Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. ï>¿Katie Finds A New Park To Play In! By LuckyDave1066 Can she sneak across it unseen? If so, would she do it nude? There had been many changes in Katie's life in the year since her graduation from college; new job, new apartment, new career direction to name a few. The job was one she hadn't really expected to be in, a position as a junior staffer in the local office of one of her state's Senators. She had always pictured herself in a private sector career, but after a couple of short term jobs, one doing clerical work in a local manufacturer's office and another as a bank teller, she jumped at the chance the understaffed office provided her to have some freedom to, at least on some tasks, make decisions on her own. The pay was nothing to get excited about, but she had always been able to get by without a lot of money. One way Katie stretched her paycheck was doing without a car, selling the ancient Corolla that had carried her through her college years. Between using public transportation and walking whenever she could, she saved a boatload of money compared with some of her co-workers, who complained about car payments as big as her monthly rent bill. Of course, it wasn't hard to spend more than she did on rent. When she and her roommates graduated and all ended up living in different cities, rather than look for replacements for her roommates she gave up the large two-bedroom apartment they had shared in favor of a tiny but affordable studio within walking distance to work. By the middle of April the weather was getting to be reliably comfortable, making brown-bagging her lunch one of the more pleasant ways for Katie to hold down her spending. Walking three blocks to eat at a nice park about midway between her office and her apartment was a nice way to break up her workday. The park was like two different parks, with about half of the space mostly open and the rest mostly wooded with a few gravel walkways. The open side had a lot of amenities, including a baseball field complete with bleachers and dugouts, basketball, handball, and tennis courts, a small amphitheater with a concrete stage and a half dozen rows of seating. The open area had tall hedges along most of the two sides to block traffic noise from the side streets, but only a low wrought-iron fence covered in ivy at the far end. Katie had been coming to the park almost every day for a month before she took a stroll through the wooded side. The day was fairly hot, so walking along the shady paths was a nice alternative to her usual habit of basking in the sun for a few minutes when she was done with her lunch. Other than having a small creek running through it, the heavily wooded area reminded her of the park near her old apartment where she'd first dabbled in public nudity. Being alone for a few minutes on the dark, quiet walkway brought back vivid memories of nights when she went out for a walk wearing only a coat and sometimes ended up without even that much on! As much as she had enjoyed those adventures, Katie didn't feel tempted to repeat any of her handful of daring visits to the other park. "Those outings were...interesting, and definitely exciting, but probably not the kind of behavior the Senator would tolerate his staff indulging in," she thought, just a little sad that she needed to act like an adult, even though she didn't always feel like one yet. Comparing having to leave the secluded wooded park behind to get back to work on time to her reckless behavior at the old park seemed to sum up how her life had changed. Katie began working a few minutes of walking in the wooded half of the park into her routine on warm days. The similarities between her new park and the one near her old apartment inevitably made her think about how easy it would be to do some of the things she used to do in the old one. "It might be exciting, but there's just no way," she thought, "I've got to think about my career now." Being a responsible adult might have been why Katie felt she couldn't do anything as reckless as stripping naked and walking around her new park, but after a few visits to the new wooded park, she realized she had another reason not to repeat her previous daring conduct. Risky as it would be, such behavior would just be copying something she'd already done, not pushing herself to do something new. If all she was doing was repeating herself, the ratio of risk to reward seemed unfavorable. Her sudden awareness that a large part of what was keeping her from doing something risky was that it was actually not risky enough to be worthwhile shook her up. She stopped visiting the woodlot, afraid she might come up with some new idea about what to do there, one capable of tempting her into real trouble. Katie's decision to avoid going to the woodlot worked; she stopped reminiscing about her adventures at her old park and went back to peacefully having her lunch and reading a book at the open side of her new park. She also enjoyed people-watching, and the park was always at its busiest during her lunchtime; the hour or two after her workday ended also usually had a lot of activity, particularly the baseball field and various other courts. The only time she ever noticed the park sparsely populated was when she walked by on her way to work. As she finished eating her lunch one Tuesday afternoon, sitting at the stepped seating of the amphitheater, Katie gave up entirely on the latest novel she'd checked out of the library getting any more interesting. She considered cutting her lunch short and going back to work early but decided to stay put for a while and look around at her fellow park users. It happened to be a slow day for people-watching, at least from where Katie was seated. Any disappointment at her backup source of entertainment also failing her was short-lived, as she caught on to something she'd never noticed before. Despite the