by Brian Harmon
Albert nodded. This was exactly what he was thinking. “That’s right,” he said. “Why can’t we just give you what you need to take ahead and put the rest back on?”
“It is the way it must be done,” said the blind man. “Go forward without your clothes or turn back now.” The tone of his voice told them he had no patience for further protests.
“Is there more we should know?” pushed Albert. “Something that’ll help us understand why we have to leave our clothes here?”
“No. Now hurry.”
“I’m not taking my clothes off,” insisted Nicole. “I came to see the Temple of the Blind, not to be on Girls Gone Wild.”
“It’s unreasonable,” agreed Wayne. “There’s no sense in it.”
Brandy turned to Albert, her eyes pleading with him to say more, to convince the eyeless stranger that he couldn’t expect them to do this.
“I’ve said how it will be,” the blind man said. “You may take your bags and that is all. If you do not agree, then turn back now and never return.”
Wayne opened his mouth to say more, but the blind man cut him off.
“I will discuss it no more.”
Albert glanced back at the others, saw the expressions they wore and then looked back at the blind man. It didn’t make sense. By allowing them to take their bags, this stranger had completely undermined his original argument. If the scent of the clothes would attract the hounds and not their bodies, then his backpack would be no different from his jeans. But then again, it was this man, he was sure, who got them in and out of the temple the first time. He glanced back up into the darkness behind them. There was a statue back there. Faith. Faith in the sentinels. Faith in the temple. Faith in whatever was down here. He looked back at the blind man and knew what he had to do. “I’m going,” he said. He bent and untied his shoes. “Anyone who wants to turn back, go ahead. It should be pretty safe going the other way, just follow the marks on the walls.
Brandy stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. She wanted to urge him to stay, but she knew he wouldn’t.
“Me too,” said Beverly.
Nicole looked at her and then at Wayne. This wasn’t a part of the story. Albert and Brandy lost their clothes when they got stuck in the sex room. Albert had told her he suspected it was the blind man’s way of urging them forward. But they knew the way now. They’d conquered the sex room. It wasn’t fair that he take their clothes this time.
Wayne turned and looked back up the path behind them. He could find the way back. It wouldn’t be hard. The tunnels were marked. The maze was small. He thought he could remember the turns. He could probably even feel his way through the sex room if he just kept his eyes closed and took his time. But then what? What would he do when he finally got home? He turned and looked back at the others. Beverly wasn’t budging. She had little choice but to go. And Albert had already made up his mind. He was already taking off his shirt. That only left Brandy and Nicole. He wished like hell he knew what they were thinking. If either of them refused, he could return with her. He could make sure she was safe as they made their way back to the campus. He wouldn’t even have to feel guilty for leaving.
As Albert unbuttoned his jeans, Brandy grunted and peeled off her shirt. She did not like this. Taking off her clothes again was bad enough. Doing it in front of everybody was countless times worse. But Albert was going to go. He was determined. Knowing the dangers ahead, he would gladly go without her, but she couldn’t allow that. She came here to find an end to this nightmare, and she’d be damned if she was going to let him go on alone. The very thought of sitting down in her empty apartment and just waiting for him to come home, never really sure if he would even make it back… It would drive her insane.
Behind them, without hesitating, Beverly untied her shirt and dropped it. In almost the same motion, she reached behind her and unfastened her bra. This was a choice that had already been made for her. For decades something had been beckoning her. She would not be turned away now, not for the sake of something as trivial as her modesty.
Nicole watched, embarrassed, as her companions undressed. She couldn’t believe they were really going to do this. It was absurd. This eyeless man wouldn’t even give them a good reason. She caught Wayne’s eye, saw that he, too, was hesitating. If she refused, he would turn back with her. She was sure of that. But that would mean leaving Albert and Brandy to go on alone. And what if she let them go on without her? Then what? Reluctantly, she unfastened her pants and pushed them down. She could not believe that she was doing this, but if her friends were willing, then so was she. She could not abandon them. If she turned back now, she would regret it for the rest of her life. And what if they needed her? She couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to them because she refused to strip.
