Katie was eating  breakfast.  Breakfast nowadays consisted of a glass of fruit-juice, a pot of China tea and two slices of wholemeal bread covered with a thin layer of low-fat spread.  (The pursuit of health and fitness can make life such a total unmitigated bore!  Give me eggs and bacon and sausages and lots and lots of coffee and cream any day - author)

Katie tried to assess the score, thus far, in her unasked for contest with Charlie Ford and his sinister cousin.

Chained to the ground  for five weeks  in a foreign police station.

Point to Charlie.

Photographed regularly over the entire period of captivity in order that every embarrassment might be recorded for posterity

Point to Charlie

Beaten to a pulp and satisfactorily humbled

Point to Katie

Duped into interviewing a phantom financier

Point to Charlie

Subjected to a day of servitude as a Pony Girl

Point to Charlie.

"Not a very good scoreline".thought Katie, and those five weeks - they probably counted for twenty points.  Revised score 23 - 1.

"Let's face it, my dear old thing,  you're not doing too well, are you?"

Katie sighed and absent mindedly scratched at an itch, thus reminding herself of the worst photo of all.  She had been tempted to have that one framed and displayed prominently on her sitting room wall! Perverse sense of humour!

There seemed nothing to do, other than wait for her tormentors' next move.  She had escaped the bogus Consul and the fat women pretty easily, but  next time - no way!  They would be smarting with anger at her easy escape.  It would be  a very black day indeed  for Katie when and  if she ever fell into their evil and merciless clutches again.

Katie had had the presence of mind to warn her fellow bathers that her failure to turn up on any weekday morning should be treated as suspicious so her disappearance would soon be noticed by her friends.  Her secretary had been given strict instructions to report her boss's failure to maintain regular contact, to the police, and these officers were still keeping an eye on her, though nothing like  around the clock surveillance. She had had security at her home stepped up with barred windows and new locks and alarms.  Her place was a veritable fortress.   Despite all these precautions, she knew that when her enemies struck,  it would be from an unexpected quarter  She extremely sure they would be too astute to try anything so obvious as a frontal attack.
 
December was now into its third week and the pond was becoming so cold that even the hardy Katie was forced to curtail the time she spent in it.  After fifteen minutes her fingers were screaming with the pain of it all.  Her feet seemed to tolerate it better, for some reason.  She had thought of wearing gloves in the way that  some of the other ladies did, but felt, somehow that this would be cheating.   Katie O'Brien wanted it to be just her own naked body interacting with the water.  Even the tiny bikini, which the lifeguards still eyed with immense disapproval, was a nuisance, and she looked forward so eagerly to her regular weekends at the coast where she could cast her naked, liberated body into the sea like some kind of quivering sacrifice feeling  an echo of that wild abandoned day back in November - only a few weeks ago, but another age, so much had happened to change her since that   magnificent experience.

Some how she still managed to walk from her car to the bathing pool dressed in the same unsuitable and unseasonal outfit, and she kept her feet unshod, but it was becoming  much more of an effort  and not very enjoyable either, merely a thing she needed to do to prove something to herself.  She no longer left the enclosure  dripping wet from the swim and shower.  She took a large towel with her every morning and she was tending to keep it draped over her shoulders before and after swimming, despite her deep reluctance to shelter  her skin from those  elements  of air and water with which she felt such an increasing and mystical affinity.

"I hope I'm not getting soft," she thought sadly.

She still kept the heating off in her  home,  which  she had not yet sold - prevarication is my middle name lately, she thought - and still remained naked whenever she was in it, even when visitors were there. Not that she got too many visitors.  They seemd to find the place  cold ! and always appeared embarrassed when in the presence of the unselfconsciously unclothed Katie.
 
She was not looking froward to Christmas and had not   for three years since the death of both her parents in a car crash.  Katie had been their only child and they had been such a close family, so wrapped up in each other that when her mother and father were taken from her, there was no  one  else to turn to. Her grandparents had all died and there were a few cousins in  New Zealand whom she had never seen and most likely never would.

