Jane Air

against a tree. Dark shirt. Dark pants. His face remains in shadow.
“Who the hell are you?” I back further up, moving towards the center of the water so I can straighten and still remain covered although, I glance down again, I’m hardly “covered” in any sense of the word.
“Let’s not do that.”
“Excuse me?” I’m in the center of the pond now, too far away from him to see his face, even if he weren’t in shadows.
“I said, we don’t need to do that. Why don’t you just get out and we can wait for the police.”
I flip the wet hair out of my face. “This isn’t your pond. This is public property.”
His laugh is deep and low and I feel it across my belly, swimming past my skin. “Nice try. You’re right behind my house.”
“What house?” I’m irritated now. Irritated and cold. Not threatened, interestingly. Despite the fact that I’m naked in the woods with a stranger who just informed me he called the fuzz.
“The house on the hill.”
“What hill?”
“Up the path.”
“What path?”
He laughs again, longer this time. The son of a bitch is enjoying this.
“My house is on the hill, up the path, back there.” He points over his shoulder, the opposite direction from which I had come.
“Oh,” I crossed my arms over my chest, still covered by the water, “I didn’t come that way.”
I can’t see, but I suspect he’s rolling his eyes, “Well, that makes it ok then.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
Sorry I’m trespassing?
I don’t believe I am trespassing.
Get the hell out of here, weirdo with the hot voice.
“For the record,” I look down at myself in the water. Yup, still naked. “I think you’re full of shit. But I will get out.”
I stay exactly where I am, hands crossed over my breasts. I’m assuming the water is darker as it gets deeper so he can’t see much below my waist. A part of me smirks. If I am trespassing, at least I’m doing it without any attempt at a wax.
He makes no effort to move.
“So, if you could just…”
“Oh, you want me to leave?” He laughs at this. Apparently, he thinks this is funny.
He would. He’s not naked in a pond.
“Yeah, that would be great. I’m not getting out until you leave.”
He crosses his hands across his chest. “Well, I’m not leaving until you get out.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He shrugs. “It means, I want to make sure you do get out.”
I rub my hands over my upper arms. The water is officially cold and I can feel my chin begin to clench. “I can get out just fine, thank you.”
“Well,” he walks forward, closer to the border of rocks framing the water. “Let’s just say that I want to make sure you get out completely.”
“What are you, some kind of peeping Tom?” I still can’t see who I’m looking at, but there is something familiar about him. I wrack my brain to think of any tall, broad shouldered men with sex voices I’ve bumped into lately.
Not surprisingly, there are none.
He sighs then, irritated. “No, but you’re not the first naked woman to break into my property.”
I’m irritated at his irritation. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
He shrugs, “Well, people can be weird. That’s why they take off all their clothes and break into other people’s homes.”
“I did not-”
“Not you, necessarily,” he continues his walk around the rocks, reaching the nook where I had, in fact, taken off all my clothes. He looks down at the pile. “But you are trespassing.”
I pull my arms more tightly around myself. My chattering teeth are too loud to hide now, and this weirdo whose face I still can’t see is holding my clothing hostage. It’s a small town, but not small enough to walk home naked.
He picks up my towel and places it on a rock only a few inches from the water. “I’ll turn my back. You get out and get dressed and then you’re leaving.”
And just like he promised, he turns his back, walks a few feet away, almost completely covered in shadows, and stands still.
I’m tempted to run out the other end of the pond. Of course, that doesn’t solve the nudity dilemma, but it would get me away from him. Although, I turn my head, that is the direction he said his house was in.
Supposedly.
I find it pretty hard to believe I wouldn’t know if my favorite swimming hole was in someone’s backyard.
More likely, this is a random woodsman who decided he wanted the place to himself and is just trying to get me out of the way.
“Or you can wait. Stay naked in the water. Cops will be here any minute.” He turns his head slightly and I catch the glint of moonlight off his eye. “Personally, I prefer to be dressed when I’m arrested, but to each his own.”
Even in the darkness I can see that my fingers are an unhealthy color. Staying submerged much longer is not really an option.
“OK,” I say, moving one foot cautiously in front of the other. “I’m coming out.”
“Good,” his back moves and I shout, “Don’t you turn around!”
That laugh again, a deep, silken chuckle. If I could feel my knees, it might just bring me to them.
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen it all before.”
I reach the edge of the pond, hunched over to hide as much of me as I can and grab the towel, wrapping it around me as I stand up. It’s a bath towel, and only covers me from breast to thigh.
Keeping an eye on his back, which is impressively broad, I quickly reach for my clothing, pulling the shirt over my still wet skin as I hold onto the towel around my waist.
“You know, I hate when men say that.” I am struggling to get my jeans on standing up, and decide to sit on a rock, kicking my feet into the pant legs. “‘I’ve already seen it before.’ Well, you haven’t seen mine before. And it’s not about