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Nakedgirl 01: The Story of Dareen

By: donnylaja



(Note: this story has topical references to when it was written in 2004. Please make allowances.

This story also refers to practices of Islam. The references are respectful and no offense is intended.)

Part 1

In spite of the load in front of her she found herself running as if in a dream. It seemed so unreal, so silly, to keep running into the rain falling harder on this warm July night, away from her car, the sound of thunder in the distance. Yet it was hopeless to keep staying in the car. Dareen had waited an hour after the engine cut out and nobody had driven by on this old highway. She had had a feeling it was dumb to take this back road home, after that long day at the new library out past Alpharetta. So out the middle of nowhere, this area. Just hills and trees and endless farms. And now in the darkness it was hard to make out even those. She had to call her roommate Elly to come get her, take her back to their apartment in Peachtree Heights. But the battery in her cell phone had run out, and there was nothing to do but go out and find a house with a telephone.

Beginning to get soaked, she stopped under a tree, where the raindrops were at least intermittent. She really couldn't run, she had to hold her breasts in front of her, something that shamed her and looked ridiculous, but otherwise these big loads would yank painfully at her chest as they bounded up and down. She'd hated these oversized breasts ever since they began sprouting from her thin frame when she was thirteen. She'd had to give up sports, had to dress in ugly clothes like this brown floppy sweater. Thank God the insurance company finally approved the breast reduction operation. They said it would be scheduled probably in two months. Thank God!

Now a gust of wind and an almost deafening rush of rain. She clutched her breasts into her crossed arms as she looked at the thickening downpour. She would be here for a while, it seemed. Not being able to make out anything through the dark curtain of rain she thought, for the thousandth time, of what her life would be like with manageable breasts. She toyed with the hope of wearing spaghetti strapped dresses without needing an industrial strength bra -- yet, maybe after all these years of covering up, Ms. Dareen Alkaras had simply become a modest girl. It just suited her temperament. Maybe she was a throwback. She had spent all but the first two of her 24 years in this country, was totally Americanized -- her father had shortened their name from Al-Kharras -- yet she thought of her relatives back in Syria, especially her grandmother whose twinkly eyes looked at her from her black-clothed face in the photo in her bedroom. And who'd worn a head-to-toe burka all her life. Dareen wouldn't want to do that, and definitely was opposed to all that oppression of women that went on in Muslim countries, but there was something about the burka and being covered up that appealed to her: a kind of dignity and maturity, maybe.

Now a bright vague blotch at the horizon and a few seconds later, muffled thunder. Dareen had to get going. She didn't want to be under a tree when the lightning got close. She ran forward, going on pure impulse, knowing in the back of her mind that this was stupid, she should go back to the car. But if she did that she might be stuck there all night!

Panic pushed her from behind as she clutched her breasts and ran out, her poor two-inch heels a mess as they poked through the muddy grass. On and on she went, wishing she had a third hand as she tried to wipe the rain from her eyes. There seemed to be no end to this field -- she zigzagged trying to find some shape in the dark white shower of rain -- shit! One of her heels snapped. Finally, a light! She ran faster -- damn that broken shoe just flew off -- must get it later -- yuck, the squishing of mud through her pantyhosed foot. The shape of light was getting nearer...

A small house, like a trailer that had been built onto and was now a house in its own right. The front was dark; the light was coming from the back. Dareen slowed down, took her hands down from her breasts, and in spite of the rain still pouring down, crept carefully around to the back. She was already soaked; a couple of seconds more didn't matter. . .

To her surprise the back of the house was open, with a kind of overhead garage door that protruded like an awning and kept the rain out. She dearly wanted to seek its shelter but was intimidated by what she saw. For a moment she leaned in from the side, the rest of her body except for her head still getting deluged.

It looked like a rocket, or a ray gun from some old science fiction movie. As big as a car, a fat clunky metallic bullet bolted together, pointing upward with a kind of antenna at the end. In the pale fluorescent light it looked so otherworldly yet so much like your typical mad scientist contraption; that part of her, way in the back of her mind, felt like laughing. But she was wet and beginning to get chilly even though the night was warm; and she was more intimidated than amused.

A feeling that suddenly increased when a short, balding man in wire glasses and a mechanic's monkey suit appeared behind the big bullet, carrying a kind of diagnostic meter from a workbench in the rear. He screwed it onto something in the back of the giant bullet and turned some dials. Then he looked up. Dareen yanked her head back out of sight.

She stood there miserably in the downpour thinking of her options. This man was a whacko, yet she was wet and far from home and needed to call someone about her car. There was only one thing to do.

She placed herself well within the awning, dripping all over the floor, and was opening her mouth to say "Please" when she was met by the man's startled gaze. She immediately crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling the squishing of her sopped sweater. 

"What? Who are you? Who sent you?" He looked about 45 or so, she noticed as he came closer. He brandished the little meter thing like a gun.

"Please," she bravely continued, "my car stalled and do you have a phone?" She withered under his gaze. Looking down at her stockinged foot where the shoe had flown off, wet and muddy, she saw the outline of her toes and moved her shod foot over to cover it.

To her mortification, the man saw this. "Quite a modest one, aren't you? . . . Well, O.K., you can use the phone, but . . ." He passed near her and looked out into the rain. Another dull flash of lightning came from far away. The wind died down for a moment. The man looked at her. "You don't know what I'm doing, do you?"

The wet, miserable, frightened girl shook her head. He looked at her skeptically. Then drew back to take a full length view of her. With a playful smile he said, "You should get out of those wet clothes," then went back to his work bench. When he came back he had a white lab coat and he threw it to her. "Take those clothes off and put this on."

She looked around for a door to a closet or someplace, not that she intended on doing what he said. "Yes, right here," he said, and she looked at him in shock. "I'm packed to the rafters here, there's no extra room for you to go to. Go ahead. Take them off."

Dareen clutched the robe to her chest for a moment to more completely hide her breasts that were already shielded by her wet sweater and her crossed arms. "Come on, Miss. Let's get to it. I'm a very busy man."

A flash of lightning, followed by thunder. The man looked out, startled by its ferocity and closeness. He raced back to the dials at meters. Not that Dareen noticed; she had dropped the robe and gotten the hell out of this bad place and this leering whacko.

The wind picked up. Now there was another sheet of light, covering half the sky. Two seconds later, thunder. The girl screamed. And turned impulsively, not back to the house, but in a zigzag to the left. Her breasts bounced crazily as she sprinted clumsily with one shoe. She prayed, "please Allah, please Allah, save me..."

Now, no wind. The hair stood up on her scalp. It felt like ants were crawling all over her body. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth too. She knew that this meant. This really was the end. She was about to get struck by lightning! A -- llah...

"AIEEEEEEE!!"

She felt herself being raised from the earth, then a tremendous bang like a cannon and blinding light, then a hammer blow from behind that pounded her into the ground face first.

For a second she was dizzy and could not think. Had she been killed? No, she was still alive -- and aflame!

"AIEE! AIEE!" She frantically rolled around in the wet grass. Then she got up.

Her clothes were ablaze. Running aimlessly, she tried with desperate and ridiculous motions to pat the flames away with her hands. It was no use -- to avoid being mortally burned she was going to have to rip off whatever was burning. Barely thinking, her mind on auto, survival instincts taking over, she ripped off her sweater, then her blouse. For a moment she reached behind to fumble with the six clasps of her bra but then just grabbed it from the front. Surprisingly after only one tug it came off. She threw the burning white thing down and it continued burning on the wet grass.

But her skirt was burning too. She hoped she could keep something on, but her pantyhose were on fire too and her remaining shoe. She landed her butt onto the grass and pulled them off. Then up and jumping. . . "No, no, please no. . . " But her modest mind was just a spectator to the primal motions of self-preservation. The panties were a ring of fire around her most private places. Whimpering and crying, she tugged them off and kicked the last of the burning things away from her.

Dareen crouched down, her toes in the wet grass, hands across her shoulders, feeling the rain beat down. Her body felt scorched but it was not aflame. As far as she could tell she was not burned, a miracle she should be thankful for. The wind had died down. She looked at her clothes lying here and there, still oddly aflame even though they were soaked with rain. Maybe it had to do with the lightning. She was in some weird terrestrial other universe now. Her skin still felt buzzy all over, like it was stuck into one big light bulb socket.

Then she looked down at her toes. They had a dull glow to them. In fact her feet, her knees -- as she stood up her entire body throbbed with a weak fluorescence. St. Elmo's Fire? She had heard of it.

And her breasts.

They stood straight up and out, round and firm, without a hint of sag. She had never seen them like this -- as if they were in an invisible push-up bra. Her nipples were erect and hard, the aerolas huge. "What are these?" Though no one was around, she was so embarrassed by them that she crouched down and covered herself again.

Then the glow went away and her skin was its normal dusky brown.

As the storm gradually left and things quieted down she duck-waddled forward to what remained of her clothes. She picked at them. The flames had gone and what was left was mere ashes that fell apart at her touch.

"DAMN!" Dareen yelled, slamming her hand onto the ground, which must have been very soft because her hand forced it several inches down. She was not one to curse or yell, but she couldn't help it. Naked in the middle of nowhere -- except for that crazy pervert.

Still crouched, she looked around. She couldn't see the house. Being naked she certainly had to avoid it now. She duck-waddled in what she thought might be the opposite direction, then realizing it was slow and silly to move that way, reluctantly stood up and walked, one arm over her breasts. It was odd -- her breasts stuck out so much now that her arm was well in front of her body as it crossed to cover her nipples, now huge and rock hard, poking into her forearm. They still bounced as she walked but more tightly now, not wobbly and jumping all over as she might have expected. What had happened to her?

At the top of the rise she saw the dull glow of the back of that nut's house. She turned in the opposite direction and, still with an arm across her breasts, started running across the dark wet fields, looking down to be careful where she put her bare feet that squished in the grass as she went. She had to find something, somewhere.

Part 2

As she minced over the dark fields in the drizzle, toes squishing in the grass, one arm over her breasts, Dareen kept telling herself. 'I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm running totally naked through the middle of the night. And not only that, but through the middle of nowhere, someplace I've never been where no one knows me. Stupid, stupid, I might get attacked or worse, a naked woman defenseless and alone.' But she had been zapped by lightning -- or by something like it -- and still felt unreal and a little dazed, like in a flip-side world where ordinary rules of nature and of behavior do not apply.

