Chapter 3: point of no return
Of course, it was Kevin who had to ruin everything.
Not intentionally of course, he's not an asshole or anything like that. It's just the nature of rambling that casual conversations tend to meander around during breaks in the workday.
It had been a month since Sara's first naked grocery shopping trip, and no social fallout had occurred. After the first few days her mental state went back to normal, and a few days after that her mind began to wander further than the normality before.
Rather quickly she ditched wearing clothing at home, and for running short errands during nighttime. Reactions from those who saw her varied, though never with any negative consequences. Most of the [admittedly few] delivery guys were merely bemused, and the employees at the various stores and other places reacted in various shades of 'not giving a damn'. Normal enough behaviors, as if she's just another average person of little note.
After the first few times the intensity of the sexual arousal from public nudity quickly subsided as the novelty wore off, along with the now knowledge that there aren't going to be any real social or legal consequences. In its place was a feeling of... being cut loose. A sort of regression towards simpler times. The much smaller need to do laundry was just a side bonus.
And then that conversation had to happen.
She doesn't even remember how the conversation began, her recollections started with them discussing the bystander effect, and moving on to the adventures of Florida man and woman.
It was then that Kevin dropped the bombshell.
"Most people are really just the type to go with the flow, not rock the boat." He pointed out. "It's someone else's problem, and maybe nobody's if or when it just goes away."
"What do you mean by that?" Sara asked for clarification. Kevin shrugged.
"It takes effort to interfere with the weird, and people are lazy. Not to mention overly concerned with their own little worlds." He explained. Sara began to get concerned, as she began to see the events of her past escapades in a different light.
"Just curious, if you were to witness, say, someone streaking out and about, what would you do?" She asked, grasping for something, anything, to shore up her now rather wobbling view of reality.
"How would I react?" Kevin was caught slightly off guard by the directness of the question. "I don't know, probably nothing." He shrugged. "Look a bit and go about my way."
It was not the answer Sara had hoped for nor expected.
"Would there be anything that would get you to react? She prodded on, wanting to get at least something to anchor on to gauge things. Kevin shrugged again, though his eyes betrayed the fact that he was actually putting some thought into the question.
"Probably something that would actually affect my life for more than five seconds. Otherwise I'll just wait it out, like with everything else. I mean, that's not saying I'm just gonna roll over and-" he shook his head, "this conversation is getting weird."
"Yep. Agreed." Sara nodded, who had secretly hoped for the conversation to end a bit before. As Kevin headed off back to his cubicle she briefly wondered if her own thoughts might have influenced his decision before shoving it back aside.
All these half hearted measures aren't getting anywhere. She has to find something she could trust. Her past and future depends on it.
------
Should I do such a thing? Could I? Sara thought to herself as she lay naked in her bed, with a hand idly massaging her clit and a sheen of sweat from the mugginess of the room. It was around two in the morning on Saturday. The weekend having finally arrived, all of her fatigue, worries, and other problems that she could not afford to happen at work crashed upon her, and though she headed off to bed at an unusually early time for a Friday, yet sleep eluded her.
It's all so maddening, this back and forth of doubt. Every time that she felt she had a good grasp of the situation something came in and yanked that away, all the while leaving behind a trail of potentially regrettable acts. Worse is that she couldn't just discuss this with her friends or acquaintances. Talking about mind control, on social media or otherwise, just wasn't something that anyone else would take seriously.
With no resolution in sight, and sleep being ever farther away, she got out of bed and shuffled her way towards the door with the intention of taking a stroll outside, hoping the fresh air and free range of the outdoors would bring more clarity.
As her hand grasped on the doorknob she hesitated, the thought of putting something on floated to the front of her mind for the first time outside of work in a while. The moment passed in a flash and she decided against it, merely putting on a pair of flip flops as the now usual.
As it happens the outside wasn't much better, the stifling heat and the mugginess remained. The streets were quiet though, with only the sounds of AC and other machinery that is the pulse of human habitation. It's still the outside though, which means places to wander around.
And wander around Sara did, walking aimlessly through the mostly empty sidewalks, not even flinching whenever a vehicle drove by. Similarly, the few pedestrians who were out and about managed to catch quite an eyeful of the pretty young naked lady casually strolling through the night, an almost ghostly figure seemed lost in her own world.
And she was lost in her own world as the conflicting thoughts continued circling endlessly inside her mind, dragging even more tangents along for the chase. It was no longer merely a debate as to the existence of some ill defined supernatural force, but a questioning on what she wanted in life.
It was true, her life had up to this point been very smooth sailing, as far as anything concerning interaction with other people. Yet it wasn't all just she getting her way, Sara had always tried her best to adhere to the established social norms. It was one of the reasons she never had seriously questioned her endless streak of convenient good luck. It was natural, logical even: Do the required things, act the expected ways, and receive the expected results.
But there was something missing. Actually quite a lot missing. It was confining, limiting, worrying. Always the nagging, unspecific fear of accidental yet unforgivable transgressions, of life defining faux pas. And for what? For something that, when all goes well, meant nothing. All that effort and sacrifice just for the privilege of a lack of consequences. Consequences that seem to have little relevance in the grand scheme of things. If the conversation is to be believed.
If. If. But Kevin certainly didn't see much of a big deal in the antics of Florida man and woman, and that perception, the perception of others. That is the basis of that nothing.
"Hey girl, you alright there?" A female voice called out through the night, shaking Sara out of her haze of internal debate. She looked around, realizing that she had wandered into a suburban neighborhood. Not exactly that impressive a feat as the town's so small that a suburban or even rural area is never farther than two streets away. Then she saw her: a middle aged woman walking her dog, looking at her with a bemused expression more than anything else.
"Oh, um. Yeah. I'm fine." Sara replied, in a rather unconvincing voice, her hands twitched slightly before falling to the side, the last remnants of what was her nominal instincts of modesty. "Was trying to clear my mind with a little stroll."
"Is that so?" The woman asked, not exactly believing her completely, though what part she doesn't believe Sara could not tell: mind controlling powers or not, at no point could she ever actually read anyone's mind.
"Yeah, yeah." Sara said, sticking to her story. It's all true, there's no lie, and there's certainly nothing out of place with her nudity.
"Well in that case you should be careful." The woman replied, going along with the assurance at face value. "Someone said some racoons pilfered through the trashcan last week."
"Oh. Um, thanks. Got it." Sara stammered, caught off guard by the out of nowhere wild animal warning, but grateful for the seemingly change of focus. The doubts first put in place by that conversation at work those days ago made it impossible to figure out.
"Well, I got to get going." The woman smiled as she turned away, tugging at her dog, who was surprisingly docile during the entire bizarre exchange. Sara watched them for a bit as they slowly disappeared from view. At what seemed at the time clarity finally floated to the surface of her mind, and in her sleepy and somewhat tired state, it seemed good enough a conclusion.
