Skinny Dip by Kurokawa

The early morning was brisk, but Eiko didn't mind at all.  She had been on the swim team every year of school since she could remember, and this year she'd become captain.  As a senior, this was her last season to try and compete well enough to get scouted for a scholarhsip.  So naturally, Eiko practiced early and often.

Eiko practiced so early, in fact, that her teammates usually did little besides complain when she dragged them out to the school swimming pool in the predawn gloom.  Eiko needed someone to time her, though, and her fellow swim team members were the closest of what friends she had at her high school.

Today her friends had joined her without much fuss.  Eiko was thankful for that, her intimidating stare alone would have kept them in line but using it meant reinforcing her reputation as the frank and abrasive "swim queen."  It wasn't always easy for her to do without breeding resentment, but being captain meant she needed to push her teammates hard.  Eiko lead by example:  the person she always pushed the hardest was herself.  She had been trying to beat her old record for weeks now to no avail.

"Just a few tenths of a second that time," said Mizuko as Eiko bobbed up near the edge of the pool where the other girls stood in their swimsuits, wrapped in towels.  Mizuko was holding the stopwatch, Suiko was holding onto Eiko's towel.  Between being dripping wet from their time in the pool and wearing nothing but their swimsuits and towels they must have been cold.  Each girl wore their towel partly to hide whatever protrusions formed within the tight fabric of their swimsuits, though they were padded in the hope to prevent such immodesty.  Eiko had chosen a suit that had no padding whatsoever, so once she stepped out of the water anyone would be able to see the exact shape of every little detail.  It was embarrassing but as long as it helped her time Eiko didn't mind so much.

"If only I could shave another fraction of a second off my time," muttered Eiko, raising her goggles.

"Maybe if you lost some of that flab," said Suiko wryly.  It was a joke of course.  Eiko had been blessed with a monstrous metabolism that kept her slim and all her swimming and exercise kept her fit.  She didn't even mind that she hadn't filled out her figure as well as the other girls.  Being petite helped her stay sleek and quick in the water.  She'd even kept her hair short and shaved anywhere she could in the effort to eliminate anything standing between her and a faster time.  The only thing left she could possibly remove would be her swimming gear.  The cap was needed to restrain her hair.  The goggles weren't strictly necessary but despite her love of swimming she'd always loathed the chlorinated water in her eyes.  That only left...

"The only weight I could possibly lose is the swimsuit," Eiko said as a reply to Suiko's tease.

"Maybe that's the secret," said Suiko, "You'll break your record and win the prefectural meet by skinny dipping."

Mizuko and Suiko giggled about the idea of their captain swimming naked, but Eiko did her best to keep her face stern.  She was all business in the water.  Nonetheless, she couldn't help the blush creep into her cheeks as she imagined swimming in a race with nothing on but her cap and goggles.

"I'm pretty sure she'd get disqualified," said Mizuko, still grinning.

"Unless she insisted she was wearing a special peach-colored swimsuit," offered Suiko.  "Her skin's so blemish-free all you would see are her tan lines.  Oh, and her nipples too, of course."

"We could get her pasties then," said Mizuko before another fit of giggles.

"Yeah, though I bet the only reason Eiko would even think to wear them would be to streamline herself--those nipples sticking out would just slow her down."

Eiko shook her head and sighed.  "Let me set up for one more go," she said, doing her best to ignore her teammates' perverted ideas.  She rose from the pool and made to take her position.

"She's blushing," observed Mizuko.

"She's doing more than blushing," teased Suiko after a glance at Eiko's chest, "Though I suppose we're lucky she's not stripping right this moment to try and improve her time."

"As if," said Eiko, "Reset the stopwatch, I'm going another lap."

"Wait," said Suiko.  "Howabout you try it?"

"Excuse me?"  Eiko was letting herself get too flustered.  Suiko was always clowning around but all this was a bit much even for her.

"Yeah," Mizuko piped in, "There's no one around, you could totally get away with it."

"No."

"Awww c'mon," said Suiko, then after a pause, "We dare ya."  Mizuko took her cue from Suiko:  "Yeah, we, uh, dare you!  What could it hurt?  You might actually break your old record this time!"  Eiko didn't even deign to reply.

