The Drive

We stepped into my private key lock elevator which opened directly into my apartment. I didn’t have to worry about being seen before getting to the garage. Darren even pointed this out as the doors slid closed and I silently said goodbye to the boring but warm and safe possibility of staying inside.

“I don’t know why you’re worried about being seen,” he began before pressing the ‘B2’ button that stood for basement 2, which is where the motor court and garage for the richest inhabitants of this building parked their luxury cars. “This building is locked down like Fort Knox and you can take a private elevator directly from your loft to your underground parking garage. You could be completely naked right now and have a 99% confidence that you wouldn’t run into anybody. Which I guess is the minimum you could ask for considering how much you paid for this privacy.”

Darren had cringed when he found out I paid $10 million for this three-bedroom pad in Tribeca, especially since the apartment sat unoccupied for 10 to 11 months out of the year. At most I would stay for a week or so while attending an event or doing promotional work in New York (like I was now while promoting my newest movie), but other than that I spent the rest of the year living out of hotels while on the road or at my $8 million mansion in Beverly Hills.

Darren had a Manhattan townhouse that was $2 million, and he lived there full time, so he thought I was paying an exorbitant amount of money, which included monthly resident taxes near $10,000, for a 3-bedroom apartment that I almost never used.

The apartment was extremely nice, more than 3,000 square feet of oak floors, with 10-foot high ceilings, beautiful views, and all of the modern designs and high-end amenities that you would expect.

But even ‘extremely nice’ wasn’t worth the $10 million I dropped on my unit. I bought the place because it was advertised as “paparazzi proof.” The condo complex, once a large warehouse, had been recently converted into a downtown luxury haven for celebrities that wanted to live discreetly in the paparazzi infested area of Lower Manhattan.

With drive-in, drive-out underground garages entirely hidden from street view, private courtyards, pools, gyms, and rooftops, and high-level security features and staff, a resident could come and go with the peace of mind that they weren’t being followed or tracked. After the scandal that rocked my world in 2014, this privacy proved worth the price alone.

Cameron Diaz, who lived a few doors down from me in L.A. was the one that told me about it after she bought a unit above the one I ended up getting for $14 million.

Being the highest paid woman in Hollywood comes with built-in worries, so I liked knowing I owned a home in New York where I wouldn’t have to worry about stalkers, tourists, or the press. And I was willing to pay out the ass to secure that peace. What better investment for my millions than spending it to relieve the stress of having fame?

Katy Perry, Mike Myers, Blake Lively, Rebel Wilson, and Justin Timberlake were some of my neighbors in the complex, but I rarely ever saw them, or any other residents at all, especially at night.

So Darren was actually right about having confidence that I probably wouldn’t even run into anyone. Except for valet or the occasional doorman or security guard. They were always around to help out the residents or make sure they were secure.

But who cares if they saw me in my socks and sweats? There was nothing scandalous about that. But as the elevator descended and I looked over at Darren, the butterflies and nervous feelings in my stomach only increased.

There was something up his sleeve. But what?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he smiled.

There was something evil in that smile.

“Because I’m afraid,” I laughed.

“Of what?”

“What you’re going to make me do.”

“You’re an adult woman. I can’t make you do anything.”

“Yet here I am.”

“Oh I made you come with me like this?”

“Totally against my will,” I tossed at him playfully.

“Well since I have that kind of pull over you then why stop here,” he said as we reached the second garage level. “Take off your pants.”

“WHAT!?” I almost screamed as the doors opened.

“You heard me. Take them off. Leave them on the elevator.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m making you,” he said before stepping out of the elevator and turning around to face me.

I stayed glued to the floor, staring at him, laughing to myself, contemplating this outrageous demand of his.

“Are you kidding, Darren?” I asked before peaking outside the door and noticing a doorman standing at the far end of the garage near the entrance.

“You are wearing underwear, right?” he asked.

“Yes but still. That guy will see me.”

“You show more skin at the beach,” he said matter of factly. “And he isn’t even looking this way. Your cars are on this end. He won’t see anything.”

“I should have known there would be more to this trip than just going to get dessert.”

“Come on Jennifer, we don’t have all night,” he said in the kind of dominant tone that really was effective in getting what he wanted. On set, in the bedroom, and on this elevator.

Darren wanted me to strip down to my underwear and step out of this elevator so we could head to some unknown place. A smarter woman would have told him to fuck off and pressed the button to head back upstairs.

But I wasn’t a very smart woman. I did drop out of school in 8th grade, after all. And this was the kind of adventure I craved.

God, it was so hard to say no to him.

“Darren I swear, if I wind up on TMZ tomorrow,” I mumbled before reaching for my waistband and easing the sweatpants down my legs. “Make sure no one is coming.”

He took a quick glance before saying “you’re good” and returning those mysterious dark eyes to me.

“Okay,” I said with a deep breath before letting the pants fall to my ankles. I stepped out of them one leg at a time. This was my private elevator that you needed a key to get into, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone finding them, but I still felt weird about just leaving them in the middle of the floor, so I bent over to fold and place them in the corner.

When I looked up I saw a girl in t-shirt and panties staring back at me. My half-dressed reflection looked so off inside an elevator. Thank God I had worn underwear that kept my ass cheeks tucked inside, instead of the thong I thought about wearing but decided not to.

“You ready?” he asked.

I stood up and looked at him, dressed for the occasion of heading out into the night, while I looked like I should have been heading to bed. The juxtaposition of well-dressed vs nearly-naked made me tremble in nervous excitement. Or maybe it was just the cold air I suddenly noticed as I hugged my stomach.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said before gathering the courage to step out of the elevator, away from my sweats, away from my home, leaving for something sweeter than the low fat butter pecan ice cream in my refrigerator.

I knew there was something more to this than dessert, but I was knowingly choosing to follow Darren’s lead. I couldn’t play dumb and act naive. I was probably going to wind up naked before this was over.

If I wanted to stop this, I could have stopped it right now.

But my feet only moved forward as the butterflies inside my stomach fluttered.

I fought the impulse to run to my car, which was only a few dozen feet away, because running would probably only draw attention to myself. But walking at a slow pace in my white panties, as if this was completely normal was excruciating, especially since Darren’s brogues were making loud shoe-smacks with each step he took on the tiled floor.

I tried to just look ahead and focus on reaching my car but I curious to a fault, so of course I looked back and – fuck – that guy was looking right over at me!

Our eyes even met before we both turned away at the same time, and I eased around a wall until I was out of his sight and near my car. I immediately went to unlock the door with my keychain but Darren again shocked me by saying no.

“No what?” I asked, abuzz with jitters.

“We’re not driving your Volkswagon,” he said out loud, too loud for my liking. “Where is your sexy car?”

“My Porsche?” I asked in a loud whisper.

He smiled.

“Why would we use my Porsche to get dessert?”

“That thing is just sitting there collecting dust,” he accurately said. I’d only driven it twice since Amy Schumer convinced me to purchase one on a whim.

Darren wasn’t a fan of that superfluous purchase either.

“That guy saw me,” I said before quickly moving over to my practically new carmine red 2-door sports car.

“Lucky him.”

“Fuck him, what about me?” I threw at him before noticing that he was standing on the drivers side of the car. “You wanna drive?”

“I’m a little intimidated by this sexy thing but sure,” he said with a small chuckle.

“She’s practically a virgin so be gentle with her,” I laughed before popping the doors unlocked and tossing him the keys.

He caught the keys with one hand right as I ducked inside and shut the door.

As soon as Darren was seated he looked over at me. “You think that guy actually could tell you were down here in your panties?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged before looking down at my bare thighs and legs and then the lace trim at the band of my otherwise plain looking underwear. “There’s always the chance he was blind.”

We were both laughing as he cranked up the car, pulled out my reserved garage space and exited the underground basement. We passed several more valet workers and security guards as we drove up the next level but I felt pretty hidden because of my dark tinted windows.

Still, I waited until we were outside the complex and on the road before I felt comfortable enough to sit up and speak. “So. Now that you have me in my bra and panties, what do you have planned?”

“Just sit back and relax,” he said while ratcheting up the heat to help warm me up. “Speaking of which, why are you even wearing a bra? You usually never wear one.”

“Well,” I said, rubbing my hands together near the heater. “I wanted to be a good girl and be on my best behavior around you. We promised to just be friends, no hanky panky, so I thought that I should keep my girls secure. You know how my nips like to poke out when I’m cold or excited.”

“They poking out now?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Actually yes, I would. Take your bra off.”

“What happened to no hanky, panky?” I asked.

“What happened to you doing whatever I tell you to do?” he said with a sly grin. “You can keep your shirt on. Just get rid of the bra.”

I was afraid that Darren was soon going to be able to notice the dampness between my thighs. I was horny, no doubt about it, and the methods of his madness were contributing heavily to my increasingly hopeless state.

I took a deep breath, knowing deep down that even if I was pretending to contemplate what he was asking, there was truly no way I was going to say no to any of this. I was totally digging him pushing me into reckless abandon. It was exciting, scary, and so far, really fun.

I maneuvered my arms into my shirt to spin my bra around and make it easier to unhook. When it came undone, I saw him give me a quick peak before he focused back on the road.

The heat against my chest felt really good, as did the heat surging through my body as I looked out the window and saw New York City, alive with activity, while I was riding in a car that smelled like it was right off the lot, sitting next to my ex-boyfriend in just a t-shirt and panties.

“Toss it out the window,” he said, breaking my trance. I looked at him, dumbfounded, and he caught my stare with his own. “Your bra. Toss it.”