end of the park where she was sitting feeling fairly wide open, with its many amenities spread out, she saw for the first time that there were at least some areas where most of the park was screened from view by either dugouts, bleachers, a building with restrooms, the high walls at the handball courts, a few small storage sheds, or the back wall of the stage right in front of her! Katie actually felt herself blush, amazed that her first thought upon noticing how some areas of the park were all but invisible to others was how it would feel to be naked right here in the middle of the park! She was immediately worried that given some of her previous exploits, she might be tempted to act on this urge, but said to herself, "Settle down, girl. Yes, it might technically be possible, but there's just no way at all I could try something like that, not anymore." She went back to work still a little shaken by the direction her thoughts had taken, but was eventually calmed down by her belief that going naked in public was something from her past, not her present. On her walk home that day she noticed a few gaps in the row of hedges along the sidewalk; she told herself that the openings were a good thing, since they just made it even more impossible to consider going through the park in the nude. "More impossible," she laughed nervously, "isn't plain old impossible already enough to keep me out of trouble?" For a few days, Katie was able to concentrate on her latest library book, but after a week of being dormant, the idea of somehow crossing the open side of the park in the nude but unseen resurfaced. She tried to banish the idea completely, telling herself, "it just isn't the kind of thing I can do anymore. I've got a good job, a lease, and a load of student loans to consider." The concept didn't go away entirely, but she was able to ignore it, mostly. When the idea of streaking through the park refused to completely go away, Katie came up with a way to live with it. She decided to treat it like some sort of thought experiment or puzzle, to see if it was really possible for someone to do it without being seen. Even with any nudity purely theoretical, she needed to tell herself, "Of course, the streaker would need to be somebody else, definitely not me!" Since there was no chance of this crazy idea ever really happening, Katie was able to comfortably study the locations of each bit of potential cover built into the park and how they all lined up with each other. Every day, once she had finished eating her lunch, she tried out parts of potential routes, walking along them while checking sightlines. Starting at the edge of the woods, she checked to see if there was any way to make it all the way through the open park without being spotted. Some starting points and their routes were quickly ruled out, with way too much exposure. Other routes started out well but ended up running out of cover well short of reaching the goal: the wrought iron fence at the far end of the park. When she had all but given up, Katie thought of a new approach; she tried starting routes at the fence, working her way back through the park to the woods. Some options in the new direction were just as problematic, making Katie shudder as she pictured how likely it would be for someone trying to pull this off to be seen! But a few possible routes were promising, letting her theoretical streaker get well beyond halfway to the shelter of the woods unseen. Around the time of her breakthrough of checking the various routes in multiple directions, Katie began calling her daring fictional streaker Sally. Giving her a name somehow made Katie even more careful, as if Sally was a real person whose fate was in Katie's hands. Methodically checking sightlines all the way along the route, Katie finally worked out a path that would keep Sally safely hidden through the entire park, other than at a few relatively small gaps. "If she actually existed, I guess Sally would just have to be willing to take a few risks," Katie thought as she stood in one of the few small areas where exposure couldn't be avoided, nervous on behalf of her fictional stand-in. Having worked out the almost safe route through the park, Katie was a little glum that there was no flesh and blood Sally to follow through and actually try her plan to travel the length of the park while naked. "Going from one end of the park to the other, completely naked, and completely unseen! It would be so cool!" she thought, sad that it wouldn't ever actually be attempted. She knew it was ridiculous to be so proud of her route, not to mention her creation of a whole fictional person to follow it, but couldn't help herself. She had put a lot of time and thought into this puzzle, and hated to think it had all been pointless. Several days after she had reluctantly put her little project aside, Katie had an idea for how to make use of her route, "I could do it, the whole damned route, just not while naked!" She imagined going to the park late some night and pretending to do what she'd imagined Sally doing, but doing it with her clothes on. She could test her route, finding out if it would really work without having to risk getting fired or arrested! A couple of days after deciding to try her streaking route without actually streaking, Katie took advantage of the casual Friday policy in her office, wearing jeans, a long black "Boyfriend shirt" and running shoes instead of her usual more formal attire. She had chosen the shirt to make her clothed streak feel as much like a real one as possible; it was long enough to cover almost as much as a really short skirt, allowing her to ditch her jeans, bra, and panties once all her co-workers had left for the night! She stowed her excess clothing into a tote bag and put it away in her desk drawer. Her planning had also included leaving her purse at home, reasoning, "who goes streaking with a purse?" She waited for the