She started being aware of the sensations -- she had never run naked before, she was always a modest girl who always dressed and bathed quickly, she had never even lain naked when alone in her room. She had had boyfriends of course and had had a sporadic (and mostly unsatisfying) sex life, but even when making love she had preferred keeping under the covers, leaving something on, usually her bra and socks. And now look at her! Rain, not so pounding now but more like a steady drizzle, soaked her all over, every inch of her bare body. She felt it drip from her hair down her back, into her butt crack. Her bare butt was wet too, water coursing down the back of her legs. Her wet breasts, still unnaturally firm and outthrust, rubbed against her arm, one hard giant nipple poking into her palm. She felt the wet grass between her toes. These were such strange feelings; and they felt good.

She came to the two-lane road and got focused back on her plight. She wasn't sure which direction to find her car. Not that it would help her to go back to it. She would still be naked. Maybe wait there and some nice policeman would find her. About the police she had been of two minds. She had relatives who had been given a hard time or found it hard to get through airports, for a lot of Arab-Americans it was a fact of life these days. Yet she herself had not had any trouble, and she would hardly be suspected of being a terrorist, cowering naked and wet in a stalled car.

'Why am I doing this?' she asked herself yet again as she decided the car was to her right, yet she found herself turning left, and with crimped steps ran along the road, which with no street lights was as pitch black as the rest of the countryside.

She decided it was dumb to keep covering her breasts, no one was around to see, and besides, her breasts seemed like they wouldn't flop around in their new hard condition. So she dropped her hand and began pumping both arms, and soon she was running full bore, not really knowing why she was doing it or where she was going, what she was looking for, and now she ran faster, feet slapping against the wet asphalt, found herself running yet faster and faster, and...

She'd never felt so alive. And she was going so fast! It must have just seemed that way, her senses being so dislocated by what she'd gone through. Yet here she was, running barefoot down the street, and her feet didn't hurt, not even when she felt a pebble or two underfoot. That should hurt like blazes -- and yet it didn't. Now she took great leaps, seeming to jump twenty or thirty feet, thudding onto one foot before her toes sprang into another leap and thudding onto the other foot. 'What's going on? Am I really doing this? I feel like some sort of naked superwoman!'

Now there were some lights ahead and she slowed down. The rain was just a mist now, and she stopped in the middle of the road, feet apart, feeling the water drip from her hair down her back and into between her butt cheeks, and around in front to her wet forest of pubic hair. There was a store ahead with a gravel parking lot in front with gas pumps. Did she really want to just walk naked into there? Yet she had to get help, first of all get clothes.

She decided to run off some yards to the field on the other side of the road and wait and watch to decide what to do. It wasn't really necessary but she lay down flat on her stomach, feeling weird about it, knowing she was doing it to feel the grass along her front, another new experience. She wiggled and squirmed, enjoying the rubbing of the wet grass against her breasts, her bare tummy, her legs. She shook her head. These sensations were distracting her. Got to watch and decide what to do.

The store was called Peppy's Food Mart, a convenience store, and there was no one in it except a short man with a mustache, with rather dark skin, possibly Pakistani or something like that. Maybe he was Peppy. He was behind the cash register, making a list of some kind on a pad. He reminded her a little of her Uncle Rakhman; not only his face and stature, but the meticulous and fussy way he wrote. Behind him there was a big clock that said it was 12:30. It was broken, though; a few minutes went by and the hands didn't move.

The rain had stopped and all was quiet. As the minutes went by Dareen began to observe minutely to see what could be useful to her. There was a rack with clothes near the counter, mostly T-shirts it looked like. Well, that would be a start, she had no money, but surely he would at least lend her something to wear. The usual collection of junk food, the coffee machines. A telephone, in front of the clock. A magazine rack. Man, those biker magazines were all the same, women in the tiniest possible bikinis draped over gigantic motorcycles. Some news magazines, the usual cover stories about the Middle East. Newspapers. Ugh, the Argus Democrat (known around the Atlanta area as the "A.D.") what a rag! The latest lottery winner was on the front page: a guy with six kids. The little caption under his photo said he was 38, lived in Central Heights, not far from her, had a Bachelor's from Austin Peay...

Dareen felt a chill of something like fright and covered her eyes. Was this a dream? She was reading tiny newsprint from what must be two hundred feet away. Impossible. Yet true. She looked up and read the same caption. She could read everything else on the magazine rack just as easily.

She was grateful to be jolted into more mundane observations with the arrival of a car, a big old Thunderbird, pulling up quickly and braking in front of the gas pump with a violent jerk and the crunch of gravel. A tall black man got out with a 'do-rag and a very bulky sweatshirt down to his knees. He ran in.

Dareen's mouth opened as she saw the quick movements. The man grabbed Peppy's neck, shook him, then pulled out a little club (or maybe a gun) and clocked him two or three times. Peppy sank down out of sight. With skillful motions, the man pushed some buttons, popped open the cash register, cleaned it out and ran out to the car. He gunned the Thunderbird and sped off.

"Good heavens!" Dareen found herself saying. She got up, wiped some bits of wet grass off her bobbling breasts, and stepped forward. The Thunderbird was quickly disappearing down the road, dull red taillights diminishing into the misty night. The naked girl's insides burned. 'This was a wrong thing. I wish I could do something about it...'

And she was off. Running after the car as if pushed from behind by a force she could not control and could not resist. This is stupid, stupid, a little voice in her head said, yet she ran faster and faster.

And now she was catching up to the car! It just couldn't be. This had to be a dream. She wanted to grab the roof. Now she reached both arms forward and jumped.

She felt her toes leave the road and her feet rose up behind her. Wind whistled past her nipples, over her butt, through her toes. She was flying!


Nakedgirl 01: The Story of Dareen



Eyes open in amazement, Dareen reached forward and up and she rose higher. Now she was over the car. She leaned to one side and found herself turning a little to the right. Her left arm still extended forward, she reached down with her right hand into the top of the passenger's side window, prying it open with her fingers, grabbing under the roof. A quick little lurch upward and the car left the road with her as both ascended. She heard the revving of the engine and the wheels as they now spun rapidly with no road to meet. A few seconds later, sounds of shouting and screaming from within, then little jolts as the man inside frantically banged on the roof and kicked at the doors.

She looked up, and with the same motion her left arm rose and both girl and car ascended higher. It was still misty and pitch dark but she felt there had to be a town a couple of miles ahead. Dareen gulped as she looked down. They had to be fifty feet up by now. She should be frightened out of her wits. This was dangerous. She would fall. But she wasn't falling, and she felt perfectly safe.

'Must be dream.' With this is mind, she accepted what was happening and her mind sat back to let her feelings guide her actions. And enjoyed the feeling of the air whooshing by her, hair spritzed back by the mist. . . She wiggled her toes, even flexed her butt cheeks, and felt the air on the underside fluffing through her pubic hair.

Now, the sight of houses below. She slowed down a bit, wondering how fast she was going. The streets were deserted, of course, at this hour, and there were no cars driving around to compare her speed with. Now some stores. The police station. There was only one thing to do. She deftly and gently descended right in front of the station door and the car touched down with just a little bump. Then she rose up, staying in place thirty feet up by extending herself spread-eagled. From within the car she heard muffled sobbing. Then the man bolted out of the car and ran right into the station. The words were breathless and desperate. "Jesus! Man you gotta -- "

She really wasn't curious as to what was going to happen now; she felt like she had done her thing and it was time to go. So she banked to one side with arms out and glided up and away.

'This is the most fun dream I've ever had,' she told herself. 'Best yet, this is one of those dreams where I know I'm dreaming and I can enjoy myself. It's so sensual -- flying around naked in the rain. I haven't had a sexy dream like this in a long time.' As she flew she shimmied her hips, kicked her feet in little motions, and jokingly parted the air in front of her with fluid arm strokes as if swimming. Whoa -- she didn't mean to turn like that. She decided to practice her flying techniques. She could turn just by leaning her head. Arms up was to ascend, arms down to descend. Standing spread-eagled, arms to the sides, legs wide apart -- how naughty that seemed, exposing everything -- made her hover in place. Curling up into a ball, knees up to her chin, she drifted slowly downward. She tried her earlier habit, back when she was a weak mortal, of holding her arm in front of her breasts. She could fly this way, with one arm, just a little slower and not so steady.

She judged it maybe twenty minutes later when she remembered Peppy. 'While I'm being a naked superwoman in this dream I really should see to him.' She sped back to the store, backtracking over the road a hundred feet up, and the store came into view. There was a police car speeding away from it, lights flashing.

She hovered over the store, then descended across the road where she was before, the grass coming up wet, squeaky and lush under her soles. The place was now dark. Walking up to it, she saw that there was no sign of Peppy. And now the register was closed. She saw the button on the floor and knew what had happened. Peppy, while being attacked, had pressed the button and the police had come. No ambulance -- he must have come to and been all right. That made her feel good.

And now she had an unsettling feeling. Dareen, wet and naked, looked at the clock (12:30) and the telephone and the rack with the T-shirts and remembered her plight. Surely it wasn't a dream that her car had stalled and she had run out in search of a phone. That crazy man with the big clunky bullet, the lighting, her clothes burning off. There was no point at which she could have fallen asleep. Inconveniently for her peace of mind, this was all for real.

She closed her eyes and opened them again. 'Let's deal with the details, the nuts and bolts things, stay sane. Have to get clothes and call Elly.' The door was locked, of course. She ran around the back and the door there was locked too. She looked up to the roof.

How could she not take advantage of her new powers? With one bound she was up on the gritty tar paper roof. There was a vent. With only a moderate grip of two widely spread hands she ripped the heavy metallic cover off its rivets. Down she slid, kicking out the ceiling grille with toes that did not hurt, then down to the floor with the soft thud of her bare feet.

Yes, she was committing burglary. But she was naked and alone and her behavior could be excused -- not that she was planning on getting caught. Gratefully she took an extra large T-shirt from the rack and slid into it. There were some shorts there too. She took the plainest looking pair and stepped into it. Ahhh . . . Clothes. Too bad there were no socks and no shoes of course. But this would do for now.

