Chapter 18

July 3, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written on July 5, 2017]

Practice went very well, much better than I had anticipated. The team seemed to relish putting Heather through her paces, with the fullbacks being particularly enthusiastic about booting long balls for her. Some of them were just silly – and we had a good laugh, but a goodly number of them were useful and on the spot. I think that we wore Heather out.

Since we had the big bag of balls and cones [of course, if I’d have thought about it, I would have realized that we needed only a few balls; dopey me], we needed a ride back home, which Gracey’s mom offered. Since Heather was obviously exhausted from all that sprinting, I asked if she wanted to come home with Rhee and me. Since she didn’t live that far away from me and she could walk home after she was rested, she agreed, thanking me.

As we walked in the mud room door, I asked Heather if she wanted a shower.

“Oh, god, yes. That would be great. But I don’t have a towel.”

“Hey, no prob. We have towels aplenty. You have your pick of showers: my parents’ or the upstairs bathroom.”

“Oh. I’d feel too weird showering in your parents’ shower. I’ll take upstairs.”

“That’s fine. I like ‘my’ shower better, too.”

Rhee chimed in. “Oh, yeah. That’s the world’s best shower!”

“Great,” Heather responded. “But I’d like to just chill for a bit, if that’s okay.”

“Sure! Come on up.”

We trooped upstairs and Rhee and I started stripping on the way up and were topless by the time we hit my bedroom door. I opened the door and turned to let a wide-eyed Heather in.

“Uh ... You’re half naked.”

I figured that for the cause of her wide eyes and asked, “How’s this different from the locker room, other than the fact that there are only three of us?”

She started to open her mouth, but closed it, and nodded abruptly.

“Don’t sweat it, Heather,” said Rhee. “It’s not really different and none of us have anything that the others haven’t seen multiple times before.”

“Yea-aahh, but it seems different in a house. I understand your logic, and it is logical, but I guess that my upbringing makes me consider this different from the locker room.”

I answered, “Well, don’t worry about it, as long as you don’t object to us stripping down. We’re quite used to it.”

As I said that, both Rhee and I were stripping the rest of the way.

Heather looked like she was embarrassed and had questions, so I asked her, “What’s your question? I can see that you have at least one.”

She flushed pink all the way into her shirt. After a short hesitation, she asked, “But you’re both naked. Isn’t one of you going to wait for the other to shower?”

“Nope. We shower with the whole team at times, and Beth and I often shower together here. It saves time and a little bit of water.”

“Umm, won’t that be kind of tight with two people?”

“Ah,” I said. “Come look.”

I led her to the shower in the bathroom across the hall. When she slapped eyes on the huge, glass-enclosed shower with two shower heads, I think that we blew her mind. I could read her lips saying, ‘wow.’

“My parents’ shower is similar, but not as big.”

Rhee added, “The two water streams on you at the same time makes for a wonderful shower. No cold side! And the tank is huge. Well, bigger than normal.”

“If you don’t want to shower with us,” I added, “feel free to wait anywhere. Well, please don’t wait on my bed with those sweaty clothes and body. Even if you don’t shower with us, feel free to wait in here. We won’t be long. The longest part of showering with Rhee is drying her hair.”

During this time, Rhee had gotten the shower heads running, so I just opened the door and joined her. We did our usual quick shower in which, after hair was washed, one of us washed the back side of the other while she was washing the front and then both turned about and repeated. Yeah, it doesn’t save all that much time, what with the washee having to bend over to wash her legs, but it was certainly more enjoyable.

Heather had opted to stay in the bathroom, sitting on the chair there. I had kept the corner of an eye out after I got in the shower and she had immediately leaned back and closed her eyes. We did tire her out. We washed Rhee first.

[Come to think of it, I don’t think that we’ve ever discussed who goes first, and it’s not always Rhee. We seem to just know who was going first nearly every time.]

When we turned around, I was mostly facing in Heather’s direction and saw her when she opened her eyes. They immediately got huge. Of course, at the time, Rhee was washing my ass with one of those scrubby puffball things – loofa, I guess, but she then moved down the backs of my legs.

I got rinsed and we stepped out of the shower, leaving the heads on for Heather.

