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 ï>¿Best Friends .

   Chapter 17 -- Going Home

   Lisa left Ross sleeping in his tent.  They'd dozed for a little while,
nude in each other's arms, but she'd awoken soon after.

   It was late now.  Or early morning, Lisa wasn't sure.  Awkwardly she
scrambled out of the tent, the cold night air a sudden shock on her bare
skin.  There hadn't been space in the tent to dress without waking her
paramour.  Quickly she pulled on the hoody she'd been wearing, hoping there
had been nobody around to witness her undignified exit -- but all was still
and quiet.

   The hoody was long enough to cover her modesty and so she gathered up
the rest of her clothes and tiptoed as best she could along to her and
Becky's tent.

   Becky was still awake when she opened the tent flap.  Her friend was
nude, of course -- she never seemed to wear anything to sleep in these days
-- but was wrapped up in her sleeping bag to keep warm.

   She grinned when she saw Lisa, and grinned wider when she saw how she
was dressed.

   "I knew it!" she exclaimed.  "You went off with that Ross, did you go
all the way with him?"

   Lisa nodded, smiling, as she closed the tent flap behind her.  Becky
squealed and sprang up, enfolding her friend in a big naked hug.

   "Oh my God," she exclaimed, "Lisa finally lost her 'V-plates'!"

   The next few minutes were filled with questions from her more
experienced friend.  Lisa burrowed into the sleeping bag, discarding the
hoody again, for once unselfconscious about being nude in Becky's equally
undressed company.  She was too tired to try to find her night clothes in
the dark, she wanted to sleep, but Becky wasn't going to let her do that
any time soon.  She wanted to know all the details, and it was a good hour
later when Lisa finally closed her eyes and slept.

   --

   One slightly hungover packing session later, the two girls were ready to
leave the campsite and make their way back home.

   They'd awoken late, with Lisa's head throbbing.  She hadn't drunk that
much, had she?  Although she always had the worst luck with hangovers, it
would only take a couple of beers to make her wake up in the morning with a
sore head.

   They'd packed their stuff as best they could.  With it being their final
few hours on the campsite -- and with the nearby lads now fully aware that
Becky was a bit of a weirdo who would engineer a prank on herself to
deprive her of clothes in public -- Lisa noticed her friend seemed no
longer to be quite so concerned about what she was or wasn't wearing and
had stepped out of their tent in the nude a couple of times before finally
putting clothes on, at one stage even going on a little walk and giving a
few surprised campers an eyeful.

   Now though both girls were fully dressed, their tent back in its bag and
their backpacks all ready to go.

   Lisa left Becky with the bags and went over to the lads campsite.  When
the boys saw her, there were a few grins and some nudges.  Clearly they'd
noticed one of their number hadn't been alone in his tent last night and
although to Lisa Ross hadn't seemed like the type to brag she doubted he'd
have been coy and shy about it either.

   In the event she found him kicking a ball about with another boy.  When
his friend saw her approach, he made a discreet exit, and the two were
alone together.

   "Morning," he said, and Lisa smiled back.  For a moment there was
silence between them.

   "About last night..." he began, but Lisa stopped him.

   "No," she said.  "There's no 'about last night' conversation happening
now.  We're not doing that.

   "I had," she continued, "a really nice time last night.  All of it.  So
did you.  I don't think it needs further discussion, especially not for us
to have a really awkward conversation about it of the sort men and women
have been having since the concept of casual sex was invented."

   Ross grinned.  "Fair enough.  I wasn't sure what to make of it when I
woke up and you'd left."

   "How about, I wanted to sleep in my own tent which didn't smell of
sweaty boy and sexy times?"

   He laughed.  "Again, fair enough.  Given the choice I wouldn't want to
sleep in a tent with sweaty boy smell either.  If it wasn't for your mate,
I'd have come in with you."

   Lisa laughed.  "She probably wouldn't have minded.  She'd probably have
been happy to have another person to act as her audience."

   Ross wrinkled his nose.  "Yeah," he said, "she's a one.  What's the
story with her, really I mean?"

   Lisa sighed.  "She's an exhibitionist," she confessed.  "She sort of...
gets off on people seeing her naked."

   He raised an eyebrow.  "Well," he said.

   "Yeah."

   "And what about you?"

   "Oh, compared to her I'm completely normal.  No weird kinks here, me."

   "Pity," he laughed.  "No, what I meant was, you helped her, you took her
clothes.  You made it so she had to run about naked in front of us all.  Do
you often get involved with her in stunts like that?"

   "Kind of, yeah.  She's sort of a nudist too, and, well, I'm the only
person she's ever told this stuff too.  She isn't harming anyone.  She just
wants to be free to be herself.  I feel like I should help her do that."

   Ross was quiet for a moment.  "You're a good mate to her," he said
eventually.  "I'm glad she's got someone like you.  But just be careful. 
Make sure she's not putting you into something you don't want to be in. 
You ended up having to streak the campsite yesterday, yes because Steven's
a dick but also because your mate created that situation when she had you
nick her clothes in the first place."

   "I know," Lisa conceded.  "But, she's not taking advantage of me.  It's
a weird thing, I get that.  I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand it.
But it works for us."

   --

   She'd kissed Ross goodbye, a proper kiss, not a discrete peck on the
cheek from two people resigned to parting as 'just friends'.

   She wasn't sure she'd see him again, she'd hopefully be off to uni in
September, and Ross of course was going into the RAF, so it might be their
paths just never crossed any more.  But neither of them had been quite keen
to just say "that's that", either.  They'd got all sorts of ways to keep in
touch.  Lisa was quite keen to try 'sexting', for one.  Taking some naughty
pictures to send to a cute boy in the armed forces seemed like a fun
prospect.

   Becky had also said goodbye to her various ardent admirers.  She'd not
paired off with any of them, leaving them all disappointed and heartbroken.

   Lisa wondered about this.  Becky was far more experienced with boys than
she was, she'd had sex for the first time when they were 15 and she'd had
several boyfriends since then.  Indeed, there had been a long spell in the
past few years where Becky had rarely been without a guy.

   But since breaking up with her last boyfriend, Ryan, almost a year ago,
Becky hadn't so much as kissed another boy.

   At first, Lisa had put it down to having been hurt badly by her break up
with Ryan (even though it hadn't seemed particularly traumatic).  Then she
just figured maybe Becky was bored of dating and relationships for a while.

   Now though she was beginning to wonder if it wasn't something else.  The
growing importance to Becky of her nudist lifestyle and exhibitionist
tendencies was a sign that whatever else she was, her friend was certainly
not a conventional 18-year-old woman.  But could it be that her strangeness
was actually making her reluctant to connect with others in the more normal
sense, or even making it difficult for her?

   Maybe she didn't want a boy in her life if it meant addressing how her
nudism and her exhibitionism would affect him?  Lisa was the only person
she'd shared this side of herself with, after all -- maybe she didn't want
anyone else to know, and if she started dating someone she would have to
tell them?

   Not for the first time, Lisa found herself thinking about where this
strange journey she and her friend were on would end up.



   Chapter 18 -- At the Movies

   The summer rolled on, and something resembling normality returned to
Lisa's life -- well, as normal as it could get for someone whose best
friend couldn't seem to manage to keep her clothes on for very long.

   But on that front, things did calm down a little.  Both Lisa and Becky
began to pick up some part time work -- Becky waitressed in a cafÃ(C),
while Lisa got some shifts at the local supermarket.  The need for Becky to
go out and associate with people who weren't aware that she was a nudist,
let alone an exhibitionist, seemed to Lisa to have something of a calming
influence on her.  Oh, when she called round to Becky's house when her mum
was at work Becky was still usually naked, and she still sometimes stripped
off when the two girls were out walking in the countryside.  But there had
been no more incidents of crazy dares or other 'indecent exposures', and
with Lisa's two brothers now both off school for the summer too, Becky was
finding it best to keep herself covered up at Lisa's house as well as out
in public.

   Indeed, things began to feel so much calmer that Lisa began to wonder if
she might be 'over' Becky.  She no longer felt her pulse quicken quite so
much when her friend would answer the door of her house to her nude, and
found she could largely concentrate on things other than Becky when the two
were hanging out and Becky was au naturel.

   Of course, she still fantasised a little, still felt a tingle of
excitement, particularly when she recalled that she alone was seeing this
side of Becky.  None of their other friends was aware that Becky preferred
nakedness, whenever they were in a larger group she was careful not to even
mention it, and wore the same nice, fashionable and flattering clothes she
had always done.  Only Lisa knew the truth about her, only Lisa had seen
the side she called her true self, and Lisa couldn't help but feel somewhat
special as a result.  There was an intimacy to seeing Becky walking around
with no clothes on and knowing that she wasn't this way with anyone else,
even her own mother, and that was still a little intoxicating to Lisa.

   Becky wasn't the only figure in Lisa's fantasies, though, at least for a
little while following the end of their holiday.  She and Ross had kept up
a correspondence by text message and Snapchat since parting at the
campsite, and she'd enjoyed the thrill of sending him some very risquÃ(C)
pictures of the sort she had never imagined she would ever take of herself.
True to form, of course, Becky was enjoying a role as something akin to
"sex coach" and had some very frank and forthright suggestions for the sort
of pictures Lisa could send.  Mercifully for Lisa, she didn't actually
demonstrate these ideas herself -- as she was once again naked at the time,
it could have resulted in Lisa getting more than a little hot under the
collar!

   Lisa realized she did enjoy the thrill of posing intimately for a
private snap to Ross, and although she wasn't exactly reduced to a
quivering ball of desire by the times when he returned the favour, she had
to admit, it was flattering to see the effect he was claiming her pictures
were having on a certain part of his anatomy...

   As the weeks had rolled on, though, Lisa had found both their
enthusiasms waning slightly.  They were a long way apart and although Ross
seemed nice, they were finding they had little to say to each other when
the topic was something other than sex.  Lisa was coming to accept that
Ross and she weren't destined to meet again any time soon and that whatever
he was to her, he was far from being the 'boyfriend' she had thought she
would have.  She hadn't told him yet that he had been her first, either --
she was still behaving with him as if she was much more experienced than
she really was, and it was getting more and more tiring to act like a love
goddess, even on Snapchat, when she didn't really feel like one.

   Increasingly, his messages began to feel like an intrusion, and she as
she began to cool towards him she noticed the same in return.  By the
latter part of August, Ross was largely a footnote in her past, and her
life consisted of work, family and of course, her time with Becky.

   It was a hard truth, too, but one she came to realise -- while her
experiences with Ross had been fun, and she was delighted to no longer be,
as Becky had put it, in possession of her "V-plates", it had been nothing
compared to the excitement she had found in some of the things she had
gotten up to with Becky.

   --

   The big blockbuster movie hit of the summer was, once again, a
comic-book superhero adaptation featuring brightly-coloured characters
punching one another very hard in order to save the world.

   At least, that was Lisa's assessment.  Becky, who was much more a fan of
that type of thing, gave her a full and comprehensive of the film's place
in the wider canon of what she kept referring to as a "cinematic universe"
until Lisa felt certain that her brain was going to start pouring out of
her ears.

   They went through the same rigamarole whenever one of these movies came
out.  Becky would excitedly tell her about the latest trailer, the premier
date and so forth, and when the film actually came out, she would badger
Lisa to come with her and watch it at the local multiplex.  Lisa, who much
preferred a good comedy to any superhero shoot-'em-up fest, would resist as
long as she could before finally giving in and agreeing to sit through what
seemed, to her, like simply the latest episode of a very expensive
television show.

   This summer, she'd held out longer than usual, but Becky's diverse array
of increasingly disappointed faces and noises finally wore out her resolve,
and the two made a date for the cinema one weekday afternoon in the last
week of August.

   The cinema was a big out-of-town multi-screen affair.  Although neither
girl had a driving license yet, let alone access to a car, it was easy
enough to hop on a bus and ride out there.

   When they arrived, the cinema was quiet.  There hadn't been any big
releases that week and it wasn't a time when a lot of people chose to go
(compared to, say, Friday or Saturday nights).  Lisa and Becky were able to
walk straight up to the counter to get their tickets, and didn't have to
queue up either to buy some popcorn and drinks before making their way to
the screen.

   When they got into the screen, there were fewer than 20 people sitting
in their seats -- the rest were empty.  The film had been out for quite a
while, so Lisa supposed most of the people who were likely to want to watch
it had already caught it in the first few weeks.  The audience was couples,
a few teens, and some guys on their own -- people whiling away a couple of
hours at the cinema as a result of having nothing else to do with their
time.

   The entrance to the screen was near the front, crossing in front of the
big blank space where the film would be projected -- you had to walk up
steps towards the back to find your seat in the tiers.  Lisa smiled as she
noticed that, as usual, all the patrons in attendance were sitting as far
apart from each other as possible while still having a good view of the
screen.  The two back rows were completely empty, most people apparently
preferring the middle seats so as to not be too far away from the action.
But Becky made a bee-line straight for the empty back row, and Lisa was
more than happy with her choice.  It made it feel almost like their own
private screening to have nobody else around them.

   They sat down and chatted idly, munching popcorn and checking their
phones, until the lights dimmed and the adverts came on. 

   "Why is there always an advert for the cinema when you go to the
cinema?" Lisa asked, as a typical 'cinema -- a great night out' promotion
appeared on screen.  "We're already here, they don't need to advertise to
us, surely?" Becky laughed -- she was used to Lisa getting quite cross on
trips to the pictures about one thing or another

   "Well, that was about five more car commercials than I needed to see,"
Lisa remarked.  She was determined to find things to complain about to
underline how she wasn't really looking forward to the movie, although she
knew Becky just found her moaning funny.

   "Oh look, another remake of a film from 10 years before I was born," she
intoned sarcastically.  Becky swatted at her in a gentle attempt to shush
her.  Fortunately for their friendship, after that the dim lights went
fully dark and the movie proper started, and Lisa was forced into silence.

   The film looked set to be exactly what Lisa was expecting.  There was
going to probably be some sort of mystic artefact, there were people in
crazy costumes which were probably all computer-generated, lots of punching
and explosions and in the end the world would be saved.  She settled down
for what, for her, would probably be a boring couple of hours.

   However, little did she know she was about to get something much more
interesting to watch.

   About twenty minutes into the film, she noticed that next to her in her
seat, Becky was fidgeting about much more than usual.  It wasn't obvious,
it was only when she turned to whisper a comment to her friend that she
realized what was happening.

   Becky had kicked off her trainers and was in the process of unfastening
and taking off her jeans.  It was immediately apparent to Lisa what was
happening -- Becky was getting naked again.  As Lisa watched, Becky lifted
her bottom from the seat in order to pull down her skinny jeans, before
leaning forward to pull them off completely.  She leaned back and grasped
the hem of her t-shirt, then pulled it up quickly over her head and off.

   Lisa couldn't help but laugh.

   "What are you doing?" she whispered.  "As if I really need to ask..."

   Becky grinned back.  "I always wanted to try being naked in the cinema,"
she answered

   "You're really gonna do that?" Lisa asked.  "What if someone sees you?"
She was excited that Becky was stripping in what seemed like a very public
place, but as always that excitement was tinged with a very real worry --
was this really something safe to do, or was it going to end with someone
in a lot of trouble?

   But Becky seemed confident.  "Nobody can see us," she explained,
"they're all sat in in front and all watching the film.  Nobody ever turns
around and looks backward in the cinema.  You always keep your eyes on the
screen."

   Most do, thought Lisa as she watched Becky unfasten her bra and then
shimmy out of her cotton panties, but I won't be now, not with a gorgeous
naked girl sitting next to me.

   Lisa gazed unashamedly at Becky as she sat back in her seat.  The cinema
was dark, the only light coming from the screen, and the intimate details
of her body that Becky was revealing were hard to make out, but the
half-light from the screen drained colour from her skin, making her seem
like an odalisque from some silent epic from the golden age of cinema. 
Lisa drank in the smooth, soft whiteness of her friend's belly, the pale
swells of her breasts, her nipples hard and dark pink.  Shadows hid much of
the rest but it would be beyond doubt to anyone looking that she had
removed all of her clothes.

   Realising that Lisa was still staring at her, Becky turned -- and
smiled. Lisa felt herself blush -- at least the dark of the screen would
hide that -- and looked away shyly.  But as soon as she felt Becky's
attention was back on the movie, she resumed watching her friend.

   Becky had been openly nude in front of people in very public spaces
before now.  All the people on the train who saw here nude; the guy in the
convenience store; anyone who saw her at the campsite or while hiking.  But
her being naked in the cinema was different.  She was almost captive here,
in a place where nudity could not be explained or excused.  She was sitting
nude in a big open room with only one route out and around twenty other
people all sitting there.  The only cover for her nudity came from the
darkness, and the fact that people were watching the screen. 

   Lisa felt suddenly nervous for her, and for herself.  It was exciting,
undoubtedly, to be a part of this moment and witness once again Becky's
complete lack of self-consciousness about having no clothes on.  But it was
also somewhat scary, giving voice to the side of her that was a lot less
comfortable about Becky's exhibitionism than she was sometimes willing to
let on.  She wanted to support her friend and got more than a small thrill
from encouraging her and participating in her stunts -- but where did she
draw the line?  What Ross had said to her came back to her mind, about
making sure Becky wasn't involving her in something she didn't want to be.
She enjoyed these experiences, no doubt -- but where would it end up? 

   What would happen if someone saw them now, in a place where a person
absolutely should not expect to be able to just hang out naked like it was
nothing, the way Becky was behaving?  There was no way that someone could
look at two girls alone on the back row of a cinema, one of them stark
naked, and not assume they had been...  up to something. 

   They would be asked to leave the cinema, of course, but what else? 
Would the police be called?  Would Becky be charged with a crime?  Indecent
exposure, wasn't it?  That was what they charged men with who opened their
raincoats to show their willies to schoolgirls.  Was Becky really so
different, just because she was young and pretty?

   It was, Lisa decided, the young and pretty part that would probably save
them.  No straight man or gay woman was going to complain at the sight of
Becky naked, and even a lot of the straight women would probably find they
had a few big questions about themselves if they were sat in Lisa's seat
right now.  People were shocked by female nudity still, of course, and the
law was the law -- it didn't apply differently just because you had great
boobs.  But there was always that chance that they would find themselves
once again dealing with a person that simply liked to see a pretty girl who
was naked and were content to allow that to happen.

   Lisa looked at Becky again.  Of course, her friend didn't seem to have
any of these worries.  She was completely blasÃ(C).  She scooched down in
her seat a little, making herself comfortable, parting her legs slightly,
and returned her attention to the film.

   Lisa forced herself to relax.  She'd been in these sort of situations
enough now that she should really stop worrying.  She repeated Becky's
reassurance to herself; who ever actually looks behind them in a cinema
screening?  Had she ever?  Of course not.  People came to these places to
watch a movie, not to take in their surroundings.  And it really was dark.
Lisa knew Becky was naked because she was sat right next to her, but she
couldn't make out what even the closest of the other people in the
screening looked like.  So she doubted they would realise even if they did
turn around.

   Gradually she stopped feeling nervous -- but she still didn't take her
eyes off Becky.  How could she?  Becky was beautiful, naked and completely
nonchalant -- a combination that she had come to understand now was more
than a bit of a turn on for her. 

   Becky was lost off in her attention to the movie and had no idea her
friend was staring at her the way she was, but Lisa noticed every little
movement, every rise and fall of her perfect breasts.  Occasionally she
would unconsciously caress herself, one hand lightly brushing a breast or
lightly stroking a nipple, and Lisa's breath would catch as she remembered
seeing her that time in the woods, nude and utterly aroused, pleasuring
herself with no idea she was being watched.  Lisa knew Becky would not do
the same here in the movie theatre, with me next to her -- no matter how
much Lisa secretly wanted her to -- but those little movements alone told
her the story of how her friend was aroused by her own public nakedness.

   Lisa's body gave in to her own arousal.  Her pulse quickened, her
breathing grew shallow.  She felt her nipples pushed against her bra and
wetness on the fabric of her panties when she shifted uncomfortably in her
seat.  In times past she had indulged in that classic teenage rite of
making out with a boy while sat on the back row in the cinema -- in her
head now she pictured herself doing the same with a naked Becky, her tongue
exploring her mouth, hand cupping her breast and teasing her nipple.  Maybe
even more than that, maybe in the dark, she would slip out of her seat and
kneel before Becky and slide her tongue between the moist lips of her
exposed pussy...

   Well, she thought, it wasn't as though I was bothered about missing the
film!

   But there was no way she could make those thoughts a reality, and she
blinked repeatedly, as if trying to wipe them from her mind.  What would
Becky's reaction be if she'd really done what she had been thinking of? 
Would she have reciprocated, moaning with delight?  Or would she have been
shocked and horrified, even to know what Lisa was longing for?  She
realized she had no way of knowing -- and no courage to test it out, and
all she could do was watch, imagine and later that night bring the thoughts
back to her mind and explore them at leisure while she lay in her own bed
with her hand between her legs.

   Lost in a battle with her lustful thoughts, Lisa barely acknowledged
what was happening on screen, and before she knew it the film was ending.
The world was saved, once again, although Lisa was sure there was probably
a whole bunch of stuff left over for them to do in the inevitable sequel.
The final scene smashed into credits, and Lisa glanced back at Becky,
assuming her friend would be quickly pulling on her clothes so they could
leave the cinema.

   Becky, however, still sat there, still completely nude.  But nobody else
in the screen was getting up and ready to go either, and nor had the house
lights gone up the way they normally did when a film was over.  Lisa was
momentarily confused.  Then she remembered -- these comic book movies
always had another scene after the main credits, to further tease a sequel
(or the next film in what Becky called the "cinematic universe")! 

   Lisa couldn't help but smile at the fact Becky had still made no move to
put her clothes on -- but she was feeling nervous, too.  Was her friend
really going to insist on remaining nude until the very last moment?  These
end credits scenes were always short, maybe 30 seconds at most -- after
which everyone in the cinema was going to be getting up and walking out,
and the lights were going to go up.  If Becky was going to wait until that
scene had finished before getting dressed, she was going to be a lot more
exposed, with no darkness to hide her nudity and no film on screen to
distract people from looking her way.  Surely, Lisa thought, she had to put
something on soon?



   Chapter 19 -- One More Dare

   Lisa sat in the dark of the cinema, patiently waiting for Becky to put
at least some of her clothes back on.