For a moment, Wayne watched as Brandy and Nicole stripped off their shirts and pants and bras. He did not come down here to go skinny-dipping, but he also did not come this far just to turn back because he did not want anyone to see his junk. With a grimace, he pulled off his shirt and gave in to the blind man’s unreasonable request.
Seconds later, the five of them stood naked and embarrassed. Brandy gathered everyone’s socks and underwear, noticing the interesting variety of styles from Wayne’s boxers to Albert’s briefs and from Beverly’s practical, cotton panties to her own little pink thong that she wore just for Albert. When she had all of them, she turned and put them in the blind man’s outstretched hand.
“The hounds are fast,” the blind man warned, “but they cannot jump. Stay on the path or you’ll be in the maze. Do not forget to use the box.” This said, the blind man leapt to the ceiling and scurried away like a huge, pale insect, vanishing into the darkness as quickly as he’d appeared.
The five of them stood there awkwardly for a moment, each of them embarrassed and scared. Albert noticed from the corner of his eye that only Beverly was not trying to hide her nudity. While the others stood with their hands covering their privates and their bodies turned away from one another, she stood straight and proud, with her hands clenched at her sides. Perhaps she was too distracted by whatever it was she felt in this place to be concerned with modesty, or perhaps she just refused to be embarrassed of her nudity when she was so much older than the rest of them.
Nicole stood with her back against the cold, stone wall, one hand timidly covering her naked crotch, the other arm crossed over her breasts. “So do we swim now?” She asked.
Albert glanced at her, but it was only a glance. This was incredibly uncomfortable. After his last experience in these corridors, he would have thought that he’d be used to something like this, but being here naked with only Brandy had been much different. Even though he had hardly known her, there was something more natural about standing unclothed in front of a single member of the opposite sex. Being in a group like this was strange. And surprisingly enough, he felt that being naked in front of Wayne and Beverly, who were virtually strangers, was not as bad as being naked in front of Nicole, and seeing her like that, even from the corner of his eye while she kept herself covered, made him feel almost sick with a combination of childish curiosity and guilt. His sex drive, still in overdrive from the first night he came here, made him want to look at her, to see her, to relish the beauty of her nakedness, but his relationship to her, and more importantly to Brandy, made the idea of even snatching a glance in her direction seem like absolute betrayal. Though she was a beautiful woman, she was still his friend, a good friend, almost family. He forced his eyes forward instead, into the darkness that hung over the cold, still water, and then nodded. “We swim now,” he confirmed.
He looked at Brandy, who stood with her arms crossed over her breasts and her body turned toward him and away from the others. She was hiding from Wayne, he knew. The only member of the opposite sex present besides her own lover. He glanced at him, saw that he was standing back from everyone, his hands crossed over his groin, his eyes fixed awkwardly on a random place low on the wall, as
though the stone there was suddenly very interesting to him, and he felt a surprisingly intense surge of jealousy. He fixed his eyes on Brandy and tried to focus his attention on the task at hand. “Ready?”
Brandy nodded. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.
Chapter 8
In thirteen months the water had gotten no warmer. Albert and Brandy braved the cold together, hand in hand, as they did the first time, their naked bodies shivering before their knees were even wet.
“Oh god!” Brandy hissed. She was squeezing his hand hard enough to leave marks with her fingernails, but he barely felt it over the icy torture of the water.
Albert glanced back at the others. Nicole was right behind them, still covering herself, her teeth clenched against the biting cold that was climbing up her calves. Behind her, Beverly had also stepped into the water. Her arms were crossed over her bosom, but less for modesty than for warmth. Wayne was still on dry stone, watching them, probably contemplating turning back after all. That would have been all right. Albert hardly would have blamed him. And that adolescent jealousy lurking within him made him wish that he would.
