Dave Almost Misses Kristen's Show!

"There you are, finally," the woman said to Arthur, "The note you left for me at the gallery only mentioned you going to Halibut Point, I should have known you'd be in our favorite spot. You must introduce me to your new model."

"Of course," said Arthur; "Kristen, I'd like you to meet Olivia, my wife. Olivia, this is Kristen, who has been kind enough to pose for me."

"Pleased to meet you, Kristen. I'm so glad to see Arthur has finally found a model to inspire him again. She's lovely, Arthur, a worthy subject."

"Uh, hello...pleased to meet you," said Kristen, thinking it was more than a little weird to be so formally introduced to anyone while naked, "though I'm confused, I thought Arthur told me you'd died..."

"Ah, it's my fault, I think," said Arthur, "I probably said something about losing her, when I was only speaking about losing her as my model."

"I'd reached a point where I felt like being done with it; it seemed to me that 25 years posing naked was enough!" Olivia said.

"The paintings of you, they're beautiful," replied Kristen.

Olivia smiled at Kristen, then turned to Arthur and said, "Sorry to change the subject, but I've interrupted your session to remind you about your appointment at 5:30; if you leave now you still can make it."

"But I wanted to take some more photos of Kristen near one of the tide pools closer to the ocean." he said, sounding very disappointed; "could you take care of that, Olivia? You know the kind of thing I'm looking for, and you're really better than me with the camera anyway.

"Sure, if it's okay with Kristen," said Olivia.

Despite being a little unsettled by the sudden change, Kristen agreed to continue with Olivia, happy to be able to get to know the woman in the paintings she had been admiring. The two women said goodbye to Arthur, who handed off the camera to Olivia, grabbed his tote bag and hurried off to catch the bus back to Rockport.

"This shouldn't take too long, I know what Arthur wants," Olivia said.

The rest of the photo session went quickly, with Kristen already comfortable in her naked state. Olivia quickly led her through a series of poses at the edge of a tide pool. Kristen was a little startled at the sight of her naked reflection when Olivia had her lean over and look into the pool, but actually enjoyed the sight. They were finished in less than an hour.

As the two women hiked the 200 or so yards back to where the first part of her photo shoot had happened, Kristen noticed a small group of hikers, fairly far off to her right. She knew they weren't close enough to see her in detail, but as she studied them she was certain she would have easily been able to tell if they were naked, so she assumed they could tell she was! While she didn't exactly think she wanted the others to have a good look at her, she was surprised to find she wasn't bothered by the idea! She couldn't help wondering if she was a topic of conversation for their group, and if so, what they might be saying. Seeing the others slowly getting closer, she realized they all were converging on the same trail entrance; she was torn between hurrying to her tote bag and getting herself covered by Dave's shirt as soon as possible or taking her time and letting the others get a closer look at her before she dressed.

"Olivia? I'm sorry, without my shoes I can't go as fast as you on these rocks, can you slow down a little?" Kristen asked. The other group was now close enough to tell they were two women and two men, all now looking Kristen's way; she was sure her heart skipped a beat or two when one of the men smiled and waved to her, but she couldn't resist returning the greeting! The foursome disappeared into the woods just before Olivia and Kristen reached the setting for the most intense part of her photo shoot. Kristen smiled as she took one last look around. When she finally reached her tote bag and looked inside, she looked confused, then horrified; her flip flops, wallet and cell phone were right where she had left them, but her shirt was nowhere to be found!

"What the fuck...where's my shirt?" Kristen shouted, "I'm sure I heard Arthur tell me he'd recovered it, and I remember seeing it sticking out of a bag; it must have been HIS bag...how am I going to get back to my hotel now? She grabbed her phone and called Dave, but only got his voicemail. "Dave, PLEASE call as soon as you get this, I need your help!" she pleaded. Her heart raced as she pictured herself having to walk several blocks through a busy part of Rockport to get from the bus stop to her hotel wearing only a pair of flip-flops, hours before sunset. Even that nightmarish scenario would only be possible if she was allowed on the bus, no sure thing in her current state.

Olivia gently said, "I'm so sorry, Arthur must have been too absorbed in his work to notice he'd put the shirt in the wrong bag. He'll be back in the gallery by now, or will be soon; between him and your husband we'll figure something out. In any case, we should probably head back towards the bus stop."

Kristen's mind reeled at the thought of having to make the hike back to the park's entrance naked; most of the trail was lined with thorny bushes, too sparse to provide much cover; once on the trail, she would have no way to avoid close encounters with any other hikers. She tried Dave's phone again and Olivia tried to call Arthur, but neither was able to get through.

Luckily enough, the only other hikers Kristen and Olivia crossed paths with were the four she had already been seen by. This encounter was considerably more embarrassing for Kristen since the foursome was taking a break at the side of the trail as she approached, forcing her to pass by just a few feet away from them. She thought about asking one of the men if she could borrow or buy his shirt, but the glares she was receiving from the two women and the way the two men were carefully avoiding looking in her direction made it clear that she wasn't likely to get any help from this group.

For better or worse, she and Olivia reached the bus stop without meeting any other hikers.

