A Discovery Ch. 01

I was twenty-one when it started - fittingly, by accident.

My looks were reasonable. I was no super-model, for sure, but I wasn't going to be picked for a pig party. I didn't turn people's heads because of beauty, but there again I didn't turn them towards the nearest bucket either. My build was on the light side of average, but I wasn't all skin and bones. My hair was a dark shade of blonde that no one was going to call 'ash', but there again no one would call it 'mousy'.

Little miss 'slightly-above average' would be a reasonable summary, I guess. Ever so slightly.

It was vacation time - I was 'busy' studying sports science at university - and my parents had decided that I would be an ideal house-sitter while they took an extended summer break with my aunt and uncle halfway across the world. It suited me - a three-bedroom, detached property backing on to secluded woods, at the edge of a busy town which offered bars aplenty and two delightful-by-night and seedy-by-day clubs. Seclusion by day (ideal for hangovers) and parties by night (ideal for hangover creation). The one-night invasion of my little (well, eighteen year-old but still little to me) brother for just the one planned evening was going to be reluctantly tolerated, but that was the least of my concerns.

I hasten to add that I was no party-animal, no easy-to-bed rave monster, but I was twenty-one and I was taking a much-needed break from university life. As you may surmise from my description of the house, the family weren't short of a coin or five, and money was no real issue for me.

During the week in question, the weather had turned unusually hot - the sun shone from dawn to dusk, and the temperature soared to almost unheard of heights. As a confirmed sun bunny I was in heaven.

Late on the Tuesday morning I was communing with a sun lounger in the back garden, bikini-clad but secure in the knowledge that the property's high hedges meant that I wasn't overlooked. That might sound a little super-self-conscious for a confirmed twenty-one year-old sun bunny, but back then I was very shy of my slightly under-endowed body and the concept of possibly being seen in a two-piece swim suit was alarming for me in the extreme. In that particular back garden, however, I was more than happy to expose so much flesh. The only possible viewing point was from the woods and, as I said earlier, they were very secluded. As the day wore on to the steamier side of the middle of the day, I was even starting to feel over-dressed!

It was an article in the over-glossy, over-priced, under-quality magazine I was occasionally reading through my wraparound shades that started it all. It featured holidays on the South Coast of France and was accompanied by a series of photographs showing an array of young women in one-piece swimwear - but one-piece bikinis. I snorted a laugh, trying to imagine myself being so daring as to go topless in a busy resort. I hadn't been topless since my age was in single digits and my tits (sorry, but I hate the words 'boobs', 'baps' and the other distinctly childish terms that are used) were not even developing. Not that they've exactly sprouted much since then.

But then I raised my head and looked around me.

Those young women - all a few years either side of my age - looked so relaxed and somehow so free. I started to wonder for real just what that might feel like. I looked around me again at the tall hedgerows and listened intently for any sound of branches cracking under foot in the woods. The former were even taller than I had thought and the latter was completely absent. The house, behind me, was, I knew, completely empty. I was unseen, spread on the sun lounger.

And my fascination grew.

From nowhere I developed a sudden desire to know just what the freedom that those young women in deepest, darkest St. Raphael were feeling. I checked again, and again on the hedges and for the crackle of twigs underfoot. For some dumb reason I even looked back at the house to make sure my parents hadn't flown twelve thousand miles that morning and were back in residence. I was alone and unseen.

With trembling fingers I reached behind my neck a tugged at the halter tie on my bikini top, then lower to where a back-strap kept the garment in place.

It finally fell away and I was sitting there topless.

The sun caressed flesh that had remained unseen by that giant star for... well, ever, and the tiniest warm breeze stroked across my suddenly bare skin.

And I fell in love with that feeling in an instant.

It took me a few minutes before I dared so much as move, but then I stood, slowly. My head still pivoted between the hedges, the house and the woods, every sense trained on reassuring me that I was alone and unseen, but my mind was gradually succumbing to the delight and, yes, the freedom that I was feeling.

I took a few nervous steps away from the lounger, stupidly feeling as if I was leaving some sort of safe house, and approached the dark and silent woods at the end of the garden. Every step made me feel more assured, less threatened. It felt like heaven.