The possibility was tempting, as loathe as Eiko was to admit.  Would losing the swimsuit really help though?  It could just have the opposite effect.  Eiko looked down at her chest and wondered.

"She's thinking about it," said Suiko in hushed tones.  Then louder: "C'mon Eiko, let's see that deliciously fair skin you always hide beneath that ugly ol' racing suit."

Suiko and Mizuko both began to chant "Take it off! Take it off!" like a couple of perverts at a strip club.  It was such embarrassing behavior, Eiko was ready to strip just to shut them up.

"Okay, okay," said Eiko, "That's enough."

"Does that mean you'll do it?" asked Suiko with what was far too much enthusiasm.  Mizuko merely covered her mouth with her hand.

Eiko couldn't shake the thought of gliding through the water completely unimpeded and unrestrained.  Her lithe body would be free; instead of the constant tightness of the swimsuit there'd be nothing but the feeling of cool water flowing past her.  It was almost as enticing as the chance to finally beat her time.

"Fine," said Eiko, her blush increasing.  She wanted to turn her face away so they couldn't see, but she didn't want to seem bashful either.  She had to keep her confidence up.  "I'll try a lap without the suit."

"All right!" said Suiko, "One whole lap."

Eiko stood up straight and lifted her hands to her shoulder straps while the other two girls looked on, wide-eyed.

"C-could you at least turn around?" Eiko asked, annoyed.

Suiko and Mizuko complied, sniggering and whispering to each other.  Eiko just wanted to get this over with.  She peeled out of the swimsuit, the morning air feeling queer against her bare chest.  She was used to the feeling of her suit and she was used to her arms and legs feeling the cool air of the early morning, but the sensation of nothing covering her breasts while outdoors was alarming.  She was also suddenly very conscious of her nipples--small pink things stiff in the cold air.  Her exposure only ensured they remained so, but instead of a response to the cold, now her nipples would now remain hard just from undressing out in the open.

Eiko gathered the loose folds of her swimsuit and shoved downward, slipping the suit off her buttocks and partway down her thighs.  The feeling that had passed through her when she bared her chest was tripled when she felt the air on her lower lips.  The morning breeze felt odd down there.  Shaved bare, there was truly nothing obscuring her womanhood.  Eiko then stepped out of her suit one leg at a time and let her suit fall to the poolside with a wet plop.  At this Mizuko and Suiko turned back around and balked at Eiko's naked figure crouching over to ready herself for her naked lap.

"Oh my god you're really gonna do it," said Mizuko.

"I was sure you were gonna chicken out," said Suiko.

Eiko wasn't showing anything they hadn't seen in the locker room countless times before, but she'd never been naked outside nor in such a compromising position in front of her friends before.  It was incredibly embarrassing, but Eiko told herself that at worst it was just some harmless fun to improve morale.  Who knows, she might even actually beat her record this time...

"On your mark!"

Eiko lowered her goggles and put her hands to the edge of the pool.

"Get set!"

Eiko raised her butt in the air.  It was sure to draw a new round of giggles from her friends, but she was not going to compromise on her form, even naked.

"GO!"

Eiko dashed into the water, slipping in without any audible splash whatsoever.  She held her hands out in front of her and let the swimming take over.  Her body did everything it had hundreds of times before, but Eiko had to take the effort to put aside the sensation of having nothing between her bare skin and the water.

Eiko glided across the pool like a dolphin, her every movement flowing and graceful, her back and shoulders rising and falling with each stroke, the world around her shrinking down to just a single stretch of clear water.  She was still nagged by the feeling of the water passing across her bare skin--down her bare chest, across her nipples, down the line of her flat stomach and even across her labia.  She hadn't realized just how sensitive she would be to the sensations in those areas.  But there wasn't time for that, all that mattered now was finishing the lap.

Eiko pushed off the far end of the pool after what had seemed like an eternity.  She found new motivation as she shot back down the lane: the sooner she made it back to the other end of the pool, the sooner she could put an end to this silly dare and cover herself up again.

Just a few more moments, just a bit longer and she could get out, dry off, and put some clothes on.  That was all Eiko wanted to do now, not even the time mattered anymore.  She needed to get dressed, her urgency to do so was taking over her mind in place of the swimming, in place of anything else.