Kristen kept as far back in the bus shelter as possible to minimize her exposure to passing cars, but still was hoping to find a passerby willing to sell her the shirt off their back before the next bus arrived. She thought she might get lucky when a trio of cyclists came into sight; she forced herself to step out of the shelter onto the road's shoulder and flagged them down. The three women stopped their bikes and listened to Kristen's tale of woe, but all her last-ditch effort to obtain some cover accomplished was to give several car and truck drivers a good look at her as she was standing at the side of the road talking with the cyclists; none of them were wearing anything under their jerseys, so they wished her luck and moved on. Watching them disappear around a curve, Kristen saw a bus approaching.

"I can't believe this is happening; I'm about to ride a bus totally nude with no idea how to get to any kind of cover when I get off," she thought to herself, "pretty amazing considering all I had in mind when I left our hotel was doing a little skimpily dressed shopping."

Olivia told Kristen to hang back while she talked to the driver, "I ride these buses all the time so I know most of the drivers pretty well, maybe I can get him to do you a favor." Kristen was happy to hover behind Olivia as she greeted the driver and explained Kristen's predicament. The driver smiled and nodded, motioning for the two to come aboard the empty bus and take a seat. As the bus started to move Olivia explained, "He's agreed to make an extra stop right in front of our gallery, so you'll only have to dash a few feet to get off the street."

Kristen shouted, "Thank you so much!" to the driver.

"No, thank you!" he shouted back, grinning in the mirror. "You're definitely the high point of my shift!"

Kristen smiled at the driver and blushed as she called Dave one more time. He picked up! "Where are you?" she shouted over the sounds of the bus.

"Just got off the boat, I saw you left a voicemail but this call came through before I got to open it. What's up? Are you done with your photo shoot? I want to hear all about it!"

"Long story, no time to explain, but I need you to go to the hotel and get some clothes for me, I don't have any right now and the bus I'm riding in is about 11 minutes away from dropping me off across the street from the gallery. If you can meet the bus with something for me to wear, I can get dressed on the bus, but the driver says he can't wait if you're not there, so I'd have to streak across the street to the gallery and wait for you there."

"Wait, back up, what do you mean you don't have any clothes now?" Dave shouted.

"Check the text I just sent you," Kristen replied.

"Holy shit!" shouted Dave as the naked selfie of Kristen sitting in the bus came up on his phone's screen, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine other than having a dozen or so people see me this way. Just to be clear, this wasn't planned."

"No?" Dave asked.

"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Kristen replied.

"It just seems like something you might enjoy, that's all."

"Okay, it hasn't all been bad, if you must know, but I definitely didn't get into this mess on purpose. Can you just hurry, please?" Kristen pleaded.

"On my way, I'll be there as soon as I can!"

After the phone call was over, Kristen thought about Dave's comment about this misadventure being something she would enjoy; she had to admit that she had enjoyed some of it, maybe even most of it if she was being honest. She wondered if Dave was going to be able to get to her bus stop with clothes in time, and imagined what she'd have to do if he couldn't. "Get off the bus naked and streak across the street?" she thought to herself, "At least it's not a long way, it'll probably only take me a few seconds." She smiled, thinking about how far she'd already traveled today without any clothes; surely a few dozen feet more wouldn't make much difference.

Olivia startled Kristen out of her thoughts, tapping her on her shoulder and saying, "There's our gallery up ahead on the left, we'll be stopping soon. I don't know what your husband looks like, can you see him?"

Kristen looked up and down the sidewalk, but didn't see Dave anywhere, "No, I don't see him," she said, "maybe there just wasn't enough time."

The bus stopped; the driver opened the door and looked back to Kristen and Olivia, saying, "I'm sorry ladies, but if he's not here I can't wait, traffic is backing up already." Olivia headed for the door, closely followed by Kristen. Olivia stepped off onto the sidewalk. Kristen hesitated, scanning the sidewalk once more to see if Dave was in sight; she needed to know whether her next move was going to be her choice or beyond her control. Standing on the last step inside the bus she finally saw him, about half a block away and running at top speed, clutching her sundress in one hand. She felt her pulse quicken as she made her choice.

She smiled at him as she stepped off the bus and turned to cross the street!

"She saw me coming, why didn't she stay on the bus?" Dave wondered for just a second, then he understood, "Of course she got off the bus, duh." He knew there was nothing he could do now but stop and enjoy the show, so he stopped running and took out his phone to record her trip across the street.

As Kristen turned away from Dave and her opportunity to end her exposure, time seemed to slow to a crawl; her breathing was ragged, her legs felt like lead and she could barely hear anything over the sound of her pulse pounding in her head. After an eon of 10 seconds or so, the sound of cars stuck behind the bus leaning on their horns snapped her back to her current reality. The bus driver waited patiently as she shakily stepped off the curb and crossed in front of his bus. A quick wave from Kristen to a car on the other side of the street trying to inch past the bus was enough to stop traffic from that direction. Dave watched her work her way across the street towards the gallery, where Olivia was holding the door open for her.

Kristen walked as fast as her flip-flops allowed.