Rhee told Heather, “Chop, chop! We left the water going for you, so hurry up and get in. Yeah, I know that it’s more intimate than the locker room but showering in front of us here is not truly different.”

Heather jumped up and started stripping, while Rhee and I toweled off. As Heather went by us into the shower, I got a good view of her backside. Her proportions are odd, with those long legs on a fairly short torso, but those legs were quite nice, and her ass was lovely. Of course, those are my views; I don’t know what guys would think of them. Although I know that guys are supposed to like long legs, I don’t know what they consider shapely. It probably varies. It certainly seems to vary about asses, as there are websites devoted to large-, even huge-assed women, but other videos have men seeming to have more-than-enough fun with women with more-petite asses. My mom’s ass is not at all large and Dad seems quite fine with it.

By the time that Heather exited the shower, we were drying Rhee’s hair in the typical fashion, Rhee drying one side, me the other. Her hair is so thick that it takes quite a while to get it even towel dry compared to my not-all-that-much-shorter hair, as mine is thin.

I quickly noticed that Heather was just standing there with her towel in her hand, staring at Rhee. I was just about to ask her about it when she spoke.

“I didn’t know your hair was so long. I’ve seen it only in a braid.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long time since it got anything more than a trim. It’s really annoying when I have to wash it, and, with playing soccer, I have to wash it a lot. But it feels so good when it’s clean and loose that I haven’t quite managed to convince myself to cut it.”

As Rhee and I started the two hair dryers on her head, Heather was dried off and she had started climbing back into her sweaty clothes.

“Hey! Stop that!”

I had to yell to be heard over the hair dryers. I turned off the one in my hand and Rhee, seeing what I had done, turned hers off.

“You don’t want to wear those sweaty things. You can borrow some of mine. Your torso is shorter, but you look about my waist size, so shorts should be easy. Take those undies off. Oh. Are you saving the thong and short shorts for the game tomorrow?”

Rhee busted a gut and Heather turned scarlet down to her belly! But back she came!

“Yeah, I didn’t get enough to ‘waste’ them on practice. Besides, who would see them other than team members and they’ve all seen me naked.”

Rhee just about fell to the floor she was laughing so hard. I was grinning to beat the band.

“You go, girl,” I said to her.

Between chuckles, Rhee added, “Oh, you would make a great counter-point to Liya. We need to get you to hang out with us more. I can just imagine the great back-and-forths! Of course, we’d have to invest in oxygen tanks, then.”

Heather, who had gone pink again at Rhee’s first two sentences looked confused after the third, so I fixed her confusion.

“We’d be laughing so much that we’d find ourselves oxygen-deficient.”

She grinned and said, “Of course. I should have figured that on my own. I’m just not used to hanging with witty people.” She grinned again, but then the grin fell off her face. “Yeah, most people with whom I spend time usually don’t get my jokes. I would really like to hang with people that do.”

Rhee jumped in. “Well, then. That’s settled. We’ll call you anytime that we have something going on and, maybe, even when we don’t.”

Heather lowered her head and quietly said, “I’d like that.”

“Hang here with us now while we get Rhee’s hair dry and then we’ll look for clothes for you.”

“Okay,” she replied. “But this is no longer like the locker room. You guys don’t mind being naked so much?”

Rhee chuckled, which Heather took poorly.

Rhee quickly added, “Actually, most of the time that Beth is in her room, she’s naked. It’s just something that she’s done since before we met, and we met when we were nine. At soccer practice, actually.”

Heather’s eyes again got huge at the first sentence, but she almost smirked at the third.

“You know, that doesn’t surprise me. About your meeting, that is. You both seem like you’ve been playing soccer forever, you’re so good. It does surprise me about Beth’s ... uh ... extensive nudity. I couldn’t get away with that. I share a room with my younger sister, and she’d say, ‘I’m telling.’”

We both chuckled. I replied.

“Neither of us have siblings, other than that we’ve adopted each other, so we can’t really appreciate that problem. However, I can say that anytime you’re here, you can be naked all you want in my room, usually anywhere on this floor, and, when no one else is here, anywhere in the house.”

I know that we’ve surprised her a bunch already today, but that seemed to knock her socks off.

“What?! You mean that you go downstairs ... in the nude?!”

