I don't go skinnydipping anymore

I grew up on the outskirts of a small southern town, and so I spent most days of my summer vacations prowling the woods close to my home. About a half hour walk from my house, down dirt roads and overgrown deer trails, there was a sandy stretch of beach along a creek. Since it was so far removed from civilization, and I had never seen another soul out there at the creek, I would often strip down naked and swim in the water to cool down under the summer sun.

When I was a young girl, about eight or nine years old, I had gone down to my secret beach to go skinnydipping. I had spent all morning there, watching herons and splashing in the water happily. Suddenly I began to hear the sounds of something large forcing its way through the undergrowth upstream a ways. I was frozen, standing naked in the middle of the creek as two men emerged from the woods.

They were much older than me, probably in their 30s. Something about the way they were dressed scared me. Anyone who has spent a lot of time in the woods knows the danger of thorn vines and brambles, but these guys were dressed in flipflops, cargo shorts, and wife beaters. They were filthy and covered in scratches across their arms and legs, looking as if hiking through the woods hadn't ever been on their agenda.

I had left my clothes in an untidy pile on the bank, but to grab them I would have had to move much closer to the men. As I frantically tried to think of a way to get back to my clothes without alerting these guys, one of them turned and locked eyes with me.

I grew up around southern manners. Seeing as I was a naked little girl trying to cover myself with my hands as I stood in the middle of a creek, I would have expected him to avert his gaze. But all he did was elbow his buddy in the ribs, point at me, and whisper something beyond my hearing. When they both turned and began to advance towards me, malicious grins on their faces, I officially lost my shit.

Luckily, years of spending all my free time in the woods paid off. Forgetting modesty, I turned and ran at breakneck speed for the closest downstream deep channel. As I dove into the water I could hear the men yelling and splashing behind me, trying desperately to catch up. I had always been at home in the water, and at this moment I swam as though my life depended on it (which it very well might have). I knew exactly where I needed to go.

Earlier that summer, I had discovered what I thought of as my "secret hiding spot." The banks were rocky and sheer on both sides of the creek here, around the bend and downstream from the sandy beach. I had been watching muskrats swimming in the water, and had seen one swim through hanging kudzu vines into what I thought was solid stone. Upon pulling back the vines, and scaring the shit out of the muskrat in the process, I found an open space under an overhang of rock. I had always loved hiding, and was immediately smitten with such a perfectly camouflaged spot. But weeks later, in this moment, I thought of it as my best hope.

As I came close to my hiding spot, I ducked down and swam underwater to my hole in the stone. I only surfaced once I was safely behind my curtain of kudzu vines. I waited there for several minutes, trying to silence my heavy breathing and slow my rampaging heartbeat, until I heard the sounds of heavy crashing through the underbrush. I screamed a little, but thankfully had clamped a hand over my mouth in time to muffle it.

As the sounds of snapping twigs and rustling leaves got closer, I could hear the men panting and cursing under their breath. It sounded as if they were walking on the edge of the bank a few feet above me. After they had moved down a ways, I heard a thud on the ground and an angry yell, as if one of the men had tripped and fallen. Another voiced shushed him, and said something that made me tremble. "Shut up! She'll hear you."

I had never been more terrified than at that moment. I cried silently, pressing my back against the rock and praying they wouldn't find me. Even after I heard their footsteps continuing down the bank and into silence, I remained hidden behind the kudzu. I stayed there, delirious with fear and shivering in the water, until the sun had begun to dip low in the sky.

I finally began to make my way back to get my clothes and go home, picking my way along deer trails that would let me move as silently as possible. When I had gotten close to the beach, I stayed hidden in the undergrowth and watched for several minutes to make sure those two slimeballs weren't anywhere around. Thankfully, although I found several footprints circling my clothes and pacing along the bank, the guys were nowhere to be seen. My shirt and jeans were still there, luckily, but my panties were gone.

I threw my clothes on and ran the whole way home. I never told my mother about what happened at the creek, because I knew she would ban me from ever going into the woods again. I never saw those guys again, nor did I ever see anyone else down at that stretch of beach after that. But needless to say, I never went skinnydipping again.

Source

• "I don't go skinndipping anymore" (self.LetsNotMeet) by Saint_Entropy at Reddit