Dareen was all stretched out, hanging there in the dark, her hands gripping onto the looped ropes above her. She wanted to let go and jump but she couldn't see below her. For all she knew it was thirty feet down.
And now somewhere lights were switched on and more footsteps and her heart sank with shock and despair. It was very dim where she was, but now she knew she was suspended over a stage. Maybe five feet in front of her were the folds of a curtain. Her eyes followed it down. She was up near the top. The hardwood stage floor was maybe twenty feet below her. As the number of footsteps increased she heard the low rumble of voices, all apparently male. More and more people were coming in. She pictured them as older-sounding. There was something else -- a lilt, some German-sounding words that were vaguely familiar, but perhaps not. Then she recognized it. Israeli. Hebrew. Yiddish? She didn't know those languages but could recognize them.
With a panic she realized it might not be just a meeting, it might be a presentation where the curtain might be drawn. She had to get the hell out of here. Could she jump? She looked down again, her neck craning forward as she strained to see past her firm, outthrust breasts. Maybe, just maybe... but it would be such a loud thump when she landed that someone would be sure to come back here to check it out. Then she turned her head to look a little behind her and down. Set on the stage was a big free-standing screen. Looking at it harder in the dimness she saw it was a map, a map of Palestine. Great. This was indeed a presentation, they would be opening the curtain for sure.
Dareen wished once again her super powers would come but it wasn't time yet. She heard steps coming up to the front of the stage and a deep voice, sounding like an older man, saying, "Good afternoon", and then he continued in Hebrew. The hanging naked girl looked up. The ropes originated from a big black tube or bar that ran across the ceiling. If she climbed up there she would be out of sight, and then she could make her way across to the side and possibly sneak out from there.
In junior high and high school she had never been too good in gym, what with her breasts in the way all the time, but she remembered before that, in third grade or so, being able to climb rope. She hoped the ability hadn't left her. Reluctantly letting go of one rope, she grabbed the other with both hands and tried to heft herself up. It was a big strain, but putting hand after hand up and up on the rope she made progress, her feet wildly swinging below her. She prayed the pulleys wouldn't slip again.
She got to the top and looped her hands around the thick black bar. Looking along its length she saw it held a number of ropes, all rather short or tied up. Evidently it was used to hold up rear scenery as if for a play. Or maybe a background sheet for concerts.
And now she held her breath as the curtain opened. Her eyes widened with horror as she saw the looped rope below was still swinging a bit. Fortunately it seemed to be above the canopy and out of everyone's line of sight. She looked down with widened eyes as the older man, in a black suit with a beard and a yarmulke on his bald head, walked back to the map. Someone in the rear of the auditorium turned on some more lights and now the stage was all lit up.
The man walked in front of the map and continued to give his presentation in Hebrew. Dareen's hands were frozen motionless to the bar, trying not to make the merest sound. She looked down hoping fervently that the old man wouldn't look up. It was a bizarre sight, as from her foreshortened perspective she saw her huge breast eclipse the man's head, then it was her toes, and then his head was partially obscured by the fuzz of her pubic hair. She had a lot of respect for Orthodox Jews, at least when they weren't fighting with Arabs, and knew that their tradition, like hers, believed in keeping oneself covered, especially the women. And now look at her!
She cringed with shame and fear and horror. Also with impatience. Her nipples were burning again. What terrible thing was going to happen? Another pulse bomb? Where? Was she already too late? If only she had her super powers. Please, Allah... Her hands and arms were getting tired...
She looked to the side and saw her possible salvation. The black bar ended at the wall where there was a plank -- a catwalk, she now knew -- connected to the one she had just fallen off of. If she could sidle over to there she'd be saved. Just stay on that plank, or better yet get back to near the window she'd come in from, where she could wait for her powers.
She looked down at the old man pointing at the map. If he looked up he'd probably have a heart attack, seeing the crotch of a naked Arab girl. Careful... She moved one hand a few inches, then the next. Inch by inch she crept to her right. With her softly swaying body she looked down as the man's head was again eclipsed by one breast, then the other, by one big toe, by her pubic hair. And then the big black bar responded to the shifting weight with a loud creak.