   But she just sat there, watching, as the main credits ended and the
waiting audience were rewarded for staying in their seats with a short
scene which Lisa was sure would have been very exciting for comic book fans
but just confused the heck out of her.  The scene ended, and the "full"
credits began to roll -- and still Becky wasn't moving! 

   The lights in the cinema began to come on -- not all the way, but bright
enough for the patrons to be able to see and not fall down the steps as
they made to leave.  The first people in the audience stood up and began to
leave the screen, and still Becky made no move to get dressed or even cover
her body at all.  As more people stood and began talking about the film
they had just seen, Lisa leaned over to her friend, hoping people would be
too busy chatting to zero in on their own conversation .

   "Um, Becks," she asked in a whisper, "you do know you're still naked,
right?"

   Becky turned to her and grinned.  "Yup."

   "Oh, that's alright then, I thought you'd gone completely mad," Lisa
replied.  "Are you...  are you going to put your clothes back on?

   Becky's grin got wider and she reached out one of her long legs and slid
a bare foot into one of her trainers.  She followed with the other one.

   Lisa couldn't help but laugh.  "Oh, very clever," she said.  "Shoes
don't count as clothes, though.  C'mon Becks, someone's gonna see in a
minute." Amazingly, the people who had been sat in front of them were all
trooping out of the exit with none of them turning to look back up at the
back row, but it seemed inevitable that the two of them would get caught
sooner or later.

   Becky, though, was in the mood for fun.

   "Dare me to stay naked?" she said with a smile.

   Lisa laughed.  "Really?  We're back to that again?" Becky just nodded.
She was looking a little red faced but it was clear that she was in an
exhibitionist mood.

   "Alright," Lisa conceded.  "Just a little dare." Becky looked delighted
-- but, Lisa thought, what could she have her friend do?  It couldn't be
too bold -- while Becky would probably have no qualms about walking out of
the cinema building and across the car park stark naked, that would attract
a lot of attention from staff and who knows who else.  It was still broad
daylight out there and there would of course be at least some people coming
into the cinema, not to mention the multiplex was located in one of those
out-of-town parks with restaurants, ten pin bowling and more.  Even if 99%
of the people were a-okay with Becky's nudity, it would only take one or
two who weren't to give the girls more trouble than they wanted, especially
as they came by bus and didn't have an easy way to get away from there.

   Well, streaking out of the building might be out of the question -- but
what about just not going all the way?

   "Okay," Lisa explained to her excited friend.  "There's a loo at the end
of the corridor before you go round into the lobby.  I'm gonna get up and
go in there and when you're ready you can come find me.  And," she added,
in case Becky thought that was a bit tame, "I'm gonna take your clothes
with me."

   Becky giggled.  "I love it!" she whispered.  "So I'll be left here with
nothing on and I'll have to go all along the corridor before I can get
dressed again?"

   Lisa nodded.  "Exactly.  We could get in a shit-ton of trouble, but
something tells me that doesn't bother you and to be honest, the more it
goes on the less it bothers me either." That wasn't quite true, but it was
the closest Lisa had come to admitting she liked seeing her friend like
this and was prepared to risk a certain amount of personal difficulty to
continue experiencing it.  Within reason, of course.

   The screen was practically empty now.  The credits continued to roll --
how many people worked on the special effects for this thing, thought Lisa
-- and Lisa stood up.  Becky had bundled her clothes together -- wrapped up
like that, her underwear in the middle, it was less obvious that Lisa was
carrying her friend's entire outfit with her.  When she reached the bottom
of the steps and the point where the remaining seats were separated by a
wide space through which people could walk to get to the exit, she looked
back up at Becky. 

   It actually was not so obvious that Becky was naked.  The back row was a
fair distance from this point, and the angle of the tiered seating meant
that Becky was largely hidden behind the back of the seat in front.  A
taller woman might have been more obvious, but Becky was only average
height, and with the light still not at its brightest, a casual glance
might notice that her friend was a little, well, flesh-coloured, but she
could just as easily have been wearing a top which had skin tones.

   Becky, seeing Lisa looking back at her, gave a little wave, and smiling
Lisa left the screen.

   Once she was through the heavy fire door and out, Lisa debated waiting
in the corridor for Becky.  After all, while the coast was (currently)
clear, it might not stay that way for long, and she didn't really want to
abandon Becky without her clothes on in a public place.

   On the other hand, that was kind of the spirit of the dare.  Becky would
be expecting to be left with no choice but to walk the hundred meters or so
down the corridor completely naked, and she'd be expecting Lisa to be
waiting for her in the toilets, not standing outside in case she chickened
out.

   So despite her misgivings, Lisa, holding tightly on to Becky's clothes,
made her way down the corridor to the bathroom.

   There were people in there when she went in, but the other girls soon
finished up, washed their hands and left.  When she was certain she was
alone, Lisa left the cubicle she had been pretending to use, and placed
Becky's clothes on the counter by the basin.  She leaned against the
counter, tapping her foot nervously, and waited for her friend.

   She didn't expect Becky to be more than a minute or two.  There hadn't
been that much more of the credits to run, and even with another one of
those post-credits scenes it wouldn't have been long before the lights came
on all the way.  Becky would have to make a move, then, before the cinema
employees came in to check the screen was empty, and start cleaning up the
empty drinks cups and spilled popcorn.  True, her friend might dawdle a
little along the corridor if she was enjoying her naked state too much to
hurry, but even then, she shouldn't have too long to wait.

   Lisa looked at her phone.  Two minutes had passed.  Then three. 

   At the fourth minute, Lisa began to worry.  At the fifth, she was
definitely sure things hadn't gone to plan.

   Cautiously, Lisa opened the bathroom door and peered around, looking
back up the corridor.

   Lisa swore under her breath.

   There was Becky, naked (except for her trainers).  And there, stood
talking to her, was a young man in the baseball cap and polo shirt uniform
of the cinema chain employees!

   The man seemed to be unhappy, and Becky had that stroppy, defiant look
she sometimes got when people at school or elsewhere had tried to tell her
she couldn't, or shouldn't, be doing something.  Unsurprisingly, she was
making no move to conceal her nipples, pubic hair or anything else from the
guy, simply standing talking to him as if she was fully clothed -- but she
clearly wasn't, and he clearly had some sort of problem with that.

   Lisa's chest grew tight.  For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she
should just hide in the bathroom and let whatever was going to happen to
Becky happen to her.  After all, her friend was the exhibitionist, not her.
If there were going to be consequences to Becky's exhibitionism, if someone
was going to get banned from the cinema or even have the police involved,
why should Lisa get caught up in that when she had done nothing herself?

   That thought vanished as soon as it arose.  Becky was her best friend,
someone she loved more than anyone besides her own family, and if she was
in any sort of trouble as a result of these, Lisa needed to be there to
help her out.

   Leaving Becky's clothes in the bathroom, she stepped out into the
corridor and walked over to where her friend and the guy were stood.  Becky
looked relieved as she approached.

   "Lisa, thank goodness.  Please explain to this guy that we were not
having sex in his cinema."

   The man, who looked to be in his twenties, was slightly built and
red-haired.  His hair was slicked with hair gel and he was clutching a
walkie-talkie radio.  He looked up close more perplexed than annoyed,
however.

   "I can promise you," Lisa said, turning to him, "we were not having sex
in the cinema."

   "Then why is your girlfriend naked?  Where are her clothes, and why
doesn't she have them on?"

   "Lisa has my clothes," Becky said, as if that was all the explanation
that was needed.  "I can go and put them on, if you like?"

   "Ooohh no," the guy said officiously.  "We're getting to the bottom of
this first." Lisa, childishly, couldn't help but smirk at the word bottom,
given that Becky's shapely rear was on full display.  "You still haven't
told me why you don't have any clothes on?"

   "Well," Becky countered, "you didn't exactly give me chance, you just
assumed I'd been having sex with someone in there."

   The guy huffed.  "Alright.  Let's just say you weren't having sex in
there, either with your girlfriend here or...  um...  by yourself.  Why are
you naked right now?"

   Becky shrugged.  "I dunno.  It's just more comfortable for me, I guess.
I just felt like taking off my clothes."

   The man stared for a minute.  "You- you can't just take all your clothes
off in the middle of a cinema!"

   Becky grinned.  "Why not?" she asked cheekily.  "It was dark.  Nobody
could see."

   "But it isn't allowed!" the guy exclaimed.

   "Well," Becky said indignantly, "there's nothing that says I can't."

   The employee's mouth fell open.  "Wha-what?" 

   "I saw signs saying no smoking, signs saying turn off my phone -- I
didn't see a sign saying that I had to stay dressed!"

   Lisa had to laugh.  Becky, of course, knew absolutely that taking all
her clothes off in the cinema was hugely inappropriate and certainly not
something the cinema would ever allow, or have to allow.  But confronted
with this guy who could see that something was amiss, even though he
couldn't pinpoint exactly what, she had fallen back into the cheeky sort
she had been when getting told off at school, when she would often act like
she knew more than the teachers.  Lisa had to admire Becky's ability to be
so confident, and when she had no clothes on too!

   The employee decided to fall back on what he knew.  "It's cinema policy
not to admit anyone who is...  inappropriately dressed," he stated with
finality.

   But Becky had a smart mouth.  "I wasn't admitted inappropriately
dressed," she replied.  "I was fully dressed when I came in.  Then, I got
undressed."

   "But this is a family establishment!" the guy declared.  "We have kids
come in here!  You can't just walk around naked!"

   "I was just on my way to get my clothes," Becky said with feigned
exasperation.  "My friend has them.  It was you that stopped me and you
that is keeping me standing here with nothing on.  If someone gets offended
by seeing me like this, it's your fault."

   It almost seemed to work, Lisa thought.  The guy seemed ready to concede
that it was more trouble for him to keep Becky there than to let her go and
put her clothes back on -- but at that moment a voice came from behind
them.

   "Blimey, Gavin!  I thought you were having me on...  I'm bloody glad you
weren't!"

   Coming up the corridor was another cinema employee.  This one was a
chubby, bearded guy, with tattoos on both his exposed forearms.  He looked
older than the first guy (who was, presumably, Gavin) and the badge pinned
to his polo shirt proclaimed him to be the Duty Manager.  Apparently,
unknown to Lisa, the first thing Gavin had done when he discovered a naked
woman in the corridor was to radio his supervisor, who was now greeting the
scene with the widest grin Lisa had ever seen.

   "Oh, this is brilliant mate, brilliant!"

   This was, apparently, not the reaction that the dutiful Gavin had
imagined.  He began to explain to his supervisor (who was, Lisa learned,
named Cam) that Becky was "violating the admission dress policy" or
somesuch -- but Cam cut him short.

   "What're you, gay?" he snapped in disbelief.  Then he paused for a
moment, turning to Becky, with a momentarily worried expression.  "'Scuse
me love, how old are you?"

   "Eighteen," Becky replied.  Cam nodded and turned back to Gareth.

   "What're you, gay?" he said again.  "Here we have a beautiful -- adult
-- woman who has chosen to grace us with her company while not, as it were,
having any clothes on her, and you are going to stand there and tell her
she should be covering herself up because it's against cinema policy?!"

   "No Cam, I- I mean...  there might be kids about..."

   Cam nodded.  "That's true." He looked about them.  "Nope, no kids. 
Nobody around, although I'm sure these hypothetical children you are
talking about will be grateful to you for sparing their blushes.

   "Bloody hell mate," he continued, "knock off the 'think of the children'
thing.  When I was a wee lad, if I'd seen a naked lady walking around at
the local pictures I'd have thought it was Christmas.

   "But," he concluded, "I do appreciate you telling me this is happening.
That was definitely the right call."

   He was, Lisa noticed, blatantly eyeing Becky's form appreciatively --
but he didn't seem sleazy or threatening.  Rather, it was just as if he
couldn't believe his luck, and was determined to make the most of a pretty
naked girl showing up in his workplace.

   An element of some professionalism entered his manner.  "Now, can
someone -- other than Gavin -- please explain to me what this is all
about?"

   Given Becky's prior performance, Lisa decided it was better if she said
something before her friend did.

   "We were just in there," Lisa said, indicating the door to the screen.
"Becky...  well, she decided to take off her clothes to watch the film. 
She's, um, just more comfortable that way, I think."

   Cam nodded, still not taking his eyes off Becky's body.  "Free spirit,
is she?  Something like that?"

   Lisa gave a relieved nod.  "Yes, something like that.  And it was dark
and we were on the back row so it's not like anyone could see...  she
doesn't mean any harm."

   "So, what, she just got naked?  That's it?  You two weren't...?"

   "No!" Becky replied hotly.

   Cam held up his hands.  "Alright," he soothed.  "So she watched the
movie in the buff, alright.  But why is she still naked?"

   Lisa blushed.  "I've...  got her clothes.  They're in the loo."

   "Why do you have her clothes?"

   Lisa blushed more.  Even Becky started to look a little red.

   "It was sort of...  a dare," Becky admitted.

   Cam grinned wider.  "Oh, right.  So you went off with her clothes and
then she had to come and get them?  Was that how it went?"

   "Basically, yeah."

   Cam laughed, talking now to Becky.  "Only Einstein here caught you in
the act and you never made it to your clothes?"

   Becky nodded.

   "Well," Cam said, "fair enough.  I've heard worse stories. 

   "But," he continued, "although he may have spectacularly failed to
appreciate your charms, my colleague here does have a point.  We really
can't have anyone just walking around here naked, even beautiful women. 
We'd have to be a much more specialized establishment if we wanted to have
that..."

   "Okay," Lisa said.  "She'll put her clothes back on." Amazingly, Becky
didn't actually look disappointed at this suggestion -- it seemed she'd
probably had enough nakedness for one day, Lisa thought.

   But Cam stopped them.  "Hang on a minute," he said.  "I really am
supposed to report incidents of misbehaviour, persistent bad behavior by
customers can lead to a ban.  Although," he reached into his pocket, "I
might be quite happy to forget any of this ever happened if I can get
something in return." From his pocket he produced his mobile phone. 

   "Nothing dodgy, don't worry," he explained.  "Just a few pictures, if
you're willing?"

   Lisa held her breath.  She was more than okay with Becky running round
naked and being an exhibitionist -- she very much loved it in fact, and
although it didn't do her nerves much good she was happy to encourage it.

   But for someone to have photographs of Becky naked in a public place? 
That didn't sound like a safe idea to her.  That seemed like the sort of
thing that could be used to blackmail her friend later, or even just leaked
onto the internet in a massively embarrassing way. 

   Becky, though, seemed not to have the same misgivings.  She was, she
said, happy for Cam to take some pictures of her, as long as she was
allowed to decide how many and what pose she took.  Lisa guessed she was
perhaps thinking that if this was left up to Cam he would suggest something
very explicit and that while being photographed naked was one thing, she
didn't want today to be the first step in a pornography career.

   In the end, Cam was more than agreeable and was satisfied with a few
pictures of Becky, front and back, pulling some largely innocent if
coquettish poses -- and one taken by Gavin of Cam himself stood with his
big arm around Becky's bare shoulder, proving he himself had been witness
to the young woman's public nudity.

   That done, and perhaps starting to get a little concerned that someone
else may come along, see Becky and spoil his fun by insisting something
else be done, Cam and Gavin finally allowed Becky to go into the ladies'
toilet, from which she emerged a few moments later fully-dressed.  Cam
seemed a little disappointed but he obviously thought Becky was still nice
to look at even with her clothes on, something Lisa had to concur on.  She
hoped the bearded guy wouldn't try to hit on Becky but as it was (perhaps
he already had a girlfriend?) he was a perfect gentleman and he and his
subordinate walked the two girls outside.  With thanks for making his day,
Cam bid them goodbye, although as she and Becky walked away, Lisa heard
Gavin say to him, "you will send me those pics, right?"

   "Sure I will, mate," Cam replied, in a tone that suggested he was
absolutely not going to do that.



   Chapter 20  -" Birthday Party

   "MYSTERY NAKED WOMAN CAUSES STIR AT CINEMA."

   It wasn't in the local paper, but it made a few websites.  Mostly
light-hearted news pages, including ones with names like 'StudentBloke'.

   In absence of real details, the authors of the stories had opted to
stretch what little they had with excited language about how the "unknown
nudist" had "paraded around" stark naked at a screening of the latest
blockbuster, even posing for pictures with an employee, before "vanishing".
The stories were of course accompanied by a choice selection of the
pictures Becky had posed for  -" but perhaps recognizing that even a naked
person needs their privacy, the published versions of the pictures had
blurred the faces of both Becky and Cam.  Some sites also censored Becky's
nakedness, but most didn't.

   Amongst locals who saw the pictures, there was a minor frenzy to try and
identify the gorgeous young woman who thought nothing of taking a trip to
the cinema without her clothes on, but fortunately, nobody who saw them
managed to identify Becky  -" they didn't know her, after all.

   Lisa and Becky never knew about this, of course.  They didn't happen to
follow or read any of the news sites where these pictures ended up.  They
remained completely oblivious to the whole thing.

   But sitting once again at the counter of his uncle's shop, Hamed read
the clickbait-style article with interest.  It wasn't as though he
recognized the girl, exactly.  But how many gorgeous brunettes in this town
were in the habit of going out in public with no clothes on?  It had to be
her  -" and a quick review of the security footage he had secretly uploaded
onto his own laptop a month or so ago confirmed his suspicions.

   Smiling to himself, Hamed began to type an email.

    -"

   The summer was ending, and for both girls, university was just around
the corner, with all the new possibilities and adventures that promised. 
In common with many of her peers, Lisa was in the days up to leaving
becoming more introspective than ever, given to much thoughtful
soul-searching, and unsurprisingly her thoughts often turned to her best
friend, and the weird journey they had been on over the past couple of
months.

   Nobody else knew about Becky the nudist and exhibitionist.  Lisa was the
only one of their friends she had revealed this side of herself to, and
that was something that made Lisa feel special, even disregarding her
feelings of attraction towards Becky.  In fact, Lisa wondered, it might
even be one of the reasons why she had those feelings now where she hadn't
before this summer.

   But Lisa couldn't help but think about why Becky had chosen her, out of
all their friends, to be her confidant and companion in her naked
adventures?  Of course, they were best friends, with a bond and an honesty
between themselves that might make Lisa the obvious person for Becky to
confide in. 

   But more than that, Lisa began to realize that Becky saw in her someone
who would love her despite the weirdness of her particular passion, someone
who wouldn't judge her or criticize and wouldn't run and tell and spoil her
fun.  The girls were after all still teenagers, even despite their
impending steps into the adult world, and like all teenagers they felt a
certain pressure to conform and to behave in a way that didn't invite the
judgment of their peers.  Becky was confident about herself and her body
around strangers but she still had these same pressures, Lisa felt certain.
Perhaps, she wondered, she was the only person Becky trusted enough to
share her naked side with because Lisa was the only person that Becky felt
confident wouldn't brand her a weirdo or a pervert for it.

   It made her happy to think she had her friend's confidence in that way,
and she resolved to show she was worthy of it.

    -"

   The journey to university was only a week away.  The exams they had sat
a few months before were ancient history and they had both won the grades
they wanted (Lisa's were much higher, but Becky had been no slouch in her
studies either).  Like many young people their age, they wouldn't be going
to go to the same university as each other, or any of their other friends,
but they had made firm promises to stay in touch, visit each other often in
their new towns, and see each other as much as possible when they were
home.

   As well as being the run-up to starting university, that week was also
the week of Becky's nineteenth birthday.  An occasion like that could not
go uncelebrated, so the girls had been offered the use of Becky's house by
her mother for a night, unsupervised, so they could host a small gathering
of their friends for a birthday-cum-going away event.

   It wasn't a party.  That instruction from Becky's mother had been quite
clear.  There would certainly be drinking, and music, and probably more
drinking, but they weren't calling it a party and it was firmly explained
to them that there would be no wild gatherings of the sort they might have
gone to at other people's houses over the summer.  So they'd invited fewer
than ten people, just their closest friends and their boyfriends and
girlfriends.  It might get a bit loud and some people would probably drink
gar too much, but it wasn't going to be one of those crazy house parties
where everyone in school turns up and trashes the neighbourhood.

   The day of the party came, and Lisa spent the afternoon with Becky and
her mum at her house, helping to get everything sorted and set up, with
balloons and streamers, assorted snacks, and a good supply of alcohol. 
Becky's mum then left to spend the night at her sister's, and the two girls
had the final ingredient they needed  -" a house devoid of parents. 

   They waited, excitedly, for their guests to arrive  -" although, Lisa
noticed, Becky seemed less excited than she did nervous, even agitated. 
She sat on the sofa bouncing her leg up and down and fidgeting with her
hair.  Lisa began to feel that something was wrong, and she was about to
ask Becky what the matter was, when suddenly, as the time Becky had told
their friends to begin arriving was almost upon them, her friend jumped up
and headed for the upstairs.

   "I've got to go get ready," she declared, her face flushed. 

   Lisa was taken by surprise.  "Everyone will be here in a minute!" she
objected.  "You look fine!  What have you got left to do?"

   But Becky ignored her question.  "Just look after everyone, I'll be down
soon!" And with that she sped upstairs.

   Lisa stared up after her, baffled.  That was very unexpected behavior by
her friend, who was so outgoing normally.  To just dash off when guests,
her guests, were due to arrive at any moment, was very out of character. 
She began to feel a growing sense of unease.  Was Becky okay?  Was
something about to happen?  Was she, even, unbeknown to Lisa, up to
something secret?

   Lisa was about to start upstairs in pursuit of Becky when the doorbell
rang.  She turned and went to answer it.  Well, it was kind of as much her
party as Becky's, she had aided in all the organizing and, given that the
two were best friends, it wouldn't be surprising for Lisa to welcome in
their friends.  It should have been Becky greeting them, of course, but,
well, she had asked Lisa to do it, after all

   Most of the people they had invited arrived together and Lisa let them
all in, showed them where the drinks were (they'd brought more of their own
to add to the supply), and generally making them feel at home.

   "Where's Becks?" one of their friends asked, quite reasonably.

   "Upstairs," Lisa said, unimpressed.  "No idea what she's doing.  She
just said she'd be down in a-"

   Lisa broke off as she registered the open-mouthed expression of the boy
she was talking to, and turned around to face the stairs.

   It was one of those moments, Lisa thought later, where, if this had been
one of those big American house parties with a DJ, there would have been a
record scratch  -" followed by a stunned silence.  Maybe someone would have
dropped a drink (fortunately they didn't, or she would probably have ended
up cleaning it up).

   Becky had descended the staircase.  She was completely naked.