I looked out the window, seeing pedestrians, taxis, and tourists about, with One World Trade on the horizon, and didn’t even question him this time. I lowered the window just enough to allow my hand the range of motion needed to toss the bra before quickly bringing the window back up.

“So they are hard,” Darren said as if he was pleased.

I blushed and instinctively covered my nipples. God, was it that obvious? I felt them with my fingers, and yes, my nipples were hard enough to wield as weapons.

“I liked that bra,” I said, quickly trying to change the subject. And lamenting that one half of the set of the comfortable matching white bra and panties that I got from a designer store in France was gone. “And it cost like $150 too.”

“We’re riding in your convertible fuck machine right now. You can afford a new one.”

I still had no idea where Darren was taking me but I’d decided to follow his advice, sit back, and try to relax. It was hard though, because I was super anxious, just awaiting him to tell me to lose the shirt or panties. Plus, he kept sneaking peeks at me and smiling to himself. It was fucking with my mind.

“You laughing at me?”

“No, of course not,” he said with a chuckle as we stopped at a red light.

“Yes you are,” I pressed him. “What you think this is so funny, huh? Watching me make a fool out of myself for your amusement.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“So what is it?”

“Well, I guess I’m laughing because that comes natural to me when I have to admit I was wrong.” He turned to look at me. “You were right, Jennifer. There is an aspect of this that I do find…a bit thrilling. A voyeuristic aspect, perhaps. Seeing you fight with yourself. The way you crave it, love it, even while being reluctant. It’s exciting to me.”

His comments were dizzying. I had to bite my lip and try to manage the sudden rush of adrenaline inside of me before I was able to even accept victory in being right. “See, I knew it! I fucking knew it. You’re getting off on this just as much as me.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said with a laugh right before the light turned green and we started moving again. “Everything I said before is still true. I’m not primarily interested in seeing you exposed because of anything sexual – but I just have to admit that I see what you were saying and acknowledge that there is truth to it as well.”

“Well I’m glad you admitted it so I know it’s just not me,” I said with a smile. “So what, is it like 50/50, half kinky and half political?”

“Oh no, fuck no,” he barked. “More like 90/10.”

“No way,” I shook my head. “It’s at least 60/40.”

“90/10.”

Here we were again, negotiating numbers.

“65/35.”

“85/15

“You’re killing me, Darren. It’s gotta be at least 70/30”

“The most I’ll cop to is 80/20. 80% of my interest in exhibiting you nude in a public space is artisticl. Wanting to see you push arbitrary cultural boundaries and make the statement of the century within our industry. To see show your body in a context entirely built by your own agency.”

“And the remaining 20% is all about making your cock hard,” I smirked.

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” he laughed. “I’ll just say there is an inescapable eroticism attached to the idea. You’re fucking hot, Jennifer. You have gorgeous breasts, tasty looking areolas and nipples, a very pretty pussy, and a perfect little bottom. There’s no context where you choose to show that off and I can’t not notice it and be affected by it.”

“And you want others to be affected by it too?” I asked him.

“On your terms, yes. I want people to see you the way I do.”

“Thank you for being honest with me,” I said. “It really does help me process my own feelings.”

We rode in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. “You know, the first time I ever saw art and eroticism mixed together to create a statement was while I was at Harvard. That was the first time I saw how powerful nudity could be. Sean and Dan had invited me to a one-person show on campus. I’d never been to one before, not counting straight up comedy shows. But this one-person show was written and performed by a graduate student named Greta.”

He described Greta to me, long legs, dark hair, beautiful skin, but he spent more time talking about her beauty that was more than skin deep.

“She had a great soul,” he mused. “And contagious energy that resonated with the audience.”

He told me about her hour long performance, that started with her wearing a yellow dress and ended with her having an orgasm, completely naked in front of a half-filled campus theatre.

“Her goal was to get the audience to experience six core emotions – surprise, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, and disgust,” he said. “She made us laugh, made us cry, made us laugh while crying. All with her voice, her storytelling, her sense of humor, her naked body.”

“My brain is having a hard time computing this,” I said. “Crying, laughing, naked woman on stage having an orgasm in front of college students – This sounds like a really weird sex show.”

“I’m just describing it poorly,” he said with a chuckle. “It was a fairly normal performance for the majority of the show. She told stories to set the scene, almost like standup, then reenacted traumatic or humorous moments from her life.”

He made a couple of maneuvers to get into the far right lane then a little reflective smile appeared on his face. “She talked about her strict father – and did a great impersonation of him. Talked about her college life, getting kicked out of her sorority because she couldn’t bother paying the dues. Talked about depression and the worst night of her life. The only thing that made it uncomfortably different was that she was fully nude. And she made that a part of her show too, losing her dress in a very clever way, then making pointed comments about being nude before us that made us reflect on why it made us uncomfortable.”

“And the orgasm?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that it wasn’t really that sexual?” he asked, taking a moment to look at me. “That it had a larger point?”

“What is up with you and inherently sexual things not being sexual?” I asked, throwing up my arms. “Maybe I can buy a naked girl not being sexual. But an orgasm? Come on, that is the epitome of sexual.”

“Perhaps. But you would have just had to have seen the show. The way she did it was…transformative. She changed the way I thought about our bodies in relation to performance art.”

I noticed then that I was touching my hard nipples. It was hard not to. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and touching hard nipples were so enticing, ditto the good feelings touching provided me.

But I didn’t need to stimulate myself right now, so I forced myself to stop, and put my hands on my bare knees, flat and awkward. “Sounds to me that she just found a way to turn her kinky exhibitonist fantasy into an art show.”

“You’re take is certainly valid,” he said. “Her show was the talk of the night when we went to the bar afterwards. And there were more than a few people, especially women, that felt exactly as you do.”

“Especially women, huh? You trying to say women saw past the bullshit or that men are horny and stupid?”

“Maybe it’s a bit of both. Maybe the ones that loved the act wouldn’t have loved it as much if it was some old guy doing the exact same thing,” he laughed.

“But seriously, that was the night I really did learn that public or social nudity could be used to break taboos and push forward a conversation. Some people loved the show, some people hated it, some people were ambivalent or confused, but everyone I talked to about it had something to say. All of our biases and political leanings were laid bare and naked as we reviewed and critiqued her act. Next thing you know, we were talking religion and politics and feminism. All stemming from a woman getting naked before us.”

“And having an orgasm,” I said, making sure that tidbit stayed at the forefront of all of this intellectual posturing.

“A non-sexual political statement that took the form of an orgasm,” he said with a straight face before he himself broke up with laughter just a few moments later. He couldn’t even pretend to take that view seriously. His laughter was contagious and got me snickering right along with him.

I had to admit. I was having fun.

Touching my bare legs, I was reminded that I was half-naked, and we were drifting further and further away from the safety of my home away from home. It made me reflective of my own exhibitonist awakenings.

“I don’t think my interest in being naked in front of a crowd was quite as, uh, how do I say,”

“Just say pretentious,” he smiled.

“You said it, not me,” I joked. “But no I don’t wanna say pretentious because you do make good points. I’ll just say when I became aware of the power of public nudity in art and entertainment, I wasn’t old enough to even comprehend any political nuances or subtleties. All I knew was seeing naked bodies displayed before an audience, female naked bodies” I emphasized, “made me feel really warm and tingly inside.”

I saw his eyebrow raise slightly and I felt the need to elaborate. “ It wasn’t that I was having lesbian fantasies. I wouldn’t say I was even attracted to the women, per se, more that I was attracted to the feelings of shame and embarrassment that I saw on their faces. I never felt those feelings during love or sex scenes, just whenever a girl happened to be naked in front of another clothed person, or ideally a group of clothed people. It really messed with my head, as it felt so wrong and sinful and taboo. But I still would find myself wishing I could be in their shoes, having all of those people look at me.”

“Any examples?” he asked curiously.

“I have a ton of them,” I said, remembering my awakening more vividly now. “Have you ever seen the movie The Parent Trap?”

“Of course – I watched it all the time as a kid. It’s a classic.”

“No, not that one!” I said, knowing immediately that he was referencing that old one from the 60s. “The one with Lindsay Lohan.”

He almost looked deflated at the mention of this before he gave an ‘I should have known’ wave of his hand and roll of his eyes. We were constantly being bombarded with reminders that he grew up during the years of Vietnam, bell-bottoms, and disco music while I grew up during the years of gangsta rap, ripped jeans, and Bill Clinton not having sexual relations with that woman.

We had different frames of reference for everything. Disney meant something different to him than it meant for me, including movies with the same name made a generation apart.

“I thought you were going to mention the scene at the dance with the girls dress,” he said. “But anyway I haven’t seen the newer one.”

“Well in the ‘newer’ one there is this scene where the twins play poker, right? And they make a bet that the loser has to jump in the lake ‘butt naked’. And the little British Lindsay loses to a royal flush and has to go skinny dipping in front of, like, the entire camp. And after she dives in naked, they all steal her clothes and run off, leaving just her shoes.”

“And they showed this in a kids movie?” he asked.

“I mean they didn’t actually show her naked,” I clarified. “Just her bare shoulders. And it really resonated with me because you know, my dad owned a summer camp, so I was like obsessed with trying to convince kids at the camp to play poker and bet our clothes so that I could lose on purpose and have to ‘suffer’ that fate.”

“So did you ever get that chance?”

“Nope. Everyone was too chicken. It was so annoying!” I laughed. “And then there was this one football movie. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, Varsity Blues?”

“Yeah, I saw that one. Came out around the time I was filming Requiem.”

“You remember the ice cream scene?”

“Vaguely. The cheerleader girl gets naked for the quarterback, right?” he asked as if it were just like any other scene.

