Texas Mermaids

Texas might seem like an unlikely place to set a nudist story. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, isn't that the heart of the Bible Belt? Those people never even take off their cowboy boots, let alone their jeans. And mermaids? Well, sure, Texas has some beaches, but we're not talking about that part of Texas. We're talking about the middle of Texas, the star on the map of the Lone Star State. We're talking about Austin.

Austin. The state capital. The very place where Dubyah held court before he went on to complete the triumph of the Moral Majority. Surely Austin must be the heart of the Heart of Darkness, the citadel of the Evil Empire. But it's not. At least, it wasn't back when I was going there. Austin is a big college town (that's where the University of Texas is) and it also is a haven for all those Texans who are just a little bit different. Austin has a big lake (Lake Travis) and on that lake there is a Texas sized swimming area, over a half mile long, a hundred yards wide. No bathing suit required. What? In Texas? But there it is, Hippie Hollow, with warm, clear water, limestone cliffs, and mermaids. Well, I suppose they're actually students at the university, but you get the idea.

It's all over the Internet now, you may have heard of it, if you are looking for nude beaches in Texas (who would ever think to put those two options together for a Google search?). But back when I first arrived in Austin, it was a complete surprise for me. This was in my road warrior days. We had just lined up a group in Austin to use an application platform I'd been developing in Atlanta. So now I had to cycle in trips to Austin on top of what I'd been doing already. I saw where Austin was, and my heart sank. And, it was clear from the very first day that this group was in very deep yogurt. They were trying to run a self directed team of sixty people, with the results that you might expect. They were looking to me to save them from themselves. This was not going to happen in a week, or even a few months. I was going to be making a lot of trips to Austin. Bummer!

But, my first afternoon there, I mentioned that I was a distance swimmer, and they laughed, and told me about this nice place to swim over on Lake Travis. I don't remember if they mentioned it was "clothing optional" (somehow that sounds less intimidating, doesn't it? You can still wear those cowboy boots, just lose the jeans.). Most likely they did, because I remember a feeling of guilty anticipation when I first found my way over there. That first evening, it was almost dark already. I got to the lake, and there was a parking lot, so I thought this must be the place. And sure enough down at lake level, you could see a few bodies glowing in the sunset. The only problem was that there was about two hundred feet of limestone cliff between them and me. Right next to me, though, there was a big restaurant, with outside tables facing the lake, and binoculars so that the guests could watch the sunset. The sunset? Bullshit -- they were all looking for someone interesting sunning themselves on the cliffs.

Well, the trail down was too steep, it was too late, I was defeated in my first attempt. Where is this place, I asked the next day, half embarrassed that I had been out there at all, and they explained that I had to go a little further down the road. And sure enough, the next day, there I was. It was a wonderful place to swim -- probably about a mile and a half up and back. At home I have to sneak back into wild lakes to distance swim. The legal spots are roped off to be about the size of a postage stamp. And, of course, you are supposed to wear a bathing suit. Boooriiing! But here, I could swim the way swimming should be. And of course, there was the scenery. Coeds from the university (and their beautifully muscled boyfriends). Lesbians with spike haircuts and bushes to match. Yuppies who would wander over in a group after work (talk about getting to know your colleagues!). There was this one lady in that group who would hold court with her male buddies, her legs splayed out the whole time to expose as much as possible. And they would sit around and talk shop. They might as well have been standing around the water cooler back at the office.

Hippie Hollow, at that time at least, had a "bad" reputation, which basically meant that some people, quite a few people, did not behave themselves once they got naked. Some of them would try to be discrete and fuck in the water -- but this water was crystal clear. Others just did it on dry land. There was one older couple, both rather heavyset, who seemed to be there all the time, and every time I saw them he had his head in her lap. I guess that was how they were spending their retirement. And there was one guy who was trying to break into the porn industry. He would bring his lady over and they would do free live demos. Porn Guy, I use to call him.

Of course, all of this just slid by me. I'm a married person, a determinedly married person. I was only there for the swimming. Well, maybe I would take a little stroll after I swam, just to enjoy the sunset. And the scenery. But it wasn't that often that I even talked to someone.

