Karen loses control, and likes it!

This was not the vacation Karen had signed up for; her first flight had arrived in Atlanta too late for her to catch the second flight in her itinerary. The airline's customer service agent who re-booked her told her she was lucky to get a seat on a later flight to Montego Bay on the same day at all, but Karen wasn't feeling lucky as she arrived at the resort where she and her boyfriend Ron had booked a week-long stay. She sat at a bar nibbling on snacks, the only food available after midnight. The rough 14 hours of travel and the fact that her checked bag with pretty much all of her clothing had failed to catch up with her had her in a foul mood, but she knew these were temporary irritants.

The larger, more intractable problem was Ron's absence. Less than a week before they were scheduled to leave, he had broken the news that he had met someone else and wouldn't be going to Jamaica or anywhere else with Karen. Just three months ago he had been avidly pursuing her; they began dating and Karen had thought things were going well between them when they began planning the trip a month ago, right up until his announcement. Coming almost exactly a year after her divorce from her husband of fifteen years, Karen wanted to crawl into bed for a month more than she wanted to take a week-long solo vacation.

When her daughter called to wish her a good trip the night before she was scheduled to leave, Karen let her know she and Ron were over and done with and the vacation was off. Karen had been in her teens when her daughter was born and often told people they had grown up together. They were like best friends, supporting each other whenever either had a problem. When Karen said she was going to skip the trip, her daughter scolded her," This doesn't sound like the woman who raised me. She wouldn't let one jerk of a boyfriend define her. That woman was also way too frugal to eat the cost of a non-refundable vacation."

"The woman who raised you had to be frugal, for most of your childhood she was a single mom getting by on her dental hygienist's income. Right now she's tired of being dumped by men chasing after twenty-somethings. Ron's new girlfriend is 28, only a couple years older than you!"

"Honestly Mom, I always did think Ron was a little creepy, but he seemed to make you happy, so I never said anything."

"Your dad was no better," Karen replied, "when he began cheating on me with Stephanie she was still in her twenties. I'm just tired of having to compete with women young enough for me to be their mother!"

"You're exaggerating a little, Stephanie is only 12 years younger than you. Besides, you're still beautiful!"

"Thanks for the flattery, but I'm just not feeling like a solo trip right now. I'd be some kind of cliché, the spurned woman seeking proof she's still desirable, at a beach resort of all places. Kind of like going to the grocery store when you're hungry."

"Which is exactly why you SHOULD go, being far from home may make it easier to get out of your comfort zone. It might do you good to treat yourself to the male equivalent of a pint of Ben and Jerry's! I hear a lot of beaches in Jamaica are clothing optional, maybe you can show off that boob job Dad talked you into!"

"Brianna! You're terrible! Is that any way to talk to your mother?" Karen laughed.

"Maybe not, but I do have some recent experience trying some things I never expected to do. I hadn't worked up the nerve to tell you this before now, but I recently did a little modeling for the advertising agency where I work."

"Why would you need to work up the nerve to tell me about this?" Karen asked, sounding a little worried, "Modeling what, exactly?"

"Well, lingerie, actually. Way, way out of MY comfort zone, but no regrets at all."

"I definitely want to hear all about it, but not right now," Karen replied. "You've convinced me to get off my butt and have a vacation; I'm way behind on my packing. Just for the record, I'll be on the clothing required section of beach."

"Have fun, and send me some pics!"

Decompressing at the bar, Karen thought about her conversation with Brianna and her last-minute change of plans and wondered if she had made the right choice in going ahead with her trip, but she dutifully snapped a photo for Brianna of the plate of cheese and crackers which passed for her dinner, alongside her, what was it, third glass of wine? She thought there might have been a topping up of her almost empty glass somewhere along the way, so it was a little hard to count. Just then the bartender came over and told her he was closing up, but she could take her wine back to her room if she wished. She did wish.

