[soulac]

The best of my recollection from a minute of my life four months ago.

I could immediately tell it was their first time at a nude beach. It was a hot day early in the season, the lake was still too cold to swim. It was a weekday so most were retirees and beach regulars. They were neither. They were three college students (or so I guessed; it is a college town), and the school year was just finishing.

It was late afternoon and I was leaving the beach. The lake is rather square with rounded edges, and it has significant vegetation along the shoreline. As I came around corner, I was pleasantly surprised to see three young women stripped bare and walking toward me. They were single file with about a meter or two between them. They had left their clothes on a bench and were walking parallel to the shoreline headed towards an opening in the reeds to access the lake. It was a 20-30 meter stroll from the bench where they left their modesty to the water. I heard one of them say “Thanks” to another beach goer. Was it for beach etiquette advice, or encouragement to first-timers? I don’t know, I was just happy with my timing.

The first of the three women had rich, light brown skin and long, beautifully thin braids. She must have had 50 braids, each one ending far down her back. She held her head high even though it was easy to see she was not quite as confident as she wanted to appear. She oozed an aura of one trying to remain calm, but I could feel the uncertainty of someone walking around stark naked in public for the first time in her life. She was the first of the three heading to the water, almost as if she wanted to get covered by the water as quickly as possible, to have something, anything, to cover her exposure and her embarrassment.

Second was the pale brunette. As we passed each other, she had a nervous, giggly smile on her face. I saw her right hand above her left breast as if trying to keep her own heartbeat steady, and that little gesture said it all. “I can't believe I'm walking around naked in public.” What she actually said to her friends was, “my heart is beating so fast.” They didn’t respond. They didn’t need to. They were going through the same experience.

And then there was the redhead in the baseball cap. She was blushing like only a redhead can. From her cheeks to her ears, and even her chest, were flushed a deep red from sheer nerves and excitement. She had a wry smile on her face as if she were saying to herself, “I can’t believe I’m making my privates public.”

As each of these three friends walked utterly bare before the world, they seemed to be balancing between the pleasure of checking off a bucket list item and the chagrin of their most embarrassing moment of their life. I’m sure the wave of adrenaline was intense. I knew from the way their nipples were standing at attention. The air was not cool enough to cause that reaction. It was the rush of excitement. Each young lady had rock-hard erect nipples in her own way. The first had full C-cup breasts, medium sized areolas and nipples. The brunette had a solid B-cup with small areolas and large pebble-sized nipples. Hers seemed the hardest and firmest. The redhead was a small B-cup or A-cup. She had areolas that seemed conical on her breasts and her nipples didn’t seem to stand apart from her areolas like her friends’ nipples did. but were simply the tip of the cone.

The pale brunette and redhead both had neatly trimmed bushes, no landing strips just bikini lines. The redhead’s carpet was naturally darker than her curtains. The dark skinned girl had a fuller bush, not wild and unruly, just fuller and from thigh to thigh.

Were they embarrassed or just nervous? That, I don’t really know. I am certain they were nervous. Their social dynamics may give some clues. They were not walking side-by-side but single file to the water. That is to say in that moment they weren’t socializing, or prioritizing their friendship. Mentally they were so deep in personally experiencing the social and emotional vulnerability of public nudity that they were as good as alone. Yes, the brunette was talking, that may have been verbal processing of her own experience. Her friends weren’t talking. They were focused on their own exposure. Some people talk and others get quiet when they are nervous. If they were embarrassed, each one had her mortification heightened by realizing they were college-aged, while everyone else was a generation or two older. They weren't among their peers, but rather people their parents' age. And there was also that extra layer of embarrassment of seeing others in the nude as well. Seeing others naked isn’t usual. It can feel awkward and a bit embarrassing.

As I walked past, I couldn’t stop and turn around to watch them. Social protocol obliged me to keep walking. Yet once I got to the exit I couldn’t help but circle back to another entrance to the lake. As I re-entered, not more than two or three minutes later, I saw the first two returning from the water to their clothes strewn on the bench. That gave me a view of their bare bottoms. The darker skinned girl had slightly wider hips, but very nicely proportional. The brunette was not particularly pert or firm, just girl-next-door normal.

The water was clearly too cold for them. Only the redhead actually braved the cold water up to her neck. The other two, feeling that all eyes were on their bare behinds as they stood with their feet in the water, must have decided to return to their clothes. Our dark-skinned friend was the first to retreat, immediately reaching for her clothes and slipping on a t-shirt and panties while still having her feet wet. It was a nude beach and she had played by the rules, but she had no intention of standing around in her birthday suit any longer than she had to.

As for the brunette, in the rush of the moment, she sat right down on the bench with her bare bottom. Towel etiquette thrown to the wind. As a nude newbie, she probably didn't know she should have put a towel down first. But even if she did, the swirl of adrenaline and slight chaos, she just went ahead and sat directly down. Sitting there with her hands in her lap and just her breasts exposed, she talked casually with her dark-skinned friend who was dressing.

Finally, the redhead. She emerged from the lake with water glistening off her bare body. She was still blushing beet red, knowing she was the center of attention as she walked alone to her friends just as naked as the day she was born.

But here's the thing. These three had obviously come to the lake unprepared. They came late in the day, there were no umbrellas, no beach chairs, and only one or two towels between them, was it just a spur of the moment lark, or had they been walking the trails in the forest nearby and stumbled upon the beach and decided to go for it? In truth I’ll never know. I didn’t see how long the second two continued their experience of public nudity. I didn’t see how long the three stayed on the beach. All I had was two walk-by views of three young ladies challenging themselves and each other with a hyperintense “I can’t believe I’m making my privates public” experience.