There was this one afternoon, though ...

I should explain, to begin with, that although Austin has an arid, or semi-arid climate it's not arid enough to guarantee that every day is going to be a beach day. One of my buddies at work loved to sail (at least that was his cover story) and the two of us spent many an afternoon peering out the window at gray skies, wondering if it would clear up enough by the time we were out of work. Of course, being a hundred yards or so off shore as a thunderstorm hits is not a good survival strategy, but I used to push it. One time I was in the middle of a swim when a helicopter flew over, some bullhorn blaring some bullshit. It's hard to hear with your head down in the water. I know back home, I'd be off on one of my little private swims and the rangers might come along and yell at me with their bullhorns. I'd just keep swimming. There wasn't much they could do about it. It wasn't worth their while to hang around for an hour waiting for me to get back. So, anyway, I didn't pay much attention to the helicopter, but I did notice the water was starting to get a little choppy, the sky was getting a little darker. Just as I got back to the car, the sky just turned to water. I mean, there wasn't any room between the drops. And it was pitch dark, except for all the lightning. If I had still been out on the lake, I probably would not be telling you this story.

So after that, I became a bit more cautious. And, this particular afternoon, it started to rumble and rain even before I could get in to start swimming. I had emerged from one of the outhouses. There is a paved walkway up on top of the cliffs (there was this one guy who was a little chubby who used to roller blade nude there all the time), and along it there are two cement outhouses, set into the cliff. I guess they are there to discourage folks from peeing into the lake, and, being the ecologically conscious good citizen that I am, I did try to remember to use them before I started to swim. Anyway, the bottoms of these buildings actually jut out from the cliff side enough that you can walk under them, or, in this case, sit under them to get out of the rain. Which is what I did.

There were a few other people already gathered there, and after a few minutes, we began to chat. There were two guys, maybe in their mid to late thirties, who had a cooler of beer with them, and two girls in their late teens, early twenties. The ladies, sadly enough, still had their clothes on, and they looked like they were determined to stay that way. The one sitting next to me was skinny, about five foot six, short brown hair. She was wearing jogging shorts and a tee shirt. No bra. Standing, I could look down the shirt and see her little brown breasts, darker nipples. Not too exciting, for a nude beach. She was looking back up at me with some amusement, probably, as I think back, because my cock was dangling about ten inches from her nose.

She started to talk. I don't know what it is, but total strangers will often pour out their life stories to me. It seems to happen more often on airplanes. I remember one time I was taking the redeye to London, sitting in coach because the company got too cheap to fly us business class. Bummer! But it turned out that there was this really attractive blonde next to me. She spent the whole flight explaining how she was from Aruba, her boyfriend had gone back to Holland to work, and she was going to Holland to be with him, but she wasn't sure the relationship was going to work in Holland, she had no idea what she was going to do there .. etcetera. Fascinating, but I got no sleep. And there was the girl coming from Hawaii who had been in transit for two days ... I've sometimes fantasized about how useful this talent would be if I were single. But I'm not. I'm like one of those little dogs that strains at the end of its leash, barking away, but would be terrified if it ever actually got loose.

Anyway, this girl at the lake, her name was Josie, began to talk. And talk. She had been born and raised in Montana. She had always loved to be naked. She was making a living in Austin as a "titty dancer." When she did lap dances for men, the guys had to keep their clothes on, but if she did it for women they could both be naked. "I love my job," she drawled, and the other girl giggled. They were, it turned out, lovers. They had decided to come and check out the perverts at Hippie Hollow. "I brought along my G String," Josie drawled, "just in case." G String? She was going to come out to nude beach and wear a G String? I was trapped under an outhouse with an uptight, lesbian, lap dancer. And a boring one, at that. It might have been more interesting if she had taken her clothes off, but that did not seem to be happening any time soon.