“You make it sound so boring! ‘Oh the one where the girl got naked? Right?’” I mocked his voice. “Yeah, that part. But it was so much more exciting than how you said it. She asks the guy into her place, knowing he has a girlfriend, then offers to make him an ice cream sundae with whip cream. Then comes back out naked wearing a whipped cream bikini, with cherries on her nipples. Like, DAMN!”

“She was totally brazen about it though,” Darren said. “Like it was nothing. Doesn’t that make it a little boring for you?”

“Are you forgetting the part where he rejects her? Tells her that he doesn’t love her and then she breaks down and starts crying, as it sinks in, like wow, I’m naked and just threw myself at this guy and he told me no? I felt sooooo embarrassed for her. But those warm tingly feelings were there too.”

“Okay, okay,” he nodded. “I see where it would fit in your exhibitionist fantasy now.”

“I played sports a lot growing up. Basketball, soccer, volleyball, football, so I hung out with a lot of guys, usually my brothers and their friends. And we would watch all of the sports movies. Remember The Titans, The Longest Yard, Friday Night Lights, Any Given Sunday, Bluechips, Happy Gilmore – we were into all of that shit.”

He already knew this about me. It was one of our major differences. He didn’t really care for sports and was sort of baffled when I broke my remote control in frustration when the United States failed to qualify for the World Cup.

“The one we probably watched the most was Varsity Blues,” I continued. “I was a teenager at the time, roughing it with the boys, but even though I was a tomboy, they noticed that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. Sometimes when my brothers weren’t around, the guys would make jokes about me wearing a whip cream bikini for them like the chick from Varsity Blues. And I’d always act like I was super mad and offended, and kick them in the balls or whatever. But deep down…”

I stopped talking to gauge his reaction. These were long-buried stories from my childhood. I felt a little embarrassed and nervous about digging them up for him. But also very excited about sharing that part of myself.

He looked as if he could understand where I was coming from, with no judgement at all toward my repressed exhibitonist fantasies.

“So did you ever wear that whip cream bikini for them?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, no.” I shook my head, thinking about one guy, my oldest brother’s best friend Mike Marsdom, a guy I had a huge crush on at the time, that I would have loved to wear a whip cream bikini for. He was married with kids now, and I had attended the wedding. “My brothers would have killed me and his friends if I would have done that.”

He looked as if he understood that there was a sense of lost for me there, or at least regret.

“We also used to watch the American Pie movies together,” I remembered out loud, thinking about how Mike was the first person that explained to me what an orgasm was, after I was confused about why the guy in the movie had started shaking and then couldn’t have sex with the hot naked girl on his bed.

“I’m assuming the scene that gave you those warm tingly feelings is the one with Shannon Elizabeth on the bed,” he said knowingly.

“Right – particularly that she was tricked into getting naked on a hidden webcam. Everyone felt so bad for Jim, the guy because he didn’t get laid, but all that registered for me was how bad I felt for her. She was the one that got tricked into masturbating naked on webcam in front of the entire school. She was the one that felt so embarrassed by it that she had to transfer schools. I felt so angry for her, even as a kid. But those damn warm tingly feelings were there, too. I couldn’t help it.”

Darren could see my frustration, a frustration that felt sort of silly to express. I mean, I was talking about a stupid raunchy comedy. But I could tell from the look on his face that he only wanted me to keep sharing my thoughts, as silly as they may have been.

“The nasty comments my brothers friends made about seeing her naked also got to me. All I could think about was how the ‘nice guy’ she liked was a fucking creeper that spied on her with his friends. But to everyone else, the point of the scene was to embarrass the guy, as if his inability to perform dwarfed the invasion of privacy that involved her pleasuring herself on a hidden webcam.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” he nodded. “Lot of normalization of creepy internet behavior came from that scene. Her humiliation didn’t matter. Just his.”

“But what’s crazy is that only intensified the tingly feelings for me,” I admitted. “I was too young to articulate my feelings, but yeah, anger and embarrassment mixed together to create this intense feeling that I sort of craved whenever I would watch movies like that with my guy friends. I guess in some ways I wondered if these guys I considered friends and trusted would ever violate my privacy like that in order to see me naked, and if so, how would I feel about it.”

“Makes sense why you’d have conflicted feelings about your nude leak,” he said with a quick glance my way.

I hadn’t even immediately made that connection myself, but Darren could see the parallels clearly.

“Wow, you’re right,” I said. This was why it was good to talk about this stuff, others could help you see the forest when you were too close to the trees. I felt the lace of my panties, and like that, a nearly forgotten memory flooded back to me. “Holy shit. I just remembered I caught one of my brothers friends sniffing my panties in the laundry room”

“Wow – really?”

“Yes,” I laughed out loud. “I’m surprised I even remembered that. I so caught him doing it. And I made him give me ice cream money so that I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Did it register as sexual to you?” he asked.

“Not at the time, no. I was confused, amused, and a little mad, but I didn’t really know why I was mad. I mean, it was gross, and I felt embarrassed that he smelled my dirty underwear, but I kind of was also a little flattered, maybe? And it made me wonder if he had ever snuck into my room to steal any of my clean undies, so I started to arrange my underwear a certain way so I would know if they were moved, and I made sure they were extra clean, throwing any dingy ones away just in case. Oh God, I sound weird and pathetic, don’t I?”

“Not at all,” he said. “You sound like a normal person that was affected by people and adult entertainment as you were growing. And as far as your ‘tingly’ feelings – I see that it’s not just the exhibitonism for you. There is some masochism there, as well. Lots of our adult desires and fantasies are molded by our youth. Seems as if certain kinds of movies that you saw really helped mold yours.”

“Hell yeah. Media definitely helped shape me,” I agreed. “I was more of an outdoors girl, so most of my hobbies involved playing sports or riding horses or fishing or whatever. But watching movies every weekend with my folks was also something I really enjoyed. When the really good movies would come to our local theater, the only one within like 2 hours, we’d all jump in the pickup and head down to the theater to watch movies all day.”

I enjoyed thinking about these memories, in simpler times, when me and my family saw movies like The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Training Day, Ocean’s 11, Sherk, and Scary Movie with a huge bowl of popcorn in our laps, along with so much candy, pretzels, nachos, and cola that we’d always feel sick as we drove back home to our farmhouse.

But there were two movies in particular that stroked the flames of exhibitonism in me.

“My family is kind of conservative but they still were usually cool about me watching popular, critically acclaimed movies, especially since my dad was a bit of a movie buff. And since they let my brothers watch, they didn’t wanna be sexist and not let me. So I went to the theater with them to see Titanic, and while they were blown away by the special effects and stuff, the one scene that took my breath away was when Kate Winslet got naked for Leonardo Dicaprio so he could draw her.”

He smiled softly as he listened to my tale. I liked that he enjoyed listening to me babble on about this. I’d never shared these stories before.

“My mom was the one that was always like ‘cover your eyes, Jennifer’ at any part of a movie that had sex or kissing or naked people, but I’d always just look through the cracks in my fingers. I had it down to a science, how to look with them thinking I couldn’t see,” I said before showing him my technique and covering my eyes while staring at him. “Just like this. I can totally see you.”

It hit me then, as it did every minute or so, that I was half naked in the car and that there were other cars driving right next to us. I bought my car with the darkest tint available, so I shouldn’t have been nervous. But it’s hard not to be nervous after leaving your pants on an elevator and then tossing your bra out the window. What if we were pulled over by the cops?

Thinking of having to get out of the car, spread my legs, and let the police officer pat me down as I stood outside in panties for any car passing by to see was, surprise surprise, erotic.

I squeezed my legs and sighed.

I really did need this therapy to lay bare and expunge these emotions and fantasies of mine.

“That scene was done so beautifully well, and my parents were so caught up in the story, that they didn’t even bother to tell me to cover my eyes when Kate Winslet dropped her robe. But it was still instinct for me to cover my eyes, so I did anyway. I’m pretty sure I held my breath the entire time she was naked on screen.”

I was getting lightheaded just thinking about how intense it had been that night in the theater, even surrounded by family and moviegoers.

“Usually I’m taken back by how embarassed the girl is at being seen naked by a clothed person. But this was different, this time the warm tingly feeling in my belly came from how flustered her naked body made him even though he had on all of his clothes. He was blushing the entire time and so obviously intoxicated by the sight of her naked body.”

“That scene had more sexual tension than the actual sex scene that followed,” he said.

“I agree. The effect she had on him, making this cool and confident guy stutter was – well – the Rose character said ‘it was the most erotic moment of my life’ to describe the naked drawing session and that was how I felt as I sat in my seat, even though erotic wasn’t in my vocabulary. I went home that night and tossed and turned, frustrated, and woke up the next morning and begged my dad to take me to see the movie again that afternoon.”

“And your dad couldn’t tell what effect the film had on you?”

“I mean, everyone back then was in love with Jack and Rose. All the girls, at least. So it wasn’t too out of the ordinary that I got flushed while watching it and was obsessed with seeing it 100 more times. My mom was the same way. She was in it for the romance though – she cried at the end every time.” I silently chucked to myself, remembering myself around that time. “But yeah, I managed to hide the warm tingly feelings I had while watching it. Something similar happened whenever they took me to see ‘American Beauty’ with Kevin Spacey a few years later.”

“Would it be the scene with Thora Birch?” he asked. “At the window?”

“Uh huh,” I nodded. “I left the theater thinking ‘I wish I had a next door neighbor I could stand at the window and show my tits to.”

“You wanna ‘show your tits’ to the neighbor outside your window?” he motioned with his arm as we waited at a red light.

I looked over and saw some guy looking directly at me. I covered my nipples before I realized that he wasn’t actually looking at me. He couldn’t even see me. He was just checking out this hot ass sports car.

