Erin drove as quickly as she could, but the evening rush hour traffic slowed her way home from work. The package lay on the passenger seat next to her, and she couldn't wait to get home and open it.
The package had arrived at her office early in the afternoon, in plain brown anonymously marked cardboard, as she had known it would. When she had placed the order for it, she deliberately had chosen to have it arrive at work, so her husband wouldn't see it. But she didn't want anyone she worked with to know what it was, either. That would have been too embarrassing. So, before placing the order, she confirmed it would be shipped and labeled in a way that gave no hint of its contents.
The package contained a bikini. She had ordered it off the Internet.
She had placed the order four days ago, after an hour or more of searching online for the right thing. She wanted to buy a bikini, because her husband didn't want her to wear bikinis, and all she owned were one-piece suits.
Erin's husband, Martin, was successful, driven, and handsome. Six years ago, when she had been only 22 and just out of college, he had swept her off her feet, and they'd married only nine months after meeting. Martin was, in most ways, a good husband: attentive, loving, and supportive of her career. In time, though, Erin learned that Martin also was jealous, controlling, and short-tempered. The one thing that always stirred him to anger was knowing or suspecting that another man was looking at his wife. As a result, Martin always was nagging and badgering her about what she was wearing. He wanted her always to look good for him, but didn't want any other man to see her.
Erin loved her husband but chafed under his controlling, jealous nature. She worked hard to look good for him, going to the gym several times a week and watching her diet to keep her figure firm and lean. After so much effort, she wanted a chance to show off the results. But Martin wouldn't allow it. He insisted she cover herself to keep other men from looking at her.
What Martin didn't know -- what she never had been able to tell him -- was that Erin had an exhibitionist streak. In front of her husband, and in front of most people, Erin acted demure, even a little shy. But, secretly, Erin liked being looked at. It wasn't a fetish. It wasn't a disorder. It wasn't something she thought about or desired all the time. But she enjoyed the glances men (and sometimes women) gave her, and she liked the idea of showing off the slim, sexy figure she'd worked hard to get.
Six years into marriage, with no k**s yet, and with a body she had toned and sculpted through ceaseless hours doing crunches, lifting dumbbells, and counting minutes on the treadmill, Erin wanted to show off the fruits of her labor -- her hot figure. But her husband's jealousy stood in the way. When they were together, he gave her few opportunities to indulge her secret desire to show herself off.
One day, about two weeks before her drive home, Erin got an idea in her head. The idea was to buy a bikini without Martin knowing about it, and to take a day off without his knowing it, and to go to the beach in the bikini, by herself. It would be an especially skimpy bikini, the kind Martin never would approve. She would enjoy the sensation of exposing herself, in front of others, and her husband would never know.
Four days earlier, Erin had gone online and looked for the right bikini. She was at work, but on her personal laptop, so no one she knew would know what she was doing. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. She wanted it to be skimpy, to show off her body, but it couldn't be scandalously or outrageously skimpy. She had limits. She wasn't sure what sort of style or cut she wanted. She scrolled through many bikini websites.
Erin couldn't find the right thing for a long time. So she punched the words "perfect bikini" into her Web browser's search bar. The search engine didn't respond right away. For a second, the whole screen went dark, and then it popped back up. She didn't see a list of search results, as she had expected. Instead, she saw a web page with a photo of a bikini on a model that looked a lot like her: fair skin, a few freckles, lean but shapely, and with reddish brown hair. The bottoms were tied on the side, and the coverage in front and back was not great but not excessively revealing, either. The top featured triangles of fabric over the breasts and a string between them. The fabric was a rich, deep green, which she thought would make an attractive contrast with her hair and skin color. She ordered it.
Now it was on the car seat next to her.
Erin wanted, badly, to try it on as soon as possible. But that might be difficult if her husband got home before she did. Rush hour traffic being what it was, he might. Martin worked as a stockbroker at an office not far from home. He got into the office early to follow the stock exchanges, and he got off work early too, after they closed. Usually he spent the afternoon playing golf with friends at the club, but sometimes he came home early. Erin knew Martin would object to her wearing the bikini and would be upset at her having bought it.
Knowing that Martin would object to the bikini, but that she had bought it anyway, made Erin feel a little guilty. She valued honesty, and she had never been unfaithful to her husband. She had no intention, now, of being unfaithful. But she did want to break free, just a little, from the chains he put on her. The idea of showing off her body had taken hold of her, and she couldn't let it go.
It had started in May, summer approaching and the days getting longer and warmer. Beach season was approaching. One day, while shopping, Erin had walked by the storefront of a swimsuit boutique, and through the window several mannequins were posed wearing the season's most fashionable new bikini styles. A big sign saying "Time To Get Ready For Summer" was posted above the mannequins on the window. This season's bikini styles seemed unusually skimpy. Revealing, Brazilian style bottoms and abbreviated triangle tops appeared to be favored. Erin thought about the beach party her husband's office would have in July. Some of the wives were sure to wear bikinis, as they had the year before. Before last's year's party, while shopping with Martin for something to wear, Erin had held up a bikini in front of her husband. It was conservative by the standards of what she was looking at through the window.
"Martin, what do you think of this?" she had asked.
His brow knitted in response. "That shows off a lot, babe, don't you think? That's the kind of thing Emily likes to wear. You want to dress like her?"
Emily was the brokerage office's receptionist. She was younger than Erin, only 22, single, and flirty. She had gone to the beach party the previous summer in a bikini that had started a lot of tongues wagging.
"You don't think my figure is as good as Emily's?" Erin asked him.
"Your figure is every bit as good as Emily's," he said. "Better. But that's not the point. Charlie Engster's tongue was practically falling out of his mouth at that party looking at her until his wife forced him to put it back in. I don't want to see him drooling over my wife. I just think a one-piece is more appropriate for my wife at an office party."
So Erin had complied. She had worn a modestly cut floral-design one-piece suit to the party. She had only worn it to get into the water, briefly. Almost as soon as she had come out, when some other women were mingling at the party in their skimpy tops and bottoms, Martin had come over and handed her cover-up to her.
She could see his point -- there were protocols to follow in an office setting. But Martin kept up the pressure to be modest when it was just the two of them, even when they had gone to Hawaii together. He seemed constantly on the lookout for any man that might look at her. Erin appreciated his concern for her, but she also felt stifled by him.