The man stopped lecturing and Dareen bit her lip. Wondering what had caused the creak, he looked around to the sides, then behind the map stand. If she weren't in such a state Dareen might have wondered why he was so leery. But thankfully he didn't think to look up. With a very Yiddish shrug the old man made a little joke and there were some chuckles from the unseen crowd. Then he began talking again.
Dareen's arms were getting very tired and she had to continue simply as a matter of survival. Hand over hand, very carefully, her swaying nude body ventured rightward.
She inhaled through her teeth as one hand slipped. Trying to regain its hold she clutched onto a rope that seemed to be tied around the bar. But...
It gave way and she was stuck holding onto it. Down, down she went, then it gave way faster. She swung down and her foot kicked the top of the map stand, knocking it over. The rope stopped uncoiling and Dareen found herself swinging ten feet over the stage, facing an audience of Orthodox Jewish men in the full frontal shame of total nudity, her body stretched out, her breasts and nipples stuck out and pointing at them like cannons over the concavity of her brown tummy.
For a long silent moment the nude girl and the heavily clothed, bearded audience looked at each in openmouthed horror. Then the exclamations. The old man looked around as if in panic. Men started rising out of their seats.
Dareen squeezed her eyes shut in misery. No, no, no... She wished she could close her ears too, from the increasing hubbub. She was sure men were cursing at her. She knew she was the object of execration. There were scraping sounds on the stage below her. When she ventured to open her eyes she saw a stage ladder being placed below her. Her toes gratefully rested on the top rung. A younger man with a long black beard was stepping up in his shirtsleeves, holding open his long coat in front of him as if about to drape it over her. Dareen gulped and felt on the verge of tears. How she dearly wanted that coat, any covering for her nakedness but...
As the coat was about the enclose her she sprang her foot off the top rung and, before swinging back, let go of the rope. Her bare feet thudded on the floor as she landed. It hurt. She ran offstage. There was a door there -- locked! She scrambled along the rear wall. Another door -- locked! Her thinking fogged by desperation, she ran up to the front of the stage and jumped off then ran up the center aisle. Out the door, and into a little vestibule. Looking behind she saw she was being followed by more men holding out coats. Cell phones were being whipped out.
Dareen ran out the vestibule and found herself outside on the sidewalk! Good Lord! She looked both ways and picked going to her left. Run, run, run... just have to stay naked a little longer and then I can fly away...
West 57th Street, a center of the fashion and publishing worlds, has seen its share of publicity stunts, but nothing quite like a totally nude Arab-American woman running alone down the sidewalk. She was past most people before it registered in their minds what they had just seen. The more alert people, or those watching in amazement from across the street, looked in their things to see if they had a camera. Cars suddenly stopped and honked. Traffic stopped.
For the sake of speed Dareen was forced to stop holding her breasts as she ran. Her bare feet thudded on the pavement as she tried to move as fast as she could, her chest hurting as her breasts bounced crazily. But where should she go? The important thing was to kill time. Maybe she would find a place to hide.
She knew how ridiculous this prospect was yet she kept running and then turned a corner. And then she saw it in front of her; if she could reach it. A fire escape, with the low ladder possibly reachable if she jumped real high, as high as she could. She passed under it and her hands missed it by inches. She turned around and got another running start, intensely aware of the astonished faces around her. This time she got it.
Splitting her legs open so she could loop her toes up around the ladder, she knew her most private crevices on view to what seemed like the whole world. The late afternoon wind was starting to kick up and she felt it blowing across her open pussy lips and her butthole and this only accentuated her sense of total exposure. She swung and got herself up, and then hopped up the metal stairs, one story after the other, despite the depths of her shame being a little proud of how strong and agile she was in her normal state. On the fourth floor there were some potted flowers that got in her way. Her foot accidently kicked one and it fell to the sidewalk below, breaking. An old woman stuck her head out the window, ready to yell at whoever that barefoot person was who had just kicked her plant over, but she was rendered speechless by what she saw.
"Sorry, Ma'am," Dareen said, covering her breasts as she hopped up the stairs.
Up to the sixth floor, the top landing of the fire escape, and now how to get onto the roof? Resolving not to look down, not the least because there was now a thick clump of people down there looking up at her, Dareen hefted a foot up and curled her toes around the railing, making sure she balanced over the landing in case she fell, and rose up to grab the edge of the cornice. She grabbed with both hands and lifted herself up, grimacing as she felt the masonry crush and scrape her breasts and then her tummy and finally her thighs.