“I can totally wind down the window if you want,” Darren said.

“Nah I think I’m good,” I said a few moments before the light turned green. I lowered my hands and let myself breathe. “He takes a picture, next thing you know, I’m on TMZ.”

“But would it help stroke those tingly feelings for you?”

I thought about it. “Not really. I don’t think quick flashing really does anything for me. It’s kind of boring. It’s over with in a sec and the flasher has every bit of control over their exposure.”

I’d never actually broken down what I secretly wanted out of these fantasies before, the foundation of the repressed kink. I appreciated being able to work it out with Darren.

“I think the exhibitionist in me wants a little loss of control, exposure of my body from all angles, and a duration of time that allows me to cycle through all of the conflicting emotions I have with being naked in front of people in the first place. So mooning someone, flashing my boobs, it would be over before I even allowed myself to feel anything. Am I making any sense?”

“Absolutely. You remind me of thrill seekers that don’t get much out of the things that may give the rest of us heart attacks. They want more drama and danger than just riding a roller coaster.”

“So they jump outta planes and jump over canyons with their bikes and all kinds of crazy shit,” I laughed. “Right, I guess that’s my dilemma. Except I wanna do that shit buttass naked.”

We shared a laugh before before his face grew contemplative again. “Do you have any idea when this first started for you? When it was birthed?”

“Hearing the story about Adam and Eve probably,” I chuckled even though I was serious. “That story always stood out to me. How they ate from the tree of knowledge and then all of a sudden realized they were naked and went to hide. And then God is like ‘who told you that you were naked?’ and I just felt like having a conversation with God about being naked was the most embarrassing thing in the world. I think that was the first time I had any real thoughts about being naked and that it was somehow bad. But I don’t think it became a fascination for me until ‘Showgirls.’”

“Showgirls?”

“Yeah, the movie.”

A single laugh fell out of his mouth. “The Paul Verhoeven film, right? I just want to make sure there isn’t some updated ‘newer’ version for millennials that I’m unaware of due to being old.”

“Yes, you old bastard, the 1995 film starring Elizabeth Berkley of ‘Saved by the Bell’ fame.”

“I think she’s more known for Showgirls at this point than that kids sitcom,” he said as memories of the movie seemingly flooded back into his head and made his face change. “And that sex scene in the pool, flopping about and flailing her arms like she was being attacked by Jaws.”

He was laughing again before I could even speak. “Ha ha, so funny. You’re just like everyone else. Always making fun of that movie, trashing Elizabeth’s performance. Laughing at the erotic scenes…”

“Well what are you saying?” he asked with a big grin. “You enjoyed that movie, her performance, and those quote on quote ‘erotic’ scenes?”

“And if I did, so what?”

“You think that movie is good?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“But you like it?” he laughed.

“I mean, everyone has a guilty pleasure right?”

“Okay, that’s something. I want to hear this. Tell me about this guilty pleasure you have with Showgirls.”

“No – Changed my mind.”

“Come on, please?”

“I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to make fun of me,” I pouted.

“I swear I’m not going to make fun of you, Jennifer,” he said, his tone dramatically changed so that it was more respectful. “Seriously. I do want to hear your feelings. I just wasn’t expecting the root of your fascination with public nudity to be ‘Showgirls.”

“Maybe I was just way too young to have seen the movie,” I said, starting somewhat on the defensive. “But I loved ‘Saved by the Bell’ growing up. Bayside High. That was my first concept of L.A., and the whole reason I grew up wanting to move to California. And Jessie was my favorite character.”

“I can honestly say I have never actually watched a full episode of that show. Though I know the names, Slater, Zach, and Screech. Jessie is Elizabeth’s character, right?”

“Right. She was smart, athletic, on the swim team, cheerleader, class president, beautiful, popular, outspoken, a feminist before I even knew what feminism was – she was everything I wanted to be,” I broke down to him so that he could understand.

“I also related to her because of how insecure she was with her height. She hated being a tall chick. People called her ‘legs’. And growing up, I was always the tallest girl in class and I thought I looked awkward, like I was all head and legs with no body in between. Like, I was Olive Oyl from Popeye. Tall and flat with huge clown feet. I had it in my head that when I grew into my looks, I would be hot like her.”

“Well that worked out better than you could have imagined,” he interrupted, taking in my body. Though I wasn’t fishing for compliments, his comment did make me blush. As did knowing he could see my hard nipples through the shirt.

But I needed to concentrate.

And remember that we were broken up.

“Anyway,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I didn’t see the movie in theaters. No way my parents would have even thought about taking me or my brothers to see it.”

“I would imagine – what were you, like 5 at the time?”

“I was young, but I knew enough to know that ‘hey, this is Jessie from ‘Saved by the Bell’ when I first saw the poster for the movie in Blockbuster. And at my age, I guess I didn’t really differentiate actors from the characters they portrayed, so in my head, this smart, cool chick that I wanted to be was now in some movie where she is naked on the cover. I was dying to see it.”

“So how did you?” he asked.

“My parents actually bought the movie. They didn’t rent it, I think because the version at Blockbuster was the R-rated cut, and the VHS they purchased was the NC-17 cut. I guess they heard so many of their friends talking about the movie that they had to check it out for themselves. I remember them waiting until we were all asleep before they went to the living room to watch it. And after I waited, I don’t know, about half an hour, I slipped out of bed so I could sneak downstairs to watch on the bottom stair.”

“Bad girl.”

“Hey – I was curious. They never really hid a movie from us before so I wondered what the big deal was. So I’m watching it but I can’t hear anything because the volume is so low, so I can’t even really follow the plot.”

He looked like he wanted to make a joke about ‘there being no plot’ but he thought better of it, and just smiled.

“So I know what I’m watching would get me in trouble if I was caught because I see half-naked girls dancing in the little club,” I said. “But I’m still so curious so I keep watching. I see Jessie – remember, she was Jessie to me, not Elizabeth Berkley, and not Nomi. And Jessie is wearing this little black slip dress. Talking to this man and woman that are drinking some booze, smoking cigarettes. And then they follow her to another room, sits the guy on this big sofa. And then all of a sudden, Jessie starts dancing. And before I know it, her slip falls to the floor and my tongue has fallen out of my mouth.”

I laughed then. This was such a vivid memory to me. I still remembered just sitting there wondering what the hell I was looking at.

“I watched until she was completely naked, then heard one of my parents make a noise, and I panicked and quickly and quietly tip toed back up stairs.”

“Sounds like a traumatic experience,” he said.

“Darren, I didn’t even see the entire scene but it did something to me, the little bit that I did see. I remember talking about it at school with a friend who told me that their dad had the movie, too. So I begged my parents to let me spend the night over her house and we ended up sneaking to watch the movie, beginning to end.”

“I imagine in that context, it would have been something you ‘liked’.”

“I didn’t know the movie was considered terrible,” I shrugged. “I didn’t know the acting was considered awful. All I saw was Jessie, or Nomi, taking command on the screen and blowing my mind. She was confident, and beautiful, and naked, and taking control of the room with her body. It was mesmerizing and powerful to me.”

“Interesting – though I don’t know how well it fits as the start of your exibhitionist fantasies. The character in that movie, like you said, was confident in being nude, defiant even. She even takes the punishment done to humiliate her in stride. She wasn’t very embarrassed by the experience.”

“But Elizabeth was,” I stressed. “It didn’t take me long to realize that people thought Showgirls was the worst movie ever made. By the time I was a teenager, I knew that it bombed at the box office and all of the critics thought it was a piece of shit. But what hurt my feelings was how it totally destroyed Elizabeth Berkley’s career.”

He looked as if he understood what I was getting at now.

“She might have been playing an over the top, defiant, boss stripper, but in reality, she was a 22-year-old young woman that was trained in ballet and got her start acting on a kids show, then suddenly was offered the dream of starring in a Hollywood movie with an acclaimed director.”

Thinking about her mistreatment made me shake my head as my voice grew angrier. “It wasn’t her fault the film turned out like it did. She didn’t write it. She didn’t direct it. She just did something almost no other woman in Hollywood would even think about doing. She didn’t get a body double, or a stunt double. She learned to pole dance, took off her clothes, and performed naked day after day in front of an entire crew. I dare any ‘great’ award winning actors to pull of dramatic scenes on demand while having to perform some of the scenes she had to do – full frontal lap dances, or the part where she had to squeeze her nipples to get them hard for an asshole director.”

“That scene was something else,” he remarked.

“But did anyone recognize how emotionally difficult it was? Give her even a teeny bit of credit for handling her humiliation without complaint as she did everything the award winning director told her to do? Nope. She ‘won’ the Razzie for worst actress, and Hollywood was done with even giving her an audition to play anything else. She even quit her first love, dancing, because of how embarrassing and painful the response to the film was. It was almost violent, the vitriol thrown at her.”

I looked out the window and saw a billboard for one of those 50 Shades movies. Those trashy films were being embraced now, making tons of money, and allowing their stars to go on to do other movies.

Seeing those billboards made me angrier, but for personal reasons.

“And to top it off, not only were people shaming her because she had the audacity to portray a naked stripper, they even took the opportunity to bash how she looked.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, eyebrow raised. “She was gorgeous in that film.”

“Well not according to Siskel and Ebert. They basically said she was ugly and unsexy in the movie. Can you imagine how embarrassing that rejection must have been for her? They couldn’t even let her have being sexy?”

He gave me a contemplative nod but I continued in my diatribe.