post-sunset sky to darken before leaving her office, wearing just a shirt and carrying only her phone. Walking the two blocks from her office to the park, Katie became slightly nervous, more because she crossed paths with a handful of people on the sidewalk while wearing so little clothing than because of what she had planned for her visit to the park. When she was about to enter the park it occurred to her for the first time that she could get in trouble just for being in the park at all after the posted closing time of sunset, but didn't think that sort of offense would be likely to cause her serious problems at her workplace. Katie set out on her route toward the woods at the opposite end of the park, moving at a brisk walking pace instead of the typical streaker's jogging or running speed; it was just too dark to safely move much faster, with the hedges at either side of the park blocking almost all of the light from the streetlights outside the park. The combination of the hedges and the streetlights did provide her with a couple of exciting moments. A little less than halfway through her route she suddenly heard a pair of voices; the time it took her to realize they were coming from the other side of the hedges was the scariest part of her evening. Another 20 feet along her way, she stepped into a pool of light where a gap in the upper part of the hedges let the cold beam of the nearest streetlight pour into the park. She realized that if she'd been as naked as she'd imagined Sally to be, she'd have been thoroughly visible, and hustled on to the darkness beyond. Katie reached the woods at the far end of the park without ever really being in danger of being seen. Though making the trip unobserved was technically her goal, Katie couldn't help feeling somehow let down at never having even been close to being spotted. She continued through the wooded part of the park in the direction of her apartment. As she strolled through the dark, quiet woods, she thought about taking her shirt off for a while to see if she could have at least a bit of excitement, but knew that with no chance at all of being spotted while nude, any thrill would be minimal. Her shirt stayed on. The park she was in now looked quite similar to the one where she'd learned to like being naked in a somewhat risky public setting, but the new park lacked the pedestrians and cars passing by on the adjacent sidewalks and streets which made being naked in the old park so thrilling. The thick hedges at the sides of the park and almost total lack of lighting inside it made for too safe a trip, but Katie thought she would have felt at least some of the excitement missing from the jaunt she had just done if she had done it naked, the way she imagined her fictional counterpart doing it. "It wouldn't have made a bit of difference as far as being seen by anyone," she thought, "but might have made the trip feel more interesting." The following Monday, Katie brought her lunch to the park as usual. She picked up her book to read while eating and was annoyed to see the folded-up piece of paper she had used as a bookmark; on it was a detailed diagram showing her carefully developed route, designed to make it from one end of the park to the other sight unseen. She couldn't believe how much effort she had put into planning the route without ever checking to see if the setting even needed a complicated route to accomplish the goal. What really made her angry was not knowing if her route would have worked if the park hadn't been pitch black and abandoned. She was sure she had worked it all out and had practically been able to see Sally making her imaginary way safely past every potential hazard, but without testing her route in real life she couldn't really know if it would work as well as she expected. "So if it bugs you that much, try it out," she said to herself, challenging her long-dormant daring side, "Do it yourself, it's the only way you'll know." "I already did." "Not in the dead of night, you'd need to do it sometime when it's light enough to see things, or more importantly, to risk possibly being seen! And not clothed, either; it's bound to be easier without the stress being naked would add." Katie looked around furtively. She shuddered as she saw at least thirty people scattered around the park, and those were just the ones she could see! "That's crazy! I can't do that!" she told the reckless side of herself. "If your precious route is so well worked out, it shouldn't make any difference, but if you're not confident in your own work, do it at twilight or dawn." "I guess it might be possible then, but I'd have to scout it out first, and even then I'm not sure..." Her adventurous self challenged her one more time, "Isn't being unsure where the fun is?" Katie ended her internal debate. She unfolded the piece of paper and made a note about the spot where the streetlight and a gap in the hedges lit up part of her route. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Katie hung around work late enough to assess how busy the park tended to be around dusk. None of her three days of surveillance were encouraging, with guys playing basketball well beyond sunset, not leaving until the last bit of daylight had faded away. She had often seen people playing tennis or handball in the morning, even on days when she came in extra early, but dragged herself out of bed before dawn on Thursday to be at the park in time to see if anyone was around at first light. They were, a dozen or so people practicing Tai Chi together and two men playing handball. She just kept on walking to work, stopping by at the Starbucks in her building's lobby for some much-needed caffeine. Katie wasn't very hopeful of finding any time when the sun was up but the park was sufficiently empty for her to test out her sneaky route through the park, but forced herself to get up Saturday morning, making it to the park right at sunrise. Finding