With a quick look around to the outside -- what if a customer came in -- she went to the register. A phone book. She looked up Peppy's and got the address -- along Route 52. Now the call to Elly, with directions and a request to bring a full set of clothes and shoes. "Mine got all soaked and ruined, it's a long story." Not that she felt like telling Elly any of it. Maybe she would say only that she wandered around looking for a phone and -- but if her clothes were "soaked", where were they? Why had she gotten rid of them? She supposed she would have to say there was lighting and her clothes got burned. Elly was rather nosy, but maybe that would satisfy her; a scary story, but no getting around it.

The coffee was hours old and tasted terrible but Dareen drank a cup. She wasn't stealing; it would have gotten thrown out anyway. Though she was hungry, she resisted grabbing those yummy-looking cookies out of the plastic case on the counter. She looked at the magazine rack and yes, the little caption really did say what she thought it had said. She looked forward to getting some sleep. This whole experience was too much to deal with; she should sort it out in the morning.

Enjoying the feel of the T-shirt and shorts, clothed again, Dareen put the empty coffee cup into the trash and went over to under the hole in the ceiling where she had kicked out the vent. She extended her arms up and nothing happened. She jumped and went up about a foot, coming down and landing off-kilter on a stray pebble that hurt like blazes.

Part 3

"Why you hiding your boobs like that? And what's with the pants?" Elly was always direct and by now one might understand how she just had to say something. Still twiddling the car keys on her fingers, sitting on the old couch in her usual uniform of T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, her pretty dark brown Pakistani face looked through the dimness of the apartment at 2 a.m., where only the overhead stove light was on. Dareen was awkwardly trying to open the refrigerator for a glass of milk while holding a towel over her sweatshirt-clad chest, and while pressing her hips against the counter as if to keep her pants from falling. Odd, because the pants fit her perfectly before, at least the one time she tried them on. A birthday present from the thin, flat-chested Elly, who was always trying to get her friend to "use what you got -- you're lucky you got curves." Dareen had worn it exactly once. It was too tight-fitting and way too low-rise for her sense of modesty.

And of course it was one of the things Elly had brought with her to Peppy's Food Mart. Dareen, certain she could not get out of the locked-up store without tripping some kind of alarm, had waited until the yellow new-style VW Bug had pulled up, then darted out a back door and around the front to meet her roommate while hunched over in the T-shirt and shorts she had taken from inside. But the sweatshirt Elly had also brought was pretty sensible, along with Dareen's old sneakers that were her usual casual footwear. And panties and one of Dareen's formidable bras.

Dareen struggled with the carton of milk and was halfway through drinking the glass when she decided she just had to tell her friend; not only about what happened, but the more obvious thing, the kind of thing which could not be hidden from a roommate. She steeled herself. This was going to be tough. But she turned on the kitchen light and looked at Elly with a serious face, then solemnly brought the towel down and stood there as her sweatshirt bulged out to the maximum stretching point and the pants fell some inches to hang precariously around her hips.

Elly got up and, not seeing how intensely Dareen was blushing, looked at her from head to toe. "What happened to you? You're even more -- Dareen than before!"

Dareen bit her lip. It would sound ridiculous but it was the truth, and what could really explain such a thing? "I got hit by lightning."

Elly looked up, about to laugh at this explanation but she caught herself. "Oh God. . . You're lucky to be alive." Then the two young women hugged. "Thank God you're O.K. That was some unusual storm. It was on the news. Something about ions."

"Yeah, it was some storm," Dareen said, as Elly let go and stood back to look at her again.

"Dar, could you please, if you're O.K. with it..."

Only with Elly would Dareen consent to exposing her modesty thus. And it was time for truth telling. She couldn't hide her experience from everyone; she had to have one person she could unburden herself to. Dareen took off her sweatshirt, kicked off the sneakers and lowered the pants, and stood in just bra and panties.

The bra was stretched to bursting. Her breasts, full and high, bulged out over the tops of the cups, and her erect nipples could be seen through the thick double-lined cotton, poking out between the strained seams. Below, her waist had narrowed so that it could no longer hold the pants up. Her tummy was concave and hard. Her butt was taut and trim, her legs hard and wiry. Even her feet looked different, stronger.

"Jesus," Elly said, slowly circling the now ultra-statuesque woman. She looked up. "And your hair..."

Now that the lighting was good she was noticing it for the first time. She took Dareen by the hand to the bathroom, and Dareen got a first look at her new physique. It was gross having breasts like that. She looked like a siliconed bimbo, some nude dancer or porn star. And what a tiny waist! And the hair -- her formerly black hair had taken on a kind of violet-tinged luster. Pretty, but a little showy for her taste. But her attention was mostly taken up by those breasts popping out of the bra. She put her arm up to hide them.

She silently went back to put on her clothes and sat on the couch. Elly sat across from her, not saying anything, knowing these changes were not really something to be envious of. Something heavy and real weird was going on here.

Now the choked up voice, the tears. "Tonight, Elly, I was hit by lighting and -- I flew."

"Wow. You were lifted off the ground. Static electricity."

"No. I mean I flew. Just stuck my arms out and . . . into the sky." It seemed odd for tears to come but they did. "And I could run faster than a car and pick it up with one hand. I could read newspapers off the rack from two hundred feet away. I . . . I stopped a burglary. Or I mean I . . . I saw that store getting robbed and I chased down the guy and flew while carrying the car to a police station. It had to be several miles."

Elly was being thrown for a real loop now. Her friend was talking crazy. "Dareen, are you feeling all right?"

Dareen looked at her, a tear rolling down one cheek. She brushed it away with a quick motion of her hand which caused her breasts to jiggle ponderously. "I-it really happened. I got hit by lightning and my clothes burned off and I could do like a super woman."

"You did all this naked?"

Dareen nodded.

Elly looked down. "Wow." 'What an image,' she thought: Dareen flying naked through the night. "Um, can you do that now?"

"No. When I got back to the store for some clothes . . . I couldn't fly any more."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe it was just a dream." To Elly, Dareen just needed some rest. Being hit by lighting scrambled her senses and probably knocked her out and would cause some bizarre dreams. She got up and pulled Dareen up by the hand. "Go to sleep. You had a tough night."

"Yeah. Sleep." As the two young women went to their respective bedrooms, Dareen joked mordantly. "This bra is killing me." And so, for the first time since she was fourteen, she slept without one.

For Dareen, waking up was a bummer. Her breasts were still there, high and firm, blocking the view of the rest of her. Under the covers (she was modest even when alone) she tried to extend her hands around them, then grabbed what she could of each and moved them around on her chest. So big and round and firm, not wobbly like before. Some guy would be in heaven grabbing these. And on top of the twin mountains, the big dark brown nipples, poking up into the blanket.

She looked at the sun outside her window, rising over the towers of downtown Atlanta, and thought of her commute. Tuesdays and Wednesdays she didn't go to the new library in Alpharetta, she took the subway to the main branch downtown. 'How am I going to go to work with these things on my chest?'

She decided she'd call in sick today. Maybe tomorrow she would have the exact same problem but she needed time to think. She took a shower without being able to look down and see her feet. Drying herself off she saw that her pubic hair had acquired the same violent tinge as the hair on her head.

Elly seemed surprised to see them too, the huge shrouded mounds under Dareen's bathrobe as she came out. Maybe Elly was hoping that she had been dreaming as well. Elly was watching TV in the kitchen eating cereal. The TV was on the Cobb News Network and the news anchor was saying, "Some of these immigrant cultures have this worship of violence that makes me sick". 

"How could you watch this?" Dareen said, grabbing the remote off the table. It was a point of contention with them. 

"I think it's funny," Elly said, giving her stock answer.

Dareen changed to another news channel, ordinarily not any use because the same company owned all the channels in the city, but at least on this one they happened to be doing the local news and weather. It would be another steamy July day in Georgia, humid and 90 degrees. The roommates munched their bran flakes in time with the cadence of the weathercaster's standard sing-song. He mentioned the "severe ion-type storm last night" and Dareen broke her rhythm to say, "Duhhhh! Like tell me about it", in imitation of teenage slang like she herself had been using a few years before.

Coffee was sipped, toasted buttered, fingernail polish examined. It was in the middle of the first sentence that both girls looked up again. "The perpetrator, who turned himself in, told police that a flying naked woman had carried his car to the police station. He is being kept at Modoc Psychiatric Center for observation. Well Cindy," the newscaster said to his co-anchor with a smirk, "that sounds like something out of a dirty comic book."

"I am naked woman, hear me roar and carry cars around," Cindy said in her dipsy Southern-belle accent, and they were onto the next story. Routine joking around.

But not for Elly and Dareen, who stopped munching and looked at each other for a long moment.

Elly was thoughtful. She understood that Dareen would not want company. Elly's mother was supposed to visit from New York that weekend but before Elly left for work she called to postpone the visit with a story about her car needing repairs. Then she was off to her job at the computer store where she was the purchasing manager. She had moved down here for that job two years ago. Smart girls were in demand everywhere and, though she liked New York, Atlanta was the happening place for young folks these days. As for Dareen, Atlanta was the only place she had lived since her family had immigrated when she was two years old. Actually she grew up in Dunwoody, a suburb; she was the youngest of six kids, all moved away from the area now -- she had two brothers in the Army -- except for her. She usually stopped in with her parents a couple of times a month. Though that next visit would have to wait for awhile.

She spent the morning in a funk, watching TV, reading newspapers online -- she liked reading papers from overseas, you got so much more news that way -- and periodically looked down at her chest, wondering when those big things were going to go back down to normal. But they didn't.

And those super powers. She was forced to believe it really happened. 'This is too much for me, Allah, I'm just a normal girl. If it really happened then I'm unique, the only person in the world who could do that.' With a trace of black humor, prompted by the newscaster's little joke, she thought of herself as being a "Super Hero" last night, like Superman or Wonder Woman. But what kind of super hero flew around naked? The most distinctive thing about those comic book creations was always their costume. She had no costume. A pretty blah super hero.

And why had those powers left her? She tried to think. It seemed to be when she put those clothes on in the store. Maybe it was only when I'm naked. Hating herself for giving in to curiosity, she took off all her clothes and stood naked in the middle of her bedroom, then jumped. Nothing. Then the obscene bounding up and down of her breasts when she landed. Those powers were obviously just that one time, maybe an immediate after-effect of the lightning.

