Ava Loses Clothes but Gains Friends

The group of pledges, now down to 15 after one couldn't make herself go topless, marched in line for the 3 minutes it took them to reach the end of the quad. They were greeted by two middle-aged women, one of whom introduced them to the group. "Hello 2022 pledges," the taller of the two called out, "I'm Marcie, and this is Clara; we're both class of 1986, and you'll probably be glad to hear we'll be your last guides on what we hope is your successful completion of every requirement to be accepted as full members of ZSA!"

"Yay!" a few pledges said.

"I know, I know, we won't keep you hanging around half naked any longer than we need to," Marcie said, "I remember getting to this phase myself. Believe me, I understand how awkward this is." Clara smiled and nodded.

"There is a reason we end this challenge at this particular spot," Marcie continued, "The statue you see behind me honors Oxmoor graduates who've served in our country's wars; other statues you've passed by on your journey this evening commemorate various explorers, scientists, politicians, and a couple of Oxmoor's Presidents. These works of art have something in common -- the subject of every damned one of them is a man! This isn't because there are no women worthy of being honored this way, but because even extraordinary achievements often go unnoticed if the achiever happens to be a woman."

"The generation of ZSA alumni Clara and I represent has seen many improvements in how women's contributions are appreciated, but your generation still has much work to do to ensure our gender's work does not go unnoticed. Your task will not be easy and may disturb some, but women willing to do hard things are who ZSA is looking for.

"Your final task to prove your determination to join us is as simple as it is demanding. We ask you to demand to be noticed by removing your last remaining item of clothing and marching with us through the quad, all the way back to where you started tonight's challenge!"

Marcie's call for the pledges to go completely naked and walk boldly the entire length of the campus was met with whispers, muttering, and grumbling, but none of the young women made a move to take off their final bit of cover. After almost two minutes had passed without a single pledge stripping completely, it began to look like Marcie's appeal had failed.

A single voice rose above the muttering, sounding shaky at first, but soon settling down, telling her fellow pledges, "I can't speak for anyone else, but if a little walk in the nude is the price of admission to join the women who we've met tonight, I'll take that deal!" The speaker followed her words with action, sliding her panties down her long legs as soon as she finished talking.

"I can't believe she did that," Emily said.

"Damn!" said Maria.

"Looking good, girl," laughed Tanya, who became the second fully nude pledge, dropping her black thong to the sidewalk, then picking it up and asking, "so, where am I supposed to put this?"

"Did I really just do that," Ava said out loud as Marcie approached her.

"You sure did; besides being brave, you showed some leadership skills," the gray-haired woman answered, "look around, your friends are following you!"

"I don't know about leadership, but I'm definitely showing something! For a minute there, I was sure I was going to be the only one naked," Ava giggled, but in the five minutes after she dropped her panties, every one of the 15 remaining pledges followed her lead.

Clara passed out plastic zip-ties, each with the initials of a pledge printed on them, then collected everyone's tagged undies and passed a messenger bag full of lingerie to a woman on a bike, who immediately pedaled off towards the Student Center. Clara explained that all the clothes the pledges had left behind would be waiting for them back where they'd started.

As word of the naked pledges swept through the campus, the long walk back to the Student Center became beyond surreal for the unclothed 18 and 19-year-old women. Much of their route was lined with their fellow students, most of them clapping and cheering; one male spectator was inspired to join the parade, stuffing his clothing into a backpack and falling in behind the pledges! The intensifying attention made Ava feel like every nerve ending she had was on fire; her heartbeat was loud enough to practically drown out the raucous spectators.

A few of the pledges looked like the unexpected attention was making them have second thoughts, but with every bit of their clothing having been whisked away, there really wasn't anything to do now but finish their trek back to the Student Center and reclaim their outfits.

As exciting as their challenge had been, most of the pledges by now were starting to look forward to being reunited with their clothing, but for a few of the group the walk seemed to be over too soon; Ava had no way to know she wasn't the only one of the group to feel this way, but when she spotted the woman who had ridden away with the group's panties standing next to her bike outside the Student Center, Ava felt an unexpected but unmistakable twinge of regret that her crazy challenge was about to come to its end. She slowed up a bit, letting those pledges who were in more of a hurry get ahead to collect their clothing.

"Here to pick up your duds? You're just about the last one," the cyclist said when Ava finally made it to the front of the line. Ava nodded, but was confused when Patty handed her not all her clothes, or even just her panties, but only a small envelope with her name on it. "It's a key," Patty explained, "for a locker in the Center. I think the worry was that if we were handing out the various items here someone might have stolen some of your things."

"So I have to go through half the Student center in the nude to get my clothes back?"

"Afraid so, but there's plenty of staff to keep an eye on things, they'll keep you from getting harassed," Patty replied.

Ava wasn't entirely annoyed; "when will I ever have another chance to stroll naked through the Student Center without getting in trouble," she thought, feeling a bit excited by this unexpected extension of her naked adventure! As she entered the Center she could see the rows of lockers ahead. "Way, way ahead," she thought nervously as she remembered the area where the lockers were located, right in the middle of the Center, next to the seating area shared by a half dozen food and coffee vendors. She walked slowly toward the bank of lockers, confused to see most of her fellow pledges standing around, still naked, not even opening the lockers.

