Julia Goes Down to the Sea!

Julia heard a familiar voice urging her to stop, warning, "This is CRAZY! You're 44! Middle freaking aged! You're the manager of a bank branch! You're a wife and mother!"

She paused as she considered her sensible self's warnings, letting her shirt fall back in place. She still held the hem of the shirt, quivering slightly. A full minute passed before she answered her own warnings, whispering to herself, "doing this IS crazy, without a doubt, but I'll be 44 whether I do it or not, and either way I'll still be all the other things I am!"

She pulled her shirt up, over her head and off completely, then dropped it on her towel. Taking a moment to look down as if checking to confirm she was topless, she smiled at the sight of her breasts, visible in the pale moonlight, then hooked her thumbs into the elastic waist of her shorts and pulled them down below her knees, letting them go. Giggling as she studied her improbably unclothed body, she dropped her shorts on the towel with her shirt! "Damn! I actually did it!" she laughed.

Julia was about to trot down to the waterline when her cautious side made one last comment of a practical nature, suggesting, "At least hide your stuff, just in case someone comes by and feels like taking it!" Nothing very valuable was on the towel, but she wanted to have the flashlight for the return to her yurt, and REALLY didn't want to make her way back in the nude! The towel was close to the shade of the sand, so she rearranged her cast-off clothes, flashlight, sandals and snack packaging on one end of the towel and flipped the other end over to cover it all; her stuff wasn't completely hidden, but she was sure that unless someone was specifically searching for it they'd never see it. She debated leaving her key behind, dropping it on the towel after deciding the loose coiled elastic band would be more at risk of getting lost if she wore it while swimming.

Strolling toward the gentle waves, Julia couldn't remember when she'd ever felt so exhilarated; probably when Cara was born, she thought, but remembering the sterile hospital delivery room and the no-nonsense demeanor of everyone in the room except George, she thought her feelings that day were less joyful than exhausted and relieved. She knew she'd never literally "left it all behind" the way she had now, even if her possessions were only a hundred yards or so away.

Once she reached water roughly as high as her waist, Julia lifted her feet and spread out all her limbs to begin floating. She aligned herself with the moon and its shimmering reflection and relaxed. She was sure she'd never seen so much of the detail on its surface, and wondered if being naked was somehow sharpening her senses! She watched it draw near the horizon, then seem to make contact with the ocean; she wished it would slow down and let her savor the experience longer. She had probably been floating for slightly more than a half hour when the last silvery sliver slipped out of sight.

Julia had thought she would get back to the beach as soon as the moon had set, but as her vision adjusted to the only light being starlight she decided to float a while longer, amazed at the sheer number of stars visible without any man-made light to obscure nature's show. She reluctantly rolled over to swim back to the shore, promising herself she would find somewhere near her home where the sky would be dark enough to see what she'd been viewing, "probably not naked," she thought, "but maybe!"

Once she was sure she was close enough to the waterline, she stood up to switch to wading. Able to look around and hear something beside the sound of her own splashing, she froze, then dropped down to kneel, leaving only her head above the surface. When she'd decided to risk a nude swim she'd thought it was possible another person might intrude on her solitude, but she definitely hadn't been expecting to see the motor vehicle now cruising slowly along the beach, high beams lighting up a long stretch of the sand. Worse yet, it was stopping occasionally and shining a spotlight side to side, toward the rock face at the back of the beach and out toward the ocean!

The sweeping spotlight lit up enough of the mystery vehicle for Julia to see that it was a state park Jeep; she couldn't decide whether it was better or worse for her than if it had been some civilian taking a spin down the beach. She was still thinking about what to do next when the need to do something right that moment became obvious. The good news was that Jeep was almost as close to her as it appeared its course would take it, so it would be gone soon, but the bad news was that it had stopped. Every other time she'd seen it stop had also included a sweeping of the spotlight in all directions, and the current stop was no exception. Seeing the beam of light swinging toward her, she took a deep breath and dropped her head under the surface of the water!