It made her think that perhaps her new physique was a temporary effect too which was a nice thought. And she considered, 'I've been struck by lightning and I wasn't killed. Something to be thankful for.' She had been avoiding her morning prayer, not wanting to bare her soul, but now she finally unrolled her sajjada, or prayer rug, out from under her bed and had a nice calm pray, which focused on being thankful.

She puttered around the apartment the rest of the day and felt better. Her breasts didn't shrink. She decided that she was going to go to work the next day and looked through her closet for what to wear. Dareen's normal bust size was 34F, and as such she already had an arsenal of techniques to hide her breasts. Blazers were a good strategy. Or billowing fluffy blouses, loose and shapeless without being baggy. Any strategy seemed useless with whatever size her breasts were now -- actually the size wasn't all that different, just the fact that they stuck straight out and refused to be reined in by her minimizer bras -- but Dareen rose to the challenge and tried several combinations.

"What do you think?" she said to a rather surprised Elly when her roommate came back from work at 5:30. Elly was diplomatic as possible. 

"Maybe a looser blazer." 

Looking at herself again in the mirror, Dareen knew that she had been deceiving herself. She still looked like she had pumpkins stuck to her chest, like an over-siliconed bimbo. She hated herself like this!

Seeing Dareen plunged into gloom, Elly talked her into going to Alfredo's to at least get her out of the apartment. Alfredo's was the world's darkest restaurant; they had gone there maybe twice and joked about hardly being able to see what they were eating. So they went. Dareen, like any big-busted girl, had a sixth sense about when someone was looking at her breasts. But she ate with Elly without detecting any undue attention.




Nakedgirl 01: The Story of Dareen



And now, on the second morning after being struck by lightning, Dareen Alkaras prayed on her sajjada to Allah for strength; dressed to hide her breasts as best she could; donned her sunglasses; took the elevator the five floors down to the lobby; and with a gulp and a deep breath, stepped out onto the bright morning sidewalk, heading for the subway stop.

Part 4

The administrative offices of the Georgia State Regional Library, Atlanta: four doors, usually open, on the edge of a large room not open to the general public lined with low bookstacks strewn with seldom-used reference materials, on top of which were a series of out-of-date computers, not quite ready for disposal, but not connected or in use either. A large room that no one has ever figured out what to do with.

On the first door ("Dareen Alkaras" in small letters) is a finely-wrought color drawing of a hilly desert area with a tiny stone structure in the hill on the far right. The title, "Waiting in Damascus", is in little letters at the bottom. Though depicting daytime, there is a crescent moon above with a small star between its horns. In front of the tiny stone house is a yet tinier figure, looks like a woman in a long burka waiting for someone.

Underneath the drawing, a rectangular rug swatch, with a complicated pattern. If you look at it long enough, you will see that if you turn each little red-and-black pinwheel one fifth of the way, it becomes a mirror image of the pinwheel next to it. Above the drawing, a recent addition, a small American flag.

Inside the open door, a sparely decorated office with a computer and filing cabinet behind it, pictures of family members, including an old woman with twinkly eyes looking out from under a black veil, a poster on the wall of a big bouquet of flowers, then two college diplomas, a picture of an adorable little white dog lying on its back on the grass looking at the camera with a satisfied look, being that it is chewing on a huge bone, and right next to the desk a framed message, "One Day at a Time". Next to that, a little hand-shaped sign, "Lefties Rule!"

The next door, "Jamal Nathan Jackson" in somewhat bigger and more permanent-looking letters, a picture of a crowd of people in a public square, a small American flag, and inside, another desk and file cabinet, a large orange and black rug tacked to one wall, at the front of the desk is a miniature ceramic football mounted on a tee, and then there were diplomas (not in Library Science, but Computer Technology), and over them the picture of Malcolm X shaking hands with Martin Luther King, a chance meeting and the only photo of them together. The desk itself was a paper-strewn mess and on the edge is a little squeegee which said, "Desk Cleaning Machine".

Between Ms. Alkaras's and Mr. Jackon's doors was a large photo of James Earl Carter, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President and someone we Georgians are very proud of, thank you very much.

The third door, "Billy Stonewall Gibbs", a photo of the "General Lee" from the old "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, half-turned as it flies through mid-air, the Confederate flag visible on its roof. Above the photo, a much larger American flag than the others. Mr. Gibbs being on vacation, the door was closed.

The fourth door, set a little further apart from the rest, "Katharine G. Hom, Administrative Director", nothing else on it but a small American flag. Inside, a very neatly kept office with black and white photos of a distinguished looking Asian man and his wife standing on a stage. To their right was a flag on a pole, the Union Jack. There were four diplomas on this wall, the first dated 1972.

By 9:30 Mr. Jackson and Ms. Hom were in their offices. Ms. Hom liked classical music and her radio was on. Mr. Jackson didn't mind.

Dareen was late this day. She darted in around 9:45, quickly saying hi and then going into her office. She thought about closing the door but that would draw attention.

"Hi Dar..." Jamal got up and his lanky frame ambled over to her doorway. "Are you O.K.?" She had called in sick yesterday. His glasses glinted in the overhead fluorescent lights and he was concerned. "I like you new hair," he said after some hesitation.

Dareen looked up and smiled. "Thanks." Jamal was so nice to her. He had noticed the new violet luster of her hair. She had tried to make the best of it by wearing it as plain as possible, combing it straight and long so that it went halfway down her back, not realizing that this style tended to turn men on more than any other. She knew Jamal was trying not to look at her chest, and hoped her blazer was doing as good a job as possible of concealing it. Yet it really was hopeless. As she looked down at her current project -- some pages she had printed off the internet the other day -- she had to push them a little away from her so that her breasts didn't block the view. She suspected (correctly) that Jamal, like most men, had spent a lot of mental energy trying to guess what her bra size was and what her breasts looked like. And now -- well, this was going to be difficult.

The trip here was difficult too. She couldn't help noticing people trying not to stare on the subway, the occasional glance of disapproval (usually from an older woman) as if to say, "Those breasts are fake, you must be a topless dancer or a whore." The guard at the front desk was nice as always but his usual "Good morning, Dareen" seemed to catch in his throat.

Dareen closed her eyes and took a breath, feeling her chest heave up and down. I've just got to get used to this as long as it lasts. She said a short prayer, 'Allah, help me through this. . .'

Jamal and Dareen and Ms. Hom worked through the morning. Dareen closed the door twice like she always did, for her morning and afternoon prays on the little sajjada she kept rolled up under her desk. Ms. Hom came in once and pretended like everything was normal, but her boss was always something of a sphinx. Not a bad boss, but she never laughed, rarely smiled, she was all business.

The day ended. Another trying ride on the subway. Dareen was relieved to get home and close the apartment door behind her, only to find Elly in an uncharacteristically glum mood. She was listlessly eating cereal in the steamy apartment, flapping her flip-flop against the floor, and reading the Democrat-Argus. Dareen had read it this morning. There was a big editorial about clearing out the topless clubs over in Buckhead, and as usual they implied that anyone who disagreed was morally corrupt or a child molester. On page 2, meanwhile, was a big story about a girl who was making her way through college while stripping. It had pictures.

Elly looked glumly up at her roommate. "I see you're still the same."

Dareem went into her bedroom and stripped to her bra and panties. Yup, still the same. She turned on the air conditioner and got into shorts and her biggest T-shirt. When she got out to the kitchen Elly got more expansive. "I feel like there's something wrong with me, like I'm in a dream." She looked up at Dareen and ventured a direct stare at her roommate's breasts. "You got hit by lightning and changed and, like, flew. I say to myself, Please tell me this isn't happening. I couldn't think at work today, I didn't have any energy. Dar, tell me this is all a dream."

Dareen felt Elly's gaze and thought of trying to cross her arms in front. But in dejection she looked down and then, as if in surrender, pushed her firm mounds out so that they seemed to protrude halfway over the table. "No, it's not a dream."

"You must have gone through hell today."

"I felt people staring. But work was O.K."

Elly smiled a bit. "How did Jamal react?"

"You know how he is, he's always nice."

"He's probably jerking off now thinking about you."

"Oh Elly!" Elly could be so crude sometimes. She had visited Dareen's office several times and had met Jamal. "He WANTS you!" she had said to Dareen after that first time. This time, though, she was not in her usual playful mood.

Dareen sat down and brushed back her long straight violet hair. "Can you go with me to mosque?" That was in two nights.

Elly was brought up Muslim too but didn't really observe; she didn't pray and hadn't been to mosque in maybe a couple of years. Dareen always went, as Elly would put it, "go mosquing". There was one nearby. Sometimes when she saw her parents she went to the old one in Dunwoody, an hour away. But her car, which Elly had gotten towed back after that night of lightning, was still in the shop. Not that Dareen was into seeing her parents in her current condition. But at mosque so many of the women went heavily clothed, she could really bulk up so that no one saw her new endowments.

Elly cleared her throat. "I hate to say it but maybe you and I can both use some mosquing right now."

The next day the air conditioning was broken in the library and it was a hothouse. Jamal took off his tie, Ms. Hom took off her sweater. But for Dareen there was nothing she could do. She certainly couldn't take her blazer off. She was sweating bullets and in misery. She even had to use a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Underneath, her wide bra straps dug into her back, into her shoulders, the cups squeezed and encased her. Clothes were just so uncomfortable with her new body. Maybe she just needed things that fit better. But it was hot, hot, hot . . . At least since she didn't sag any more she didn't have that terrible heat rash problem on the undersides. Still it was hot, hot, hot . . .

Jamal asked if she would join him for lunch. They limped along the sweaty, sunny Atlanta streets to the little diner on the corner. Dareen had her sunglasses on, which allowed her to ignore people's reactions.

Jamal was the perfect gentleman as always and didn't look at her body even when they sat down in the booth. "Can I get you a drink?" the teenage waitress said, glancing casually you-know-where. Jamal actually felt in the mood for a gin and tonic (his favorite summer drink) but was mindful of that "One Day At a Time" sign in Dareen's office. He had always decided it wouldn't be right to drink in front of her. So they both ordered sodas.

"Hot. . . as. . . blazes," Jamal said, using a napkin to wipe his glasses.

Dareen nodded. "It might be cooler if you shaved your head." Black men with shaved heads look so elegant, she mused.