At last Erin pulled her car onto her street, and then into the driveway of her house. She opened the garage door with her remote. Martin's BWM was in the garage, meaning, as she had guessed, that he had come home early. She grabbed the little manila package on the seat next to her and shoved it in her purse. It fit, barely. It was a lot of packaging for a few strips of fabric, she thought.
"Hi honey, I'm home," she called as she entered the door from the garage to the house.
Martin's voice sounded from another room.
"Hey, baby, had a good day?"
She heard quick, heavy steps approach. Martin wasn't especially big, but he had a loud, plodding walk. The met in the kitchen and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as he headed toward the refrigerator.
"It was fine," she said. "How about yours?"
"Can't complain. Er, what've we got to drink in here?" he asked. "I'm thirsty and the game's about to start."
Evening baseball was a favorite ritual for Martin. Erin had no interest in the sport but was good at feigning it when she wanted to snuggle next to him on the living room sofa.
"I bought a six pack of your favorite last night," she said.
"You're the best, baby!" he said and started to head back to the living room. He checked himself and appraised her. "You're looking sexy today. That skirt's a little shorter than usual, isn't it?" he asked. "I hope I don't have to worry about your coworkers hitting on you!"
He said it playfully but there was an edge of jealousy in his voice, too. Erin found it difficult fully to enjoy his compliments when so often there was a warning in them. Then she heard the TV pop on and the sound of ballpark cheering wafting through the house. She'd lost her husband to baseball for the rest of the night.
Later that night Erin and Martin lay in bed together. Martin wore boxer shorts and Erin wore panties and a chemise. She was pressed against him and her hand moved in circles over his chest. Martin held his phone in front of him. Erin could tell he was looking at the scores of sporting events from earlier in the day.
Erin had been thinking a lot about the bikini, still in its package hidden under a stack of panties in her drawer. With Martin around she hadn't yet dared to bring it out and look at it. That would have to wait until the next day. But she kept thinking about it -- the thin strips of green fabric, and nothing else, covering her body, just barely. The thought of it aroused her. She d****d a thigh over Martin's and moved it up and down his leg. Then she pushed herself against him so only the thin satin of her panties lay between her skin and the skin of Martin's leg.
She pressed harder still, and moved her leg up and down his, but Martin didn't seem interested. She thought more about the bikini in the drawer, unworn, but ready to adorn her body as soon as she got the chance to put it on. She thought about what the fabric would feel like against her skin. A gentle tingle started between her legs and seemed to move up her body. She wanted Martin to respond. But he seemed determined to read the day's baseball statistics on his phone. Erin was feeling horny but ignored.
Martin suddenly put his phone down on the night stand to his side.
"I'm out, baby," he said. "Have to get up early. Hansen wants to meet before the markets open."
He looked at his pretty wife, the realization dawning faintly in eyes that Erin would be doing something the next day as well.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked her.
"I'm planning to take the day off," she said. "Think I'll do some shopping."
"Sounds good, babe," he said. He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, turned the other way, and turned out the night light. "Don't max out the credit card."
As though she had ever done that, Erin thought. Erin was a careful spender, and the little bikini hidden in the drawer on the other side of the room was about as much an indulgence as she allowed herself.
"You have nothing to fear," she said. She turned out the light next to her, and then lay on her back staring at the ceiling in the dark. She almost imagined she could see the small green bikini in the dark against the ceiling. It made her smile, and a few minutes later she fell asleep.
In the morning, she awoke. Martin already had risen, and the bedcovers on his side lay thrown back in disarray. At once the image of the bikini popped back into her head. It was time to get up and get ready for her adventure. She threw back her own covers and swung her slim legs over the side of the bed. They were bare under the loose-fitting t-shirt and thread-bare, white cotton panties she had worn to bed.
The air in the bedroom was cool. She saw herself reflected in a full-length mirror on the way out of the bedroom: disheveled morning hair unevenly framing her face, white panties peeking out from under the brief t shirt, her hard nipples tracing little circles under the shirt fabric in the cool air.
The house was silent, so she guessed Martin, who was a noisy riser, already had left. Fortunately, he'd left some coffee brewed for her, and she followed the rich scent of it to the kitchen.
Martin had left a note on the kitchen counter. It said, "Have a great day, sweetie. I've got a meeting at 5 and won't be home until 6. XXX."
The robust flavor of the coffee and the promise of the day woke her up quickly. She had things to do, so after downing two cups and finishing a bowl of oat meal, she left the kitchen. It was time to get ready.
Back in the bedroom a few minutes later, Erin resisted the urge to take out the bikini right away and instead marched to the bathroom. She showered, giving herself enough time thoroughly to shave her legs and underarms. With the hot water running over her she then spread her legs wide, leaned over, pulled her butt cheeks open with one hand, reached down with the razor, and shaved everything off between her legs. She thought about leaving a well-trimmed tuft or strip of hair over her pubic mound, but since she hadn't seen the bikini yet and wasn't sure how much it covered, she shaved that off too. She rinsed and turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower, completely bare. She hadn't been bare for a long time.
The moment had come to see what she'd bought, and then to put it on.
She walked naked to her dresser and pulled out the package. It was well wrapped and taped, so she needed scissors to open it. Finally she cut through the cardboard, and ripped open the clear plastic lining. The bikini was inside, and she laid it on the bedcover, the top immediately above the bottom.
The bikini was a rich, solid green, darker than emerald but with something of an emerald's shine and luster. The fabric reflected the dim bedroom light, giving off a faint glow. It was small, that was obvious -- skimpier than any other bikini she'd ever warn. She would have to try it on to see how small.
She picked up the bottom and put it between her legs.
It tied on both sides. She started with the right side, and as she began tying she could not help but notice how much of her skin on either hip would be covered by nothing more than few millimeters of green string. It had been years since she had worn a bikini bottom that tied on the sides, and she was pleasantly surprised how easily and quickly the tying went.
Once that was done she picked up the top. It was nothing more than two small green lycra triangles and pairs of strings that tied behind her neck and back. She tied it on quickly with the use of the mirror in front of her.
She was done in less than a minute. Then she stood in front of the full-length mirror to appraise the result.
The image in the mirror made her suck in her breath a little. The bikini was smaller than any she had ever worn. The bottom was no more than a few inches across at the widest and stopped low enough that a part of her pubic mound lay exposed above it. The tied-off strings on either side rose no higher than her hip bones. The back was cut in a Brazilian style -- not a thong, but leaving a large section of butt cheek on either side exposed.
