Liz Wants to Earn Her Reputation!

Nearing the end of her shift behind the counter at a small coffee shop, Liz's day was going along like any other. She was almost done for the day, as the last burst of customers stopping by at the end of their 9 to 5 workdays had come and gone. She and one co-worker were already cleaning up to make the shop ready for the busier hours tomorrow morning, glad for it to almost be closing time. The day was perfectly normal, until suddenly it wasn't.

Less than 15 minutes before locking up, Liz noticed the building's Janitor in the lobby, in itself not remarkable as he typically started his shift around the time her shop closed. Very definitely not normal was the way he was staring into the shop. Liz was used to seeing him ignoring her workplace while cleaning the lobby, but he wasn't doing any work, just standing there staring, his gaze following her as she moved around. the shop. "Okay, that's a little bit creepy," she thought. She was used to guys checking her out, it seemed like some sort of curse that came along with the many advantages of being tall, blonde, and shapely. Usually they were less obvious about it, and they usually weren't at least twice her age.

The departure from normal became more pronounced when the Janitor left his mop and bucket behind and came into her shop; as far as Liz knew, he'd never ventured into the shop. "Maybe he was just trying to decide whether or not to splurge by getting himself an overpriced coffee," Liz guessed. She stepped back behind the counter to take his order, greeting him but warning, "We're almost closed up, but we still have some hot Dark Roast."

He stepped up to the counter, still seeming uncertain about what to ask for despite having been offered only one option. He kept staring at Liz, studying her face, finally ending the awkward pause by saying, "I'd like one of the free coffees you promised me last Friday night."

"Um, what free coffee," Liz asked, "Do you have a gift card or some kind of coupon?"

"No, I'm talking about the three weeks' worth of free coffee you promised me last week. Don't try to tell me you don't remember," he replied, beginning to sound angry.

"Why do the weirdos always show up just as I'm about to clock out?" Liz thought, then answered him, doing her best to not provoke the Janitor, "I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about what you're describing. Maybe you were talking with someone else here?"

"Oh, it was you, it's not like I'd ever forget," he replied.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember offering you anything like that. If for some reason I really had offered you a freebie, I'd have just given you a loaded gift card."

"There was no gift card, but you promised me!"

"And why would I promise you ANY free coffee, let alone three weeks' worth," Liz asked, getting more annoyed.

"So I'd keep quiet about you wandering around the building in the nude!"

After a pause to see if this was some kind of joke, she answered, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about. I came out to the corridor after cleaning up at the law firm on the third floor and there you were, strolling about in the nude like it was perfectly normal. When I told you I recognized you from seeing you working here you offered me the coffee in exchange for my not telling anyone, especially your employer, what you'd been getting up to," the Janitor answered, looking pleased with himself.

"I have no idea what or who you may have seen, but I can assure you it wasn't me. I don't think I've ever gone as high as the third floor, and I damn sure never visited it naked!"

"I'm sure it was you, and you even admitted you work here, so stop trying to get out of our deal."

"We do not have any deal! You say this naked jaunt you saw me doing happened last Friday? Take a look at this," she said, flipping through photos on her phone, then holding it up for him to see, "That's me, a selfie I took with the Atlantic ocean in the background on my last vacation day in Fort Lauderdale. See the date? LAST FRIDAY!"

Confused and defeated, the Janitor retreated to the lobby, defiantly grumbling as he left, "I kept my side of the bargain!"

Driving home after closing up, Liz thought, "Just what I needed, a confused guy who thinks I've cheated him, working in the same building as me. Who knows who else he'll tell his crazy story about me walking around in the nude to!"

Over the next few days, Liz couldn't help wondering if she was just imagining a difference in how her customers who worked in the building were looking at her, or if they really were looking at her in a new way. While nobody she waited on came right out and asked if she was the barista who'd been caught having a naked walkabout, she couldn't shake her feeling they were trying to decide whether she was the star of the Janitor's story! After a couple of weeks had gone by, either the gossip had faded away or she just became less paranoid; she relaxed and tried to forget about the odd incident.