It wasn't about beating her record anymore, it wasn't even about swimming.  It was about her vulnerability, it was about the fact that she was skinny dipping in the school swimming pool and needed to put something on as soon as possible before someone besides her two friends saw her stark naked.  She needed to finish, she needed to get back into a her suit or towel or anything, anything besides her birthday suit.

Eiko touched the end of the pool triumphantly, raising her head out of the water, gasping for air.  She grasped at her goggles and wrenched them off, desperate to lay eyes on Suiko or Mizuko and demand her towel.  She also became aware of how her swimming cap had come off somehow during her frantic rush back down the pool.

Eiko looked around the poolside.  No one was waiting for Eiko at the end of her lap.  Where Mizuko had stood with the stopwatch, and where Suiko had been jeering and joking there were only a few wet footprints to show that anyone had been there at all.  Eiko didn't have time to worry about her cap or her goggles anymore.

Panic hit Eiko, fueled by her urgency to get dressed as well as her inability to do so.  Skinny dipping was one thing, it felt a bit odd being naked in water that wasn't the bath, but now the prospect of leaving the pool completely naked was looming over her.  Before her lap it hadn't bothered her so much because she knew she'd soon be in the water, with her friends close by.  There were no friends in sight however, and no towels or swimsuits in sight either.  Rather than escaping to the safety of the pool, Eiko was now going to have to cross to the locker rooms completely exposed.  The pool area offered little privacy, compounding how vulnerable she felt.  It even ran against an edge of the school grounds with only a fence of wide-spaced bars to keep out prying eyes.

First thing's first, thought Eiko after fighting back the worst of her fear, I need to get to the locker room.  Her friends would be there, she assumed, and her stuff as well.  Unless... but no, they couldn't be that cruel.  The naked lap obviously hadn't been enough to satisfy Suiko, so this was just a prank to get one last dig in on Eiko.  Not the most hilarious prank to Eiko just this moment, but there was no way her teammates could just abandon their captain like this.  Right?

Eiko put on a brave face--or as brave as she could seem while flushed and naked--and climbed out of the pool.  Standing there dripping wet and cold she felt absurd.  She had to move fast.  Her wet footsteps had never sounded so loud, and her pace down the side of the pool never felt so slow.  All someone had to do was walk anywhere near the pool area and they'd see alot more than just her shape.  It wasn't quite sunrise still, but the sky was steadily lightening.  Hopefully if someone did see her they wouldn't be able to tell who she was at a glance...but that seemed increasingly unlikely as Eiko thought about it.  The swim team did only have so many people on it, and only a few of them ever came to get some practice in so early, and only one of them had short bleached hair.  Eiko couldn't even bear to lift her gaze from the ground in front of, she was so afraid to look up and find someone standing nearby, staring at her naked tanlined body.  They'd know it was the captain of the swim team and from then on instead of being known for her brashness and her speed, she'd be known for her perversion and her streaking on campus.

Eiko could finally breathe again when she reached the shelter of the door to the girls' locker room and showers.  She stepped inside quickly and let herself relax.  Here being naked wasn't so out of place and she could tell her friends they pulled a good one on her and they could all go back to something resembling a normal morning.

Eiko's relief was very temporary.  The locker room was as empty as the poolside had been.  Eiko timidly asked "Hello?" but then immediately regretted it.  If anyone else besides Mizuko or Suiko were around they'd find Eiko and she'd have no way to explain why she was hanging around the locker room naked.  Her only option at the moment was to put on her clothes without showering or drying off.  She'd just have to put up with the scratchiness of the poolwater drying on her skin, not to mention the dampness of her clothes.

Eiko rushed to her locker but it was open and empty.  Changing into her clothes wasn't an option after all.  She wanted to scream but now she really was in an unexplainable situation should anyone find her.  "Where are your clothes?" she could hear them asking her, "Why are you naked?"  And then the accusing eyes, the rumors that would spread through the school.  Competing in a swimsuit was already close enough to performing naked for an audience as Eiko could ever stand but people sure would think differently of her affinity for swimming when they began to assume she was an exhibitionist.