The top seemed barely to contain her breasts, and it made them seem larger. A good inch of string separated the triangles over her boobs, leaving a deep expanse of cleavage exposed. The triangles covering each breast were wide enough to avoid indecency, but narrow enough to leave a portion of each breast on either side open to view. Despite the thinness of the fabric, the bikini top seemed to lift her bust firmly and nicely.
Erin was surprised that the bikini had no lining. She didn't remember the description on the website saying it was unlined. But it was. Erin looked very carefully in the mirror to see if anything was revealed inappropriately. She didn't see anything. Her nipples, which were hard at that moment, left a faint circular outline under the fabric, but nothing too noticeable. The bottom was snug against her pussy. It left the skin on either side of her labia exposed, but the labia themselves were hidden and the way the fabric sculpted her pussy created only a faint hint of camel toe.
Erin loved it. Even though she was often critical of her body and reluctant to expose herself on the beach, she loved the way she looked in this bikini. The green of the suit perfectly set off her pale skin and the slight red tint of her brown hair. Her body looked lean but curvy. She knew she'd make an impression, assuming there was an audience at the beach to be impressed. Erin was sure there would be.
The bikini fitting now complete, Erin finished dressing. She found a short, pale blue beach dress cover-up and pulled it over, then she dug up some flip flops in her closet. She went to the closet to grab a beach bag, and pulled a towel out of the hallway closet. Into the bag went her phone, some sun screen, cash, and her driver's license. She grabbed two bottles of water and a couple of energy bars from the kitchen.
She was ready to go to the beach.
As she got in her car and started driving Erin thought about how skimpily she was dressed. A slight, short sun dress and bikini and flip flops: she couldn't remember the last time she wore so little driving down the street.
She felt naughty, as she drove. Her husband would be incensed if he knew what she was doing. Of course, that was part of why she was doing it. She felt a little bit guilty about that, but not too much. After all, she wasn't going to be unfaithful to him. She didn't plan to hook up with anybody, or even to flirt with anyone. She just wanted to show off a little -- a little more than her husband would have been comfortable with. Martin would never know. Surely, there was nothing wrong with that?
Under the little dress, the bikini felt good. Actually, it fit so well she barely could feel it all. Her nipples, which hadn't stopped being hard, poked against the bikini's thin fabric. The bikini bottom nestled comfortably against the bare skin between her legs. She almost felt naked under the cotton sun dress, and she liked the feeling.
The morning rush hour was over, so the traffic wasn't bad, and the drive west to the beach didn't take long. She knew exactly where she wanted to go; she and Martin had been there many times. As she approached she was glad to see the beach parking lot wasn't full, but it wasn't empty either. She smiled. The absence of a weekend crowd meant she was able to find a parking spot easily. At the same time, there were enough cars in the parking lot that she knew there would be other people on the beach to see her in her new bikini.
The car came to a stop. A big sign that said "No Lifeguard on duty" blocked the view immediately in front of her, but on either side of it Erin saw an expanse of pale, tan sand lying between her and the ocean, blue and still under a cloudless, windless sky.
Erin grabbed her bag on the passenger seat, opened the car door, swung her legs off the seat, and got out of the car.
It was a perfect day for going to the beach. It was warm, already, at 11 a.m., but not hot. No clouds threatened to obscure the sun, which perched high in the late morning sky and cast enough warmth to render all but the skimpiest clothing optional.
Erin walked away from the parking lot onto the beach, and then turned right. She had an idea where she wanted to go. The beach widened in that direction, and a large expanse of sand lay between the ocean and low, rocky bluffs.
The beach was neither crowded nor empty. Beachgoers lay or sat individually or in small clusters on the sand. Only a few people were swimming or standing in the water, which was still a bit chilly this early in the summer. The waves were modest and the ocean sparkled under the late morning sun.
As she walked along, Erin couldn't help but feel foolish. She had come to the beach to wear a bikini. It was no big deal, something thousands of women did at this beach every day. But of course, those women weren't married to Martin, and they didn't have to abide his jealousy and controlling nature every day. Still, only she knew that; no one else on the beach knew her, or Martin, and probably no one would notice her in her bikini. But, even so, the possibility that someone might notice her sent a thrill running through her.
After a little while walking on the uneven beach sand, she decided to take her flip flops off. Next came the bigger step. She set her bag on the sand, and in a quick motion reached down to the hem of her cover up and pulled it up, over, above, and off her body. She scrunched it up and stuffed it in the bag before she could second guess her decision.
Erin stood on the beach, clad in nothing more than sunglasses and her brand-new, tiny, green bikini.
"Woah!"
She was startled to hear the exclamation, coming from someone nearby. It was the voice of a young male. Erin wasn't conceited, but she guessed the voice was responding to her. She tried not to react, but she couldn't help but smile. She also wanted to know who her admirer was. She kept her head straight forward, but behind the obscurity of her sunglasses her eyes scanned the beach for the source of the voice. It didn't take long to figure out who it was. About 20 feet away to her left sat two skinny young men; one was looking at her with his mouth open, and he was elbowing the other one, not very subtly. His companion looked up, and when he saw her his jaw dropped open too.
Erin kept walking forward, trying hard not to show she'd noticed the young men admiring her. But she felt a delicious thrill in the obvious enjoyment they got in watching her.
As she walked along the beach in her bikini, threading her way across the beach and around people and blankets and umbrellas, she tried to imagine what she looked like. The bikini was smaller than any she had ever worn before, and she could barely feel it on her as she walked forward. The warmth of the sun, angling higher and hotter in the sky as the morning wore on, made her skin tingle, and for some reason it tingled most on and around her breasts and on her butt.
After walking for a few minutes she found a good spot to sit down. It was a about a hundred feet from the water. A low, chalky bluff rose from the sand about fifty feet behind her. She took a blanket out of the bag and flipped it out and lay it on the sand. She plopped her barely clad bottom on the blanket and pulled the bottle of sunscreen out of the bag and got to work lathering it over her fair skin. Not having lain out in the sun much this season so far, Erin had no summer tan to speak of, and she was ripe for burning without taking protection. She didn't want to have to explain a full body sunburn to her jealous husband later in the day. So, she spread the 50-SPI level sunscreen thickly all over her exposed skin. She took care to work in it in well so it wouldn't leave unsightly white splotches. There wasn't much point in trying to show herself off if the sunscreen left her looking spotty and ridiculous.