“Sure,” Rhee exclaimed. “One time I walked over to meet her to walk to soccer practice from here, and she thought that she’d be funny and be lounging around in the living room waiting for me in the buff.”

I didn’t think that it was possible, but Heather’s eyes got wider.

“Yeah, but both parents were at work, so I was here by myself. You’ve never left your room naked?”

“No-ooo. Well, I did once when no one was going to be home for a while, and I wanted to see what it was like. I was just so nervous that I didn’t make even five minutes before I put clothes on.”

“Well, there’s no need to be nervous here. If you want, after we get Rhee’s hair dry, we can go down and have lunch in our birthday suits.”

I didn’t expect it, but perhaps should have.

Heather lowered her head and quietly said, “I’d like that.”

When we finally got Rhee’s hair dry and shiny, Heather again simply stared at it. She started to reach out her hand but stopped it.

Her face turned red, and then she asked, “May I touch it?”

Rhee turned her back to Heather and replied, “Sure. Have at it.”

Heather seemed to very much enjoy Rhee’s hair; she played with it for minutes. “Wow. That’s just wonderful. I’d like to grow mine longer, but I’m not allowed. I have to admit though, that I might not think it worth the time and effort to keep it clean. But your hair feels really wonderful.”

Lunch was uneventful, other than Heather realizing that all the blinds and curtains were open. She was more than just nervous. I quickly explained that all the first-floor windows were of one-way glass and that people outside really couldn’t see in. It took a while for her to calm completely; not until Rhee and I showed her by standing by the large dining-room window as people passed on the sidewalk without noticing.

After we’d made, eaten, and cleaned up after lunch, we were comparing histories when Heather suddenly exclaimed, “Wow!”

“What,” I asked a bit nervously.

“I’ve been enjoying this so much that I just realized for the first time in a while that we’re all sitting here, gabbing away, and we’re naked. In the kitchen. This is SO cool!”

Rhee looked at me and I think that I could discern what she was thinking, so I nodded.

She then turned to Heather and said, “My house is clothing optional virtually all the time. The ‘virtually’ bit is just because very occasionally there’s a man there – nearly always it’s Beth’s father when the whole family is over. So, you’re welcome to hang out naked there if you want. My mom made the rule. If it’s just girls, then clothing is optional. And she’s not at all disgusting naked.”

I snickered, and added, “Yeah, she looks a lot like Rhee, except with bigger boobs.”

Heather’s chin dropped. “You’re not putting me on, are you?”

“Nope,” answered Rhee.

“So, you guys spend most of each day nude?”

“Yup.”

“Wow,” Heather said, with something of a dreamy look on her face.

Hmm, food for contemplation, I thought.

A bit later, I texted Mom, asking when she’d be home. She returned text a few minutes later, “About 4.”

When a lull in conversation came, I asked Heather if she wanted to stay for dinner. Rhee interrupted and told Heather that she wouldn’t be here, as she and her mom were doing something tonight.

“I can ask my mother.”

I nodded and Heather reached for her phone, only to discover that not only was her phone not in her pocket, her pocket wasn’t on her.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll go get my phone.”

She ran upstairs and was gone for long enough that she’d either gone to the bathroom or talked to her mother up there. She came running downstairs and announced that her mother said that she could stay. However, someone would have to drive her home, because her mother was working late, and she didn’t want Heather walking by herself after dark.

“No prob,” I said to her and started texting Mom. Atypically, she texted right back, saying that both requests were fine.

I then asked, “What about your sister if your mom’s not home?”

“Oh. My brother is home, so he can watch her. I made that point directly with her, as I’m usually the one that gets stuck at home watching Elsie, while my brother gets to do whatever.”

Ooh. Sore point touched. I glanced at Rhee and she nodded: Avoid discussions about home life unless Heather starts them. I get the feeling that she’s none too enamored of her family. And, no real surprise, she’s never mentioned a father.

Shortly thereafter, Rhee said, “I better be getting home. Mom will be home soon, and I need to get dressed more nicely than the clothing that I have here allows.” She stood up, then obviously had a thought. “Hey, why don’t you guys come with me. Heather will know where I live, and my mom can meet her.”

Heather quickly interjected, “Do I have to be naked when I meet her? I don’t know if I can do that?”