Finally, up on a roof. She squatted down, holding her head, glad she could rest, her arms especially. Thanks to Allah, I am finally safe. She closed her eyes and tried to feel her powers. No, not yet. She clutched her stinging nipples and massaged them, first gently and then vigorously, but to no avail.
She was grateful no one could see her. What kind of NakedGirl could she be, if she hated being naked in public? But she had no time for such musings. Looking up she saw two police officers running on the roof to where she was.
She ran in the opposite direction, feet slapping against the warm tar roof, hurting as they landed on little stones. She thought of confronting them and saying, "I am Dareen Alkaras, NakedGirl, you must let me be naked," but that would be ridiculous. Even if they decided she looked like the girl they had seen on T.V. who held up the Joly Tower, they wouldn't be sure, and of course she had no I.D. Explaining that she had to stay naked before her powers took effect -- that would sound like "a likely story" from a nutcase girl who just liked to run around naked.
Quickly she found herself running out of building as she approached the cornice on the other side. She looked back. One of the policemen was coming at her with a blanket, a nice big warm blanket that would enwrap and cover her. How she wished she could...
The only thing to do was grab onto the cornice and see if she could scale down the other side of the building. She carefully peered over the side of the cornice. She was in luck. Another fire escape, with a landing right below. Again the front of her body was scraped by brick as she clambered over the cornice and dangled her feet over the fire escape landing. With a soft thud of the balls of her feet on the metal she hit the landing.
The police were everywhere, it seemed. Two more were running up this very fire escape, their hard shoes causing vibrations that Dareen could feel through her soles. Below them, on the sidewalk, a crowd had already gathered.
Being pursued from above and from below, the nude girl looked around frantically for an escape. She found it in the form of a nearby wall-mounted flagpole, sticking out over the street. Surely it would support her weight, and she could grab it if she got onto the railing of the fire escape.
Dareen found herself hanging once again, this time from the base of a horizontal pole that she shared with an American flag, which flopped around in the late afternoon breeze. The scene below was getting more and more abuzz. Two police cars blocking the street, a news truck with two cameramen emerging, the crowd getting bigger. All of them looking up at her naked bod.
Again she prayed for strength. And wished she could be less modest. Nakedness was just something she had to get used to. Yet it was so hard...
A fire truck arrived. Dareen wondered when her two hours would be up. Certainly she was down to the last few minutes now. All I have to do is stay here. Yet it wasn't easy. She felt all breasts and pubic hair as she hung stretched out over the crowd. She could do nothing to hide any part of herself.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the flag, licking at her butt cheek. It unfurled full length in the wind, then out away from her again. Dareen at once recognized the danger. If the flag wrapped around her, clothing her, she would have to start the two hours over again.
There was only one thing to do. When the flag came her way again she used one hand to grab it. With a quick tug it ripped in half. She threw it down and it wafted gently to the ground. There; danger over.
And now the round of boos from below. She realized what she had just done. She felt like shouting down, "I am a loyal American!", but again, that would sound ridiculous, coming from the crazy woman who had just run along 57th Street naked.
Now a cherry picker coming up from the utility truck. It extended higher, higher, and on the little fenced platform was a young fireman with a blanket. Another nice, snug blanket. On his hat was a badge commemorating comrades who died on 9/11. The platform came closer and closer. There was no avoiding it. The policemen on the fire escape were a few feet away, holding out their own blanket. Dareen could struggle, but within a few seconds she would be all wrapped up.
Her nipples burned like blazes. Somewhere she was needed to save lives, perhaps many lives. Allah had given her this power, she was put on earth to use it. She looked down. Surely Allah would not let her die. What if she jumped and on the way down...
It was not necessary. Allah did not require her to be suicidal, to make a literal leap of faith. Dareen exhaled gratefully as she felt her powers come. Just before the fireman's blanket touched her bare shoulder, she let go of the flagpole. There was a collective whooshing inhale of breath from the crowd as the nude woman fell. And a few screams.
And then they saw her thrust her arms out in front of her. The path of the brown, naked, big-breasted form curved upward and then out over 57th Street. She was out of sight, south and west over the Hudson River, before these New Yorkers realized they had just seen, as they all said to themselves at almost the same time: "NakedGirl!"