When she was satisfied that she'd protected her body sufficiently from the sun she put the bottle away and lay back on her elbows, facing the water. She dug her toes into the fine grain of the pale sand off the edge of the blanket. While trying not to be obvious about it, she appraised her body in the little green bikini.
It was little, all right. And the fabric of it was so thin and light that she barely felt it. Looking down at her chest she saw her nipples pricking prominently and hard against the thin, unlined top, which was molded tight against her breasts. The triangle tops seemed thinner than she remembered them in her bedroom mirror. The lack of lining seemed more obvious than before, as well. A startling expanse of cleavage lay between the thin green strips that covered a part, but not all, of her breasts. Somehow her breasts looked bigger and fuller to her than before, too. She had the odd sense of them straining against the little top, which in its brevity seemed barely sufficient to hold them back. She had the sense that if she were rock side to side the thin strips of green would slip off and reveal her nipples. While the bikini top was not see-through, the fabric was thin enough that she thought she saw a hint of darkness where her quarter-sized areola lay, and if she was correct the edge of her areola were only millimeters from the edge of the green bikini top.
Her eyes moved down her body. Erin was pleased at the tautness and flatness of her belly. The bikini bottom was low -- very low. The side strings lay just below her hip bone, and the scant green triangle in front stretched tight across the front from one hip bone to another, leaving just a trace of a gap between the top edge of the bikini bottom and her skin. It seemed to Erin that the front was smaller than it had been before, but she couldn't figure out why that would be. Still, the top edge of the bikini bottom was so low that if she hadn't shaved down there tufts of pubic hair would be peaking out. She guessed that the top edge of the paper-thin bikini bottom lay no more than half an inch from the top of her clitoral hood. Erin let her legs fall open a little, and she liked the way the fabric of the bottom stretched tightly but comfortably over the skin between her legs. The fabric molded against her closely enough that from her viewpoint she could see a hint of the cleft between her legs. It was noticeable enough to be sexy, but not so noticeable as to be vulgar, she thought. But, as with her top, she was conscious of the lack of lining on the bottom, and the possibility that the thin fabric stretched tightly over her pubic mound would show someone sitting in just the right position a distinct camel toe.
Deciding to ignore her exposure, or maybe enjoying it a little, Erin threw her head back and closed her eyes. The sun on her body felt wonderful. It encased her in a warm, sultry glow. She felt the heat of the sun moving over and under her skin. It seemed to pierce her, and to fill her. The boundary between her skin and the air was fuzzy. Her mind drifted. As she lay there it almost seemed that the skin directly under the fabric of the bikini buzzed with extra warmth, as though the fabric absorbed and concentrated the sun's heat where it touched her skin. Soon the extra warmth became a slight tingle, and then a stronger tingle. The extra warmth seemed to caress and almost pinch her nipples, as though warm fingers were moving back and forth against them. Between her legs the warmth settled into her cleft. She felt a sudden tongue of warmth move up and down between her lips down there.
Erin almost let out a loud gasp, but she came out of her reverie in time to catch it. Or, at least, most of it. Oh, my goodness, she thought. She had never felt anything like that before.
She looked around her. While her eyes had been closed the beach had been filling up around her. To her left sat three young couples sprawled over a few blankets. They were talking among themselves quietly; Erin couldn't make out what they were saying but she caught a hint of an accent that sounded European. A dark-haired woman, maybe a little younger than Erin, was looking at her, smiling faintly. Erin felt embarrassed. How loudly had she gasped? She wondered.
At her feet, 2o feet away and between her and the beach, sat three skinny, young men. She guessed they were college students; one of them wore a tee shirt with the Greek letters of a fraternity house. All wore sunglasses, so she couldn't see their eyes. But one of them was obviously looking at her, and the other two were laughing about something.
To her right sat a middle-age man, by himself, propped up in a beach chair and holding a paperback book in front of him. He was facing toward her rather than toward the ocean, presumably to catch the sun's rays most effectively, but possibly just so he could stare at Erin. It was hard to tell what his eyes were looking at behind the reflective lenses of his sunglasses, but he was making a good show, at least, of reading the book in front of him. Erin guessed he was in his late 40s, but his figure was lean and the muscles of his shoulders and abdomen were well defined. He wore light blue swim trunks that were unusually tight and short.
Erin suddenly was aware that she was holding her legs far apart, giving the college boys quite a view. She hadn't even realized she'd been doing that. She must have done it without noticing while her eyes had been closed and her attention focused on the warmth of the sun. She brought her legs back together, slowly so as not to act as though anything was amiss, but she didn't close them all the way.
Erin turned to her bag, fished through it, and pulled out a paperback book to read. It was a trashy, erotic romance novel. She had started it a few weeks earlier but Martin had made fun of her when he'd caught her reading it in bed, so she hadn't made any progress reading it since then. This seemed like the right occasion for it.
She opened it to the page she'd dog eared the last time she'd read it. The story was brisk and sexy and engaging. But Erin noticed after only a page or two that she couldn't concentrate on it well. She couldn't tell why at first, but then she noticed that sense of warmth between her legs again. She sat up and moved the book to the side and looked down.
Something seemed odd, but at first she couldn't tell what. Then she noticed it. The front part of the bikini bottom seemed even smaller than she remembered it being. The top edge lay even lower than before, just barely lying over and covering the fold of skin over her clit. The triangle seemed narrower, too, which didn't seem possible. Before it had been narrow, but now it seemed almost scandalously so -- no more than two inches across at its widest point. The color of it looked different, too, a paler, almost golden green, with an iridescence she hadn't noticed before. What was odd, as well, was that, although the fabric was certainly narrower, it wasn't bunched up; if anything it was stretched more tightly and molded more closely to her flesh than before. The bikini bottom furrowed noticeably where it molded to the slit of her pussy. Erin felt a slight but noticeable pressure there that she hadn't felt before, as though the fabric was pushing back and out against her labia, doing its best to part them. Erin was mesmerized at the sight and at the feel of it. And as she looked it, she noticed, also, that a slightly darker line of green lay directly over her pussy. She was aroused, and the damp flesh inside her vulva was moistening the thin bikini fabric.
She suddenly was conscious of what she was doing. She looked up and snapped her legs closed. One of the college boys in front of her, the one with the fraternity shirt, was looking at her, his mouth in a stupefied "o." He looked like he'd seen a ghost, or an angel, or something. Out of the right of her glasses she saw the middle aged man. He still was holding his book, and wearing sunglasses, but the position of his head was such it wasn't clear if his eyes were on the book or on her.
