When I got home from work later that day and was going through the messages on my machine, there was one from Julie. "Call me now," was all she said. She sounded normal. During the course of the day, I wondered how things might be going with her and Jeff. Now I was about to find out.

She answered her phone after the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hey," I said.

"Hey. What’s up?" she replied.

"I just got home and got your message. I thought I’d call and see how it went. I wondered if you still had a boyfriend."

"Oh yeah," she said. ("It’s Sunny," I heard her say to someone else there with her. "Hi, Sunny," the someone else said in the background. It was Jeff’s voice.)

I asked, "So you two talked it out and reached an understanding?"

"Um-hmm," she said distantly. I could tell I didn’t have her full attention.

"So you kissed and made up?" I asked.

"Um-hmm…working on it," she said laughing.

"Well, I can tell you don’t need any help from me," I said. "I’ll let you go."

"No, wait a minute!" she said quickly. "We do have something for you to do."

"What’s that?" I asked without a clue to what was coming next.

"We’ve decided that," she began and then paused a second for effect before continuing with, "that you’re going to introduce me to nudism the same way you did Jeff."

I was silent for a moment as I struggled to comprehend what I’d just heard. Then I said, "You’re joking, right?"

"No."

"Don’t you think I should be in on this decision?"

"No."

"OK. You’ve had enough fun at my expense. Good-bye."

"No, wait! I’m serious."

"I seem to recall a conversation earlier today when someone that looked a lot like you said they could never do that. What happened? Hey, Jeff isn’t pushing you into this, is he?"

"No, no, no…nothing like that. We talked a lot about it today. Jeff said a lot of the same things that you did…his reasons for liking nudism, you know. And the more I think about it, if two of the most important people in my life are both into it so much, there must be something to it. So, just for me to get an understanding, I think I need to – you know - try it out. But just you and me, though. Not Jeff. We’re neither one of us ready for that."

"Well, OK," I said. "If you want to. We can do that."

"Good," she said. "And if I hate it, that’ll be that."

"And if you like it?"

"That’s pretty hard to imagine, but let’s see what happens."

"So when do you want to be introduced?" I asked laughing. We figured out a couple of afternoons during the coming week that would work and decided to go for the first one. It was all set.

Whoa. What a day this had been. I was so relieved and happy that things had worked out OK with Julie and Jeff and of course with me. But I still couldn’t believe what I had just heard Julie say about wanting to try nudism for herself even if she was expecting not to like it. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t think she would care for it either for the reasons that I mentioned before. But this day had been living proof that you really couldn’t predict anything about Julie. All I could do was just go along with it and see what happened. As long as we remained friends I’d be happy no matter how it turned out.

The first day that we had planned to go out to the country was chilly and overcast – shades of late fall – so we let that one pass and hoped that the weather would be nice the next time. And lucky for us, it was. When Julie came by my place to pick me up in the early afternoon, it was clear, warm, and breezy – a perfect day to be outdoors.

We drove out to a place near the pasture (remember, Julie is not a runner) and parked the car. Julie pulled a backpack out of the back seat and then closed the door and locked the car.

"What’s that for?" I asked. I wasn’t used to carrying anything along when I came out here.

"Just some things. Water and stuff," she said. She put her keys in one of the pockets, slung the backpack over her shoulder, and we were on our way walking down the road – another thing that I wasn’t used to while being out here.

After about ten minutes we came to the gate. "This is it," I said.

"How do you open the gate?" Julie asked.

"You don’t," I replied. "Come on."

I walked over to the metal gate and then climbed up and over it. When I was on the other side, Julie handed me her backpack and then she climbed over, too. Now that we were both in the pasture I led her toward the trees away from the road. Somehow I now wound up carrying the backpack. We reached the place in the trees just out of sight of the road where Jeff and I usually got undressed, but today we kept going deeper into the pasture through the trees along the creek. I didn’t say anything about that being the place where we usually got undressed because I was still uncomfortable talking with her about Jeff and I and our nude hiking even though we had worked through all that. And besides, Julie had asked me to let her try nudism the same way that Jeff had done it, so I was taking her to the exact same place that I had taken him that first time.

