Single Wide Female: The Bucket List Mega Bundle - 24 Books (Books #1-24) (23 page)

I drove to Miles’ apartment complex and spotted the empty motel and pool beside it. Luckily someone had been keeping the pool clean and tidy. The day had warmed up quite a bit and I was actually looking forward to getting in the water, until I remembered I would be getting in naked. Then I thought about reversing out of the parking lot and making a run for it.

Unfortunately Lea spotted my car and waved at me. I cringed and parked. I climbed out of the car and walked toward them, each step making my heart pound faster.

“Join us,” Pedro called out happily and waved to me.

The entire group turned to look at me. I realized that there were quite a few more people there than I had expected.

“Who are all these people?” I asked Lea in a whisper.

“Oh, they just recently joined the group,” she explained with a giggle of excitement. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

It wasn’t wonderful. At all.

Chapter 8

I felt excessively uneasy. Forget about me getting naked
—
I couldn’t deal with the fact that I was surrounded by a group of soon-to-be naked people. I wouldn’t know where to look, how to stand, or if I could refrain from giggling.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I admitted quietly.

“Don’t think about it too much,” Lea said. “Come over here. Take a picture with us.”

I sighed and walked over to the group. At least everyone still had their clothes on.

However, as soon as the photograph was snapped people began shedding clothes. Not surprisingly Pedro was the first one nude, and he jumped with a huge splash into the water. Lea only had a loose sundress on with nothing underneath, so she was the next one to take the plunge. One by one all of the members of the group jumped into the pool and began splashing and laughing. I was the only one still standing there with my clothes on.

“Samantha!” Miles called out. “Hurry! Jump in!”

I shook my head slowly. I was frozen in fear. I couldn’t even imagine all of these people seeing me naked, or me swimming in the water with all of their naked bodies. I just had not evolved that far. I just could not bring myself to do it. I began to feel like an absolute failure.

“If she doesn’t want to, she shouldn’t have to,” Lea said sternly. “It’s okay, Samantha,” she said to me. “You’ll know when the time is right. You can be our lookout for now. Give a shout if you hear anyone coming.”

“Okay,” I agreed quickly. I felt some relief that they weren’t pressuring me to get in. But I also felt like a complete wuss. I was the only one who had chickened out.

“Don’t worry about it, doll,” Pedro said as he hung out near the edge of the pool. “One day you’ll be old like me and you won’t give a damn who sees what.” He laughed at that.

I smiled at him as he swam away. I didn’t see his body as old or anything but perfect. But I couldn’t seem to show the same kindness to my own. After a few minutes people began climbing back out of the pool and putting their clothes back on. They weren’t willing to risk getting caught. Soon only Lea was doing backstrokes through the water.

“It’s amazing, really, Samantha,” she said.

“I’m sure it is,” I said. I looked away as she climbed out of the pool.

“Oh, Samantha, one day,” she smiled and suddenly she was hugging me, dripping wet and naked.

“Lovely, okay
—
thank you Lea,” I said and gently tried to push her away, but my hands kept going to the wrong places.

“Are you going to come to Miles’ place for snacks?” Lea asked.

“No,” I shook my head. “I think I’m just going to stay here for a little while.”

“Okay.” She smiled and reached out like she might hug me again, but I crossed my arms.

“Have fun,” I said.

As Lea pulled on her sundress and walked away, I wondered how much the failure of this night was going to set me back on my quest.

It was getting dark. It was surprisingly quiet around the motel pool. No one had called the police. No one had been hauled away naked in handcuffs. I was beginning to feel very disappointed in myself. I knew that I should have been more daring. Now that I was alone, the water looked very inviting.

The item on the list
was
skinny-dipping. I never wrote anything about it having to be with other people. If I just took a quick dip
—
in and out
—
I could check it off the list. I didn’t think about it for too long. I just stripped down. I tossed my clothes onto one of the lounge chairs and headed for the edge of the pool.

