A long dream

“Johanna Constantine. You stand accused of five counts of ****.”

“Please, four of them were demons,” she said. She paused. “Fifth was self-defence. Serial killer. I swear he had convention tickets, of all things.”

“Sixteen counts of destruction of public property-”

“Again, demons. Plus two hell-hounds, and one outer god.”

“And general obscenity.”

“…Okay, that one’s a fair cop.”

There was a pause. Unaware of anything wrong with the situation, Johanna stood in the courtroom, looking up at the judge. She didn’t seem all that concerned about the court.

“Well then, I clearly have ****,” the judge said, “But to sentence you to two weeks of mandatory nudity, sentence to be carried out immediately. Next!”

Johanna blinked; the judge brought is gavel down, as two officials moved to Johanna’s side, efficiently leading her away.

They always said to wear your best to court. Most of the people attending were in formalwear, lawyers and clients all in suits, on surprisingly ornate marble floors and posh wooden walls.

And then there was Johanna. She was pushed out of the changing room to serve her sentence despite her best efforts, and immediately stiffened, looking up and down the hall in a momentary panic, unsure of where to go. She stood with an arm crossed over her bare breasts, and a hand over her core, with her blush the only thing she was permitted to wear. Several people turned to face her.

Well, there was no way in hell she was standing there. She gulped, and darted down the hall, wishing the exit door wasn’t so far away. She sprinted past everyone she could, and gasped as she hit the outside air.

It was going to be a long week.

“C’mon, c’mon…”

Johanna squirmed in her front garden, crouched nervously behind a bush.

Along with her clothes, her door-key had ended up confiscated, and she couldn’t find her spare. She’d managed to wave over Mad Hettie to call a locksmith, but now she just had to wait for them to actually show up.

At least Hettie was walking away, mumbling into her phone something about a Keanu. Johanna shrugged it off.

It was a warm day, but it was hard to ignore the air against her skin, especially with so much of herself exposed to it. She poked her head around the side of the hedge, then yanked it back, flushing. The sprig of green was all that hid her from the street, with nothing to her sides to keep anyone that looked too far into her garden from seeing the nude Constantine.

(Vaguely, she was aware that her garden didn’t normally look like this, though she paid it little mind).

She squirmed, bare feet on the grass, as what felt like hours passed before the locksmith finally pulled up to her home. Someone walked out of the van, and paused, looking around in confusion. Face hot, Johanna stuck her arm out around the bush, waving.

“Here, I’m here!” she said. “Could you open the door?”

“Are you the homeowner?” he said. He walked closer; Johanna quickly snatched her arm back.

“Yes,” Johanna said.

“Can I see some ID?”

“Where the fuck would I be keeping ID?” Johanna said.

There was a frustratingly lengthy pause. Johanna fidgeted, still, her arms feeling wholly inadequate to hide any of her body.

“…I’ll get my tools,” the locksmith said.

Of course she was low on food. Nervously, Johanna walked to the shop, doing her best to ignore the near-constant double-takes and stares she got. She’d had to order a take-away last night, which had been awkward enough, but now her first full day of mandated nudity started off like, well, this.

She picked up the pace a little, beet-red by the time she made it off the street and inside the shop. Still, even there, there were too many people all around her. Carefully, she covered with her arms as best she could, before quickly spotting a loaf of bread; she grabbed it with one arm and hugged it to her chest, getting the best improvised covering she could.

Okay, that was… a start. After a few minutes of very awkward navigating the shop, she amassed a decent collection of items, doing her best to pile them up in front of her breasts and awkwardly holding them as best she could. The bagged loaf hung between her fingers, at just the right angle to hang in front of her crotch, occasionally batted by her thigh as she walked. Her other hand had picked the best thing she could to hold over her butt, though annoying enough it was a cheap cake tin, and she could just feel the jokes about that looming.

She stumbled down the aisle, pointedly avoiding eye contact with the other shoppers-

And tripped suddenly, her shopping falling out of her hands and rolling down the shop floor. Johanna couldn’t help but help, kneeling upright and snatching her arms back again, now without even that limited modesty.

Feeling all the more eyes on her now that she’d caused a scene, she hastily resumed scrabbling to pick up her food, muttering to herself.

She’d put it off as long as she could, but four days into her sentence, she’d needed to actually do her job.

Cue, being here. After a thoroughly undignified taxi ride, she was dropped off by an old building, hastily darting off the street and into an overgrown courtyard. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, with nothing but a posh bag to cover with.

She eyed the old building.

“Okay, yeah, definitely haunted,” she murmured. She grimaced, then looked back over her shoulder, before walking deeper into the courtyard and losing the comparative shelter of the wall.