The water climbed with icy fingers up their naked legs and thighs. The cold could have been a solid thing, gripping and biting.
A long, pitiful whine rose from Nicole’s throat as the water touched the lower curves of her buttocks and Albert reached back to her with the hand that held his flashlight. She relinquished some of her modesty and took the hand, gripping his wrist so that he could still hold the light.
“So your name is Wayne,” Beverly said through clenched teeth as the water numbed her thighs and sent gooseflesh rippling across her body.
Wayne had finally begun to move and the water was like mild torture against his skin. “Yeah,” he replied, hardly in the mood to chat with her.
“I really am sorry about the others. I never thought four people wouldn’t come out of there.”
“Well they didn’t.” Wayne held not an ounce of compassion for this woman.
Beverly opened her mouth to say more, but closed it. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes. Wayne was not going to forgive her, not now, not anytime soon. He was never going to trust her. His dislike for her radiated from him. She would count herself lucky if he didn’t kill her while they were down here…and that was probably just what she really deserved.
Ahead, Albert, Brandy and Nicole were submerged to their chests. A few steps more and they began to swim.
The five of them struggled through the water, trying to hold onto their flashlights as they battled the cold. Brandy had left her backpack with her clothes. The jackets would have been useless once they’d gotten wet anyway, and they apparently wouldn’t need the swimwear. She carried nothing on her but her flashlight, her glasses and her jewelry.
Moments later—though it seemed much longer—they stepped out of the pool, their shivering bodies dripping. Albert kissed Brandy on the lips. “You did great,” he told her. His voice stuttered with the violence of his shivers. He glanced back at Nicole. “You too.”
Nicole still held his wrist, squeezing it as though she meant to sap the heat from his body. With her other hand, she wiped her wet hair from her face and the water from her eyes, leaving her entire body exposed long enough for Albert to see her.
His eyes held on her breasts for a brief moment before he forced them away, embarrassed and ashamed. He was not interested in Nicole’s body, certainly not when he was so in love with Brandy. His eyes had wandered innocently, as though he were admiring her pretty new dress or a lovely necklace. Besides, after his swim he was hardly aroused. Still, he felt guilty.
“It was nice of that guy to skim the ice off the water before we got in,” Wayne said as he splashed onto the dry stone.
“I hope none of us catch pneumonia down here,” Nicole said, wiping more water from her brow. Over the summer Albert had seen her in a bikini on several occasions and he knew she had a knockout body, but seeing her completely naked was different. Her breasts were not merely large, but firm and round. She still had faint tan lines from summer and a mole on her belly just above and to the right of her navel.
Without their clothes, Albert realized that Brandy and Nicole’s jewelry was much more accentuated against their skin. Nicole was wearing a gold necklace with a small, heart-shaped charm that dangled near the sexy cleft between the upper curves of her breasts. On her left wrist, she wore a silver watch and on her right was a single silver and gold bracelet that twinkled prettily in the glow of the flashlights. In addition, she wore two rings on each hand and three pairs of earrings, two in her lobes and one near the upper arch of her ears. Looking at these earrings now, Albert wondered if he’d ever really noticed them before. He certainly had never thought about them consciously. Perhaps it was merely his desire to find something besides her naked body to focus his thoughts on. He turned his eyes back to Brandy, who was still wearing the same three rings and watch that she’d had when he first met her, her favorite items, but was now also wearing his high school ring on her left thumb. Also, the necklace he had given her for her birthday just two weeks before was now dangling from her pretty neck. It was a small golden rose on a fine chain, not expensive by any real means but very pretty. She was also still wearing one of the bracelets he had bought her last Christmas and only a single pair of earrings.
“We’ll be fine,” Albert assured her, turning his eyes away from her and looking quickly back at their other two companions. He was not used to trying to keep his eyes in one place. He liked to observe everything around him, take in his surroundings. Now he felt ashamed just trying to see if everyone was out of the water. “We’ll warm up when we get moving.”
