Best Friends Pt. 07: Birthday Party

The story so far: an attempt by exhibitionist/nudist Becky and her best friend Lisa to liven up the tail end of their summer break before university by having Becky strip and do a nude dare at the local cinema led to her being caught by staff and willingly photographed. Meanwhile Lisa continued to dwell on her growing attraction to Becky...

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Chapter 20 – Birthday Party

"MYSTERY NAKED WOMAN CAUSES STIR AT CINEMA."

It wasn't in the local paper, but it made a few websites. Mostly light-hearted news pages, including ones with names like 'StudentBloke'.

In absence of real details, the authors of the stories had opted to stretch what little they had with excited language about how the "unknown nudist" had "paraded around" stark naked at a screening of the latest blockbuster, even posing for pictures with an employee, before "vanishing". The stories were of course accompanied by a choice selection of the pictures Becky had posed for – but perhaps recognizing that even a naked person needs their privacy, the published versions of the pictures had blurred the faces of both Becky and Cam. Some sites also censored Becky's nakedness, but most didn't.

Amongst locals who saw the pictures, there was a minor frenzy to try and identify the gorgeous young woman who thought nothing of taking a trip to the cinema without her clothes on, but fortunately, nobody who saw them managed to identify Becky – they didn't know her, after all.

Lisa and Becky never knew about this, of course. They didn't happen to follow or read any of the news sites where these pictures ended up. They remained completely oblivious to the whole thing.

But sitting once again at the counter of his uncle's shop, Hamed read the clickbait-style article with interest. It wasn't as though he recognized the girl, exactly. But how many gorgeous brunettes in this town were in the habit of going out in public with no clothes on? It had to be her – and a quick review of the security footage he had secretly uploaded onto his own laptop a month or so ago confirmed his suspicions.

Smiling to himself, Hamed began to type an email.

–

The summer was ending, and for both girls, university was just around the corner, with all the new possibilities and adventures that promised. In common with many of her peers, Lisa was in the days up to leaving becoming more introspective than ever, given to much thoughtful soul-searching, and unsurprisingly her thoughts often turned to her best friend, and the weird journey they had been on over the past couple of months.

Nobody else knew about Becky the nudist and exhibitionist. Lisa was the only one of their friends she had revealed this side of herself to, and that was something that made Lisa feel special, even disregarding her feelings of attraction towards Becky. In fact, Lisa wondered, it might even be one of the reasons why she had those feelings now where she hadn't before this summer.

But Lisa couldn't help but think about why Becky had chosen her, out of all their friends, to be her confidant and companion in her naked adventures? Of course, they were best friends, with a bond and an honesty between themselves that might make Lisa the obvious person for Becky to confide in.

But more than that, Lisa began to realize that Becky saw in her someone who would love her despite the weirdness of her particular passion, someone who wouldn't judge her or criticize and wouldn't run and tell and spoil her fun. The girls were after all still teenagers, even despite their impending steps into the adult world, and like all teenagers they felt a certain pressure to conform and to behave in a way that didn't invite the judgment of their peers. Becky was confident about herself and her body around strangers but she still had these same pressures, Lisa felt certain. Perhaps, she wondered, she was the only person Becky trusted enough to share her naked side with because Lisa was the only person that Becky felt confident wouldn't brand her a weirdo or a pervert for it.

It made her happy to think she had her friend's confidence in that way, and she resolved to show she was worthy of it.

–

The journey to university was only a week away. The exams they had sat a few months before were ancient history and they had both won the grades they wanted (Lisa's were much higher, but Becky had been no slouch in her studies either). Like many young people their age, they wouldn't be going to go to the same university as each other, or any of their other friends, but they had made firm promises to stay in touch, visit each other often in their new towns, and see each other as much as possible when they were home.

As well as being the run-up to starting university, that week was also the week of Becky's nineteenth birthday. An occasion like that could not go uncelebrated, so the girls had been offered the use of Becky's house by her mother for a night, unsupervised, so they could host a small gathering of their friends for a birthday-cum-going away event.