even more people in the park than she'd seen on any of the weekday mornings she'd checked, she turned around and headed back to her apartment, and crawled back into bed. Despite having no faith that Sunday morning would be any more promising, she set her alarm for 5:00 AM to be able to get to the park by 5:30 or so, when twilight would begin. Grumbling to herself all the way to what she expected to be the usual busy park, Katie was already looking forward to going back to bed. She reached the park just about the same time as a man and woman who immediately began playing tennis. Ten minutes later two other men showed up and started playing handball. By the time the sun's rays made it to the park only one other person had arrived, a man who began kicking a soccer ball at the wall of one of the handball courts. She waited another 10 or 15 minutes, but nobody else showed up! "A total of five other people in the entire park, all focused on their own activity, this could actually work," she thought nervously. Katie briefly kicked herself for not being prepared to act on her plan right then and there, but remembered how doubtful she'd been less than an hour earlier about conditions at the park being so favorable. Fully if somewhat haphazardly dressed, with her wallet and phone tucked into the back pockets of her shorts, and wearing sandals instead of running shoes, she definitely wasn't prepared to go streaking. Beyond her oufit being less than ideal, the truth was she wasn't any more prepared mentally or emotionally; this trip was supposed to just be about scouting conditions at the park, she definitely hadn't planned on getting naked during this visit. She still was debating whether or not to do it at all, so she was nowhere near ready to strip down and run around the park! She headed home, but had no luck in going back to sleep... Katie was more distracted during the following work week than she could ever remember being. She was absolutely sure about wanting to try traveling the full length of the park without being spotted, but went back and forth on the question of whether or not she should wear any clothing during her journey. She knew making the trip in the nude was just plain crazy, but also remembered the heightened senses that had come along with being naked when she had done this kind of thing before. She'd never felt more energized than those times she'd been on the verge of being seen by some random passerby while naked. Every sound had felt like it was amplified, and she even felt like her eyesight was sharper; that kind of extra awareness of what was happening around her would be pretty handy! By Friday, Katie was worn out from spending half of her workweek thinking about what to wear, or what not to, during her upcoming visit to the park. Sunday morning seemed to be coming too soon. She slept in Saturday morning, then took a bus to the mall. Other than her lunch, she made only one purchase, another Boyfriend shirt, identical to the one she already owned. After all her deliberations about whether or not to do a true, nude streak, she had come up with an adjustment to her plan. Instead of beginning her trip through the park at the fenced end, she would start at the wooded end, just because it was closer to her apartment. Since she was going to be headed to the fenced end and still hadn't made up her mind whether she'd still be wearing any clothing when she got there, she had decided to stash something to wear near the fence. She walked to the park well after dark Saturday night and found the hiding place for her package she was looking for; she tucked the extra-long shirt, still in its bag from the store, into a gap in the ground below the fence. "There," Katie whispered to herself, "If I'm crazy enough to be naked when I get to the fence tomorrow morning, at least I'll be able to cover up from that point on!" Katie walked home, her preparations for visiting the park complete, other than the decision about whether or not she'd go naked. She was well aware of which way was sensible, or at least less risky. She also knew which way would be more exciting. By the time she was close to falling asleep she was leaning towards going bare, in part because that was how she had first begun trying to figure out if her idea of traveling the length of the park unseen would be possible. The other reason she favored going naked was a feeling that if someone were to catch a glimpse of her, they might not pay much attention if she was clothed; she was certain anyone that spotted a shapely, nearly 6-foot tall woman running through the park wearing nothing but shoes couldn't help but focus on her. Her change of hair color a few months ago from her natural pale blonde to a rich strawberry blonde left her with a mismatch between the hair on her head and her pubes that nobody but her had been lucky enough to see thus far. Since it was at least possible that might change in the next twelve hours, she did away with the discrepancy, shaving every bit of blonde hair off before turning in. Once she'd silenced her alarm at 5:00 AM Sunday, Katie grumbled, "If I ever do something this crazy again, I should at least do it at a civilized hour," but she shuddered at the thought of how many more people would be using the park a few hours later. She managed a smile as she thought about how quickly she was able to get ready for her outing; she put on a pair of socks, running shoes, and her Boyfriend shirt, and was done, other than threading her spare apartment key onto a rubber band and sliding it onto her left arm. During her two block walk to the park, Katie was calmer than she had expected she would be at this point. Her calm wavered slightly as she noticed a light on inside two of the houses she passed. Just the idea that other people were also up and about already made her shiver briefly, but she kept walking, finding a path leading into the woods and stepping into the