For just a moment, Erin felt annoyed. Then the feeling passed.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" she thought to herself. "You wanted to expose yourself, and you wanted to be noticed. Well, mission accomplished. I wanted to be stared at in a bikini, and I am, by a frat k** and a middle-aged guy."
Erin felt a little funny about it, but it was a good kind of funny. This was harmless fun. It didn't mean anything, and it was nice to be admired, even ogled. She hadn't been ogled like this in a long time.
She held her knees together and leaned over to her bag, pulling out a water bottle. She sat up and took a long swig from the bottle. Though she hadn't been at the beach that long the sun and warmth made her thirsty. She tilted the bottle in the air, and some of the water poured out over her lips and splashed onto her chest. She looked down at her chest and noticed a thin pool of water breaking into two rivulets that ran over and soaked the triangles of fabric that barely covered each breast.
The effect of the water was immediate and dramatic. The green fabric, previously thin but opaque, was suddenly and startlingly transparent. The dark skin of each areola was perfectly visible, as were the hard, erect nubs of her nipples. The cold water also gave her goose bumps, and it seemed to perk up her nipples even more. Where the fabric was wet it looked almost like there was no fabric at all.
Erin was nonplussed, but she didn't want to act like it in front of her audience. She kept her head down but looked up through her sunglasses and saw the frat shirt guy elbowing a companion and obviously staring at her. She looked to her right and the middle aged guy had a faint smile on his face. She turned to her left and the young dark-haired European woman was openly smiling at her. She was wearing a bikini as well, though it was black and gold, and not as skimpy as Erin's. Erin looked up and beyond them and noticed that a few other groups of people lay on the beach not far from her as well. In fact, it almost seemed as though a semicircle of people had gathered around her, none closer than about fifteen feet but none farther than forty. Erin had her audience. It was a little thrilling, she had to admit, but it was also a bit disquieting how much more the bikini exposed her than she had expected.
Erin decided that, as much as she liked the idea of exhibiting herself, her front was giving a little too much of her way. So she turned around and decided to read her book while lying on her stomach. That felt better. Her nipples no longer were exposed. The bikini bottom was skimpy, but not scandalously so. She wouldn't be showing anything she didn't want to.
After about ten minutes of being distracted by her exposure and its effect on the people around her, Erin finally settled into reading her book. She decided to take another swig of water, so she raised the front of her body with one hand while she reached for the bottle with the other. As she did so she felt something different on her front. She looked down and saw the bikini top, lying, completely untied, on the blanket under her. In an instant she realized the truth: she was topless.
Erin lowered her chest quickly to the blanket. How had that happened? She was sure she had tied the bikini top securely, so it shouldn't have come off. It seemed odd that it could have happened so quickly, with no effort by her to take it off. She grabbed the ties of the top at her side and reached behind her and tied it back as best she could. As she did so she noticed, looking off to the side, that the middle-aged man had set his book down. He wasn't obviously staring in her direction, but she knew -- she just knew -- that his eyes were on her behind the sunglasses. He held his knees about two feet apart, and his tight, short swim trunks bulged noticeably.
This was getting a bit out of hand, Erin thought to herself. She wanted to show off a little bit, and she wanted to be noticed, but she hadn't expected or intended to show off her bare breasts to anyone.
Oh well, she thought. The deed was done. She was decent again, and if the middle-aged guy had happened to get a peek at her unfettered bosoms, what of it? He'd had his fun, and she'd made his day. She would be more careful from this point forward, but no harm had been done.
Erin had no desire to show off her bare breasts more than she had, so she kept her chest pressed against the blanket as she resumed reading her book. She tried to concentrate on the words on the page instead of worrying about what the people around her had seen of her. Fortunately, she was getting to a good chapter in the book. The heroine, who was under investigation for the murder of her husband, was seducing the detective on the case. Erin turned the page and started reading about how she seduced him -- how she removed her blouse, and unhooked her bra, and pulled his chest down onto hers on the bed.
Soon Erin had forgotten her surroundings. She was caught up in the story. But suddenly she noticed a buzz of warmth between her legs, and she was surprised to find that without having noticed it she had begun grinding her pelvis into the blanket. Suddenly conscious of what she was doing, she stopped, but the warmth between her legs was still there. What was going on? She thought. There was no doubt about it: even as she'd stopped moving, she felt a warm tingle between her legs. It seemed to start at her pussy, but then it moved back toward her ass. Erin suddenly was keenly aware of the feeling of then thin strip of bikini bottom between her ass cheeks.
Wait a minute, she thought. That didn't feel right. She was wearing a bikini, not a thong.
Not wanting to call attention to herself, Erin reached her hand back slowly toward her ass, as though to make a minor adjustment to it. But at first she didn't feel any bottom -- all she felt was her bare ass, warming under the sun. Where was the bottom? Her hand reached back farther until she felt the bottom -- but there was hardly anything left of it. All Erin felt was a thin strip, perhaps no more than an inch wide, disappearing into the crack between her pert, firm, and now very exposed cheeks.
She heard the sound of male laughter behind her, coming from the direction from which the frat boys were seated.
Now keenly aware of how much she was exposing of her ass, Erin immediately turned over and sat up. She hugged her legs to her chest. Her eyes scanned the surroundings beyond her sunglasses.
The beach was much more crowded than before. The three young couples, the young frat guys, and the middle-aged man were still there. But so were at least 30 other people within 50 feet of her. And it sure looked like a lot of them were looking at her. She couldn't be sure, because nearly everyone was wearing sunglasses, but at least 20 people were turned enough toward her that they could watch her if they wanted to.
Erin had never been in a pickle like this before. No matter what position she took, the bikini seemed to expose her. What to do? Erin liked being looked at, but she hadn't intended to show off her breasts or bare butt.
For the moment, sitting up and facing the beach with her arms wrapped around her knees, she seemed to be safe from further inadvertent exposure. Her upraised knees hid her breasts from view, and her crossed ankles obscured the space between her legs.
