Controlled Streaking

It was 2am when Sabrina's phone buzzed and lit up her bedroom. In a daze she sat up in bed, grabbed the offending item, and pressed the "snooze" button. She blinked in the darkness and wondered why on earth she'd been woken up at this ungodly hour. Then she remembered. The realisation of what she was about to do hit her like a cold shower. As she fumbled through the phone's menu to fully disable her alarm, she tried to convince herself that this wasn't really going to happen. She'd just disable the alarm, fall back into bed, and in the morning the whole thing would seem ridiculous. It was a silly idea. She'd just tell the therapist that she had tried but the whole idea was simply insane.

As she shifted her weight to replace the phone she felt an odd sensation against her buttocks. For some reason she could feel the material of the bedsheet and duvet against her skin. Cautiously she raised the cover and looked down at herself. She had gone to sleep wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Both garments were bundled at her feet. Somehow, in her sleep, she'd stripped herself completely naked. Worse yet, when she'd been looking down at her phone she hadn't even realised her breasts were bare. She should have done; they'd been right in her line of sight.

Feeling a sense of cold dread in her stomach, Sabrina retrieved her garments with shaky hands and put them back on. She realised that she was going to have to go through with this. Once dressed, she slipped out of bed and retrieved a hoodie and a pair of comfortable sweatpants she'd prepared before going to bed. She put these on too, then slipped into her sneakers. Now fully dressed, she retrieved her house keys and slid them into her pants pocket.

Sabrina stepped onto the landing and tried to breath quietly. She could hear her parents snoring in their room, and nothing short of a bullhorn could wake her teenage brother when he was asleep. Still, she winced at every creak and scuffle as she made her way downstairs. Once she reached the bottom she waited for any calls of alarm or the movement of somebody getting up to investigate, but none came. Once her nerves were a little better she made her way through the kitchen, unlocked the back door, and stepped out into the garden. Again she waited quietly, savouring the clean night air. No sounds of pursuit from inside, and no sounds from the street reached her either. The world was eerily quiet. Relieved that nobody was around, Sabrina moved towards the side door that separated the back and front gardens. Before she opened it, however, she removed her top layer of clothing. The hoodie and the sweatpants - pulled over her sneakers - were neatly folded and hidden behind the trashcans her family kept there. She patted the pocket to check that the keys were still there, just in case they'd fallen out between here and the kitchen. She felt their misshapen lump in the discarded clothing. Satisfied, she opened the gate and stepped out onto the front lawn wearing her sleepwear and sneakers. She closed the gate behind her and heard the lock slide into place. She gave the gate a jiggle to make sure it was closed and it held tight. Then, carefully, she slid one of her fingers into an innocuous knot in the wood and lifted. The lock moved out of position and the door moved slightly inwards. Sabrina sighed in relief. It still worked. She closed the gate once more.

Now was the hard part. She darted across the lawn to hide behind her mother's car, which was parked in the driveway. Crouching there, she lifted the t-shirt up and over her head and placed it underneath the car. Keeping her head low, she straightened her legs so she was bent over and lowered her shorts down to her ankles. She stepped out of them and kicked them under the car so that they rested beside her t-shirt. Sabrina returned to her crouching position, not quite believing what she'd done. Here she was, completely naked out in public, and this time it was a conscious decision. Not an accident. Not her mother's bullying behaviour. It was her. Sabrina had done this.

Beneath the terror of what she was doing, Sabrina could not help but feel a swelling of pride.

The terror was still the biggest emotion she felt, however, and she found herself struggling with the next step. She had to stand up and move to the sidewalk.