park. Two minutes later she was at the connection between the woods and the rest of the park. Though she'd decided the night before to make this trip while naked, now that it was time to strip down she didn't find getting out of her shirt easy. Unbuttoning from top to bottom, every button after the third one seemed harder than the previous one to unfasten. By the time she reached the last button, her pulse was racing and her breathing was shallow. "I knew all along this part wouldn't be easy," she reminded herself, "but I can do this, I know I can!" She slipped the long, black shirt off her shoulders, then down her arms. She caught the shirt as it fell completely off, folding it neatly and setting it on a shrub near the opening. She took a deep breath and left the shelter of the woods, heading briskly for the first spot along her route where she'd be out of sight. Katie knew her closest shelter was the tall chain-link fence surrounding the two tennis courts. The fence had plastic strips filling in the fence fabric, though there were a few small pieces missing here and there. She knew you couldn't see much through the gaps unless you put your eye right up against one, so that minor worry wasn't what made her do what she did next. Almost halfway to the safe zone outside of the tennis courts, she abruptly turned and sprinted back to the woods! "What the hell, girl," she whispered, "You've had this planned out for ages, and now you're chickening out?" "NO! Nothing has changed, I just panicked for a minute," she answered herself, "I'm going to do it!" Katie set out on her nude jaunt again. This time she made it all the way to the tennis courts, but froze there for a minute before retreating to the woods once again. "You're being silly," she scolded herself, "just get on with it!" After two false starts, she thought more than a pep talk would be needed to get her to go through with her plan, eventually deciding the one sure way to prevent another retreat was to eliminate any option of turning back. She picked up her shirt and walked further into the wooded area. When she reached her destination she gave herself one last chance to back out, saying, "There's no turning back if I do this, time to decide." Her determination to go through with her plan led her to irrevocably eliminate her option to back out. She dropped her shirt into the creek, watching it float quickly downstream and out of sight! "Ohhh man, I really did it, it's either go through with my plan, going all the way to the fence at the far end of the park, naked until I get to my hidden shirt, or get my ass home before my neighbors are up and about and see me this way!" Since dashing the length of the park totally nude seemed to now be the least embarrassing course of action, Katie took off for the tennis courts again, this time continuing past both courts and turning right toward the center of the park. Katie paused behind a small storage shed before committing to cross to the other side of the park. Listening for any sign that she wasn't alone in the park, she had trouble at first making out what she was hearing, finally realizing it was the sound of a handball game as well as the sound of one person slowly dribbling a basketball. She was still a long way from the basketball courts, so she didn't worry too much about that problem, not yet. A peek around the edge of the shed confirmed that the handball game was happening on the opposite side of the wall from where she planned on crossing to the opposite side of the park, also not a problem. The scariest problem Katie was currently facing was one she hadn't heard coming; a man and a woman, rackets in hand, walking toward the gate into the tennis court. As soon as Katie saw the couple walking her way she ducked further from the edge of the shed. She waited behind the shelter provided by the shed as the couple opened the gate just a few feet away and walked onto the court. Katie could hear their conversation as they walked past her on the other side of the fence, just about as loud as her heartbeat. She wanted nothing more than to get away from there but remembered that the gate had no infill, just plain chain link fencing, so she waited for them to begin playing. When she heard the tennis players getting started on actually playing, Katie dashed to the empty handball court and ducked behind the low side wall. She peeked over the wall, looking back to the tennis courts to see if there was any sign she'd been spotted; the game sounded like it was continuing, so she stood up to continue on her way to the space beyond the amphitheater's backdrop. Before moving on she listened to the handball players on the other side of the high wall. When she had conceived of this trip it hadn't occurred to her that she might be so close to other park users while naked! "It would be so easy," she whispered to herself, "four or five steps and they'd be able to see me!" Katie fought off the sudden urge to flash the handball players and moved on to the space beyond the back wall of the amphitheater, where she paused to settle herself down a bit. "Where the hell did that come from," she wondered, still breathing hard, "when the whole concept here is seeing if I can do this without being seen?" She knew herself well enough to know how excited the risk of being caught made her, but to just willingly let someone only a few feet away see her in the nude? This was something new! After a minute or two, she calmed down enough to have some fun before moving on. She stepped up on the stage and tried to summon up some of the moves learned in her long-ago ballet classes, mostly forgotten in the fifteen years since her last class. Even without having an audience, being on the stage led her to imagine how real performers must feel performing nude scenes with an actual audience gawking at them, surprised to feel a little thrill as she thought about what it would be like! Climbing down