Apologies (again) for the disconnected titles.
This story is the conclusion of a three-part series starting with “Tina Puts On a Daring Public Show” and continuing with “Tina’s Daring Nude Hike Continues”.
As always, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy Tina’s story.
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Having done even more than she’d hoped to do during her adventure, Tina took some time to just relax alongside the trail, simply enjoying being nude outdoors and thinking about some of her outing’s most exciting moments.
Her accomplishments that afternoon weren’t the kind of things you got a diploma for, but Tina was more than a little proud of having risen to meet every challenge she’d given herself. A good part of her afternoon had been spent doing things she never would have believed herself capable of just a couple of years earlier. Not only had she stripped to complete nudity in a somewhat busy public park, she’d spent more than an hour not only unclothed, but nowhere near her clothes. Best of all, she had planned, prepared, and done every crazy, thrilling bit of it all on her own!
Some of Tina’s favorite parts of her long naked jaunt were the times she’d spent hanging out with a group of college students she bumped into. The young men and women were only wearing bathing suits, but seemed positively conservative compared to her. Sitting and having a beer with them while wearing nothing at all had been a new kind of thrill.
More exciting yet for Tina had been helping Andrea, one of the young women in the group, push past her fear and do something the shy 20 year old had long fantasized about but never had the nerve to actually try. When she saw Andrea strip the top of her bikini off in front of her friends, Tina thought about all the years she’d wanted to try showing herself off but had been too timid; she felt happy that whether Andrea got hooked on exposing herself or never did anything like that again, at least this one time she had done something that had only been a fantasy before that afternoon.
Noticing the sun getting to be low in the sky, Tina stood up, put her backpack on, and began her 2-mile hike back to her car, still not sure where and when to finally rejoin the real world, where people didn’t get to walk around naked. Wanting to enjoy this experience as long as her available time allowed, she walked instead of jogging, sipping water as she made her way back to the beginning of the trail.
There didn’t seem to be anywhere near as many people sharing the trail with her on this leg of her trip, but the reactions of the few hikers she did cross paths with made her glad she’d put off getting dressed as long as possible. Seeing the opening to the parking lot ahead, she was a little sad her adventure was about to end. She decided to delay getting dressed a while longer, thinking she could have a little more fun by setting her backpack on the hood of her car, slowly fishing out and even more slowly putting on her clothing, letting the handful of hikers in the parking lot enjoy her nakedness a while longer.
The feeling Tina got walking 100 feet from the trailhead to her car was very different than the same walk earlier had produced; where earlier she had been focused on getting to the privacy of her car, this time her intent was considerably more risque, and her stress level rose higher and higher as she reached her car. She had planned out her reverse strip show, right down to a bow to any spectators watching, then getting into her car and driving off, but hadn’t expected to be so nervous. “This is crazy, I walk all over this park stark naked and putting clothes ON is what makes me quiver?”
Nervous or not, she followed her plan, ignoring the catcalls, clapping and cheers from the dozen hikers spread around the parking lot watching her as she set her backpack on the hood of her car and pulled out the padlock key.
The key fit the second padlock just as well as it had the first, no surprise as they were part of a set of 4 locks Tina had bought just for this adventure. The surprise was the key’s inability to open the lock. Tina assumed the problem was something simple; she had tested all 4 locks with one of the keys before packing the backpack, and they had worked perfectly. She tried every possible solution, turning the key 180 degrees, jiggling the key every which way in the lock, pulling the hook out and pushing it in to try to take pressure off the key.
None of Tina’s tricks worked, nor could they have. In her hurry to get in and out of the hardware store, she had not bought what she intended, a set of 4 matching locks, keyed alike. She had instead bought a set of 4 differently keyed locks, with one key a master, able to open any one of the set. The other keys each worked only with one of the locks. She happened to have done her test of the locks using the master key, but packed one of the single lock keys in her backpack. It could have been worse — she might have packed a key which wouldn’t have been able to unlock either of the locks she brought!