As we were walking, she was being a lot less talkative than usual so I asked, "Are you nervous?"

"No. Well – maybe a little," she replied. "Actually, I’m pretty comfortable with the idea. We’ve talked about it so much that I’m pretty sure I know what to expect. Jeff told me he was really nervous that first time out here with you – you know, the time that he didn’t go through with it. But he said that after you both talked about it a lot more, he wasn’t nearly as nervous the next time. He said that talking it through ahead of time made it a lot easier when the time came."

"Yeah, he was pretty nervous," I agreed. "But he’s got guts. And he got through it. After we talked about it, that is. For that matter, after we talked about it, I wasn’t nervous either."

"You mean you were nervous the first time with him?" she asked.

"Scared to death," I said.

"But you got undressed anyway?"

"Yep."

"How come?"

"I just felt like once we got past all the initial awkwardness, then everything would be fine."

"You’ve got a lot of confidence, girl. Way more than me. Hey, you’re not nervous with me are you?" Julie asked.

"Not a bit," I said. "Whatever happens is OK with me. If you like it - great. If you hate it - that’s OK, too." And then I added just to tease her, "And if you chicken out and don’t even try it, we’re still friends."

"Oh, so you think I might chicken out? You are so wrong."

"We’ll see," I said in a doubting tone of voice. I felt pretty sure she would go through with it, but I was just kidding her to keep her feeling at ease and also because that’s just the way we are with each other.

As we walked on through the trees, she asked a lot of questions about how I had discovered this place, how I knew my way around out here, and how I knew it was safe. I answered all her questions. Soon we reached the spot above the place along the creek where I usually hid my clothes. We stopped.

"Is this it?" Julie asked looking around.

"Down there," I replied pointing down toward the creek.

"Do we get undressed here or down there?" she asked.

"We’ll go down there if you’re sure you want to do this," I said.

"Will you stop treating me like a baby?" she said jokingly as she slapped me on the shoulder (that’s just a thing she does). "I said I did, so I will! Now just shut-up about it! So like how do you get down there?"

"Follow me," I said as I started down the fairly steep ravine leading to the secluded area about half way down to the creek. I was sensing now that she was starting to feel a little uneasy.

"Nervous?" I asked again as we worked our way down.

"Heck no!" came the reply with a tone of false confidence. "Well, OK – yeah, maybe, a little. Let’s just keep moving. Besides, if you can do it, how hard can it be?"

I laughed at Julie’s little jab at me. That was a good sign. It meant she was just being her usual self and that things were probably going to go all right.

"Well, here we are," I said as I reached the spot we had looked down on just a minute ago. I immediately began untying my shoes as Julie arrived right behind me and glanced around.

As I slipped off my shoes and socks, I said, "We’ll put our stuff out of sight under that bush."

"So, (pause) this is where we get undressed?" she asked hesitantly even though the answer was obvious.

"Yep," I said as I pulled my sports bra off up over my head. I had decided even before we got here that I was going to take the initiative and set the example by going right ahead and getting undressed without waiting around to see what she did.

"Now?" she asked.

"I can’t think of a better time," I said as I slipped my running shorts down and stepped out of them.

"I guess nudists don’t wear panties," she said more as an observation than a question.

"I just don’t wear any more than I need to when I know I’m coming out here," I said as I folded up my things and tucked them all under the bush out of sight.

"Oh," was all she said as she slowly began to get undressed by pulling off her tee shirt.

While she continued getting undressed, she asked, "And this is how Jeff did it?"

"More or less," I said.

She had everything off now except her panties and as she stood there with her thumbs hooked in each side of them hesitating to slip them off, she nervously glanced up and around as though to see if anyone was watching and said, "I can’t believe I’m doing this."

"How hard can it be?" I said laughing and mocking her for what she had said earlier.

She laughed, too, when she realized I had gotten her back and immediately slipped her panties down, stepped out of them, wadded them up as she stood up and threw them at me.

"There!" she said in a ‘take that’ kind of manner. "Satisfied?"

I laughed and said, "So far, so good, but you’re not done yet."

