by Jayne Louise
‘God!’ Jules sighed aloud when we were all safely across. ‘And I still have to pee!’
Jem laughed at her again, passing both of us as she took several long graceful strides to slow down. We did stand there in the open air at the edge of the clearing, catching our breath, before starting off down the path towards the boat again. All the stealth was gone from us– we were merely tired people walking home. There was almost no chance of running into anyone else tonight– the sandy path was not fit for late-night visitors and both the state cop and the park ranger were in the same place. As Jem said, how many police patrols could they have out at this time of night?
Dove’s pale-blue hull reflects more of the greenish-brown water than of the surrounding sky– it appears dark gray in anything but direct light anyway, especially at night. I first recognized the boat only when I saw the edge of the white deck. Jem waded out into the muddy stream beside the canoe and belly-flopped into the deeper water. Jules giggled and ran after her. I took my time, checking the tension on the cable round the tree, and then attempted to climb aboard by it. I guess it was a good idea to see if anyone else could have done it. But I slipped really early and landed on my bottom in the mud, conveniently finding the knuckle of some root down there with my left thigh. If I were a cursing person I would have cursed then, but honestly I couldn’t think of anything to say!
I got right up at once, expecting it to be badly bruised and bleeding, but there was only evidence of a little scratch and bruise and I’d gotten worse sneaking around Batsto tonight anyway. I waded out on the starboard side of the boat and joined the others for a soothing soak in the River.
So Jules got her chance to pee then, and Jem rigged up the Sun Shower while I opened up the boat. We each had a quick turn rinsing off in the warm fresh water, and then we applied more Off and went below to brush teeth and wash faces. All of the day’s dirty clothes got tossed into the vee-berth. I set the latch on the foredeck hatch so it would stay securely locked about eight inches open, and I sealed the screen round the main hatch and we settled in, each of us under our own soft cotton sheet for the night.
After we said prayers I remember looking back around at the clock, which read 1:25. Then I closed my eyes.
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IV
The Secret Spot
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
We all got up pretty late in the morning. For us, on the boat, that is like 9:00. Birds were out, cars were going by on the road a quarter-mile away, voices carried from Sweetwater and I swear I heard jetskis somewhere down the river. I stood up in the hatch, under the awning and looked around at the morning waiting for those two to get through with the potty. We had cold Pop-Tarts and doughnuts with juice for breakfast and then got dressed for our day.
The first thing is that we would move the boat. There is a tiny little boat club down the river from our anchorage where we can get some provisions– like ice– and have showers, if we just pay them for one night at their dock. We’ve stayed here before and made some trustworthy friends. So Jem let slip the line around the tree and pulled it back through the water while I got the motor started and backed us into the river towards the anchor, and Jules got that up and we turned downriver towards the marina.
We didn’t call them on the radio– we just moored at the end of the floating dock, turning the boat upriver as the tide was running down. Jem and Jules tied the canoe along the side of the boat while I went up to see about paying the guy and getting permission to use the showers later. It’s always my job to see about these arrangements, obviously because I’m the eldest. I had on good khaki shorts and an unbuttoned gray-green shirt over a red tanktop and I can put on a good businesslike manner, you know.
The manager remembered me from last year. He’s seen us play somewhere. ‘Ah, our girl group again!’ he said. I laughed. We agreed that we would leave the boat here for the day and overnight. It is a family-oriented club and there are often a lot of younger kids there. Someone at the club office suggested we sing for them all tonight, but I got us out of that and returned to the boat.
Jem and Jules were dressed about like I am– that is, casually but comfortably and without having to wear anything under it. We wouldn’t need underwear where we were going! We packed up two backpacks of towels, beach blankets, and supplies for the day, and in the other backpack we stuffed a cooler bag of juice boxes and sandwiches and a couple of ice bricks. I got to carry that one! And we set off.
From here it’s about a mile and a half, or maybe two miles, to the secret sunbathing spot. This is the best spot we know– we have never been seen, interrupted, or even detected here. So for obvious reasons I am not going to say where it is. We went down the road a little to the entrance to the woods, and cut in during a lull in the traffic. For a while we were very quiet, hoping not to run into any hikers or campers. Not all the paths are secret and this one is a kind of avenue to the other areas. We passed two groups of other people, all going out towards the road and the state forest area. One group of two couples looked like they were moving out– they had everything on their backs and were heading for the road, so they’d probably be in a car heading for home in half an hour. But we would have to be alert. There are campsites about a mile or so down through the woods and sometimes people emerge on the path from nowhere– but always to one side. I won’t say which side! I began to worry that we would miss our turn, but by the time we came to it I recognized all the markings, natural and otherwise, from the times we had been here before, and without even saying anything I just led the others off the main trail.
They didn’t debate it with me. The second time we were here, we stood in the middle of the path and had this stupid argument about what the signs were and whether or not I really knew where we were, and finally Jules in all her sweetnatured wisdom just proposed we try it and see, and I ended up being right, of course (well, just a little bit off) and we found the trail within a few minutes. It had been stupid to talk about it in voices too loud for trying to be secret, and though nothing bad happened we swore we would never do that again. So after that we always wear dull colors going in and we speak in soft voices. And– as I reminded us all one time– we don’t sing.
