Rachel's Dare: A Walk in the Park

Rachel winked again, and then started along the path. Casting one more look behind me, so as to ensure that no-one else was now following us, I then broke into a quick jog to catch up. Rachel looked up into the night sky with a carefree expression on her face, and resumed our ordinary, every-day conversation as if nothing else had happened.

********

The crisp night air was beginning to give me goosebumps on my legs. I consoled myself that should we - by some bizarre chance - run into someone else at this strange hour of the morning, then my boxers might look like running shorts from a distance. I was less sure how my erect penis figured into that illusion, given it was thrusting defiantly out of my boxers and straining at the material.

"You know I've been working at compartmentalising my life." Rachel was saying, in what was gradually transitioning from dialogue to monologue. "When Dave left..." Rachel stopped, and looked away for a moment, and then shook her head slightly before seeming to refocus. "When Dave left, I threw myself into work. Everything was about the job. Lisa and Mike are at University, so I needed something to distract myself..."

I looked at her, welcome for the distraction from my current clothing setup, and gave what I hoped would be seen as an understanding smile.

Rachel gave a faint half-smile back and then fell silent for a short while, as we both walked on into the depths of the park. The area we were in had a large open playing field on our right hand side, while trees lined our way to the left. The playing field had goal posts at either end, and I laughed at myself when I realised I was half-expecting to find some one training there.

"I started walking more just to get out of the house, away from email, away from my computer." Rachel continued abruptly.

"Well, I'm glad you did." I replied, indirectly acknowledging that this was how we reconnected as friends.

Rachel smiled broadened, and she waved a hand in the general direction of my boxers. "Yeah, I'm glad I did too!"

She took in a deep breath, and then surveyed the scene around us. We were about two thirds of the way along the path now. We'd soon reach the other end and turn back. As if realising what this implied, she stopped in her tracks and held up a hand for me to do the same. She extracted her phone from a tiny pocket in her shorts, and checked on the timer. With a dramatic flourish, she counted down from five with the fingers of her raised hand. As her fist closed, the timer's alert split the silence in the empty park, and she swept her arms apart. "Ta-da!" she exclaimed.

I half-laughed at the performance, but any thoughts of a full laugh were stifled by the fact that this was a crucial point in our walk. I was down to two items of clothes. We still had two coin tosses at the turn-around point, and then what promised to be a very long walk back, with three other coin tosses to survive. If I reached the turn-around point in only my boxers, then the return trip promised to be very chilly, very naked, and with the imminent threat of further penalties. After all, I could only lose my boxers once.

Rachel switched her phone over to the coin toss app. "You're call." she reminded me.

I tried to look confident, even as I unconsciously crossed my arms across my t-shirt, as if to block any attempt to remove it.

"Heads." I called.

Rachel tried to do her previous trick of simply staring at me while the virtual coin flew on the screen. This time though I held her gaze, and resisted the urge to look down at the screen. Rachel and I kept looking at each other, long after the coin had probably landed. As the seconds past by, we were both struggling to keep a straight face, and as the corner of our mouths twitched with suppressed laughter, Rachel was the one to break first. Throwing her head back, she started to let out a victory cry, before then looking down at the screen. In an instant her victory cry switched to a semi-disappointed "Nooooooo!". She jumped in the air, and then went down on her knees, as she held up the phone for me to see. Curling up into a ball, she hid the nervous excitement that was suddenly all over her face.

Heads! Finally, the tide was turning. I waited for Rachel to get her nervous laughter under control, and stand up. Somehow, the sudden tinge of impending embarrassment she exhibited just made her seem even sexier.

It was my time to hold a hand out expectantly, and I impatiently clicked my fingers.

"Okay then, how about you hand over those shorts. Or would you prefer I take them?"

Rachel pretended to act surprised at that last comment, and put a hand to her mouth in mock horror. "Well, I suppose you've been good enough to fill up my backpack." she then reasoned, "It's probably only fair I give you a little something."