After pausing for a second as she figured out what I was talking about, she said, "No, not my jewelry, too! I feel naked without my jewelry even when I have clothes on."

"Hey, trust me on this," I said. "When I’m doing this, I like to have absolutely nothing of any kind on my body and nothing in my hair. It’s just me and only me – exactly as I was born with no barriers between me and nature. Jeff is the same way."

"OK, if that’s the way it’s done," she said as she reached behind her neck to undo her necklace. Then she laughed as she said, "But you can’t tell me that you were born like that!"

I laughed and said, "Oh, you know what I mean."

Once she had her jewelry off and stored safely in a pocket of her backpack, I said, "Now gather up your stuff and put it under here with mine."

When that was all done, we just stood there for a moment looking at each other.

Julie broke the silence and said, "What!?"

"Congratulations," I said. "The other day in my apartment you said you could never do this and now look at you!"

"Look at what? The naked fat girl?" she said.

"Hey, that’s not what this is all about," I said. "We talked about that the other day, remember? Now stop being so hard on yourself. You’re anything but fat. You look good."

"Thanks," she said. "But I still can’t believe I let myself gain weight last year. That was so stupid."

"You’re tall enough that only someone who knew you in high school could possibly notice the difference," I said. "And anyway, if you’re not happy with something and you can change it, why don’t you do something about it?"

"I know I need to," she replied. "And besides, I wouldn’t want Jeff to see me like this – you know, naked – even if I wanted to, which I don’t! - unless I was back down to what I used to weigh."

"You can think what you want, but I know that if Jeff were here right now, you would have his complete undivided adoring attention!" I said.

"Well I should hope so!" she replied laughing. Then she asked, "So what now?"

"Let’s go up and walk around," I said.

"Let’s don’t," she replied looking around nervously again.

"Come on," I said as I ignored her and started back up the ravine to the top of the creek bank. She followed. I wanted to keep her moving and talking in order to distract her from her nervousness.

When we got back to the top, I said, "So now you’re experiencing first-hand what I was telling you about the other day."

"You mean the freedom and all that?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"I don’t know. I don’t think it’s freedom that I feel. I think I just feel (pause) naked," she said as she crossed her arms in front of her sort of covering herself.

"That’s OK," I said. "Let’s just walk around a little bit. I want you to feel the breeze and the sun on your skin and the grass under your feet. Just for a little bit."

So we walked slowly through the trees just talking. I knew I needed to keep her talking and focused on a conversation rather than on her nervousness. So I kept the conversation going by talking more about nudism and about this place and how I had gradually become more and more confident in hiking out here. I told her about how I had been determined to become bolder and had learned to leave my clothes behind as my hikes became longer.

Eventually, Julie wanted to know more about Jeff’s experiences. She asked, "Did you and Jeff walk through these trees like this on his first time?"

"Yep, just like this," I answered. "You’re getting the exact same introductory course."

"He told me he was perfectly comfortable being naked – or nude; he always says nude, I don’t know why – once he had gotten undressed and was clear away from his clothes," she said.

"Yeah, once he got started, there was no stopping him," I said. "He really took to it. In fact his enthusiasm immediately rubbed off on me and I felt more confident, too."

"I know what you mean. It was that enthusiasm in his voice as he told me about all this – once I decided to listen – that made me decide that I ought to come out here with you and give it a try. Besides, I figured I couldn’t honestly say it’s not for me if I’ve never tried it."

I didn’t argue with her on that. I was just going to make sure that she had the best experience possible on this first time out – especially since this could be her only experience. I had been gradually picking up the pace of our walking so that we would more quickly get farther into the pasture and therefore, farther away from our clothes. That, to me, is the ultimate feeling of freedom and I wanted to make sure that Julie had the chance to experience it even if she didn’t share my feelings for it.

We reached the edge of the trees and Julie stopped suddenly. Staring hesitantly out into the wide-open back part of the pasture, she asked, "Are we going out there?"

I explained to her again how safe that I felt that we were back here and why. Then I added reassuringly, "But let’s just walk along the edge of the trees here for a ways without getting way out in the open. That’s what I used to do when I was first starting out. Will that be OK?"

