Kristen Chapter #13: Young Again

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Published on 23.02.06 11:31 Age: 18 yrs

Letters : 10827 Words : 1966

By: Nemo

Kristen wakes up for her first day at work

Kristen blinked and rubbed her eyes. She looked blearily at the buzzing alarm clock. Four o’clock. The dead of night—way too early to be getting up. She hit the button to turn the alarm off and groggily sat up in the bed.

She tried to collect her thoughts. She had gone to bed early just so she could get up at this hour. Why did she want to get up in the middle of the night?

It was hard to keep her eyes open. She had slept fitfully, troubled by disturbing dreams. She remembered only one of the dreams: She was flying, soaring high above the city, swooping down over familiar places, popping into and out of the clouds. She was laughing, giddy with a sense of freedom and power. Then, at the top of a particularly exhilarating arc, she suddenly realized that she couldn’t fly. Of course she couldn’t fly. With that realization, she instantly plummeted toward the ground.

She had awakened from that dream in a cold sweat, and found it difficult to get back to sleep afterwards. The night’s other dreams were murkier. She couldn’t remember any details. In a way that was difficult to pin down, the dreams all blurred together in her mind, as if they were all the same dream, only seen from several different angles.

She looked at the clock again. Why did she need to get up at four o’clock? Slowly, things started to come together. Today was Monday. She was supposed to go to the beach today. She had to be there by six o’clock. Two hours. She remembered the long twisting road to the beach. Only two hours. She really didn’t have much time to spare. With a groan, she climbed out of bed.

She left the light off. For now, she could see well enough in the dark. She opened the bedroom door and trudged wearily down the hall to the bathroom.

She closed her eyes, and flipped on the bathroom light switch. She winced. Too bright. Even through closed eyelids, the room seemed uncomfortably bright. She leaned against the vanity for a moment, opening her eyes a little from time to time, trying to grow accustomed to the light.

She felt frustrated, and disgusted with herself—it was Monday morning already. She had wasted the weekend. She had needed some quiet time to try to think things through and get into the proper frame of mind for this morning, but there was always something happening—her parents’ party, her trip with the Robinsons—and the entire weekend had slipped away. No time for quiet contemplation. Now she didn’t know what kind of frame of mind she was in.

She opened her eyes and squinted at her face in the mirror above the sink. Her eyelids were drooping. That was it—she was in a sleepy frame of mind. Very sleepy. “Another hour of sleep would feel so good right now,” she thought. But she had to be at the beach by six o’clock. No time to spare.

She set the shower temperature considerably colder than she was accustomed to, hoping that it would help her to wake up. It worked. The high-pitched shriek she made when the icy water hit her body might have helped wake her parents, too.

Kristen decided to grit her teeth and tough it out under the cold shower. Tiny goose bumps were snapping to attention all over her body. Her nipples quickly grew taut and erect. The thermal shock seemed to work wonders at clearing the cobwebs from her drowsy mind, too.

This was the day. This was it. She had looked forward to this day; she had dreaded it. Now it was here, and she didn’t know how she felt. Wheels were in motion. She was going to drive out to Black Knife Beach. There was no doubt about it. She was going to walk down the steep trail. She was going to wear the “uniform.” She was going to do what she had to do. The decisions had been made. The machinery was turning. There was nothing to feel about it. She was really just on for the ride.

She washed herself very quickly. She didn’t want to waste time under this frigid shower. She gasped from the cold when she ducked her hair into the cold spray. She washed and rinsed her hair hurriedly. When she was finished, she grabbed a towel and dried herself briskly, trying to use the friction of the towel to restore circulation to her frigid flesh.

The hot air from the hair dryer never felt better. She played it briefly over every part of her shivering body. She sighed contentedly as the hair dryer blew away the sting of the cold. Now she was awake.

In the corner of her eye, she noticed her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Turning off the hair dryer, she stepped closer to the mirror and studied the reflection. The pinkish glow her mother had noticed the morning before was still visible, but it had dulled a bit.

She had often stood here and made a frank appraisal of her own naked body. Often she had tried to judge whether her thighs looked fat, whether her knees were too bony, whether her toes were ugly. Often she had turned and studied her profile, trying to judge whether her breasts were too small, whether her butt was too big, or whether her stomach was still lean and flat.