Years ago, back when she was in college, Julia had been able to hold her breath a good long time, eventually as long as two minutes. She knew she wasn't in that kind of shape, but tried counting seconds to distract herself and stay out of sight as long as possible. She began to feel light headed when she reached 75 seconds and had to give in to her body's need for oxygen. Surfacing just long enough to catch her breath and take a couple more before ducking below the surface again, she was happy to see the spotlight had moved on from the water to the back of the beach. When the light returned, he stayed under for another 70 seconds and was relieved when she surfaced to see the Jeep moving farther down the beach!

Stepping up through the shallow water once the Jeep was safely distant, Julia was more aware of her nudity than ever, thinking, "That was close! For a minute there I thought I was about to be busted!" she could picture herself walking out of the water, squinting in the glare of the spotlight, sheepishly explaining why she was nude to a park Ranger. She was surprised to feel nearly as much excitement as embarrassment as she imagined exactly the scenario she had just worked so hard to avoid! "This has been fun," she told herself, "but I really ought to get dressed and get back to my yurt!"

Julia headed to the base of the rock face at the back of the beach and looked for the stairs to orient herself and retrace her steps to get back to her towel and belongings. The starlight was considerably dimmer than the moonlight had been, but after a few minutes she found her way to a gap in the rock with steps leading up.

She set out for the place she'd left her towel, counting the same hundred steps as she had earlier. She found nothing but sand, but stayed calm, reasoning that her strides might vary a bit. She took another ten steps away from the stairs. Still nothing! Beginning to worry a little, she took ten more steps. Still nothing! Turning back toward the stair, she counted off 120 steps, walking slowly and looking for her things as carefully as the near total darkness allowed. Finding herself just a few feet from her starting point at the steps, she repeated her search, parallel to the rock face but a few feet further away from it.

Twice.

It was now painfully obvious that everything Julia had worn or carried to the beach was not, somehow, where she had expected it to be. She trembled as she tried to think of some way to get out of this predicament; every one of her imagined solutions ended up with her somehow or another being seen completely naked, and possibly not briefly! Unwilling to give up despite how unlikely her last hope was, she repeated her search in the opposite direction, hoping she'd simply forgotten which direction she'd turned from the steps when she first reached the beach.

Julia's last-ditch search turned up nothing but sand, but it did add some unneeded excitement to a night which had more than enough already. At the farthest point her search took her from the stair, she heard the Jeep returning! Her first instinct was to try to get beyond the reach of the damned spotlight by running to the stair, but she doubted she could make it there before the Jeep's damned light. The image of her trying to run in the loose sand while completely nude, ending up lit up by the spotlight flashed through her mind, "Like Baywatch at night, but without the swimsuits!"

"This can't work, but I don't see any other option," she groaned, dropping down behind a piece of driftwood half buried in the sand as the Jeep drew closer. The wood extended no more than six inches above the surface of the sand; Julia could think of no way to keep her entire body below that height. She turned her feet, arms and head as flat as she could, with her body facing the ground; she had decided the curves of her boobs, topped by brown nipples, would be more noticeable above the wood than her butt. Whether her theory was correct or the driver of the Jeep just wasn't very observant, the Jeep continued on its way after the spotlight had scanned over part of her ass! Thoroughly coated from head to toe with sand, she trotted to the water to rinse it off, then returned to the base of the stair.

Julia was beyond reluctant to abandon her hunt for her belongings, but was sure her search had been thorough enough that she'd have found them by now if they had been where she'd left them. Doubtful as she was that she'd somehow be able to get into her yurt, she was determined to give it a try, leaving her least desirable option, finding some park staffer who could unlock the door for her, as a last resort! She cringed as she imagined herself creeping through the cluster of yurts stark naked, and couldn't help wondering if anyone was still awake in the handful of neighboring yurts which had still had lights on when she walked past them earlier.