“No. Of course not. It would be funny, though. I’ve never introduced a new friend when she was naked. Hah!”

Heather looked at Rhee oddly, but then asked, “Is that all right, Beth?”

“Absolutely. Let’s go find you some clothes.” Then, a little to put her on the spot, but mostly just to know, I asked, “So-oo, how did you like the naked afternoon?”

“It was great! I feel ... I don’t know ... free. Yeah, that’s it. I feel free. It’s wonderful.”

I smiled at her, but then she dashed into the dining room, saying, “Come on,” over her shoulder. When Rhee and I got there, she was standing in front of the picture window, legs spread, and arms raised over her head waving frantically at a passerby.

“Hey! I’m naked. I’m free,’ she yelled at the window.

The man that was the unwitting recipient of the display glanced around briefly, but never stopped.

Rhee quietly said, “I guess she did like the naked afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Heather, who then proceeded to hug each of us. “I really did. It was great. This was the best afternoon of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Rhee and I looked at each other. Again, she nodded. We had to get this poor girl more fun if this was a spectacular time.

I found some clothes that were reasonable for Heather, and we all dressed, then headed out the door. Rhee was kind and didn’t start undressing until we reached her room. However, we were both surprised when Heather started stripping, so gawped at her.

“No, I need to do this. You two are so comfortable in your skins, and I’d like to be comfortable in mine. I’ve been uncomfortable in my skin, both figuratively and literally, for as long as I can remember, and I want to be comfortable. You guys can do it, so I know it can be done. I will be embarrassed being introduced to your mother while I’m naked, but I think that will help me. You guys must have noticed how easily I blush. Everything embarrasses me because I have no experience with anything. Well, I’m tired of it. There’s a happier, freer me somewhere inside, and I’d really like to find her.”

Hit me upside the head with a brick. Heather is so much more like Liya than I would ever have guessed. I quickly stripped down to my skin, then grabbed Heather in a ferocious hug. Rhee was only seconds behind me in doing the same, only from behind.

“You are amazing, girl,” Rhee said in her ear.

With that, Heather started sobbing. Wow. Sobbing girls in a naked double hug twice in three days. Rhee and I just held on, petting her head or arms, letting her get it out of her system. It was not a short cry, which was surprising considering her proven ability to clamp down on her emotions. Perhaps I was wrong thinking that that ability was a good thing.

Eventually, she settled. However, then she had another problem.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I’ve gotten you all snotty.”

I looked down. True.

“So not a problem, Heather. Come on. Let’s go to the bathroom and get us both cleaned up.”

We came out looking sharper, though Heather’s eyes were still pretty red. I got a washcloth wet with cold water and we all went to the living room. There, I had Heather lie on the couch and put the washcloth over her eyes. Hopefully, it would reduce the redness.

Rhee got us drinks and we chatted about inconsequential stuff until we could hear Carol’s car in the driveway, whereupon Rhee quietly said, “Mom’s home.”

Heather sat up abruptly, removing the washcloth from her face.

“How do they look?”

“Not too bad,” I answered.

“You’re not just saying that?”

“Nope, she’s not,” Rhee put in. “They’re far from perfect, but they’re also very far from as red as they were. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Just be that person with Mom that you’ve been with us all day.”

There was a key in the lock and time was up. Rhee was right. The look on Carol’s face when she saw three naked girls in her living room was more than worth what little effort was required to effect that view. Even Heather chuckled.

“I’m being played, right,” she asked.

“Yup, and it was well worth the effort to see that look on your face, Mom. Not that it was any effort on my part, at least.” She then grinned at her Mom and us. “Mom, this is my new friend Heather Wilkerson. Heather Wilkerson, this is my mom, Carol Devlin.”

“Hi, Mrs. Devlin. It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for, well, this opportunity,” and she ran her hand downward in front of her indicating her nudity.

“Oh,” said Carol. “I thought I recognized you, but your outfit was unfamiliar.”

Yup, you guessed it. Heather blushed. But, again, she came back whip-crack fast.