Tina didn’t understand how the key could have failed, but she understood what its failure meant; she would have to make her way home, the whole way, just as naked as she was right now! When she finally gave up fiddling with the lock and realized she’d been standing around in the nude next to her car in the middle of the sunny parking lot for a several minutes, she let out a yelp.
She scrambled around to the driver’s side, jumped in, started the engine and started to drive off. She had driven all of 20 feet towards the exit from the parking lot when she noticed that she’d left the backpack on the hood, over in front of the passenger seat. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” she shouted as she stopped, flung open the door, got out and lunged across the hood to grab the damned backpack, accompanied by even louder cheering.”I’ve GOT to get the hell out of here!” she thought as she darted back behind the wheel, slammed the door shut and took off.
Tina raced out of the parking lot, then at the first spot she found where she could safely pull over, she stopped to calm down and think about what she needed to do to make it home. For at least the third or fourth time since she began her hike she wondered why the most embarrassing moments of her adventures always seemed to also be the most arousing. “A question for another day,” she thought, trying to focus on anything at all besides the full-body tingle she was feeling.
Once her heartbeat settled down, she checked the time, the first time she had since she’d left her car at the beginning of her adventure; 5:40, later than she’d planned, but still early enough for her to do what she most wanted to, get home before Darren. Between the time his delayed flight was scheduled to touch down and the time it would take him to get a ride home, she was sure she could be home at least a half an hour before he would arrive.
She tried to replay in her mind what the drive to the park earlier that afternoon had been like, but she really hadn’t paid all that much attention, focused then on the daring hike she was about to embark upon. The hike itself had been all she’d hoped it would be and more, but now she couldn’t help wishing she knew more about the route home. She remembered it’s rough outlines; the park was 10 or 12 miles of two-lane state and county roads from I-95, with a few small towns along the way, and the interstate part of the trip was around 75 miles long, with a short stretch on a main local road and a couple of side streets in their neighborhood once she was off the interstate.
A quick check of her route on Google Maps verified what she thought, with an estimate of 1 hour and 45 minutes for her to reach home. She hadn’t charged her phone this morning and forgot to bring a cord to charge it, so she shut the map app down to save its battery. Using her phone gave her what was probably her most sensible idea of the day; she called Kristen, hoping to swing by her place to borrow something to wear. When the call went to voicemail she left a message both vague and urgent, asking her friend to call back ASAP.
She tried to remember if there was anything along her route which might make being naked even more of a problem, but couldn’t think of anything; it would be dark when she got home, so her odds of getting into the house without being seen by any neighbors were fairly good. She was sure at least a few drivers of taller vehicles would see her boobs, with some drivers of big trucks getting to see a whole lot more, “Not such a bad thing, considering what I’ve been doing all afternoon” she thought, already getting used to driving while nude!
“Well, sitting around here isn’t going to solve my problem,” Tina told herself, “time to get going.” She slouched a little and put the car in gear. In less than 4 minutes she reached a small town. The speed limit dropped quickly from 50 to 30, and she was probably the most careful, law-abiding driver the town had seen all day. Besides obeying the speed limit, she made sure to come to a full stop at the town’s one stop sign, giving a couple of men lucky enough to be waiting to cross the road a story to tell their wives when they got home!
The rest of the two-lane road didn’t give any lucky pedestrians a good look at Tina, but a farmer driving his tractor along the shoulder looked like he couldn’t believe what he saw when she finally had room to pass him. Neither of the two other towns she passed through on her way to I-95 had even a single stop sign to slow her down.
The Interstate highway part of her trip home went smoothly for the first twenty miles; the traffic was heavy but moving along quickly, and with traffic in both lanes moving at a similar speed Tina only had a handful of cars and trucks pass her. At first she wrapped her left arm over her boobs whenever she noticed a vehicle beginning to pass her, but got distracted a few times and forgot to cover up. After a while she stopped bothering.
