Hayley, star of 'The Naked Sleepwalker'

“Dibs!” said someone at the far side of the crowd.

The sea of women parted slightly; Marion caught a glimpse of someone’s back as they rummaged through her drawers, before pulling out a simple dress. Still, before she’d slipped it on, Marion saw enough to identify the character.

Hayley. The gimmick of her story had been sleep-walking; every night she’d wake up, get out of whatever she was wearing, and wander out her front door. It happened no matter how much effort she put in to stop it.

The one thing she managed to keep on were a sturdy pair of hiking boots – a decision made to at least make the walk easier, if not less embarrassing. She’d wake up curled up on a park bench, or by a bush, or in a neighbour’s garden, and have to quickly figure out where she was and run home.

Medium-length brown hair, and those boots, identified her enough for Marion; she had the blue eyes Marion expected when she turned around, the dress she’d stolen from Marion now serving to preserve what little modesty she still had.

“Wait, we can do that?!” Layla said.

“No way am I going to spend my time here naked too,” Hayley said.

“Alright,” Liz said. “Everyone who physically can get dressed, orderly queue for Marion’s wardrobe. It’s not like she’ll need it.”

There were muffled groans and complaints from the women who couldn’t so easily get dressed. Marion’s eyes skated over those she could recognise – a couple from her superhero series, the ‘Cursed by a Witch’ co-stars, most from her more magically oriented works. There was a couple she remembered fondly, two women holding hands clad in nothing but matching rings.

It had been a more romantic work of hers, two women that were so in love they didn’t care that they’d been cursed to never be dressed when they were within a hundred meters of one another. They didn’t want to spend any time apart. Marion had made a mental note to write a sequel someday; given by the matching blushes, she wasn’t sure that would go over well.

“And seeing as I’m the first one dressed,” Hayley said. “I’ll be the first to get some payback.”

“Hey!” Ashley said. “No fair!”

“Nuh-uh!” Erin said.

“You can wait, surely?” Hayley said. “Plenty of time for her to go around.”

“Now wait a-”

“Everyone, quiet down!” Liz interrupted. “Let her. Believe me, I want my turn as much as any of you, but someone has to go first, and while she’s doing this we can work on some kind of order. Hayley!”

It wasn’t clear if the characters had any leader, but Liz seemed to at least partially fit the bill. Maybe it was just that she was one of the stronger participants.

Marion shrunk back as Hayley approached; Hayley grabbed her by the wrist and pulled, until she fell out of bed. Marion scrambled to her feet, trying to resist.

As she did, Layla yanked the pillow from her grasp, leaving her without even that modest cover.

“You won’t be needing that,” Layla said.

Marion yelped, but didn’t have much time to complain, Hayley already halfway to the door and pulling her along with her.

“Wait!” Marion said, voice high. “You don’t need to do this! I’m sorry, I…”

“It’s only fair,” Hayley said. “You did it to us, so we did it to you.”

“But…” Marion said.

They left the bedroom, and Hayley made a beeline for the door to her apartment. Marion squirmed, trying to free herself from Hayley’s grip; her character really was remarkably strong.

Maybe it had been an oversight in her writing, some descriptor that gave her more strength than she necessarily should have had. Marion could think of a few likely culprits; her daily runs home had involved a lot of shenanigans. One time, holding up a flowerpot in front of herself as cover, another time scaling a wall…

Apparently her writing was just real now. Marion whimpered.

They reached the door. Hayley opened it; Marion promptly stopped squealing as soon as she was pulled into the corridor of her apartment. No way did she want to attract any more attention. If anyone came out to see what the noise was…

She contented herself with a silent, flaming blush.

“Please,” Marion whispered.

Inexorably, Hayley led her on.

“Do you remember my story?” Hayley said. “Waking up in a neighbour’s garden, that first night. You’re in an apartment rather than the suburbs, but I’m sure we can make it work. Only instead of a normal day after, when you make it back you can live out my second night. I sleep-walked to… wasn’t it a bus-stop? Woke up with all the early-morning commuters around me. God, I felt so embarrassed, and that was just the start.”

Marion’s blush deepened. Yeah, she remembered, she remembered everything she wrote.

“If it helps, a lot of people liked you?” Marion tried.

Hayley glowered back. Okay, wrong thing to say.

“Wait!” Marion said quickly. “I gave you a happy ending, didn’t I? Does that help?”

That one she did remember. She always struggled on how to end her stories; if it was just a one-off, then the star getting dressed again usually would do, but anything longer? Someone like Hayley with her regular nude walks needed more.

She’d had Hayley wake up in the mansion grounds of a socialite, alarmingly far off; the woman who owned the place had come out to talk with her, demanding an explanation from the flustered woman before allowing her to leave or to borrow a sheet or anything for modesty.

After stuttering through an explanation, the heiress had been intrigued enough to offer a deal. Hayley could live with her, the mansion’s security and sturdy doors meaning that unless Hayley spontaneously developed superpowers, she wouldn’t be waking up outside and wouldn’t be seen by anything more than the heiress and her staff.