And for all of this to happen when the stakes were higher than ever...this could ruin her entire athletic future!  Those idiots!  Eiko would have to give them a piece of her mind later.  She'd put on her coldest, meanest face and give them the tongue-lashing of their lives.  Later though.  Right now she couldn't be very threatening at all to behold: naked and dripping wet, her ribs were countable when she apprehensively held in her breath.  Not only that, but Eiko's breasts would quiver as she shivered and her nipples were still on proud display.  Her petite frame was no longer an asset.  In the water it made her streamlined, but out of it it was a vulnerability.  Instead of being thankful for her sleek shape, now she was embarrassed that she had such tiny breasts.  It was sure to be the first thing anyone who saw her like this would notice.  She felt tiny and weak and helpless and she hated it.

At any rate there was nothing for her here, Eiko finally surmised after venting her angry thoughts to herself.  All she could do was either wait for help or seek her friends out.  She had no clue where they could be though, and searching for them would mean walking around the halls of her school completely naked.  Slinking down the halls covering herself with nothing but her hands was much more dangerous than waiting, but between her anger and her impatience, Eiko couldn't bear to just sit around.

She poked her head out the locker room door that opened into a hall of the school building itself.  It was still early enough that no one else should really be around.  Eiko and her teammates only ever got in as early as they did because the faculty had trusted her with a set of keys that could get them in and out of the facilities. Unless Mizuko and Suiko went holding the doors open for any other students who happened by, the only people she could possibly encounter would be faculty.  And boy if she sold her story right she could get her teammates in a lot of trouble for what they did...though first she'd have to dealt with encountering someone in her nude state.

Eiko scampered down the hall keeping one hand over her small breasts, easily shielding her nipples and tender areolae from view.  Her other hand was down over her slit, positioned to keep it from being too obvious that she was completely shaved as well.  It was no oddity for a swimmer to elminate extraneous hair, but still, to have it put baldly on display, literally, would still be humiliating.

She peered up a stairwell wondering if her friends were hiding on another floor when she heard whispering.  It came from nearby.  She ducked into the alcove under the upper flight of stairs and waited to see who it was.  They certainly sounded like high school girls.

Sure enough, it was Mizuko and Suiko, padding down the hall barefoot and still in just their wet swimsuits.  What was distressing though was that they weren't carrying anything with them, not even their own towels.  They had stolen Eiko's suit, towel, and clothes, but where was all that stuff now?

Eiko leapt out at them, red-faced and seething.  "What did you do with my stuff!?"  She put her hands on her hips, forgetting her modesty and forgetting all her doubts about being able to look threatening with no clothes on.  Neither Mizuko nor Suiko looked the least bit amused but rather frightened instead.  They must have realized their prank had gone too far and at least had the good sense not to mock their naked friend.

"E-Eiko!" said Mizuko, "We're sorry! We didn't mean to--"

"We just kinda got carried away," offered Suiko, "We thought it'd be funny to leave you at the pool like that and then... then..."

"Then Suiko had the bright idea to take your clothes too," said Mizuko, "and then hide everything somewhere and wait until after you freaked out a bit... but..."

Eiko didn't say a word but just stood there glaring daggers into each of them.

"It just kinda happened," said Suiko.  "We were running around outside the building with your stuff, we needed a place to--"

"We threw it over the fence," interrupted Mizuko, "Well, through the fence.  It was just, it was just there and it was quick, we didn't think about how...how..."

How all of Eiko clothes would be sitting outside the school grounds in a gym bag or a little pile for anyone to come across and scoop up.  How Eiko would be stranded in her school before class completely naked.

"Where."  That was all Eiko said, her voice was ice cold, so much so that her word was hardly even a question.

The girls both pointed in a direction that, at the moment, was nothing but a wall.  "O-outside," said Mizuko.  We came in the corner entrance but before that we were sneaking around the side of the building from, from the pool area..."

Eiko dragged the two girls with her back down to the door they had mentioned.  Eiko poked her head out while they stood watching for anyone coming down either hall.  Eiko couldn't see anything resembling a gym bag or a pile of clothes along the fence line that she could see.

"I don't see them."

