One

Marion was washing a few plates in the kitchen when she caught sight of her friend and neighbour Linda in the window opposite. Taking care not to raise her hand too high Marion gave her a cheery wave. A mere five yards away across the garden Linda waved back and then shook her hand to indicate drinking a cup of tea. Marion nodded vigorously and held up her hand with fingers and thumbs splayed to indicate five minutes. She finished her washing up and peeled off her rubber gloves as she retreated carefully towards the hall her whole being was flooded by a familiar feeling of excitement and elation. With a just a hint of sadness Marion dressed, picked up her keys and made her way across the driveway to the house next door. Despite her warm jacket she shivered in the brisk December breeze that carried a hint of rain.

“Come in Marion” Linda shouted “the door’s open”

Marion pushed open the dark blue door and stepped into the warm hallway, her heels clattered on the Victorian tiles sending echoes resonating through the house. Linda was waiting for her in the kitchen, two steaming cups already on the table. Marion took off her thick green coat and draped it on the back of a chair. She glanced out of the window towards her own identical kitchen and smiled, her security measures were perfect. There was no way that Linda could have seen her.

“Aren’t you cold in that top?” asked Linda

“No, why?” replied Marion, in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner.

“Well it is the middle of winter. When I saw you in the kitchen I thought you were naked” said Linda laughing at her own joke. Marion laughed along; after all that was the reason she had put the top on. Not for the first time Marion considered telling her friend her secret, but wiser council held sway.

“As if” she replied scornfully.

Later when she had returned home Marion looked at herself in the full length mirror hanging in her hallway. She had to admit that Linda had a point. Her strapless top truly belonged to a bright sunlit summer’s day. And of course Marion would have appeared to be naked if all you could see through a window partially obscured by a large chopping board were her bare shoulders. “An easy mistake to make” said Marion to herself as she pulled the top over her head. Her large breasts fell loose. She examined them critically, pulling them to one side before letting them fall. She squeezed them together and watched them bounce, once, twice, three times before they halted. She sighed; there had been a time when they would have stopped on the count of one. Marion hung her top next to her coat, quickly removed the rest of her clothes and went and made herself some lunch.

As she ate her cheese and pickle sandwich Marion contemplated her journey over the last few months. Her adventure began, as most adventures do, by chance. One hot summer’s night when her husband Brian was away on business and her daughter Isla had chained herself to the railings of the nearby power station as one of her many protests about the state of the planet, Marion had found herself unable to sleep. The night was hot and humid without a breath of air and, in a fit of rebellion, which for Marion was as daring as her daughter’s, she removed her nightdress and lay naked under the sheets. Even so she was still unable to sleep, but now it was not the heat of the night that was keeping her awake, but the thrill of being nude, the feeling of the sheets against her bare skin. It was in this moment that she was pulled, as if by magnetism, to the window. Marion peeked through the window, should anyone see her it would be just her face, but would they suspect her to be naked behind the curtains? She smiled a secret smile as looked down into her garden; the shadows of the trees were deep and dark under the starry sky. And then an impulse took her, three times she went to the bedroom door and three times common sense prevailed and she drew back. The call of the wild, however, would not go away and on the fourth occasion the chains broke and for the first time in her life Marion walked naked though her home. She revelled in the freedom, the recklessness of the deed, the knowledge that she alone knew what she had done. And then there she was standing at the door to the garden.

“I’ll just open the door” she promised herself “I won’t go out. I won’t” She knew it was a lie and, once she had opened the door, and felt the air against her skin, all caution was gone. Lost in the moment she was out in the heavy summer scented air, feeling the cool grass against her bare feet. The rustle of an animal in the bushes brought Marion suddenly to her senses; she quickly crouched scanning the windows of the neighbouring houses, as a soldier looks for snipers. She was safe; the curtained windows looked down blindly. Stepping quickly to the left Marion blocked her neighbours’ view of her bare body with a large Vibernum. Slowly she worked her way back to the door to the house using the cover of several large shrubs. Marion hardly slept all that night, her mind racing with the thrill of her adventure balanced with the fear of having been seen.

The next day was torture, Marion waited for a neighbour to call or make some casual remark about her nocturnal venture. When her husband returned that evening she seriously considered confiding in him before someone told of her shameful display. She held her tongue and, as time passed Marion knew she had got away with it. “Never again” she told herself, but she knew she was lying. A week later on a hot afternoon she was walking in the garden, checking the sightlines, working out a path to follow where she couldn’t be seen. Three weeks later she was back again walking barefoot, bareback, bare everything through the bushes while her husband Brain slumbered sweetly on lost in a land of dreams. From there it was but a small step to living nude during the day, listening for the warning note from the engine of Brian’s car. A siren to send her scurrying for her clothes.