Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. ï>¿Anna the actress, part 1 & 2 by not a politician "I really don't know why he's so keen on this," Anna muttered as she entered her apartment, half to herself and half to her two flatmates, who like her were visiting an actor's school, but were a year higher. "I mean, I'd never do anything like this anyway. But no, *he* thinks an actress should be able to play everything..." "You know," replied Tangie, "we'd be able to understand this better if you would not limit yourself to vague references." "All right," Anna sighed, "It's about Mr. Taylor's stage performance class. He insists we do some - any - nude scenes, and I just know I'm going to play in movies and will never do nude scenes. But he insists, saying something about how a real actress can't afford to be embarrassed by her costume, and that I'll eventually do some skimpily dressed role, and will have to learn to deal with it. But nude! That's different entirely!" She almost shouted those last two sentences, making it clear she was not at all convinced by his reasoning. "Well... he is right, you know," Whitney began in a diplomatic tone. "You never know what you'll end up playing, And no movie genre with any degree of cashbox orientation is without some sexual teasing, they all go as far as the script and the government allows." "Yes but... skimpy and teasing is one thing, but full nudity..." Anna began to defend herself. "...is just that few square inches of cloth less, in some cases. Besides, if you're not in a full-fledged pornographic film, your body will be hidden to some degree, no close-ups of aroused sexual organs or anything like that", Whitney cut her off. "Yes, but I'd still be naked on set", Anna said, some shock and resignation audible in her voice, and for the first time, she wondered whether this was the right career for her. "It sounds like you really have a problem about being naked", Tangie interjected. "That's not good at all. You'll never be a good actress if you're not comfortable with your body." After a slight pause to let that think in, she decided to change tactics and added: "Besides, it doesn't look as if you have anything to hide..." "Yes, but I'd be *naked*", replied Anna, desperate to impress upon the more experienced actresses the solitary importance of that particular state. "And that's where you're wrong", Whitney calmly explained. "I wouldn't be naked?" Anna silently wondered, but before she could base an argument on such fine points of grammar, Whitney had already made clear her meaning: "As an actress, your body is your tool, and so are your costumes. Nudity is in no way fundamentally different than any other costume the director and author consider suitable for the scene. If you fail to realise this, you'll be a worse actress for it." Anna had to think about this several moments, then she admitted defeat: "Fine, I guess you're right, but I still don't think I'd be able to do it." "Ah, but that's where practise makes perfect", Tangie said with a smile. "And don't worry, we'll help you." After a moment's pause, she seemed to have an idea: "Why don't we start right now?" Anna stood motionless, perhaps waiting for further explanation, but slowly, she realized the full meaning of Tangie's last statement. "You mean... get naked? Right here??" "Well, I meant undressing in your room and then returning here, but now that I think about it, there's no reason why you shouldn't undress here." Anna looked at her flatmates in turns, finally deciding no reprieve would come from either one. She turned away from them, and began undressing. Stepping out of her sensible shoes, Anna placed her socked feet on the hardwood floor. Next, she tugged her stylishly cut, expensive white blouse out of her trousers (pants for U.S. readers) and unbuttoned it slowly, still half-hoping the whole thing would be called off. No such thing happened, however, and with an uneasy feeling in her stomach, she opened the lowest button, sliding the blouse off and bend to place it neatly on the floor. Underneath the blouse, she revealed some sort of camisole, a garment she wore to extinguish any possibility of her bra being seen through the white blouse. This item went next. Then, she removed the trousers, raising each leg to move it out, then placing the socked foot back on the ground. After rising from folding the trousers neatly on top of the growing pile of clothes, Anna then raised each leg in turn again, removing her ankle socks, which then were neatly placed on the pile, too. As she put her feet back on the floor, she felt the wood under her naked soles, reminding her of her increasing nakedness. Now wearing nothing more than her matching plain white bra and panties, Anna gathered all her resolve and removed the former, reaching behind herself to open the clasp. She did not place it on top of the pile, instead placing it in the middle, hiding it from view. She stood up again, putting her hands on her panties, trying to gather the courage to pull them down. This took a while. So long, in fact, that Tangie and Whitney admonished her that she wasn't done yet. Blushing when being reprimanded, Anna quickly shoved the panties down, then raised her legs to completely remove them. Putting her bare feet down on the wood of the floor again, she felt even more naked than when she did this the first time, still wearing her panties. She bend down one last time to place her panties under the pile that now contained everything she had been wearing. As she did so, she heard the others giggling behind her back, and briefly wondered why. She wanted to turn around and face her fate, but again, she was