“I mean, sure some of that shit was trashy. But none of these critics got a boner watching her tits and ass jiggle all over the place? Not during any of her lap dances? It didn’t make anyone wanna go home and fuck their wife? None of them fapped to her scene later on home video? I call bullshit. They just liked making fun of her.”

“I’ve never considered these points before,” Darren eventually said. “But you’re right. Elizabeth was asked to do something that took a tremendous amount of fortitude to do. She truly put herself out there. And was rewarded with all out ridicule and scorn.”

“I mean, as an adult, I can see why a lot of people didn’t like it,” I said, trying to calm down and be more objective. “It was marketed as some serious drama when it was more of an outrageous satire of Vegas and show business. So if people at the time thought it was a bad movie, exploitative, trashy, then sure, I get it. But damn, did Elizabeth have to become the butt of every late night shows joke? Did the rejection of her have to border on vengeful?”

“Your hurt feelings for Elizabeth aside, I never knew you took this movie so personally,” he said, which could have been taken as a backhanded comment, but I didn’t take it that way. Darren was direct when he wanted to make fun of me. And he already promised he wouldn’t do that anyway, and for better or worse, I did trust him.

“It has a special place in my heart,” I told him. “It awakened something inside of me. It was the first time I ever saw full frontal nudity on a screen. It was the first time I really conceptualized the idea of being totally naked in front of clothed people. But it wasn’t just seeing her naked that did it, it was finding out later that the experience humiliated her and ruined her career. Some combination of those things really fucked with my head, and gave me those damn warm tingly feelings. It started my fascination with stirring those feelings. And those other movies nurtured the fascination until it was an outright obsession!”

“But did you ever do anything with those stirred feelings?” he asked. “Did you ever act on your exhibitionist cravings?”

I could have lied to him. It would have been very easy. I’d been lying about my cravings all of my life. But here I sat, topless, with just a thin top covering my tits, and panties on, racing into the night with no idea of where I was being taken.

I didn’t feel like lying anymore.

“You remember when I said I used to wish I could wear a whip cream bikini for my brothers male friends?” I asked.

“You did that for them?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“No,” I laughed. “I told you. My brothers would have kicked my ass and literally shot those guys with their hunting rifles. I didn’t do anything in front of them, but I was having really intense desires to around that time. I’d go to bed, totally restless, unable to sleep, thinking about what it would be like to actually act on my fantasies. One particular summer night, I was laying in bed, hot, bored, and just on a whim I took off my nighties. Being naked in my bed felt good, exciting, and out of nowhere I got an idea that took my breath away.”

I looked at him hard as he eagerly waited for me to reveal the rest. “Spit it out.”

“I decided I would sneak out my window and walk outside our farmhouse naked.”

“And you actually did it?”

“Mhm,” I nodded with a naughty grin. “I did it every night that week. Wait till after midnight. Take off my clothes. Sneak outside and just frolick out in the field. It was so exhilarating, liberating. And each night I would convince myself to drift further and further away from my house before I ran back.”

“Sounds fun,” he said as he looked at me, clearly wondering if there was more to it.

There was.

“I had to keep upping the ante. Pushing myself beyond the boundaries of what I thought physically possible. And one day I came up with the bright idea to ride my horse naked. And I convinced myself to ride all the way across the field, which was like 5 miles, until I was to the edge of town. Then ride back.”

He responded with a chuckle, nodding his head. “That sounds like you.”

“I almost chickened out like five times. I remember being at dinner table with my family, unable to eat the Kentucky Fried Chicken that they bought because I was so nervous. And I loved the Kernel! My parents were like, ‘You’ve barely touched your food. Are you sick?’ I guess I was a little sick in the head. Getting so excited about the possibility of riding my Holly with no clothes on. I kept thinking, what if I get caught? What if I get caught? How would I explain myself? When I went to bed that night, I told myself this was stupid and that I needed to just go to bed.”

“But you did it, anyway. Right?” he asked, clearly hoping that I had.

“Damn right,” I said proudly. “You know me. I’m so stubborn I don’t even listen to myself. I dropped my nighties. Snuck out. Walked the fifteen minutes that it took to get the stable next to the camp. Saddled up, and I was off into the darkness of the night. Except, for some reason, night doesn’t seem as dark as it should be when you’re naked. I remember feeling, like, if anyone comes by, they are totally going to see a naked chick riding a horse. The night wasn’t going to hide me, even out in horse country away from the lights of the town.”

“That does sound rather exciting. The uneasiness of it all. How was riding naked versus riding with clothes on?”

“Different but the same, if that makes any sense?” I said. “Like I felt so much energy, and my adrenaline was pumping, so it felt more tiring than usual after I had only rode about a mile. I was out of breath and my heart was pounding. My legs were shaking and my muscles felt tight. But it’s still riding a horse, so after while it felt natural. I loved feeling the fresh country air blowing through my hair and kissing me all over my skin. The biggest difference was having my feet uncovered. I kept wiggling my toes. And yes, if you’re wondering, I was physically aroused, too.”

“Did you….”

“No,” I laughed. “Riding her naked felt primal. Like I was as much of an animal as she was. I was dripping in sweat, and felt bugs around me. Our stink sort of become one stink. My pelvis was being worked as I moved with her. And of course my clit was being stimulated by the motion in the saddle. So that felt good. But I still wouldn’t describe the good time I had as sexual. That wasn’t what I was going for. I guess this is what you would call that non-sexual, sexual experience.”

“Ha, ha,” he remarked.

“So anyway, I trotted most of the way because she was a little tired of riding earlier. But went into a canter to reach the edge of the field. And I kid you not Darren, almost on cue, a Sheriff’s car rides by and stops, clearly seeing someone out in the field.”

His eyes grew wide, though he kept his sight on the road. “What did you do?”

“I took the fuck off, what do you think?” I laughed. “Full on gallop. But I had to ride deeper into the field instead of making a beeline right to my house just in case they followed me. And they did follow me, so I was basically riding around for like an hour and a half before I finally made it back home without being caught. Well, almost.”

“Almost?” he looked at me.

“My fucking brothers caught me trying to sneak back in the house – naked.”

“Jesus. What did they say?”

“I don’t remember. Some variation of ‘what in sam’s hell are you doing?” Why are you naked? Why were you riding Holly naked? Why are you dirty and sweaty and out of breath? Why, why, why?”

“Did you tell them?”

“I had no choice. I was naked! They could have went to tell mom and dad right then and there and I wouldn’t have been able to deny anything. So I told them I’d been sneaking out naked and just wanted to see if I could ride Holly to the edge of the field and back.”

“They at least let you put on your clothes first, right?”

“Nope!” I laughed. “I had to explain it right there on the spot. They were mostly cool about it though. They let me in and didn’t tell anyone. Made me do their chores for a month but that was mercy considering how much I ratted them out over the years for sneaky stuff they did. My oldest brother was actually the first person that said ‘exhibitionist’ out loud to me. Told me that if I liked being naked outside, then I was probably one.”

Darren had only met my brothers once, so this seemed to be a surprising layer to them. “I had no idea they knew about…your fascination.”

“They don’t know how deep it goes, just enough that it led to me sneaking out naked one summer. But I’m close with them regardless, even if they knew how deep it was for me, they’d be cool about it.”

I laughed, remembering the final bit of that story. “But get this. I lived in a pretty small community so the next morning the Sheriff came to our house since they knew we had horses. Told my dad that he had reports of a young woman riding a horse naked last night. I swear I almost shitted bricks when I saw him at the door. But my brothers totally lied for me, said they heard me snoring last night and had to come to my room to get me to shut up, so yeah, I was totally home all night, wink, wink.”

“Siblings got to stick together.”

“Or at least don’t rat me out to the popo,” I laughed.

“Snitches get stitches,” he smiled, playing along.

“My dad made a quick run to the stables to make sure everything was in order, but nothing ever came of it. Although when the Sheriff looked at me, I’m pretty sure he had an inkling that I was that girl he saw. He’d known me since I was born, even sent his granddaughter to my dads camp. So he knew I was a little trouble maker, plus he knew what my horse looked like. But he didn’t press the issue. Just said about it being a crime to go outside naked and that a girl could get arrested for it if she got caught.”

“So I imagine that night put an end to your experiments with acting out your fantasies.”

“I was too terrified to try anything else,” I said. “But anyway, yeah, that was how this whole thing got started for me. With Showgirls, then it escalated. So, what can I say? My sexuality was sparked by Elizabeth Berkley. Nomi is Sexy as me. Her stripteases were powerful and feminist as fuck to me. I even learned them.”

“What do you mean, learned them?”

“I literally sat down and learned her strip routines, step by step. And thought at one point that I wanted to be a stripper because I loved her scenes to the point of memorizing and practicing her routine in my bedroom. But I realized that I didn’t want to be a stripper, I just wanted to be sexy and confident enough to show my naked body to an audience like she did.”

This was another story I had never told anyone. “I even performed the lap dance routine for my first boyfriend. I kept my clothes on, of course, but just downloading the song from Limewire and trying the routine out on him was exciting. Plus watching that look in his eyes as I teased him then left him with a boner. And I totally told him when his lapdance was over ‘you can fuck me when you love me.”

“Tease.”

I shrugged. “He made a good practice doll.”

He made a face and thought for a few moments before saying “I remember I asked you one time if you would have done the ‘ass to ass’ scene for Requiem if you had the opportunity to – no body double. You never answered, but I could have sworn there was a yes on your face. I wasn’t wrong about my assumption, was I?”