"Down there," pointed Mizuko, "It wasn't that far from the pool, actually."  She said that like it was comforting news, but if anything, that made it worse.  If it wasn't reachable from inside the fence, Eiko would have the much farther to go to get around on the outside of the fence.  Eiko didn't even consider climbing it.  She would likely just hurt herself and she'd be more visible than ever even if she was successful.  She asked her teammates how far from the fence they fell.

"Uh, too far to reach I think," said Suiko, "There's, like, bushes and stuff..."

"Maybe if we got a cleaning net--"

"No," said Eiko, "That's locked up in the supply closet, and unless you thought to keep the KEYS with you..."

The girls shook their heads.

That left one option.  Someone would have to walk out the front gate and around the outside of the school grounds fence to her stuff.  Naked.

"We go together," said Eiko with the decisive certainty of a captain.  There was no way she'd let the two out of her sight and what's more she obviously couldn't trust them with her stuff, but she also couldn't very well run around naked outside the school.  If she had to though it would be better if she had the pranksters with her.  At the very least, they'd all get in trouble together.

Mizuko and Suiko looked at each other.  "L-like this?" Mizuko said tremulously, hugging herself.  "We don't even have our towels..."

"Whose fault is that?" snapped Eiko, annoyed that her friends could find room to complain when they at least had something on.  Eiko would have gladly run a mile in her unpadded swimsuit if it meant avoiding having to run around naked.

With nothing else to say, the other two girls (clad only in their swimsuits) followed Eiko (clad only in her scowl) down the hall towards the front of the school.  They'd at least need some shoes, Eiko thought, they'd stop by the shoe lockers then make a mad dash outside for her bag.  It was the only way--

Footsteps caught the girls off guard and they all panicked.  Eiko, the most vulnerable for obvious reasons, tried the door to the nearest classroom.  Open!  Eiko dashed into the room and closed the door behind her, doing her best to soften its closing so as not to make a loud slam.  The footsteps approached and then receded.  Eiko could breathe again.  She thought she heard a voice too, but she couldn't be sure.

She poked her head out to make sure it was safe then proceeded down the hall once more towards the shoe lockers.  She was nearly there when she thought about braving the outside and realized something important:  Eiko was alone.  Her friends had run off in their panic and gone some separate direction.  Wherever they were now they weren't likely to come for her.

Eiko trembled when she caught sight of the front doors and the windows with their large glass panes.  She hurried between two rows of shoe lockers and found hers quick enough.  Her next trial loomed over her now, but it wasn't even the idea of walking outside in the nude.

Every morning for years now, Eiko had waged war with her shoe locker.  It was a stubborn old thing and often took coaxing to open.  That enough would have been awful, but to top it off it was on the top row.  Short as she was, Eiko had had to struggle each and every day just reach her shoes.  She had always been too stubborn and proud to ask to swap with a classmate--boy did she regret that now.

Eiko swallowed and stared up at her locker.  The longer she stood there, the more likely someone was to walk by and turn their head to see her standing there without a stitch on.

Eiko stood on her tiptoes, holding herself steady on the handle of a lower locker.  She strained with the door, painfully aware of the tips of her nipples sticking out from the gentle mounds of her breasts and how they moved when she rocked back and forth on and off the tips of her toes.  Her outstretched arms, shoulders, back, and torso would all prove an appetizing sight should anyone find her just now--while struggling with the door she'd not even have her hands for cover.  She wrenched the door open and hopped to snag the shoes out of their cubby, causing one more jiggle before she steadied herself.

Eiko pulled on her school shoes.  She had no socks on of course but it was infinitely better than going barefoot.  Once she had them on she felt even more embarrassed than she had just a few moments ago.  It was one thing to be stark naked, but putting shoes on with nothing else seemed to be its own brand of embarrassing.  Perhaps it was the idea that putting shoes on meant going somewhere, so putting shoes on while naked meant going somewhere naked.  As red as Eiko's face became contemplating that, it wasn't at all inaccurate:  She was indeed putting on those shoes for the very purpose of heading outside...with nothing else on.