Erin didn't want to look concerned or distressed so she stared beyond the people around her toward the ocean. It must have been about noon, for the sun was at its zenith, and the blue brilliance of the sky was reflected in the water. It was a beautiful day, a perfect day to be at the beach. Half a mile off shore, a boat sped along, and behind it someone in a parasail rose lazily into the sky. Higher and higher they rose, the tether playing out farther and farther. After following the progress of the boat along the shore for a minute or two, Erin turned her attention from the boat and parasailer to the waves themselves. The air was still and the waves were low and quiet. Near the shore the waves broke and crashed at regular intervals. A little farther out they undulated gently. Farther out still, the waves were imperceptible, and the ocean lay flat and shiny like blue glass.
It occurred to Erin that it had been almost a year since she had swum in the ocean. This early in the season, the water would be cool, even a little chilly. But Erin didn't mind swimming in cool water. It was warm enough now that the thought of cool water on her body was appealing and inviting. The thought of it made her close her eyes, and she imagined the cold splash of the ocean against her skin, the chill, salt water on her breasts and between her legs. Erin took pride in being a good swimmer, and she imagined herself cutting through the waves with long, languid strokes, the little green bikini thin and tight and damp against her body.
Erin got lost in her thoughts until, her drowsiness taking over, her head nodded down. She suddenly felt her head falling. She jerked her head up and opened her eyes. It took her a moment to recover her bearings. She nearly had fallen asleep while sitting up.
She realized, too, that while her eyes had been closed she had changed her position again. Her legs no longer were together; instead, they were spread wide, a hand on top of each knee. Without having been conscious of it, Erin once again had exposed herself to the view of her neighbors.
She looked down, toward the bikini bottom between her legs, and she nearly gasped with surprise. It seemed to have changed color once again. Now it was nearly emerald. And it was even smaller and thinner. The top edge of the bikini bottom was no more than an inch wide, and a hint of the hood over her clitoris now lay unmistakably visible just over it. Even more mortifying was the fact that the right lip of her pussy was peeking out from the side, just a little bit.
There was so little fabric to work with now that it was going to be a challenge to cover everything appropriately. But it wouldn't do to keep her labia on view for the crowd at the beach. Erin opened her legs a little more so it would be easier to reach down and adjust the bottom. She used two hands to adjust it and pulled it just slightly to the right. The fabric covered her right lip, but suddenly her left lip popped out into view. It seemed thicker and puffier than she remembered it. The flesh of the lip was pinker than the pale skin around it. She quickly took the bikini bottom in two hands and pulled the fabric up and out to cover everything. But her actions had the opposite effect. By pulling up on the bottom, she stretched it thinner, and it narrowed and dipped and disappeared completely -- plop! -- between the lips of her vulva. Her legs were splayed wide and the uncovered, vertical slit of her pussy, having fully swallowed and hidden the stretched front of the bikini bottom, was now fully on display to the people on the beach around her.
She heard a gasp from the direction where the frat boys sat. She looked up cautiously and could have sworn the one with the frat shirt was mouthing the words "Thank you, God." The boy next to him was holding a cell phone down at his hip with the camera side directly facing her, and she thought she heard a soft "click." The third one simply stared at her with his mouth open.
Erin looked to her left. Every one of the six Europeans was looking at her, and the woman who had been looking at her before was staring openly at her and pursing her lips and smiling. Erin thought she saw her arch her eyebrows suggestively.
Oh my God, Erin thought. She glanced through her sunglasses to her right and saw the middle-aged man holding his legs as far apart as she was, the bulge in his brief swim trunks even larger than before, and an obvious smirk on his face.
Erin brought her legs together quickly. Since she couldn't seem to fix her bikini correctly it was the only way to stop putting on a show.
By keeping her legs together and her knees up she could obscure the scant green fabric of her bikini bottom and top from view of the people around her. But the effort focused her attention even more keenly on the feel of the brief lycra on her skin. As thin and slight as it was, its fabric teased and tantalized her. Her nipples were hard like diamonds, and she knew, even though it was now hidden behind her legs pressed together, that her pussy was damp and open like the petals of a flower in early morning.
Erin was aroused, and her breaths were quick and shallow. As bizarre and unimaginable as it would have been an hour ago, the little bikini strips against her skin were working her body up to an orgasm. It made no sense at all. But Erin could feel it: the thin strip of the bikini bottom pressed against her pussy was vibrating in a faint but steady rhythm and rising temperature. If it kept going like this, it was going to make her come. She could tell. If she did nothing, it was only minutes away.
Erin couldn't help but think that she must be presenting a spectacle for the people around her, but she didn't want to look at them. Instead she looked beyond the shore, to the rippling, thick band of dark blue water under the paler blue sky. The water looked cool and inviting. It seemed to offer a refuge from the tease of the bikini and the gaze of the people around her.
She couldn't take it anymore. Erin took the sunglasses off her face and tossed them into her bag. She stood up, heedless of whatever the tiny bikini did or didn't show, and she started running toward the water.
Without looking at the people nearby, Erin knew they were looking at her. They were looking at her firm, lean thighs, and at the perky cheeks of her butt exposed by the tiny bottom, and at the sway and bounce of her breasts barely covered by the narrow triangles of the bikini top. At this point, Erin didn't care. She just cared about getting to the water. She ran as fast as she could through the sand, dodging people and blankets until she got to the ocean's edge. She didn't hesitate at the feel of the cold water on her feet. She kept running until the water was shin-high. Then she dove forward.
A frothy wave suddenly crested, hit her, and knocked her back. She tried to stand up but she lost her footing and fell back again. Another wave, bigger than the last one, washed over her. For a few moments she was submerged. Then she broke the surface and stood up. She coughed and spit up some salt water and swept her wet hair back with her hands.
Erin had gotten turned around and now stood knee deep in the water facing the beach. She looked down. Earlier, when she had spilled water on her bikini top, it had become almost transparent. Now, soaked by the waves, the bikini was nothing more than a nearly invisible, faintly green film on her pale body. Her nipples stood out like pebbles. The dark slit of her hairless vulva was fully exposed.
Erin looked up toward the beach. She saw more faces turned toward her than she could count. She looked up toward where her blanket was, and she could see the three frat boys, laughing and pointing in her direction. The middle-aged guy suddenly had pulled a camera with a zoom lens, seemingly from nowhere, and it was pointed toward her. An older woman sitting on a blanket closer to the water was giving her the thumbs up.
The bikini seemed to want to expose her, Erin thought. Well, she was tired of fighting it. She stood in that position, her nearly nude body on display for everyone on the beach in front of her, and her hands at her side, making no effort to cover herself. Her shoulders slumped. Her chest heaved.