   Lisa stared.  Merely seeing her friend's nude body was not a surprise to
here  -" but that had always been just was when it was she and Becky alone
(or with some strangers).  But right now, the room was full of their
friends, most of whom had known Becky for several years, if not longer. 
They would all have had a concept of who she was and it was only Lisa who
knew that Becky was a nudist, and an exhibitionist.  But now, without any
warning or fanfare, Becky had chosen to make an entrance to her own
birthday party wearing absolutely nothing.  Even for Becky, this was
shocking.

   Unlike previous occasions, when Becky had been confident, blasÃ(C) even
about her nudity, she seemed to Lisa to this time actually be embarrassed.
She was blushing pink, and seemed to be actively fighting the urge to run
back up the stairs and not continue to stand there awkwardly and exposed.

   From their assembled friends, there was a stunned silence.  A few of the
girls gave nervous giggles, while others wore furious expressions (which,
Lisa noticed, were directed more at their boyfriends than at Becky, at
least, at the boys who were openly staring at Becky rather than gazing in
an embarrassed fashion at anything else in the room that wasn't currently a
naked woman).

   Becky looked over her friends and gave a weak smile and a little,
sheepish wave.

   "Um," she said in a strained voice, "hi everyone."

   There was no reply.

   "Um," she continued.  "You're probably wondering why I'm not wearing any
clothes?  Well," she said after a pause, "it's my birthday, and so I
thought the best outfit to wear would be my...  birthday suit!"

   She giggled nervously.  There were a few confused laughs from some of
their friends but most just remained baffled.  Lisa sensed there was a
further explanation coming.

   "Look," Becky indeed continued after a momentary pause, "the truth is,
this is me.  This is who I am. 

   "I am a nudist.  I've never told you all before but I don't want it to
be a secret any more.  The real me, the person I truly am, is this person
standing in front of you today." She began to grow more confident now, her
voice passionate.  "I prefer not to wear clothes.  In fact I don't like to
wear clothes; being naked is how I'm most comfortable and how I am
happiest. I believe the human body is natural and wonderful and the naked
body is a beautiful thing-"

   "Yours certainly is!" called out one of the guys.  Becky went redder.

   "A beautiful, positive thing," she continued.  Lisa wondered if her
little speech had been rehearsed.  It didn't sound it, she seemed to be
speaking from the heart  -" but at the same time she obviously had things
she wanted to say.

   "This is probably going to be the last time I see some of you for a good
while and I wanted you to know the real me before we all go off to uni or
wherever we end up.  I know," and she cast her eyes down for a moment,
looking at her own bare breasts, the ovals of her nipples dark peach
against her otherwise pale skin, down the soft convex of her belly to the
dark triangle of her pubic hair, "I know this must be shocking for you to
see but please know that's not how I want you to feel.

   "I just wanted to enjoy this time with you all as my true self, in the
best way I could.  And if nothing else, I guess at least we will all
remember this!

   "Anyway, what I am saying is if anyone would rather I put my clothes
back on, please say and I will, but otherwise I will be staying this way
tonight and enjoying myself with the rest of you.  If you'll let me."

   Becky stood, waiting nervously.  Lisa was astounded.  She'd had no
inkling that Becky had planned to do anything like this and she was certain
none of their other friends had been expecting Becky's nakedness either. 
She wondered what would happen next  -" surely someone would say they would
prefer Becky to cover up?  Not one of the boys, obviously, most were
looking at Becky like they couldn't believe their luck.  But there were
more girls than boys in their friendship group and surely at least one of
them would object  -" maybe one of the ones whose boyfriends couldn't take
their eyes off her friend.

   In the end though  -" amazingly  -" nobody voiced any sort of suggestion
that attending the party naked was not an appropriate thing for Becky to
do. Not the boys, and not the girls.  Lisa couldn't believe that Becky's
speech, passionate though it was, had convinced anyone, but yet, here they
all were.

   It was certainly still awkward, as Becky came fully downstairs and
joined the group in the living room.  Even seeing her naked body in motion,
rather than just stood, seemed to be a test of the ability of their friends
to pretend all this was normal.  You just didn't go along to a friend's
birthday party and expect them to just be walking around in the nude!

   But as the minutes passed, the ice seemed to thaw.  And although Becky
having no clothes on was for the time being the only thing anyone wanted to
talk about, she handled every question, comment and joke with grace,
patience and humour, and her embarrassment and nervousness gradually
lifted, to be replaced by the confident Becky Lisa knew.

   A few extra friends arrived and were equally shocked to walk through the
door and see that the hostess of the party was stark naked, but they were
given the same brief speech as the others and seemed, too, to have no
objection to Becky continuing in her naked state.

   To Lisa, it was surreal.  All the times she had been with a naked Becky,
even when she was most brazenly nude in front of other, clothed, people,
she had never imagined anything like this.  She would cast her gaze around
the party, which was now gradually beginning to resemble any other teenage
party, with music playing and people sitting and standing, chatting and
above all drinking, and then, suddenly, there would be her friend's
breasts, her bare bottom, her bare back, her pubes.  Lisa's mind again
returned to that Impressionist painting of the two clothed guys on the
picnic with the naked lady.  Becky's nudity in amongst the clothed
partygoers seemed so shocking and out of place, and yet everyone involved
seemed to have decided to treat it as though it was a perfectly reasonable
thing for her to have done.

   Of course, there was still a great deal of conversation about it, and as
Becky and their friends talked, Lisa found herself implicated in Becky's
'coming out' as a nudist.  For how could her friend give any account
without explaining that Lisa had already known, and was accepting and
supportive of Becky's strange lifestyle?

   That it was true didn't mean Lisa wanted people talking about it.  Oh,
she was not ashamed of her association with Becky or the way she'd been
involved in Becky's naked adventures over the summer.  Quite the contrary,
she had come to love the privilege of seeing her friend nude in unusual
ways and situations  -" she was falling for her because of it, in fact.

   But she didn't like the way it was being presented to their other
friends, it sounded frankly weird to hear it spoken about by others, to
acknowledge that she hung out with a naked girl, even went camping with her
and never had an issue with her nudity.

   At least the tales of Becky's exhibitionism were apparently staying
secret, she noted.  There was no mention of the flashing during her exams,
the walk off the bus, her exposing herself to the train passengers, the
late-night shop, the nude hiking, her campsite adventures, the cinema or
anything else.  Becky's account of her nudist history to her other friends
was wholesome and innocent, a story of a private preference for being
without clothes when away from the eyes of others, a preference she was
sharing with her friends now out of love and trust, rather than because she
liked being seen naked.

   Lisa wondered what the truth was.  Was Becky really doing this because
she wanted to part from her friends with her biggest secret known to the
world?  Was it rather simply that she wanted to mark the occasion, as she
said, as her true self, in the state she was happiest?  Or was it really
that she was just taking the opportunity to show her body to another bunch
of people for her own thrill.

   Privately, Lisa fumed. 

   "Did you know she was going to do this?" a friend asked her more than
once.

   "No," she would reply through gritted teeth, "this is as much a surprise
to me as it was to you."

   Later, she would realise it was simple jealousy.  Rather than her usual
supportive self, carrying that undertone of excitement she felt whenever
Becky got naked, she was angry.  Why had Becky done this, and why had she
done it without telling Lisa, her best friend and trusted confident,
exactly what she was going to do?

   Why did Becky have to tell anyone?  That was the subtext of Lisa's
angst. Why could it not just carry on being their secret, private knowledge
shared only between the two of them?  When Lisa was the only person who
knew Becky was a nudist, she felt special.  Now, all their closest friends
shared in that same knowledge, and Becky had told them without ever
confiding in Lisa that this was her plan.  Where once she felt special, now
she felt slighted and marginalized.

   She began to realise that she had wanted it to stay just their secret
forever.



   Chapter 21  -" Lisa Gets Hurt

   Where once Lisa had felt special because of the knowledge she and Becky
had shared in secret, now that knowledge was out in the open and Lisa felt
slighted because of it.

   Petty jealousy never made for pleasant interactions, and so as Becky
mingled and chatted nude with her clothed friends at the party, Lisa sat on
the sidelines and glowered. 

   It wasn't exactly subtle, and it didn't go unnoticed.  Things came to a
head when the two found themselves alone together in the kitchen, and Lisa
responded with sullen sarcasm to some innocent remark of Becky's. 

   Her friend turned, eyes flashing.

   "What is the matter with you?" she snapped.  "You've had a face like a
slapped arse all night."

   "As if you don't know," Lisa replied hotly.

   "What?!"

   Lisa paused.  She almost resisted opening her mouth  -" but she was a
few drinks in, and somehow it just came out.

   "This!" she said, gesturing to Becky, her hand encompassing the naked
parts.  "This is what's the matter!  What is this all about?  What are you
doing?"

   "What do you mean?" she replied.  "You know what this is about.  You've
always known, and I just explained everything out there."

   "Do I, Becks?  Do I really?  Sometimes I wonder..."

   "I wanted everyone to know the truth about me-"

   "You would have just needed to tell them then!  Not swan downstairs
stark naked!"

   "I- I wanted it to be memorable..." she explained weakly.

   "Memorable?" Lisa countered.  "Memorable?!  Memorable is getting drunk
together and singing along to cheesy 80s rock and someone throwing up in
the garden!  Not the birthday girl showing up to the party naked!"

   "I thought you'd understand?" Becky cried back.  "I always thought you
understood!  This is the real me..."

   Lisa paused, stung, but she was too worked up to stop now.  It's in
these sort of arguments that the most hurtful things have a tendency to
come out, and right now Lisa's desire to hit out at her friend was calling
the shots.

   "The real you?" she said with venom.  "Why don't you tell them then
about the exhibitionism?  Why don't you tell them how you were so turned on
showing yourself to that train full of people that you couldn't stop from
playing with yourself then and there!  That's the real you, Becky!  This is
just more of that!"

   As soon as she said it, she regretted it.

   Becky's face fell.  Her bottom lip wobbled and her eyes filled with
tears.

   "You...  you..." she said.

   Lisa stared for a moment.  The fire had gone out in her now.

   "I...  maybe shouldn't have said that.  It's just...  sometimes... 
well, it's a bit embarrassing..."

   Becky looked hurt.  "I embarrass you?" 

   "Look...  no.  No, you don't.  It's just...  I don't know.  This.  All
this.  It can be a bit too much."

   "Well, should I go and put some clothes on?  If you're not comfortable?"

   "No, it's just...  it's not that."

   "Then what is it?  What am I supposed to do?"

   "I don't know."

   "What do you want me to do?"

   Lisa knew the answer to that question  -" but she wasn't brave enough to
speak it out loud.  "I don't know!" she lied.

   She wanted to tell Becky.  She wanted to tell her how her desire for her
friend had only grown stronger the more she had become involved in Becky's
naked adventures.  She wanted to tell her how she found her body so
beautiful, so lovely, how she wanted to take her in her arms, hold her,
kiss her, all over.  How she had always thought she was straight but now
all her fantasies were of one girl, how she would imagine the two of them
making love and that this was all she wanted in the world. 

   She wanted to tell her friend that she was afraid she might actually be
in love with her.  But the fear Becky might reject her, that it might
destroy what they already had, was too strong, and she couldn't form the
words. 

   Even though now it meant she was hurting her best friend's feelings.

   Becky looked sadden.  "Well, I'm sorry," she said, her voice subdued. 
"Whatever it is, I'm sorry for it." And with that she left the room.

    -"

   Lisa pouted, sullen and a little too drunk.

   Becky had covered up briefly when she'd rejoined the party, wrapping a
colourful blanket over her nakedness.  It was probably, Lisa felt, in
deference to their argument but to see Becky do that was if anything more
awkward for Lisa, as it showed her comments had gotten to her friend and
were eroding the extreme confidence she had earlier displayed.

   Lisa was almost relieved when, a few drinks later, Becky managed to lose
the blanket and was again nude among the clothed guests.

   They didn't talk to each other much, after their row in the kitchen. 
Becky quickly gravitated toward another friend, a guy named Ben, and his
girlfriend Amanda.  The three of them had spent much of the rest of the
party lounging on the sofa in the back room, chatting away
conspiratorially. Lisa was left to herself, and although she put on the
best face and attempted to be social with her other friends, her mind was
always on Becky.

   It was growing late now.  The party was winding down, some friends had
already headed home.  She hadn't even seen Becky in a while.  Lisa was
considering simply leaving but she felt she couldn't do so without at least
saying something else, probably apologetic, to her nudist friend.

   She needed to find Becky first though.  The house she shared with her
mother wasn't large but it didn't seem like Becky was anywhere downstairs,
or in the back yard.  Party guests were forbidden from going up into the
bedrooms but Lisa supposed that didn't really apply to Becky, so she
decided to hunt her out and see if she was upstairs before she left.

   It was dark upstairs, and Becky's own bedroom was empty.  So too was her
mother's  -" but suddenly Lisa saw a chink of light coming from the guest
bedroom at the far end of the corridor.  Assuming Becky must be in there,
she went to push it open.

   Then she stopped.

   Through the slightly open door, she had a good view into the room.  She
couldn't help but grin.  The light in the room was low, but she could see
her friend Ben, naked, his bum very nicely toned.  He was fucking Amanda,
his girlfriend.  She was naked too, bent over the bed  -" Ben was fucking
her from behind, his thrusts strong and confident.  Lisa couldn't help but
feel a tension between her legs, a little electric shiver as she recalled
her night in the tent with Ross.  She'd like a guy to do that to her, she
thought  -" in fact, she'd have no complaints if it were Ben, although
she'd never wish to come between him and Amanda, they were great together.

   She was about to turn and go, when her eyes, growing accustomed to the
dim lighting, registered something surprising.  The two lovers weren't
alone in the bedroom.  There was someone else with them.  A woman, on the
bed.

   Lisa's blood chilled.  It was Becky.

   Becky was lying on the bed, propped up by a stack of pillows.  She was
still naked, and her legs were wide apart, because Amanda's head was in
between them.

   Amanda was going down on Becky while Ben was fucking his girlfriend. 
Becky was laughing but her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed,
there was an expression of happiness and pleasure on her face.

   Lisa felt sick, and her head span.  As quietly as she could, she turned
and fled from the doorway.  Nobody had seen her.  She rushed to the
bathroom, the booze she had drunk suddenly turning on her, and threw up
into the toilet.  She was shaking.

   She couldn't believe what she'd seen.

   She'd never considered the possibility that Becky might have any sexual
interest in other women.  Nothing Becky had said had ever even hinted at
it. That had been one of the things that had made her resolve to try to
keep her own attraction to her friend a secret, because she'd been sure
that Becky only liked guys.

   But now, there she was, enjoying lovemaking with another woman.  True,
it was a threesome, there was a guy involved as well, but it showed Becky
to at the very least be a little more inclined to experimentation than Lisa
had ever realized she was.

   Her head whirling with unanswered questions and missed opportunities,
Lisa ran downstairs and, without anybody noticing, left the party.

    -"

   Her dreams that night were of Amanda's tongue eagerly lapping at Becky's
labia, her nose tickled by the soft cushion of Becky's pubic hair.  She
dreamed of Becky, aroused, nipples standing proud on her beautiful bare
breasts.  Dream-Becky caressed herself, threw back her head, laughed
happily.  She was close to climax, the other girl's tongue and lips doing
their work, bringing her to the edge of orgasm.  Then the dream dissolved
and Lisa awoke, desperately horny, her head pounding and her mouth dry. 

   Sleepily, she masturbated  -" slowly at first, but with increasing vigor
and growing frustration.  Her climax came at last but it was unsatisfactory
and she sank back into her pillows with uneasy and anxious thoughts.

   What had happened yesterday?  Firstly, Becky had come to the party
naked, without giving Lisa any prior indication that she had planned to do
anything so outrageous.  Having been for so long the only person in whom
Becky had confided her secret naked life, Lisa could not help but to feel
slighted at having been left out of the planning of this demonstration,
especially when Becky took the opportunity to share with all her assembled
friends something that had once been shared only with Lisa alone.

   The two had fought, with much left unsaid not just by Lisa but, Lisa
felt, Becky too had been holding something back.  And, in the aftermath,
while things were strained between them, Lisa had stumbled upon something
else she had not been meant to know  -" Becky in bed with another woman,
and that woman's boyfriend, making love.

   When she'd been younger, Lisa had developed a crush on a boy at school 
-" like many young kids with a crush, she hadn't been brave enough to voice
her feelings.  One day, she'd seen him holding hands at lunch with another
girl, and it had been heartbreaking.  If I'd done something differently,
she'd thought, that could have been me instead of her.

   She was feeling something similar now.  She didn't know the story of how
Becky had come to be in bed with two other people  -" although she rather
expected it had something to do with Becky showing up to the party naked,
and of course, alcohol.  But now she knew that Becky had been at least open
to experimenting with another woman  -" it was just that the woman she'd
experimented with hadn't been her.  Had she behaved differently towards her
friend, or made her feelings known, maybe the night would have ended with
Becky and Lisa, instead of Becky, Amanda and Ben?

   She'd never know now, but it was a thought which wouldn't go away.



   Chapter 22  -" Growing Up

   This time, it did make the papers, locally at least.

   "MYSTERY NUDIST SEEN AROUND TOWN"

   After the photographs of Becky nude at the cinema had been a minor viral
sensation a couple of weeks before, the same light-hearted news website
reported that the unknown naked woman had been seen again in the same area,
this time caught on CCTV undressing and parading around a corner shop in
the nude.  They had that CCTV footage, supplied to them by a clerk at the
shop, who had been working when the girl came in and stripped.

   A random naked girl in one location was one thing, but two events made
for a serial streaker in the town, and this was much more exciting news. 
Some town journalist, eager for content to pad out the local newspaper's
print and online editions, picked it up from social media and began to put
it together.

   The local news article wasn't exactly front page news but it caused a
minor stir online.  The piece described how a mystery young brunette had
been seen in two locations around the town over the past couple of months,
walking completely naked in a public place, seemingly without a care.  It
included an account from Hamed, the shop worker who had witnessed the
girl's striptease in his store.

   "I didn't mind at all," the young man said.  "She was very pretty and
looked to be having a good time.  There was no sign she was drunk or in
trouble.  She just wanted to take off her clothes."

   A spokesperson for the cinema chain stated that patrons were expected to
dress appropriately and anyone who did not do so would be asked to leave.
They could not explain why that had not happened in the case of the mystery
naked girl, saying only that this was an employee matter and they were
currently investigating.

   The reporter even made enquiries with the local police, who replied only
that they were aware of the incidents, that no complaint had been made to
the police about them either at the time the occurred or since, and they
were not currently undertaking any investigation into the activities of the
'nudist'. 

   In the aftermath, after the story was published, further details
emerged. In amongst the many amused (and lewd) comments on the local
newspaper's Facebook page about the story were a number of people
speculating about the girl's identity  -" and one poster, who wondered if
they might have seen the same young woman, as they had been riding on a
train to London in late July and had observed two girls sitting on a bank
by the railway track  -" one of whom had been a pretty brunette with no
clothes on...

    -"

   It was inevitable, then, that they would be found out. 

   Word of Becky's behavior at the party had gotten out.  There had even
been mobile phone photos from the night shared in which it was pretty clear
that Becky had not been wearing clothes during the evening.

   When the story of the town's mystery nudist broke, it didn't take long
for Becky and Lisa's friends to put two and two together.  Becky O'Neill
had attended her birthday party completely nude, and now there were stories
of a girl appearing naked in public around town?  It was too much in common
to just be a coincidence  -" how many young, buxom brunettes with a
penchant for unashamed nudity  -" and a blonde friend  -" were there in the
town?  Plus, those who had been to the party could attest to a definite
physical similarity between the girl in the cinema photos and what they had
seen of Becky.  When they looked at the uploads from the CCTV footage, it
became almost certain, the girl in that was unmistakably Becky.

   Gossip spread wildly.  Soon, everybody knew that Becky was not just a
nudist who had shown up at her birthday party in the buff, but that she was
someone who just loved to parade around nude in full public view to boot.
Not just her friends, but their younger siblings still at school, their
parents, Becky's former teachers  -" anyone who knew her got to hear at
least something of the titillating details.

   And it wasn't just Becky, either.  Because Lisa was the number one
candidate for the other (clothed) girl who had been seen in the company of
the naked Becky on these occasions, there were suddenly a lot of people
contacting Lisa with a lot of questions they thought she might be able to
answer.

   It was not, she thought, what she needed during her first week at
university.  While physically she was removed from it all because she was
no longer in the same town, she couldn't escape the messages on Facebook,
the texts and calls.  Everyone had heard the story, sometimes with lurid
exaggerations, and as the only person they knew who had actually been
there, they wanted Lisa to tell them if it was true.

   It didn't help that Becky had pretty much gone to ground.  As soon as
she'd realized what was happening, she'd deleted all her profiles from
social media, and wasn't answering the telephone or responding to texts. 

   It was shaping up to be a minor disaster, and not for the first time,
Lisa wondered if getting involved with Becky's naked escapades over the
previous summer had maybe not been the most sensible thing she could have
done.

    -"

   Two months had passed.

   As quickly as it had grown up, the initial fuss around the appearance of
a naked Becky in the local news media had died down.  There were no new
developments, her name had never been published and, of course, there had
been no more sightings of naked girl walking around in public places in the
town.

   That, Lisa knew, was because Becky wasn't living there anymore, but the
strangers who only knew of Becky from the news stories thankfully had no
idea of her whereabouts and her identity.

   Annoyed by the initial flurry of calls and messages from friends unable
to reach Becky or simply hungry for gossip about her friend's unusual and
titillating behaviour, Lisa decided to follow what seemed to her the
healthiest course of action, and threw herself into socializing and
studying in the new environment of university, with barely a thought toward
things that had happened back home.  Now, at times it seemed as though her
life before this belonged to some dim and distant past, not just several
weeks before.

   She had to laugh.  She and all the other freshers were strutting around
campus like they were experts, proper grown-ups  -" a far cry from the shy,
awestruck and confused mob who had arrived during freshers week.

   She'd had some chance, after the first flurry of activity, for some
introspection.

   Her relationship with Becky had ended in a fractured state and since
then, with the sudden reveal to all who knew her that she'd been at least
somewhat of an exhibitionist during the previous summer, with Becky going
to ground, there had been no real chance to repair it.  She was coming now
to realise that their friendship that past summer had taken on an
intensity, an almost possessive strangeness , born largely from the
closeness Becky's proclivity for nudity had caused.  But Lisa, looking at
it now with more detached, had come to the conclusion that there had been
an unhealthy side to it all.