She decided to book for Christmas Day and Boxing Day  in at that same hotel on the South Coast that she had been to in November   Part of   Christmas Day she intended to spend  on her favourite remote beach, naked for as much of that sacred day as she could bear and probably a bit longer!
 
ST THOMAS ' S DAY (21 DECEMBER)

Katie had just finished interviewing the newly appointed chairman of the country's largest bank and was preparing to stroll back to her paper - quite a hike, but she needed the exercise, when she spotted on the other side of the road, about to descend into the Bank Tube (Subway) Station one of the two fat ladies.

By the time that Katie had got to the station concourse, the fat lady was no more to be seen.  Seeing this  reminder of her day of Pony Girldom was enough to put her well and truly on her guard and she cancelled her plans to walk back to Docklands and caught a taxi instead.

So at least one of her enemies was here in the City, right on her professional stamping ground, where she might be seen by her any time!  For the first time since the Pony Girl episode Katie O'Brien felt frightened.  She was probably being watched  all day and even those very personal, private trips to the Swimming Pond and the various distant seaside beaches at weekends, were probably observed.

Well, be that as it may, her life was going on as planned. She wasn't going into purdah, becoming some kind of petrified hermit.  Let them make their move, whenever and whichever! She would be ready for them and give them something to be sorry for!

The following few days of  pre-Yuletide conviviality  in the City and Docklands were a trial for Katie.  She had to maintain all her financial contacts in the City and do the right thing at the office by her colleagues and it was adreary chore.   She bought her loyal secretary a bejewelled wristwach, which had the dear sweet girl in tears.  That was nice!  But the rest of the enforced jollity was a pain in her shapely butt.

OFF TO THE SEASIDE!

Christmas day dawned, a duller, and and milder day than of late.  Katie attended early morning Mass and returned to her hotel to don her by now familiar leisure wear.  As she slipped out to walk over the Downs to the beach, the two vinegary old ladies who had commented on her first foray with such disapproval, smiled and wished her a Merry Christmas, inviting Katie to join them for Dinner that evening.  They had decided that she was not a tart, after all -  just mad.  Madness, they could cope with.

Katie thanked them and accepted their invitation, promising that she would wear her best and smartest outfit for the occasion.

As soon as she reached that turf-covered cliff-side path which she had come to know so well, she gloried  once again in the way her naked,  hardened soles leapt off the ground with every step.  Still early on Christmas day, there was not a soul to be seen and she was nude for the rest of the walk to the beach. As mentioned, the temperature had risen in the last few days and it was appreciably milder than in November, when she had first embarked on that magical voyage of self discovery which had led her to glory in her lovely young body as never before.  Why had Adam and Eve ever got themselves thrown out of Eden?

CHRISTMAS ON THE BEACH.  KATIE MEETS  AN OLD ENEMY AND MAKES TWO NEW FRIENDS

The tide was out - way out when she got to this, her favourite beach.  An expanse of golden sand  stretched out to the distant sea and to left and  to right.  My Word, you could walk for miles in either direction this morning.  She cast her clothes  on the ground beside a large rock and dashed out to the inviting waves.  The air temperature might have risen, but the sea was as cold as  inNovember and maybe a degree or two colder, so she had to fight against the freezing pain to stay in the water for the kind of length of time she needed to satisfy her craving.   After 40 minutes, she came out and commenced to run as fast as she could far along the stretch of sand until she was warm again and  then rushed back into the water swimming for another  45 minutes.Then more running to get warm.  The tide was well on the turn after three hours of this and the area of sand was diminishing rapidly as the sea encroached. It was afternoon and she had better think about getting back to the hotel,as it would be becoming rather dark by half past three.

Back to the rock and her clothes.  She would carry them up the steps and as far back to the hotel as she could before putting them on.

"Leave those clothes alone Miss O'Brien, I think you need to spend a lot more time here before you go back."  And the bogus Consul stepped out from beihind the rock. "Merry Christmas, you pretty, but soon to be ugly, and disfigured  young lady!"

"No gun, today, you creep - you won't find me  so easy this time"

"Ah,yes, your Martial Arts skills. I know all about your profficiency at school and college but a bit rusty now, I don't doubt.   Let's test them out by all means.  It will be to my great pleasure and  your very considerable pain,  before I knock you out and leave you naked on the beach to spend a long cold night."