commanded to do so before she had enough courage to do it on her own. "You do realise we could see your pussy from behind when you bent down to put away your panties," Tangie informed her. Anna blushed fiercely at this new information. Tangie and Whitney now beckoned Anna to come over to them, where she had to slowly turn in a full circle to be properly viewed. She was never so ashamed in all her previous life, but did it, slowly accepting that this was going to happen, and that it would be easier and faster if she cooperated. "Can I get dressed now?" she asked when she felt that the inspection was over. "You still look ill at ease with your nudity, you should stay naked a bit longer," Whitney replied. And so Anna had to stay naked as they girls watched their favourite TV series and then had a chat about trivia, acting, gossip and whatever else happened to come up. She was too ashamed about her nudity at first, not really able to concentrate on TV or participate much in the early stages of the friendly chat, but eventually she grew more accustomed to being naked, and was able to behave like she usually did. When it was the girl's usual bedtime, Tangie and Whitney questioned Anna on her subjective experience during the evening, and asked whether she thought she had made some progress. "Well, I was very ashamed at first, and inhibited, but I got used to it eventually. Now that I'm over it for the day, it's in some way even more comfortable than clothes." Anna didn't add, although she could have truthfully done so, that in retrospect, overcoming her shame had felt good somehow. Maybe the proper word could even be... erotic? Before Anna could ponder this realisation further, Whitney was already pumping her for more information: "You said you were over it "for the day", does that mean you would always need a long time to get used to it?" "I dunno, I think I would..." "Then would you like us to help you to get used to being naked, maybe even devise some sort of program for it?" Tangie offered. "Yes, I think that would be a good idea." Anna surprised herself with the speed of her reply, and the conviction with which it was spoken. They went to bed, and on a suggestion from Tangie, Anna slept in the nude, which was not her habit. When she woke up the next morning, she found that she was reluctant to just leave the room naked. The break of a night's sleep and the relative safety of her room had re-erected a barrier between herself and exposure, and as she had predicted the evening before, she now would need to start overcoming her reluctance again. However, when she opened her wardrobe to get dressed for the way to the bathroom, she found it to be empty. After carefully peeking out the door and dashing to the bathroom when she found the way clear, she also realized the bathroom door no longer had a key in it. Checking back in her room, she found that key missing, too. Gathering her resolve, she marched to the kitchen, where she correctly expected her flatmates to sit at breakfast. It was an odd feeling to sit naked at the breakfast table with her flatmates, who were already fully clothed for the day. Shame mixed with the resolve to bear the situation and anticipation of having overcome the shame. "You will by now have noticed we took your clothes, and all keys for doors within the apartment," Tangie spoke. "This is to eliminate the possibility of hiding places that you will have to consciously decide to leave to make your nudity "effective", for lack of a better word." "In short, we don't want you to lock yourself into your bedroom or the bathroom all day." "We will of course obey such common decencies as knocking. And we removed our own room keys as well, just to show we're still all on equal ground." Whitney made a slight pause before continuing: "The thing is, we have decided that until you are able to perform equally well naked or clothed, you will always be naked in this apartment." "You will remain naked no matter who enters, and always be the one to open the door, which of course you'll do naked, as well." "That's subject to a peek through the door spy, of course. Safety comes first, after all." "But you'll be naked for most visitors, that much is sure," Tangie hastened to stress once more. Anna looked at them with big eyes. She had listened to her friends' plan with reasonable comportment up to the point where Tangie had stated that she'd be naked for almost everyone who entered the apartment. What had she gotten herself into? Before Anna had time to get used to the magnitude of what had just been revealed to her, the doorbell rang. At first she believed, wanted to believe, that her over-active mind had played a trick on her, but the expectant looks from Tangie and Whitney could only mean that the doorbell had really rung, and they wanted her to open the door, utterly naked as she was, and reveal all her previously private, almost taboo, nudity to whomever was out there. In something that might be described as a kind of trance, Anna padded to the door on her bare feet, reached for the handle, and opened the door, completely forgetting to check to door spy, a fact that never even registered to her. Upon doing this, the sight of a man only slightly older than her quickly ended the unreal feeling, and shame returned with full force. Anna froze completely. "I just moved next door yesterday. Could I borrow some corn flakes?" the man had begun to say almost as soon as the door started opening. He had said borrow, but had he been honest with himself, he would have had to admit he never would have bothered to return them. However, his mind was already thinking along the lines of returning the flakes