This time I noticed that it was her turn to cast a quick look around her. Trying to cover a sudden swell of nervousness with a show of bravado, she made a point of turning her back to me. Then, grabbing the side of her shorts, she simultaneously bent at the waist while easing the shorts down. I later wondered if she heard me whisper "Oh. My. God." to myself, as a pair of light green panties hovered into view. Rachel's walks weren't the only exercising she did, if the flexibility she showed was anything to go by. Rachel kept her ass up in the air as she slowly pushed her shorts all the way down to her ankles. Then, maintaining the pose, she delicately removed her shoes so that she could finally slip the shorts off entirely.

While all this was going on, I didn't say a word, and became slightly light-headed when I managed to forget to breathe. There was no other way to describe Rachel's ass other than to refer to it as stunning, and when the shorts were finally off, she gave a quick wiggle while still bent over. The effect was mesmerising, and as she turned back to face me, there was suddenly a palpable tension in the air. Her cocky grin started to shift into a shy smile, and as we silently stood opposite each other, we each saw excitement, confusion, nervousness, willingness and fear all compete for attention in the other's eyes.

After a minute that seemed like an hour, I stuck out a hand. "Thanks." I said, silently cursing myself for not coming up with something far cooler to say.

It seemed to do the trick though, as Rachel gave another light laugh, and threw the shorts at my head. I caught them, but was left with her shorts pressed against my face. I wasn't sure how sports shorts could be made to smell nice, but she'd managed it. After spending a seemingly indecent amount of time smelling her shorts, I then casually unhooked the backpack from my shoulders and deposited my first prize for the night.

I pointed an hand down the path. "Ladies first." Rachel smiled sweetly at that, and pivoted on the spot. "No need for the timer this time." she added airily, "we'll be at the turn-around point soon."

"Fair enough." I agreed. "And since you were so concerned about my belt's loneliness before, I'm sure you'll be keen to let your shorts have some company..."

Rachel openly giggled at that, and gave me a cheeky look before starting down the path. I followed close behind. I wasn't scanning for random strangers any more, I had something else entirely more interesting to focus on in front of me.

****

Rachel was gliding along the path now. Her hips swayed from side to side, and she seemed to be using her nervous energy to almost dance her way to the turn-around point. I could see the excitement in her face, even though we were the only people in the park.

It would be close to 5:00am by the time we made it to the turn-around point. With a couple of stops along the way, it would probably be around 5:20am by the time we got back to the cars for a final coin toss. Twin thoughts were competing for my attention: the first being that "4:30am" was way too early for any early-morning joggers to be awake; the second being that "5:30am" was a worryingly reasonable time for early-morning joggers to start surfacing.

"You know," said Rachel as she spun around and checked out the stars over her head, "I used to go for runs in the moonlight when I was at University." She closed her eyes, as if re-living something. "Of course," she then acknowledged, "I tended to do it fully clothed..."

Rachel proceeded to skip down past a series of low bushes, and rounded a corner in the path. Clapping her hands, she pointed excitedly at a park entrance in the distance that signalled their turn-around point.

"Yay!" she said, with an infectious girlish enthusiasm. Pointing directly at my t-shirt, she began to sing the tune to 'The Stripper'.

"Ease up there, tiger." I had to say, "I think we're about to find out whether your bra matches your panties!"

We still had a short way to go before the path ended at another road that helped ring-fence the entire park. In an entirely unhelpful manner, an inner voice reminded me that this was a prime opportunity to run into someone else. That realisation was intruding on my fixation with Rachel's backside, when Rachel continued the conversation.

"Want to guess what my favourite subject was at University?"

"Well, since you completed a major in 'Actuarial Science', I'm going to have to go with 'Actuarial Science'" I responded.

Rachel immediately went "Bzzz'ed!" and shook her finger admonishingly. "No. Guess again."

I looked her over, and strained to remember our past conversations. "Psychology?" I hazarded a guess.

Rachel went "Bzzz'ed!" again and spun around to face me. "Nope. Not even close." she then fell silent for a moment and looked up at the starry night sky. "It was Art History, actually. I did a few classes one year, really loved it."