The water was not nearly as warm as I had hoped it would be. In fact, just putting a toe in left me shivering. But it was either stand on the side of the pool stark naked waiting for someone to notice me, or hop in the cool water and hide what I could of my nudity.

When I heard footsteps approaching, I knew that I had no other choice. I jumped right into the water. It splashed up against my skin and took my breath away. I sank beneath the surface of the water and stayed there, hoping that whoever was walking up would continue walking by.

When my chest began burning, I was forced to pop up out of the water. I glanced around to see if anyone was still around. I didn’t see anyone. Maybe the footsteps had been in my head. I began to relax in the water. It felt amazing as it surged across my skin. I felt as free as a dolphin gliding through the water. There was such a sensation of peace that I understood why some people preferred to swim without swimsuits. I was just beginning to feel confident about my choice when I heard a jarring sound.

I heard laughter in the distance. Somehow I just knew that it was about me. I heard the laughter getting closer and closer. There was more than one person laughing. It sounded like a group of people. All of a sudden I had a horrifying realization. The laughing people were heading straight for the pool. The pool that I was swimming around naked in, or more accurately doing my best to hide in now.

My heart was racing. I didn’t know what to do. If I climbed out of the pool they were sure to see me. If I stayed in the pool they were sure to see me. I was stuck, and I knew that there was no way I was going to get out of it. I had yet again placed myself in a position to be mortified in front of a group of people.

“Why do I keep doing this to myself?” I moaned out loud.

Chapter 9

The laughter got louder. I knew they hadn’t heard what I said, but I was fairly certain that they would be laughing at me soon enough. Even worse, what was I thinking? I was naked in a public place in the dark! What if these people were dangerous? What if something terrible happened to me, all because I was being stubborn? This was it. I was officially going to lose my mind.

I started to pull myself out of the pool, thinking at least I would have the chance to run. I looked over my shoulder for the source of the voices only a few feet away.

“Would you like this?” a smooth voice with a hint of an accent asked. I looked up slowly to find a man standing beside the pool, holding a towel. He had his eyes averted from me, as if he was being respectful of my nudity.

“Uh…” I stared up at him.

“It’s okay,” he said firmly. “I won’t look. But they will.” He tilted his head toward the college boys that were preparing to enter the pool area.

I didn’t have time to wonder who he was or why he was there. I didn’t have time to worry about whether I could trust him. He had a towel and that made him a saviour to me at the moment.

I climbed out of the pool just as the young men were surging into the area. I felt my heart skip a beat as I reached for the towel. As if he could see the terror in my eyes, he swept the towel around my naked, dripping body. I was startled by the strange embrace and took a step back, clutching tightly to my towel.

“Thank you,” I muttered as I hurried toward the pile of my clothing.

The boys were jumping into the pool and hollering. All they saw was a woman in a towel, no different than they’d likely seen at any other pool.

“I’m so embarrassed,” I added. “I never do this,” I said as I gathered my clothes.

He held the gate to the pool open for me.

“Nothing wrong with a little adventure in your life,” he said warmly as I stepped past him.

He was still holding the gate when I stole a glance up at him. I stared into his deep blue eyes and for just a moment I wondered.

“Actually, I think it makes you quite brave,” he murmured.

Maybe if I hadn’t been naked, in a borrowed or perhaps stolen towel
—
maybe if I hadn’t been terrified of the walk to the parking lot where I could discreetly pull on my clothes in my car
—
maybe I would have asked him for his name. Or for his telephone number. Or for the reason why my heart felt like it had crawled up into my throat permanently.

Instead, I scampered off to the parking lot without even considering that he might want his towel back. Once I had wriggled back into my clothing, I sat back in the driver’s seat of my car and laughed. I laughed so loudly that I was sure someone would hear me. It had been hard, it had been risky, but I had pulled off skinny-dipping; and I had to admit to myself that I might even want to try it again some day when I could be sure that there wasn’t a group of college kids heading in my direction.