Standing in the waves, she struggled with her feelings. She'd never exposed herself like this before. A part of her was embarrassed. But another part of her was exhilarated. She had wanted to be seen, to show herself off, to be appreciated. And now she had -- more than she could have expected. It was embarrassing, sure, but it was thrilling, too.
After a minute, Erin decided to end the show and swim. She turned away from the beach and plunged again into the water. This time the waves didn't stop her progress, and she moved forward swiftly with broad strokes and vigorous kicks.
As she had guessed, the water was cool, but it felt good against her body. She swam about a hundred yards one way, parallel to the beach, then she turned around and swam back.
As Erin's body knifed through the chilly water she appreciated how little drag the suit created. Wearing it while swimming was almost like wearing nothing at all. But that thought made her suddenly uneasy. She felt her hip with the hand on the backstroke, but she couldn't feel her suit. She stopped swimming and felt herself with both hands. Uh oh. Her suit was gone. She felt her breasts. No top, either. While she had been swimming her suit had fallen off of her. Erin was naked in the water.
Raising her head above the wave and treading water, Erin looked in every direction for signs of her suit. At first, she didn't see it, but when a swell took her and raised her above the surrounding water she saw the two green pieces of the bikini, floating on the water, about 30 feet away and farther from the shore.
She swam toward it furiously. She wondered how in the world both parts of the suit could have fallen off her, and how they could have drifted so far from her so quickly. She hoped no one could see that she was naked. She was over 50 yards from shore, and no one was swimming in her immediate vicinity, so she thought it was unlikely that anyone could see her. She hoped no one was looking right at her, because as she pumped her arms and legs through the water to get to her suit she knew that the quick pace of her swimming lifted her butt up and just above the surface of the water. But she couldn't afford to go any slower and risk letting the suit drift away.
After stroking the way to where she thought the suit was she stopped and treaded water and looked around.
"Where is it," she called, to no one but herself. She was becoming frantic. She was about 80 yards off the shore, bobbing up and down in the waves, naked, with the beach now packed with mid-day crowds of people and no bikini in sight.
And then she saw it. It had drifted a little farther out into the ocean, about thirty feet away, both the top and bottom somehow miraculously still floating within two feet of each other.
To keep the suit in sight this time she breast-stroked toward the suit with her head above water, not taking her eyes off the tiny pieces of green fabric skimming the ocean surface.
Despite her strong and determined strokes and vigorous frog kicks, though, the suit wasn't getting closer. The current seemed to carry it just out of reach. She swam like this for a minute, picking up her pace but not getting closer. She stopped to catch her breath for a moment and the suit appeared to st v op drifting farther as well. It lay on the waves only about 20 feet away, tantalizingly close but just out of her reach.
Erin let herself turn around quickly to see how far she had swum. She was much farther from the shore now, well beyond the point where the waves broke, and, she thought to herself, farther out in the water than she was comfortable being. She didn't want to have to swim any farther to get her suit. She needed to grab it and head back to shore.
She turned her gaze back out to sea. The suit was there. A few strong strokes would take her to it, current or no current, and she could put it on.
A flash of white passed suddenly over her head. It was a gull, a big one, wings flapping audibly no more than ten feet from her. It was descending, its orange feet stretched out to prepare to land on the water.
It was headed right for her bikini.
"No!" Erin shouted at it. "Go away!"
She resumed swimming toward her suit, but, as before, she kept her head up so it wouldn't leave her sight.
The gull splashed down in the water next to her suit. It turned to her and fixed its beady eyes on her and opened its beak and let out a mocking "skraawwwk." Then it dipped its head to the water, and in two quick motions snapped up both pieces of her suit.
Erin was close enough that she tried to splash the white bird and distract it.
The gull ignored her. It extended its strong wings, and with a few vigorous flaps lifted itself into the air. It took off and flew quickly away, the green bikini firmly in the grip of its beak and sparkling like a jewel in the mid-day sun.
Erin treaded water for a full two minutes, watching the gull fly in a straight line close to the water and parallel to the beach until it was out of sight.
"This can't be happening," she thought. "It can't be."
A damned seagull had stolen both parts of her bikini, and now she was treading water and tiring quickly. She also was butt-naked and 200 yards from shore.
She couldn't tread water forever. Erin had no choice but to swim back to the beach.
She swam slowly, resuming a steady but now unhurried breast stroke. She had to get back to shore but also give herself time to think about what to do. She scanned the beach. Although she couldn't see her blanket she knew approximately where it was from the distinctive height and curve of the bluff behind it. She knew her blanket and her bag, with the cover-up stuffed inside it, lay about 100 feet from the water's edge, and a dense throng of beachgoers now crowded the space in between her and it.
As Erin approached the place where the waves broke she knew she'd have to decide what to do, and quickly. Her feet still couldn't touch the bottom, and she was getting tired. Once she got close enough to shore to stand up, however, the rise and fall of the surf would leave her at times exposed to view. There was no way she simultaneously could keep her feet on the ground and avoid exposing her nakedness to the crowd on the beach.
She thought she might be able to ask someone to get her cover-up and bring it to her. On the other hand, they might not cooperate. They might see her nudity and call attention to it, and that might attract more attention. It also would be hard for her, bobbing in the waves, to point out where her blanket was.
Not only that, but there was no one in the water near her at the moment. Off to her left, a hundred yards down the beach, she saw a man and woman with three little k**s, wading slowly into the waves. They were too far away to help, and she wasn't about to bother a family with little k**s.
In the other direction, a little closer and now standing ankle-deep in the surf, stood two young men, shirtless and in colorful board shorts.
"Oh no," she thought. They were two of the frat boys that had been sitting near her on the beach.
And one of them was holding a cell phone.
The other one suddenly looked in her direction. Erin was close enough that she supposed he could see her, and even tell it was her.
Sure enough, the one looking in her direction elbowed the other and said something she couldn't hear over the din of the waves. Both frat boys looked up and over in her direction and smiled. The one with the cell phone held it up in front of his face as though he wanted to see if he could take a photo.
Erin thought, "This isn't going to go well."
She was getting closer to the shore, and the water level dropped suddenly and she felt her toes touch sand for a few seconds. Erin guessed that the frat boys were still about 60 feet away from the point where she would exit the water to get to her blanket. But they were moving closer.
Erin had no choice. The longer she waited the more likely she was to become the photo subject of a pervy frat boy. She decided to get out of the water and make a run for her blanket.