The fluttering in my chest and stomach eased and I stood there, my bared breasts proud and delighted. I wondered what the heck my shyness had all been about - this was a delight. Perhaps the newfound pleasure sent the blood rushing to my head.

My hands toyed with the ties at my hips. No one could see, right? And if just my top being off felt that good, surely the effect would be magnified a hundredfold if I lost the one remaining piece of cloth that covered me?

I tugged at both ties simultaneously, gasping as the bikini bottoms fell to the ground and a totally alien feeling swept over me. Or more to the point, over the most intimate part of me.

I stood totally still for a few moments, amazed and delighted in equal measure.

I was naked. I was nude. The shyness had sloughed off me as fast as the bikini. Blood pulsed in my temples and I bent and grabbed the discarded bikini bottoms, balling it in a slightly shaky fist before turning and hurling it back towards the sun lounger.

I looked down at myself, looked to where the sun was somehow stroking the neatly trimmed blush of yellowish hair, the delicate strands neatened in deference to the tight little bikini bottoms, but now welcoming every ray of sunlight, every whisper of warm breeze. I was in a heaven I had never known existed. I raised my head and turned slowly, an entire circle to welcome those warm rays of the sun and that teasing, delicate brush of the summer wind.

Was this really me? Had the shy mouse really been so bold? I let out a laugh, surprising myself, but not enough to run for cover. Instead I spun around again, my arms extended, no doubt a disbelieving smile plastered across my amazed features. It felt so good.

Everything was moving so fast but my fears and coyness retreated faster. It just felt so good, so right. I looked at the garden's knee-high back gate, the access to the looming, dark woods. If standing here in the secluded garden was freedom, what on earth more stood on the other side of that old wooden barrier? The woods were empty anyway, weren't they?

I took a slow step forward towards that gate. And then another, bolder, faster.

In a matter of seconds I was at the property's boundary and I let my suddenly naked body think for my brain, yanking open the gate before my natural reticence could be heard. I stepped from the confines of the garden into the wilds of the woods and my heart surged.

My hand reached out to a nearby branch and I pulled it close, allowed the grey-green leaves to stroke across my flesh - my naked flesh - and became one with the nature that I had looked out upon from my room for so many years. This wasn't just freedom, there was something else. It wasn't entirely a sexual feeling but it still moistened my now-exposed womanhood. It sent shivers of delight through my belly from my thighs. I laughed softly as I realised that I was aroused by the whole experience, and I was a million miles away from the safety net that had ruined me for so many years.

The woods had no pathway in front of me, but I could see where steps could be taken. I took them, a slow dozen followed by a faster score. I looked back over my shoulder once, just as the gate was disappearing from view, and my fears and shyness dropped from me. It all felt too good and too wild.

A clearing appeared ahead of me, and in the woody silence I stepped forward, lush grass curling between my toes and sunlight once again caressing my naked body. I laughed softly again and followed the sun's caress with my hands.

I wasn't surprised by my body's physical excitement at its nudity, but I experienced a moment or two of surprise as I allowed myself to cup my naked tits with their rock-hard nipples and let my hands stroke my belly before delving lower, actually softly stroking my hardened clit, right there, right then in the open air.

This was freedom taken to a degree I never knew existed. I looked around, my eyes and ears taking in every sight and sound, my mind shocked at how much nature was all around me, and yet how devoid of human life it all was. I was alone. I was free. I was aroused - shockingly and suddenly. I paused before I dared indulge myself any more, only too aware that I never seemed to find such privacy when I was ever indoors, and yet here I was in the big wide outdoor world and I was free to do what I wanted without fear of interruption or even being overheard. Was I? Was I really?

I allowed my right hand to toy more with my exposed - yes, really exposed - womanhood, to tease the by-now hardened clitoris, exposing itself to nature in the wild. I let my left hand toy and tug at my hardened nipples. With the barest hesitation, I permitted myself the joy of a deep sexual thrill, allowed myself the very real sensation of arousal despite being away from the house and its secluded garden, despite being completely and utterly naked. I felt more alive than I ever had before, my body relishing every tiny movement of bare hands on my bare, naked flesh.