being another opportunity to see Anna naked. "Well, ask him in and give him the flakes", Tangie said from the doorframe of the kitchen, where she had moved right after Anna set off for the door, to see what would unfold there. Blushing beet red, Anna somehow managed to start moving, heading for the corn flakes package in the kitchen. She handed it to the man, who had followed her all the way, taking Tangie's words as his invitation; it was his only chance of getting one as Anna's shame was at that moment to big to allow her to speak to him, even if it was only to re-utter Tangie's words to their intended addressee. "You might wonder why she's naked", Tangie suddenly piped up again. "It's a sort of training for her since she has troubles with performing naked." "We're all enrolled in an actor's school", Whitney quickly added before any misconceptions could form in their new neighbour's head. "You'd do her a great favour if you could stay until she's used to acting normal in your presence," Tangie went on. Anna was stunned again. She knew that the goal was to enable her to perform as an actress while naked, but never would she have imagined that her flatmates' program would include exposure to strangers so early in its course. But she had agreed, and the neighbour had been told and invited, and there was nothing she could do about it right then without it looking strange to her flatmates and the neighbour. Anna decided to just use her acting skills, such as they were, and act as normal as possible, in spoken, facial and body language. She did increasingly well at this task while Tangie and Whitney explained the reason behind Anna's nudity to Peter, as his name turned out to be. They also told him about the events of the previous evening, and the details of her "nudity program". Anna found these revelations to be almost more embarrassing than her nudity. The fact that it was told while she was present, but making only monosyllabic, token contributions to the tale didn't help, either. When they were done filling Peter in, the topic shifted to Peter's move, his previous life, future plans, and all the other topics one could gossip about with a newly moved person. As the conversation shifted away from her nudity, Anna began to relax, and soon she was fully partaking in the discussion, being just as talkative as the others. At some point, she realized she was again experiencing that pleasant feeling of having overcome her shame, the now almost familiar mixture of pride at an accomplishment, with a slightly erotic side note. When it was finally time for Pete to leave, Anna showed him to the door, her jovial mood not tainted in the least by shame. "I'm sorry we started this on you so suddenly, but Tangie's idea was the right one, and it would have looked odd if you or I would have contradicted once she asked Peter. He might have thought that we had not discussed this among ourselves before, regardless of what we told him", Whitney explained once the door had closed behind their new neighbour. Anna had, as had already been pointed out, reached the same conclusion earlier, and based her reaction on this. Instead of making a reply to that effect, she surprised herself by giving another, simpler but more revealing answer: "It's OK, I quite enjoyed it after a while." "Only after a while, again?" Tangie immediately asked. "Was it for the same reason as yesterday, or where you embarrassed at having your program revealed?" Whitney inquired more specifically. "A bit of both. Mostly the latter." "Interesting", Whitney murmured, but did not elaborate further. Meanwhile, it had become time for the girls to leave their apartment. Neither had acting classes that day, but all of them had part-time jobs to help pay the bills. As it happened on that day in that week, Anna was the only one who didn't have to immediately go to her shift, so they had agreed, even before the events of yesterday started, that she would do the grocery shopping that morning. It was high time, too, for between classes and work, they had little time to shop, nor enough cash to buy huge amounts all at once, so after breakfast and the departure of the last package of corn flakes, there was nowhere near enough left for a meal for three. "Well, at least I will be fully dressed for that", Anna lightly joked. Then she noticed the expression on Whitney's face. An expression that meant she had bad news she was reluctant to tell. "You can't expect me to do the shopping naked! I'll get in trouble!" Anna almost shouted. "Nobody said anything about naked", Whitney explained in a soothing tone, "but as we already mentioned, you are wrong in assuming that nudity is somehow "special". But this program is designed to make you comfortable in *any* costume. So we thought it would be for the best if you were to occasionally wear a bit less than your normal street clothes." "So you're going to put me into some slutty outfit?" Anna asked, fully intending to add a strict refusal, but she was interrupted by Tangie: "We agreed, well Whitney convinced me, that we shouldn't just let you parade around in racy getups. So you'll only where those around folks who are in the know, or have some other reason to no think of you as a tramp just for wearing such getup." "We will find a mode to operate this, I'm sure", Whitney asserted, at the same time hinting, just by adding this, that the point was not yet fully resolved between Tangie and herself. "Be that as it may, here is your dress." With these words, Whitney displayed a sleeveless, knee-length summer dress. Anna almost giggled a bit when she saw it. "So much fuzz about that dress? I've worn it for shopping before." "Yes, but