"What's going on," Ava asked Maria, "why isn't anyone getting dressed?"

"Look at your key," Maria replied, "the numbers are so worn and faded you can't see which locker your key works with!"

Seeing some of her fellow pledges randomly trying lockers, Ava again showed some leadership skills, quickly organizing them into two groups, one working left to right and one going from right to left. She had a single pledge from each group try every locked locker until they came upon theirs, with the next pledge in line following once her predecessor was successful. "A simple probability problem," she thought as she watched the last of her friends find and quickly put on enough clothing to stop being so interesting to the dozens of bystanders having a late dinner or coffee; once at least minimally dressed, each pledge hustled out, headed for the privacy of their dorm room.

It wasn't until she'd watched the last couple of her friends follow her method to find their clothes that Ava stepped up to the bank of lockers herself. Though there were now fewer locked lockers for Ava to need to try her key at, there were still enough so that all the other pledges had managed to cover up and head for the exits before she had even tried half the lockers.

Focused now on finding her locker, it wasn't until she finally found it, opened it, gathered up her long-lost outfit, and set the items on a nearby table that it occurred to her that she was now the only naked woman in the room. The feeling of being one of more than a dozen naked friends had been very different than her current situation, being the only one of the maybe 50 or so people scattered around the space in the nude!

Trying to somehow make it seem normal to be naked in front of a crowd of strangers, Ava decided not to try to scramble to throw on some clothing, but instead to act as if her situation was perfectly normal, that women got dressed out in full view of their fellow students all the time.

Ava almost changed her plan as she struggled to get the damned zip tie off her panties, but finally got her tap pants free and slipped into them. She put her bra on next; out in the fairly low light level of the quad the sheer fabric had been able to at least make her nipples somewhat hard to make out, but in the brightly lit Student Center Cafe she might as well have still been topless for all the concealment the flimsy bra provided. Thinking about what the roomful of her peers were seeing only made matters worse, as the current engorged state of her nipples made her arousal clear to her audience!

Her reverse striptease hit another small roadblock when she tried to put on her shirt, as she tried to get it on without checking the sleeves, which were both inside out. Once she'd straightened it out and fastened a few buttons she felt like she was almost decent; she'd certainly seen girls around the campus in Boyfriend shirts no longer than her shirt. She stepped into her skirt, buttoned and zipped it up, then walked casually away towards the exit. She tried to not react to a round of applause she received from her surprised audience as she was leaving but couldn't help blushing, and couldn't imagine why the blushing only came now that she was fully, respectably dressed.

During the short walk to her dorm, Ava wondered if she would ever have an experience as stimulating as the last few hours had been. She wasn't exactly sure she would want to go nude in public again, but was shocked to realize that she wouldn't rule it out either. As she unlocked the door to her room she wasn't sure which device she needed to use first. She was looking forward to getting to her phone in order to compare notes with her fellow pledges, but her need to spend some time with her vibrator was also pretty compelling. "Why not both together," she said to herself, "as long as I'm just texting that should work!"

Her urge to masturbate was interrupted before she'd even closed the door. She noticed an envelope with her name printed on it on the floor just inside the room. "I'm sure this wasn't here when I left, there's no way I'd have missed seeing it," she thought. She opened it and was first confused, then shocked, then briefly horrified after she read the message on the neatly folded sheet of paper with the ZSA logo and local chapter's address, phone number, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter info.

The message was short, and far less detailed than the instructions she'd received earlier in the evening, simply telling her where to meet for the night's challenge (NOT where the earlier instructions had called for) as well as when (midnight).

She wished she still had the earlier note to compare to the new one, but had followed the earlier instructions all too faithfully, tearing it into tiny pieces and dumping it into a trash bin just outside the entrance to her dorm on her way to the Student Center.

She didn't remember the earlier letter having any logo or contact info, which made the final paragraph of the new letter particularly chilling. The new instructions warned the pledges, "This letter is the ONLY official printed communication about tonight's challenge you will receive from ZSA. Please be aware that in the last six years there have been several attempts by three different fraternities to hijack as a prank the final challenge to be faced by ZSA's pledges. Just disregard any instructions other than this letter and you'll be fine. Have fun and good luck! See you all later tonight!"

Love, Marjorie

Ava read the letter a second time to be sure it meant what she thought it did; when she finished her review there was no doubt in her mind that the series of challenges she and her sister pledges had been tricked into doing had all been part of an elaborate prank to get them all naked!

Ava passed through brief stages of anger and embarrassment at having been conned right out of her clothes by some frat boys, but when she thought about how exciting her night had been and how much she'd enjoyed her time naked, she was almost ready to forgive them. She even kind of admired how clever their plot had been.

She glanced at her phone and saw that it was 11:44 PM. "If I hurry I'll still be able to make it to the real ZSA challenge," she thought, "I hope the real thing is as exciting as the fake one was!"