A long stretch of stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic turned out to be the lead-up to a construction zone, forcing the two lanes of traffic to merge into a single lane. Tina took advantage of the occasional full stops to call Kristen again, but again only got her voicemail. Using her phone and keeping one hand on the wheel allowed the driver of an SUV to enjoy a good long look at the topless babe in the right lane. He lost all interest in merging into Tina’s lane, preferring to hang out next to her at 5 MPH and stare. When she finally noticed him Tina rolled down her window and shouted, “Hey asshole, have you never seen boobs before? I’m trying to let you go ahead of me!” He didn’t answer, but kept right on staring at her, right up to the moment he slowly bumped into a concrete barrier blocking his lane.
Tina was halfway through the construction zone before she could stop laughing, and the startled look on the face of the grizzled looking flagman she rolled slowly by a minute later only made it harder to stop. Her laughter made her aware of a new problem. The two beers and two bottles of water she’d downed were making themselves felt, and she doubted she’d be able to make it all the way home before the urge became impossible to resist.
By the time she finally cleared the construction zone Tina knew she’d need to find some sort of toilet facilities well before she made it home. “Where can a naked gal go to go without getting in trouble?” she wondered. Less than five minutes after she realized she needed to pee, like some sort of answer to a prayer, she saw a sign saying a small rest area was 1 mile ahead. She remembered passing it when she’d been going the other way, and thought it might work for her. The rest area had no other services; no food or gas for sale, just a row of parking spaces and a small building with toilet rooms.
Seeing only a handful of cars parked at the rest area as she approached, Tina pulled in and parked in a space far enough from the cars already present to stay unseen when whoever was currently inside the building returned. Over the next ten minutes, she slouched low in her seat and waited. Soon, all of the cars already there when she arrived had left; the problem was the original 4 vehicles were replaced by 3 new arrivals. Her patience was rewarded when she finally had the whole place almost completely to herself, the only other customers being a pair of elderly women.
“This is probably as good as it’s going to get,” Tina thought, so once the two white haired women were inside the building she made a dash for the door, trying to time her entrance into the Women’s room to match the time it would take for both of the old ladies to have entered stalls. Seeing how slowly they walked, she was sure she could slip into a stall, have her desperately needed pee and get out before either of the older women emerged from their stall. Her plan worked as she hoped, to the extent the building allowed; she stepped into the women’s room seconds after the other women entered their stalls. The problem was, there were no more free stalls!
With no stall available to her, all of Tina’s options were unappealing.
She could do what she’d normally do, wait for a stall to be free, but she had no idea how whichever woman left her stall first might react if she encountered a naked woman.
She could run back to her car and wait for another opening, but that wait might well be too much for her poor bladder to take. She could run behind the building and relieve herself out in the open, but the way the building was situated, there might not be any area back there safely out of sight from both sides of the highway.
She could duck into the currently empty Men’s room and hope to be gone before anyone of the designated gender came in, but that was probably the worst possible place for a naked woman to be if someone from the normal user group were to show up!
Tina stood in the doorway to the Women’s room, trying to decide what to do, eventually settling on the Men’s room option. As frightening as the idea of being caught there was, she thought if a man came in while she was there she could hole up in a stall until the room was empty. She hadn’t taken more than two steps towards the Men’s room before she caught a glimpse of three men approaching the building. Her idea of using the Men’s room depended on not being spotted heading into the room, so she thought, “Guess I’ll have to take my chances with the old ladies!” and dashed back to the Women’s room.
Though she was certainly already excruciatingly aware of her nakedness, seeing herself in one of the mirrors above the sinks gave Tina a shock. She had only been in the room a few seconds before one of the old women left her stall, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw Tina. “Claire, are you about done? There’s something you need to see out here.” the first woman said.
“Please don’t scream or anything,” Tina said as she went into the free stall.
“Why should I scream? You’re the one walking around buck naked, not me,” the woman replied.
“Claire stepped out of her stall and said, “Barb, what are you going on about, where’s this naked woman?”
“Right in there,” Barb said, pointing at Tina’s shoes, “What you can see under the door is all this girl’s got on!”
“Okay, you in there, what’s your deal; should I call the police?” Claire asked.
Tina pleaded,”Oh, please don’t. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you. I haven’t been attacked or anything like that, and I’m not on drugs or anything. I just accepted a dare that went bad; I’m about a half-hour from home now, and if I hadn’t desperately needed to get to a toilet I probably would have made it there without being seen.”