When she reached the front door and put her hand to the handle, Eiko remembered the keys.  They were in her gym bag, which was outside with the rest of her stuff.   Once she passed through this front door, it would lock behind her.  Eiko would be trapped outside if she didn't find the keys where Mizuko and Suiko said her things would be.  More importantly, Eiko would be trapped outside NAKED if she didn't find her stuff.  Should she sneak all that way to where they tossed her things and find out someone had come along and taken them...

Eiko couldn't stop a shiver from passing through her and it wasn't from being cold.  It was a mad dash to the finish line once she stepped outside, no chance of turning back, and she couldn't even be sure the finish line would be there when she got to it.  What would she do then?  If she really didn't have anything to put on, would she just come back through the school gates without any clothes?  Say good morning to her fellow students, to her teachers, all while only wearing her shoes and her tanlines?  If she didn't get arrested, she'd almost certainly get expelled.  If by chance she didn't get expelled, all hopes of finishing her season on the swim team and finding an athletic scholarship would vanish.  She wouldn't just be naked at school for that one morning, she'd be naked of her future plans for the rest of her senior year.  That shame would weigh on her worse than what her peers would call her for streaking around the school grounds.

She couldn't know if her clothes were still outside beyond the fence or not, but Eiko told herself that the longer she dawdled, the more she risked her fears coming true and someone finding her things.  Think of it as a race, Eiko reassured herself, reduce the world to just the path before you and get to that finish line.

Eiko opened the door.  The world outside may as well have been frozen in time.  The sun was just beginning to rise but the breeze had died and no activity stirred the morning air.  There wasn't even any traffic.  There weren't even any birds singing in the trees.  It was all so calm and serene and Eiko was going to disturb it with her furious nude dash to the front gate and around the fence.

Eiko took off, running as fast as she dared, running as fast as her school indoor shoes would allow.  In a crazy coincidence, it seemed to her that the distance between the main door and the front gate was just about the length of a lap up and down her school's swimming pool.

Track had never been Eiko's sport--anything that didn't take place in the water wasn't her sport--but her physical conditioning had always allowed her to contribute significantly to track-and-field days throughout her school years; her classes had almost always relied on her to be an anchor in a relay despite her stature.

Sure enough, Eiko's fitness served her well on land as it did in the water.  Eiko's slim, fit frame from her shoulders down to her feet stretched and twisted with every bounding stride.  Her arms took on a sprinter's rhythm of movement instead of being used to cover herself, leaving her nudity fully exposed.  Her small breasts bounced what little they had to bounce, her still-hardened nipples shaking up and down with every step, her bare mound and lips in full view to anyone in front of her.

When Eiko reached the front gate she had to squeeze between its doors.  The fence was admittedly more for decoration than for security but the generous width that had allowed her friends to stuff her things through to the outside wasn't quite enough to allow her nude form to squirm through--else she could have squeezed through directly where her clothes lay.  Where the gate doors met was a different story:  when Eiko pushed on them to where the chain held taut they left a larger gap that she was able to pass through with a couple moments of wriggling while making sure to step high over the chain.  All of this made far too much noice for Eiko's liking, not to mention how long it pinned her to one spot, but the alternative was staying trapped naked on school grounds.

Once she got through, Eiko forced herself to press onward without allowing any time to survey the sidewalk up and down the street fronting her school.  She had no time and if someone was there, someone was there and there was nothing she could do but keep running.

As Eiko ran along the fence towards the side where her friends had insisted they'd stashed her things she felt her courage falter.  The same panicked desire she'd had while swimming her naked lap--to want nothing so badly as to be dressed again--came back into the forefront of Eiko's mind.  She rounded the corner to the fence along the side of the school.

Someone was there.  A pedestrian.  He was looking at the ground as he walked, so Eiko hadn't been spotted yet but at any moment he could look up at the noise of Eiko's footsteps and be graced with a full frontal view of her supple, tanned body.

Cover!  Eiko needed cover, fast!  She dove behind the a large dark object in her peripheral vision.  It was probably a dumpster of some kind, knowing her luck this morning.

Eiko struggled to control her breathing, her chest rising and falling, her breathing heavy--the sight of her like this could very well cause any hot-blooded male to lose half his blood out his nose.  She couldn't let the man walking down the sidewalk hear her, and not out of fear for his blood loss.  She crouched behind her shelter and slowly crab-walked her way around the side of it to keep out of sight of the pedestrian.