“I want to say yes but I’m a coward,” I told him before turning away from his gaze. This was another first that I was telling someone. “You’re not the first opportunity I’ve had to do nudity on film. I was offered the leading role in 50 Shades of Grey. I was the first choice for the writer of the book and the studio.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody does. The offer came through my agent about a month after I won my Oscar. I wanted to accept it,” I admitted to him. “I knew there would be lots of nudity, lots of sex scenes. And I had a good idea that it would be a trashy movie that critics would hate. But I still wanted to do it. I wanted to bare myself for the first time, push myself in front of a camera in a sexually explicit sex scene. But all I could think about was Elizabeth Berkley’s career.”

“Elizabeth was virtually an unown when she did that movie,” he said. “You were already an established name. Those movies are already big, they would have been billion dollar films had you signed on.”

“I don’t know about that,” I shrugged. “All I know is I was doing franchise films, prestige films, kids films, and had great endorsements as ‘America’s Darling’ or whatever. And I thought that if I accepted a role about a timid girl being whipped and having kinky sex, accepting her role as a submissive masochist that got off on being dominated, it would have ruined my credibility as an actress – just like Elizabeth.”

Here I was again, sharing deep insecurities with this man. But now, it made even less sense because we were no longer together. I should have been keeping these feelings to myself, these broken pieces, but I could not stop my lips from flapping. The words just kept falling out.

“Critics would say I was ugly and unsexy and I would win the Razzie for worst actress, and Hollywood would never take me serious again,” I said, attempting to explain my justifications for turning down the role. “So I sent a reluctant and dishonest ‘not interested’ though my agent without even meeting with the writers and director. As you can imagine, this contributed to why I was so angry about the nude leaks. I passed on nudity and exploring my sexual side to preserve my wholesome image – only for my image to be destroyed by my nudity and sexual side anyway. ”

“Everything is starting to make more sense to me,” he said after allowing a moment of silence for the grief of my exposure – grief I realized I had expressed to him over and over again since we opened up to each other. “That night in Austria, particularly.”

He was referencing my night clubbing in Vienna last summer, where I celebrated one of my male friends birthday. We ended drunk up at some strip club, where I briefly got on stage in a crop top, spanked myself with a few dollar bills, and did a half-hearted twirl around the stripper pole before my male friend helped my wasted ass back to our seats.

I didn’t think it was a big deal. I wore less clothing at award shows than what I had on in that fuzzy video. Totally harmless fun. But of course the media had to report that they had some scandalous leak of America’s Sweetheart going wild at a strip club.

The next morning I woke up with a hangover and a few missed calls from Darren. I probably should have slept my hangover off before calling him back, but I didn’t, trying to be a good girlfriend that didn’t make her man wait too after a missed call.

He said something like ‘sounds like you had a good night last night’, then mentioned the news story that was breaking about me partying in a strip club. Between having a headache and not feeling like hearing him bitch at me for having a fun night out, I said something snappy to him and seconds later, we were having our first relationship argument.

We got over it pretty quickly, but only after he admitted that some of his friends and family thought I was a drunken floozy, and he didn’t like giving them ammunition.

I didn’t appreciate him being influenced at all by what other people thought about me, but I remembered letting it go and moving on. That’s what you do when you’re in love, right?

Hearing him mention that incident again was a little off-putting, but I was having too much fun and feeling too aroused to let a single comment ruin it all.

But beyond that, the inquisitive, introspective part of me wasn’t offended, instead this night out had allowed me to truly examine my own behavior and see it for what it was. Perhaps my strip club incident did have some sub-conscious connection to my admiration of Showgirls.

Was I really in position to dismiss possible explanations for my strangest behaviors while riding across the bridge half naked in the middle of the night?

Speaking of which.

“Where are we going?” I asked Darren.

“Staten Island.”

“I mean, obviously we’re going there but why?”

“To get dessert,” he said as if that should have answered all of my questions.

I shoved him in the shoulder. “Who the hell leaves Manhattan to get dessert in Staten Island?”

“Manhattan doesn’t have what I want and what you need,” he said with a smile as he looked at me with a hunger that suggested he had a sweet tooth for something else.

“What I need, huh?” I asked as I hugged my chest for comfort, feeling colder than the heat blowing on me should have allowed.

He took note of this change in my body language. “Look Jennifer, you’ve been amazing tonight. Opening up, being honest, trusting me every step of the way with each piece of clothing I’ve asked you to remove. I know I’m being cryptic and weird right now. I understand this looks crazy. But you know I love you and would never lead you to harm?”

“Yes,” I said, meaning it. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m just a little confused about what this is leading to.”

“Is it making you nervous?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Warm tingly feelings?”

I bit my lip and decided not to lie.

“Yes.”

“We’re going to be there in a few minutes.”

I wanted to ask ‘where?’ but instead I just said “okay.”

“Do you trust me?” he eyed me with an intensity that made me forget why I had ever promised myself to never make love to him again.

“I trust you,” I eyed him back, feeling so mushy and ready to be molded by his hands.

“Then take off your panties and toss them out the window.”

There should have been more hesitation on my part. This man was asking me something that should have been questioned, interrogated, scrutinized from every angle.

But I moved quick, without a word, without any moment to consider my actions.

Perhaps I was trying to prove to him that I did trust him fully, and would do what he told me to do without question. Or perhaps I was only following a compulsion to strip that I myself had been feeling the entire ride over.

Maybe he was tapping into my own will, gently nudging me towards outrageous behavior I was only willing to do if I had someone else to blame for making me do it.

I was sure, with just a little more thought, I could reverse engineer an explanation to make clear why I so obediently listened to Darren, but for some similar reason I was also willfully ignorant of, I didn’t care enough to pursue the introspection.

I was caught in a web of submission and arousal and didn’t have the energy to fight my way out.

I brought my knees to my belly, loving how erotic my bare skin felt, and trembled after bringing a finger to the wet spot of my panties, damp with my arousal. With one smooth motion, I scooted up, moved my underwear off my bottom, and flopped my bare booty back down on the leather seat.

I dangled my panties in front of his face and he leaned in took a whiff of them.

“Ill,” I laughed. “What is up with guys wanting to sniff a girls knickers?”

“You put them in my face, what was I supposed to do?” he asked.

“I dunno. But not to stick your nose out to smell them,” I said before looking down at the panties in my hand, inspecting for any traces of butt particles, trying to remember the last time I let one loose.

“How could I resist, they smelled so good,” Darren said, apparently reading my mind and trying to make sure I knew they didn’t smell like ass. “Now toss them. Make someone elses night.”

With my heart thumping against my chest I dropped my finger on the window down button, sucking in a breath of sharp air as the cold wind blew in and tossed my hair around. I imagined some lucky bastard finding me panties, Jennifer Lawrence’s panties, and taking them home with him. That excited me.

I took one more look at Darren, who was watching me instead of the road, which at this speed, made this dangerous game feel even more dangerous. I flicked them out the window to end the stare off, quickly pressing ‘window up’ to seal myself in from the blowing wind.

I could see from the smug little grin on his lips that he was pleased with my obedience, and pleased with himself. But beyond the stroke of his ego, I sensed that he was relieved at my willingness to trust him. Breakups usually ended friendships, destroying every bit of trust that was ever built up along the way.

But I still saw Darren as someone I could let drive me in the middle of the night, half naked, with no early idea where we were going. That meant a lot to both of us. It excited me, and pleased him.

And my desire to please him – perhaps as some vestigial lust that I developed while trying to please him on set – still proved to be a motivation for pushing myself further and further past ‘I can’t do that’ boundaries.

“When did you start saying knickers?” he asked.

“The Brits corrupted me when I was over there,” I said, making an attempt at a joke, but feeling more than a little unnerved by talking about underwear while not wearing any. The feel of the leather against my ass cheeks felt so out of place and odd. But riding through the night with nervous excitement in my belly also made me feel anxious and alive, as if I was on the slow ascent up a roller coaster track.

But when and where would the drop happen?

“So what about my shirt and socks?” I asked him as let my hand rest on my mound, instinctively running fingers through my blonde bush. I was so close to being naked and that was as thrilling as it was frightening. Even scarier was that I was willing to toss the socks, toss the shirt if he asked me to.

“Leave it on,” he said while taking the exit to the right. I somehow felt both relieved and disappointed. Then he decided to tease me. “My goodness, you’re so anxious to get naked. You gotta keep something on.”

I stuck my tongue out at him playfully, but the tease had only intensified my feelings, both the embarrassment and the arousal.

I pulled my top down as far as it would stretch, barely enough to cover my mound while still leaving enough shirt at the top to cover my tits. But it wasn’t like you couldn’t see my nipples poking through this thin black shirt anyway.

I fought with myself, having to hold my wrist to keep from touching myself under the shirt. I just wanted to touch my clit, just a little touch, that’s all. But I knew that little touch would be explosive, as horny as I was, so I shook my head in silence. No, Jennifer. You will not masturbate.

Not only could I feel the slickness between my legs, I could smell it too. There was little doubt that Darren could also smell my arousal, which only made my pussy wetter, and the signs or raw arousal even stronger.

I felt naughty, very naughty, and though Darren told me he was taking me to get what I needed, the only need that currently occupied my mind was the need to be fucked.

I was so going to break my promise.

We rode in silence for what felt like an hour of me trying not to masturbate, but was only six minutes after I looked at the clock. We were in a very nice neighborhood of million dollar homes, driving slowly down a residential street as Darren concentrated hard on the street signs.

I could tell we were nowhere near a block that would have sold dessert at this time of night, and that fact brought a new layer of fear into my mind.

But before I could even say anything we pulled into a half-circle shaped driveway of a two-story house. I counted six other cars parked in the driveway by the time Darren put the car in park.

I panicked. “Where are we?”

“We’re here,” he said, going back to being cryptic.