“Well, this outfit is mostly unfamiliar to me, too, so I don’t blame you for not recognizing it. I just spent the most wonderful afternoon at Beth’s house with Beth and Rhee. Do you find ... uh ... nudity as freeing as I did, today?” She then blushed and continued. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”

“Don’t worry about it, Heather. To answer your question, yes, I do feel that it is ... umm ... liberating. That is one reason for the policy. I take it from your comments that you have not spent much time without clothing.”

“Yes. Just for bathing. Nudity is not something that happens at home. Not in my experience. It’s not that it’s officially forbidden, it’s just not an option.” She blushed again, then said, “I’m sorry again. Apparently, one can be too free. I seem to be letting my tongue run on its own. My home life is not something that you would or should care about. I apologize, Mrs. Devlin.”

“Okay. Let’s start from scratch, or nearly so, Heather. Please call me ‘Carol.’ Since you’re on my daughter’s team, you must be about her age, which makes you nearly an adult. I would appreciate treating you as such, and adult friends use first names. I hope that if you’re going to be around enjoying the house’s ... freedom ... that we’ll be friends. I see little doubt of that, as I’ve yet to dislike one of Rhee’s friends. Besides, ‘Devlin’ is my ex-husband’s name, not mine, but it’s a pain in the neck to get it changed, so...”

“Thank you, M ... Carol.”

“I do have a possibly-too-personal comment that I hope you’ll excuse. You are quite lovely, and I love your freckles. I guess that’s two comments.”

Heather, of course, colored, but, as per usual, she kept her head up and looked Carol in the eye.

“Ugh. You’re just saying that, aren’t you? I think they’re atrocious.”

“No, I mean it. Though I haven’t had a freckle since I was much younger than you are now, I do know that many boys and men find freckles quite attractive. In fact, one of my high-school boyfriends could never not look at a passing freckled girl or woman, even though we were dating, and he’d never seen me with a freckle. That he was always looking at such girls was a bit of an ego-degrader at the time. But then, most things can be ego-degraders for teenaged girls. It was less of a problem for me with my ex-husband, but only because my self-esteem was stronger, then. He, too, couldn’t not look at a freckled girl.”

Heather stared at Carol for quite a while, then dipped her head.

“Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.”

Carol then cocked her head and looked oddly at Heather.

“You seem well-spoken and your mind seems more organized, more adult-like than most girls your age, present company excepted.”

I piped in. “Carol, Heather reminds us a lot of Liya.”

Carol looked at me, somewhat disbelievingly.

“Well, I can see the very strong physical resemblance.”

Rhee and I cracked up.

“Obviously,” she continued, “you’re not talking about physical similarity. That’s actually a bit scary.” She paused a bit, then continued. “I’m sorry, Heather, that we’re talking about you in your presence. That’s rude of us. But I find you something of an enigma. As they’ve been proven correct on many occasions, I trust both Beth’s and Rhee’s judgments about people. If they’ve come to believe that you fit with them, and that assessment is obvious if they’ve brought you here and informed you of the house’s clothing-optional policy, then I accept that they’re almost certainly correct. But Liya is quite special, a rare gem. If they’re comparing you to her, that suggests that you’re also a rare gem.”

Heather was vivid scarlet at this point.

“I have to come clean, Heather. I was a psych major in college, and I wasn’t kidding when I told you that I find you to be something of an enigma. I believe I will greatly enjoy getting to know you and I promise not to psycho-analyze you without your permission. At least, out loud. It’s not possible to keep my mind from doing it behind my eyes.

“Meanwhile, I’ve been wearing clothes too long today, so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go ... Oh. No, I guess I won’t. Rhee and I were going out. I’m sorry, while I’ve been nattering on, time has been passing, and we’re going to have to hurry if we’re not going to be late.

“It was great to meet you, Heather, and I look forward to seeing you again. I will say one more thing in your favor. You’re awfully brave to meet someone’s mother for the first time while you’re wearing just your skin.”

Then she grinned.

Heather returned that grin, then said, “Thank you, Carol, for the kind words. I’ve never considered myself anything special. Then, I’d never considered spending an afternoon at two girls’ houses, two girls that I don’t really know all that well, wearing nothing but freckles.” She glanced at Rhee and me, then continued, “I had also never in my wildest dreams ever considered standing in front of a big picture window stark naked and waving madly at a passing man that was a complete stranger. Of course, I’m told that the glass in that window was one-way, but what do I know about glass?”