“Come on out, then,” Claire demanded. Tina stepped out of the stall, looking sheepish. “Good Lord, it’s true!, Claire said. “I thought you might be exaggerating,” she said to Barb. Turning to Tina, Claire asked, “You swear you’re not high on something? If I don’t call 911 I don’t want to hear about you causing some big pileup down the road.”
“I swear; In all my years driving, I’ve never been more careful. The last thing I want is to be pulled over like this!”
“Well, you sure don’t look like you’re in your right mind, but you sound sane enough. You hang back here while Barb and I make sure the coast is clear,” Claire said.
“Thank you so much!’ Tina said as Barb and Claire went to the exterior door and looked outside. Hearing the hand dryer in the Men’s room running, Barb held up her hand to tell Tina to wait. Once the three men had gone outside and driven away, she signaled for Tina to come out. “Thanks again!” Tina said as she stepped outside. There was nobody in the parking area to see Tina sprint to her car, but the long blast from the horn of a passing tractor-trailer told her that she hadn’t escaped unseen. She smiled, thinking only being seen by some passing truck driver was not such a bad outcome of her rest stop; “definitely could have been worse,” she thought as she pulled back out onto the highway.
With traffic moving briskly and only 40 or so miles left for her to drive, Tina began to think she might be able to make it home without having her nudity noticed too many more times. She began to relax for the first time since she realized the lock on the backpack was not going to be opened without using some sort of tool. The rest of her drive home promised to be uneventful, other than having the occasional passing driver catching a brief glimpse of her, which seemed to her to be unavoidable, harmless enough, and in keeping with her mission for the day.
Now that things were finally going smoothly, Tina thought about the rest of her route home. In another ten minutes she’d be getting to the outskirts of her city, on roads she was familiar with. She’d have felt better if she wasn’t going to be hitting the densest part of town at the tail end of rush hour, but expected any slowdowns to be short-lived. Her relaxed mood didn’t last long; she noticed for the first time that the Low Fuel light was lit, “How long has that been on? Did I notice it right away or has it been on for a while?” she thought, “With everything else going on, I might have overlooked it.”
She knew from past experience that she could go at least 30 miles after the light came on without running out of gas, but without knowing for sure how long it had been on, she couldn’t be sure of making it home before running dry. As little as she liked the idea of having to pump gas in the nude, that immodest course of action was infinitely preferable to actually coasting to a stop at whatever random spot her tank ran dry! She reluctantly began looking out for signs before the next exit promising that some sort of gas station was nearby.
Two exits came and went with no sign indicating the presence of a gas station; “Dammit!” Tina shouted when, just a few seconds too late for her to exit, she spotted a large 7-11, shiny and new, with at least 8 pumps! “So new they haven’t gotten around to adding a sign,” she grumbled. Once she got over her disappointment she wondered if it was for the best; most of the pumps had been busy, and she was hoping for a less crowded station. “A quieter station would be preferable, but with as little gas as I have left, I probably can’t afford to be picky!” she thought.
Tina breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a “Fuel” sign ahead of the next exit. She pulled off and followed the sign promising a gas station 2 tenths of a mile to the right. She found the small Sunoco station easily enough, but it clearly hadn’t been open in months, maybe not for years. Heading back to the highway, she had another unwelcome surprise; the onramp was blocked by a line of cones and the first in a series of DETOUR signs leading to some other way of getting back onto the highway. She followed the signs, wondering which would be worse, running out of gas in the middle of the city while naked or running out of gas in the middle of nowhere while naked?
After a 15-minute detour passing by miles of cornfields and cow pastures, she reached another onramp allowing her to get back on the highway no more than 5 miles beyond the point where she’d gotten off. Tina was relieved to see a working onramp, and even more excited to see just beyond it another 7-11, identical to the one a few miles back. She was nervous about getting out to pump gas at such a busy spot, seeing at least a dozen cars and trucks either at a pump or parked by the store, but didn’t see any other options. She pulled up to the island farthest from the store, which had two pumps at each side; her side of the island had a fence on the other side of her car, making her spot, exposed as it was, about as private as she could hope for.