Jamal smiled and ran his hand over his medium-cropped hair. "I tried it once, it didn't help a lot. Also my head is shaped funny. There's like a little dent right here."

The sweating girl smiled. "You must be really suffering in those clothes," he said. 

"Well I'm really modest."

It's easy to eat light when it's so hot. They were halfway through their salads when Jamal finally said something. "Dar, are you O.K.? You seem different the last couple of days."

Dareen felt the urge to tell him something to explain her new appearance. He deserved to know something. She hadn't even told him (or anyone else except Elly) about her upcoming breast reduction -- bit was that still going to happen? Could she still get medical clearance for surgery? Too much to process. She decided to fudge it. "I haven't been feeling too good. Some kind of bug." And felt miserable about saying such a lie. Though maybe it was a little bit true. No, it was a lie.

"Hope you get better."

"Thank you."

A little later they got to talking about work. Particularly that meeting with the higher-ups at the State Education Department last week. The Homeland Security department was going to install filters and monitoring equipment in all the internet surfing computers in state libraries. Well, one could see how that might be a good idea to track terrorists. Everyone could see the inevitability of it. A few months ago, Dareen and everyone else had been fingerprinted. That's just how it is these days. Yet. . .

Part 5

"I wish they'd just give the software to us, and then let us install it," Dareen said. She had been asking a few too many questions at the meeting until she got a stern look from Ms. Hom. Probably for her own good. It wasn't a good idea for an Arab girl to appear too resistant to security measures.

"Yeah, I just had a bad feeling about it," Jamal said, though he hadn't said anything about it at the meeting. The guys from DHS were nice and seemed to "click" with Ms. Hom. Billy Gibbs seemed supportive too. "Or at least let us get a copy of the program so we know what is being filtered and monitored. . . That's what I like about you Dareen, you've got your own mind."

Indeed. Dareen had noticed it herself -- she'd been at the job for a year, her first job after getting her master's degree in library science, and in the past few months she'd become more sure of herself and had gotten a little out of her shell. Last month was perhaps the ultimate -- she had actually written an angry letter to the Democrat-Argus. They had been running an "expose" about the city schools and had printed essays by grade school kids showing misspellings and mistakes. The names of the kids were shown, and photos. Humiliating these kids was bad enough, but to top it all off, the reporters were not too educated themselves. Her letter pointed out the misspellings in the reporters' own articles and how one "mistake" pointed out in the essays (that Central America is in the Northern Hemisphere) was actually true. They never printed her letter, of course. But it still made her feel good to send it off. She'd been feeling like there was a "new Dareen" emerging. Maybe after that operation and with smaller breasts she wouldn't have to be hiding herself all the time.

And now this!! An even newer Dareen, not in the least what she wanted. She had wished for small breasts for ten years, but never so fervently as now.

Sweating and feeling like an ingrate for lying to Jamal, she was walking with him on the way back, and while waiting for the light to change, he said, "I've got to get going on my invention."

"What?"

"The 'ice hat'."

"What?"

"Ice Hat. You lose most of your body heat through your head, right? Well, if you would wear an ice pack on your head, like a soft helmet covering your whole scalp, with maybe a battery pack running from your shirt pocket to keep the refrigeration going, then you could stay cool on a day like this even if you have to wear a suit."

Dareen smiled and nodded. And gulped -- that would feel so good right now. She felt a little better back in the office, fantasizing about having an ice hat, staying cool while being strapped into these infernal clothes. She thought about it even through her afternoon prayers. "Mmmm. . . Allah. . . ice hat . . ." She even chuckled about it. Allah wouldn't mind.

At about 4:30 Ms. Hom called her in. And closed the door. This was not good.

Ms. Hom said, in her stilted manner, "Miss Alkaras" -- she never called anyone by their first name, it seemed. "I can't help but say this, but your appearance the last couple of days has caused me some. . . concern."

Sitting and squirming in the chair, Dareen played dumb. "I don't know what you mean."

As if she hadn't said anything, Ms. Hom said, "It is important to maintain a professional appearance and not be too distracting."

Dareen looked down, which unavoidably meant looking down at her newly-protruding breasts. She was on the spot now; she had to give an explanation. There was no getting around what Ms. Hom was talking about. Dareen thought of something, the truth, at least partway.

"Ms. Hom, I'm going for a breast reduction operation in two months," she said.

No reaction from her stone-faced boss.

Dareen's voice went very low. She hated talking about this, but she had to. "I've had a problem with -- my breasts have been hurting lately so I've tried a new bra with more support. I guess it kind of shows."

What a relief. After a moment of more deadpan, Ms. Hom cracked a little smile, something she rarely did. "You have a problem I've never had to deal with," she said. "Try to find a better way of hiding your body. At least until your operation." Then she was back to her solemn self. "Do you know when that is?"

"No." The insurance folks were supposed to get back to her about that.

"Tell me as soon as you find out. Be sure to put in the sick day form." And the little scary meeting was over. Dareen stiffly got up in her stuffy hot clothes and felt like her heart was in her mouth.

The folks at mosque were always nice, though a little quiet. Al-Hijia Mosque, one of three little mosques downtown, not a very imposing building. There was an American flag strung up in an awkward place, along one wall, right where, the week after September 11, 2001, the mosque had put up a big banner: "We Pray for the Victims of This Terrible Tragedy". No one looked at the flag, which, it was painfully obvious, was put there to cover yet another attack of foul graffiti. Elly, though she had never been here before, was also too tactful to look.

Dareen introduced Elly to the usual crowd, the women who hung out after the service in the kitchen making coffee (that really strong old-country stuff) for the turban-wearing men who sat around talking while the kids were in the playroom. She introduced Elly to Imam Tahir, a short, heavy and rather high-strung man whose sermons seemed always to be about the importance of family. Made Dareen and Elly feel like they should find a man and start producing babies, and quick. She laughed about it with Elly afterward.

"It seems a little medieval," Elly said, "these women who don't say anything serving coffee for the men while they talk about the world."

"It's not what it seems," Dareen said. "Mojgan and Hari and me, we roll our eyes sometimes. The women aren't really subservient. Like Flavia Agnes says..."

"I know, I know," Elly said, taking her kerchief off as she headed back to her room. Their apartment was really a one-bedroom; Elly's room was really supposed to be the living room. The only common area was the kitchen. "I wish they'd actually ACT dominant, instead of leaving it to people to figure it out." She and Dareen went around and around like this sometimes. Dareen had been much impressed by an essay she had read by someone named Flavia Agnes -- she always kept tabs on new books on Islam that came into the library -- and had copied it out for Elly to read, to no use. Dareen kept seeing virtues in a religion that Elly had pretty much discarded as hopelessly sexist.

"SHIT!" Elly said, emerging from her room. "Guess what?"

"No!" Elly didn't have to say it. Once again, their air conditioners had blown a fuse. Not something they should complain about, because they were only supposed to have the one air conditioner, not two. Tomorrow, on the sly, they could again prevail on Pedro, the super, to re-set the fuse again. But for now it would be a hot, stuffy night.

Dareen tossed and twisted in bed. She could survive only an hour before she had to throw the covers off. Her body seemed about to burst out of her bra and panties under the bulky cotton pajamas. She looked out the window, past the bars of the fire escape. The lights of downtown glimmered in the distance. A hot, muggy night. Think cool thoughts like the ice hat . . .

She hated getting up in the morning after not sleeping well. What could she do to get to sleep? Sometimes warm milk helped, but they were out of milk. The solution was easy, actually, but she kept trying to push the thought out of her head. She shut her eyes. Then gave into temptation and did it.

She dreamed she was flying over nighttime fields. With cool rain hitting her from above and below. Ahhhh . . .

When she woke she remembered that she was naked. In the dark, alone in her room, the modest girl instinctively curled her legs up and covered her breasts. Then looked out the window again. Through the open bottom half a slight breeze blew in. Giving in to temptation, she put her arms to her sides and felt the gentle wind waft over her nipples. Hmmmm. . . She was a little aroused and thought about pleasing herself, something she did every few days, with silent fingers under the covers and then the blessed gasps. She idly played with her pubic hair in the dark.




Nakedgirl 01: The Story of Dareen



She didn't know what made her do it, but she got up and went over to the window. No one could see her in the dark room, but looking out she saw there was no one to do the seeing to begin with. The street was still, silent. In the distance, an airplane descended on Hartsfield Atlanta Airport, ahead of its ripping the air with a far-away scorching sound. She could see the wing lights, red on the left, blue on the right. It kept her interest until it disappeared behind buildings.

And now something really silly, she couldn't believe it, but she found herself crouching through the open window and stepping out on the fire escape. At least she could control her eyes, which searched below as her body did this silly thing. Good, no one around. She looked up and did a little hop to get out onto the metal-banded floor.

WHOA!! Up in the air twenty feet! She looked down past her bare toes to the fire escape below. She was floating. Naked, over Boylston Street, in the middle of the city! 'I must still be dreaming. But no...'

She twisted and held her arm out and shot over the street, over the row of buildings to Auburn Street, then banked and turned and flew back, landing softly onto the fire escape again with the pad of bare feet and the slight rebounding of large breasts. It was so easy, as easy as breathing.

'Maybe it isn't a dream but it feels like it. Why not? I'm still hot and the air whooshing past feels so good!' She decided to do a little traveling. She hopped back into the room to check the time. 'Wait, let me get my watch. I'll stay out one hour, then back. Can't stop being Responsible Dareen.' With the watch in one hand, she flew out again, way up to where no one could see her, even though anybody was around, then decided to stay away from the lights. Clothed by the dark and her own dusky colored skin, Dareen banked a nice easy arc upward and out of town.

Part 6

Unseen high over the Atlanta suburbs, the solitary human body glided quickly and silently several hundred feet up, like the largest of the birds. Yes, there was the occasional bird up here -- hawks, geese, orioles -- she could see them even in the darkness of this moonless night. The air was thick, sibilant, textured, humid, and with her arms out in front of her, holding her watch in one hand, she felt the rushing oceanic texture blowing back her hair, whooshing over her butt, whistling past her nipples at the tips of her large, firm, cantaloupe-sized breasts which hung down below, past her toes which she spread and flexed, feeling the wind go around each toe.