She agreed and we resumed our walk. We were out in the full sunshine now. "The sunshine and the warm breeze feels so good," I said as I pulled my hair back and let the wind blow through it.

"It’s OK," was her unenthusiastic response. I couldn’t tell if she really wasn’t liking the experience or if she did like it but didn’t want to admit it or what. At any rate, I felt the important thing right now was to keep moving and keep talking.

I took her to the place in the pasture that had been my farthest hiking limit up until the day that Jeff had come out here with me. I told her how after hearing me say that I was afraid to go any farther, he had casually said that we should just go see what’s over that hill. And then when we reached it, he led us on to the next one until we finally reached the fence on the far edge of the pasture.

"That’s Jeff," she said. "Always thinking – always curious – always trying new things."

Then she pointed in the direction of the hill and asked, "Is that the way you went?"

"Yes."

"Then let’s go," she said as she turned and started in that direction into the wide-open grassy part of the pasture.

I was surprised at this sudden change in her behavior. As I joined her I was beginning to think that maybe she was starting to get comfortable. This could be a good sign.

I said, "Hey, where did this sudden jolt of courage come from?"

She replied as she walked on with determination, "Oh, I don’t know. I just figured if Jeff did it his first time out and if you and he do this all the time, why not go for it? Especially since you’re with me."

As we continued on up the hill walking side by side, Julie began another conversation that went a little like this:

"Something else about this nudist thing. First of all, I’m not sure I could ever be comfortable letting people see – you know – everything. But then on the other hand, I don’t know how you could prevent it either – not all the time anyway. How do you deal with that? What’s normal? What’s expected?"

"I’m not sure what you mean," I replied sensing that she had a concern about something important, but I didn’t understand what it was.

"Well, I mean like whenever we were naked – I mean nude – in the locker room with everybody back in high school, we didn’t let everything be seen. But today after we got undressed back there and you climbed back up the creek bank ahead of me – well, I mean, if I had been your doctor, you could have just about had an exam."

"Oh, so that’s what you mean," I said laughing, but I knew her question was serious in spite of the humorous roundabout way that she posed it. "Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you or anything."

"You didn’t offend me. And besides, that was nothing compared to the other morning in your apartment when I woke you up."

"Hey…!"

"I know. I know. I was in your space uninvited and unannounced. But I’m just curious about how you deal with that – as a nudist, I mean. What’s normal?"

"Well, I guess I don’t really think about it or consider it an issue. I mean, guys – being external like they are with everything in full view – can’t really hide it and that’s perfectly normal and acceptable in a nudist setting. So if it’s OK for them, why should we be any different? So I don’t worry about it. I mean, I certainly don’t try to draw attention to it or flash anybody or anything, but at the same time I see no need to go out of my way to hide it either. That area is just another fact about my body. And besides, our bodies are good and miraculous so why should we consider any part of them bad or shameful?"

"I guess that makes sense. Sunny, you have an answer for everything."

"Oh, I don’t know about that. Ask Jeff what he thinks."

"Ask Jeff what he thinks about your…?"

"No! Never mind!" I said cutting her off as we both laughed. Julie was starting to loosen up and be her usual witty self – quick with the one-liners and keeping us both laughing.

We kept walking steadily up over the first hill, then down past the pond and on up to the top of the next hill. We were now at the farthest point in the pasture. As I said before, the sun was shining brightly and now the wind was more than a breeze at the top of this hill. As we stood there looking out at the view of the countryside in each direction, I remarked to Julie how beautiful it was out here and how great it felt and how wonderfully free I felt up here like this.

But, instead of agreeing with me, Julie sighed and said all in one long string of words, "Sunny-tell-me-I’m-not-standing-here-stark-naked-on-top-of-a-hill-in-front-of-the-whole-world."

I laughed out loud. Then I deliberately looked her up and down. Then I looked behind her. Finally, I said, "Don’t worry. You’re not naked."

"Well that’s good because I was really starting to worry there for a min…"

"You’re nude," I said interrupting her.

She slapped me on the shoulder and said as a statement rather than a question, "Oh, what’s the difference!"