Erin had never gone streaking before. Before she had met Martin she had at times enjoyed showing off, but always clothed. She had never been naked in public.
Until now.
With the frat boys approaching and holding up a cell phone, time wasn't on her side. Erin decided to make a run for her blanket, naked or not.
She waited until a wave was almost on her, and then she thrust her hands forward and kicked furiously. The swell carried her forward and for a moment she was body surfing just below the crest of the wave. As the wave angled toward the beach she guessed that any beach goers looking her way were getting a good view of her pale ass.
Suddenly, the wave broke hard over her and pushed her down under the water. She wasn't ready for the strength and weight of the wave on her, and she felt salt water enter her open mouth. Her body twirled and tumbled under the surface. Her face and her knees smacked against the sandy bottom at the same time.
The water pulled back from her quickly, and before she knew what was happening she found herself on her hands and knees, coughing out briny water, hair partly obscuring her vision. The ocean had, without further ado, given her up, naked and gasping, to a large, surprised audience on the beach.
She pulled sopping strands of hair out of her face and looked past the shoreline. Sure enough, there must have been 200 pairs of sunglasses turned in her direction.
For a few seconds she sat crouched and exposed and unable to move. She knew that as soon as she stood up she would be fully nude and exposed to everyone looking at her.
The sound of a young male voice calling "Holy shit, dude!", coming from the direction of the frat boys off to her side but out of sight, spurred her to action.
Erin stood up and took off sprinting. She tried to, at least. The wet sand gave way under her strides, almost making her stumble. When she hit the tideline, the sandy surface was dry and heavy and uneven, and it was harder for her to keep a steady pace.
She still couldn't quite see where her blanket was past the throng of faces and bodies. She looked for it desperately. At the same time, she had to focus on the dense groups of people around her to avoid running over or into them. Her feet danced awkwardly around and between the beach blankets as she looked for her blanket.
"What if it isn't there?" she suddenly wondered. "What if somebody took it, or my bag?"
The way things had gone so far that day, it didn't seem like a stretch to imagine her bag and cover-up being stolen.
But then she saw them, the blanket and bag exactly where she'd left them. She was no more than 50 feet away from them.
Even as Erin focused on the bag and tried to ignore the dozens of heads turned in her direction, her mind's eye gave her a clear picture of what she looked like to the people around her. She was pale and gloriously naked, moving fast across the sand but not fast enough to avoid putting herself on display for her audience. Not fast enough to stop half a dozen cell phone cameras from snapping photos of her as she stumbled quickly by. Not fast enough to avoid putting on a show of her breasts, firm and thick and topped off with pert, upraised nipples, bouncing and heaving in every direction. Not fast enough to avoid exposing her hairless pubic mound and the little slit of her pussy with every long, awkward stride.
As Erin drew near her blanket she heard the murmurs and shouts and laughter coming from the beach crowd around her, along with exclamations: "Did you see that?" "My god, she's naked!"
She even heard someone say, "Nice pussy!"
Then she got to her blanket. She had meant to draw the cover-up out of her bag and throw it over herself as fast as she could, without drying herself off. But what she saw, spread out on her blanket, drew her suddenly to a stop.
She stood naked and still dripping under the warm sun, over a hundred people still craning their necks to get a good look at her, and she stared at what was on her blanket.
There, lying dry and stretched out against the pale blanket, was her green bikini, the top neatly laid out next to the bottom.
"Fuck," she called out, not believing what she saw and not caring if anyone heard her.
She stood gaping at the little bikini, her arms at her side, and her mouth open in amazement.
At the sound of a cell phone camera clicking behind her she moved again. She ignored the bikini and dove for her bag. She pulled out the little cover up dress. Her hands tore at it to find the bottom, and as she struggled to find it she realized that her ass was up in the air and her legs were apart and she was putting on a show for anyone behind her. The second audible click of a cell phone camera told her the show was being appreciated.
Finally, her unsteady hands found the bottom of the little garment. She pulled it open, fell down on her knees on her blanket and pulled it quickly over her head. She felt the water on her still-damp body getting soaked up by the cotton fabric. The wet fabric against her body immediately made her cooler. Now crouching on her shins and knees she lifted her butt up to pull the cover-up down past her ass. It wasn't much of a cover, and the dampness of it caused it to mold tightly to her body, but she wasn't naked anymore, thank goodness.
She fished her sunglasses out of the bag and put them on. She looked up and, not moving her head much, she glanced from side to side through the shade of her glasses to see the people around her.
There were twice as many people in her immediate vicinity as when she had gotten up from the blanket to get in the water. Most of them now were turned away from her, or at least partly away, to make a show of not caring too much about the young woman who had been naked just moments before. But a few people still obviously gawked in her direction, and she was sure that others were staring at her behind the anonymity of their sunglasses.
Erin was beyond caring.
She had had enough of the beach.
Erin gathered her blanket and stuffed into the bag. She stood up and walked, fast, in the direction of her car. She didn't want to look at the people around her, but she couldn't help it.
The middle-aged guy still held a book in front of him, but he was smiling slightly, and at his hip he was giving her a thumbs-up symbol.
As her eyes swept the other way she saw the three frat guys together again at their cluster of blankets. All were looking at her. One of them was holding up his cell phone, again, and obviously preparing to snap a photo of her.
The young Europeans were talking among themselves, other than the one dark-haired woman that had smiled at her before. She was smiling at Erin and mouthing words that Erin couldn't make out.
Erin left them and walked briskly in bare feet over the sand toward the parking lot. The sand was hot now and almost burned her feet, but Erin wasn't about to stop to put her flip flops on.
After a few minutes, she was back at the parking lot and her car.
She opened the door and sat down in the front seat and tossed the bag on the passenger seat. It fell over, and the blanket spilled out, along with the little green bikini, and the bottle of sunscreen.
She didn't want to get any sunscreen on the car seat -- that wasn't something she'd want to have to explain to Martin -- so she reached over to put it back in the bag. She did so, but when she pulled her hand away from the bottle her fingers were doused in the thick sunscreen lotion.
She looked around for something with which to wipe her hands off, but didn't see anything.
Then she noticed that the little cover-up was pulled up at her waist. Her vulva was on view again, hairless and pink and damp between lips that were opened wide. Erin looked up quickly to see if anyone in the parking lot might see her. There was no one nearby. An empty pickup truck sat to her right, off the passenger side.