
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" I screamed, seeing a familiar shape dart out of the bushes, and stumbling to the ground in a rush to escape. "JAY?!?" I yelled ferociously. He stopped in his tracks.
I bit my lip, and took a deep breath. "Come...here." I said, loudly and firmly. I didn't want to have to scream at him. I poured all my authority as a mom and his former babysitter into those two words. Thankfully, he walked back, his eyes face down, burning a hole into the ground as he walked.
I looked at Mel. She looked back. Our anger and fury mirrored back at each other. I looked at him.
"Just what do you think you're doing, young man?" I said in an accusatory tone. "What on Earth did you think you were doing?!"I said in a shrill tone.
"I, I dunno." he said, staring at the ground, stupidly.
"I think you *do* know" I insisted.
"I, I'm really sorry." He said.
I almost felt a little bad now. He looked kind of pathetic, face down, skin brown from working out in the yard with us for year, nice strong looking young man. His dark brown hair a mess, a few scrapes from when he was scampering out of the bushes...and a bulge in his pants he could not hide. Seeing it made me a little uncomfortable but I could not let him know that.
"Listen to me very carefully Jay. I want to the truth. Was this the first time?"
He nodded. I looked at Melissa again. His face was still staring at the ground, or possibly his own bulge, I wasn't sure. She looked incredulous.
"Jay...I said the truth. Or I will tell your parents. He looked up moment and said, "No, please don't..."
"Then the truth."
"I...I did come out here a few times before to watch you guys," he said, his eyes sinking again.
So yes, he didn't accidentally just walk by and it was *at least* a few times.
On the one hand, I felt very vulnerable. I was completely naked with just a towel between my body and the open air and Jay to see. But seeing him looking down and embarrassed...and clearly extremely aroused...I felt kind of powerful.
"Jay...look up at me." I said softly. He did, slowly. "I don't want you spying us again...do you understand?"