I looked out at the 2 story house again, with so many cars parked ahead of us. Then my mind alerted me to the fact that I was half naked, having willingly tossed my bra and panties out of the window like some kind of sex slave.

Sex Slaves. Oh SHIT.

“Darren is this some creepy sex cult?” I asked, letting my imagination run wild.

“What?” he laughed. “What do you mean?”

My mom was a full on believer in conspiracy theories, especially the one about Hollywood being run by sex cults. Before I even moved to Hollywood, she had made me swear to her that I would never get involved with any creepy cults.

I didn’t believe they even existed, but funnily enough, if they did, I was sure someone like Darren would be a card carrying member. “Look, I’m not ready for any Eyes Wide Shut orgies.”

“Oh my God,” he chuckled. “That’s what you think this is?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to think this is. All I know is I’m basically naked and vulnerable in this upper class neighborhood and you’re being secretive and answering questions with questions. I don’t have any ID on me and yeah, this is sounding like the start of some horror movie.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, finally dropping the mysterious persona and deciding to level with me. “Every few months one of my good friends Lewis invites some of our closest friends over for a Tertulia. That’s all this is. A little tertulia..”

“A what?” I asked, barely hearing anything he was saying. I could barely concentrate on anything except the fact that I felt totally exposed.

“Ter-tu-llia,” he said again. “It’s just a social get together of writers and artists. We come here, have some food, smoke some cigars. And we just spend the night reading excerpts from our scripts, novels, playwrights, playing music, showing off our arts and talents.”

He could tell that it still wasn’t sinking in for me, so he continued.

“We might talk politics, or recommend a show we just attended, or discuss the future of the New York cultural scene. It’s a very lighthearted and friendly atmosphere with really great people.”

I was still puzzled. “Writers and artist? Like, industry people?”

“Yes and no,” he made a face as if he was measuring something. “It’s really not anyone you’ll ever have to work with. Just around a dozen or so friends and spouses. The only person you’ll know is Ari. He usually comes out.”

“YOUR BEST FRIEND?” I asked, in a state of disbelief as I looked out the window up at the brick mansion. “He’s here?”

“I see his car,” Darren said casually before focusing on me closely. “It’s a very discreet, private, judgement-free space for artists and creators. This is where I first share my scripts and ideas. This is where I come when I really want to open up and share vulnerable parts of myself.”

“Darren, look how I am dressed,” I said. ‘Dressed’ was a silly word for it. I had on a top that made a laughable attempt at hiding my tits, and Christmas socks. So basically naked. “I can’t show up naked inside someone’s house. That would be scandalous, not to mention rude as fuck.”

“Rude?” Darren said. “Lewis and his wife will barely bat at eye. We pull stunts like this all the time. And what happens behind those doors, stays inside those doors.”

I caught myself pulling at my shirt, stretching it even further. “Darren,” was all I could manage to articulate.

“Look, I know this is a huge step for you. But I believe in my heart that you want to be pushed into something like this. You’ve basically admitted to it on our way here.”

“It’s a fantasy,” I told him. “A dream.”

“For now it’s fantasy. But you can live your dream if you want.”

“I can’t let people see me like this,” I told him. “What if it got out that-”

“I know you’ve been hurt before by your body being exposed against you will. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that I felt would lead to another traumatic experience for you. There are good people here. And they’ll all be cool about you showing up like this. They’re not going to take pictures. They’re not going to go to any gossip blogs. They’re not going to judge you. I trust them.”

“But they would still see me,” I said, looking down at myself and then at him. “See me naked.”

“They will see you half-naked,” he said with a nod that was supposed to be reassuring. “And you can decide if you want them to see you fully naked. Look, I’m not going to make you do this if you truly don’t want to. I only can lead you to the water, but I can’t make you drink.” He straightened up his coat and cap, looking in the mirror to make sure he looked presentable.

“They have the best pie ever,” he smiled. “So I’m going to pop in there, say hello to my friends, get a couple slices for us.” He checked his Rolex.

“It’s 10:33 right now. I’ll give it to, say, 10:50. I’ll keep the car running, keep you warmed up, and if you want this experience, cut off the car, and simply walk inside. We’ll be there to welcome you. If you don’t, just wait here for 15 minutes. I’ll check my watch and if by 10:50, you’re not there, I’ll take that as my answer that you don’t wanna do this, and tell them I have to leave. Then I’ll take you home and we can have some pie. No harm, no foul.”

When I didn’t respond, he leaned over the seat and gave me a kiss on the cheek which I received warmly before he brought his eyes back to me. I felt so vulnerable and conflicted. But it was as if he knew the perfect thing to say to ease my mind. “It’s safe for you to embrace your desires, Jennifer. You don’t have to run from them tonight.”

He opened the door and stepped out, commenting that it was chillier over this way before making his way up the driveway to the house.

He looked back at the car once he reached the doorstep and then turned away to ring the doorbell. I sunk in the seat, afraid to be seen by anyone, but kept my eyes glued to the door as it opened, Darren greeted some guy and then they stepped inside without a glance back my way, seemingly not noticing that my car was running.

I wondered if he was going to tell them I was outside.

I wondered if he was going to tell them that I was going to come inside, nearly naked.

There was that word again. NAKED. NAE-KID.

I shook my head.

“Nope, Jennifer. Not going to do it,” I said to myself. And only myself, since there was no one else around. “Hell no. You’re not doing this.”

But sitting in the car, it felt like a conversation – no, a debate – needed to be had between people with different agendas, and conflicting personalities.

“You can’t let him convince you to do this one,” I told myself. “Walking in a stranger’s house butt naked. You don’t know these people. You can’t trust people you don’t know.”

But there was a little devil sitting on my shoulder. A little mini me, except devilish, with icy blonde hair, red lipstick, and five inch black stilettos on her feet. But this devil was an exhibitionist slut also, so she was naked outside of her footwear, with cute little red horns on her head and a pitch fork in her hand.

My bad side was Hollywood as hell, and hot as hell to boot, with expensive jewelry around her neck, and fire burning at her feet.

How could I deny that bitch?

“It’s not like you’ve never been naked in front of people before. Remember that night with Emma, Amy, and their friends? You had a blast strutting around naked, remember?” I mused, from the memories of exploring my wild fantasies three years ago.

But then boring Jennifer, that girl from Kentucky with dirty blonde hair, probably in a ponytail, with bandaids on her knees from playing too much baseball, she had to butt in and offer her lousy, level headed perspective.

“Yeah but that was a group of girls,” I said, reminding myself that what happened with a group of Hollywood girlfriends was not the same as what Darren wanted me to do. “This is different. There are men in that house. And one of them is Ari. Fucking Ari. The guy that didn’t want you to be cast in Darren’s movie! How can you let THAT guy see you like this?”

That boring bitch just haaaaad to ruin all the fun.

But my frown suddenly vanished, as I pictured the look on Ari’s face if he actually did see me walk in like this.

“Ari is kind of hot,” I said out loud for the first time. That made my heart flutter, admitting something so wrong.

Ari was not only Darren’s former college roommate, he was also one of the producers that traveled on the road with me and Darren to promote our movie.

And during one of those sexless trips – they blurred together, but it was either in London or Venice – I remembered looking at Ari, really looking at him, and thinking ‘hubba, hubba”.

Maybe it helped that he was talking about how great I was in the movie.

Sure, he was doing press, he was obligated to kiss my ass to promote the flick, but I always thought I was a good judge of when someone was bullshitting and when they were telling the truth. And as Ari talked up my performance, I swear I would see a twinkle in his eye that spoke to how he truly did think I was talented.

Or maybe it was just my wishful thinking. I had a weakness for wanting to be liked. Especially by smart men.

Ari was really intelligent, having studied neurobiology at Harvard and NYU, but even if you didn’t know about his PhD, you could glean how smart he was by just listening to him talk.

Him and Darren sounded like greek philosophers or something when they had a conversation about film and art or world events, and there I was, barely participating, feeling ill equipped to offer my silly thoughts about the hunger crises in Venezuela or whatever they were talking about on any given day.

But while I may have felt inadequate holding long conversations about ‘smart’ shit with them, I did like being around them as they engaged in their worldly, cultured, ‘we’re smart and we know it’ conversations. It was attractive.

And before I knew it, I was ignoring their conversation and just focusing on how hot both of these nearly 50-year-old men were. Darren, with his bald head and porn stache; and Ari with his full black and grey beard. And at some point, I thought ‘you know what? In a different world where I never dated Darren, I’d totally bang his best friend.’

And then that thought led to fantasies about both of them taking me into the bedroom and…then I would chastise myself for my thought crimes.

I had a thing for older guys, obviously, but I remembered feeling bad for thinking that way about one of Darren’s friends. Even if I never would have actually done anything like that (I’d fantasized about threesomes, but I was fairly conservative in bed – I’d only had five sexual partners in my life, all of them long-term relationships), a girl wasn’t supposed to even daydream it, right?

Sitting here in the car, I guess I realized the little crush wasn’t completely out of my system, nor the feelings of guilt that came with thinking of my ex boyfriend’s friend like that.

Although me and Darren were broken up now, it still felt wrong for him to allow me to exhibit myself to his friend. Especially a friend that may have lost money by having me cast in their movie.

It all felt way too messy.

“Maybe this is some kind of payback,” I said. “Darren convincing you to do something so stupid in front of everyone – the ultimate humiliation, ruining your career since you ruined his movie!”

And then I thought about sex slaves again. “This could be some kind of initiation into the illuminati. Show up naked, they brand you, make you partake in the rituals. That makes about as much sense as anything other possibility.”

But even though I spoke it as a possibility, I couldn’t even approach actually believing that.