It wasn't a party. That instruction from Becky's mother had been quite clear. There would certainly be drinking, and music, and probably more drinking, but they weren't calling it a party and it was firmly explained to them that there would be no wild gatherings of the sort they might have gone to at other people's houses over the summer. So they'd invited fewer than ten people, just their closest friends and their boyfriends and girlfriends. It might get a bit loud and some people would probably drink gar too much, but it wasn't going to be one of those crazy house parties where everyone in school turns up and trashes the neighbourhood.

The day of the party came, and Lisa spent the afternoon with Becky and her mum at her house, helping to get everything sorted and set up, with balloons and streamers, assorted snacks, and a good supply of alcohol. Becky's mum then left to spend the night at her sister's, and the two girls had the final ingredient they needed – a house devoid of parents.

They waited, excitedly, for their guests to arrive – although, Lisa noticed, Becky seemed less excited than she did nervous, even agitated. She sat on the sofa bouncing her leg up and down and fidgeting with her hair. Lisa began to feel that something was wrong, and she was about to ask Becky what the matter was, when suddenly, as the time Becky had told their friends to begin arriving was almost upon them, her friend jumped up and headed for the upstairs.

"I've got to go get ready," she declared, her face flushed.

Lisa was taken by surprise. "Everyone will be here in a minute!" she objected. "You look fine! What have you got left to do?"

But Becky ignored her question. "Just look after everyone, I'll be down soon!" And with that she sped upstairs.

Lisa stared up after her, baffled. That was very unexpected behavior by her friend, who was so outgoing normally. To just dash off when guests, her guests, were due to arrive at any moment, was very out of character. She began to feel a growing sense of unease. Was Becky okay? Was something about to happen? Was she, even, unbeknown to Lisa, up to something secret?

Lisa was about to start upstairs in pursuit of Becky when the doorbell rang. She turned and went to answer it. Well, it was kind of as much her party as Becky's, she had aided in all the organizing and, given that the two were best friends, it wouldn't be surprising for Lisa to welcome in their friends. It should have been Becky greeting them, of course, but, well, she had asked Lisa to do it, after all

Most of the people they had invited arrived together and Lisa let them all in, showed them where the drinks were (they'd brought more of their own to add to the supply), and generally making them feel at home.

"Where's Becks?" one of their friends asked, quite reasonably.

"Upstairs," Lisa said, unimpressed. "No idea what she's doing. She just said she'd be down in a-"

Lisa broke off as she registered the open-mouthed expression of the boy she was talking to, and turned around to face the stairs.

It was one of those moments, Lisa thought later, where, if this had been one of those big American house parties with a DJ, there would have been a record scratch – followed by a stunned silence. Maybe someone would have dropped a drink (fortunately they didn't, or she would probably have ended up cleaning it up).

Becky had descended the staircase. She was completely naked.

Lisa stared. Merely seeing her friend's nude body was not a surprise to here – but that had always been just was when it was she and Becky alone (or with some strangers). But right now, the room was full of their friends, most of whom had known Becky for several years, if not longer. They would all have had a concept of who she was and it was only Lisa who knew that Becky was a nudist, and an exhibitionist. But now, without any warning or fanfare, Becky had chosen to make an entrance to her own birthday party wearing absolutely nothing. Even for Becky, this was shocking.

Unlike previous occasions, when Becky had been confident, blasé even about her nudity, she seemed to Lisa to this time actually be embarrassed. She was blushing pink, and seemed to be actively fighting the urge to run back up the stairs and not continue to stand there awkwardly and exposed.

From their assembled friends, there was a stunned silence. A few of the girls gave nervous giggles, while others wore furious expressions (which, Lisa noticed, were directed more at their boyfriends than at Becky, at least, at the boys who were openly staring at Becky rather than gazing in an embarrassed fashion at anything else in the room that wasn't currently a naked woman).

Becky looked over her friends and gave a weak smile and a little, sheepish wave.

"Um," she said in a strained voice, "hi everyone."

There was no reply.