Past Grant Park, Ormewood, Thomasville. Dareen, a life-long (or almost life-long) Atlanta area resident and a bookish type who liked to read maps, could recognize the clusters of lights down there, the highways delineated by the lines of street lights, the black blank areas that she knew to be lakes or ponds. She knew the vista from the few times she had looked from airplanes, but she had a full view now, not just through a little oval window, and there was no noisy engine, just her own naked self and her senses.

And her sensuality. Air this thick was like swimming in water, something she'd never done naked, of course, but she could imagine it would feel as good as this. She stopped and stretched upright, arms and legs out, standing still in mid-air, looked down past her feet and still was amazed to see nothing underneath, nothing to hold her up, to keep her from falling down into that lake down there, nothing except her newfound super powers.

She never felt so alive, as she hovered, her hard concave tummy breathing in and out. She could see miles in each direction. She could see that little flock of ducks heading southwest; what, they must be two miles away and she could still hear their quacking to each other, she almost felt like she understood what they were saying. Now, she heard a little splish from that lake, a catfish swirling to the surface to catch a dragonfly. 'I feel sorry for the average person, I can see so much more, can hear so much more.'

And she felt so much more. What human had ever been lucky enough to feel all these sensations? And to fly! Lucky, yes, that's what she was. She was still modest Dareen, and would be mortified if anyone saw her naked like this, but there was no one to see way up here in the dark. This was her own private world, way up here at night, out of town. No, she wasn't alone; she felt like the birds knew she was here, maybe even that catfish. 'Just me and the animals, no, just me and nature. Something to be thankful for. All thanks be to You, Allah.'

Still hovering, she drew her knees up and put her head down, praying on a sajjada of air. In the back of her mind she knew that this was not exactly a Muslim woman's standard of modesty, especially conscious of a gentle breeze blowing behind against her exposed rear sphincter and her slightly-open pussy lips -- but that was only in the back of her mind and even that thought soon went away. With her mind and body unified Dareen had the nicest, most reassuring, most relaxing and refreshing pray she probably ever had.

Still kneeling on her sajjada of air, she brought her head up and then looked down. In this position she was drifting downward slowly, closer to the lake. It was probably thirty feet deep where it was directly below her. It might make a noise, but...

She didn't have much experience with diving; because of her breasts she had generally avoided anything where she had to strip down to a swimsuit. But she tried it, head first, pointed hands in front, she controlled her descent and...

Aaaaahhh. Her nude body knifed into the water and the coolness slid past her and then was all around her, into every crevice and pore. What a relief from the hot night. She thought of Elly, who no doubt having thrown her clothes off but was still sweating back in her room. She wished Elly could feel this. She wished everyone could feel this. 'What a nicer world it would be. How could anyone be angry, anyone be hateful, anyone be time-pressed or worried or frustrated, if they could feel what I'm feeling, doing what I'm doing!'

She slithered in sinuous snakelike motions, swirling the water into every little corner of her body, and saw the fish gliding by, fish that somehow didn't swim away when they saw this large creature coming at them, in fact she felt like she was saying "hi" to them as she passed. She descended to the bottom and felt the squishy moss of the rocks under her soles. Then, flexing her muscles only a little to counteract her natural bouyancy, she walked along the bottom, as her hair billowed up and gracefully danced in a large plume over her head. Though it had to be pitch dark she could make out the rocks and the weedy plants and felt like she could recognize and name each individual fish. And there went that eel darting by...

She suddenly realized that she had been under for maybe five minutes and still had no desire to go up to the surface for air. Could any person comfortably hold her breath this long? Yet another super power! She laughed, baring her teeth, the giddy sounds reverberating through her head as they lugubriously gurgled outward to the water. No doubt the fish heard it. Still not feeling the need to breathe, she squatted down and fanned her fingers over some sea grass, feeling it play around her fingers, and looked down to where her pubic hair puffed out and rippled with the currents she had made. She spread her pussy lips and felt her clit down there, hard and big. A few diddles sent a thrill of pleasure through her body. Another underwater giggle.

She considered her watch, still enclosed in her other hand. Was it waterproof? She didn't know. She jumped up, intending to hit the surface, but again underestimated her own strength; she shot up out of the water and into the air until she stopped herself about fifty feet up. Yes, the watch still worked. I've been away an hour. Time to get back and get to sleep. I can do this again some other night. Water was still coursing down her body down to her dripping big toes, from where it loudly plopped into the lake below. There was no one around but she was worried about the dripping sound reverberating into the nighttime Georgia forest. She extended her arms up and flew straight up, higher, higher, then banked to the left and cruised at a nice comfortable altitude as the air dried her off, the last spritzes of water flying off her nipples and toes.

She approached the city. Looking again at the watch in her hand, it was now 2:30 a.m., and seeing no sign of light as she turned into a sitting position to look at the eastern horizon, air pushing against her bare back, she decided to swing by downtown. The skyscrapers were all dark, only a sprinkling of lit windows here and there, probably no one was there at all and the lights were left on by mistake or out of habit. Wow, a view like from a helicopter, the streets below looked so tiny. The air was a little warmer here, she was intensely conscious of that. She felt it in her pores, in her sensitive nipples, her nostrils flared, she was enveloped in a heavier, warmer air now that was smoky and redolent of electricity and gasoline and exhaust.

Then she made her big mistake.

Idly fastening the watch around her wrist before heading back to the apartment (it was such a bother to carry it in her hand like this) she suddenly started sinking, losing altitude. She stretched her arms out, kicked back with her feet, but down she went, down, down, down, and now she was spinning and tumbling out of control, she waved her arms in front of her frantically. "Allah help me! NO! NO!"

She quickly figured out the problem and managed to undo the watch, and again held it in her hand. But no use! This can't be!! What's happening! NO!!

She saw the buildings rising quickly around her, the whistling air of doom in her ears, now down below there was a hard roadway, a big traffic circle, and she twisted and headed to the center of it and...

The honking of a car horn was the first thing that registered. Dareen raised her head a fraction of an inch. Then knew enough to put it down again. Her eyes blinked open to get used to the morning light and then widened in surprise and fear.

She knew her situation immediately, panic flooding her in spite of the thudding pain where she had hit her head. She was lucky to be alive. But now! With her quickening breathing she felt her breasts rubbing into the grass. She dared to move her fingers. Her watch was gone, no doubt it was thrown clear. Again she told herself, 'I'm lucky to be alive.' Her eyes darted her and there. In the morning light and on the ground she recognized where she was: the traffic circle at the Perimeter Center in downtown. One of the busiest traffic spots in the city!

The middle of the traffic circle was a grassy area surrounded by low shrubs. She must have fallen headfirst and been knocked out. Fortunately on the soft grass, she had survived. And now!

It seemed to be early morning. On a Saturday, not too much traffic, yet there were cars and trucks circling around her as if to attack. Or as if to get a full gawking view from several angles at this naked woman in the middle. No, they obviously didn't see her. Now that she thought about it, few people have reason to look at what's in the middle of a traffic circle. Yet they would have to look OVER it, to see the cars on the other side. And while their eyes were glancing that way...

She shut her eyes. 'Oh Allah, please help me, I feel such shame.' She was lying prone on the grass, her arms to each side, her legs splayed. The riffing of the morning air against her nether regions told it all. Her anus was on total display, so was her pussy. Her big breasts were crushed under her, ballooning out to each side of her torso. At least her nipples were hidden as they poked into the dewy grass. 'How do I get out of here?'

She dared not move. That would attract attention. She was facing one of the entrances to the rotary; she could see drivers kind of look in her direction as they entered. Did they see her? How could they not?

Naked in the middle of downtown in the broad daylight; afraid to move. She needed help from someone. But who? What if she had her cell phone? "Elly... please come get me. I'm in the middle of the Perimeter Center rotary n-naked..." Her situation would be laughable if it wasn't so dire. In her nervousness she flexed her toes, then quickly froze the movement. In the intensity of her shame she blinked back a tear.

She could be clearly seen through the shrubs. And even if the shrubs covered her they would not have been much use because they were only about two feet high. Seconds went by. Then minutes. She felt the warmth of he rising sun as it hit her butt cheek and then her left sole. The terrified, mortified, modest Muslim woman thought she was being punished by Allah. To fly around naked like that must be an offense. Yet it felt so good and she'd had such a good pray up there in mid-air.

Imam Tahir would talk about the importance of modesty often. To the extent it wasn't merely old-fashioned male oppression of females, Dareen had taken this modesty business as an instruction not to boast, not to be greedy, not to be showy. But maybe covering up was in itself a good thing. Certainly, if she hadn't stripped in her bedroom, she wouldn't be in her present fix! But then again...

'I've been seen.'

'I've been seen.'

She said that to herself again and again. Cars were being stopped. Something was going on above her line of vision. It making no difference now, she turned her head. A stopped police car, and an officer making his way across the lanes. Dareen thought of what must happen next. Arrested for indecent exposure, the call to Elly, the mark on her record, fired from the library, her parents would surely find out... Maybe he thought she was a dead body, but he seemed surprised to see her head move and her eyes look at him. Now he began to step over the shrub in front of her and began to say, "Young lady..."

Dareen could think only of escape. She jumped up, breasts bouncing, and in the same motion found herself going up, up, higher, over the traffic circle, looking down only for an instant at the astonished officer and then whirling her arms to the right and up and shooting the hell out of there!

Eyes open in panic, the wind drying the tears off her face, Dareen got to well above the tops of the skyscrapers and looked around, then darted toward Boylston Street. Maybe no one would see her way up here, even in daylight, but once she got down to her building it would be a different story. Back through the fire escape, of course. As she approached it she tried to figure out which one was hers. They all look alike!

She alighted on the banded metal floor and immediately crouched down. She turned. No one was looking; but that was just people outside. Maybe someone in the building across the street saw her through their window. Looking in to the window she saw it was Elly's room, not hers. She thought of going to her own fire escape but that would involve a jump and would attract attention.

She tried to open the window and it was locked. Still amazing herself with her newfound strength, with two fingers she bent and broke the metal catch. She could explain it to Elly later. Opening the window she gratefully hopped into the room.

Elly must have gone out. Dareen stepped around the piles of clothes and CD's. Elly was the opposite of Dareen, her room was a chaotic mess.