“Darren wouldn’t do that to you,” I said with a sigh. “He just wants you to live your dreams and yolo the shit out of tonight. But still, you’re not doing this. You can’t.”

I looked at the clock, trying to clearly string together the best reason why I couldn’t do it. Three minutes had already passed of arguing with myself.

“So what are the pros and the cons of this?” I asked, entering into that dangerous space of actually considering what I’d just told myself I wasn’t going to do. I knew that negotiating with myself could only lead to abandoning my stance.

“Pro is I get to live out a fantasy. What fantasy? Being mostly naked in front of a crowd of people – a crowd of men,” I said, the words themselves energizing me with sexual excitement. “It’s like the underwear nightmare, except I have on no underwear.”

I touched the my thighs, gliding my fingers across my naked skin. The urge to touch myself was never stronger. “I could get off right now and then I’ll be able to think clearly.”

But somehow, I managed to resist what seemed like the easiest solution to my dilemma. It was then that I realized I enjoyed relishing in my own reluctance and indecision over exhibiting myself.

I could make this odd, self-indulgent pleasure last a little bit longer. At least until the time was up and Darren made his way back to the car with our pie.

“Okay,” I breathed, fighting and resisting the urge to get myself off and relieve this heavy sexual pressure. “So, cons. Cons. There are so many cons to this. I risk pissing people off. I risk being recorded or photographed. I risk having strangers gossip about me to blogs. I risk being humiliated, suffering the worst embarrassment of my life. I risk being abducted by a sex cult.”

I kept on and on, listing all of the risks that came with waltzing inside of this million dollar home nearly naked. And even the ‘nearly’ part of it came with a bunch of cons. It would probably make more sense to take the shirt off to at least make my ‘essentially’ naked but not actually naked appearance less confusing.

But then I spoke “I risk enjoying this so much that I have to show up to the red carpet naked, too.”

And it was those words that nearly broke me. It was a confession, so true, so honest, that I covered my mouth after speaking it.

My biggest fear wasn’t showing up inside of this house, where I would be nearly naked with a dozen or so artists behind closed doors. My biggest fear was that it wouldn’t be as bad as I was trying to make it seem in my head, and that experiencing it would only make it easier for me to say yes to the actual exhibition Darren was pushing for me to accept.

The gateway drug.

That first joint you get convinced to try, which gives you that insatiable appetite, then next thing you know, you’re on your knees sucking random cock in a gas station parking lot so you can score another hit of heroin.

Or sticking a greasy double dildo up your cunt so you can smack asses with another whore while a gang of old men in suits hoot and holler at the degrading spectacle.

It always came back to ‘ass to ass’, I noticed.

This is what Darren was offering me; a high I would forever chase if I got a little taste.

“Just say no to drugs,” I said with a laugh.

I must have sounded like a crazy person, talking to myself like this, laughing as if me being out here nearly naked in Staten Island was just a big joke.

But maybe I wasn’t the crazy one, I thought, defensively.

Maybe Darren was right, and this impulse I felt was a reaction to a crazy world putting all of these contradictory expectations and restrictions on women’s bodies.

I felt the burden of being unable to escape being viewed by society every single day, literally looked at and viewed from all angles. I couldn’t have fun while out with friends without it creating some kind of headline.

And even the mundane aspects of my life were monitored like crazy. I couldn’t fill my car up with gas, get dog food from the pet store, or pick up some tampons and Gas-X from the drugstore without hundreds of paparazzi assholes literally running after me to stick a camera in my face.

When they weren’t making photo shoots out of my errands, they were hiding in bushes or camped out on rooftops like snipers trying to photograph me on vacation while I took a dip in the pool or sat down to eat a burger.

There was a point where I started covering myself up in ugly hoodies, hats, sunglasses, and sweats every single time I left the house or went to an airport, because the thought of helping these people get paid by giving them a good picture of me made me furious.

And if they caught me in a bad angle, or without my makeup, or when I was off my diet, then suddenly I had to deal with ‘news stories’ reporting that I was, shock, a normal person, with acne, and unflattering angles. Gasp, and maybe I did look better with the Hollywood glam of movies and photoshop, and yes, maybe I wasn’t some flawless model-esque woman 24/7. The horror.

Between the media reporting that kind of nonsense and millions of people consuming it for their daily entertainment, how could anyone blame me for developing conflicting emotions about how and when and where I decide to show myself?

“Yeah, I’m not the crazy one,” I said just like a crazy person trying to convince themselves that they aren’t crazy.

Anything to deflect the fact that I was an exhibitionist slut that wanted to get out of this car naked.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was 10:46. And without much time left to deliberate between getting off to end this farce, or holding off for something even more tempting, I finally allowed a finger between my legs.

With one smooth swipe through my slit, a gaspy moan fell out of my mouth. I was soaking wet, and my finger, drenched with my sticky juices, was evidence of an arousal that was far deeper than anything else I’d ever experienced.

Foreplay with my sexiest partner never got me this wet before.

“What’s wrong with you, Jennifer?” I asked, but didn’t get a reply.

There were only questions swirling in my head, a million of them that all seemed to lead into the one big one; are you actually going to go through with this?

I wanted to arrive at a clear and definitive answer. Either a strong ‘hell no I won’t go in there naked!” or an easy “hell yes, I will!”

A conviction either way was a show of confidence, and an intimate understanding of who I was and what I wanted.

But neither of those assured responses broke through to claim dominion over me.

This was either going to be a reluctant yes, or a reluctant no. I gave a few thoughts trying to decide which was better, but it became clear that better was the wrong approach.

I needed to figure out which decision was worse.

I wasn’t convinced like Darren was that showing up naked in there was going to be some great awakening, that it would be the self-affirming dream come true that I’ve been wanting all of my life, that it would be beautiful and poignant and after prancing around naked for a night, all of us would live happily ever after.

Fuck that.

I knew better than to romanticize what would actually be a night full of awkward conversations, secondhand embarrassment, and enough stares of anger, confusion, and pity that it would make me regret my existence and want to crawl into a hole and die.

But as awful as that sounded, the alternative option didn’t make me feel any better.

Since I was being honest enough to know a large part of me wanted to do this, I knew how deflating it would be to come this far, literally and figuratively, only to turn around and go home. Sure, he could say it would be no harm, no foul, but it’s not like we would leave to go back to my place to watch movies, as if nothing had happened.

No, it would be an awkward drive back to the city, with the both of us holding regrets about what we’d done. There would be no movies at my place, or fun conversations about our time growing up, or heavy flirting.

He would be cordial and friendly and say he understands. He would never tell me that he was disappointed. But I would absorb the change in energy and mood and feel disappointment in myself.

Worst case scenario was being naked in front of people and wanting to curl up and die. I could survive that. I was sure that I could live with tonight being the most embarrassing night of my life, if that was what the night held behind those doors.

But I didn’t think I could live with that look of disappointment on Darren’s face; the one he tries to hide by smiling, or the regret I would have after I went home alone, masturbated, and went on wondering “what if” every day thereafter.

That would eat at me more.

I checked the clock. 10:49.

And with a suddenness that even caught me off guard, I reached for the ignition and turned the car off. I yanked the keychain out and opened the door, almost immediately hugging my naked arms from the bone chilling freeze in the air.

I stepped out of the car, slowly, carefully, making sure no one was around. I’m not sure why I was being so careful, especially since not wanting to be seen simply meant waiting in the car for another minute. But instead I eased the door shut, quietly to not make a noise or attract attention.

I looked back across the street where there was a long brick wall that enclosed a park, and street lights. I doubted there would be many people out at this time of the night, but there was always the chance somebody that worked late would be coming home, or taking their dog out for a walk, so I moved in the shadow of the tree just in case.

I pulled my camisole down, trying to make some kind of hoochie mama dress out of it – as if that would be less embarrassing to wear – but the material didn’t have much give left and I risked snapping my straps if I pulled too hard.

I looked at myself in the fender mirror, and even with the low light I could clearly make out that the top just barely covered my pubic area, but that was only with me standing a certain way. The second I went to moving, the shirt would ease up and expose the golden curls of my bush. Not to mention, the outline of my boobs and shape of my nipples were clear and noticeable without my bra.

I didn’t fare much better when I turned around. The curves of my ass cheeks were prominent when I remained still, but movement and standing with good posture made the bottom of my butt visible.

Jesus Christ. There was no hiding. No hiding that I was naked and no hiding… that I was hot!

My curves all seemed curvier than usual, the top hugging me tight, and making my butt and breast poke out as if I had enhancements.

I couldn’t help but admit that I did look delicious.

There goes my vanity, I thought as I stopped checking myself out, feeling silly that I was out here posing in a car mirror in the black of night during winter. I sighed, blowing cold mist out of my mouth, and decided it was time.

Here goes nothing.

I made one small step for woman, and one giant leap for an exhibitionist slut.

Shamelessly, I moved forward with the program, taking short but quick steps on the pavement, hoping I didn’t step on any broken branches or sharp edges with just my socks on. Last thing I needed was a splinter.

The wetness between my legs was warm and sticky, a pleasant feeling out in the cold, though the implication made it feel wrong. When I made it to the front door, I stopped myself from ringing the doorbell. If I was going to make a fool of myself by walking into the home of these rich old people, the least I could do is make sure I wasn’t dripping pussy juice on their floors and sofas.

I went to wipe away my wetness but jumped, startled as all hell when the door opened. I stood at attention and yanked at my shirt, making sure it was low enough to hide my crotch.

Catching my breath and settling my nerves, I saw that Darren was standing there with a woman. I didn’t know what to say, or if I should just apologize and run away, especially when she let out a shocked laugh and said “Oh wow.”