from the stage, Katie noticed for the first time that the direct rays of the sun were now reaching the ground of the park wherever no structure was blocking them. The areas with no shadows were danger zones for her, threatening to light up her pale white body and her head of strawberry blonde hair like she was on fire. She strained to hear what was going on at the two basketball courts, which she needed to get around or through to get near her hidden shirt. She could now hear more players' voices and several balls being dribbled. There were tall fences at both ends of the courts, making the spaces beyond the baselines safe enough and bleachers along one side of each court. Luckily for Katie, both sets of bleachers were placed in the space between the two courts, leaving her a sort of alley between the back of the bleachers where she could safely make it back to the center path of the park. Trying to make as little noise as possible, Katie walked quickly to the alley between the basketball courts and turned into it. It seemed like a dream to be able to hear games going on at either side of her but still be unseen; her dream turned scary just before she reached the end of the bleachers. She heard a man complaining, "Really dude? You just got here, like five minutes ago." Another voice answered, apologetic but insisting he needed to step out. Katie was thankful she wasn't running when she saw one of the players trotting out past the end of the bleachers, immediately turning right, apparently on his way to the restrooms. "Oh. My. God, if he'd even glanced to his left," Katie thought, "he can't have been more than six feet away from me! As scary as her latest near-miss was, she took advantage of how quickly he ran off to the men's room to get herself to the opposite side of the same building, not to hide in the women's room, but to get closer to the fence and her backup shirt. The toilet room building was only ten feet from the fence, but a little bit beyond where she'd stashed the shirt. She waited for the basketball player to get back to his game, then set out for her shirt. Katie was close enough to see a little of the bag her shirt was in, but had to back off when a car pulled up just outside the fence, practically on top of her bag. Hearing four car doors slam shut with not enough time to get to the far side of the toilet room building, she took refuge in the only shelter nearby, a small concession stand directly in line with the park entrance. Hugging the back wall of the small building, she could do nothing but hope the people entering the park didn't look her way on their way to whatever it was they were here to do. The next few minutes were other-worldly for Katie; she watched two couples carrying tennis rackets pass by her, less than eight feet away, never looking to where she was helplessly trying to blend in with the shed and not breathe too loudly! As worried as the new arrivals made Katie, she didn't even notice at first that with her back to the building, she could see most of the park, including the two men at the handball court, playing a long point, each with their back to her, no more than 60 feet away! "If either of them misses a ball and turns to track it down..." she thought, "they'll get to see me after all!" Once she was sure the new tennis players were far enough away that they wouldn't be able to hear her, Katie raced to retrieve her shirt before even more people arrived. As she approached her hidden bag she felt a fair amount of pride about having reached her goal of traveling the complete length of the park unseen, naked all the way! She was also pleased with herself for being wise enough to place backup clothing there at the end of her trip; knowing she had something to wear at the far end of the park, combined with her somewhat rash disposal of her original shirt had given her a huge incentive to go all the way! As she reached for the bag, Katie noticed that the low-contrast dawn light that had covered the park when she arrived had by now been replaced with clear, direct sunlight, making getting into the only bit of clothing available to her as soon as possible absolutely critical. She remembered the state she'd left the shirt in when she hid the bag, fully buttoned and with the sleeves tied together! She heard another couple of cars arriving on the other side of the fence, and hoped she would be screened by the ivy-covered fence long enough to make the shirt wearable; she would definitely have to wait until later to celebrate her accomplishment! Katie's triumphant feeling at making it all the way through the park in the nude but unseen vanished as soon as she picked up the bag; it was obviously empty, weighing just about nothing. Her disbelief that this could be happening was strong enough that she untied the flaps and looked inside, as if she had just misjudged the weight and her shirt might actually be there inside after all. She wanted to scream, but knew better, and stayed hunched down next to the fence, hoping the latest arrivals might not notice the dazed naked woman cowering a dozen feet from the gate. Katie was grateful to see the four men entering the park were focused on the handball courts further into the park, giving her a moment to think about what to do next. She looked and listened for any more new threats as she considered her options, none of which were very promising. "I could go back the way I came, but with all of the tennis and handball courts now in use my chances of making it back to the woods without being seen seem poor at best." Or, I could get out of the park at this end, and hope to encounter fewer people out on the sidewalk than I might here in the park..." "Or, I could give up right from the start on not being seen at all and just sprint straight from here to the woods, hoping to not be in anybody's sight long enough for them to be able to recognize me." As hard as she had worked to keep herself