Tina felt her pulse rising the moment she stepped out of her car. She left her door wide open to provide her a little bit of cover from being viewed from the store, and was somewhat hidden from most of the customers at other pumps by the pump she was using. Anyone pulling up to the other pump on her side of the island would have a great view of the naked brunette for however long she was operating the pump, but t here was nothing to be done about that. Her hands shook as she struggled to get her credit card out of its slot in her wallet; “why the hell didn’t I take it out before getting out of the car?” she thought, quietly cursing herself. When she finally got the card out she flipped her wallet back into the car and stuck the card into the slot in the pump.
She could hardly suppress a scream as the screen on the pump methodically went through its process, asking her to respond to various questions:
“Credit, Debit or Pay inside?”
“Credit, you have my damn card already!”
“Card billing address Zip code?”
She hurriedly punched in the 5 digits.
“Do you want a car wash today?”
She jabbed the NO button.
“Remove card, lift lever and select grade.
“Finally!” she grumbled, sticking the nozzle in place, squeezing the handle, and waiting for the gas to flow. After 5 seemingly interminable seconds with no fuel flowing, she glanced at the pump’s screen, nearly screaming out loud when she saw it flicker, pause, then display a new message.
“SEE ATTENDANT”
Going inside the store was just about the last thing she wanted to do; she was inclined to try her luck at another pump, but noticed that most of the cars which were parked near the store when she pulled in had left, and almost all the pumps were now in use. “I might actually be seen by fewer people if I go inside than I would be if I move to another pump,” she thought, “and for all I know a different pump might not work any better.” She considered going inside, trying to ignore the shiver produced by the thought of closer contact with either an employee or whatever customers were inside.
Tina decided to go deal with the attendant face-to-face. She reached back into the car, bending over to put her credit card away in her wallet and pull out a ten-dollar bill. The driver of the car arriving at the pump behind hers stared, amazed by the sight before him. Just when he thought he couldn’t be any luckier, Tina stood up and turned away from the open door, letting him see the rest of her naked body! She couldn’t help smiling when she noticed the stunned expression on the newcomer’s face.
The forty feet between her car and the store’s entrance seemed to Tina to take forever to cross; to the half dozen men who noticed her walking by as they were gassing up their cars and trucks, the time flew by. “Oh, my!” the woman behind the counter said when Tina stepped into the store, “Miss! You can’t be in here like that!”
“Believe me, I wish I didn’t need to be here, but the pump didn’t work with my credit card, so I had to come see you,” Tina said, adding an apology to the man already at the counter whose transaction the clerk had completely forgotten.
“Not a problem, sweetheart,” the man replied, “anyone looking like you do right now is more than welcome to cut ahead of me.”
“Thanks!” Tina said, then turned back to the clerk, asking, “Can I just get ten dollars worth on pump #9?”
“Fine, go ahead,” the flustered clerk answered, taking the ten-dollar bill from Tina. She shook her head as she watched Tina trot back to her car.
Tina’s purchase of a bit more than three gallons of regular didn’t take long to pump, not nearly long enough as far as the man at the pump behind hers was concerned. She got back into her car, but didn’t drive off yet, instead taking a few minutes to calm down.
Tina had put on a brave face when she went into the store, but her heart had been pounding, and she’d felt like she might faint. The other time she was naked in a convenience store had been less frightening, with a friend just outside ready to intervene if she had been in trouble; today she was completely on her own.
“It’ll be a small miracle if I don’t end up naked somewhere online by the time today is over,” she thought, “and with nothing but sunglasses and a baseball cap to hide behind!” At first, the idea she might soon appear nude online was unnerving, but after a few minutes, she actually warmed to the idea. She chuckled as she guessed that almost nobody she knew would ever believe the quiet Regional Accounting Manager they knew would do anything so outrageous. She just hoped that if it did happen, the pictures or video were flattering!