Today, this routine inspection felt different. This was no longer a private ritual between Kristen and the bathroom mirror. Today, every flaw and blemish she saw here would be on full display to everyone at the beach. She couldn’t disguise her deficiencies with a judicious choice of wardrobe. Today, and for the rest of the summer, this was it. Her summer wardrobe would consist primarily of her birthday suit.

She studied her reflection with a critical eye. Tiny freckles and moles that she had never expected anyone to see—things that she had never even noticed before—now seemed large and ugly. There was a small scar on her right knee from a childhood injury. She had never given it a moment’s thought when she wore a skirt, or shorts, or a swimsuit. But now it seemed hideous. She studied the light brown hair between her legs. Her eyes darted anxiously between the platinum blonde hair on her head to the darker hair below. It was too late to do anything about it now.

She picked up a brush from the vanity. Awkwardly, she tried to tease her pubic hair, to make it seem a bit more fluffy. She turned slowly, examining her body from every angle she could. Finally, satisfied that she had done all she could to make herself presentable, she turned out the bathroom light, opened the door, and walked down the dark hall back to her bedroom.

She closed the door before she turned on the bedroom light. She had set out her clothes for today before going to bed last night—a pair of tan shorts and a white tank top. She had set out her underwear, too. Kristen studied the clothes neatly arranged on the top of the dresser. Did she really need to wear underwear today? It would be very obvious if she didn’t wear a bra. Maybe that would be a problem when she went apartment hunting after work today. Maybe not. She held up the shorts. The material was lightweight. The light-colored material might show more than she intended for anyone to see. For a moment she considered switching to a darker-colored pair of shorts, then she shook her head and laughed.

“I may be a full-blooded nudist,” she thought with a wry smile, “but I must be about a fifty percent exhibitionist.” Just two days ago the thought of wearing a bikini instead of underwear had left her almost crippled with embarrassment. Now she was trying to find a way to go entirely without underwear. “Slow and easy, Kristen,” she whispered to herself. “Slow and easy.” She pulled on the panties and reached for the bra.

As she fastened the bra, she realized that this was the first time she had worn clothes—real clothes, not just a towel—since Saturday morning, when she had undressed in the locker room at the beach. Almost two days without clothes. She thought it must have made her body more sensitive—she was acutely aware of the feel of the material against her skin. She had never really felt her clothes before. It was a strange sensation.

She put on the shorts and the tank top. With her fingers, she fixed the place where the tank top had mussed her hair. Her shoes were still in the trunk of her car. She opened a drawer and pulled out a clean pair of socks, which she stuffed into a pocket of her shorts.

She checked her outfit in the dresser mirror, turning from side to side to get a more complete picture. She gave a little tug to one leg of the shorts, to straighten out a wrinkle. When she was satisfied, she noticed a dull sense of nervous apprehension starting to grow in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh, jeez,” she thought. “I’ve been naked for two days. Now I get embarrassed when I put clothes on.” With a sigh, she turned out the light and opened the bedroom door.

She walked down the stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise. At the foot of the stairs, she noticed there was a light on in the kitchen. Someone was up. Kristen tiptoed silently into the kitchen. Her mother sat at the table, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers.

“Mom!” Kristen said in a whisper. “Did I wake you up?”

“No,” her mother whispered back. “I’ve been up for a while. I wanted to be sure you got a good breakfast.”

Kristen smiled. “You’re always looking out for me,” she said.

Her mother rose and stepped over to the stove. “It’s my job,” she whispered. “I’m your mother. It’s going to be a long day at work. You need your nutrition.” She cracked an egg over a hot skillet.

Kristen sat at the table and helped herself to a glass of orange juice while her mother prepared the rest of her breakfast.

“Oh, Kristen,” her mother said with a strange smile, “I have something I want to show you.”

Kristen looked up, curious. “What is it?” she said.

Her mother pulled back one lapel of her bathrobe, revealing her naked breast. It was considerably larger than Kristen’s, and it looked surprisingly firm. “Your father and I slept in the nude last night, for the first time in—well, I don’t know how many years.”

Kristen sat in stunned silence.

Her mother pulled the lapel closed again. She put both hands on the back of one of the chairs at the table, and leaned over, bringing her face closer to Kristen’s. She smiled broadly. “I feel young again,” she whispered, “and I owe it all to you.”

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