"Um," she continued. "You're probably wondering why I'm not wearing any clothes? Well," she said after a pause, "it's my birthday, and so I thought the best outfit to wear would be my... birthday suit!"

She giggled nervously. There were a few confused laughs from some of their friends but most just remained baffled. Lisa sensed there was a further explanation coming.

"Look," Becky indeed continued after a momentary pause, "the truth is, this is me. This is who I am.

"I am a nudist. I've never told you all before but I don't want it to be a secret any more. The real me, the person I truly am, is this person standing in front of you today." She began to grow more confident now, her voice passionate. "I prefer not to wear clothes. In fact I don't like to wear clothes; being naked is how I'm most comfortable and how I am happiest. I believe the human body is natural and wonderful and the naked body is a beautiful thing-"

"Yours certainly is!" called out one of the guys. Becky went redder.

"A beautiful, positive thing," she continued. Lisa wondered if her little speech had been rehearsed. It didn't sound it, she seemed to be speaking from the heart – but at the same time she obviously had things she wanted to say.

"This is probably going to be the last time I see some of you for a good while and I wanted you to know the real me before we all go off to uni or wherever we end up. I know," and she cast her eyes down for a moment, looking at her own bare breasts, the ovals of her nipples dark peach against her otherwise pale skin, down the soft convex of her belly to the dark triangle of her pubic hair, "I know this must be shocking for you to see but please know that's not how I want you to feel.

"I just wanted to enjoy this time with you all as my true self, in the best way I could. And if nothing else, I guess at least we will all remember this!

"Anyway, what I am saying is if anyone would rather I put my clothes back on, please say and I will, but otherwise I will be staying this way tonight and enjoying myself with the rest of you. If you'll let me."

Becky stood, waiting nervously. Lisa was astounded. She'd had no inkling that Becky had planned to do anything like this and she was certain none of their other friends had been expecting Becky's nakedness either. She wondered what would happen next – surely someone would say they would prefer Becky to cover up? Not one of the boys, obviously, most were looking at Becky like they couldn't believe their luck. But there were more girls than boys in their friendship group and surely at least one of them would object – maybe one of the ones whose boyfriends couldn't take their eyes off her friend.

In the end though – amazingly – nobody voiced any sort of suggestion that attending the party naked was not an appropriate thing for Becky to do. Not the boys, and not the girls. Lisa couldn't believe that Becky's speech, passionate though it was, had convinced anyone, but yet, here they all were.

It was certainly still awkward, as Becky came fully downstairs and joined the group in the living room. Even seeing her naked body in motion, rather than just stood, seemed to be a test of the ability of their friends to pretend all this was normal. You just didn't go along to a friend's birthday party and expect them to just be walking around in the nude!

But as the minutes passed, the ice seemed to thaw. And although Becky having no clothes on was for the time being the only thing anyone wanted to talk about, she handled every question, comment and joke with grace, patience and humour, and her embarrassment and nervousness gradually lifted, to be replaced by the confident Becky Lisa knew.

A few extra friends arrived and were equally shocked to walk through the door and see that the hostess of the party was stark naked, but they were given the same brief speech as the others and seemed, too, to have no objection to Becky continuing in her naked state.

To Lisa, it was surreal. All the times she had been with a naked Becky, even when she was most brazenly nude in front of other, clothed, people, she had never imagined anything like this. She would cast her gaze around the party, which was now gradually beginning to resemble any other teenage party, with music playing and people sitting and standing, chatting and above all drinking, and then, suddenly, there would be her friend's breasts, her bare bottom, her bare back, her pubes. Lisa's mind again returned to that Impressionist painting of the two clothed guys on the picnic with the naked lady. Becky's nudity in amongst the clothed partygoers seemed so shocking and out of place, and yet everyone involved seemed to have decided to treat it as though it was a perfectly reasonable thing for her to have done.

Of course, there was still a great deal of conversation about it, and as Becky and their friends talked, Lisa found herself implicated in Becky's 'coming out' as a nudist. For how could her friend give any account without explaining that Lisa had already known, and was accepting and supportive of Becky's strange lifestyle?