While she was calming down, she checked to see if Darren’s new flight home was still on time, but saw that it was now listed as delayed, pushing his return home back by at least another hour. She was sorry he was having a rough trip back home, but was glad to have a little more time to recover from her own travel complications before he would return. “Maybe I’ll even be able to take a hacksaw to the troublesome padlock and put his backpack away before he gets home,” she thought.
Tina started her car and maneuvered past all the other members of her latest audience, waving goodbye as she left. After the fact, she was glad the pump hadn’t worked properly, admitting to herself that she’d enjoyed what was likely her last time today showing off for a small but appreciative crowd. Though she had no regrets about having been seen naked one more time, she wondered if she should have asked if the 7-11 had any kind of clothing for sale; a large t-shirt could be handy to have if this trip threw any more surprises her way. Not wanting to have to deal with the clerk again, she decided to go on as she was, and pulled onto the highway, looking forward to finally making it home and getting cleaned up before Darren arrived.
Tina’s trip went more smoothly as the highway passed from farmland to several miles of suburbs, then through the heart of the city. The highway grew from two lanes each way to three, then four, moving slowly as the rush hour neared its end. When she passed the point she normally got on the highway during her commute home, she had a brief worry that she might be seen by a co-worker heading home themselves, but relaxed as she checked the time — 7:20; everyone in her office would have cleared out over an hour ago, and by now the sun had set, making her harder to see anyway.
Right when the commuter traffic she was in was at its heaviest and most chaotic, Tina’s phone rang, the screen showing Kristen’s name. Keeping one eye on the road, Tina accepted the call and hit the button to put her friend on speaker. Kristen’s voice came booming over the car’s speakers, “Uh, hi. You called earlier, a couple times, but I couldn’t answer then. Sorry to take so long getting back to you, it sounded kind of important, do you need something?”
“No problem. When I called you I thought I needed a favor, but I’m good,” Tina replied, noticing another call coming in, this one from Darren.
Kristen was still curious about what Tina had needed, asking, “What were you going to ask me for? Dave is working late, so if you need me to come over, I could…” before Tina cut her off.
Sorry, but I’m getting another call, I’ll explain later,” Tina said, and tried to switch to the call from Darren. She was too late to pick up, but guessed he was calling to tell her about his latest flight delay, which she already knew about. A long blast from the horn of a pickup truck in the lane to her left brought her full attention back to her driving. She had drifted a few feet into the other lane while she was on the phone, and decided to put off any further use of the phone until she was home or safely parked somewhere. “I’m almost home, whatever it is can wait another fifteen or twenty minutes. I hope his flight’s delay didn’t turn into a cancellation.”
As Tina approached her exit, she was surprised to see traffic backed up all the way to the start of the offramp, then remembered that there was a concert that night at the arena just off the exit, to the right. “No problem, I’m turning left,” she thought. Despite the traffic turning left being a fraction of that turning right, her lane crept along while the two lanes turning right kept moving. By the time she was halfway down the ramp she saw why her lane was so poky; a pair of police officers were standing in the road directing traffic, favoring the concertgoers, both at her offramp and the one coming from the opposite side of the highway.
As she waited to clear the congested intersection, Tina was sure she saw a few drivers slowly passing by at her right do a double-take after looking her way. She enjoyed being part of the evening’s memorable sights for at least a handful of concertgoers, but worried a little about passing the two officers directing traffic. A bit of bad luck left her first in line, right under a streetlight, waiting for the signal to turn left. Trying to avoid notice, she slouched a bit lower. Her attempt to keep at least this one man from seeing her uncovered boobs apparently failed; when the young policeman controlling the left turn lane motioned for her to go ahead, he laughed and gave her a thumbs-up sign as she passed!
Once she left the highway, Tina had only a half-mile stretch of a busy boulevard to cover to reach the street leading to her neighborhood. Lined with shopping centers and every kind of fast food joint imaginable, it reminded her of the place she’d first dared to flash her boobs in public. She thought it could be fun to repeat her first experience exposing herself at one of the burger joints sometime. Without even the minimal cover of her sunglasses now that night had come, and not having scouted anyplace to at least check for security cameras, doing something so bold so close to her home was definitely not happening that night.