We were getting closer to the end of the path and the road on the other side. As I stared ahead, a faint swooshing noise broke the silence that had otherwise enveloped us, and twin beams of light heralded the arrival of a car. My eyes widened in concern and anticipation, and I could even see the otherwise seemingly-confident Rachel tense slightly. The car's headlines grew brighter for a few moments, and then the vehicle in question hovered into view. We were still twenty metres from the road, and despite the vulnerability I felt, realistically the driver wasn't going to see us. Not this time at least. Nonetheless, both our pulses seemed to quicken considerably, and were left at their elevated rate even as the car drove on by. We exchanged a nervous smile as the car continued on its merry way, and the sound of the engine began to recede into the distance.

After a few moments, we both then realised we'd stopped dead in our tracks. We continued to look at each other for a little longer, before I half-laughed, and forced myself forward.

"So," I opened, seeking to re-start the conversation, "Why didn't you major in Art History?"

It was Rachel's turn to let loose a half-laugh. "Well you see, the career prospects for Art History and Actuarial Science are ever so slightly different." she gave a mixed smile, and for a split second the smile seemed to be tinged with regret. "Hard to afford a good house to raise a respectable family in a nice, safe suburb." Rachel held eye contact with me for a couple of seconds, and then turned away to kick a couple of leaves off the path. "And I was nothing if not a 'risk minimiser'."

Casting her eyes down at a pair of clearly-visible, green panties, she then reached over and extracted her phone from her backpack. Looking up with a sly grin, she then added "... back then."

We'd reached the turn-around point. The path emptied out on to a generic road, dotted on one side with houses. No lights shone from those houses, yet, and the only source of illumination that competed with the moonlight was an overhead streetlight by the park entrance. By unspoken mutual agreement, we positioned ourselves just outside the pool of light on the ground.

We both looked up and down the road, and felt the twin emotions of relief and regret jostle for space as we realised the road was empty.

Rachel bit her lip playfully, and waved the phone in front of me. "My call?" she asked.

"Your call." I agreed, taking the phone. I selected the coin toss app, and then found myself staring at it, with my finger hovering over the interface. I must have been standing like that for a while, visualising two highly contrasting fates that we were a split-second away from, because Rachel had to audibly clear her throat twice. The second time finally succeeded in dragging my attention away from the image of the stationary coin.

"Ahh... I said, 'Tails'." she reminded me, with an expectant look on her face.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." I mumbled. Hesitating for a only a second longer, I then pressed my finger against the screen, and the virtual coin leapt up on it's animated journey. I actually closed my eyes this time. I didn't need to open them either.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!" Rachel exclaimed, I could hear the light dancing of her feet on the ground in front of me, and she even treated me to a victorious 'whoop whoop', as the realisation of what had just happened settled in my mind.

'Tails'.

Sighing, I opened my eyes. Rachel was the living embodiment of happiness at this point, and had already slung her backpack off her shoulders, expectantly.

"Come on, let's see that chest of yours. You've been talking a big game about going to the gym recently, let's see what dividends it's paid..." she said, with a smirk.

There was no point in delaying this, I thought. The longer I stood here, the more chance there was for another car to come along, or for an early morning runner to make an inopportune entrance.

Grabbing the t-shirt, I quickly pulled it over my head, accompanied by Rachel's enthusiastic encouragement. Bunching the t-shirt in one hand, I then threw it at Rachel, who appeared to be giving me the same critical look-over she may once have given to a respectably old piece of art. She gracefully caught the offered t-shirt, and then carefully placed it in her backpack, while she seemed to consider her review.

"Not bad." she said, "Not bad at all... looks like rumours of your gym visits have not been greatly exaggerated after all." she gave me another wink, and I found myself unconsciously crossing my arms in front of my chest to obscure the view of my man-nipples.

"That said," she continued, with a fake weariness, "this bag is getting heavy." Indicating the backpack full of my clothes, she placed the back of her hand on her forehead. "Had I known I'd have to carry everything back to the car, I'd have lifted some more weights at the gym this week!" She then starred openly at the one piece of clothing I had left on, and seemed to visibly brighten.

"Good job there's not much left to put in there then, isn't it." Reaching over, and taking the phone out of my hand, she then finished with "... and to think, we've still got four more coin tosses to go ..."