Once back at her room, she sat out on the balcony for a few minutes, enjoying the moon rising and the sound of the surf. She decided to have a shower to get rid of the funk of a long day of travel, leaving the wine behind on the balcony to be finished off afterward. After a long, luxurious shower she wrapped her hair in one towel and her body in another before stepping back out onto the balcony. There was no sign of life at any of the other balconies at her side of the property or the side facing hers, across the courtyard below. She could faintly hear a few voices coming from the direction of the pool and hot tub but couldn't see the pool from her room.

Karen sipped her wine and relaxed, looking forward to some beach time tomorrow, assuming her luggage showed up. If it didn't, she'd have to re-use her one outfit and go do some shopping.

"Or I could make Brianna happy and just wear a towel to the beach..." she thought with a smile, "or maybe just wear it TO the beach, not AT the beach, using the towel to lie out on once I got there!" Despite it being utterly impossible, Karen surprised herself by finding the scenario kind of exciting.

Remembering her long dark hair's tendency to tangle easily, she stood up, unwrapped the towel on her head and shook out her damp hair. Possibly it was having her hair loose and shaking it around, but somehow being down to just wearing one towel seemed daring. As she finished off the last sip of her wine she laughed at herself, thinking how restricted a space her comfort zone was; after all, she was still well covered with her towel wrapped around her and securely fastened.

"What if it wasn't so secure?" she thought. "What if it came untied and I had to hold it in place?" Just the idea was enough to make her blush. "I'd have to be careful to hold it the right way, or..." she thought, aware that her hands were moving towards the spot where her towel was folded together. "All it would take is a little tug," she thought, just seconds before separating the two ends of the towel, "but as long as I slid the opening over to my side, I really wouldn't be showing anything but a sliver of skin on my side from my hip up to my shoulder."

She paused for a moment, amazed to now find herself so close to exposing some significant skin. She had another look around to see if anyone had come out onto a balcony in sight of hers without her noticing, and was a little disappointed to find no one. Though having a viewer now would almost certainly bring her little experiment to an end, the idea of having to decide whether or not to go on if she knew she had an audience intrigued her.

Now her thoughts were centered on what her imaginary voyeur might see, "If I were to let go of the end of the towel at my back but held the towel tight to my body in front...I'd be naked if seen from behind, but still well covered in front. Maybe even better covered with the towel held vertically."

Real Life Karen now faithfully followed Fantasy Karen's interior monologue, standing on her balcony clutching her towel tightly to her chest with nothing at all covering her from behind. "I really only need one hand to hold the towel in place, freeing the other one to dry myself; if I put a foot up on the chair the towel could even reach all the way down my leg to my foot," Karen told herself. When she followed this latest idea she realized she wasn't facing straight out away from her room anymore; stepping one foot up onto the chair had caused her to turn almost sideways. Anyone watching her would have a great view of her left side and a good portion of the left side of her ass! She trembled a little thinking about how much she was now on display, but still took her time and switched position to duplicate the view at her right side.

After a long and enjoyable time spent drying off, Karen decided it was time to bring her little show to an end; even though he seemed to be sadly imaginary, she wanted to give her watcher a memorable end to her performance. Since she'd already shown off a fair amount of her side, butt and legs and still couldn't imagine exposing her front, she made up her mind about how to finish her show and stepped forward into the moonlight near the balcony's railing.

Taking one last look around she saw...A LIGHT! A small, brief orange glow, on the balcony directly across from hers. "Must be someone smoking, and I just never timed my checks for viewers to catch the glow of the cigarette before now! What has he seen already? Or maybe what has SHE seen?" The presence of whoever was quietly watching from across the courtyard changed everything. "Or did it?" she thought, "I've been imagining this all along!"

Karen knew the real question now wasn't about the recent past, but about what might be about to happen. Shaking in earnest now, she had to decide whether to finish as she had planned or back up from the balcony into the shelter of her room without flaunting any more of herself than she'd already done. She did NOT like the idea of a retreat, so she ignored her racing heartbeat; without leaving the moonlit area she turned back to face her room. Standing fully naked in the moonlight, she brought her towel around behind her to dry a few spots still damp from her shower, including her hair. Instead of wrapping herself in the towel once she was finished drying off, she turned just enough to be able to place her towel on the railing before strolling back into her room!