   She hadn't wanted to share Becky with anyone.  She'd wanted her all for
herself, and the shared secret of Becky's nudism and exhibitionism had been
the means by which she'd managed this.  So, when Becky had 'come out' as a
nudist  -" in such a spectacular public way  -" to their other friends,
sharing with them something that had previously made Lisa feel privileged
and special, it had wounded her.  The icing on the angst cake for Lisa had
been that after that she had been immediately reminded that her friend, who
had been single for the whole of that more intensified phase of their
relationship, did have a sex life of her own that was completely removed
from Lisa and may involve other people Lisa knew, but was not going to
involve Lisa herself.

   It had been harder to take than she had imagined.  She hadn't really
understood the depth and strength of her attraction to Becky until it had
been challenged in that way.

   But part of the growing up process she had been through since coming to
university had been to come to accept that no matter how strong her
attraction to Becky was, she couldn't make her friend feel the same way,
and it wasn't right to take such a possessive approach to her friend and
her friend's behaviour.

   So when Becky had made the news, Lisa had used it as an opportunity to
distance herself from her friend's actions.  She'd been honest when friends
and (especially) her family had asked about it, but had also downplayed it.
It was something Becky did from time to time, that was all  -" something
she, Lisa, did not fully understand but had accepted as harmless and tried
to be supportive over, but there wasn't anything like the exciting
undercurrent to it people might have thought.

   Now, after almost two months, she felt finally that she had established
herself as her own person, independent of Becky and her strange ways.

   So that was, of course, exactly when Becky managed to come back into her
life.



   Chapter 23  -" Reconnecting

   It was a Skype call, in the end, that brought the two back together.

   Lisa was working late on an assignment.  She often stayed logged into
Skype when she was on her laptop, but she was still surprised when the call
came through from Becky.

   She considered ignoring it.  It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to
Becky.  But the two, who had previously barely gone a few hours without a
text, call or message of some kind, hadn't spoken since Lisa left for
university.  Any conversation with her friend now was going to be a little
more difficult as a result, and she genuinely was busy with other things.

   On the other hand, Becky was still her friend.  When news of Becky's
naked adventures around town had broken, Lisa had tried to reach out to
Becky and support her.  She had been rebuffed then but still wanted to be
there for her friend when she needed her  -" and a late-night Skype call
may be just that.

   Before Becky could give up and hang up, Lisa clicked to answer, and her
friend appeared on-screen.  Becky looked tired but otherwise unchanged. 
She was in what was almost certainly her bedroom at university, but  -"
unusually for Becky  -" appeared to be fully clothed.  Perhaps she was
cold, Lisa thought to herself - it was almost November.

   Becky still had her brunette curls, her full lips and wide eyes.  Lisa's
heart skipped as she found herself recalling her friend's unique beauty for
the first time in a while.

   "Hi!" she squealed to Lisa.  "Oh my God, hi!" She was still as excitable
as ever.  "How are you doing?"

   "I'm...  I'm good, yeah," Lisa said, still surprised by Becky's call. 
"How're you?"

   "I'm...  okay, " Becky replied.  "I'm good."

   The next few minutes was filled with slightly awkward small talk, until
Becky finally broke the ice.

   "So, you saw I got in the paper..."

   Lisa nodded.  "Yeah.  A little more than that.  I had a whole bunch of
people messaging me and calling me asking what it was all about and what
was going on with you because nobody could reach you."

   "Yeah.  I'm sorry.  I'm really sorry.  I didn't mean for you to get
caught up in all that.  I just...  I didn't want to talk to anyone about
it, not like that.  I thought if I just disappeared for a while it would
all go away.

   "Plus I was getting this reported from the paper messaging me on
Facebook all the time, wanting to interview me and publish my name, because
someone had told them it was me, so in the end I just deleted all that
stuff."

   "Oh, wow, I didn't know that Beck, that's awful."

   "Yeah.  And I had to explain it all to mum..."

   "Oh, yikes.  How'd that go?"

   "She...  she wasn't very pleased.  I'd wanted to tell her I'm a nudist
and such, but not that way and I didn't want her to know about...  the, uh,
other stuff."

   "What did she say?"

   "Well, I think really she was embarrassed.  I mean, even though the
paper didn't name me, a lot of people were going around saying it was me,
and it got back to her and then she realized that a lot of people she knew
also knew about it and now suddenly she's the mother whose daughter was
running around in public with no clothes on.

   "Mum's always had a...  a certain amount of pride about bringing me up
right, being on her own and that, and I guess she was disappointed I was
out there doing something like that.  Y'know, exposing myself."

   "That's daft though, Becks," Lisa interjected.  "It might be a bit weird
what you...  like doing but it's not bad and doesn't make you a bad
person."

   "Yeah, I know, but I guess I never saw it from someone else's point of
view before.  Plus, mum was just worried...  she asked me if those were the
only times and I sorta hesitated and she knew there were others and she
just couldn't believe I was doing something that seemed so risky.  I mean,
young girl running around in public with no clothes on..."

   "You had me though!" 

   "Yeah, but I didn't wanna mention you, I mean I didn't want mum thinking
you'd encouraged me or thinking bad of you because of it..."

   Lisa was surprised.  Considerate behavior like that was something that
recently she had come to feel she could no longer expect from Becky  -" it
was touching that even when she was in trouble with her mother, she'd still
tried to protect Lisa from additional fallout.

   "Well," she responded good-naturedly, "I kind of was encouraging you. 
Or at least, enabling you.  I think that's a better word.  You didn't
exactly need encouragement, but I was good at giving you excuses."

   Becky smiled.  "Yeah, I know.  And it meant so much to me that you did
that.  If I ever made you feel awkward or embarrassed you I'm really
sorry."

   "You didn't, though!"

   "Really?  But, well...  you were off with me since the party.  I know I
was acting pretty crazy then, getting naked in front of everyone and I
probably shouldn't have done it...  if that upset you, I'm sorry."

   "Becky, it wasn't that...  it was..."

   "What?"

   Lisa blushed.  "I...  sorta saw you with Ben and Amanda.  In bed. 
Together."

   Becky's jaw dropped.  "Oh, my God," she gasped.  "Oh, my God, I am so
sorry hun."

   "No!  Don't be sorry!  It's just I...  I was a little bit shocked is
all. I didn't know you were...  you know, into Amanda.  Or Ben.  But, um,
mostly Amanda."

   "Oh, shit...  wow.  Um.  I dunno what to say now.  I thought you were
just mad because of, you know, the whole showing up to the party starkers
thing.  I had no idea.  Why didn't you say something?"

   "I don't know...  there was nothing to say.  It's none of my damn
business who you sleep with, really Becks.  You don't have to tell me
anything and you certainly don't have to justify yourself to me.  I just...
I didn't know you liked girls that way, is all.  It was something to find
out."

   "I don't though!  Like girls, I mean.  Well, I mean, I did.  I do.  I
dunno!  I really don't know, Lisa.  I've never fancied a girl, not like
that.  I don't fancy Amanda.  I mean, she's gorgeous but I think that about
all my girl friends.  I'm not gay or bi or whatever.  I was just...  I was
just curious I guess, and I'd been drinking and I haven't been laid in a
fucking long time and, well, I guess Amanda really liked the fact I was so,
um, liberated about my body and she suggested that we have a threesome and
I dunno, I just thought, well why not try it?  And we were gonna do it
another time but as the party went on and it was like, we all drank some
more and I was already naked..." Becky looked embarrassed now, but went on,
"and I was really, really horny."

   "I thought you might have been..." Lisa said carefully, recalling her
row with Becky in the kitchen.

   "Shit, yeah, if I'm being honest I might as well admit it; you were kind
of right about that.  Being naked at the party was a fucking huge turn on
for me." She sighed.  "It was another fantasy I have always had and, well,
I didn't know if I'd get another chance to fulfill it.  I mean, I wasn't
gonna see most of those people again for a long while so if it all went
tits-up, at least I wasn't gonna be around to deal with the fall-out.

   "You were right, though," she said with an embarrassed smile.  "I
dressed it up as some big statement about being myself and the real me but
really it was just me getting a kick out of walking around naked in front
of clothed people and getting looked at.  You're right, I'm a disgusting
pervert." She made a face.

   "You're not!" Lisa exclaimed.

   "No," Becky argued back, "I am.  I totally get why you were mad about
it."

   "No, you don't."

   "Huh?"

   "No, you don't get why I was mad about it.  Not if you think I was
grossed out because it was a sexy time for you.  It's just...  you didn't
tell me you were gonna do it."

   "Oh.  Yeah.  I guess I didn't.  Well, I mean, I would have, but up until
the last second I didn't even know if I was gonna go through with it.  I
guess I just wasn't thinking.  I'm so sorry though, you're right, I should
have told you."

   Lisa took a moment.  "It's not just that," she said eventually.

   "What is it?"

   "Well..." Lisa began.  "It's just...  the whole thing with you doing
stuff like that.  Being naked in different places, I mean.  It was like,
well, it was our thing.  You know?  It was a thing that only I knew about
you.  And I...  if I'm being honest, I kinda liked that.  You're my best
friend Becks, you are, and I think it brought us closer that you shared
that with just me.

   "So when you decided to tell everyone else you knew, and in such a, um,
dramatic way, well, that kinda burned me.  I'm sorry, it shouldn't have,
but it did and I guess I didn't handle that very well."

   Becky's eyes widened.  "Wow," she said, "I totally didn't realise.  I've
been an idiot.  It meant so much to me that you accepted me and I never
realized how much it meant to you too that I had chosen to tell you about
that side of me."

   There was a moment of silence between them, then Becky continued: "If it
makes you feel any better, I totally wish I had kept it between us now."

   "What?  Really, why?"

   "Well, people haven't exactly been as understanding as I would have
liked..."

   "No?  Everyone at the party seemed pretty cool with it."

   "Yeah, I thought so too, but it turns out very few of our friends
appreciated me showing tits, arse and...  everything else to their
boyfriends.  I'm kinda not very popular back home at the moment, well not
among the lasses anyway. 

   "And then I've got the opposite problem with the lads.  Word got around
and every single boy we ever went to school with started messaging me
asking for a free show.  That was before the news thing.  When that broke
it got even worse."

   "Oh wow, yeah."

   "I'm still glad I told people I'm a nudist but you were right, I
should've just said it, rather than walking into the room stark bloody
naked going 'look at me!' It kind distracts people from what I'm saying,
they only remember what I did.  And Chinese Whispers happens and before you
know it, someone's hearing how I stripped off drunk and did handstands in
the middle of the room with a dildo in my bum!"

   Lisa couldn't help but laugh at her friend's earthy language.  She'd
always loved how blunt Becky could be if she got worked up about something.
"So, it's safe to say you've got a bit of a reputation back home now?"

   "Yeah, you could say that!"

   "Still though, I suppose it could have come at a worse time?  I mean,
with going off to uni and that.  Chance to leave it all behind.  I guess
you've been having plenty of fun up there, what with having your own space
to be naked and so on?"

   Becky looked crestfallen.  "Actually, no..." she said.

   "Oh?" Lisa was surprised  -" although she did consider again the fact
her friend was currently clothed despite being apparently in the privacy of
her bedroom.  "Why not?"

   "They gave me a roommate."



   Chapter 24  -" The Roommate

   Something had got lost in the communication.

   Most English universities house their students in halls of residence,
where each student gets a room of their own.  In that room is a bed, a
desk, a chair, a closet and usually a sink to wash in.  Sometimes, in
fancier places, each room has an en-suite bathroom, but otherwise the
bathrooms and showers are communal affairs, shared by a group of students
who also share a communal kitchen and (often) a living area.

   That was how it was at Lisa's university.  She had her own room to sleep
in, study in and if she just wanted a bit of privacy.  But if she wanted to
be social, watch TV or cook a meal, she had to go along the corridor to
where the communal areas were, areas she shared with five other girls. 
They also had a shower room with three shower cubicles, and two toilets.

   This had suited Lisa pretty well.  Likeable and sociable, she had found
it easy to connect with her corridor-mates; from the bubbly Jo to the
boyfriend-missing Chloe and even the spiky indie-rocker Jessica, she'd
found common ground with all of them.  She was often in the lounge or
kitchen rather than closeting herself in her bedroom and even during times
when she stayed in her room to read or work she would leave her door open
so as to let any of her new friends know they could talk to her if she
needed to. 

   Becky, it appeared, had not found exactly the same situation, and was
not fitting in quite as well.

   On paper, Becky had been expecting her university accommodation to be
the same as Lisa's was.  She hadn't given it much thought, true, but she
had a basic idea.  When she arrived, the halls of residence had looked much
older than some of the ones in the brochure but it all made sense.  She
picked up a room key from reception and together with her mother, headed
for her room.

   Her mum helped her to unload her belongings from the car and after an
emotional farewell, left Becky to unpack.

   As soon as her mum had gone, Becky quickly removed her clothes.  After
all, she was in a completely private place, with the other students sharing
her part of the block all busy with their own unpacking.  She would need to
get dressed later to meet them, but for now she could indulge in some naked
time.

   She wondered about the bunk bed.  It seemed an odd addition to a single
room.  But, the furniture in the room  -" the desks, tables, chairs  -"
seemed old, so maybe it was left here from some time in the past...

    -"

   "Oh, my God," Lisa interrupted.  "Are you serious?  You didn't know you
were in a double?"

   "It was a long day, I was tired, I- I wasn't really thinking..."

   "You had two beds?"

   "Yeah but..."

   "Two desks?  Chairs?  Cupboards?"

   "Yeah...  it's really dumb, isn't it?"

   "Yes.  Yes it is."

   "Oh God..."

    -"

   Busy with activity, Becky didn't hear the knock at the door.  She didn't
hear the key in the lock.  The first she knew that she had company was when
another girl walked into the room, along with her parents, and her very
happy younger brother, to discover a completely naked young woman putting
books on a shelf.

   Becky at least had the good grace to be embarrassed.

   There were many red faces and much profuse apologizing, the situation
made worse because Becky instantly began yelling at the interlopers to get
out.

   "I thought they had just got the wrong room," she explained to Lisa, who
by this stage was helpless with laughter.  "It turned out they hadn't.  She
was my roommate."

   This was all straightened out later with a by-now dressed Becky.  Once
the initial hubbub had passed, all involved were able to laugh about it. 
It was certainly an ice-breaker for Becky and her new roommate, if nothing
else, and although it had been mortifying for the other girl, whose name
was Ellie, it didn't seem like something that would stop them being
friends.

   Wisely, perhaps sensitive to her new roommate, Becky kept her clothes on
the remainder of the night after that, and Ellie was gracious enough to
even let Becky have the top bunk.

   That night was spent with Becky, her new roommate and the other girls in
their part of the building getting to know each other, and other new folks,
in the student bar.  Eventually, around 1am, early for a first night but
indicative of how exhausting all were finding the transition to university,
the girls turned in.

   It was next morning when, sobered up, the conversation turned to the
manner of their first encounter once again.

   "I'm so sorry about that," Ellie said again.

   "It's okay, really," Becky replied kindly.

   "I know, it's just I can imagine how embarrassed I'd be, a bunch of
complete strangers walk in on me when I'm changing..."

   "Actually," Becky said delicately, "I, um, wasn't exactly changing..."

   "What do you mean?  You were naked."

   "I know, I was.  But I wasn't changing.  I'm sort of a nudist, you see."

   "A what?"

   "A nudist.  I, er, I prefer to be naked.  To be comfortable.  I don't
wear clothes much, in my room I mean.  I feel more free without them."

   "Oh," Ellie replied after a while, "right.  I guess that explains it
then."

   "Yeah."

   There followed an awkward silence.

   "The thing is, Ellie," Becky said cautiously, "I was really kind of glad
you walked in like that because I wouldn't have known quite how to bring it
up otherwise, but now that you know, it won't shock you."

   "What won't?"

   "Me being naked."

   "What, if I walk in on you again, you mean?"

   "Well, yes.  And...  also, um, me being naked when you are around."

   "What?!"

   "Well, you know, I'm not gonna want to be wearing clothes here, well I
would prefer not to..."

   "You want to walk around naked when I'm here?"

   "Um, yeah.  Why, is that a problem?"

   There followed the first of what would be several arguments on this
issue.  It began with a fairly calm discussion but quickly escalated when
it became clear that neither girl felt as though compromise to accommodate
the other's sensibilities was in any way fair. 

   Becky, for her part, felt it was unjust of Ellie to expect her to cover
her body in what was essentially a private space, albeit one they shared.
It wasn't, she pointed out, as though she was suggesting she wanted to walk
around the more public areas naked  -" she just wanted her roommate to
understand that their shared bedroom would be a clothing-optional space and
she, Becky, would largely be without clothes when sleeping, working or
relaxing in their room.

   Ellie, quite reasonably in her view, countered that Becky was arguing
that her desire to be naked somehow trumped Ellie's desire to not see her
roommate casually walking around buck naked, to not have a naked person's
bottom sit on their chairs, to not have to worry about bringing people over
unannounced and them getting "a right eyeful" as her unwitting family had
done, and so forth.

   This descended into ever more abstract debate along the lines of
personal freedom, body issues and other such topics, with no resolution in
sight that would satisfy either girl thoroughly.

   Becky's problem, she admitted to Lisa, was that really, she had no wish
to antagonize her roommate with her lifestyle.  She could easily have just
paid no heed to Ellie's objections  -" after all, the other girl couldn't
force her to wear clothes, could she?  But she was mindful of the fact that
she didn't want Ellie to think badly of her or resent her presence  -" she
had only been here for a few days, and she had to live with this new girl
for the entire year.

   Or did she?  Becky's next port of call, once she had accepted that no
amount of heartfelt pleading was going to change Ellie's mind, was her
residency officer, an older student who could manage problems the first
years were having with their accommodation.

   "I want to change roommates," she explained as she stood in the RO's
office.  The RO was initially sympathetic upon hearing that Becky had
failed to gel with her roommate.  The university assigned roommates based
on background and what course they were studying, hopefully making
compatible choices and encouraging friendship  -" but of course they were
perfectly willing to accept that sometimes these things did not work out
and moves could be arranged.

   However, the RO first needed to know the details of the dispute, to
ensure that things could not be resolved between the two students with
time, and also to make sure that any move didn't end up repeating the same
situation.

   "Well," Becky began, blushing slightly, "I'm a nudist, and my roommate
is very against me being able to practice my personal beliefs in our room."

   What, the RO asked, did Becky exactly mean by that?  When Becky answered
that Ellie had expressed that she didn't want Becky walking around naked
when she was in the room, the RO's demeanor changed somewhat.

   She was very sorry to hear that, she explained, but part of learning to
live together is to develop compromises and to understand that some
personal habits impact on others without us intending to.  It sounded to
her, the RO said, that Becky's roommate was not being unreasonable in
asking Becky to be clothed when they were together, and it did not really
measure up to the sort of difficulty that would necessitate Becky moving.
Besides, the RO elaborated, she could not guarantee that a new roommate
would not make the same (reasonable) request of Becky as Ellie had, and she
did not feel that it was the university's place to screen potential
roommates on their attitude to a student wishing to live in the nude.

   "Well then, can I not just have my own room?" Becky asked plaintively.

   The RO apologized  -" currently there were no single rooms available on
campus, but if something arose, she would let Becky know.

    -"

   "Then the whole thing with the newspaper happened and ever since then I
guess I gave up pursuing it any further," Becky finished.

   "Oh dear!" Lisa exclaimed, trying to be sympathetic  -" although it
really was quite funny.  "So you have to wear clothes a lot more now?"

   "Pretty much all the time.  Ellie and I are on the same schedule so
there aren't many times when she is out and I'm here."

   "Oh, how awful," Lisa said with a laugh.

   "I know!" Becky said, without a trace of irony, "it is awful!"

   Lisa rolled her eyes. 

   "I saw that!" Becky exclaimed, finally catching on.  "Yeah, I guess it's
a pretty minor thing really.  I mean boo hoo, I have to keep my clothes on.
But I was really looking forward to coming to uni and having a bit of
freedom to be myself and instead I wind up with even less freedom than I
had at home.  At least mum was out a lot!

   "It's just making me a bit miserable," she said with genuine sadness. 

   "How do you get on with everyone else there?" Lisa asked. 

   "Oh, they're alright, I guess," Becky said.  "But they think I'm a
weirdo.  The nature girl, or some sort of sex pervert.  They're nice to me
but I think we aren't really getting along."

   Lisa felt a swell of sympathy for her friend.  "I guess you haven't
found yourself...  you know, showing off, since you got there?  Public
nudity and that?"

   Becky shook her head.  "I daren't," she explained.  "They already think
I'm a freak.  Plus, that news article and stuff is still out there on the
internet.  If someone sees me doing the same sort of stunts here and
they've seen that article, they'll quickly put two and two together and
figure out who I am. 

   "That and," she said lowering her eyes, "I kinda needed you there, too."

   "What?"

   "Well, it's just...  I don't think I could do this sort of stuff without
you now.  I was never as brave about it as when I was with you and I never
felt safer.  Plus, you kind of made it fun.

   "Sorry," she continued.  "I know I was basically roping you in to help
me carry out my perverse little fantasies against your will.  I really am
sorry for that."

   Lisa paused, then sighed.  "Becky," she asked her friend, "do you know
why I helped you and supported you and encouraged you with the whole
exhibitionist thing and the whole general being naked thing?"

   "Um, because you're a good friend to me and because I'm a terrible
person who made you go along with me?"

   "Well, that's true..." Lisa laughed.  "But no," she added hurriedly, "it
wasn't that.  It was, well, it was fun for me, too.  I got a kick out of
it. I'm gonna be honest here, it was exciting to see you do it, and even
the fear of getting caught was kind of a rush too."

   "Really?  You mean that?"

   Lisa nodded.  "I do.  I guess I just...  wasn't being honest in the
right way before.  But I actually really like having a, well, a naked
friend.  And," she added after a moment, "if you were my roommate I'd make
the rule that you weren't allowed to be dressed, not the other way around."

   There was an awkward pause, both girls blushing noticeably.

   Lisa coughed to break the silence.  "Ahem.  Anyway...  why don't you
come and visit me here?  You can come for the weekend.  Stay over, we
aren't really allowed guests in our rooms but nobody checks and loads of
people have had mates come and stay since we started."

   "Yeah?  Well, it would be nice to get away from here, and I've missed
you so much!"