That it was true didn't mean Lisa wanted people talking about it. Oh, she was not ashamed of her association with Becky or the way she'd been involved in Becky's naked adventures over the summer. Quite the contrary, she had come to love the privilege of seeing her friend nude in unusual ways and situations – she was falling for her because of it, in fact.

But she didn't like the way it was being presented to their other friends, it sounded frankly weird to hear it spoken about by others, to acknowledge that she hung out with a naked girl, even went camping with her and never had an issue with her nudity.

At least the tales of Becky's exhibitionism were apparently staying secret, she noted. There was no mention of the flashing during her exams, the walk off the bus, her exposing herself to the train passengers, the late-night shop, the nude hiking, her campsite adventures, the cinema or anything else. Becky's account of her nudist history to her other friends was wholesome and innocent, a story of a private preference for being without clothes when away from the eyes of others, a preference she was sharing with her friends now out of love and trust, rather than because she liked being seen naked.

Lisa wondered what the truth was. Was Becky really doing this because she wanted to part from her friends with her biggest secret known to the world? Was it rather simply that she wanted to mark the occasion, as she said, as her true self, in the state she was happiest? Or was it really that she was just taking the opportunity to show her body to another bunch of people for her own thrill.

Privately, Lisa fumed.

"Did you know she was going to do this?" a friend asked her more than once.

"No," she would reply through gritted teeth, "this is as much a surprise to me as it was to you."

Later, she would realise it was simple jealousy. Rather than her usual supportive self, carrying that undertone of excitement she felt whenever Becky got naked, she was angry. Why had Becky done this, and why had she done it without telling Lisa, her best friend and trusted confident, exactly what she was going to do?

Why did Becky have to tell anyone? That was the subtext of Lisa's angst. Why could it not just carry on being their secret, private knowledge shared only between the two of them? When Lisa was the only person who knew Becky was a nudist, she felt special. Now, all their closest friends shared in that same knowledge, and Becky had told them without ever confiding in Lisa that this was her plan. Where once she felt special, now she felt slighted and marginalized.

She began to realise that she had wanted it to stay just their secret forever.

Chapter 21 – Lisa Gets Hurt

Where once Lisa had felt special because of the knowledge she and Becky had shared in secret, now that knowledge was out in the open and Lisa felt slighted because of it.

Petty jealousy never made for pleasant interactions, and so as Becky mingled and chatted nude with her clothed friends at the party, Lisa sat on the sidelines and glowered.

It wasn't exactly subtle, and it didn't go unnoticed. Things came to a head when the two found themselves alone together in the kitchen, and Lisa responded with sullen sarcasm to some innocent remark of Becky's.

Her friend turned, eyes flashing.

"What is the matter with you?" she snapped. "You've had a face like a slapped arse all night."

"As if you don't know," Lisa replied hotly.

"What?!"

Lisa paused. She almost resisted opening her mouth – but she was a few drinks in, and somehow it just came out.

"This!" she said, gesturing to Becky, her hand encompassing the naked parts. "This is what's the matter! What is this all about? What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" she replied. "You know what this is about. You've always known, and I just explained everything out there."

"Do I, Becks? Do I really? Sometimes I wonder..."

"I wanted everyone to know the truth about me-"

"You would have just needed to tell them then! Not swan downstairs stark naked!"

"I- I wanted it to be memorable..." she explained weakly.

"Memorable?" Lisa countered. "Memorable?! Memorable is getting drunk together and singing along to cheesy 80s rock and someone throwing up in the garden! Not the birthday girl showing up to the party naked!"

"I thought you'd understand?" Becky cried back. "I always thought you understood! This is the real me..."

Lisa paused, stung, but she was too worked up to stop now. It's in these sort of arguments that the most hurtful things have a tendency to come out, and right now Lisa's desire to hit out at her friend was calling the shots.

"The real you?" she said with venom. "Why don't you tell them then about the exhibitionism? Why don't you tell them how you were so turned on showing yourself to that train full of people that you couldn't stop from playing with yourself then and there! That's the real you, Becky! This is just more of that!"