"I just think of being naked as something that happens to you and I think of being nude as a choice that you make. You chose to be nude when you took your clothes off and left them way back over there," I said pointing back in the direction we had come. "You’ve been nude out here in the great outdoors for about an hour now. You’re out here with absolutely nothing between you and nature – no barriers at all. How does it feel?"

"Oh, I don’t know," she replied now being serious. "Feeling the sunshine is kind of nice. And the wind, too, I guess. But I just don’t feel particularly free or liberated like you and Jeff keep talking about. I mean it’s not like I’m free to…go shopping or anything when I’m like this."

I could tell that she still didn’t understand the kind of freedom I was talking about. But, she was making a good honest effort to give this a try and form her opinion based on actual experience and I had to commend her for that. That’s way more than most people ever do.

"Julie, I think you’re doing a great job of giving this an honest try. What you’re doing is something that 99.9 percent of all people would never even think about let alone actually try. Nobody could ask you for more than that. And besides, we’re not back yet. You may get used to it and change your mind by then."

"I don’t know. We’ll see," she said. "But I tell you what. If it was anybody other than you, there’s no way I’d be out here doing this."

"Well, let’s start back," I said. "But not too fast. This is such a great day – we should enjoy it. There won’t be many more like this before it gets cold."

We walked back basically over the same route with a few minor excursions along the way to see various things I wanted her to see. I didn’t want to keep her out here too long, but I wanted to make sure she had ample time to get used to the feeling so that she could make an informed choice about what she wanted to do about nudism in the future. She had become a lot more relaxed by now and was cracking jokes left and right and keeping us both laughing which is so totally normal for her. I was having a great time even if she wasn’t so sure about it all. When we got back to the trees, we went down to the creek and crossed a couple of times to explore the other side for a little bit simply because that’s something else that Jeff and I had done on his first time out.

Soon we were back to the place above where our clothes were hidden.

I said, "If you want to wait here, I’ll go down and get our stuff." I wanted to give her just a minute or two of quiet time to experience nature alone so that she could have that experience, also.

"What if I’m not here when you come back?" she asked jokingly.

"What if I don’t come back?" I quipped back at her.

"That wouldn’t be funny," she said suddenly serious.

"Don’t worry. See you in a minute," I said. I took my time both going down and climbing back up. I laid our stuff down and separated mine from hers.

"Time to get dressed?" she asked.

"I’m going to wait until I get back closer to the road," I said. "I like to spend as much nude time as possible. But you can go ahead and get dressed now if you want to."

"No, I guess I’ll do what you do," she said picking up her backpack. She unzipped it and pulled out a medium large bottle of water and offered it to me. I accepted and opened it. While I was drinking, she reached into the backpack again and this time retrieved her cell phone.

I almost choked on the water. Then I asked in astonishment, "You brought your phone out here?"

"Well, yeah," she said. "I take it everywhere. Why wouldn’t I bring it out here?"

"Sometimes it’s good to get away from all that. And what if it had started ringing?" I asked.

"It was off," she argued. "Chill." I heard it beep as she turned it on.

"What are you doing now?" I asked.

"I told Jeff I’d call him," she said as she apparently selected his number from her directory and speed-dialed it.

"Now?" I asked.

"Why not?" she said to me and then to the phone she said, "Hey, it’s me…Uh-huh…yeah…yeah, right now!…I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet…yeah, she’s right here. OK."

Julie handed the phone to me and said, "He wants to talk to you."

I traded her the water for the phone and said, "Hey," into the phone.

I recognized Jeff’s voice as he anxiously asked, "So how did it go?"

I smiled and looked at Julie as I jokingly said, "Oh, it was rough. I had to drag her kicking and screaming all the way. It wasn’t pretty."

"Not true!" she immediately responded loud enough to be heard over the phone.

Jeff and I both laughed. Then I said, "No, actually, it’s been good. We’ve had a great afternoon. We’re about to head back now."

"Thank you for doing this," he said.

"No problem. We’ve had fun. Here’s Julie," I said as I handed the phone back to her. I didn’t want to get into a discussion with Jeff now about her and how I thought she felt about all this. That was for them to discuss and work through together.