   "I've missed you too.  And, also, maybe while you are here we can, you
know, do some stuff where you go somewhere you are supposed to have clothes
on, but with no clothes on?"

   "Really?" Becky was like a kid who had been told that Christmas was
coming early.

   Lisa nodded.  "Why not?  It's not like you are from here.  Nobody will
know you and even if they happen to have read that news article when it
went round, they don't know where you are from so even if they put it
together it won't affect your life up there in any way."

   Becky beamed.  "You're right," she said, "you're so right.  Oh my God, I
can't wait!"

   The two girls spent the rest of their conversation planning Becky's trip
and then, their relationship more or less restored to its former closeness
by the honesty of their chat, Becky signed off.

   Lisa closed her laptop with a sigh.  She was beyond happy that she and
Becky were friends again  -" but she felt unsettled, too.  They'd gotten a
lot out in the open with that conversation, but she still hadn't been able
to be totally honest with Becky.  She'd come closer than ever, even
somewhat flirting with her friend, but her infatuation, her desire, was
still her own secret and one she still did not dare to voice.



   Chapter 25  -" The University Visit

   At the railway station, Becky and Lisa hugged like they hadn't seen each
other in years, rather than the couple of months it had actually been.

   Lisa had been excited all week.  Becky was taking a train down from her
university on Friday evening, and she would stay with Lisa until Sunday. 
Lisa was going to meet her at the station, take her back to her halls and
then the two were going to head straight for the student pubs with some of
Lisa's new friends, who were all eager to meet Lisa's "mate from back
home."

   Lisa hadn't explained the other purpose of Becky's visit  -" to help her
friend indulge her exhibitionist tendencies, which had gone rather
frustrated since Becky had begun university.  It hadn't seemed necessary 
-" Lisa fully intended that if Becky was to do anything naked, it would be
somewhere quite far from her accommodation, where the chance of anyone she
knew catching the two of them would be minimal.  Telling her new friends
that Becky was an exhibitionist and nudist was off the agenda, a secret
between the two girls that Lisa liked knowing few others knew  -" she
wasn't about to reveal it to others if there was no call to.

   As she and Becky rode the bus back from the station to her halls, they
compared experiences of their formative weeks of university.  Both girls
were amused and somewhat surprised to discover that each of them had found
themselves during Fresher's week going home at the end of drunken nights
with random guys.

   Becky's hook-up wasn't that surprising, at least to Lisa.  Her friend
was, as she frequently observed, striking and pretty, and it would be more
inconceivable that she wasn't having sex at university than that she was.
Indeed, she'd spent the night with a couple of guys since first starting at
uni, albeit with neither of them being anything other than
one-night-stands. It had been almost a year since Becky had broken up with
her last boyfriend, and Lisa sensed  -" to her own inner relief  -" that
her friend was in no hurry to find another one.

   But if Becky's sexual encounters were par for the course (and, according
to Becky herself, rather underwhelming), her eyes widened when Lisa
explained that she, too, had found herself locking arms and lips on the
dance floor with a cute fellow freshman, and at the end of the night out
had found herself tipsily, but quite happily, consenting to accompany him
back to his own room in his own halls.

   Unlike Ross, the boy she'd lost her virginity to, this guy, whose name
was Liam, seemed a little more confident about what he was doing in the
bedroom with her.  It wasn't that Ross had been inexperienced, just a
little insecure about his performance  -" but for Lisa, Liam had apparently
no doubts that he could show her a good time and every intention of doing
just that.

   "He...  went down on me," she whispered to her friend, who gave a
delighted squeal.

   Lisa had never had a boy (or a girl, of course) eat her pussy before,
but Liam kissed his way down her naked body, his lips tickling her inner
thigh, before parting her legs with a confident push and running his
questing tongue over her tingling labia.  Lisa sighed and moaned with
genuine pleasure as the boy, who clearly knew what he was doing, used
kisses and licks and subtle flexes in pressure to stimulate her lips and
then her clitoris. 

   She came suddenly, almost unexpectedly, crying out happily as her orgasm
rushed through her.  With a grin, Liam emerged from between her legs, only
to follow by easily sliding his erect, sheathed cock into her by now
thoroughly lubricated pussy, and the two of them ground together until the
lad achieved his own climax.

   "We shagged loads, after that," Lisa told her friend, who was beaming
happily at the news that Lisa had pulled.  It wasn't quite loads, but
they'd spent much of the next day in bed, alternately sleeping off
hangovers and going at it like rabbits.

   "So are you still seeing him?" Becky asked.

   "Nah," her friend replied.  "We went on one date and it turned out he
was a bit of a douche.  But he was bloody good in bed, I don't mind
saying."

   Becky was amazed.  Lisa realized she hadn't spoken so confidently about
relationships and boys to her before.  Becky was used to Lisa being the
'plain' friend (as Lisa would have described herself)  -" a girl seemingly
oblivious to her own attractiveness and to any attention from the opposite
sex, one who was perennially single and almost terminally virginal.  Even
having sex over the summer with Ross hadn't really changed this  -" Lisa
would be the first to admit the boy in the tent hadn't taught her much
about sex except that it didn't hurt as much as she'd thought it was going
to and was really quite nice, thank you very much.

   But her 24 hours or so in Liam's bed had been much more educational. 
She could now say from experience what it felt like to have a cock in her
mouth, how semen felt on her skin and, of course, what getting eaten out
felt like.  She'd finally had an orgasm in the company of another person 
-" more than one, in fact!  Orgasms, that was, not people.

   It was, for Lisa, one more sign that she'd grown up a little in the time
since starting university, and was perhaps a little better equipped to
handle such things as the feelings she had for Becky now than she had been
over the summer.

    -"

   Or so she thought.  But Becky still had a way of getting into her head.

   They'd stumbled back late to Lisa's room in the halls of residence. 
Becky had been a hit with Lisa's new gang, and the whole bunch of them had
circulated a few of the popular student bars.  They weren't exactly
shit-faced but they were definitely not sober.

   After a lengthy goodnight chat over the remnants of takeaway pizza, the
various girls went off to their various rooms to go to bed.

   Becky would be sleeping in Lisa's room, of course.  It wouldn't be the
first time the two had shared a bed, each had slept over at the other's
houses numerous times.  Lisa was even used to Becky not wearing
nightclothes when in bed with her, and could now just about manage to get
to sleep without her pulse racing at her friend's naked body being mere
inches away from her touch.

   With the door closed and privacy, Becky eagerly stripped, and Lisa
unabashedly cast her eye over her.  It had been some time since she had
last seen Becky in the nude, and it was indeed a very pleasing sight, her
friend still curvy, smooth-skinned, pale pink and lovely, and fully
unashamed of her nudity.

   Then Becky stood upright, facing her, and Lisa's eyes widened.

   Even her friend noticed the staring.  "What is it?" Becky asked, and she
followed Lisa's gaze.  "Oh, that!"

   Where Becky had previously sported a neat triangle of brown, bushy pubic
hair, she was now shaved completely smooth. 

   Lisa had seen her friend naked many times, but never so naked.  In the
past she'd always had her pubic hair which, while still an intimate sight,
provided a little bit of coverage (as long as she sat 'like a lady'!). 
This was her first real glimpse of the labia which had lay behind that
cushion of hair  -" smooth, a little flushed pink, and soft.

   "New haircut?" she squeaked, trying to appear nonchalant.

   Becky nodded.  "Yeah.  I got bored one day in the shower, ended up
shaving it off.  I think I like it though, what do you think?" And she
proceeded to strike a few very intimate and revealing poses.

   Lisa swallowed, nervously.  "It...  looks great, you look good," she
managed  -" although her mind was racing at the sight of her friend, nude
and acting provocative, but this time solely for her benefit.

    -"

   Both girls slept late, nuzzling close together in Lisa's single bed.

   Sharing a bed with Becky was, for Lisa, both a sensual and also a
reassuringly mundane experience.  On the one hand, her friend's insistence
on sleeping nude, and the lack of space, brought them tantalizingly close
to one another.  She could feel Becky's warmth, smell the scent of her hair
and body, even brush against her bare skin; a level of intimacy Becky was
more than comfortable with.  But, at the same time, she had spent many
nights sharing a bed with Becky as friends in the past, to the point that
simply sleeping alongside her friend was not by itself an unbearable
thrill. She never felt so at the mercy of her own desires that she might
risk a loss of control, might find herself reaching out her arm to caress
Becky's soft, full breasts, or sliding a questing hand into the moist
warmth between her legs.  It wasn't, of course, that she didn't want to do
this  -" but she felt safe knowing that she could sleep like this, content,
her heart full of good feeling, and never spoil the moment by dwelling too
long on her own desire.

   Lisa awoke first and, leaving Becky apparently still slumbering, crept
out of her room.  She'd intended to make the two of them a cup of tea and
bring it back to the room, but no sooner had she entered the kitchen and
switched on the electric kettle than she heard her friend come into the
room.

   "Hey, you probably shouldn't be walking around like that," she
cautioned. To her complete lack of surprise, Becky was naked.

   "No?" her friend responded coyly.  "Only, you did say I'd be able to do
this more here..."

   Lisa blushed.  "That's true," she admitted, "but I didn't mean right
here.  I have to live here, Becks, even though you don't, and I'd rather
not freak out any of my housemates by letting them know I brought a nudist
to stay the weekend."

   Becky pouted.  "You're no fair," she complained, leaning casually
against a counter.  Lisa's pulse quickened  -" she couldn't help but be
excited when her friend behaved so nonchalantly about her own nakedness. 
"I've been cooped up in my clothes far too long.  I need to get out and get
some freedom.  My skin needs to breathe!"

   "I know, I know," Lisa replied in a conciliatory tone.  "But not where
people I know might see.  The other girls are pretty cool but, well, to be
honest, we don't exactly know everything there is to know about each other
yet, and I don't really want them to learn that I'm a happy accessory to my
best friend's exhibitionism this early on in our relationship."

   "You really think they'll get all that just from seeing me walk around
in the nuddy?"

   "I don't know," Lisa admitted.  "Probably not.  But I'd rather not risk
it.  People have a tendency to stick with their first impressions, after
all.  You know that as well as anyone."

   Becky made a face, recalling that the other girls in her own
accommodation certainly had a particular opinion of her which was based
largely on her predilection for nudity.  "That's true," she acknowledged.
"Sorry.  I'm getting carried away again, aren't I?"

   "Don't be sorry," Lisa soothed.  "I  -" I kinda love it when you do. 
But I need you to behave yourself until we can find somewhere that it's
okay for you to let go."

   Becky nodded.  "I can do that," she replied.  "But...  where are we
going to go so I can strip off?"

   Lisa thought for a while as she busied herself making the teas.  "Well,"
she said eventually, "I don't really know my way around all the campus yet
but I know one or two places..."

   Lisa broke off, then, suddenly aware that they weren't alone.  Sure
enough, into the kitchen walked Jacqui, one of the other girls who lived in
the unit. 

   "Oops," she said, startled  -" and amused  -" as she saw Becky standing
there naked.  "I'm not interrupting something, am I?  Sorry!"

   Before Lisa or Becky could say anything, she backed out and left the
room.

   Both girls were blushing now, and silently exchanged glances.

   "I'm going to have to explain that later, aren't I?" Lisa said with a
sigh.

   "Sorry," Becky said sheepishly.



   Chapter 26  -" A Trip to the Library

   Following their brief interruption by Lisa's housemate Jacqui, Becky and
Lisa had made their way back to Lisa's bedroom to make some sort of plan
for Becky to indulge her desire for public nudity somewhere on the campus
of Lisa's university.

   That was, after all (at least in part) the reason for her visit. 
Protected by the relative anonymity of being in a place where she had never
visited before and where nobody would know her even if they saw her, Becky
was feeling able to express herself in ways she perhaps couldn't back at
her own university.  There, taking off her clothes in public might have
significant consequences to her reputation, social life, or even her
ability to continue her education, should things go very badly wrong.  But
here, she was anonymous and any consequences to being caught out in the
nude would be minimal.

   She could probably have run naked along the main concourse of the campus
and not faced any repercussions  -" simply disappearing into legend as
those who had been there that day told her story to others, nobody sure of
what they really saw.  Indeed, this was talked about as an option.  But
Becky was craving more than just a quick streak through a crowd.  She
wanted to take off her clothes long enough to truly enjoy the experience,
and the thrill that came from being naked somewhere that she shouldn't,
with high risk of being seen but also a fair chance that she wouldn't be;
and that for as long as she was able to be undetected, she could also be
nude.

   The problem, Lisa had explained, was that she was hardly the expert on
the layout of her university campus yet.  She'd only been attending for a
couple of months and her daily and weekly routine tended to take her to
mostly the same places, most of which were rather too public for prolonged
nudity.  There were many areas and corridors Lisa knew where Becky would
have been able to be naked, but it would also be likely that she would very
quickly attract a lot of attention if she was, and inevitably some member
of staff or campus security would appear and Becky would have no choice but
to cover up again.

   What they needed was somewhere open to the student public but also with
a high degree of cover and privacy which would mean that Becky's nakedness
wouldn't be immediately detected.  It also needed to be indoors, as it was
a rather cold November day.

   Once they began to look at it like that, the venue seemed obvious.

   The main centre of Lisa's campus was dominated by the university
library. Thousands of students each day visited there to browse hundreds of
thousands of books and documents to aid their studies; to use the extensive
banks of computers and for a myriad other services.  Aside from the Student
Union building, the main areas of the library were the busiest on campus.

   However, outside of the main areas were rows and rows of shelves, called
the "stacks", holding increasingly niche and obscure books and texts.  Not
all students needed to be in the stacks  -" only those who needed the books
found there.  It was often incredibly quiet in the stacks, or so Lisa had
noticed when she'd used them herself.  This was especially true later in
the day, when the library remained open but a lot of the students had gone
back to their accommodation and only the most studious bookworms remained.

   Becky cottoned on immediately to Lisa's suggestion.  After all, it was
much the same in the library of her own university.  Busier areas had a
high footfall and an array of carefully-place security cameras that might
have curtailed their planned fun, but in the older, dustier book storage
areas they might well find the privacy they wanted.  They had all heard
tales of student couples hooking up and having sex in between the shelves
of the stacks, as well as perhaps other misdemeanors  -" if even a tenth of
those were true, they suggested they would find enough cover between the
stacks for Becky to play a little nude "hide and seek", trying her hardest
to avoid getting caught by other library users.

    -"

   They'd decided late in the day would be best  -" but not so late that
they would be the only people in the library  -" after all, for Becky, the
chance of being seen, however slim, made her naked adventures all the more
exciting.

   After a day spent wandering the shops and warming up from the cold
November weather with hot chocolate in the local cafes, the sun began to
set and the girls returned to the university campus.

   Becky squeezed Lisa's hand with excitement as the two of them entered
the library.  Her friend had been quiet for a while, and Lisa realized
she'd been contemplating what she was going to do, perhaps a little
nervously, but with an eagerness that even though she knew her friend well,
Lisa still found surprising for its intensity.

   The two girls explored the library.  As they'd hoped, there was the
reassuring sight of more than a few other students around, mostly working
at desks in the main study hall, piles of books open as they made notes on
paper or typed onto computers or tablets.  It certainly wasn't busy,
though, most of the students having gone home for their dinner, or to the
pub.

   The main study hall was an atrium, the stacks on various floors looking
down on it, accessed by a lift.  Lisa and Becky got in and Lisa selected
one of the middle floors.  The very top floors were not all part of the
main library, mostly home to specialist collections and reading rooms, and
classrooms and other facilities.  But the lower floors, where the popular
texts were, might be a little too open and still too busy.  What they
wanted was to be in the more niche shelves, but in areas where two students
disappearing into the stacks for a while wouldn't be stand out so much as
to be considered unusual or meriting attention from staff.

   Leading Becky by the hand, she exited the lift and crossed the grey
carpeted floor, away from the balcony that looked down on the main hall and
towards the rows of high wooden bookcases that stretched off towards the
other side of the library.  Without a route in mind, she wound her way
randomly through the stacks until they came to the end of a row somewhere
in the middle, where a small reading desk was positioned for any student
who needed to work with close access to the shelves.

   Lisa grinned at Becky.  "Here should do," she said.  While she hadn't
checked that the stacks were 100% deserted, there certainly seemed to be
nobody else in the immediate vicinity.

   Becky blushed.  "This feels very strange," she said.  "I- I'm actually
nervous!"

   Lisa looked surprised  -" this wasn't her friend's usual attitude.  "We
don't have to do it," she said reassuringly  -" but Becky shook her head.

   "No, I- I want to.  I really want to.  It's just...  well, it's been so
long.  And, well, the last time I did anything like this, it didn't exactly
turn out the way I wanted..."

   Lisa nodded.  "I know," she said.  "But you shouldn't be scared.  I'm
here with you, I'm looking out for you.  I'll make sure nothing bad
happens."

   She felt stronger for having said that.  Suddenly she became aware of
how much Becky actually needed her, how much of Becky's confidence came
simply from having her friend at her side, knowing she would always support
her and love her and never judge her for the things she wanted to do or the
way in which she led her life.  She wasn't being dragged along unwillingly
into these adventures, she understood now  -" she was the reason they were
able to happen.

   Becky smiled broadly, her blush fading.  "You're the best, Lisa," she
said, and she began to undress.

    -"

   They'd left Becky's clothing, as well as Lisa's coat.  Lisa had
contemplated bringing it with her but in all honesty she hadn't felt as
willing to carry Becky's bulkier winter clothes and coat as she had her
summer outfits.  Becky had been wearing blue skinny jeans, a long-sleeved
t-shirt and thick sweater, as well as a pair of knee-high boots, and even
bundled together it was a little much.  So once Becky had gotten naked,
they'd concealed the discarded clothing and footwear under the reading desk
 -" with Lisa's coat draped on the chair it simply looked like a studying
reader had left their spot for a while, perhaps for another book or a
refreshing break.

   With Becky nude, the two set off deep within the library.  Initially
Becky remained nervous, sometimes hugging herself, half-concealing her
nudity with folded arms and bent posture.  But after a few moments her old
self returned and she began to stride confidently through the aisles
between the shelves, arms at her sides, bare feet silent on the polished
wooden floor.

   They took a meandering route through the stacks, past books with titles
like 'The Geography of Egypt and Abyssinia in the Third Kingdom' and 'Corn
Laws and Economic Reform in the Czech Republic'.  Lisa privately
congratulated herself on choosing something as straightforward as English
for a degree  -" she'd never be able to keep her eyes open if she had to
read something like some of these for her essays!

   She largely disregarded the books, though; her eyes were mostly on
Becky. She'd seen her friend nude already on this visit, in her bedroom and
in the kitchen, but there was something new and exciting seeing Becky back
in full exhibitionist mode, the contrast between the backdrop of dull, old
books and her friend's nude, sensuous form particularly thrilling, and more
than once Lisa found herself grateful for the privilege of witnessing it.

   Suddenly they became aware of footsteps in an adjacent aisle, and both
froze.

   "Are you...  are you ready to meet anyone yet?" Lisa asked her friend
softly.  Blushing slightly, Becky shook her head.

   "I'm sort of enjoying not being seen yet," she whispered back.  No
sooner had she said it than Lisa grabbed her friend's hand and pulled her
away, briskly, off in the other direction, putting a couple of stacks'
distance between them and the unknown other library patron. 

   They continued to creep and duck between the shelves, avoiding one or
two others (or maybe the same person) with similar success until they found
themselves at the very edge of the stacks, where the floor finished in a
balcony, the other side of which was a row of large windows looking out
onto the rest of the university.

   Becky's nakedness would have been visible to anyone looking through the
windows, but neither she nor Lisa felt that was a concern, and the naked
girl padded confidently along the walkway, pausing to stretch happily, her
nipples erect with excitement.

   Lisa grinned.  "Enjoying yourself?"

   "God, yes," Becky replied.  "You have no idea how much I missed this
freedom.  And the excitement.  That fear, that feeling someone's gonna
catch us at any moment  -" my adrenaline is really pumping." Her eyes went
wide.  "I feel alive.  Thank you Lisa, I feel alive again!"

   Lisa chuckled.  To anyone else, her friend's excited nature might seem
weird  -" that taking off her clothes in a reasonably public place could
elicit such exuberance.  But to Lisa it was just confirmation that she'd
done something for Becky that her friend really appreciated.

   The two of them walked around the edge of the stacks, eventually finding
themselves at the very back of the library, the farthest point from the
lift they had come up on.  It was a little more open here, and they chose
not to linger too long  -" but a double doorway ahead Lisa knew led to a
stairwell which could take them down or up a floor.

   "Want to go to a different floor?" she asked Becky.  The naked girl
nodded excitedly.

   "I want to be really far from my clothes," she exclaimed in a breathless
whisper.

   Lisa opened the door cautiously.  The stairwell was deserted.  She
beckoned to Becky, and the two went through the door.

   "How brave are you feeling?" she asked her friend.  Becky grinned.

   "Right now?  Pretty brave," she responded.

   Lisa laughed.  "Got your groove back, have you?  Okay, well it's
probably going to be deader upstairs than it was here, but if we go down
there's probably a bit more of a chance someone might see you.  Up to you
what we do."

   "You're sure?"

   "Yeah," Lisa replied, "I'm pretty sure we're safe here to do whatever we
want.  It's not like I can get in trouble.  They won't revoke my library
card because I came in here with a friend who can't keep her clothes on!"

   "Okay," Becky laughed, "down it is!"



   Chapter 27  -" Becky Gets Her Groove Back

   The girls quickly descended the library back staircase and once Lisa had
ensured the coast was reasonably clear, went through the doors onto the
lower level.

   The layout of this floor, only one above the main study hall, was
exactly the same as the one they had just left, with rows of shelves of
books, broken up by the occasional reading desk, comfy chair or facility
like a water cooler.  These books were more for more mainstream subjects
though and, were this earlier in the day, probably would have been a lot
busier, but as it was now firmly into the evening, things were still quiet
as far as they could see.

   Once more, the two made a meandering route through the stacks but didn't
come across anyone nearby.  That didn't really bother either girl, though 
-" while Becky was excited at the prospect of being naked and exposed to a
stranger, they weren't deliberately seeking one out.  And Lisa was happy
just to be able to continue watching her friend's nude form drift happily
among the shelves.

   Reaching into her pocket, Lisa took out her mobile phone.  Becky noticed
what she was doing, and smiled.

   "Photoshoot?" she laughed.  Lisa nodded.