Thankfully, miraculously, the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and I abandoned her and her friends to go off to swim. I'm not sure I gave her or the other three another thought for the next hour or so. When I swim, I concentrate on swimming. Well, I'm sure you are wondering, how hard is it to swim? But I really do focus my attention on each stroke. It's very relaxing. And, on this particular day, because of the weather, there was no human scenery to complement the stark beauty of the limestone cliffs. The water had become absolutely calm, the sky was clear, I was in a very serene mood when I returned.

It seemed, however, that a lot had happened while I was gone. The cooler of beer was just about empty, and the four of them were in the water. Well, they were about knee deep in the water. The ladies had found rocks to stand on to get them up to the correct height, and the guys were busy fucking them. Now, there was a sort of code of conduct, honor, if you will, among thieves, about public sex at this place. With the exception of Porn Guy, who welcomed a crowd around him, you pretended it wasn't happening. You didn't gawk, you didn't comment, you didn't sit down next to them and start to jack off. If you did, someone with a very stern Texas accent would most likely come along and tell you to mind your own business. So I was a bit, admittedly only a bit, reluctant to interrupt them. There was no one else around to observe my observation. And, I had the perfectly legitimate excuse that I needed to retrieve my towel and shoes (I had discovered, by then, that the most efficient way to do things was to take off everything in the car, and just wrap a towel around my waist to get from the parking lot down to the officially nude area). But I didn't seem to be bothering them. Hey, WR! How was your swim? Have a beer, if there are any left! So, I decided to forgo my usual sunset stroll. Instead I sat down on a rock conveniently close to the shoreline, cracked open one of the few remaining cans of beer, and watched them fuck.

It was not often that I had ever looked at people having sex. Of course, even in those dark days before the Internet, there were porn movies. And mirrors. But it still can be extraordinary to see ordinary people do what is, in fact, a rather ordinary thing. The guys were a little soft looking, not really paunchy yet, but too many years and too many beers were starting to take their toll. The beer they had just consumed had also done a number on their erections (or maybe they were on their fourth or fifth time by the now). They were at best at half mast, big lazy things, but still stiff enough to penetrate the girls. And the girls, amusingly, had not stopped talking. They were casually chatting with each other as they were fucked, aimless small talk that had nothing to do with sex. After a while, the girls got bored, and they tried to move around so that they could kiss each other's breasts. But when they both tried to stand on the same rock, Josie wasn't high enough out of the water. She went back to her own rock, but her guy stayed behind her.

"This is what I don't like," she complained, then "stay out of there. There's shit up there. That stuff floats." He poked at her half heartedly (or maybe half dickedly?) a couple more times, and she shrugged him off in disgust. "I need another beer," she sighed, and she came up onto to shore.

"Hey, WR, how ya doin? What's up?"

Well, it was fairly obvious what was up at that point, not really hard up, but as much as those guys in the water had been able to muster. I was fighting very hard to remain calm.

"Can you take a look at this?" she said, pointing to a red spot on her hip bone, at most three inches away from her cunt. "It feels like a fish bit me." And she took my hand, and placed it on the sore spot.

Have you ever seen those electric dog fences? The dog wears a collar that gives it a little shock when it gets too close a wire that's buried in the ground. Supposedly, the dog gets so conditioned to the fact the it will be shocked, that it will never, never cross that line. But when I'm running along and some humongous mutt is barking its head off, and there is nothing visible between it and me, it makes me nervous. I'm sure that if something sufficiently enticing was on the other side of the invisible barrier, that dog would forget all about the collar. It would jump right through the fence line, so quickly that the shock had no effect, and then what?

Well, I've always wondered if wedding rings were like that collar -- good in most situations, but someday, someday ... Now, if this were a fantasy, I would be telling you that when I touched that thigh, I jumped right across the fence. I would be telling you that my other hand touched her shoulder, that I moved inward from her thigh, to slide my fingers in between her legs. I would tell you that she just smiled as I pulled her closer, that she was so slick from all the semen in her already that I hardly realized I was inside of her, that she brushed those hard little nipples against me and I came. I would tell you these things, and you would say "WR, you are totally full of shit!" And you would be right. I touched her lightly, assured her it was nothing, and walked away. And I'm glad I did. Sort of.