A mind of her own.

Where am I?

Susan woke up with a sore head, remembering nothing at first, and wondered where she was. There was no sound of traffic from the main highway alongside the college, no shrill voices of girls, or others hammering on the door, or dragging the covers off her laughingly, or hitting her playfully with a pillow to wake her up and get her out of bed to shower and get dressed.

It was daylight. It was also hot again. Too hot. Then it all began to come back to her.

“So you’ve come around at last.”

Rescued! She knew that voice, setting her heart beating loudly. Thank god. She sat up, still half asleep, with a splitting headache, and moved back up to the head of the bed to sit cross-legged. She was under a mosquito net. Everything around her was strange and unfamiliar, with one exception: Deke Rutherford.

It was comforting to know that he was with her. He was the only, the best thing she could have woken up to, but nothing about where she was made any sense, so she focused on the one thing she knew. Deke.

She knew him well, liked him more than she could ever dare to tell him, and far preferred his company to that of any of the girls or teachers. But there were no other girls near them now as there usually were, and at this moment she wasn’t sure where she was, or why she was with him. She didn’t clearly remember him from last night but had seemed to dream it. He was sitting barely two feet away from her and looking at her in a concerned way.

And why was she like this?

Like this, being completely and utterly naked, breasts exposed, nothing covering her, nothing hidden, sitting on a bed under this net, and with Deke looking at her, smiling at her as though pleased to see her. She was pleased to see him too. It meant that what she had feared could not have happened to her. Could it?

She was acutely conscious that she was sitting carelessly, and would have pulled her skirt over her knees and pushed it down between them to hide her body there, except when she checked, sure she must be imagining this, she could not feel her skirt on her.

That was only part of the problem. There was nothing covering her anywhere. She had no panties on either. She could feel that. Nor did she have on a blouse or a bra. Nothing. She could feel hair where she was touching herself, and not a thin, insubstantial layer of white cotton covering her, albeit a flimsy barrier, between her and the world as there should have been; as there usually was. It didn’t matter. He had seen her like this once before, though not quite so completely devoid of clothing as she now was.

She decided that she should not betray her sudden feelings; struggle in an undignified way to hide herself out of his sight or do anything else until she understood more. It would be indecorous to become flustered, to raise her hands in a futile attempt to cover her breasts, as that would signal conscious acknowledgement of her nakedness, and show her acute discomfort. Nor would she blush or vocally object about what she could not change easily until she understood more. She was above behaving like a shy little girl caught revealing her panties to the world, or exposing those small, beginning eruptions on her chest, though she was revealing much more than that; no longer a little girl. But this was Deke, and not any other man. She must not be embarrassed.

No, she would not give in to those feelings.

Nothing was between her naked body and Deke, sitting almost within reach. And her breasts were not little nubs, but stood out far too proudly. No hiding them. Her n*****s were hard. She did not have to touch them to know that. He must be able to see all of that about her. Everything was on open display to him and she didn’t care.

None of this seemed to matter to Deke at this moment. She liked the way he was looking at her. She always had. He was not looking at her body, as he would be doing if she were really as naked as she felt, but was looking into her eyes. And he was smiling, as though pleased to see her, never mind anything else.

She was pleased to see him, too.

She closed her eyes for a moment and analyzed what she knew or thought she knew, and what she could remember. She extended a finger, and gently touched at herself in the hair again, out of Deke’s sight. She could not feel any tenderness there, or any kind of awkwardness or tearing, so she hadn’t been… interfered with. She would have known if that had happened to her. That was a relief, but too many things were not right.

She spoke within her mind, to calm herself. She must not panic about this. She must not panic, but would strive to remember.

However, there were too many questions she needed answers to, and she would not worry just yet, about any lack of clothing. There must be a reasonable explanation for it, and Deke was still smiling at her and had spoken kindly. He wouldn’t have been doing that, if there had been anything wrong. He was also looking into her face and into her eyes, yet he must know, as she did, that she was completely naked.

She knew! Why did he not seem to know?

Yet with Deke here, it must have changed for the better.

“How do you feel? You slept well.”

How could he speak of such simple things as feelings, or how she had slept when there was this earth-shattering problem of her absent clothes, and what she did not yet remember for her to deal with?

She thought about that question and what he had said. “I am not sure how I feel.” Liar! She felt awful, and had a headache.

“I don’t remember….” She knew she was blushing. Her neck was hot, prickly hot, she felt two hot areas on her cheeks, and her ears felt as though they were on fire. So did her breasts, but she did not dare look down to see how they were betraying her. Her eyes were wide too, asking questions, silently enquiring about what had happened to get her here like this. Wherever, here,was, and like this, the condition she was in.

“Not yet, you don’t.” He put his hand on her knee to reassure her. She flinched, but it had been nothing more than a kindly, reassuring touch, without any threat of encroaching familiarity.

“It will soon come back to you.”

Yes it would. Unfortunately.

Her hand fell over his, as though relieved to have physical contact with something and someone she knew and trusted.

He paused. “I took you out of that situation you were in. If you remember any of it?”

She was beginning to remember. She had been conscious of a lot happening to her at different times before, and since then; her friends, who had not been her friends; the bar, and its threatening atmosphere; that other man. And then she remembered feeling dizzy and sick, and needing to use the toilet and to get away from there, and him.

“You are safe here with me.” As safe as she wanted to be.

She knew that. But where were her clothes? She could not see them in her range of vision, and she would not dare ask until she knew more. Nor would she betray any concern over her situation until she knew more about that too.

She began to remember more, and her priorities changed with what she remembered.

“You rescued me from that man.” It was coming back to her now. “I was in that bar….” She shivered, regretting what she remembered, and decided she should not try to remember any more.

Deke had to close his eyes for a moment, seeing her breasts move so breathtakingly as she shivered and gesticulated violently. He wanted to reach out and discover more about them doing that and to refresh his memories of touching them as he had bathed her, and after that, but he knew he must not touch. Not without her invitation now that she was awake, and which she would never give.

She looked up at him and felt distinctly embarrassed that she could not remember coming here with him, or anything after that. Or much of anything before that, after leaving the school with those two girls. She knew that he had somehow rescued her.

Those other two girls had stopped for a coffee on their way to the cinema, so she had one as well. She couldn’t clearly remember very much after that. It had been as though she were in a dream even then. Had they drugged her? They must have done, as everything had been very hazy, and they had seemed so far away, and laughing as they had changed her clothing for her.

Deke was waiting for her to say more, was wondering what she remembered; what she was thinking. She knew that she was blushing, and that there was still that red spot burning on each of her cheeks.

He had rescued her. She hung onto that thought and put more pressure on his hand. She remembered some of that. Yes, she would hang on to that thought and should thank him for that at least.

“Thank you. I think I owe you everything.” Her look of gratitude and those simple, but heartfelt words were all he needed to hear and to see to lift his spirits. So she did remember some of it. But how much?

She looked around, coming to grips with this new setting that seemed safer, despite this other thing about her… the embarrassing nudity… the bed… his close attention… touching. The room seemed familiar, as though she had been here before, but she hadn't. Was this where Deke lived? It must be.

It was welcoming; despite the concerns she dared not voice. Some questions were best not asked if the answer was not likely to be what you wanted to hear. Surely, she had not arrived here like this? She would not ask. Everything would become obvious to her in time.