"Ok,  you bastard  if a fight is what you want you can have it!   I never wanted trouble with you or any one else.  I've never hated any one in my life or wished anybody harm until these last months and I suggest even now that we call this off . This is so utterly  stupid and unnecessary - to say nothing of it's being  blasphemy on this of all days"

"Very pretty speech my dear.  You robbed my best friend and cousin, Charlie Ford of  his self respect and career and then you cut his face, you vicious little bitch.  You are going to pay for that."

"Only when he threatened me with violence and what about those weeks chained up like that?  Don't you think I've got a few grievances of my own?   But as you wish, you evil,  twisted sod, but how that fat creep attracts such devotion from you and from his darling wife is beyond me - too much to ask you to remove your shoes before we fight?"

"Quite my dear young lady. And so let us to it!"

Katie knew early on, when her nose was broken by the man's first lighting-quick, well aimed, vicious kick that this guy would be no push-over.

"Got to take him a bit more seriously than old Charlie,"   she thought as she gathered herself together. No clever tricks with this chap. He's  damn good - still, so am I".

The first thirty minutes of this merciless fight were pretty well honours even.  Katie's nose might have been  broken in the first few seconds but she kept out of trouble from then on, and concentrated on defensive tactics, hoping to find an opening and land a few solid,  painful kicks or punches of her own.

She had one lucky shot in which the back of her foot made contact with his cheekbone and wiped the contemptuous, mocking smile off his face for a few moments before it reappeared.  But for the  rest  it was  mainly a matter of keeping out of trouble and hoping to tire him out.  Fighting on shingle was a drawback for both combatants - Katie had her problems and the guy certainly seemed to be having his.  Her bare feet seemed to find it easier  than his shod ones, despite the constant pain of the sharp stones as she wheeled and spun and manoeuvred her way time and time again out of trouble.  He had great difficulty aiming his kicks and most were well wide of the mark.  It was chiefly  a matter of punching and chopping.

The second half hour saw a slow but irreversible turning of the tide, with the man gradually establishing his ascendancy over his nude, barefoot, female opponent, over whom he towered by a good three inches.

Katie had fought many times before, always against other girls, always with some cushioning to her breasts and always under strict rules and supervision.   This kind of unprotected total combat was a new experience for her and very painful one.

She warded off successfully five  kicks  and blows aimed at her vagina and was mainly successful at deflecting two others.  An eighth landed straight on target and she somehow kept on going through the slicing, sickening pain of it.   She paid particular attention to the defence of this vulnerable area from then on, and this, together with her head, was her chief if not her only, concern from thenceforth.  The rest of her body was on its own and would have, in the main,  to take whatever knocks were directed at it.  Quite a few hard knocks were directed, and she began to be covered by cuts and bruises.  Her shins seemed to be coming in for particular attention and although she could keep on the move and avoid any direct, full on,  hits they were soon becoming bruised and cut.  Was there any part of her that was NOT being bruised and cut?  Not very sporting of him to keep those shoes on, they were really giving her a lot of grief.  All she had to retaliate with were her bare feet. Ok so they were pretty tough by now, but she had no hobnails on the soles of her feet or iron tips to her toes as this man had on his shoes. And was he using them to great effect.

Into the second hour and she realised that she really was was being truly and terribly beaten.  The man was playing with her, laying on more and more kicks and punches, pretty well at will -showing her that he could finish her off any time he chose.  But he did not choose to deliver the by now longed for "coup de grace",  just yet.    She knew with a sick  and fearful apprehension in the pit of her stomach, that she had a very great deal of pain ahead of her before this sadistic, vengeful maniac decided that her punishment was over.   As her body became just one enormous bruise and the blows came down and down onto her in a remorseless tattoo, she started to pray for that welcome knockout blow that would end this misery.

Thirty more  minutes of agony went by and Katie was almost out on her feet.  At one point she stumbled and fell heavily on the shingle, the man somehow  reeling of in the other direction.  There was enough distance between them for her to attempt to run for the steps and maybe escape, hiding in the woods above.