Karen hoped to appear nonchalant as she left the balcony, as if she didn't know someone was watching, but her stomach was doing flips and she almost felt like she might pass out. "I can't believe I just did that!" she said out loud several times before finally answering herself, "well, you did. All of it. And apparently with a witness!" She sat quietly in her dark room for a long time, replaying her actions since emerging from the shower, shaking her head at her recklessness, but also smiling.

Eventually, it dawned on her that she didn't have anything resembling sleepwear with her, so she put the previous day's blouse on long enough to close her balcony door and draw the curtains shut before crawling into bed, exhausted.

Karen slept soundly until a knock at her door at 9:00 AM. She peeked through the door viewer, a little worried that her watcher might have worked out which room was hers. Seeing a hotel employee holding up her suitcase, she opened the door enough to let him slide the suitcase in while hiding herself well out of sight behind the door. Once the door was safely shut it occurred to her that before last night just answering the door naked would have seemed outrageous to her. She clearly had already expanded her comfort zone a bit, and wondered if she was done doing so or if this trip would lead to any other changes!

After getting her bathing suit and a cover-up on, Karen had breakfast in the outdoor seating area of the resort's restaurant in the courtyard below her balcony. Looking up towards her balcony she couldn't help shaking a bit just thinking about the way she'd behaved last night, but decided she really didn't regret any of it. As she ate her breakfast she looked around at other diners, realizing all she knew about last night's audience was that whoever it was smoked. "Any one of these people may have seen me naked!" she thought to herself, feeling a blush come over her. Though blushing, she was a little shocked to realize she found the idea arousing! She wondered if they would be able to recognize her, and surprised herself again when she decided that at least a part of her hoped they could!

Karen made her way past the pool to the resort's beach, settling in at an uncrowded spot. She applied generous amounts of sunscreen on the skin not covered by her fairly conservative one-piece suit; she wondered how she'd get her back covered if she had a bikini, but decided she was still sexy enough to be able to get some man or another to help her out.

The next six hours were blissfully relaxing for Karen; she read, dozed, had a snack from a stand near her spot and took advantage of the resort's perpetual open bar, sipping just enough margaritas to maintain a very slight buzz. During one of her jaunts to the beachfront bar she was a little shocked to notice the young woman in line ahead of her was stark naked! She had seen a number of topless women already, but this was the first completely nude person she'd seen in her time at the beach. There hadn't been any signs to indicate this part of the beach was clothing optional, but apparently nudity, even complete nudity, was accepted in the area Karen had picked. As she headed back to her blanket with her latest margarita she looked around a little more carefully and noticed another naked woman and several men without a stitch on! "I guess the nudist crowd starts coming out later in the day," she thought to herself, enjoying the sights around her. She'd never seen more than one naked man at a time and enjoyed the opportunity to compare...things.

Between the vast amount of skin on display and the cumulative effects of her margarita consumption, Karen had a hard time concentrating on her book. She noticed that there didn't seem to be any correlation between people's willingness to go around naked and their fitness; looking around at the topless and nude women on the beach she thought her body compared pretty favorably with most of them, even much younger ones. She went in no time at all from not being able to imagine herself going topless in public to having a hard time thinking of anything besides how she would look that way, and how it would feel. She decided to take the shuttle into town the next day to shop for a two piece suit to have the option, her first bikini in over a dozen years! She was even giving a tiny bit of thought to skipping the shopping trip entirely, along with any kind of suit! For now, she considered pulling her suit's top down to go topless, but didn't think the rolled down suit would be a good look.

Just before leaving the beach Karen pulled out her phone and took a selfie to send to Brianna, with a text saying, "Me at the beach. I'm wearing about as much fabric as any dozen other women here combined!"

Brianna replied quickly, "You don't have to..."

Karen sent a cryptic reply: "Maybe tomorrow..."