She hurried as quickly as she could, not wanting to flash her butt to the street for longer than necessary. Her toes caught in a string of ivy, though after far too long she managed to pull herself free, and topple in through the front door.

The air cooled suddenly. Johanna gasped, breath misting in front of her, and nipples hardening against her fore-arm. Yep, even if the place hadn’t looked haunted enough, definitely ghosts. She bit her lip, and kicked the door shut behind her. At least the carpet was comfier to stand on.

Muffled noise came from behind a door. Reluctantly, Johanna shuffled forwards, keeping a watchful eye out for more corporeal presences. Ghosts, she could deal with - human company less so, right now.

She nudged a wide door open with her foot, keeping her arms over her body just in case. On the far side of the door was a ballroom, suddenly filled with a frenzy of activity, whirling figures of a dozen different duos, with music suddenly blaring all the more loudly with the door open.

An involuntary squeak escaped her lips. Almost at once, every pair of eyes turned to look at the would-be exorcist.

“Oh f-” Johanna began.

A whirlwind picked up; the door slammed shut, and Johanna stumbled back, and was pushed yet further by the spectral wind. She flailed for a moment, reluctantly using her arms to try to grab onto the wall, then the doorframe - then she was pushed back yet further, feet skidding over the carpet until she was flung out the front door, landing in a naked heap on the grass.

The front door slammed shut. Groaning, Johanna pushed herself up until she was sitting - and looked back to see more than a few eyes drawn by the manor’s ghostly activity. Face red, she crawled back to the doorstep, pushing herself back to her feet just in time to feel the front door sealed. Eyes wide, she rattled the door handle with both hands, shaking slightly.

She’d alerted whatever the source of the mysticism at the house was - it didn’t seem to want to let her back in. Eyes wide, she carefully drew her arms back over her body.

Well, a job was a job regardless, and she couldn’t leave the place haunted. All too aware of her new audience, Johanna shuffled to the side, and managed to push open a window that the spirits thankfully hadn’t thought to seal. Blushing, She pulled herself up over the ledge, slipping in, getting stuck for a few seconds with her ass poking out, before she eventually kicked her way in and slide down onto the carpet.

Muffled music still played in the background. Johanna sighed, exhausted- it was going to be one of those days, she could just feel it.

Johanna was pretty sure she’d been blushing for a whole week, already. Every time she thought about her cheeks, she felt just how warm they were.

And here she was, in a queue. She was expected to check in once a week to report back on her sentence - and naturally enough, no one else had been sentenced to nudity. So she stood, with a line of people ahead of her and behind her, both going on far too long, with nothing but her hands.

She bit her lip. And waited. And waited.

Every couple of minutes she took a step forwards, waiting to reach the end of the line and spend maybe thirty seconds confirming… she wasn’t even sure what, just that she was meant to come here, queue up and deal with something faintly formal before returning to another week of, well, full-time this.

And people were staring. Because of course they were. The queue winded around outside, and was far busier than it felt it ought to be, prolonging her exposure unnecessarily. She must have stuck out, a flesh-coloured figure in the midst of the greys and blacks.

A few more minutes passed. She took a step forward, and absolutely did not yelp when the woman behind her’s bag bumped into her butt. She fidgeted, an arm over her breasts and a hand over her crotch.

After long enough that she was sure the sun ought to be further across the sky, she at last, at last made it to the front of that mortifying line.

“Okay, can we get this over with?” Johanna said, face blazing.

“Name?” said the person at the desk.

“Johanna Constantine,” she said.

“Johanna?” they said. "Johanna.”

“Um… yes?” she said.

“Johanna. Johanna!”

“Johanna! Johanna!”

She blinked, and bumped into something warm. She stumbled, for a moment catching her bearings - right, she was in her room, and it was dark, and…

She took a couple of steps back from Emma, still a little bleary.

“You were sleep-walking,” Emma said gently. “You said I should wake you. Sorry. Um. You can lie down again.”

Unsteadily, Johanna sat back down on her bed. She glanced vaguely at the clock: it flashed 2am. She took a breath. Comfortingly, Emma sat down next to her, gently coaxing her to lie down.

“That felt… like a while,” Johanna murmured. "Longer than a few hours. Way longer."

“Dream-time can be weird,” Emma said. “Sorry. But you can relax. It’s only a few more hours, if you’re okay?”

“I’m…” Johanna murmured.

These dreams, it was easier to sleep after, she reflected. She wasn’t jerking awake, nor needing to pace around for an hour before her heart rate settled. Her face was still burning, but she was still tired, and there was Emma gently rubbing her shoulders.

Before she even finished that thought, she was drifting off into another dream.