Even after I arrived at my apartment, had a shower, and was settled down in front of my computer, my mind was still on the man by the pool. It was dark and I had only glanced at him. I couldn’t really remember what he looked like, aside from those deep blue eyes. I did, however, recall the sound of his voice. It was a memory I hoped I would hold on to.

It might have been a strange thing to do, but now I had an experience I never would have had if I
hadn’t
done it. I felt brave, strong, and ready to conquer the world. These little steps were making a big difference in my confidence level. I had logged on to my blog and was ready to make a new entry, when I noticed there was a new comment from Blue on my last post. I checked it.

So what adventure did you go on tonight?

I stared at the question for a long time. I recalled the way the man at the pool had spoken to me. I knew it couldn’t be possible
—
it simply couldn’t be. Yet, it made me dizzy with excitement to think that it just might be. In fact I began smiling from ear to ear as I typed back to him.

Wouldn’t you like to know?

I added a winking emoticon. I wondered if that was getting a little too flirty and then laughed at myself for worrying about it. I began typing out my experience of the evening, though I left out the part about the college kids and the mysterious man with the towel. The towel that was now a souvenir of my great adventure.

I detailed what it felt like to be truly free in the pool, and how I had almost chickened out, but was so glad that I hadn’t. I mentioned having a magical experience that I would treasure for a long time to come. I didn’t go into more detail than that. I was trying to be careful about disguising my identity.

As I was about to close down my computer I noticed I had a few e-mails. I checked them, to find that somehow my new group of friends had discovered that I was SWF.

I hope you don’t mind that we advertised that you’re part of our group on our website and we added picture of our adventures from tonight! We’re hoping to generate more interest
—thanks to your blog!

I stared with disbelief at the e-mail from Lea and then brought up the website that she was referring to.

Chapter 10

On the website, they’d posted pictures of all of us standing beside the pool
—
luckily fully clothed.

I shot back an e-mail to Lea explaining that I wanted my blog to be anonymous and that I’d appreciate it if they didn’t mention it on their website. I knew it was too late. I knew that all of that information was now flooding cyberspace. I sighed and closed my computer. I had a feeling that technology was going to get me into trouble; it sure seemed as if it had.

I decided to pay Kat a visit and see if she could do anything to help. When I knocked on the door I heard loud music blaring inside. I knocked louder. The music shut off suddenly and Kat opened the door. She was breathless and looked stressed.

“What?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry,” the words tumbled out. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Yes
—
obviously,” Kat said with some annoyance. “I was right in the middle of attacking an invader and now I’m going to have to start all over again.”

“An invader?” I asked with surprise. “Is he still in there? Do you want me to call the police?”

“No, don’t do that,” Kat said quickly. She grabbed me by the hand and tugged me into the apartment. “It’s a game,” she explained as she pointed to her large flat-screen television, which seemed to be depicting the interior of a real house.

“Kat? Kat are you coming back to the game?” a voice called out.

I took a slight step back. “Someone else is here?” I asked.

“No.” She laughed. “Well, not really,” she corrected herself. She picked up a headset with a microphone attached. “Sorry, Boss, I have company,” she said before turning the microphone off.

“Oh, playing with friends?” I asked. Somehow I had missed the entire video game trend.

“He’s not really a friend,” Kat said with a smug smile. “We’re pretty much in love.”

“That’s wonderful.” I smiled. “Is he local or
—
”

“We’ve never actually met,” Kat explained and then held up a finger. “Don’t you dare judge me, Samantha,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with long-distance relationships.”

“Uh, I wasn’t judging,” I said quickly.

But I was. I mean, a relationship with someone you had never met? Didn’t make sense to me.

“Listen, it’s much more common than you think,” she explained. “Haven’t you ever noticed how much easier it is to express yourself through e-mail? Or how about that guy I’ve seen chatting you up on your blog?”

“Chatting me up?” I asked. “What?”

“Blue.” Kat smiled. “Don’t act like you don’t know exactly who he is. I can see how fast you reply to his comments.”