Reply: Walking naked through the woods near my house

My wife and I have lived in our house for twenty years, and both of us are in our 50s. The kids are all grown up so we're empty nesters. Directly across the street from us is a 50-acre wooded area that our village turned into a park several years ago by building a nice walking/biking trail through it. They widened the main footpath to about twenty feet across, laid down boardwalk over the low areas that had a tendency to get muddy and impassable after a rainstorm, covered the remaining path with pea gravel, and built two large wooden footbridges over the creeks that fed into a duck pond at the edge of the woods.

To better orient you to these woods for my story, one of the main entrances to this park is directly across the street from our house, which is very convenient for my naughty escapades (no need to park my car along the street to arouse the suspicions of police patrols). Enter the park here and you'll follow the main trail about 500 yards before coming to the first of two back-to-back wooden footbridges that take you over two creeks that feed into a small duck pond on the other side of the woods. Once past the second footbridge, the trail takes on the shape of the the letter P; at the top of the P is the duck pond with the top side trail off to the right looping back around to re-connect with the main trail via a second side trail at the bottom of the P (more about this second side trail later). It's easily a half mile walk from the second footbridge to the top of the P; I should also point out that edge of the duck pond is a mere ten yards away from a busy residential street that serves as a major north/south thruway in our community.

There are also several sections of these woods that can only be accessed by footpaths leading off of the main trail. I refer to these as the "deep woods." Unbeknownst to my wife, I'll go into the deep woods whenever the weather is warm (we live in a northern climate) and walk around completely naked (save for my wedding ring and maybe a wrist watch). Here's my routine: I'm in sales and work out of a home office, so I wait until after my wife has left for work around 8:00 a.m. I'll then go into the garage and strip so that I can spray insect repellant all over my body (an absolute necessity, otherwise I'd get eaten alive). I wear minimal clothing for my "outings" (i.e., t-shirt, running shorts, and walking shoes only). I figure the less clothes that I have to take off outdoors, the better. I leave my socks behind in the garage, however, since I'll need these to cover up my filthy feet when I return so that I don't track shit into the house when I head upstairs for my shower. As you can see, I've thought about everything.

A psychoanalyst would disagree with me, but I do NOT consider myself to be an exhibitionist--because I am VERY careful about NOT being seen by ANYBODY! That's why I stick to the deep woods where nobody ever goes (except for the occasional middle schoolers sneaking beers from their parents, and I can always hear them coming a mile away). For the longest time, however, I'd fantasized about what it would be like to walk the length of the main trail in the nude. Call it my little something for the "bucket list."

As I thought through the details of how I'd go about pulling this off, in my fantasies I'd determined that the very best time to do this without getting caught would be at the crack of dawn--and specifically at the crack of dawn on a 4th of July weekend when the weather would be warm and the days would be long and when NOBODY would be out on the trail that early in the morning on a long holiday weekend because they'd all be sleeping in. The only thing that stopped me from trying this was, of course, my wife. There's no way she'd buy my story about getting up at 4:30 a.m. for "a walk" on a holiday weekend. She'd know something was up. And besides, it takes me a good five minutes to prep in the garage, standing there in the nude while I covered my body with bug spray.

It was never gonna happen. Until this year.

My wife informs me that she's decided to spend the 4th of July weekend out East vacationing with some friends, leaving me home alone. Holy shit! Was I really going to do this? You bet your ass I was.

I checked the meteorological reports; sunrise was due at 5:15 a.m. on Saturday, July 2nd. I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. and bounced out of bed when it went off, looking out our bedroom window at the entrance to the trail directly across the street. The street lamp was still lit, but the sky was just starting to get light and the temperature was in the low 70s. Fucking perfect!

I did my usual prep in the garage with the bug spray, got dressed in my little outfit, and headed out across the street. By the time I hit the trail it was around 4:40 a.m., and the "skyshine" was easily as bright as a walk at dusk in the fall. I walked fully clothed down the main trail to first footbridge. I veered off into the deep woods to the left of the footbridge, and made a bee-line for a secluded spot well off the beaten path where I usually stripped on my "normal" outings. I sat down on a fallen tree and took off my shoes. I climbed out of my running shorts and pulled off my t-shirt, hanging them on a nearby tree branch. I was naked. Only this time, instead of heading out for my usual walk through the deep woods, I'd be re-tracing my steps back to the footbridge and onto the main trail.

Totally nude.

What makes this walk extremely risky are a couple of "blind bends" where I wouldn't know if somebody were ahead of me unless they made some noise, which would be highly unlikely if they're alone. The first blind bend comes up immediately after crossing the first footbridge, where the trail leads a short distance to the second footbridge that makes a blind curve around onto the main trail on the other side of the creek (i.e., the bottom of the letter P I talked about above).

I crossed both footbridges without anybody in sight. So far, so good.

The next blind bend was up ahead about 200 yards away and would be the most dangerous part of the walk. It's that spot where the trail splits (i.e., at the base of the bulge in the letter P); at the split, you can either follow the trail straight ahead to the duck pond, or you can veer hard right and follow that second side trail I'd mentioned earlier. Needless to say, I wouldn't see anybody that might be walking into the woods from this second side trail. And I wouldn't know if anybody was there until I was fully exposed to them.

My heart started pounding, but I continued my casual stroll forward...listening closely for any sound of a possible walker or biker ahead of me, however unlikely that might be at this time of day. After all, anything is possible, and I'd never done this before.

I slowed down as I approached the fork. No sounds. I peeked around the corner. All clear. I kept walking straight ahead towards the duck pond until I reached a bright, sunlit clearing along the main trail (i.e., no tree canopy overhead). I paused here to soak in my beautiful surroundings and my total nudity in those surroundings. Wow! The pond was only 50 yards away, but just before I got there, I veered off onto a half-hidden footpath that led me into what I refer to as "the alternate woods." The alternate woods are just another section of "deep woods" that are surrounded by the side trails I mentioned earlier--i.e., inside the bulge of the letter P. Unfortunately, a very large portion of the trail surrounding these alternate woods (i.e., the curve of the letter P) is completely visible to people's backyards, so I played it safe by following a more secluded footpath that shortcuts through the alternate woods.

I worked my way through the alternate woods back towards the second side trail. However, I did not dare venture out onto the second side trail because of its proximity to people's houses, but instead turned around and worked my way back through the alternate woods to the side trail at the top of the letter P. I turned left here and exited the woods right where the duck pond meets the street. I was now in full view of anybody that might drive by or peer out their windows. I casually walked up the main trail alongside the duck pond and sat myself down on a commemorative bench overlooking the pond. I started stroking myself, because I by now I was almost fully erect. While I was doing this, a car actually drove by the pond but didn't bother to slow down. They hadn't seen me, even though I was in plain sight had they bothered to look. Just the thought of almost getting caught made me shoot one of the biggest loads of my life all over my belly.

What an incredible morning. One I will certainly never forget.

My wrist watch showed 5:30 a.m., which meant that I'd been out here a good 50 minutes. I decided not to press my luck, so I left the bench and headed back down the main trail just a short distance to a shallow spot in the creek that feeds into the pond. I gingerly made my way across the creek using some stepping stones in order to get to the other side and onto a footpath that would take me back into the deep woods and directly to the spot where I'd left my clothes.

"Bucket List" mission accomplished.