   "You're beautiful, Becks, and I don't want to forget moments like these.
Are you okay with me taking photos?"

   Becky nodded.  "Of course!"

   So the two girls wandered up and down the aisles, Becky posing happily,
Lisa snapping away with her phone's camera.  As with earlier times Becky
had posed nude for someone, the pictures were relatively tame, mostly Becky
posing coquettishly with a teasing smile on her face, or her bum or boobs
thrust out in mock-sexiness.  But one or two seemed, almost accidentally,
more sensual  -" moments captured by Lisa when her friend wasn't quite
aware of the camera, and was just wandering, with her own thoughts, nude
and blissful in a location where a naked woman, naturally, seemed out of
place.

   Lisa had just taken a photo of the nude Becky reaching to pull a book
down from the shelf when she heard a voice behind her.

   "Excuse me, what are you doing?"

   Lisa turned suddenly.  A young man, obviously another student although
perhaps slightly older than she and Becky, had entered the same aisle as
them, catching both the clothed girl and her naked friend completely by
surprise.  Both froze for a moment.

   "Are you alright?" the young man asked.  "What's going on?"

   There was silence from the girls, then suddenly:

   "Initiation!" Lisa exclaimed.

   "Art project!" Becky blurted  -" at the exact same time.

   "Oh.  Um, okay," the young man seemed confused  -" although it didn't
appear that Becky's nudity bothered him at all.

   Willing Becky to shush, Lisa tried again.  "It's an initiation," she
lied.  "She has to have her picture taken somewhere on campus with no
clothes on to...  er, prove she's...  brave enough to join the...  er,
female body empowerment society?"

   The student remained confused.  "Never heard of that," he opined.

   "It's very new," Lisa said.  "They're all about, um, reclaiming the
female body from male objectification.  They're quite radical.  Nude
protests and things.  They don't want any tagalongs, you have to show some
commitment.  You'll probably be hearing a lot about them soon?" she
finished in a hopeful tone.

   The student merely shrugged.  "Fair enough," he replied.  "Do you mind
though?  I need something off that shelf."

   As casually as she could, Becky stepped aside, and the young man walked
over and after a moment's searching took down a book from where Becky had
been posing.

   "Cheers," he thanked her, and with barely a backward glance began to
make his way back down the aisle.

   "Wait a second," Becky asked, speaking herself for the first time. 
"Would you mind, um, taking a picture of us both together?"

   The guy stopped and turned.  "Is she going to be naked as well?" he
asked, indicating Lisa  -" and suddenly a lot more interested.

   Both girls shook their heads.  "No!" they exclaimed in unison  -" and
the other student responded with a noticeably disappointed expression.  But
he took the camera phone from Lisa and waited as she got into position next
to Becky.  Lisa slid her arm about her friend's bare waist and pulled her
closer to her, and they waited, smiling happily, while the young man took
their picture.

   His work done and obviously  -" strangely, to Lisa  -" more eager to
return to his studies than he was to spend more time around the naked
Becky, the other student left the way he had come, and Becky and Lisa were
once again alone in the stacks.

   "I think now might be a good time to leave this floor," Lisa suggested,
and Becky wholeheartedly agreed.  Once they were back in the stairwell
though, she explained she wasn't that keen on putting her clothes back on
just yet.

   "Okay," Lisa answered, "we'll go up to the next floor, the one above
where we started.  I've actually no idea what's up there but I can't see
there being any serious trouble for us."

   Two floors up turned out to be a more enclosed series of corridors.  A
few shelf units stood here and there but there seemed to be mostly empty
reading and work rooms branching off from the main thoroughfare they were
walking along.  It wasn't terribly exciting but at least Becky didn't have
any need to be clothed up here.

   After a few minutes of uneventful exploration, however, Becky suddenly
froze a little way back from a doorway.  She silently motioned to Lisa to
stay put behind her.

   Up ahead, through the doorway, Lisa could see the lights were on. 
Quietly she walked ahead, past her naked friend, and past the doorway,
glancing inside as she did so.

   The room was a small computer suite, apparently one of several available
for student use.  Along the far wall, several computers were on, with a
mixed group of students working at them.  All had their backs to the
doorway.

   Lisa crept back to Becky and explained this to her friend. 

   "We can sneak past, no problem," she reassured.  "Nobody's even looking
at the door."

   Becky grinned.  "Cool," she said with a glint in her eye.

   Lisa walked first up the corridor, but when she turned and looked back,
Becky wasn't behind her.

   Her friend had stopped.  She was stood, one hand on her hip, facing the
doorway, a little back from the opening, but otherwise in full view.

   Lisa walked quickly back down the corridor, motioning for Becky to move
-" but her friend just smiled a wicked smile.

   Reaching where Becky was, Lisa peered cautiously into the computer
suite. The group gave no sign that they had noticed Becky  -" nor were they
likely to.  Lisa had at first assumed they were working, but now she
realized the three guys and one girl in the room were all engrossed in a
particularly busy and frantic looking computer game that they all appeared
to be playing together across the four machines.  Becky was stood naked in
the doorway, completely exposed, and none of them had any idea she was
there! 

   At least, that was what Lisa thought at first.  But after a moment she
gasped, as she realized something Becky had not.

   With the dark sky outside and the fluorescent lighting inside, the
surface of the computer suite windows behind the machines on which the
students were playing had transformed into a mirror, and Becky's uncovered
naked body was clearly visible in the reflection of the doorway!

   Almost as soon as Lisa realized this, one of the gamers apparently did
too, raising his head from his game and staring for a second at the
reflected image of the naked girl before urgently tapping the played next
to him on the arm and pointing at what he'd seen.

   Lisa reacted like lightning, grabbing Becky by the hand and pulling her
surprised but unresisting friend back down the corridor.  "They could see
you," she hissed, and sure enough four surprised looking faces appeared
peering through the doorway as the girls made their exit.

   "Oops," Becky blushed, quickening her own pace.  "I didn't realise."

   "In the reflection," Lisa explained.

   "Oh!  Well, time to go then!"

   They ran quickly back through the corridors and to the stairs.  They
didn't know if any of the gamers had pursued them, but it didn't seem
prudent to chance it.  Fortunately, by the time they returned to the floor
they had started from, it appeared they had lost sight of anyone who might
be following.

   They made straight for the area where they'd left Becky's clothes,
heedless of caution, both laughing and breathless.

   "Wow," Becky exclaimed as they arrived at the spot where her clothes
were.  "That was something else."

   Lisa grinned.  "It was," she said.

   "I'm so buzzed," Becky continued.  Indeed, her face and chest was
flushed, and her nipples stood out firm and puckered .  She bit her lip.

   "I'm really buzzed," she continued, a slightly strange tone to her
voice.

   "Probably time to go," Lisa said.

   "Yeah..." Becky replied in a faraway voice.  Then she turned to Lisa,
blushing.  "Hey."

   "What?" Lisa asked, unsure what was happening.

   "Um...  this is gonna sound really weird.  And please, you can totally
say no and I completely understand if you do but I think maybe I want to at
least ask and I wouldn't except I really want to..." Becky was really
blushing now, but she continued; "fact is, I really want to masturbate."

   Lisa felt her own face turning red.  "Right now?" she squeaked.

   Becky nodded shyly.  "Right now," she confirmed.  "Right here, with no
clothes on, in this library.  I'm so fucking horny, I don't think I can
wait and...  and I know that it's really not cool but I also know now you
understand that this is all kinds of sexy for me and you know how it
affects me and jeez it's been so long since I did anything like this I feel
like if I don't make myself come soon I'm actually going to explode!"

   She paused for breath.  "What I'm saying is, is that okay?  With you, I
mean.  Is it okay for me to do that even though you're here and we've been
friends since forever and I know you'd think it's totally weird but for me
it really isn't..."

   Lisa was quiet for a moment.  She felt like she could feel her pulse
between her ears, and tightness in her chest.  Things had suddenly become
way more intense, but she also felt a sense of calm and happiness that had
been missing from earlier occasions when these sort of adventures between
her and Becky had gotten that little bit more sexy.

   "It...  it isn't weird for me, either," she said eventually.  "I
think... well, I think after doing all this with you, I don't think it
would feel weird for me if you did that too."

   Becky looked at her friend.  "Really?" she said.  "You're okay with it?"

   Lisa nodded.  "If you are," she said.  "I don't mind...  being here,
while you do that.  If you don't mind me being here."

   Becky shook her head.  "No.  I trust you more than anyone in my whole
life, anyone in the world.  I think doing...  that...  around you would
actually be pretty cool."

   So saying, she sat down on the desk, leaning back against the shelf end.

   "Should I..." Lisa began, "should I watch you?"

   Becky bit her lip  -" that idea obviously appealed.  But she was
cautious, too.  "It's, um, up to you," she answered.  "But maybe you could
keep an eye out, you know?  In case anyone's coming."

   Lisa couldn't help it.  "Other than you," she giggled. 

   And so, Lisa leaned against the stack, peering periodically up and down
the corridor to check the coast was still clear, as in front of her Becky
parted her legs and began to touch herself, quietly sighing with pleasure
as her fingers slid over her hairless mound and down between her lips.

   In the quiet of the library, Lisa could hear every sound, and so she
quickly learned how wet her friend was already between her legs.  Indeed,
when she looked at Becky she could see the moisture glistening on her
fingers, on her thighs and even a few spots of wetness on the surface of
the desk.  Becky had been practically dripping, and her engorged pink labia
eagerly accepted her questing fingers.

   Becky shifted position, one foot on the desk, her leg bent cocked, and
with her free hand she lightly caressed her own bare breast.  Her fingers
had found her clit, and she began to stimulate herself with an eager
franticness, her breath coming in little gasps.  She was close already.

   Lisa watched, entranced, intense tightness between her own legs, as
Becky brought herself to climax.  Her orgasm seemed to last for an age, she
gasped and arched her back, pressing her sex against her own hand in
uncontrolled desire, her nipples stood to attention, head thrown back.  She
came hard and long, slowing her stroke to return herself to normality
before squeezing her legs shut tight around her hand, and blinking, looking
up at Lisa with a dazed, slightly awkward but very happy expression on her
face.



   Chapter 32 -- Christmas at Home

   The Lisa who boarded the train home a week before Christmas was a
different girl to the one who had left for university in September.

   The term, and all its experiences, had changed her.  She felt, for
perhaps the first time, like her head was clear.  At last, she knew who she
was.

   She was no longer consumed with angst about her feelings for Becky, and
no longer troubled by her role in her friend's exhibitionist escapades. 
Where once she had been sick with jealousy and insecurity, dwelling on the
meaning of her strange and unwelcome feelings towards her friend and her
ability to manage them in the face of Becky's own constant confidence, now
she felt calm and happy, and excited for the prospect of reunion with Becky
and all it may bring.

   She loved Becky, she knew that now.  She was attracted to her
physically, and emotionally.  She adored her friend, she thought she was
the most beautiful girl she had ever laid eyes on, and the thought of them
being together, even just as friends, filled her with nothing but
happiness.

   She understood that loving Becky, that loving another woman, did not
mean her life needed to be complicated, awkward, full of troubling
self-analysis.  She knew now that it didn't matter what her sexuality had
been, or may be in future; that she didn't need to always define herself by
terms that didn't fit.  All that mattered was what she thought would make
her happy at the time.

   She no longer felt awkward or embarrassed by Becky's constant need for
nakedness, her obsession with exhibitionism.  In fact, she loved that her
friend was an exhibitionist, she realized now.  She thrilled to remember
Becky's adventures and her role in them, and felt privileged that her
friend was so comfortable around her that she felt no need for clothes,
that the two of them had shared and bonded over so many unimaginable
activities so far removed from what it was normal for two teenage best
friends to get up to together.

   She no longer feared or worried about sex, about being seen as a woman
with her own sexuality.  She no longer felt like the back of the class, the
last to learn, destined only for disappointment.  Sex with a man, or a
woman, was no longer something that only other people did.  She was not an
unattractive lump but a desirable woman in her own right, more than worthy
of the love and affection of the person she chose to be with.

   Still, though, she wondered.  What would the immediate future hold?  She
wanted now so badly to tell Becky all of this, to tell her exactly who Lisa
was, who she wanted to be, and who she wanted to be it with.  And for the
first time she felt that such confession may bear fruit, rather than be
rejected.  But how to tell her?  And when?  The act of telling had to mean
something, had to be right -- choose the wrong moment, and she might still
risk losing Becky forever.

   --

   The last few weeks of term had been frantic, with an array of coursework
to be prepared for.  All the students were going home with multiple essays
that needed to be handed back once they returned, and so the giant suitcase
Lisa lugged to the railway station was as much stuffed with books as it was
the clothes and other sundries she needed for Christmas at home with her
family.

   She'd made brief visits home once or twice during the previous term and
her mum, dad and brothers had called on her at university once or twice for
a day out and dinner.  But this was really her first true visit home since
leaving for uni in the summer -- the first time she would be expected so
slot back into her old home life, and the first time she would be around
long enough to reunite not just with Becky, but with other friends as well.

   --

   It was also, both for Becky and herself, the first proper trip home
since the local paper had published the scandalous story that sightings had
happened all over town of the "mystery nudist" -- and since most people who
knew Becky had put two and two together and figured out that the girl who
had been going naked in public and her clothed accomplice were Becky and
Lisa respectively.

   Lisa's parents had asked her about it before, of course.  They weren't
as in-tune to the town gossip as many others, but it had eventually reached
them that their daughter's best friend since childhood, a young woman they
treated as very much their own daughter, had been publically misbehaving
over the previous summer, exposing herself with little regard for who saw
-- and that their first-born child had somehow been an accomplice to this.

   Lisa had played down any concerns that her mother and father had brought
up, when they finally asked her about it.  She'd passed Becky's behavior
off as isolated incidents of high spirits; simply a young woman letting
loose in the period between school ending and university.  And she'd
reassured her parents that at no point had she and Becky been in any
danger, and that while Becky was liberal about stripping off, Lisa's
clothing had remained 100% on.

   None of that was true, of course.  Becky's serial exhibitionism and
growing passion for nudism was certainly not limited to one or two isolated
incidents but many escapades, sometimes with an element of risk far greater
than should be reasonably acceptable.  And even though Lisa had no interest
in exhibiting herself in the same way, her experiences on holiday over the
summer with her friend had left her without her own clothes on one or two
occasions (even if they weren't experiences she was in a hurry to repeat).

   Lying to her mum and dad hadn't been easy for Lisa, who had always been
a truthful child.  But she told herself it was for their own good -- if
they knew the truth, they would worry more than they needed to about her
and her friendship with Becky.  It may even colour their opinion of Becky
much more negatively for them to know exactly what she had been doing --
and Lisa wanted to protect her friend from the judgement of people who had
previously loved her and might, if they learned about the true nature of
her predilection for nudity, think less of her for it.

   But she was still aware, coming home for Christmas, that it wasn't
necessarily a closed issue, and indeed it came up the first evening she was
back home for dinner, when her father asked her what her plans for the
holiday would be. 

   "Will you be seeing Becky, at all?" her father had asked.

   Lisa nodded enthusiastically.  "Yeah, of course!"

   "Oh..." her mother said, managing in one syllable to convey a wealth of
implication that she did not necessarily feel this would be a good idea.

   Lisa raised an eyebrow, but before she could say anything, her father
continued: "That business over the summer.  Becky...  exposing herself. 
Getting in the paper and on the internet.  It worried us."

   Lisa tried to be concillatory.  "I know, dad," she said.  "It's okay
though.  It wasn't a big thing, no matter how it looked online.  It's all
fine now."

   Her dad didn't appear to be listening.  "We didn't know what to make of
it," he continued.

   "We talked to Denise," Lisa's mum interjected.  Denise was Becky's
mother.  "She didn't know what to make of it, either."

   "What do you mean, mum?" Lisa asked.

   "Well," her father continued.  "Running about in the altogether.  In
front of those boys at the cinema, and the young man in the shop..."

   "You'd tell us if something was going on?" her mum said.  "If Becky
was...  if you were...  getting into trouble with boys."

   Not for the first time, Lisa cursed the euphemistic language her parents
used when discussing anything to do with her and the opposite sex.  They
were both doctors, they knew all about human anatomy, yet when it came to
their daughter and the notion that she might have, or one day have, a sex
life of some sort, they became increasingly tongue-tied.

   "You think those guys made her take her clothes off?" she hazarded.

   "No, well, not exactly...  Becky's always been so confident, she's never
been the easily-led type, we know that about her.  But we just don't
understand why she was doing those things."

   Lisa leaned back in her chair, taking a deep breath.

   "It's not like that, mum.  Becky, well, she just sort of prefers having
no clothes on.  She's kind of a nudist."

   Her mum actually laughed, somewhat derisively. 

   "What, Health & Efficiency, all that sort of thing?" said her dad,
drawing a blank from Lisa.

   "I've no idea what that is, dad!  But yeah, Becky just likes being
naked. It's just that...  sometimes, she does it in places she shouldn't."

   "Well," her mother said, "I never would have put it down to that."

   "Isn't that a bit...  well, odd?" her dad asked.

   Lisa laughed.  "Yeah, I guess it is.  But, well, she's fine.  She just
likes being in her natural state."

   Her mum frowned.  "Natural state?  That's all well and good I suppose
but I draw the line at running round in public with everything out. 
Whatever happened to modesty?"

   Lisa turned to her mum.  "There's nothing bad about what Becky does,
mum. There's nothing shameful about her body.  She's not ashamed of it, why
should she be?"

   "I'm not saying she should be ashamed," her mother countered.  "But we
have modesty for a reason."

   "It isn't safe," her father added.  "If she's out and about like that
and something were to happen to her...  to you..."

   "What?" Lisa exclaimed.  "What do you mean by that?"

   "Well," her dad spluttered, "you know...  girls out wearing scanty
clothes -- or nothing at all in this case.  It's inviting...  attention..."

   Lisa's eyes narrowed.  "You mean if Becky does things like this she's
more likely to get raped?" she said in a level tone.

   Almost relieved, her father nodded.  He obviously hadn't been
comfortable with saying the words in connection to his daughter's best
friend, but he clearly felt the sentiment.

   "So what you're saying is, if a girl goes out with very little on, or if
she takes off her clothes the way Becky does, that she's inviting attention
from the sort of men who would...  attack her like that?" Lisa said icily.
"What you're saying is, if a girl goes out and doesn't cover up, she can
expect to be raped?"

   "Don't put words in your father's mouth!" her mother warned, but Lisa
pressed on.

   "You're saying a girl who isn't careful, isn't modest, should accept
being raped as inevitable?" she asked, her voice rising in anger.  "What
about the men doing the raping?  Can't we expect them to control themselves
if they see a naked girl?  Can't we teach them that skimpy clothes and
exposed skin aren't an invitation to rape?  Can't we respect women whether
they're dressed modestly or not? 

   "What about a woman's right to wear what she wants without being
afraid?" she demanded.  Her parents looked awkwardly stunned.  "What about
Becky's right to be herself?"

   They gave no reply, apparently wishing they had never raised the subject
with their now infuriated daughter.

   "You know what," Lisa said by way of a conclusion, "I actually think
she's right.  The world's got a pretty screwed up attitude to nakedness and
women, and it shouldn't be Becky's problem to deal with that.  She's happy
being who she is and I'm glad of that."



   Chapter 33 -- Friends Reunited

   Lisa saw Becky a couple of times over the next few days.  Her friend had
arrived home at similar time to her, and once they had spent sufficient
time catching up with their families, they were eager to reconnect.

   To her parents' credit, Lisa's mum and dad showed none of the hostility
or concern towards Becky that they had voiced that night at the dinner
table.  Indeed, the matter of Becky's appearances in the local newspaper,
or Lisa's subsequent disclosure that her friend was a nudist, received no
mention when she was with them in the house.

   Well, almost no mention.

   "Morning Becky," Ben, Lisa's younger brother called as he noticed her
arrival.

   "Morning, Ben," she replied cheerfully.

   "Got a joke for you," he grinned.

   Becky groaned.  "Go on then," she replied.

   "Knock, knock."

   "Who's there?" she answered.

   "Ant."

   "Ant who?"

   Ben guffawed.  "Ant got any clothes on!"

   Even Becky had to laugh at that one.

   It did make Lisa wonder, though.  Obviously her two brothers knew at
least something of the rumours or realities around Becky and her
exhibitionism.  In all likelihood they had seen the story on social media
or the local paper's website, and may well even have found their way to see
unedited versions of the photos from the cinema or the shop CCTV that were
floating around in the ether.

   Lisa wondered how it had been for them, to see this girl, who was like
one of their own family, without her clothes on.  Would it have been like
them seeing their own sister naked?  Or would they have been thrilled by
it, finally getting to glimpse her beautiful friend, on whom they may well
have nursed crushes at one time, in the altogether?

   --

   While in her family home the spectre of the scandal of Becky's
exhibitionism becoming common knowledge had apparently dissipated,
elsewhere it lingered, creating tensions even during the happy holidays.

   Things, Lisa learned, were still a little strained between Becky and her
mother over not just Becky's appearances online, but the wider implications
for her home life that those had revealed.  The knowledge that her daughter
had been practicing a fairly dedicated nudist lifestyle since her early
teens behind her back was taking some getting used to for Becky's mother,
and in typical Becky fashion, her daughter wasn't exactly helping matters.

   To Becky, Lisa realized, the fact that she had now been forced to
confess her nudism to her mother was all it took to normalize it.  Now her
mum knew that she preferred to be without her clothes on when at home,
Becky reasoned, she should not be surprised or raise objection about Becky
doing so.  Becky felt that now she had declared herself a nudist, she
should be free to walk around naked regardless of whether her mother was
out, or home.

   Becky's mum, conversely, took the view that even if Becky was Queen of
the Nudists, for as long as she lived in her house, she should follow the
rules of her house -- namely that Becky's nudity should remain confined to
times when there was nobody in the house save Becky.

   Lisa could see both points, although ultimately she felt a greater
sympathy with Becky.  She knew being able to be comfortable, in her own
skin, at home was important to Becky, and likewise she didn't really
understand how a mother could feel discomfort at the thought of seeing her
adult daughter's naked body.  She supposed it came less down to the
nakedness itself, and more the need Becky's mum had to feel respected by
her daughter, something that had been a long-standing difficulty between
them thanks to her mum's worries as a single parent and her fear that by
being forced to work much of Becky's childhood, she had let her daughter
"run wild."