This time we found the trail with no trouble and made our way down till we would be well out of sight from the road. At this time we all stopped, took off the backpacks, and sprayed Off on ourselves. The sun came through the trees in broken shafts, reminding us that it would be blindingly bright and very hot when we got to the sunny spot. We each had a juice-box drink. Jules took off her t-shirt and put sun lotion on her shoulders. Jem tied up the tails of her t-shirt and took off her shorts. She had the bottom of her green-and-blue bikini on under them, because she expected to do this, although I have known her to go further– if you know what I mean! After about ten minutes of rest we got everything packed back up, including the dead juice-box containers, and headed off down the path again.
By this time it was about 11:00. The heat was really intense and we were all dripping with sweat. But we were not far off. The lake came up on our side like it should have and then we made our way down along the water’s edge, occasionally putting our sneakers into something gooky, but we didn’t mind as we would have time to dry everything off. And then we came around a curve in the lake and saw the spot.
I won’t describe it too much– that would not be prudent of me. But there is plenty of room to lie out in the midday to late-afternoon sun and it’s too far from any regular paths for anyone to happen upon us before we can hear or see them. The best part is that there is also an ‘escape route’ –which I won’t describe too much here, except that it’s pretty much a one-way path leading away from the way we come in, so that if anyone followed us or just totally stumbled upon the same way in, we could grab everything and run out, even naked, to a place where we could get ourselves together and still have time to outdistance them. I figured out the ‘escape route’ the first time we cam
e here, last summer, and we even had an ‘escape drill’ to see how it would work for us.
People often ask me how we can be so confident of being safe– they bring up dangers like a bunch of big male hikers raping us and so on– but we are not so stupid and careless. I wonder if these people think we are just casting off our clothes and running naked and screaming through the woods (though we’ve kind of done that too!). Does any intelligent person really believe girls like us would risk our own lives and God-given chastity without being sure that all reasonable precautions were taken?
The forest is huge– it’s the biggest preserve in New Jersey. There are hundreds of ways in and hundreds of ways out, there are thousands of footways within it, and there are millions of places to hide. With all of this opportunity it is still incredibly unpopulated– you can sit in one spot all day and never see another human soul. And there is a way to the woods– you have to let the woods talk to you. Most people don’t know how to communicate with the woods. They go about human business and never realize what an impact they make on their environment. We have come across dozens of human groups in the woods who either never perceived us coming or never even knew we were there. Meanwhile we heard or even felt them half a mile away. We have crept naked up within a few dozen yards of partiers who never even imagined anyone could have been that close. Sometimes it makes us feel like Indians. Sometimes it makes the other people look like idiots.
We spread our towels on the sand and lay out for about 45 minutes till we all turned over. I got up once or twice and wandered out the ‘escape route’ just to be sure our perimeter was secure. That’s another thing most people never do. We have come across people smoking pot and having sex who never even checked to see that they were only a dozen steps away from a major footway. Of course you can detect those people really easily. Pot-smokers are the stupidest of all visitors to the woods. There will not be a deer or rabbit or bird within a hundred yards of them– in fact as you approach them you will suddenly perceive that there is a kind of dead-calm zone around them. Of course they never notice it– they’re getting stoned. Pot-smokers are stupid like that. Sensitive noses can pick up the smell for half a mile or more. We usually pick it up before we can hear them laughing– and they are always laughing or making too much noise. I wonder what they do when the ranger finds them– deny it? But then that whole denial thing seems to go along with smoking pot anyway.
We’ve found people making out plenty of times, but we’ve seen people actually having sex only once. They had been about 50 yards away and we had a clear view of them between the trees. Of course we had heard them first– that’s what drew our attention. The girl was moaning like she always is in those bad movies. The guy was barely undressed– we couldn’t see his bottom– and the girl on her back appeared to be totally naked. It was awful, like that. We had wondered if we were witnessing a rape, but even though neither of them appeared to be having a very good time, neither of them seemed to be complaining either. They were probably high. We had been grossed-out enough by it and left. Five minutes later we had heard a couple talking in normal voices and we figured it was the same people– the path probably circled around a little. A girl was saying out loud, ‘Where is my bra?’ Jem had giggled at that and we hurried to get away from them before they had heard us.
I came back along the ‘escape route’, which is barely a route at all going that way because of how it is, and strolled around the beach a little. Jem was lying flat on her back with her legs spread wide open. I cautioned her about getting sunburnt there. ‘Oh,’ Jules said, ‘she put lotion on.’
I made a face. ‘Everywhere?’
Jules nodded. ‘Oh, everywhere.’
I made that face again and turned away. We all know how Jem is. Still she did close her legs a little more.