Beverly was not nearly as beautiful as the young women whose company she now shared, but she was not entirely unattractive. Though her face seemed hard and bitter with age, her body was still firm. She was very skinny, with small and rather unimpressive breasts, and with the exception of some faint color on her arms and face, her skin was so pale that Albert found the copious black hair between her legs startlingly visible. She remained completely uninterested in hiding her nudity.
Unlike Brandy and Nicole, she wore very little jewelry. Only a watch with a brown leather strap and a single sapphire ring on her right ring finger adorned her bare body. Her ears didn’t even appear to be pierced.
Then there was Wayne, his body broad, strong but not really toned. He was a little thick around the gut, but not exactly fat. He was a formidable man who, Albert was sure, would impress and intimidate much more adequately when warmer. He was rubbing his arms for warmth and looking anywhere to keep from looking at the naked women around him. He wore no jewelry at all, not even a watch.
Albert turned his eyes to Brandy, his girlfriend, his lover, and another pang of jealousy ran through him at the idea that Wayne could see her naked. It was a childish feeling. After all, he had now seen Nicole naked. Perhaps it was only fair that there be another man down here too. Besides, why should he have to feel jealous? Brandy loved him. She would never leave him. He would always be the one to lie beside her at night. And so what if Wayne had now seen her naked? He was not the first, after all. Brandy had had lovers before him, and they didn’t keep him awake at night. They had no reason to. But, considering this, he wondered how Brandy felt about him being able to see Nicole and even Beverly nude.
“Then maybe we should get moving,” Brandy suggested through violently chattering teeth, and Albert saw the way her eyes intentionally avoided everybody. She looked as though she’d suddenly become fascinated with everyone’s feet.
Albert nodded. “Yeah.” He focused his thoughts back onto the temple and the journey ahead. This would take some getting used to, but there was no reason to let it keep them from what they came to do. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
The five of them moved on, still shivering, still dripping, up the gentle slope of the tunnel.
“I still say this isn’t right,” said Wayne. “Even
if there was something in that water that completely erased any scent from our bodies, which I highly doubt, then we’ll still start to smell again real soon. No matter how cold we are now, we’re bound to start sweating sometime.”
“I understand taking our underwear,” Albert said. “He puts it in the maze where we’ll cross later and attracts the hounds to that area, away from our path. But you’re right. I don’t know why we couldn’t keep the rest of our clothes.” Albert found that focusing on why they had to be naked, along with the biting cold, helped to keep his mind off being naked, so he embraced it.
“Maybe it’s just a rule,” suggested Nicole. “Like how they used to make the athletes compete naked in the early Olympics.”
“It’s possible,” agreed Albert. “And you have to admit, we’re more comfortable naked and soaking wet than in our jeans and soaking wet.”
“That’s true,” agreed Wayne. He hated the feel of wet blue jeans.
“Doesn’t really matter now, does it,” Brandy said.
“I guess it doesn’t,” agreed Albert.
As she tried to warm up, Nicole found herself thinking about their nudity and the fact that she and Albert had now seen each other naked. It was an odd thing to think. He was the only man to see her naked since she was a child who had not had sex with her. She wondered how it would be now, knowing every time she saw him that he'd seen her naked, knowing what he looked like naked, yet never having been in any kind of relationship with him that defined such knowledge of each other. Would it be awkward? Would she always wonder if he was remembering the way she looked, relishing the image in his mind? Would she learn to resent him? She did not think that she could ever resent Albert, but people had a way of changing and she was no exception. She had done a lot of changing already in her young life.
Wayne was surprised at himself. Had he been told that two beautiful young women were going to strip down to their birthday suits right in front of him, he first of all would not have believed a word of it, and secondly would have thought that it was going to be one hell of a show. But now that they were all here, he found himself looking anywhere but at them. He felt like a child who has been told that the lady on the movie screen is undressing so he’d better close his eyes.