I muttered something about the tables turning soon, but she merely gave me a huge grin in return.

"Now," she said, "if you're looking for actuarial advice, I have to say as your friend, the risk is high." she stopped and put her hands on her hips. She gave me her best, 'serious professional' look, before continuing. "The risk is very high. Very, very high. In fact, ..."

"Yeah, yeah." I said, interrupting her flow, and quickly gesturing at the phone in her hand. "Two coin tosses here, remember? It's my call, so before you get too comfortable in that running shirt, how about we see if the next coin toss is a 'Heads'?"

"My my, look whose in a rush to ditch the boxers. Okay then big boy, lets...".

For the second time in less than a minute, she stopped in mid-sentence. This time however, I wasn't the one interrupting her.

"Let's what?" I started, before realising that she wasn't looking at me any more, but at something over my shoulder. Turning around, I instantly saw what had grabbed her attention. Down the straight road, perhaps over a hundred metres away, a silent figure moved into and out of the light cast by another streetlight. I strained by eyes urgently, trying to assess who this intruder was. It was hard to tell if the figure was male or female, but they were definitely speed-walking towards us. They may have seen us in the distance, but at least the moonlight would partly cover the state of my clothing for a few more moments.

"Come on!" I said urgently, heading back into the park. Rachel grabbed by arm though, and shook her head. Nodding down at the phone, she tapped the screen and the coin toss began it's fifth journey. She had to be kidding, I thought. Looking back at the rapidly approaching figure, I guessed we had less than forty seconds before she was by our side, and even less than that before what we were doing became evident.

Looking down at the screen, this time around the coin toss seemed to take an order of magnitude longer to complete. The animation flipped between 'heads' and 'tails' over and over and over again. In those precious few seconds, I'd already placed my hands on my boxers, ready to whip them off, ready to then hot-foot it back into what I hoped would be the sanctuary of the park. It didn't even bare thinking about what would happen if our speed-walker decided to head into the park as well.

Then, all of a sudden, the coin toss stopped. It took me a further three seconds to process what the result had been.

'Heads'. The coin toss was a 'Heads'.

"Hey..." I said, "that's... that's what I picked!"

Rachel was already ahead of me, and was cursing with an disbelieving expression on her face. She looked over my shoulder again, and seemed temporarily caught between two possible courses of action. Then, realising that time was not her friend, she took hold of her t-shirt, yanked it off over her head in one fluid motion, and began to run backwards in to the park. She waved the t-shirt out in front as she backed away from the street, seeming to use it as an enticement for me to follow her. I didn't need any further enticement to follow her, not with the approaching footsteps of the speed-walker beginning to echo in my ears.

Rachel's face was a contrast of excitement and embarrassment as we made our way into the park. She beckoned me further and further away from the road, tangling her t-shirt just out of reach in one hand, while holding her backpack with most of my clothes in with the other. We were about fifteen metres away from the road when the speed walker appeared in the pool of light that we'd stood next to only moments ago. The figure how revealed themselves to a woman, perhaps forty years of age, and in entirely sensible walking gear. Our rapid retreat into the park had apparently grabbed our attention, as she was looking our way with a confused look on her face. Thankfully though, she must have decided it wasn't worth the risk to find out exactly what we were up to. Powering along, although with her focus fixed on us, she continued on her journey along the road, and we were left with the park to ourselves.

As the middle-aged woman finally receded into the distance, Rachel broke out in a nervous laughter, and I heard her say. "Oh my god!" several times as she finally came to a stop by a tree. We stood there for a minute or two, wondering if the other woman would suddenly re-emerge, backtracking to sate her own curiosity. She didn't though, and we both welcomed the chance to catch our breath.

Now that the immediate threat was seemingly over, I was at last able to turn back and survey my winnings. Reaching out, I took possession of Rachel's white t-shirt. After a few attempts to coax her out of the darkness of the tree foliage, she eventually stepped back on to the path, and I successfully answered my earlier question. With the moonlight now painting her supple body in a soft light, I could see her firm c-cup breasts nestled snuggly into a light green sports bra.