Eiko watched the pedestrian make his way down the path until he was out of sight and only then looked up to see what it was she'd hidden behind.

It was one of those clothes donation bins for charity.  Great, just great.  Eiko could sure use some clothing, too bad it was impossible to retrieve anything from the bin.  Fortunately, Eiko's own clothes shouldn't have been much farther.

Eiko left the relative safety of the bin and scurried on down the side of her school's fence.  Her momentum had taken a hit from her near discovery, her legs had begun to feel wobbly and she couldn't stop her shivering.  She just had to endure a bit longer.

There was nothing immediately visible in the area where Mizuko and Suiko had insisted her stuff got tossed but she took cover in the brush as her panic began to return and almost tripped over her gym bag.  Sure enough, it was filled with her things.  But not only that, it held her friends' towels as well.  They must have been so eager to leave Eiko with nothing at all to cover up with that they'd stuffed their towels in with her things.  She wondered what had happened to Mizuko and Suiko, and whether they were still standing around in their skin-tight swimsuits.

Though she finally had her clothes in her hands, Eiko couldn't bear to move at all for fear of shaking the bushes and attracting unwanted attention.  It took a bit to convince herself that she could be stealthy enough to keep the brush from rustling too much.  Eiko dressed clumsily, stopping a couple times as more early birds passed by her hiding spot.  If any of them had been a few minutes earlier, or if Eiko had been a few minutes later, any of them could have been witness to Eiko's streaking.  Or worse, they would have found her clothes and taken them.  That thought made her shiver.  Getting everything on without standing up far enough to be seen was a hassle but Eiko finally regained her decency.  The feeling of clothes on her skin had never felt so good.

Eiko still couldn't help but feel pangs of shame walking back towards her school's entrance.  Even clothed she remained red-faced and shivering, the knowledge of what she'd done keeping herself from calming down.  What's more, she'd probably come down with a cold soon, she'd need to remember to take precautions--she couldn't afford to get sick.

Eiko got back through the gate and in the front doors again with her keys without meeting another pedestrian.  She wondered if any of them had been figments of her imagination.  She was still pondering the mysteries of her naked run around the school when she reached the locker room again to put away her swimming gear.  Eiko was shocked to find Mizuko and Suiko still there, and still in their swimsuits.

"Eiko!" they said together, as surprised to see her clothed as she was to see them still standing around in nothing but school-issue swimwear.

"Don't."  Eiko switched back into her captain mode.  "You two have a lot to answer for."

"We're sorry," they pleaded, and then they each proceeded to try and out-apologize the other, blaming each other for what happened.  Eiko had heard enough.

"You're just lucky my clothes didn't get stolen," said Eiko, though deep down she knew she was the one who was lucky, "or I wouldn't be in such a forgiving mood."

Mizuko and Suiko looked at each, incredulous.  They allowed themselves small, sheepish smiles.  "Thanks, Eiko, we're glad it all worked out alright."

All right?  Everything had been far from "alright"--they had left her naked and alone, they had left her with no choice but to venture outside with nothing but the morning air on her skin.  Eiko struggled to keep her mouth shut.  There had to be something she could do to impress on them what they'd done...

"Um, Eiko?" asked Mizuko hesitantly.

"What is it?" she snapped.

"C-could we please have our towels back?  We haven't been able to dry off at all since, well..."

"Since you tossed your own towels out with all my things?"

"Y-yeah..."

Eiko made to hand the girls back their towels but then thought of something much better.  She stopped and held the gym bag close.  "Actually...no."

Mizuko and Suiko looked at each other worriedly.  Eiko let them fret a moment before continuing:

"I'll give you back your towels and I'll forget all this, but only on one condition:  you swim the same lap you had me swim."

"You mean..." Mizuko started.

"...naked?" Suiko finished.

"Yep.  One lap of skinny-dipping, just like I did.  Though I promise I won't run off with all your clothes while you're in the pool."

That didn't sit well with them, even with Eiko's promise not to pull the same prank they did to her, but time was ticking and the later it got the harder it would be to get away with a nude lap in the pool.