from being spotted, Katie was surprised at how tempted she was to take the one option all but certain to give a bunch of strangers at least a brief look at her naked body. She imagined how it would feel to pass close to some of them, even needing to slow down or stop briefly if her way was blocked! Exciting as this option seemed, she was a little too worried about how the people she'd be flashing might react to the sight of her running by in the nude to actually dare choose it. Katie thought her odds of getting away unseen were best if she left the park at this end and made her way home via the sidewalk between the park and the side street. She was dismayed that despite walking along that route almost every day to and from work, she couldn't remember enough detail about the neighborhood around the park to feel confident about what or who she'd be likely to cross paths with. While thinking about the sidewalk option, she thought for the first time about her route home beyond the park, "Oh, shit, how could I not have thought of it before...I have to get all the way back to my apartment like this!" Knowing her route beyond the park was even longer than her route through the park itself, she decided to stick with the devil she knew as far as she could, trying to work her way back inside the park to the woods without being seen. "At least I know it's possible," she whispered to herself as she stood up and tried to psych herself up to head for the alley between the two basketball courts. She took off, leaving the fence behind, and raced toward the space between the courts, just in time to make three young men coming off one of the courts very glad that they'd agreed to get up so early. She stopped so abruptly she nearly fell over. The three men, walking, had no problem stopping to enjoy their unexpected treat! Katie felt her face flush as she and her three admirers faced off, about eight feet apart. Without intending to, the men had pretty well blocked her intended path. The sudden appearance of a tall, hot, naked young woman, right on their way to get a drink of water, left them all speechless. She was less tongue-tied, blurting out, "Oh, Hell no! I need to get the fuck out of here!" She acted on her instinct to get out of the park as quickly as she possibly could, turning and sprinting back to the opening in the fence and turning right the second she reached the sidewalk beyond. As low as the fence was and as tall as she was, the three lucky men got to enjoy the sight of her boobs bouncing as she ran for another ten seconds, until she finally made it to the shelter provided by the hedges along the side street. Once she was sure she couldn't be seen by anyone inside the park, Katie paused to catch her breath and study as much of her route home as she could see. The first thing she noticed was the complete lack of cars parked on this part of the street, meaning she had exactly zero places to hide if anyone came along while she was still next to the park. "Better not hang around here long or I'll be seen again for sure," she told herself, though she was beginning to think she might as well accept the fact that her being seen by at least a few other people before she made it home was no longer in her control, if it ever actually had been once she tossed her shirt into the creek; it might not happen, but it also might. Katie had jogged past almost half of the park without being spotted as far as she could tell when a faint whirring noise caught her attention, slowly but steadily growing louder. A look over her shoulder cleared up the mystery -- a pair of bicyclists were closing in on her from behind, serious road bikers, judging by their bikes and full lycra jerseys and shorts. Serious bikers they may have been, but Katie could tell they weren't riding hard right now, as they were taking their own sweet time passing her. When they finally pulled up alongside Katie, she was able to tell one rider was male and one female. Riding at Katie's jogging pace, the man looked her over and said, "Looking good, very cool!" In the context of this strange encounter, Katie felt it would be rude not to answer at all, so she nodded her head and replied, "Thanks, I guess. I didn't exactly plan to be doing this, at least not this way." The man pulled forward and the woman pulled up alongside Katie. Grinning at the naked jogger, she winked and said, "Looking VERY good, sexy as fuck, girl!" A little flustered by the tone the very fit woman riding next to her was setting, Katie still managed a reply, saying, "Thanks! You too!" Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a car approaching, still some distance off but likely to be close enough to get a good look at Katie very soon. The male cyclist motioned for his companion to pull up close to him, while he was adjusting his speed to place himself between Katie and the car. Both cyclists kept adjusting their position relative to Katie's to block the car's occupants from being able to see her, as much as they could. "Thanks a lot," she shouted to the pair of cyclists once the car was far enough away to not be a concern. "Glad to help," the man replied, "but you're on your own again now, this is our turn." The two riders turned left onto a side street, immediately picking up their pace. Katie watched the unsettling but helpful cyclists disappear down their new path, distracted long enough to miss noticing for a while another person out for a run, a man on the same sidewalk as her, heading her way. She was still in the no-shelter zone next to the park, so there was nowhere for her to hide. Slowing down would only delay their meeting slightly and would actually prolong her exposure, and she was feeling too drained by all her recent encounters to try to sprint past him. She just kept jogging, watching for the moment they were close enough for him to see what she wasn't wearing. "There it is," Katie thought with some satisfaction