at those times, you had underwear", Tangie interjected, "and also shoes." "You can't expect me to go shopping barefoot! They know me at the corner shop! They'll throw me out!" "Well if they know you that well, they won't throw you out, at least not permanently, for showing up barefoot", Whitney reasoned. Anna was still doubtful, but had no further arguments. She took her shopping back and headed off; slipping the summer dress over her head had only been a matter of seconds, a record time for the normally conservatively dressing Anna. Her now bare feet were unused to feeling the staircase, and this served to remind her that she was dressed inappropriately. Not in any sexual way, but it was still something she was brought up to think of as not acceptable. To her relief, she did not encounter too many people on her way to the shop, only two, neither of which she knew. Still, she had to force herself not to look away, and couldn't help to wonder what they might think of her. The girls lived in an old residential area where acquiring enough land for huge malls or Mega-markets would have been too expensive, or would have destroying its own customer base; at any rate, those were built either further out or right in the downtown business districts. Food was therefore still acquired, for convenience's sake, in "food super markets". Those were shops that had smallish street fronts but went in deep, storing a good selection of foods, with one checkout at the entrance/exit. Many of these belong to various bigger or smaller chains nowadays, and that was also the case in the food market closest to the girl's shared apartment. Like any other chain-owned shop, it was staffed by part-time workers being paid minimum wages. Most of them were teenagers bettering their allowances or needing money for this or that, and most never even intend to stay long. But teenagers are, of course, not the only ones who want to better their income with part-time work, and when Anna entered, the checkout was staffed by a middle-aged woman Anna had seen there now and again, ever since she herself had moved there. The woman's eyes went from Anna's head to her feet. The aspiring actress saw a frown that may or may not really have been there. Shyly rubbing the back of one foot against the heel of the other in a classical gesture of embarrassment, she stood transfixed, unable to move or speak. "Hello", the woman began. "We technically demand shoes in here", she continued, pointing to one of those signs reading "no shoes, no shirt, no service". "But that's just a relic, truth be told, today's undesirables are of a different kind. As long as I don't get complaints, you're fine. And from what I've seen of you when you so far, you're no troublemaker." "I do note, though, that this is rather a chance of style for you?" the woman then continued, raising the voice as if for a question, hoping perhaps to start a conversation, or maybe just being curious. "Oh, I'm just trying to get more comfortable with skimpy costumes", Anna explained. Then, feeling that this might not be a sufficient explanation, she quickly added: "I'm an actress, you know. Well, visiting actor's school." "Ah, that also explains the lack of underwear." Anna was shocked silent once again. "You were silhouetted against the light when you entered, dear. I doubt people on the street could see it." Only *somewhat* reassured, Anna then progressed to collect the various food items on her shopping list from the aisles. As she brought them to the checkout, the woman struck up a conversation again, having time on her hands as no other customers were in at the time. Anna learned that the woman was doubling as a manager and salesperson, the chain neither wanting to pay full time managers for shops that size, nor wanting to have any sort of part-time manager in charge. The woman and her husband where also apparently hobby painters, a fact that the woman, Jessica, apparently asked for a reasons: She told Anna of their difficulty in finding someone willing to model nude, and asked Anna if she, as an actress, would. To her surprise, Anna found herself agreeing readily. When she left the shop, the friendly treatment and conversation having lifted her spirits, she again had that blissful feeling of having dared and no longer feeling shame. On the short way home, she almost enjoyed the dirty stone tiles of the sidewalk under her bare feet. Suddenly an odd thought struck her: being barefoot, and wearing no underwear, there was really nothing between her bare toes and her pussy, the skirt of the dress only providing some form of "sideways" cover, but forming no border to the down. A few days back, or even at the start of her shopping trip, this might have scared her, but now she find it amusing and... yes, erotic. Giving in to sudden impulse, she entered small side alley and went to the far side of a large dumpster, which effectively hid her from anyone looking from the main street. There, she raised her dress until the hem was at waist level, exposing her pussy and feeling the "fresh" air on it. Initially, that was all she wanted to do, but now the erotic aspect of all she did until then caught up with her, driven home by the act of standing in a side alley and raising her dress. Anna moved one hand to her pussy, the other, which also still held her purchases from the food store, holding up her dress. Anna rubbed her pussy more and more frantic, until she reached release in a massive orgasm, which forced her to lean against the wall for a minute to catch her breath before the continued to walk home. She noticed with amusement that she had held her dress up even during that recovery period.