"No!" she thought, "This has got to be settled today one way or another.  It might not be settled my way - certainly won't,  bar a miracle, but let's just get it over with.   After all it's not over till the fat lady sings."   So the grimly and fatalistically courageous Katie  faced up to her near  victorious adversary once more and braced herself to endure more ferocious punishment, which was not long in coming.
 
COULD THERE STILL BE HOPE FOR KATIE?  READ ON!!

Through the  pain she was aware that her opponent was getting rather careless.  He had left himself open several times to a punishing riposte from Katie had she only had the strength to take advantage.  He was  increasingly  and arrogantly careless. He had written her off as a serious contender.

A terrible fusillade of blows left her standing before him, defenceless,  and her poor bruised arms could scarcely raise themselves high enough to protect her battered and bleeding face.  Blood poured out of her mouth and nose and from so many cuts all over her body. There he was, standing grinning before her,  ready to finish it all and leave her unconscious on the beach.  Oh come on, you bastard!  get it over with, can't you see I'm finished?

The feeble strength which was all that remained to her was ebbing away and she was almost ready to collapse from exhaustion, even without the longed  for, prayed for, merciful KO.

He then dropped his arms to his sides and paused to get his breath back, readying himself as she supposed, for the final bone breaking blows that would leave her, a delightful girl,  who had never knowingly wronged another human being in her whole life, and had never even met this guy until his participation in his cousin's mad vendetta, lying senseless on the beach before him.  His arms stayed down.

"This should be my chance", thought poor half-dead Katie,  "Hell, this IS my chance"

Never, throughout the remainder of a long, happy and useful life, did Katie work out how she had found the strength to do what she did then!

It was as though power was rising up from the ground and passing up through the soles of her tortured feet, being absorbed through her lacerated skin and infusing itself into every weary muscle.

The lightning moves which had reduced Charlie Ford to a pathetic gibbering wreck were the slowest of slow motion compared to what followed on this darkening Christmas afternoon.

She pirouetted on one bruised and bleeding leg and brought its equally damaged, but still shapely partner around in a massive kick which drove her foot straight up under his jaw.

The bogus Consul seemd to rise up from the ground and fall backwards, hitting his head on a large pebble. He lay there on the beach.  He was very, very still.

Katie stood over him and all the pain seemed to drain out of her, leaving her triumphant and happy.  She had evened up the score a bit - that was for sure!

She stroked her butterfly tattoo and winced  (was there no part of her that did not hurt?)  "Well, my dear old butterfly, we did OK didnt we?  But what a way to spend Christmas!!"

With a little concern she knelt down beside the fallen foe and felt his wrist.  A good strong pulse.  She pulled one of his eyelids down and was pleased with what she saw.  He'd be coming round soon!  Then she would do to HIS face what he had done to hers!!

He started to moan and opened his eyes.

"See this!!"  she screamed, pointing at her bloody face.  "Well you're going to look even worse in a few minutes" and she proceeded to kick at him unmercifully until a hand fell onto her shoulder.

"That's quite enough of that young lady.  You won.  Don't kick him when he's down!"

Katie wheeled around, her hands raised at the ready, and found herself looking at a young man and a dog.  They had obviously walked up on them while Katie had been too busy with her frenzy of revenge to hear him.

"You did really well dear.  Best fight I've ever seen - and I mean the VERY  best.  Ninety four minutes of the rarest joy to watch. Wasn't it Bozo?"  And the dog wagged its tail enthusiastically.

"Don't spoil it by being so bloody unsporting,and I'm John,by the way"

Katie's mind was a whirl of conflicting emotions and she did not know which of  many questions to ask first.

Finally. "I'm Katie.   You mean you saw it all and did NOTHING to help me?"

"Not my quarrel , old girl and any way  you didn't need any help. You had the edge on him all the way through, except for letting him break your nose at the beginning.  My God, but that was bloody careless - you just DON'T EVER MAKE silly mistakes like  that you daft bitch! - don't expect any sympathy from me!!   - you bloody deserved it!  Rest of the time, though, you were absolutely brilliant.  Took such guts to let him wear himself out on you like that, but it worked. He was played out  and exhausted and then you struck.  Bloody marvellous!!"