as she saw the man briefly break his stride and begin to focus intently on the naked jogger in his path. In another twenty seconds, Katie and the latest lucky member of her audience were only a few yards apart; she broke the ice, trying to be as casual about this decidedly bizarre situation she'd put herself in, saying, "Hey!" She noticed her fellow runner was slowing down, and began to do the same herself! "Uh, good morning," the man replied, now practically stopped. "So far, yeah, it's been a pretty nice one," she answered as they crossed paths at a slow walking pace. "Do you have far to go?" the man asked, sounding concerned. "Nah, I should be home pretty soon," "Okay then, have a nice day," was all the man could think to say, then added, "See you around sometime!" "Maybe," she said, already picking up her pace again, thinking to herself, "but probably not like this!" By the time her encounter with the runner had ended, Katie was past the end of the park. She was relieved to see that now that she had reached the residential part of the street there were some cars parked along the street and assorted landscaping to hide behind if she needed to. She thought she might be needing somewhere to hide very soon as she noticed a man turn from a cross street onto her sidewalk, but soon saw that he was going in the same direction as she was. Katie was forced to slow down to avoid catching up to the man, who was moving at a very slow walking pace while taking three small dogs for a walk. After slowing to a leisurely stroll, she was almost caught again by a woman leaving her house and heading for one of the cars parked on the street a few houses ahead of where she stood. Katie managed to sneak between two other parked cars in time to avoid being seen, barely. She decided to accept yet another bystander seeing her pass by in the nude rather than risk the open-ended possibilities inherent in continuing to dawdle behind the dog walker, including the risk that he might just double back and get a good look at her anyway! Intending to give the dog walker as limited a view of her body for as short a time as possible, Katie picked up speed, planning on blowing past him before he had a chance to turn to see who was coming up behind him. Her plan might have worked if his two toy poodles and a Shih Tzu hadn't been such erratic walkers; all three dogs wandered into her path just as she was about to pass them. She slid to a halt in time to avoid being tripped up by the cluster of leashes, but her right leg was tangled up in at least two of the leashes almost immediately as the poodles scampered around her. Instead of allowing the owner of the pesky dogs a brief look at her backside, Katie was now standing face to face with him and trapped. "What do you think you're doing, you could have hurt my babies," the man shouted. Katie was sure getting into a shouting match with an angry little man about who was to blame for her getting tied up by his annoying little dogs would never have been a good idea, and was an even worse one considering her current complete lack of clothing. She tried to calm the man down while she worked on getting her leg free, quietly saying, "I'm really sorry, I thought I had room to pass you without getting tangled. I'll be out of your hair as soon as I can get my foot free." Her calm only seemed to anger him more, as he yelled at her again, "And why aren't you wearing any clothes? I remember when this was a good neighborhood, where you could be safe going for a walk without having to worry about some naked slut crashing into you!" Her foot finally freed, Katie gritted her teeth and calmly said, "Once again, I am very sorry to have disturbed you, have a good day," instead of what she felt like saying, which she hadn't finalized but definitely would have included some combination of, "fuck off," "stupid little dogs," and "pathetic little man." She took off jogging again, leaving the man sputtering on his own. With no complications over the last couple of blocks, Katie was relieved to finally turn onto her own street. She paused to see if there was any activity at the houses of the handful of neighbors she knew but was relieved to see none. Katie dashed to the subdivided house her apartment was in, scanning her surroundings as she went to be sure there were still no neighbors watching this last bit of her exposure. She bounded up the porch steps and dashed to the door to the second-floor apartments. Sweating and shivering, she unlocked the door and stepped inside, looking back over her shoulder one more time at the quiet street. Safely indoors for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, she sat on the stairs and quivered for a minute, her legs shaking when she started up the stairs. Though she was alone in the hall, in this setting she somehow felt her nudity more intensely than she had during her various interactions with strangers in the last half-hour! She had lost count of how many people had seen her naked this morning, but as she put her key in the lock on her apartment door, she smiled, taking some comfort in the fact that at least the people who saw her were all strangers; as embarrassing as being seen naked had been, and being honest with herself, as exciting, even arousing as parts of her journey had been, at least she didn't need to worry about anyone she knew being aware of what she'd been up to! After turning the key but before opening her door, a chill went down Katie's spine as she heard the creaking sound of a door opening behind her, followed by the familiar gravelly voice of Mrs. Lefkin, her elderly neighbor across the hall asking, "Oh, good morning, Katie, did you have yourself a naughty Saturday night?" Katie knew very little about Mrs. Lefkin; for all she knew her first name was actually 'Mrs.' Two things she did know about her: Mrs. Lefkin knew everyone on the block, and she liked nothing better than to trade gossip.