   To her credit, though, Lisa never saw Becky force the issue.  Around her
mother she was always careful to be clothed, although she frequently, and
apropos of nothing, complained about the requirement.

   --

   They'd not seen their other friends yet, although Lisa had plans from a
Facebook group they'd set up for a mini reunion in the local pub one day
before Christmas.  When she mentioned this to Becky though, her friend
looked surprised.

   "I haven't heard anything about that?" she exclaimed, scrolling fairly
frantically through her own social media.  Sure enough, when Lisa checked
the invited participants in the group, Becky wasn't among them.

   Becky, it seemed, wasn't invited.

   This was a cause for more than a little consternation among both girls.
Becky was bewildered, genuinely fearing that being left out was some sort
of message that she was no longer welcome among their old friends.  Lisa,
ever the peacemaker, took the view that she was certain it was just an
oversight on behalf of the person who had put the group together.

   "They probably forgot half the names," she reassured her friend.  "You
know how these things are.  Of course you'll be welcome.  You can come with
me, we'll go together."

   Privately, though, she wondered if she believed it herself.

   Her worst fears were confirmed when the two girls arrived at the pub in
their Christmas finest.  The majority of their friends had already
assembled -- including many who neither girl had seen since Becky's party.

   They were all engaged in friendly conversation -- but when Becky walked
in a pace or two behind Lisa, silence fell.

   "Um, hi everyone," Lisa called awkwardly.

   "Hi Lisa," replied a girl named Ashley, who Lisa knew had been the
organizer of the get-together.  "And Becky!" she exclaimed, her voice
filled with sarcasm.  "So good to see you.  I almost didn't recognize you
with your clothes on..."

   So, thought Lisa, that's what's going on.  She recalled that Ashley, and
her boyfriend Mark, had been at Becky's party, and she guess that Ashley
was one of the girls who had subsequently voiced displeasure at Becky's
willingness to bare all and the way it had...  distracted their boyfriends.

   Becky blushed.  "Hi Ash," she said quietly.

   "Um," Lisa said, "is everything alright?"

   "Of course," Ashley replied through a fixed smile.  "It's nice to see
you...  both."

   "I can go," Becky said in a subdued voice.

   "No, stay!" exclaimed another girl, Melanie.  "Every party needs a
stripper!" There was a smattering of laughter, although Lisa noted that
many of their friends simply looked uncomfortable at the exchanges and, she
surmised, were probably not as hostile to Becky's presence as Ashley,
Melanie and some of the others.

   She looked at the familiar faces -- and counted a few absences.  Most
notably, in fact, were Ben and Amanda, the couple Becky had gone to bed
with after the party.  While it had never been openly revealed in their
circle of friends that they'd had their threesome, Lisa was certain some
gossip must have circulated, and she wondered if Ashley excluding Becky had
just been about her behavior at her party, or if it indicated some desire
to cleanse their friendship group of anyone who might be considered tainted
by such rumours.

   She didn't have to wait long for her answer.  She and Becky settled
themselves in among a group who seemed somewhat less bothered that Becky
was there -- or perhaps even unaware she was not supposed to be -- and
gradually things returned to something approaching a normal social
occasion, albeit one with tangible tension between certain parties.

   A drink or two in, Becky got up to use the bathroom.

   "Try not to fall out of your clothes on the way!" Ashley called after
her -- causing more than a few heads in the pub to turn their way.

   "What's with you?" Lisa asked the other girl angrily as soon as Becky
was out of earshot.

   "Don't give me that," Ashley replied hotly.  "You brought her."

   "Yes, because she's my friend.  And I thought she was supposed to be
your friend too, Ash?"

   Ashley made a face.  "Maybe, before we all found out what a pervert she
is." t Lisa shook her head, her blood rising.  "Becky's no pervert," she
said coldly.  "She's the same person she's always been, she's our friend."

   Ashley laughed.  "Come off it," she said scornfully.  "She's not normal.
Who comes down at their birthday party stark naked in front of everyone and
expects them all to just act like it's no big deal?"

   "I don't remember you telling her there was anything wrong with it,"
Lisa pointed out.  "You were there, she asked you all if you wanted her to
get dressed and you all said nothing."

   "I- I was in shock," Ashley complained.  "I didn't know what to think, I
thought she was having a gag or something.  Maybe I'm just polite," she
added pointedly.

   Lisa shrugged.  "Point is, you're giving her a hard time for something
that happened on one occasion months ago.  You've known Becky for years,
and you're treating her like crap because she made a bit of a tit of
herself at one party?"

   Someone, one of the boys, laughed at the unconscious innuendo, but
Ashley wasn't amused.

   "It's not just that," she said venomously.  "All that stuff in the
paper? Online?  Her running about in the nuddy at the cinema, and in
Discount Booze?  Of course," she added, "you know all about that."

   "She's a weirdo," Ashley concluded, "and you're probably one too."

   "No, she's not.  I...  I'm not..."

   Lisa turned.  Becky had returned from the bathroom, unbeknownst to
either Lisa or Ashley, and had apparently heard at least the tail end of
their conversation.  Now she stood awkwardly, hands by her sides, her
expression crushed.  The confident, happy Becky that Lisa had known and had
seen come back during her visit to her university seemed to have vanished
again, and her friend was now on the verge of tears.

   But Ashley wasn't moved to sympathy.  Momentarily taken aback that Becky
had heard her, she rallied nevertheless, turning on the brunette girl.

   "Yes, you are.  There's something wrong with you, Becky O'Neill, in your
head.  Maybe it's cos your dad up and died, maybe you just need the
attention from men, maybe you're just a slut..."

   "Shut UP!"

   Lisa had shouted before she even realized.  She stood, open-mouthed for
a moment, until she realized Ashley's attention was back to her.

   "Excuse me?" the other girl said.

   "Shut up, you horrible, spiteful little cow," Lisa spat.  "How dare you
speak to Becky like that?  How could you?  How could you ever say something
like that to anyone and think you're still a good person?"

   Ashley's face fell.  She apparently realized that her words had been
even more venomous than she intended -- but she wasn't about to give in. 
"Well, alright..." she conceded.  "But it isn't normal.  Running around in
the nude in front of everyone, showing everything off, getting a kick out
of it.  It's weird."

   "So what if it is?" Lisa retorted.  "So someone's a bit different.  So
they do something you don't understand.  That doesn't give you the right to
make fun of them and insult them and treat them like they aren't your
friend."

   "Hang on," one of the others piped up, "we're not talking about someone
being 'a bit different' here.  We're talking about indecent exposure."

   "Really?" Lisa said.  "There's nothing indecent about the human body. 
Becky's harmed nobody with what she does."

   "Not true," Melanie interjected.  "It's not good for women, girls like
her.  Making herself an object.  Gives men the idea that we're all sexy
little minxes available for them to ogle."

   "And that's her fault, is it?" Lisa countered.  "Some bloke sees her and
gets the idea in his head that all women are the same as her in what she
does, and that's somehow Becky's fault?"

   "No, but if she didn't act that way, it wouldn't be a problem!"

   "So what you're saying is, because some men think a certain way, a woman
shouldn't do something she enjoys, that makes her happy?"

   "No!  You're -- you're twisting my words!"

   "Alright, maybe I am a little, but what I'm saying is, maybe instead of
giving Becky grief because of who she is, as her friends we should give her
a little support?"

   "It's still bloody weird," said one of the lads.  Most of the guys had
apparently not had a dog in this particular fight -- after all, Becky was
very easy on the eye, and Lisa doubted you would find too many guys who
would aggressively assert the idea that her being naked as much as she
wanted was somehow a bad thing. 

   "And?" Lisa objected.  "We're all weird, we all have things we do that
are weird.  Everyone does.  The only difference is, Becky's stood up and
admitted to everyone how weird she is.  She's decided to own that
weirdness, to say 'this is me, this is who I am'.  She's not keeping her
weirdness a secret, she's living her life honestly and openly.  You don't
have to like what she does or agree with it, but you should respect that
it's her thing, part of who she is...

   "And it takes bravery to do that when you know that your weirdness is
something that people might judge you for.  Much more bravery than leaving
someone off a Facebook group without telling them because you don't like
the fact they are free about nudity.

   "I'm proud to be her friend, I'm proud of everything she is, and if you
aren't equally proud, well I guess you were never truly her friends."

   --

   They'd left, after that.

   Lisa wasn't sure she'd won any of them over.  It hadn't exactly been a
rational debate on the acceptance of nudism amongst friends.  More an ugly
row, and now the heat had gone from her temper, Lisa felt a little
embarrassed at having made such a scene.

   She didn't regret it though, especially as Becky had stood, numbly,
visibly hurt by the cruelty of Ashley's insult about her father.  Her
friend wouldn't have defended herself after that, Lisa knew, and it angered
her still that Ashley had resorted to such a low, hurtful blow.

   They stood in the pub car park as Becky wiped faint tears from her face,
saying nothing at first.

   "Thanks," Becky said eventually.  "Thanks for sticking up for me in
there.  You're a good friend.  Sometimes I think you're the only true
friend I've got."

   Lisa hugged Becky close.  "Don't mention it," she said.  "I meant what I
said, too.  I am proud to know you, proud of the person you are."

   Becky blushed.  "Even though I'm a weirdo nudist and exhibitionist? 
That can't be easy for anyone."

   "It's easy for me..." Lisa said after a moment.  Her chest felt tight,
her stomach full of butterflies.  She stood opposite Becky in the pub car
park, their breath steaming in the cold December air.  "In fact, it's the
reason I fell in love with you."

   Silence.

   "What?" Becky said.

   Lisa took a deep breath.

   "I'm in love with you," she said again.



   Chapter 34 -- Lisa and Becky

   Lisa lay in bed back at university.  It wasn't early.  She'd slept late.
Lectures hadn't started yet, they were still in study time, and though she
had a fair amount of work to be getting on with, her time was much more her
own, to use as she wished, and she was happy to use it for a lie in.

   Especially, she thought as she glanced at the girl sleeping next to her
in her crowded single bed, brunette curls spilling over the pillow;
especially considering the company.

   --

   Lisa had anticipated many things when she made her confession to Becky
in the pub car park.  She'd imagined surprise, confusion, rejection, anger,
betrayal -- even a sort of flat nothingness where the words didn't sink in
and she had to repeat them over and over until Becky understood at last.

   What she hadn't expected was for her friend to grab hold of her, pull
her into a tight embrace and plant a flurry of excited and happy kisses all
over and around her surprised mouth.

   It seemed, Lisa had discovered when at last Becky had calmed down enough
for her to detach herself and for both girls to make an explanation, that
unrequited love had been, in this case at least, a two-way street.

   For it turned out that for almost as long as Lisa had been nursing a
secret, desperate yearning for her best friend, Becky had been carrying
that same torch herself -- and for a lot longer than Lisa herself had been.

   "Two years," Becky had admitted.  She'd been in love with her best
friend for two years.

   "Hang on," Lisa replied.  "Ryan..?"

   "The reason we broke up," Becky answered.  "I didn't want to date him
anymore.  I wanted to date you.  But I didn't think you were...  you know.
I didn't think you were like me.  I thought you just liked boys.  So I
didn't know what to do.  But I couldn't get it out of my head, the idea,
once it had lodged there.  No matter where I went or what I did, I knew I
didn't want anyone but you.  I just...  didn't know how to say it.  No, I
didn't think it was worth saying, because as far as I knew, you wouldn't be
able to feel the same."

   Lisa's eyes filled with tears.  She imagined Becky nursing that secret
all that time, carrying the burden of it the way she had carried her own.
She imagined the pain it must have caused her friend, pain she could have
taken away if only she had unburdened herself of her own secret so much
earlier.  She pulled Becky close, tight in her arms, and sobbed.

   --

   There was time enough, later, for explanations.  For questions to be
answered, for whole truths to be revealed.

   They lay on Lisa's bed, heads together, arms round one another, and
breathed.  And kissed.  And talked.

   "When did you..?" Becky asked.  Lisa had to admit she couldn't pinpoint
a time when her feelings became what they were, not exactly -- but that
seeing her friend so casually naked the first time they had studied
together had begun her process of thinking of Becky as something more to
her than just a friend.

   "Hold up," Lisa said with a smile.  "The whole nudist, exhibitionist
type thing...  was that just a way to get me to fancy you?"

   Becky laughed warmly and loudly.  "No!  I promise you, I am genuinely as
much of a nudist and as much of an exhibitionist as I have told you I am!

   "But," she continued, "I suppose the way I felt about you was the reason
why I told you.  I could have told other people -- I could have told Ryan
when we were going out, I could have told my mum...  she might not have
been happy but I trust her like I trust you...  but I didn't.  But I told
you, because you felt like the only person in the world it was right to
tell.

   "And," she added, "I guess I figured if I told you one of my big
secrets, maybe I could tell you the other one too.

   "Except," she said sadly, "in the end I couldn't.

   "I was going to," she said.  "All summer I told myself, tell her, tell
her.  Plenty of times I came close, but then something always seemed to
happen, something seemed to get in the way, and I told myself, next time
will be the time..."

   Lisa hugged the other girl tightly.  "We're so daft," she said.  "I was
always the exact same way.  I wanted to say it but I just couldn't.  I
nearly did, at your party, but it just came out as...  well, rubbish about
being mad at you, and I hated myself for that."

   "Wanna know something?" Becky said.  "I was gonna tell you at the party.
That was gonna be the night I gave up my big secret.  But all the time I
was leading up to it, I was so nervous in the end that I didn't do it
and... decided to tell everyone I'm a nudist instead..."

   Lisa laughed in disbelief.  "Becky, only you would consider showing up
to a party completely naked to be a better option that telling someone you
were in love with them!"

   Becky groaned.  "I know.  I really messed up that night.  I don't know
what I was thinking, I must've gone temporarily mad from the stress of it
all."

   "Well," Lisa pointed out, "it was very nice to see you wandering around
in the nuddy all night."

   Becky grinned, then she blushed.  "Oh my," she said.  "You...  you
actually fancy me, don't you?  Like I fancy you?  That's just sunk in."

   Lisa planted a kiss on Becky's open mouth.  "I just can't believe you
fancy me back," she said.

   "Believe it," Becky replied, and responded with another kiss.

   --

   They sat on the sofa in Lisa's living room, surrounded by Lisa's family.
It was Christmas Eve, and they were watching The Snowman for the millionth
time, a tradition in the Meredith household.

   To any casual observer, it might seem that the two girls, sitting
pressed against one another, one girl's head resting lightly on the other's
shoulder, were simply close as friends could be, the way girls sometimes
were, free with physical affection towards those closest to them. 
Certainly Lisa's family, absorbed in the television, food and drink of
pre-Christmas, didn't notice the way the two girls' hands were intertwined,
holding on to one another.  Having found each other at last, neither was
eager to let go.

   Lisa gave a contented murmur as she nuzzled closer to Becky.  They would
tell people, eventually, of course, would establish the exact nature of
their relationship and begin the first .  But that was something for
another day.  Right now all that mattered was being with the woman she
loved, and knowing she loved her in return.  That was the only Christmas
present she ever wanted.

   --

   Christmas came and went, and then so did the New Year's celebrations.

   When she looked back over her relationship with Becky, Lisa recalled
with fondness that there was something particularly special about those
first, early days.  Cuddles by the fireside, walks hand-in-hand through the
winter streets, steamy-breathed and bundled up in coats and scarves. 
Stolen, clandestine kisses wherever they could get them.  Hands held
secretly beneath the Christmas dinner tables.  Long afternoons laying on
one girl's bed, fully-clothed, arms around one another, just talking,
telling all the secret feelings and too-long-buried emotions that had led
to this.

   Feelings of intense joy and deep love, but also a spark of fear, an
electricity of nervousness, neither girl knowing what the future would hold
but both excited and awed by the possibilities.

   It was a peculiarly chaste relationship, during those early days.  The
kisses were frequent and numerous but never led to further things.  Of
course, aside from anything else, opportunities were scarce -- but deep
down Lisa knew that if the two girls had disappeared off to a bedroom for
an hour or so, nobody would have thought anything amiss.  Indeed, they
frequently did, only to spend their time cuddling, laughing and talking,
almost giddy with the relief that each loved the other as much.

   She was afraid, Lisa realized.  Oh, her night with Jacqui had meant she
knew more than ever what to do with Becky, how to make her feel good, and
how Becky could pleasure her in return.  To make love to Becky was all that
she had ever wanted, but now she could, she hesitated.  Taking that final
step, going to bed with the girl who had once been her best friend and was
now -- what, her girlfriend, her partner, her one true love?  It was scary
in what it represented; in its finality. 

   And Becky, she knew, was scared too.  Even when they were alone, her
devoutly nudist friend remained dressed, as if she feared her nakedness
would be an invitation to Lisa to cross that final boundary before she was
ready to.

   In the end, rather fittingly, it was an act of exhibitionism that
carried them that final step of the way.



   Chapter 35 -- Taking the Train

   With the end of the Christmas holidays approaching, both girls were
increasingly facing up to the prospect that they would soon be returning to
their respective universities, and so a parting, however temporary, was
imminent.

   Neither, of course, wanted that to happen.

   It was Lisa's suggestion in the end, once she realized that although
term was re-starting, they both had several weeks before classes would
resume and that, as such, neither girl actually needed to be at her
university -- only that their parents should believe they had gone there.

   "Come back with me," she asked Becky -- and she didn't need to ask
twice. So, packed as if she was returning to her own uni, Becky said
goodbye to her mother and headed towards the platforms at the station --
only to bypass the train she'd said she would be on entirely and sit,
excitedly, on a different platform, waiting for Lisa to arrive for the
train that would take them both back to hers.

   There was no real need for the deception, of course.  Both girls were
adults, who could come and go as they pleased.  Tere was no need for
Becky's mother and Lisa's family to be led to believe that both girls were
going to separate destinations rather than the same one.  But they'd become
aware towards the end of the holiday that their increased closeness, even
beyond their long-standing friendship, had become more noticeable, and
while neither felt their families would react with anything like
disapproval of their relationship, both were of the mind that at this
moment they wanted it to remain knowledge only they shared.

   --

   The plan went off without a hitch, and soon both girls found themselves
sitting together in the warm carriage of an evening train as it carried
them back to the city where Lisa's university was located.  They nuzzled
together as usual, hands held, talking softly of what was to come.

   "Did you ever think this is where we'd be?" Lisa asked.  Becky shook her
head.

   "I told myself it didn't matter.  That I'd be happy just being your
friend, just knowing you the rest of my life, even if you never knew I
loved you.  But I...  I don't think that would have been true."

   "I never imagined I would be this happy," Lisa concurred.

   "Me neither," her girlfriend replied. 

   There was silence for a while.

   "I'm happy," Becky said tentatively, "but..."

   Lisa raised her head.

   "I'm afraid, too," the other girl continued.

   "I'm afraid one day I'll wake up and it won't be this way.  That this
has all just been a long and crazy dream and I'll wake up and things will
be back to how they always were, we'll just be friends and you won't know
how I feel and I won't know how you feel..."

   "That won't happen," Lisa reassured, tightly squeezing Becky's hand.  "I
want to be with you every moment of my life, awake, asleep, I want to be
with you."

   Becky grinned shyly.  "Asleep...  we're going to sleep together, aren't
we?"

   Lisa flushed.  "Well...  I mean, yeah...  if you want to?"

   Becky reddened also.  "I do!  Oh my God, I do!  Only..." she paused.

   "I know," Lisa said.  "It'll change things, even more than they already
changed.  Forever."

   "Yeah..." Becky said dreamily.  "It's kind of a big deal." She sat up a
little.  "Don't be upset but, well, I've sort of been...  putting it off."

   Lisa smiled to let her girlfriend know she understood.  "I've noticed,"
she said.

   "You did?"

   Lisa laughed.  "You're a nudist, Becks.  Normally it's a struggle to get
you to wear clothes even when you absolutely have to.  But every time we've
been alone together you've been as bundled up as I have."

   Becky blushed.  "I wasn't sure how you would feel about it.  Now we are
together, I mean.  I know you like me like that.  But I didn't know if I
did it, you might think I was pushing you towards something."

   "I suppose I haven't exactly been clear with my own signals either,"
Lisa admitted.  "I've been afraid, too.  It's kind of easier to stay
floating in the middle like we are rather than make that final commitment."

   "But you want to, right?" Becky said, worry in her voice.

   Lisa nodded enthusiastically.  "Of course!  It's just...  it's sometimes
harder than you'd think."

   Becky smiled ruefully.  "Look at us," she said.  "We were more relaxed
about this sort of stuff before we were together.  I never worried about
being naked around you when we were just friends.  Surely that should be
easier now we're...  what we are."

   It was a while before Lisa, apparently lost in thought, spoke.

   "Becky?" she asked.  He friend looked up.  "Take off your clothes."

   "What?" Becky gasped.

   "Take off your clothes.  All of them.  Right now."

   "Lisa!" she exclaimed.

   "I mean it," the blonde girl said.  "Right here, in this train carriage,
I want you to get naked.  I dare you to get naked." She grinned.

   In spite of herself, Becky grinned back.  "You're on," she said.

   She glanced around.  The train carriage was by no means quiet.  If you
bunched all the people together it was maybe half-full, in fact.  But
nobody had an immediate and uninterrupted view of where the girls were
sitting, and with Lisa on the aisle, Becky might just get away with it.

   She divested herself of her sweater, and began to unlace her shoes. 
Someone walked past up the aisle and she froze, but as soon as they had
gone she unbuttoned her jeans and wriggled out of them, along with her
underwear, as subtly as she could.

   Becky gave one last look around and then, sinking low in her seat, she
pulled her t-shirt up over her head.  For a moment she sat, a little
breathless, in just her bra, and then she collected herself, unfastened it
and slipped it off.

   She sat, smiling happily, nude in the train carriage.  For the first
time since they had declared their love for one another, Lisa beheld her
girlfriend naked, every curve and bump and hollow of her body.  She bit her
lip, her heart pounding.

   Becky looked at her friend.  "What?" she asked.

   "You're just so bloody beautiful," Lisa replied, and Becky's cheeks went
red.

   --

   They'd sat a while, tense and excited, the clothed girl and the nude
one. 

   Now that she was out of her clothes, the act of putting them back on
undetected in the small space afforded by the train seats would be almost
impossible for Becky.  Instead she simply sat, awaiting inevitable
discovery.  Somebody would walk towards them, eventually.  They must.  It
was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the girl in seat 6A
had no clothes on.