I couldn’t really blame her– there is a weird, wild combination of sensations that we get out here in the woods, especially in a spot like this. A lot of people like to say that we lie out like this because it feels sexy, but I know they don’t get it. They’ve never tried it. So I say that it is physically arousing, not sexual. That’s why I like to say we are ‘naked’ but not ‘nude’. ‘Nude’ seems to suggest that there is some kind of lifestyle attached to it, that it’s something different than what we do. What we do is get naked and enjoy the feeling of being in nature. We wouldn’t know what to do on a nude beach with other people. That has nothing at all to do with what we do. And we do what we do because we think it’s better. So when we come out here and lie down under the sun, it’s extremely comforting, relaxing, soothing, and also stimulating, arousing, exciting, all at the same time.
I mean, take Jem as an example. She is a very good girl– no one could ever suggest that she has ever done anything inappropriate or naughty. I know her better than anyone does. But she knows that lying out here at the edge of this beautiful big lake is thrilling, inside and out. She lies there with her legs spread wide apart, because it feels great knowing that she can. It’s about the most vulnerable, immodest position a girl can ever be in, and she’s able to do it here, and anything else too, because there is absolutely no need to be modest or anxious at all. And for a good girl like Jem that is the most freeing, uninhibiting feeling anyone can ever have.
For a while Jules went down and played in the water. I suggested we build a sandcastle or something, and we did start one, but the sand here got really muddy and it turned into a mess. We all waded out to rinse off in the water, and then we sat down and had sandwiches. That was probably about 2:00. Afterwards we reapplied lotion and lay out for a while, both sides, and then took a little stroll round the area. For me this is the most pleasant part of coming into the woods like this. We just left the stuff where it was and sauntered off, as though we had no cares in the world. Of course we did keep one eye and both ears tuned to the woods, in case anyone happened to stumble upon our little camp. But we were able to get pretty far away from it and were out over an hour. Like last night, only this time in broad daylight, we were just three girls, totally naked, no jewelry, no shoes, not even a hair tie among us, creeping through the woods and feeling free.
Jules and Jem wanted to swim across the corner of the lake back to the beach, and I watched them go, feeling like a lifeguard I guess. But they were safe. I turned and made my way up away from the water, standing straight up on a little rise above the lake. I stretched. I pirouetted on my toes. I fluffed up all my hair. I felt like Eve in the Garden, the one part of God’s whole creation that was the Woman. It probably was a little sexy. I mean that should mean there was an Adam somewhere. Okay, so it was the Amazon then! Except that I was the only one.
I got another look down at the lake and saw that they were just gently frolicking in the water in front of the camp. I turned again and strolled off into the woods, coming upon a skinny little path leading towards the road and towards the campsites. I had never seen it before. A few times I glanced back anxiously towards the lake– I couldn’t see or hear anything of those two at all and figured so long as we were quiet we were safe. There are other places where people can get down to the lake, and a mile away there is a bathing beach at the campsite. But for reasons I won’t explain we know it’s too difficult for canoes or stupid inflatable kayaks to make it out this far. That’s how we know it’s this safe.
I stood in the center of the path for a few moments, dizzy with the thought that I could be naked right here in the middle of the day. I felt vulnerable, but it wasn’t that I wanted someone to see me and take advantage of me. I just wanted to be able to do this whenever I wanted and not have to worry about being seen at all. I wanted to own this woods, to be able to have it all to myself, and go anywhere I wanted and never put anything on. I wanted my own little naked retreat.
I swear some day I will have to have a big piece of land out in the Virginia countryside, just so I can do this whenever I want.
I returned to the lake again and swam back over towards the camp. Jem was on her bac
k again, in the center of the big pale-green blanket, and Jules was carrying a juice-box on a little stroll along the way we had come in. She saw me and waved. I waved too. We never call out, you know.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lying out and watching the sun go lower in the sky. As the afternoon went on the breeze died, and soon we were all lying there sweating like pigs. I kind of like it when it gets to this point. We know we’ll be taking showers soon and the evening will bring cooler air that will dry us off. And the sweat is not all that gross. It means we have to apply more lotion, but we do that often anyway. It means we’re not dehydrating, which usually doesn’t happen. And it means we know how late it is.
We keep a wristwatch around one of the backpack straps and by the time there wasn’t much sun left to tan us Jules calculated we’d be able to get out of the woods before it got fully dark. That was about 6.45. So we packed up all the blankets and stuff and slathered Off on all over. Jules put on her dark-brown t-shirt and I put on the gray-green shirt so we could wear the backpack straps comfortably. I didn’t button the shirt. Jem didn’t put anything on at all. She has the deepest tan of all of us, not just from lying out like this and on the boat so much, but because she just naturally tans better. So in the low light of early evening we’d all be pretty well camouflaged anyway.
We were all casual like that– it was comfortable and we were a little sticky from the sun lotion and the sweat and the lake and the Off, and for the moment there was no real reason to get dressed. Jules had the pack with the food and I got out a juice box to drink while we walked. Carefully we made our way back along the secret path towards the main footway. In one direction are the campsites. The other way leads to the road. Stepping out into the path like we were was pretty exciting– this is, like I said, kind of a major ‘avenue’ between the campsites and the road that leads to Batsto and the boat club and the bathing beach, and anyone could have been here. But no one was.