She was able to stop worrying, but couldn't help being curious about what, and especially who the Janitor might have seen. He had been so sure he'd seen her doing a naked tour of the building that she became convinced that he probably had seen someone naked, and assumed that it had to be a woman who looked a lot like her!

Even though the mystery woman didn't have any real connection to Liz, the pretty barista couldn't help being curious about someone who looked enough like her to confuse people and was bold enough to do something so outrageous. She was still a bit angry about her look-alike having led the Janitor to believe it was her he'd seen naked, and hadn't completely shaken the feeling that the Janitor had shared his story. Even as her anger was fading she began to wonder what her double was like.

Liz began studying the people passing through the lobby as well as she could while waiting on customers, looking for a woman she didn't know, but expected to recognize if she ever did see her.

Meanwhile, the woman Liz was hoping to see was doing her best to not be noticed, even resorting to walking around the block to use the building's back door for the first few days after her naked show. As much as she would have loved seeing how the Janitor's attempt to collect his coffee bribe played out, Tracy kept out of the building's lobby as much as possible and avoided the coffee shop entirely. She didn't know how the lean blonde barista would react to the duped Janitor's attempt to collect his free coffee, but was pretty sure she wouldn't be pleased to have people thinking she liked to walk around the building naked.

When three weeks had gone by since Tracy's naked romp, Liz had all but given up on finding the daring woman the Janitor had seen. Tracy still avoided going into the coffee shop, but had gone back to using the building's main entrance, hiding by blending in with the rush-hour crowd. By the time another couple of weeks had passed, neither woman spent much time thinking about the other.

One morning Tracy was jolted back to worrying about coming face to face with Liz. The office manager had given her a seemingly simple task; with the office's Keurig machine broken and an important meeting about to begin, he'd ordered 8 drinks from the coffee shop downstairs. "The order is all paid for, but they're short-handed today, so we need to pick them up," he said.

As Liz walked downstairs, she considered walking two blocks to a different coffee shop, but couldn't think of a good excuse for taking 15 extra minutes to deliver lukewarm coffee. She looked into the shop from the lobby and was relieved to see a short, plump brunette behind the counter and a skinny young man wiping down tables. "No sign of my double," she thought, "must be my lucky day!"

Her nerves settled, Tracy stepped up to the counter and asked for her office's order. The short plump girl shouted, "Liz! Is that phone order for upstairs ready to go?"

"Just finished boxing it up," Liz answered as she came out from a room behind the back counter. "Ready to...." she said, her voice trailing off as she saw the woman she'd been looking for weeks! Never taking her eyes off Tracy," Liz asked the short brunette, "Pam, why don't you finish checking in the delivery out back; I'll take care of this customer."

"I was told our order is paid for, so I'll just take it and..." Tracy managed to say before Liz cut her off.

"It had to have been you!" Liz said once Pam was out of earshot. She held on to the boxed-up coffee order to keep Tracy from bolting before she had a chance to ask the nervous blonde a few questions.

Pam looked Tracy over and understood how the Janitor had been tricked. "Same height, same green eyes, same color and similar length hair, about the same weight, I'd guess," she thought, "bigger boobs than mine, but not by enough to keep her from passing as me!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tracy protested, her voice quavering.

"What I'm talking about is a woman who looks remarkably like you, works here in the building, and was seen a few weeks ago walking around upstairs without any clothes on!"

"I didn't...I, never, no!"

"Then why are you blushing? Your cheeks are the color of a tomato," Liz laughed. She picked up her phone and grabbed a quick photo of Tracy, asking, "should I show this shot to the Janitor and see if he remembers you? He sure as hell remembers someone with a strong resemblance to you offering him a bunch of free coffee!"

Her eyes downcast, Tracy mumbled, "No, let's not get the Janitor involved any more than he already is."

"So you admit it was you he saw that night?"