Katie tried a smile, despite the pain, "Thanks,but  it didn't feel that easy to me! But I agree about the nose.  My silly fault.  Not the first time,either I got it broken by being careless"

"Oh, you had it pretty rough for a while, but you were in no danger - believe me - I KNOW! He was pretty good and better technically than you - much better, but you had youth on your side. Twenty years ago he would have slaughtered you, but not now - he's all played out"

"Like his cousin poor old Charlie Ford", thought Katie.

"When was the other time you did that pretty little nose in?"

"It feels anything but pretty, right now!  Ten times its proper size!  It was against another girl in the gym at college.  The ref stopped the fight"

"So you lost that one, then!"

"No. Not really.  We both wanted very much to carry on so we adjourned to the car park to finish it there, and I went on to knock the shit out of her!  Took me a good hour to get her to call it a day, and we'd gathered a very appreciative crowd, by the time we finished. We're still the best of friends, but she took up Badminton after that!!"

"Do you walk your dog here a lot",  she continued.

"Yes, I live pretty near and I love this spot, especially in the Summer.  My wife and three young daughters and I come here whenever we can. It's so good as a family to get used to being naked and not embarrassed, I really believe in it.   No doubt you'll be joining us. I hope!. I love it here in the summer, but I could never do in the winter what you seem to do every other week!"

"You've seen me here before?"

"Yip. Early in November I was up there anf we both saw you" he pointed up to the cliffs. "Didn't we Bozo"  The dog wagged its tail again and sidled up to Katie, licking some of the blood and sweat from a cut on her right leg.  She patted the animal  (A sort of Border Collie) and smiled at her two new friends.

"I had a pair of binoculars - I observe wildlife      - a bit more wildlife than I had bargained for that day!.  Sorry to have been so backward in making myself known to you, but you looked somehow as if you wanted solitude, so I let you enjoy yourself and kept well away. You seemed   to be so much part of the earth and sea and air that watching you was almost a sacred experience!"

"Oh get away with you", laughed the rapidly recovering Katie. "Don't talk such rubbish!, I'm just an ordinary girl, but one who's been through an awful lot and got herself pretty mixed up as a result.  But I'm not sacred - what crap!! And now I've a dinner appointment in the town - must go. Coming?"

And so they left the bogus Consul recovering from his unexpected beating and strolled towards and up the steps. Katie, holding her clothes in her hand, still naked in the late December afternon, explaining her story to her new friend - her two new friends.

She had pretty well finished when they got to the top of the steps.

"I've an apology, Katie. I really should have let you kick his face to pulp, and I'd have lent you a hand if I'd known what you've just told me. No wonder you were mad as Hell!"

"Don't be sorry, you were so right and I'd have never forgiven myself if I'd given in to such rage. I'm glad you came along and also happy to have put on such a good show for you!"

"You certainly did that"

He made to go up towards the car park. "Can I give you a lift to your hotel?"

"I promised myself I would walk back and I keep my promises.  Don't fret I know the way pretty well!"

"OK, but take this" and he fished into his pocket and pulled out a slim nightlight. "I'd feel better I you had this. Let's just take a look at that nice little nose of yours"He pronounced himself satisfied with his scrutiny. "It'll be fine - don't fret.  Seen a lot worse than that."

"I don't mind if it shows a bit, I think I've earned the right to feel proud of the odd battle-scar!  See you in the summer, then, John. Bye Bozo"

And so she said goodbye to her two  new friends wondering how she could possibly make herself presentable for dinner.

She found the darkness eerie and began very nuch to regret not taking Johnup on his offer.

BACK AT THE HOTEL

She was able to remain nude, despite the plummeting temperatures until she reached the steps leading down to the Old Town.

When she went up to the desk to ask for her key,  the desk clerk who had thought himself pretty accustomed to this strange girl by this time, gazed goggle eyed at her.

"You OK, Miss"

"What does it look like", she grinned and went up to her room to see what kind of a repair job she could do on herself before Dinner.

It seemed to Katie that no power on Earth could stop her looking a total and absolute fright.
 

To be continued
 

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