Taking one hesitant step at a time up the stairs and stone path, Julia found herself momentarily missing her flashlight and sandals even more than her clothes; the view of the stars was amazing, but didn't provide nearly enough light to feel comfortable going up the stairs. As she approached the level of the campground she realized that if the need arose, going back down would be even more perilous. The path seemed longer than it had when she was headed to the beach, which was no surprise, as stressed as she was to be making the trip in near-complete darkness while wearing nothing at all!

Just as she was beginning to think she'd missed a turn or made a wrong one, she arrived at the sign she'd read earlier as she was heading to the beach. She had to suppress a laugh as she tried to remember if any of the rules forbid being nude at the campsite, thinking, "I guess next time I'll have to make sure I read ALL the rules!"

She shuddered at this idea that there could ever be a next time, thinking, "I can't imagine ever doing anything like this again!" Still, as she thought about it, in a weird way her unusually daring behavior had led to her achieving her goal of having a memorable visit to the Pacific ocean. It occurred to her that up until a few hours ago she would have been as certain as she could be that nothing like THIS time would be possible! Despite being naked for way, way longer than she had been back at the bathhouse, so far the only people to actually see her in the nude were the two guys back there!

Trying not to remember the unexpectedly exciting feeling that encounter had produced, she focused on her current dilemma"Those guys were the only people to see me so far," she reminded herself, "but I'm not safe yet!" She looked around as she began to walk through the cluster of yurts, grimacing as she saw one other yurt with light spilling out from its door and windows. After being in near total darkness for so long, the areas where the light was streaming out looked to Julia like they were lit by a mid-day sun!

As she came closer she heard a couple talking and realized the voices were those of Jesse and Barb; Julia thought, "I can't believe I might get caught naked by the only people in this park who I've given my contact info to!" She gritted her teeth and kept walking, praying the sound of her footsteps on the gravel walk wouldn't make her neighbors curious enough to have a look outside!

When she passed through the shaft of light coming from the window closest to her path, she couldn't resist looking down the front of her body to see what kind of view she would be offering to anyone who happened to look outside at that moment. "Pretty damn good," she thought nervously, pausing without intending to in a sort of moth drawn to a flame moment, likely as shocked by what she was seeing as any possible onlookers could be! She tore herself away and kept walking towards her yurt, which was not far beyond the one which had been lighting her up, and just across the walkway. A couple of spots on her way to her own yurt had light from both yurts, highlighting the presence of the naked hiker even better!

"Nobody seems to have noticed me," Julia thought, by now more surprised than relieved as she reached the door of her yurt. She was still clinging to the slim but not impossible chance that she'd forgotten to lock the door when she'd left the yurt; she tried the handle, giving it several twists before accepting the fact that she wouldn't be getting in via the door anytime soon. She pressed her face against the door's window and saw that even if she had some sort of tool capable of cutting the mesh screen of a window, "which of course I don't", the wood grid framing for the walls extended behind the windows.

She had barely let go of the door's lever handle when she heard Barb ask Jesse, "did you hear that? I think someone's walking around out there!"

Julia froze, trying to avoid making any sound, but felt her heart beating like she was in the middle of a serious workout!

"Yeah, I heard something too. At this hour it's probably just a raccoon or deer looking for a snack," he replied.

"That's right, nothing interesting going on out here..." Julia silently willed the couple to ignore the sound of her walking around on the gravel walkway.

"Can you at least have a look out there?"

"I'm sure it's nothing, but okay, I'll look if it keeps you from worrying," Jesse answered.

Not knowing which window of their yurt Jesse was about to look out of, Julia spun around and looked back and forth between the two windows flanking the door, planning on scurrying away from the view of whichever window his head popped up in. She was focused on the right window when the silhouette of Jesse's head and shoulders appeared at the left one. By the time she saw him he'd already had a pretty good look at her! He motioned for his girlfriend to join him at the window, saying, "Come quick, you've got to see this!"

In the few seconds Jesse looked away to urge Barb to join him at the window, Julia bolted toward the only shelter close enough to do her any good, ducking behind her Camry rental car just before Barb made it to the window. "See what?" she asked, "I don't see anything."