Back at her room around 5:00 PM, Karen had a shower to get rid of her coating of sunscreen, sand, and sweat. After her shower, she wrapped herself in two towels just like the night before and stepped out on the balcony. She made herself look around casually before letting herself check the balcony across the courtyard. There was nobody in sight there, so she was spared having to decide if she could repeat any of last night's craziness now, several hours before sunset. She wondered what she would have done if her watcher had been on his balcony, or if SHE had been on HER balcony -- the uncertainty was maddening. Karen thought pretty much anything beyond taking off the towel around her head would have been out of the question, but then again she probably would have said the same thing last night right after leaving the shower!

Dinner alone was Karen's least favorite part of solo travel, so she put off getting dressed for a couple of hours before getting ready; she knew she had to get going eventually if she wanted a restaurant meal instead of another bar snack dinner. She decided to go all out to at least look good seated at her table for one. She wore her skimpiest bra and panty set, not to impress anyone since they would be out of sight, but simply because they made her feel sexy. A lacy red silk blouse, fairly short black skirt, sheer black thigh-high stockings and a pair of fairly high heels completed her look for the evening.

Despite feeling a little bit out of place as the only person she could see dining alone, Karen enjoyed her dinner, which was excellent, with several wine selections well paired with her food. Being alone had the advantage of allowing her to focus on people watching. She saw a few of the people she'd seen naked on the beach this afternoon, but was surprised to see they weren't flashily dressed. She seemed to be wearing as short a skirt as any woman in the room; tonight's outfit had really been intended for Ron to enjoy but she was glad now that she'd included it. She was so busy observing her fellow diners that it took a long time for her to notice how many of them were checking her out; when she did notice several men sneaking glances her way she made a visit to the ladies room, hiking her skirt up just a little and undoing one of her blouse's buttons! Her dessert was even more enjoyable as her wardrobe adjustments earned her a bit more attention.

After leaving the restaurant Karen felt like having a walk, so she took a trip around the property, noticing the pool and a spacious salt-water hot tub were fairly busy. After a short walk on the darkened beach, she stopped at the bar for an after-dinner drink. She made small talk with an older couple, eventually having an after-after dinner drink before excusing herself. She realized she was avoiding going back to her room, but wasn't sure whether she just didn't want to be alone or if she was afraid of being tempted to repeat last night's outrageous behavior!

On her way to her room, Karen noticed all but a couple of tables in the dining area in the courtyard had been cleared off, with only a handful of stragglers finishing their desserts. "One less obstacle to me misbehaving," she thought, "not sure if that's a bad thing or a good one."

Reaching her room, she was surprised to see an impressive bouquet of flowers had been delivered while she was out; there was no card, but Karen had to assume they were from her smoking voyeur.

Was he watching her balcony right now? "Of course he is," thought Karen. She'd been unable to think of little but last night's balcony show since before dinner, but hadn't been able to decide if it was something she would ever do again or if it had been a one-time thing, a result of too much to drink combined with exhaustion and her messed-up love life. Last night's exhibition had mostly been a sort of game she was playing with herself; she hadn't been aware of having an audience until nearly the end and had only really let whoever was watching see her naked very briefly from behind, not too much different than the many women wearing thongs she'd seen at the beach this afternoon. Any similar behavior tonight would be very different, knowing right from the start that her every move was being watched, but she had known last night that she was being watched when she did the most daring part of her performance, and if she was being honest with herself she had to admit to being glad she'd gone through with it.

Karen turned off every light in her room and watched the balcony across from hers; since clouds were blocking the moonlight, it was even darker across the courtyard than the night before, but in a minute or so she felt a shiver go up her spine as she saw the familiar orange glow, right where it had been the night before, removing any lingering doubts about whether her balcony was being watched!

Just to see what it controlled, Karen flipped a switch she hadn't even noticed the night before next to the door to the balcony, turning on some mercifully low wattage decorative lights strung above the balcony. She took a deep breath as she opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony, bringing the flowers with her and setting them down on the table; "whoever is watching from across the courtyard might not get to see anything exciting tonight, but the least I can do is let them know their gift has been received and appreciated," she thought.