Mizuko and Suiko debated in half-whispers about Eiko's offer before finally accepting.  Crestfallen, Mizuko and Suiko followed Eiko back out the pool, stripped off their swimsuits and handed them to her.  Eiko stuffed the damp swimsuits into a second compartment of her bag.

Mizuko and Suiko were no more comfortable naked in the morning air than Eiko had been.  They weren't quite as fit as Eiko, but they were each still in fine shape.  Mizuko was softer, Suiko was bonier, but each had larger breasts than Eiko and each allowed a tuft of hair at their crotch.  Eiko couldn't help but remember her own shaved self exposed for all the world to see--even now Mizuko and Suiko weren't quite as naked as Eiko had been, and that just made her all the more annoyed.

The two girls shivered in the morning air, their breasts and even their rumps had a bit of bounce to them as they minced and squirmed, standing above the end of the pool.  The looks in their eyes were pleading for Eiko to start their lap.

"Oh yeah," she said, as if she'd forgotten she was holding the stopwatch this time.  "On your mark."

Mizuko and Suiko both took their positions.  They didn't laugh when it was their bare butts sticking up in the air, or their breasts hanging in the open.

"Get set."

They each hunched poised as if to strike, their expressions so intense Eiko wouldn't be surprised if it was the best laps they'd ever have.

Not that she'd actually be timing them.

"Go!"

Mizuko and Suiko both darted into the water, perhaps not as gracefully as Eiko, but their form was still very well executed.  Their nakedness was not immediately evident under the water, but anything more than a quick glance would be enough to tell that the only colors shimmering below the surface of the pool were flesh tones.

When the two girls had finished their lap, Eiko was down at the other end of the pool already.  "Sorry," she called, "Time's getting short, better head in!"

Mizuko and Suiko had to climb out without any towels to wrap themselves in.  They scampered down the length of the pool with their hands between their legs.  "You said--"

"I didn't leave you alone, as I promised."

Mizuko and Suiko knew better than to argue.  They reached for the gym bag hanging from Eiko's shoulder but she pulled back and wagged a finger at them.  "Nuh-uh.  Shower first, need to rinse off that poolwater.  Then you can dry off and get dressed."  The girls were in such a hurry to run inside out of the open that they failed to notice that Eiko didn't follow them in to the locker room.

When the two pranksters had rinsed off and stepped out of the showers, they emerged to the same empty locker room that Eiko had been faced with earlier.  They panicked in much the same way and found just as little in the room to cover themselves with as she had.  Mizuko and Suiko were still hopping from one foot to the other in anxiety when Eiko finally returned...with an empty gym bag.

"Wh-what happened?  Where are our clothes?" asked Suiko.

"We--we're NAKED," said Mizuko, always so perceptive.  "We need our clothes, what'd you do with 'em?"

After a long pause Eiko finally spoke up.  "Oh, right," she said, as if finally remembering something she'd long forgotten.  She had promised to forget everything and she'd meant it: the moment the girls began showering Eiko had "forgotten" why she was there and "forgotten" what all those extra clothes and towels were doing in her bag.  Only one place had seemed fitting.  "I donated them to charity."  Eiko flashed a smile.

Without any further explanation, Eiko turned and walked out of the locker room, leaving the two confused girls behind with nothing to their names but a few drops of water.

*****

The girls' gym teacher found both Mizuko and Suiko huddled naked in the locker room that morning, but no matter how sternly she questioned them, they refused to explain how they could be at school without a single article of clothing between them.  Fortunately, it did not become a scandal.  It didn't stop the two from worrying constantly that the rest of the student body would hear about it somehow.  Every now and then a boy caught gazing at them or a whisper between two girls would make them wonder.

Eiko never did manage to break her own record, but she did find out she was able to break several of the school's long-standing track records at that year's track and field day.  The only difference from any other year was the particular memory she used for inspiration...

...speaking of which, every now and then, late in the evening or well before dawn, when Eiko was as certain as she could be that she was alone, she would strip off her swimsuit and swim a lap naked.  Her solitude meant she could never time those laps of course, but she could also never shake the feeling that she was always her fastest when skinny dipping.