Turning off the commercial strip into her neighborhood, she cruised slowly to her house. She was relieved, and honestly more than a little surprised to have made it home without any truly serious problems. She was particularly pleased that she’d managed to pull this adventure off on her own. She started to pull into their driveway, slamming her brakes on just in time to avoid crashing into a pallet of brick pavers blocking half of the driveway. With all her excitement today she’d forgotten about the scheduled delivery of pavers for the patio Darren was going to install.
Whoever dropped off the pallet of pavers had sensibly enough left it in the open side of the driveway instead of blocking in the only car present, Darren’s old Cadillac convertible. The problem for Tina was how close to the street the pallet was; there wasn’t even enough room behind the pavers to get the back end of her car off the street. Darren had parked the old convertible fairly far from the garage to allow him to move materials he was working with in and out of that side of the garage, so she didn’t have a lot more room behind his car. She backed up a few feet and moved over to park behind the Caddy, getting her car safely off the street, but not by much, leaving the front of her car at least 50 feet from the garage door.
Tina shivered to think of what kind of show she’d have been putting on for the neighbors if she’d arrived before sunset and had to walk from her current parking space to the house! As it was, she was nervous about having to walk so far from car to house while naked. It was one thing to flaunt her naked body in front of a bunch of strangers she’d never see again, but another thing entirely to be seen naked by neighbors! “I’m lucky the nearest streetlight is a few houses away, and that all of our house’s lights are off,” she said to herself, giggling at the idea of, at 35 years old, having to sneak into her own house like a teenager out past curfew.
She gathered up everything she needed to bring in, putting her wallet and keychain into the small open pockets on the backpack and slinging it over her right shoulder. She looked up and down the street, and seeing no vehicles moving and nobody out for a walk, decided she’d be able to get into the house unseen.
She opened the car door, forgetting until it happened that two map lights and one dome light would light up the car’s interior like it was daytime. She almost slammed the door shut again, but calmed down as she remembered that nobody was around to see her, lit up or not. “The lights coming on was actually a good thing; I forgot my phone until they lit up the interior,” she thought as she stepped out of her car. She pressed the phone a couple of times as she closed the door, starting the voicemail Darren had left her about a half-hour earlier. She started walking up the driveway as she listened to his message:
“Hi Hon, just wanted to give you the good news. I lucked into a seat on a flight even earlier than my original one. It was a last-minute thing, there was no time to call you before we took off, and I forgot to call when we touched down, sorry. I’ve been home for more than an hour already, so I’ve been able to knock a couple of tasks off that long to-do list you gave me. I thought you’d be home by now, but I guess you’re working late. See you soon!”
A few seconds after the voicemail ended, Tina knew what one of the tasks Darren had completed was. The broken light fixture above the garage door that she had been asking him to do something about had been replaced by a new motion activated fixture. The light now bathing her naked form and everything else between the driveway and the front door made the lights inside the car she had been worried about seem puny. She shrieked and dashed to the front door, fumbling with her keychain, desperate to get inside, away from the damned spotlight. Trying every key she had on the chain without success, it slowly became clear to her what the other task Darren had completed was.
“Wow, is she really your fiance?” Geoff, Tina and Darren’s neighbor across the street asked, stunned by the quick look at Tina he got while her car door was open. The car’s interior lights weren’t all that strong, but he was pretty sure the shapely woman he saw step out of the car was naked! Before Darren could respond, the powerful floodlights he’d installed above the garage door an hour or so ago came on, giving Geoff a far more detailed look at the female half of the new couple across the street he and his wife had been meaning to introduce themselves to.
Seeing his new neighbor working hard, Geoff had walked across the street 20 minutes ago, introduced himself, and invited Darren to come over and have a beer. He hadn’t expected his small gesture to welcome the couple who’d recently moved into the house across from his to be rewarded anywhere near so memorably.
“Yes, that’s Tina alright,” Darren said, stepping off Geoff’s front porch, “When I saw her drive up, I thought I’d call her over to introduce you, but I think we’ll have to do that some other time. I’d better go give her a key to our new locks. Thanks for the beer.”