Julie put the phone to her ear and said, "I’m back…yeah, we’re getting ready to head back…Tonight? Yeah…We can talk…OK..."

And then smiling and looking at me to watch my reaction, she said to him, "I love you, too. Bye."

I immediately said, "Whoa! What was that I just heard?"

"What was what? You probably just misunderstood me. That’s what you get for eaves dropping."

"Don’t mess with me. I know what I heard. You just said the ‘L’ word."

"No, I think you’re mistaken. Going naked outdoors like this all the time must have done something to your hearing."

"Oh, is that right?"

"Uhhh, yeah. I read it just the other day…in the…uh…New England Journal of Medicine!"

We both cracked up at that and then began a detailed conversation about who said it first and when and where and all those kinds of things. There’s no need for me to go into detail about that here – girls already know how it goes and guys don’t want to hear about it anyway.

We took our time making our way back through the trees and across the creek a couple of times toward the road. All too soon, we came to the spot where I usually get dressed. I always hate that feeling of having clothes back on after having enjoyed my freedom for so long, but I didn’t say anything about that. Julie and I were busy talking about a myriad of other things. When we were dressed we made our way back to the gate, climbed over, and began walking back down the road in the direction of Julie’s car.

We hadn’t walked far at all when Julie suddenly changed the subject by saying, "Sunny, you know back there, I was glad to put my clothes back on. But now, they feel so…confining and…restricting. You know what I mean?"

That was about the last thing I expected to hear from Julie. I thought that she was happy to be dressed again and that this was probably her first and last experience with nudism.

I replied saying, "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way. I feel that way every time. But I sure didn’t expect to hear you say that."

"I didn’t expect it either," she said. "It’s kind of a surprise."

"Well, we were nude for two hours or so," I said. "Maybe you became more accustomed to it than you thought."

"Yeah, maybe," she said.

The conversation lead me to probe a bit more to see what she really thought of the whole experience thus far so I said, "So Julie, based on your two hours nude outdoors today, what do you think? Do you think it’s something you’ll want to do again?"

"I don’t know," she said pondering my question. "All the while we were out there I was thinking I could take it or leave it. But then I have to think about Jeff. I know how important it is to him. I certainly wouldn’t expect him to stop on my account, not now that I know more about it."

"You think you might want to join him some time?" I asked knowing that this was a delicate subject for an outsider like me to be asking.

"Oh, I don’t know," she replied sounding uncertain. "Not any time soon, that’s for sure! I don’t know when I’d be ready for that. You know?"

"I know."

"I mean that’s a lot different than you and me. And it’s a lot different than you and him, too."

"I know. I know. I just wondered what you were thinking and whatever you’re thinking is OK with me. It’s totally up to you," I said.

I sensed from the things that Julie said and the way that she said them that the wheels in her mind were turning as she thought about Jeff and what his thoughts for the two of them might be. I was guessing that she didn’t want to disappoint him if he wanted to do this together, but at the same time she was worried about actually being able to go through with it. These were perfectly understandable concerns, but it was for the two of them to work through and not for me to interfere. I was just glad to know that she hadn’t completely ruled it out – at least not yet.

We walked on back to her car and headed back to town. As she pulled up to my place to let me off, I said, "Well, this has been a lot fun – at least for me."

"Oh, I enjoyed it, too," Julie said. "Thanks for taking me out there. I know it was a pain."

"No, it wasn’t," I responded. "I enjoyed it. And you did great. It took guts for you to try it, girl. Most people couldn’t have done it."

"Well, thanks again," she said. "I’ll tell Jeff all about it later. I’ll see you around or call you."

And with that I got out of the car and she drove away. As I went up to my apartment, showered, and got ready for work, I thought about how the afternoon with Julie had gone. There really hadn’t been many surprises. She was the one who wanted to try it – nobody was twisting her arm. I felt perfectly comfortable taking her out there and leading the way. I knew she would go through with it – she’s the kind of person that follows through on a decision. I wasn’t surprised with her luke-warm reception either – that was pretty much what I expected. I felt I had done all I could do by explaining my thoughts and setting an example. Now it was up to her and Jeff to work things out together.

END - Part 2 of 3