The naked Dareen, relieved and a little shaky from what she had gone through, took a deep grateful breath, looked down at her protruding breasts, and thought about being back in her room in a few seconds and putting on clothes again. 'Sorry, Allah, I've been bad. No more. I promise.'

She opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, flinging away one of Elly's strewn T-shirts off that she had caught in her toes, and looked up.

She was being stared at by Elly, standing there in her pajamas. And by Pedro the super, in his T-shirt and jeans with the long string of keys.

Part 7

Pedro Villareal was an amiable fellow of about 30 who lived with his wife Josefina and two kids in one of the basement apartments. Though Elly knew her desire could never be fulfilled, she liked him a lot. Even Dareen had to concede he was cute: a nice smile, lustrous black skin (he was from the Dominican Republic but his mother was Haitian). Fine-looking dreadlocks that Elly had tried herself but just couldn't manage; her hair was too fine. Pedro had been up this morning to re-set the fuse box in the hallway, but it was a handy pretext for Elly to chat with him in the kitchen.

That was in normal life. Right now was not normal, not with a naked woman standing in front of them. And super-modest Dareen, of all people. And what a Dareen!

The two clothed young people, and the naked young woman, stared at each other open-mouthed for a prescient second. Then Dareen muttered an agonized "Ohhh..." and bent over and covered her breasts and crotch with her hands. Bare feet slapped against the tile floor as she darted to the door to her room.

This was an old building and it was a heavy, solid wood door. Once again the frantic naked girl did not know her strength. With a yank at the doorknob there was a loud ripping and shearing of wood and the door and its hinges separated from the jamb. And now the knob, not designed for such stress, broke in the girl's hand and the heavy door pivoted and started falling toward Elly.

To save her roommate from serious injury Dareen quickly bent down and grabbed the door with both hands. To remove any further danger in the little kitchen she held it high up over her head. And then she stood there, not knowing what to do next.

As her anguished eyes looked at her friends they could not help but look at the naked supergirl up and down. Thinly muscled arms effortlessly held aloft a door that weighed almost a hundred pounds. Sticking out from the thin brown torso were firm giant breasts, round and oblivious to gravity, that seemed to stick halfway across the tiny room. A preternaturally tiny waist with a hard concave tummy fanned out to a pair of trim hips and a generous forest of violet-lustered pubic hair. Thin but strong legs, perfect feet. She was like an alien creature; so modest was Dareen, so completely she had always covered up, that they (especially Pedro) had been utterly unable to imagine what she looked like naked. But this was indeed Dareen.

As they could see from her familiar pretty face, now tense with shame as she continued to hold the door aloft. In fact she could have easily set it down against the wall, but still not fully conscious of her powers, she feared losing control of the door if she tried that. For a few horrible seconds she stood there in the mortification of full frontal nudity.

Elly's mind finally unfroze and she acted to end her modest friend's agony of exposure by running to the bathroom to get their largest towel. Carefully darting behind Dareen, she reached way out in front to wrap it around the huge breasts and then around to the back.

"Oh... oh..." With her powers suddenly doused Dareen's arms shook and it was all she could do to heave the door forward, where it smashed the kitchen table, a terrific crash as door and table hit the floor.

Bump! Bump! Through the floor came the thumping of Mrs. Burns (or her son Tyrone), evidently via a broom handle against their ceiling, a reliable complaint whenever something loud happened in the girls' apartment.

The towel barely could go around her, and went only from the tops of her breasts to mid-thigh, but it was welcome covering. Dareen clutched it to her chest and leaned forward into Elly's comforting embrace. "Sorry,"

Pedro looked by turns at the towel-clad girl, the ruined door jamb, and the smashed table. Only now was awareness dawning so that the memory of the exquisite naked form caused a stirring in his pants.




Nakedgirl 01: The Story of Dareen



"Bet you didn't know how strong Dareen was," Elly said with a smile.

"Ay! That door must weigh..." he said.

"Sorry about that," Dareen said. "I'll pay for it."

After assuring them that he wouldn't bill them for the broken door, Pedro left, bewildered, wondering what conclusions to draw from seeing Dareen emerge naked from Elly's room, seeing her lift that heavy door, and how to go about fixing the jamb. He was in a daze the rest of the day. It was only that night, while Josefina was riding him in bed, that he concluded that the jamb must have been rotted out anyway, and that the pumping of adrenaline caused by the surprise of being seen by him and having to hide gave Dareen the momentary strength to rip the door out. Of course, that still didn't explain the part about Dareen coming out of Elly's room naked.

Still wrapped in the towel, Dareen sat on the floor next to Elly, sipping the tea Elly had made. Elly guessed correctly that Dareen had been "out flying" last night.

"You can fly only when you're naked? Do you mind?" Elly touched the towel, hoping Dareen would give a demonstration.

Dareen had it figured out by now. "No, I have to be n-naked." She didn't like saying that word, at least as it applied to herself. "For a few hours. Anything I put on me, even a watch, and I can't fly any more. I have to take it off and wait again."

"Wow." Elly wanted to see her fly, but knew that it would be too much to ask for Dareen to not only be naked again, but stay naked for several hours.

Seeing her friend gradually regaining her composure, Elly said, "Is there anything I can do?"

"I'm hungry." Dareen no longer having a door to her room, Elly tactfully retreated to her own as Dareen dressed. Soon they were out getting a sandwich.

It was around 11 p.m. when Elly was awakened by a knock on her door. "Dar?"

The door creaked open and Elly sat up in her bed. "Jesus!" In the darkness she could make out a shadowy brown, Dareen-sized object floating in, level with the top of the door. As the dark form drifted nearer along the white ceiling, Elly could make out the hair hanging down, the two large round forms, the legs sticking out behind.

"I'm your conscience," the form said. "Elly, clean up your room. It's a mess!" Then a low giggle.

"Holy..." Elly said a couple of words in Urdu, the language of her childhood, words that would lose a lot in the translation. Then she said, "Are you O.K.?" As if Dareen's slow flight into her room was caused by illness and it was not Elly herself who was freaked out.

The dark form descended a bit and straightened upright into a big "X". "I'm fine. I had a nice pray. Flying is a gift, not a curse. And it came from Allah."

After a pause, Elly said, quite reasonably, "Where else would it come from?" Then she reached out and turned her nightstand on. In a split second Dareen darted to it and turned it off. Which was comforting to Elly, actually; this was still Dareen, averting exposure.

And now the dark form came down next to Elly, inserted gentle arms under her pajama-clad body, and they both rose together. Elly quickly exhaled through clenched teeth, then grabbed Dareen's hands with a death grip, looking down at the bed. After clutching Dareen with the other arm, crushing her friend's bare breasts against her cheek, Elly started breathing easier, realizing there was no danger.

"El, do you want to go on a little trip?"

Elly's protest of "NO!" died on her lips. All week she had thought about Dareen's nighttime flying and wondered what it would be like. And as for any danger, there was no one she trusted more than the sensible and always sober Dareen.

"Hop on top of me," Dareen said. It felt odd having a naked woman underneath her but Elly positioned her prone body on top of Dareen's, arms under to hook around Dareen's armpits, bent legs clutching the sides of Dareen's hips. Dareen made a motion toward the window and, sensing the need for footwear before going out, Elly reached down next to the bed and slipped her flip-flops on, on one side then the other. She had her long pajamas on; it wasn't as hot tonight as last night. From her perch Elly could sense the slight seismic tremors from the sides of Dareen's breasts as Dareen lifted the window.

Elly's cry of panic was shushed by Dareen as they flew out over Boylston Street, then as Elly clutched ever tighter, they turned and arced over the city, air whooshing through Elly's hair. The astonished girl ventured a look down as the streets passed under them. Her wide-eyed reaction of wonder was expressed in one word, repeated. "Wow, wow, wow."

"Akkk... please," Dareen said.

With the wind whistling by it was hard to hear. "WHAT?"

"YOU'RE CHOKING ME!"

"OH. SORRY." Elly moved her hands to Dareen's shoulders.

Dareen didn't know how she did it, but she intended to go to the same pond as last night, out past Thomasville, and suddenly there it was below them. She gently uprighted herself as she soft-landed at the water's edge. Elly tried to stand on weakened knees, straightening out her pajamas.

"Watch this. Don't be afraid, I'll be fine." Dareen flew up and dove into the center of the pond. Minutes passed by and she didn't come up, though Elly was not afraid for her, Dareen being perfectly O.K. as could be seen from rocks shooting up like rockets from the surface every few seconds. Soon the dripping naked girl was up over the water and hovering over Elly, getting her wet. "Sorry!" Dareen landed next to her, water still coursing over the tops of her breasts, little waterspouts sloping off each huge nipple. "And now for my next trick..." Dareen walked over to a large boulder on the side of the pond, as big as half a couch, and with encircling arms uprooted it, dirt falling from the bottom. Shifting it back onto her left arm, she wound up and flung it across the pond and then some. There were a few seconds of silence as the dull dark object completed its trajectory. Then it landed with a loud dull thump on the other side.

"I'm jealous," Elly said with a smile. "But maybe not. Not if I have to be naked."

Dareen had almost forgotten about her nudity, but after hearing this remark, she crossed her arms over her breasts and crotch. "Sorry," Elly said.

The view of the flight back was even more amazing, with Dareen circling over the warm, gasoline-scented city. "Wow, wow, wow," And now Elly became nervous once more as Dareen descended on Boylston Street with the asphalt below seeming very dangerous from five floors up. Landing with strong bare feet on the fire escape, Dareen skillfully pulled Elly into her room.

Now she floated, with Elly on top of her, about three feet above Elly's bed. "Give me one of your flip-flops." Dareen then slowly slipped it onto one of her feet.

"Aiee!" Elly squealed as they both bounced down onto the bed. Dareen got up. "Now watch. It's gone now." She jumped up and down, hitting the floor like a regular mortal. This made her conscious of her bouncing breasts, and she brought her hands up. On Elly each hand would enclose an entire breast; on Dareen each hand could cover only the nipple and areola. "Got to get dressed." As Elly's eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw her friend walk out, lithe bare back and tight butt cheeks, and with such a strong easy gait that for a second it almost seemed that she was proud of her nudity.