"Her voice cracking, Tracy answered, "Okay, yes. Yes it was me, and yes, I was naked, and yes, I told him I was you, and yes, I promised him three weeks of free coffee if he'd keep quiet about what he saw." Liz stared at Tracy, silent and expressionless, surprised to hear such a comprehensive admission. "Are you satisfied now," Tracy asked, "or is there something else you want from me?"

"I'm not trying to get anything from you except answers to a few questions," Liz replied.

"Okay, but I should bring our order upstairs before it gets cold. I can come back later."

"It gets quiet after 6:00 PM if that works for you," Liz replied.

I can do that," Tracy said glumly. She took the box of drinks and headed back to her office. She realized later that night that she couldn't remember a single detail of her workday after she left the coffee shop; all she had been able to think about was her planned meeting with Liz. She tried to guess ahead of time what sort of questions Liz had, and also how much detail about her reckless nude adventure to reveal.

Tracy settled on answering truthfully about what she had done and how she had done it, but not volunteering any information Liz didn't specifically ask about. She also planned on keeping her illness and the effect the prescription medicine she took daily had on her behavior to herself. She decided Liz would have to accept some version of "it was just a stupid dare" as the reason she'd done what she did.

Just a few minutes past 6:00, Tracy walked into the coffee shop. Liz seemed to be waiting for her and steered her to a table far from the counter. Tracy started the conversation with a warning that she could only stay a few minutes, "I'll answer your questions, but I can't stay long, my husband is out of town and I have to pick up my kids before 6:30."

Hearing about Tracy being a Mom thoroughly upended Liz's preconceived idea of what kind of person Tracy was before she had even asked a single question, but she stuck to her list. "So, first of all, have you done this kind of thing before?"

Tracy paused to think about any of her recent behavior qualified, then answered, "No, not like this."

"Okay, not like this...but have you ever been seen naked in a public place?"

Tracy paused again, trying to decide if the sidewalk leading to her front steps was public or private, finally answering, "In public, before this? No."

"Did you have any help or did you go it alone? Does anybody else know what you did?"

Tracy didn't need to think about the new questions, quickly answering, "Alone, and nobody else knows, nobody but you and I guess the Janitor." It occurred to her to include the people at the train platform, and maybe the people who watched from the balconies next door, but she chose to limit her answer to people more directly involved. Liz hadn't asked anything at all about Tracy's time on the roof; if she didn't know about that part of her adventure, Tracy was happy to keep it that way!

"You must have started and finished with clothing on; since you say you didn't have any help, where did you stash your clothes when you got naked?"

"Hanging on a railing at one of the stairs."

"How far from your clothes did you go?"

Tracy thought a minute, running through her memory of her nude adventure before replying, "three levels, I think...yeah, that's right."

"Why did you do it?"

"I accepted a dare."

Liz asked her final question, "Why tell the Janitor you were me?"

Tracy answered with no hesitation, "When he asked me if I worked in the building, I was afraid he might call the police if he thought I didn't have any business being there, so I admitted that I did. He immediately thought he was seeing you; I just failed to correct him! All I could think about at that moment was how quickly I could get dressed and get the hell out of there."

"Yeah, I guess I can understand that," Liz replied testily, "but you also offered him a boatload of free coffee and worst of all, a reason to come by and reminisce about seeing me naked. Even though I know it wasn't me he saw, I'm still kind of grossed out by that."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I guess I owe you for pulling that prank," Tracy replied sheepishly, "I hope that's all your questions. I really need to get going now or the daycare center will hit me with a late fee."

"Yeah, that's all the questions I have for now. I couldn't help being a little curious about what I'm supposed to have done."

Liz accepted Tracy's apology and figured that having solved the mystery of who the Janitor had seen roaming around naked, she could forget about the odd incident. She tried to stop thinking about Tracy's story, but the image of a woman roughly her own age who looked very similar to herself strolling around the building where they both worked completely naked just wouldn't let go of her. She found herself thinking about two fantasies from her past.