Jesse looked out again and said, "I swear, a second ago I saw a naked woman at the door to Julia's yurt; I only saw her in silhouette, but I think it was her!"

Her interest piqued, Barb looked out of the window for several minutes along with Jesse, finally giving up. She said, "I believe you, Hun, but unless you saw whoever it was being chased or attacked there's nothing for us to do!" Sure of what he'd seen, Jesse couldn't make himself give up so quickly. He stayed at the window long after Barb turned off the lights.

With no way to know if Jesse had given up on waiting to see if she was going to reappear, Julia stayed hunkered down behind her car for almost 15 minutes, wondering just how detailed a look at her he'd had. "Fuck it!" she thought as she finally stood up,"if he sees me, he sees me!" She felt a chill when she looked at her neighbor's yurt and saw it's lights were off, surprised to now feel she'd rather be seen naked and know it than not to be able to tell if anyone was watching her from the dark windows!

Julia stepped away from the shelter of her car and looked around, considering her options, reluctantly accepting that she really had only one option left; she needed to find a park staffer and get them to let her into her yurt! She started walking out of the cluster of yurts, retracing the route she'd followed when driving a few hours earlier. She hadn't paid much attention to the distance between the park's entrance and office and her yurt; when driving it had seemed close, but walking naked and barefoot made the distance feel very different!

About 10 minutes of walking, Julia recognized the entrance to the tent camping area and realized she was about halfway to the park office. The length of the route she was on had seemed short earlier, but driving at 20 miles per hour and walking at 3 miles per hour made a big difference. As little as she wanted to be seen by any more people in her current state, by now she was getting pretty tired and wished that Jeep she'd seen would come along and put an end to this fiasco!

Another 10 minutes brought her to the edge of a parking lot she remembered passing. The good news was that she was sure the park entrance and administration building was close to the open parking zone. The less good news was that in her previous trips past this area she had somehow failed to notice that it was not a normal parking lot, but was a space with hookups for RV campers. At least a dozen RV's were lined up along her route, which had street lights lining it like it was a city neighborhood! With all the light from the street lights, Julia didn't immediately notice that several of the RV's had lights on inside.

As she began passing directly in front of the vehicles, she heard several voices talking and laughing! She couldn't help looking in the direction the voices were coming from. The sight her curiosity let her see made her heart skip a beat or two; in a space between two of the RV's, she saw 7 or 8 middle-aged to elderly people sitting around a couple of tables, at least 3 of whom were looking straight at her. One woman was already pointing at her, and before Julia had a chance to react, almost all of the group had swiveled to see what their friend was pointing at.

Julia had no realistic way to avoid being seen, that ship had sailed; she decided to just keep walking as if she always prowled around the park in the nude, even smiling at her new audience and giving them a wave! One of the women walked up to her and asked, "Are you alright, dear? Where are your clothes?"

Fighting the instinct telling her to run away, Julia stuck to her strategy of acting as if her daring behavior was perfectly normal, telling the woman, "Oh, I'm fine, just goofed up and locked myself out of my yurt. Would you happen to know where I can find a park employee to let me in?

"There's someone on duty all night at the Admin building, just to the left of the entrance," a grey haired man Julia guessed, by the way he hustled over to join the conversation, was probably the husband of the woman who had approached her. "How sweet, he's protecting his wife from the clearly insane naked woman," Julia thought, then said, "Thanks so much, I was hoping there would be someone on duty!" She stepped around the couple and headed toward the Admin building.

Julia didn't turn to look back at the RV crowd until she was practically at her destination, but when she did she saw her guess was correct, all of the men and a couple of the women were still watching her! She was surprised at how pleased she was to see the men, some of who had to be near 80 years old, having much the same reaction to seeing her in the nude as the two guys her daughter's age had at the bathhouse a few hours earlier! Judging by her the way her heart was racing, she hadn't become blase about being watched while naked by strangers either.