They began to chat but then got the urge for pizza. Fortunately Reilly's, the place on the corner, was open until 3 a.m. They sat in a booth near the window. There were maybe six other people there, white folks at the other end listening to the TV on the wall, tuned to the Cobb News Network. At the moment there was a film of the President of France, walking to the accompaniment of chicken clucking sounds.

The TV acted to mask their conversation. "So now what?"

"What about what?" Dareen said, chewing on her slice.

"Are you going to be a super hero?"

Dareen smiled. That amusing thought had occurred to her before, the first time she flew after that storm. "A super hero needs a costume."

"You can't be Wonder Woman. That's already taken. How about Naked Girl?"

"Um, no."

"Mighty Tits?"

"El!!" Dareen smiled and gave her a mock punch on the shoulder then got back to her pizza slice. Chew, chew, swallow. "Being serious though, if this is a gift from Allah, I wonder what he wants me to use it for."

"I don't think Allah exactly approves of naked women," Elly said.

"But like you said, where else can this gift come from? And what do I do with it? Just fly around for kicks?"

"Maybe fight crime! Like Spider Man!" Elly preferred to joke around rather than deal with Dareen's question.

Dareen's voice went low. "Maybe fight crimes against Muslims. Like those idiots who keep defacing the mosque."

On the TV, the host of the show was saying, "Third world nations. We should call them 'TURD world' nations. Ever sit next to a Pakistani on the train? Try not asphyxiating!" Dareen had a stone face but Elly just rolled her eyes. "Don't let it bug you, Dar. No one takes that stuff seriously."

Dareen mused, "Maybe I'll be an evil superhero."

Elly said, in a mock-newscaster voice, "Naked Girl... if only she had used her tits for good, instead of evil."

"El!" They broke up giggling. One of the guys watching the TV looked over, and smiled as he noticed that the girl with the long hair and the bulky sweatshirt seemed quite well endowed.

When Dareen awakened, late Sunday morning, she had a funny feeling in her nipples. It felt like bugs were crawling all over them. A feeling she had before, recently.

Part 8

She sat up, reaching forward to clutch the tips of her braless breasts as they pressed out against her white flannel pajamas. Something was wrong, or about to be. Though she scowled with concentration, she couldn't sense anything more specific. But the ominous feeling of foreboding was unmistakable. Something bad was about to happen.

She hopped to the kitchen, through the tacked-up blanket that served as her temporary door until Pedro fixed the old one, still holding her breasts. Elly had gone out. Thinking about what to do, it occurred to her that the tingling was exactly the feeling she had all over her body that stormy night just before she was struck by lighting, or by whatever that was. Only now it was just in her nipples, not all over.

She said a short prayer. "Allah, please see fit to make my mind clear. What was wrong exactly?" But nothing came to her. She ran to Elly's room, still holding her bouncing breasts, and looked out the window, the window she had flown through last night. It was a bright, bright day, not a cloud in the sky. People were walking on the street below. But somehow she felt the need to go back to looking at the sky. So blue. So clear. Now the tingling got stronger.

She had to do something. Report it to the police. But what? With mounting anxiety she decided to get dressed and head for the police station. Maybe it would come to her on the way. As she got into her usual sunny-day outfit of bulky T-shirt, unbuttoned sweater and jeans and sneakers, she kept telling herself: no, this is not crazy. 'I'm not sure why I'm going to the police but I'm not a crank. I've been given special powers and right now those powers are telling me something. Of course, if that's how I put it they'll think...'

She brushed these thoughts aside and bounded out onto the sidewalk and walked briskly, ignoring the double-take by the occasional guy at her bouncing frontal assets. The police station was five blocks away and she lumbered on up there, somewhat more slowly during the last block because "it" still hadn't come to her. What should she tell them?

She stood there in front of the station like an idiot, hesitating about going in. A deep breath. The tingling was getting stronger. Wait. She just had to wait. She decided to lean against the low concrete wall, below the surveillance camera, and wait.

An officer walked by. "Can I help you, miss?"

"I'm... I'm waiting for a friend who wants to apply for her ID card," Dareen lied. "Her English isn't too good and she wants my help."

With a little smile the officer said, "I understand," and walked into the station.

A moment later, Dareen saw it -- a little metal-bullet kind of rocket flying high over the city, vaguely familiar, and now she grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and hesitated before pulling it off, she began trying to step out of her sneakers. And then...

In the middle of the sleepy sunny Sunday afternoon, the blinding flash of light, the intense hissing sound, were things that all Atlantans would remember the rest of their lives. As the flash died the people who were outdoors wanted to panic but found themselves frozen in their steps. 9/11! 9/11! 9/11! The numbers ran through everyone's head, it was the first thing and the second thing and the third thing they thought about. Hearts were in mouths. Eyes closed, people prayed.

When eyes opened there thankfully was no destruction. But there was a quiet and in a moment everyone realized what it was. The lights were out. Air conditioners were silent. Cars were stalled. Inside, computer screens were dark. Cell phones did not work.

And the people of Atlanta slowly began moving again, making their way this Sunday afternoon in a city with no electricity, no radio waves, no frequencies, no lights, nothing except their own muscle power in a city full of the inert carcasses of dead technology.

Dareen bunched up in a ball on her bed, shaking and crying. Oddly in her distress fatigue overcame her and she fell asleep. When she woke up it was early evening and she realized she was hearing the sounds of cars outside. She reached over and turned on the nightstand. The lamp went on. Was that whole thing a dream?

Evidently not. Elly came through the blanket curtain and wordlessly embraced her friend.

"Did that really happen?" Dareen said sleepily.

"Oh Dar, I thought the world was ending, I thought we were 9/11 right here in Atlanta," Elly said. "Shit. I was over at the bodega and I actually got down and prayed. Thank goodness it wasn't a-an exploding bomb. Everything came back after an hour or so. Just some kind of electromagnetic pulse, the radio said. But computers all over are still fucked up and the trains are still out. Dar, I feel like going to mosque."

Dareen stood up and thought. It would be a long walk with no trains, but..." Good idea." She needed something to comfort her now. Some news would comfort her too. "Let's find out more."

They turned on the TV. The local news reported the general chaos and how the city was getting back under control. The governor had declared a state of emergency, the President was flying in. They were finishing up an interview with the mayor. "This is clearly a terrorist act and thank goodness no one was killed. But this bomb has crippled our city and the technology is clearly a threat to our Western civilization." And now the screen switched to a newscaster who said, "No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for this bombing. As the mayor just said, thankfully no one was killed, at least not directly. Yet there are 17 people in area hospitals who are in critical condition because various life suppport devices were out."

"Oh no!" Dareen said, her heart thumping. She returned Elly's puzzled glance and gulped. "Elly... I saw the rocket. It was a rocket that exploded. I could have... I could have stopped it."

Elly unwittingly glanced down at Dareen's chest. "How? How could you know, so you could strip in time? And even then, what would Naked Girl do about it?"

"I know somehow I could have... maybe grabbed it and threw it far away." Dareen's wet eyes looked at the screen. Then she closed them. "Please Allah, let those people in the hospital live. Don't let them die."

Elly embraced Dareen again and spoke into the back of her friend's neck. "Don't torture yourself. It's not your fault. It's some bad person's. The people who sent that rocket. THEY'RE to blame."

The phone rang and they broke the embrace. It was Dareen's mother, tearful. It took a few minutes for Dareen to calm her down and reassure her that everything was getting back to normal in the city. "I want you to come home right now," she said. 

"Mom, it's O.K.," Dareen said. 

After a long silence her mother said, "Remember, be careful outside." Dareen didn't have to ask what she meant. After the Oklahoma bombing a few years ago, her brother Kes was chased down the street by some white guys. Fortunately he outran them and got to his car in time. Muslims, and Arabs especially, just had to be careful every time something like this happened. 

Dareen said, "I'll be careful. I love you, Mother!" It always made her mother glad to hear that. Dareen was the youngest child and, though it had been two years, her mother hadn't gotten used to the last of her children now living away from home.

After they hung up Elly said, "I think we both could use some prayer right now."

Dareen said, "And people around us. Let's go to mosque like you say. I'm sure the Imam has it open at a time like this."

The went into their rooms and reappeared with their kerchiefs. Elly moved to the TV to turn it off. A minister was being interviewed. In the rolling lilt of a Southern Baptist preacher he said, "That we must pray for the terrorists' souls does not mean that they and their sympathizers must go unpunished."

"Shit, I don't need to hear this!" Elly meant to hit the "off" button on the remote but she hit the "Channel Up" button instead. Now it was the Cobb News Network. A skinny, long-haired blond woman in a very short skirt was thundering, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity!" "Amen to that!" said the adoring news anchor. Elly finally hit the "off" button and the little kitchen was in silence.

Elly and Dareen looked at each other. Two women of Middle Eastern ancestry, going to mosque at a time like this, with the TV encouraging everyone to hate. It was safer for them stay in the apartment, but the force drawing them to the mosque was powerful. It was the kind of moment most of us have at some point in our lives, when we are called upon to be brave and true. The two kerchiefed young women gulped and went out the door together and started the mile-long walk to Al Hijia Mosque.

Part 9

"Allah we pray to you that our fears shall be eased, that we shall not suffer, that the cause of this terrifying bomb shall be discovered and laid to rest." It was the piping, accented voice of Imam Tahir, acting as Khatib for this special service, the sermon after the common prayers. The little mosque was so crowded that there was no separation between men and women and no one could sit except for a few elderly people up front. Dareen and Elly were packed in at the back. They had gotten there just in time. They craned their necks to see the Imam, standing not in his usual spot, but in the middle, next to his wife and seven young children.

"I apologize for not being with you on September 11, 2001. We were in Paris visiting family at the time when the terrible news came over the media. It was afternoon in Paris at the time. The next day was the day of mourning.

"We went to the great square, several millions of us, and at 12:45 p.m. all the churches in Paris rang their bells. Even the great church of Notre Dame, where the bells are rung only on great historical occasions, from there the bells were heard. Now we Muslims have different associations of the sound of church bells, but at the time the resounding sound throughout the city could not fail to grab one's heart. The church bells stopped ringing and the whole of us, the whole of humanity, stood silently. The entire country, the entire world in fact, stood together as if to say: We are all Americans. And then a trumpet was heard, playing 'taps', the tune that is played in the military in honor of the dead. It was too much for me, and for my wife, and we cried. Many others did too.