Way back when she was in high school, she often thought about being caught partially undressed by a stranger. At first, the thought frightened her, but after a while she found the scenario more exciting than scary. Even though her teenage self came to think it would be exciting, she never came close to doing anything which could have led to it happening.

Another old fantasy that came to mind now was technically not even hers, but was an ex-boyfriend's idea; during a trip to Las Vegas, he thought it would be hot for her to completely undress by the window of their hotel room. She remembered thinking it might actually be exciting, but was too nervous to do it. The way he pestered her about it killed what interest she did have in promoting it from being his fantasy to her own lived experience. His pressuring her to expose herself was one of several reasons she broke up with him. She occasionally wondered whether she might have overcome her inhibitions and put on a little show for the occupants of the hotel across the way if she'd been there with a boyfriend who was less of a jerk.

The more she thought about her few previous exhibitionist fantasies, the more Liz began to think of them as kind of lame. Being seen wearing just her undies was, at least with the styles she wore in high school, not much different than how she would have been dressed for a day at the beach. And while her boyfriend's idea about showing herself nude at the window in Vegas seemed more daring, the distance between buildings meant that to someone in the nearest neighboring hotel she'd have been nothing more than a small flesh-colored shape in one of at least a couple hundred windows. "Besides," she thought, "even if someone had been able to see me well enough to recognize me, the odds of them being anyone I knew then or ever would know had to be too small to matter."

The relatively tame fantasies Liz had involving even the tiniest bit of public exposure seemed even more lackluster when compared with what Tracy had admitted to actually doing. The halting, cautious way she had described her escapade made Liz think there probably was more Tracy was leaving out. "If she was doing a dare without any help and hasn't told anyone else what she did, it had to be a dare she gave herself! She's actually done things way more daring than I've ever even imagined doing," Liz thought, "maybe I should try doing something at least a little bit outside my comfort zone!" Though she was beginning to think she was ready to do something daring, she had no idea what exactly that should be.

Liz looked online, browsing through dozens of websites devoted to people giving or performing dares. The vast majority of dares on them were out of the question simply because of where she was living. She had recently celebrated her 27th birthday, but due to her insistence on going to a high-priced college and spending another couple of years pursuing, but not quite completing the requirements for a Master's degree in English literature, she was left with a lot of debt.

The combination of her weighty student loan payments and her limited job options meant she was still living with her parents. "Even if I thought I could do it, I don't think answering the door naked for a pizza delivery guy would go over very well with Mom and Dad," she laughed. In the end, just about all the ideas she found online were either impractical or way, way more intense than what she could imagine doing herself.

"All I'm looking for is a little bit of excitement, just showing a little skin somewhere inappropriate, ideally without getting arrested, fired, or kicked out of my house," she grumbled to herself one afternoon during a lull in the flow of customers, "is that so much to ask?" Later that day Liz happened to look out to the lobby outside her shop and spotted Tracy leaving for the day. The bored barista had an inspiration; she didn't necessarily have to come up with an original idea for how to do some sort of flash -- she just needed a little advice from someone with more experience. Someone like Tracy.

A couple of days later, Liz noticed Tracy arriving for work and rushed out to the lobby to intercept her before she got to the elevator. "I think you left this behind," Liz said for the benefit of any of Tracy's co-workers who might be within earshot as she handed her a used gift card and envelope.

Tracy was confused when she saw Liz approach her and briefly worried that Liz had changed her mind and decided to tell the world about her nude dare. She wasn't as worried once she reached her workspace and looked inside the envelope, but she was still confused. Behind the gift card was a small handwritten note, "please come see me when you have time. I have a small favor to ask of you." It was something of a quiet day for Tracy, so she took a break later that morning to see what Liz wanted, thinking she might have come up with some other questions about Tracy's naked walkabout.

"It's really not a big deal," Liz assured Tracy as they sat at a table as far from her co-workers at the counter as possible, "honestly, it's sort of embarrassing. What I'd like is for you to give me some guidance on how to do something as close as possible to what you did a few weeks ago. You know, the walking around the building naked thing."