   Becky was aroused and breathing hard.  For a moment she wondered what
Lisa would do?  Would her new girlfriend jump on her here and now, in this
carriage?  She had essentially ordered her to get naked -- was this to be
the place they would first make love?

   She had to admit, she wasn't against the idea.  Indeed, the prospect of
sex in public thrilled her just as being naked in public did, although
she'd for obvious reasons never tried to do it before.

   But at the same time, she found herself rather hoping that the first
time with Lisa she had so long dreamed of happening would be long and
passionate in a safe and private bed, rather than a frantic quickie mashed
together in the carriage of a train while passengers around them pretended
to suddenly be very interested in their newspapers and mobile phones.

   Fortunately, it seemed, Lisa had other things in mind.

   "One more dare?" she asked.

   Becky nodded eagerly.  "Anything," she gasped.

   "Okay...  I dare you to walk to the end of the train carriage, and back,
just as you are now."

   Becky shivered excitedly.  There would be no hiding her nakedness, no
waiting for one or two people to walk by and realise she was nude. 
Everyone would see her, everyone who could, everyone would see the last
thing they expected to see on their evening journey -- a completely naked
girl doing a catwalk down the carriage and back to her seat.

   Lisa got up out of her seat, leaving the way clear for Becky to stand
and get out.  Mischievously, she also made sure to stand in the aisle,
blocking the shorter route to the carriage end.  It was clear to Becky then
that Lisa intended her to walk the whole, longest length of the carriage
and back.

   Taking a deep breath, Becky scooted over into Lisa's seat, feeling the
warm recently-vacated fabric on her bare skin.  Then, she stood up.

   Not everyone noticed at first, of course.  But some did, and Becky
imagined she could feel every pair of eyes that stared at her, every man
who gazed at her bare breasts and all else with lustful thoughts.  She
heard every gasp and registered every person tapping the arm or shoulder of
their neighbor or opposite and pointing back down the carriage to the
sudden appearance of the naked girl.

   Her legs shook as she took her first steps down the carriage.  They
always did, when she exposed herself like this.  The fear was part of it,
the adrenaline one of the attractions, one of the triggers for her arousal.
She wanted to be seen, so badly, but she also knew that in showing herself,
she was breaking an iron social rule and inviting thoughts and judgements
both lustful and disapproving.

   Her blood pounded in her ears as she stepped barefoot along the dull
carpet of the train carriage.  The train's movement swayed her, she felt
the motion of the carriage through her body, felt her free and unrestrained
form react with subtle motions.

   She was almost in a trance.  People called to her, made comments, but
she didn't hear them.  She could still feel their eyes.  Her nipples
stiffened almost painfully, her stomach fluttered, her sex ached. 

   She didn't walk slowly.  She longed to, longed to take her time, to
meander along the carriage giving all assembled the full sight of her --
but she knew to do so would be also to prolong the chances of this not
ending as she wished.  So, in moments, she had reached the end of the train
carriage.  She was visible, through the glass doors, to anyone stood
between this carriage and the next -- one man was, and he stared wide-eyed
and open mouthed as she pirouetted and returned the way she had come, back
to the waiting Lisa, who stared at her with undisguised admiration, awe,
and desire.

   Her dare was completed, but Becky didn't immediately return to her seat.
Instead she embraced Lisa, feeling the other girl's clothing against her
naked skin.

   "Touch me," she gasped, whispering so only Lisa could hear.  The other
girl obliged, discretely sliding a hand down, over her hairless mound, to
stroke the cleft between her legs.  When she felt just how wet Becky had
become, her eyes widened.

   "Did I do good?" came the brunette's happy sigh.

   --

   They didn't do much after that, not in the train carriage.  They'd done
too much to attract attention, after all, and so Becky hurriedly dressed,
much to the disappointment of the other passengers, and the two sat,
preparing themselves for the response.

   As it was, most of the people on the train simply pretended it hadn't
happened.  Only one or two guys came over to ask if Becky was planning a
repeat performance, or if Lisa was going to follow suit.  A woman
approached, too, asking "whatever did you do that for?" Becky's answer --
"I just felt like it," -- didn't seem to satisfy.

   But in spite of the lack of any further shenanigans during their
journey, their excitement remained -- and it remained as the left the
station, and bundled with their suitcases into a waiting taxi to take them
back to Lisa's accommodation.  It remained as they climbed the stairs to
Lisa's accommodation, unlocked the door, slammed it behind them, threw down
their bags and collapsed on the bed, throwing off their clothing and
finally, ecstatically, joyously making love.



   Chapter 36 -- Pride (Epilogue)

   Six months had passed, and Lisa and Becky's love had endured and grown.

   Living apart, attending separate universities, had been a challenge, but
they saw one another as often as they could.  They would take it in turns
when one or the other had a free weekend, Lisa travelling to stay with
Becky or vise-versa.  It was easier the other way -- Becky still had her
roommate after all, and so when they were at Becky's the two had to limit
their lovemaking to times when she was out.  Fortunately, much to Lisa's
surprise, the roommate turned out to be a good-natured sort who was happy
to grant them a bit of privacy (Becky still maintained to Lisa that her
roommate was the enemy, however, mostly due to the other girl still
requiring her to wear clothes in her company).

   The rest of the time they had to make do with online video-chat, often
falling asleep together, miles apart, heads resting next to laptop
screens. 

   The holidays were the best time.  Three weeks at Easter where they had
come home together, and barely been apart.

   They'd laid the groundwork for that, coming out as a couple to family
and friends, not wanting to waste precious time sneaking about when they
could be out in the open.

   Lisa's family had been surprised at her revelation of her sexuality, and
doubly so when she revealed that her new girlfriend was in fact a young
woman whom they had known most of her life and, indeed, considered a de
facto member of their own family.  But in many ways, that made it easier
for them to accept -- they knew Becky already, and loved her and had
already welcomed her into their home.  It required only minimal adjustment
for them to start thinking of her not as their daughter's closest friend
but as her partner, although Lisa's mother had discretely enquired if, now,
when Becky stayed over at Lisa's house she would still be staying in Lisa's
room and had taken some time to get used to the answer!

   Her brothers were more difficult, still getting over the idea that their
big sister was in a loving relationship with another woman when (Lisa
suspected) their only previous understanding of lesbianism was from their
typical teenage "secret" browsing of online porn.  The idea that their
sibling, and her incredibly pretty friend, were admitting to doing the sort
of things they had seen girls in these videos do created an awkwardness
whenever Carl or Ben would encounter both girls together, and while Lisa
sensed that this would dissipate as they grew up, it wasn't always easy at
the time.

   Becky's mum responded unexpectedly to her own daughter's coming out. 
Not with disapproval -- she was more than happy to learn the two girls were
together -- but with revelations.  Not long after Becky's father had
passed, when her daughter was still a little girl, Becky's mum told them,
she'd herself had a relationship with another woman, and then later a
second affair.  Indeed, Becky's mum admitted, she considered herself
"mostly gay" now, but had kept her sexuality secret out of worry that Becky
would be upset by it.  Happily, the end result was that her mother, single
for many years, began dating women again, with her daughter coaching her on
the intricacies of dating apps and the like.

   Following the ugly scenes at the pub at Christmas, both girls were
unsurprised to discover that they had fewer of their friends that they had
used to have; but those who remained were nothing but supportive upon
learning that Becky and Lisa were a couple.  Indeed, the girls were rather
surprised by the number of people who had commented to the effect of
"finally" -- apparently, their existing closeness and "thick-as-thieves"
relationship had caused several who knew them to speculate when, rather
than if, the two would pair off.

   Lisa's housemates were completely underwhelmed by the revelation.  Not
having known her longer than a few months, most simply assumed that Lisa
had been gay or bisexual all along and had simply chosen not to mention it
until she needed to -- only when learning that Becky was her first
girlfriend and that the relationship was the end result of a long
friendship and star-crossed unrequited love did they coo and gush happily.

   Only Jacqui had known the full story already, and when she saw Lisa and
Becky together for the first time, the older girl simply raised an eyebrow
and, to Lisa, said, "told you so."

   Free, then, to pursue their relationship openly, Lisa and Becky began to
ingratiate into each other's lives, to function socially and domestically
as a real couple, very much in love.

   --

   From early on, both girls had agreed that Becky's exhibitionism and love
of nudity was to be a welcome, and encouraged, aspect to their
relationship. It thrilled them both for their own reasons -- Becky loved to
be nude and to be seen, while Lisa loved the sight, and the spirit, of
Becky's nakedness.

   Dares and other exhibitionist adventures became a normal part of their
sex life -- too many to list here, some delightful, some disastrous, but
all memorable.  Lisa, for her part, remained committed to keeping her own
clothes on -- at least in public.

   In private, however, she found that Becky's constant desire for
nakedness was infectious, and often when it was just the two of them, she
would remain nude after they had made love, sitting watching television or
listening to music with Becky in her small dorm room, skin against skin,
blissfully happy.

   Still, she often reminded herself of the summer, when she'd had to run
through the campsite in the nude, or when Jerry the hiker had stumbled upon
her and Becky in the woods, and grimaced.  There was no chance she was
going to wind up naked in public like her girlfriend, not ever again. r Or
so she thought.

   --

   It was June, and warm.  Lisa was preparing for her upcoming trip, in a
few days' time, to see Becky at her university.  Soon term would be over
and they would be home for a long, leisurely summer, to spend together as
much as they desired.  They were already looking at holidays together -- in
particular, a longer return trip to camping in the woods.

   But there was time yet for one final visit to see Becky before packing
up and heading for home, one last weekend reunion.  Friday, for Lisa,
couldn't come quickly enough, but it was only Thursday when Becky,
excitedly, called her up.

   "They want people in the Pride parade!" she explained.  "I think we
should!"

   Becky had, finally, found some acceptance at her university.  Although
she had never really bonded with her housemates, her relationship with Lisa
had led to her becoming involved in the university's LGBTQ society, wherein
she had at last found new friends who weren't particularly perturbed by the
notion that she might be a nudist.  The university LGBTQ society was a big
part of her city's Pride event, and many students from the society marched
in the parade and appeared on floats.

   The event was this coming weekend, and Lisa readily agreed they should
take part -- until Becky explained the exact reason she was so excited to
do so.

   "They want people to be body-painted!" she gushed happily.

   Lisa groaned.

   --

   The idea was to get a handful of students to ride on one of the floats,
wearing nothing save for brightly-coloured paint on their skin, to make
some sort of statement about body-positivity, identity and such that Lisa
didn't fully understand.  Privately she suspected someone had just decided
it would look cool, and had come up with a reason to justify it after the
fact.

   It was, Becky felt strongly, something they should both do, and there
was no persuading her otherwise.

   "It'll be fine," she assured her worried girlfriend.  "It won't be like
you'll actually be naked.  The paint will cover you up."

   Lisa wasn't sure how much coverage a layer of coloured paint would
provide -- certainly not enough to disguise that she was, in fact, not
wearing any clothes.  She looked down at herself.  While she'd progressed
in recent months towards the realization that her body, with her round hips
and narrow chest, was far from terrible in its unclothed appearance, she
was also acutely aware that no matter how much paint hid the tone of her
skin, it would be her visible shapeliness that was more of a concern.

   Nonetheless, she couldn't say no to Becky.

   So it was that she found herself, together with her girlfriend, arriving
at a student shared house on the Saturday morning. 

   There would be nowhere to get ready with paint at the start of the
parade, Becky had explained, so the students who would be on the float, and
the ones doing the painting, had agreed to rendezvous first at one of their
houses, get ready, then the painted participants would be driven to the
event to take their place on the float as it started the parade.

   It was a warm, sunny day, and when the two girls told the young man who
answered the door that they were there for the painting, he motioned them
through to the back garden.  There, a tall, long haired man was putting the
finishing touches to a vibrant pattern painted onto a full-figured,
entirely naked girl with cropped pink hair and studs in her nose and lips.
A well-muscled young man sporting a very minimal design which left much of
his skin bare (only covering his right thigh, hip and genitals) stood
smoking a cigarette and talking to a similarly good looking lad in shorts
who was waiting to get painted.  A few others of varying body types and
genders stood around dressed, half-dressed or in robes, and there was
apparently another painter who had nipped out for a break.

   Becky, typically, divested herself of all of her clothing as soon as
they realized they were in the right place, even though it looked like it
would be a little while for them to wait their turn to be painted.  She
intended to make the most of a chance to be naked outside, in the company
of people who weren't at all perturbed by her lack of clothing.

   Lisa, though, kept her clothes firmly on until it was at last her turn.
By now, most of the people in the garden were naked and painted up, so she
didn't feel completely awful when she shyly undressed and stood, awkwardly,
in front of the long-haired guy.

   "Got any preference for design?" he asked, rooting through sponges and
paintbrushes.

   Lisa blushed.  "Something that covers a lot?" she suggested.

   The young painted paused, and took a look at her.  "Hmm," he pondered
after a moment.  "No problem.  Better lose the pubes though, hun.  The
paint tends to matt them together.  It doesn't look great."

   Lisa squeaked, turning even redder as it seemed that everyone in close
proximity was now looking directly at her pubic hair with suddenly critical
eyes.

   Perhaps seeing her distress, the Rubenesque punk girl leaned over. 

   "Don't worry luv," she said.  "I've got a fresh razor.  Nip up to the
bathroom, you'll be fine in five minutes."

   "I'll, uh, help?" Becky exclaimed, appearing as if by magic.

   The painter rolled his eyes. 

   "Okay lovebirds.  Five minutes though, we're in a rush." He cast around.
"Anyone else need paint doing while Becky takes her girlfriend upstairs to
shave and definitely not do anything else?"

   --

   They scampered quickly into the house, Lisa following Becky's bare and
shapely bottom up the stairs.  It felt strange beyond words to Lisa to be
walking around naked so brazenly in the home of complete strangers to her,
but it was also weirdly exciting in a way she'd not experienced before.

   The bathroom was a typical one for a student pad -- old, and on the
shabby side, and in need of a damn good clean, but serviceable enough. 
Lisa perched herself delicately on the side of the bath, while Becky
rummaged about, following the punk girl's instructions, until she found a
packet of pink-handled disposable women's razors.  She cracked the plastic
cover off of one, and after a moment, also produced a small pair of
scissors from the same place by the sink.  She ran the hot water and after
a moment, pipes rattling, the sink was filled.

   Becky then turned her attention to Lisa.  "You okay with this?" she
asked.

   Lisa shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant and not at all bothered about
either her current state of nakedness, the fact she would soon be naked in
front of everyone who was attending the parade, and the fact that shaving
her pubic hair was going to be a new experience.

   "Yeah," she squeaked.  "If I'm gonna look like a naked idiot, I might as
well look like the best naked idiot I can."

   Becky grinned.  "You ever shaved down there before?" Lisa shook her
head. There was a pause and then Becky continued; "want me to do it for
you?" Lisa nodded, with more than a little enthusiasm.  She parted her
legs, giving Becky the access she needed -- her girlfriend looked
approvingly and knelt down on the floor between them.

   Becky began by using the scissors to trim Lisa's bush.  There wasn't
much hair, and what was there was fine and blonde.  That was one reason
Lisa had never felt the need to shave her pudenda before -- she never
thought of herself as particularly hairy, and even now, when receiving oral
sex was a big part of her bedroom routine, she'd never heard Becky complain
that her hair was in the way down there.

   Lisa curled her toes, suppressing a giggled of pleasure.  Becky wasn't
exactly being all business with what she was doing.  She kept allowing her
fingers to lightly stroke the sensitive skin around Lisa's mound, and even,
wickedly, to brush her outer labia, as she removed the snipped-off hairs,
even blowing on the area to ensure it was clear.  Delicious feelings
shivered through Lisa, and she tipped back her head, closing her eyes in
happiness.

   There was even better to come.  The scissoring done, Becky wet her hand
and squirted into them a blast from a can of scented shaving soap.  Then
she began to massage the soap into a foam on Lisa's mound and over the lips
of her pussy.  She wasn't even pretending now -- her questing fingers
slipped easily between the soapy lips, and soon she was sliding two fingers
into and out of her lover, Lisa breathing hard, her nipples stiff and her
hands gripping the curved side of the bath tightly, while with her other
hand she deftly slid the razor over Lisa's pudenda and around her pussy,
removing every last bit of hair.

   "Try not to move," Becky breathed.  Easy for you to say, Lisa thought,
you're not the one getting fingered while trying to perch on the side of a
bathtub while your girlfriend simultaneously goes at your lady parts with a
very sharp razor...  but she didn't say it.  There was no way she wanted
Becky to stop.

   She did stop, though -- for a moment at least.  She slid her fingers all
the way out and, after using her wet hands to remove any stray soap foam
from Lisa, patted her dry with a towel.  She withdrew the towel and made a
show of critically inspecting her handywork.  Lisa looked down -- at the
sight of the smooth, pink skin, at the cleft of her two hairless lips --
until her view was suddenly obscured, as her girlfriend leaned in and,
holding on to Lisa's hips and bottom to steady her, began to kiss and then
lick the now-more-sensitive-than-ever area.  Her probing tongue slipped
between Lisa's pussy lips to the silky wetness beyond, lapping and teasing
with a skill born of frequent practice, flickering under her hood to
stimulate her clitoris.  Lisa gasped happily, muscles in her stomach and
thighs flexing, pushing herself into the pleasure Becky was giving her.

   She came quickly, a knee-trembler of an orgasm, only Becky's deceptively
strong arms preventing her from toppling backwards into the bathtub. 
Mindful they may not be alone in the house, she attempted to stifle the
noises that escaped, involuntarily, from her mouth, but she was too far
gone to manage that and finally she cried out in ecstasy as her orgasm
flowered and bloomed inside of her.

   --

   Downstairs in the garden, the young man with the paint and his punk
friend shared a cigarette and looked at each other, knowingly, as the
unmistakable sound of a woman in climax drifted down to them from the open
bathroom window.

   The painter raised an eyebrow.  "Dykes," he said, not unkindly.

   "Hey," the pink-haired girl countered, "you and Greg have hogged the
bathroom plenty of times this week alone."

   The painter held up his hands.  "Guilty as charged.  But not when we've
got to get your big bare arse on a Pride float for 3 o'clock."

   The girl swatted him playfully with her hand.  "Oi!"

   The young man grinned.  "Sorry.  My bad.  It's not big.  It's perfectly
sized.  For a bouncy castle."

   She leapt at him, and he swung aside, picking up his paints so they
didn't get knocked over.  The girl glared in a playful way -- they'd been
friends a good few years, and this sort of behavior was entirely normal for
them.

   The painter bowed, as Becky and Lisa reappeared he was floridly and
profusely apologizing to the girl.

   "...  I regret that I misspoke and compared your behind to any sort of
inflatable building which children jump on for fun," he said, "now give
over and let me paint pretty colours on Becky's lovely other half, as if
she needs it."

   In the end, Lisa ended up with a swirling pattern covering her from her
chest down to her thighs, and over her bottom.  It made maybe the tiniest
difference, but she still felt, and felt she looked, incredibly naked --
particularly when she looked down between her legs at the sudden absence of
bush.

   Becky, typically for her, decided to stretch the definition of what
could actually be called "body-painting".  The rainbow stars on her nipples
and the small smattering of stars elsewhere on her body were technically
painted, but unlike the other participants, there would be no question that
Becky was not very much 100% nude.  That was, though, apparently the extent
of the paint she was prepared to wear, and she pirouetted away happily
around the garden.

   A couple of courage-reinforcing drinks later and the body paint was dry
(Lisa's skin took on a slightly stiff feeling, but she still definitely did
not feel clothed in any way).  The painted people donned blankets, towels
and robes for coverage and piled into several cars to make the short
distance to the start of the parade.

   Lisa wasn't at all surprised when Becky eschewed any sort of cover up
and simply hopped into the back of the long-haired body-painter's car next
to her completely nude.

   The painter looked back over his shoulder at her, and shook his head.

   "Okay, Lady Godiva," he sighed.  "But if we get pulled over, you're the
one doing the explaining."

   --

   They arrived at the car park where the parade floats had assembled in
the nick of time, and the boys scrambled up onto the float emblazoned with
the university LGBTQ society decorations before helping the girls to climb
up also.  Greg, the painter's boyfriend, was driving, and the painter gave
the assembled gang of brightly-coloured naked people one final pep talk.

   "Smile, dance, wave, have fun, be happy, and try and ignore if it gets
cold," he advised.  "Oh, and no hanky-panky.  This is a family event, it's
a bloody miracle they've let us do this anyway so let's not give them a
reason to regret it."

   He paused.  "And boys, think pure thoughts.  If I see so much as a semi,
I'll whack it with a ruler and you get to spend the after-party sitting at
home with an ice-pack on your nadgers contemplating your life choices."

   The float got on its way, and Becky slipped her arm around Lisa's bare
waist.

   "You okay?" she asked, kissing her girlfriend on the cheek.

   Lisa nodded.  "I thought I wouldn't be, but actually now I'm here it
isn't so bad."

   Becky laughed.  "Good!  Although, we are only just getting out of the
car park..."

   In the end, it was only a tiny bit embarrassing.  The people assembled
to watch the parade, join the parade, and of course, photograph the parade,
seemed many more than Lisa had imagined.  The whole thing took them right
through the town centre, so as well as the people who were fully expecting
all the craziness and politics of a Pride parade, you had more than a few
bemused shoppers, and walking around on the float and waving (she quickly
abandoned the idea of dancing, even though the music was good; nobody
needed to see her dance at the best of times, let alone with no clothes on)
she did feel very aware of her own nudity, and not always in a positive
way.

   But it didn't bother her so much, because she never felt alone, never
felt like everyone was staring at her.  Her painted companions were
jubilant, supportive of one another and always looking out for her.  And,
of course, she had Becky.

   As the parade wound its way through the town, in the direction of the
university, Becky suddenly caught Lisa up in her arms.  She held her
girlfriend close, letting her feel the cool smoothness of her bare skin
against her own, feeling Lisa's skin connect in turn.  She looked into
Lisa's eyes, and Lisa stared back and then, as if nobody in the world were
watching, they kissed, a long, lingering, open-mouthed kiss.

   The kiss went on.  Lisa thought back, back to that very first Snapchat
message Becky had sent her, to the text where she had first hinted at the
secret she had wanted to share.

   Now, here she was, completely naked in the centre of town, passionately
kissing a naked girl, her best friend, the girl she loved -- and who loved
her -- in full view of hundreds of people.

   Well, she thought, breaking off the kiss with a smile.  What other way
could this have ended?

   (The End)