I was shocked by how quickly the sense and sensations of arousal began to spiral higher and higher within me, how my pulse quickened and butterflies took flight within my taut belly. I sank to my knees with a shocking realisation that I didn't just crave satisfaction, but needed it. Deeply and immediately.

My right hand pressed harder against my engorged clit, and its fingers penetrated my thoroughly wet lips. My left hand pulled at my hardened nipples and I stared around me in wonder, in joy.

I had always been slow to climax, took an age to reach the heights of orgasm, but now, I knew, I was close before I even had time to consider just what I was doing and where. I lost any care or consideration of my circumstances with just as unusual speed, my fingers delving deeper and my hips starting to rock against my hand as control spiralled away from me.

Within seconds I was grinding against my right hand, my left pulling harder on each nipple in turn, far harder than I had ever dared or even wanted to before. The climax began in a way that was also so new to me, sharp, hard waves of delight hitting me with the force of a slammed door, each pulse a concentrated blast of delight. But then, oh then, the tidal waves were swamped by a tsunami of sensation.

It felt as if my entire flesh had been somehow connected to a sensory white-noise machine, where the annoyance of a blinding sonar show had been replaced with every delight that I had ever experienced. I probably cried out in ecstatic joy. And then in surprise as the sensations shot through my personal scales of knowledge - far above and far beyond my experience.

This was the climax of climaxes. It was surrounded by fresh air, by nature in its rawest forms, and experienced at a level so much deeper and yet higher than I knew existed.

My entire body rocked and jerked and stuttered through spasm after joyous spasm. I felt my juices spill over my fingers in a way that I had never felt before, felt my womanhood's release in a manner that was so new to me, so much beyond anything I had ever felt before. I climaxed and climaxed again and again, stunned as the layers of ecstasy mounted each other, intertwining and multiplying, my body jerking harder, twitching and spasming with a passion that was almost violent, until a final eruption slammed through every nerve in my body.

I might not have passed out, but I was certainly unaware of everything around me for tens of seconds, or maybe minutes.

When I came back to my senses, slowly and surprisingly easily, I felt the sun dappling my body through the leaves and branches high above, started to smell the greenery and the earthen loaminess of the woods, and sensed the gentle movement of the warm air across my naked flesh.

The mildest of aftershocks sent gentle waves through my inner senses, adding a few millilitres of my essential juices to those already drying on the fingers of my right hand which were now resting against, exhausted, my most intimate area.

I became fully aware of my nudity in the wilds of the wood, far away from the house, but rather than cause any flicker of anxiety, it soothed me. I felt more at one with my surroundings than at any other time I could recall - in fact, I became aware of what 'feeling at one' with something really meant for the first time in the two decades I had existed on this green and luxurious planet.

I was sated and truly satisfied.

I slowly untangled my legs which had somehow become entangled underneath me, then rested back on the grass, propped on my elbows, staring down at the slowly moving shadows of the distant leaves as they produced a kaleidoscope of darkened shapes on the pale flesh of my breasts, untanned from their years of being smothered by shirts and swimsuits. My breathing slowly returned to something resembling normal and my pulse-rate eased to double digits from its hummingbird peaks.

I drew in a long, deep breath of the woodland's warm summer air and it seemed to filter into every pore of my body. I felt at ease despite my nakedness, or maybe even because of it. I was relaxed to a degree that I could never remember experiencing before, an almost palpable sensation that was as exhilarating as it was comforting. Any nervousness I had felt being so exposed in such an open place dissipated faster than a politician's promise after a landslide election victory.

Standing on legs that felt strong and solid despite my exertions, I stretched and then spun in a lazy circle, luxuriating in the gentle breeze. My mind slowly returned to a state of full consciousness and I smiled, looking down at my bare flesh and then around at the leaves and branches and grass surrounding me on all sides. Above me the sky was an azure blanket beyond the tallest reaches of the trees, and all around birds tweeted and chirped and chirruped with a chorus of gentle sounds that suited their environment in a way that felt as if nature knew far more about what it meant to be alive than poor, sad mankind could ever comprehend, no matter how supposedly advanced and aware we told ourselves we had become.

My focus settled on the barely discernable path that led further into the heart of the woods, a narrow thoroughfare that had been etched into the wildness by the paws of animals unknown. It led, I understood, further away from the house, but that no longer bothered me in any way. If anything, it increased the appeal of the partially hidden pathway and I stepped gladly, delightedly into the footsteps of all the foxes and badgers, mice, rats and squirrels who had gently beaten their way deeper amongst the trees.

Leaves tickled my thighs and calves with each step, their sensuous touches sending barely discernable shadows of my earlier climaxes through my belly. My smile was easy and natural, my mind relaxed in spite of the joys that I felt shimmering inside me, and my footsteps lengthened with a soft determination to enter deeper into the wildness of the trees.

I had no particular idea of where I was headed, or why, or what I might do when I reached wherever 'there' might be. I didn't care - had no care or concerns - and yet still listened to ensure that I was only surrounded by the trees, bushes, moss, birds and small animals who I wanted to share my life with just then. Any living creature but the human kind, in fact.

And I was alone in that way, and every step forward where that remained true, emboldened me, relaxed me.

I have no idea for how long I strode deeper into the woods, but knew that every step took me further into a world that was new to me on so many levels. I paused every few strides to look down at my nakedness, at the erect nipples on small but proud breasts, down to the down at the base of my belly, still glistening with my juices, and each time those pauses occurred I would run my soft hands over all I could see, wondering at the natural joy I felt, endlessly surprised by how arousing I found the simplest of touches.

Reaching a narrow, grass-covered clearing I sank to my knees and opened every sense to the rapture of nature all around me and deep inside me. I found myself masturbating easily and softly, fully aware, fully self-focused, my mind at one with the woods and yet completely absorbed with the sensations of my body. A new climax rippled through me with a speed that would have shocked me before that day, both because of that swiftness and because it arrived so quickly after the gigantic explosion of self-satisfaction that had preceded it. I didn't care, didn't mind, didn't think anything of it other than how wonderful it felt.

I was about to rise to my feet when I heard a faint new sound, a noise that I knew must be almost alien on this territory, a human sound. It didn't panic me in any way because it was distant and unhurried, somehow. And in any case, my levels of relaxation were simply too centred.

Nodding to myself, quietly astonished by myself, I finished the movement I had started before the noise reached my ears, and began to creep forward in the direction I believed the very human sounds had come from. I was still completely relaxed, but I still understood I was a young, naked woman, alone in the wild woods.

I moved with an understandable caution, gently parting the branches in front of me with each soft step that I took. The human noises became louder and with them, my steps were ever more cautious and gentle. My heartbeat rose with each pace but I didn't falter, no matter the increasing danger. I had no intention of being discovered, but equally I had no intention of not finding out just how close I was to another human.

Finally when I oh-so softly pushed another branch away from where it was innocently concealing the naked me, I saw the woman. She was sitting on a bench, my journey having taken me all the way through the trees to the pathway that I sometimes saw when I rode my bicycle back up the hill towards the house. A dog, something small and fluffy, was sitting beside her, panting but otherwise quiet. They were both past their prime, evidently resting from earlier exertions, and both shockingly close to where the trees and bushes still offered me a little - precious little - cover.

I was all prepared to dodge back into the foliage and I'm sure I would have done had the dog become aware of my presence, but despite them being no more than twelve feet in front of me, the animal stayed right where it was, too tired or too lacking in the sensory department in its age to notice me.

My skin, my naked flesh, tingled as I hunched down watching the woman and her pet. I was close enough to see that the woman's hair was frizzy and unkempt, a mass of red fluff that must have at one time been a stunning array around her head, but which was now a greying, dried out version of its former beauty. I couldn't see her face as it was turned away from me, but I just knew that there were countless wrinkles around her eyes, if not her mouth as well. Even the dog seemed a listless shadow of a former bouncy self, its head resting on clearly tired front legs.