The one condition was for Hayley to never wear anything while she was indoors, naturally enough; otherwise, Hayley was in the lap of luxury, her every need taken care of by an attractive older woman that rather loved having a naked twenty-something around.

Marion had figured, hey, it was her writing, she could be self-indulgent sometimes if she wanted.

“Happy ending?! I’m naked all the time!” Hayley said, blushing, not caring about her volume.

Marion looked nervously around at the apartment doors.

“Yes, but naked with you-know-who,” Marion whispered back. “If you’re the character I wrote, you were happy with that part, especially when, you-know…”

“Not the point!” Hayley said. She reddened a little more, definitely in self-consciousness. “Besides, it’s what it took to get there. Just because I was lucky enough to get a sugar mummy out of it doesn’t mean it wasn’t completely embarrassing!”

They reached the elevator. Hayley pulled her in; Marion swallowed.

Well, that plan was a bust. Once the doors were closed though, Hayley’s voice softened.

“Um. Thank you for her, though,” Hayley said. “I kinda need to play up the anger when the others can see, you know. A lot of them… hey, why am I explaining it? You wrote them.”

Marion bit her lip. Okay, that was a fair point. There were some happy endings, but most of the time she tailored her endings for maximum awkwardness. That was what appealed to her fans after all.

“It’s just my job,” Marion said.

“Yeah, well your job meant my mailman’s seen my bum more times than I can count,” Hayley said.

And the sharpness was back. Even the happy ending didn’t seem to mean Marion was forgiven; maybe that was to be expected. Still, if one of the characters she’d left in a good place was this eager to expose her…

“Um,” Marion said. “If I’m going through your experiences, do I get a cougar too?”

Hey, it didn’t hurt to ask.

“Not going to get that far,” Hayley said. “One of the others will probably steal you before I finish the story. And- wait, no! She’s mine, and this isn’t about rewarding you!”

The elevator doors opened. Marion tried to stay inside, clinging to the railing with one arm as Marion pulled on her other. Moments later, and Marion was pulled into the lobby.

And it wasn’t empty, she realized suddenly. Once she no longer had to hold onto the railing, Marion yelped and clutched her arm over her breasts, stumbling behind Hayley along the floor and past a staring doorman.

“Um. Miss Marion,” he said.

She managed a guilty, mortified smile, unsure of what she could possibly explain why she was being dragged nude by a stranger towards the street.

Oh God, the street. It was still dark, thanks to the time she’d woken up, but it wouldn’t be for all that much longer.

Marion turned her face away from the doorman, not wanting to be identified – if she hadn’t been already – if she had **** but to be seen.

Hayley pushed the door open, and the chill pre-dawn area hit Marion like a wall. The cool was a stark contrast to the relative warmth of inside, raising goosebumps as the outside air hit parts of her it never had before.

As if to warm her up, her cheeks burned even hotter.

She squeaked, too, as her bare feet came down on the cold sidewalk. Still, she wasn’t given any time to relax; the cold air enveloped her entirely, eliciting a full-body shiver.

In the back of her mind, part of her mind couldn’t help but comparing this to her stories. She’d underestimated just how striking the sudden shock of cold air against bare skin would be, just how alien the sensation of the breeze against her inner thighs, her breasts, even more innocent areas like her back would be.

“Okay, you’ve made your point!” Marion yelped. She tried again, in vain, to pull her arm from Hayley’s grip, or to stay back.

“Not yet,” Hayley said. “We haven’t even started.”

Suddenly Hayley turned back around, staring at her piercingly, her gaze making Marion suddenly feel significantly more self-conscious. If that was even possible.

“Okay, I don’t know exactly how this bit works,” Hayley said.

“How what works?” Marion said, a little nervously. She adjusted the one arm she had to cover with.

“Well we can’t just drag you around the city,” Hayley said. “Not practical, and it’s not really… fair. That’s not how you made it happen to us.”

Hayley took a deep breath. She kept staring at Marion.

“Apparently this works,” she said. “Makes you fall into our narrative, or however Sybil put it. This is kinda new to us too you know.”

Sybil, Sybil… It took Marion a moment to place the name. It was something of an irony; in one of her earlier stories, she’d written a woman waking up in a story she’d enjoyed reading. It wasn’t quite the same as her situation though. The woman had been reading a high fantasy story with a seer who was something of a cliché, living in a overly mystical hollow and wearing as good as nothing, but in possession of vast knowledge that she bestowed to regularly visiting heroes.

The fantasy tale wasn’t even an ENF story, but nevertheless the 21st century cosmopolitan woman had woken up in the middle of a damp cave in nothing but a bone necklace and a pelt mattress and swiftly had to adjust. At that point it had certainly turned into an ENF story.

It was one of her earlier works, and not one she was hugely proud of – the ending had kind of petered out – but it explained a little about where any extra knowledge had come from. Sybil naturally knew a lot, at least once she learned to tap into it and not be distracted by her nudity.

“Did you have to take me outside then?” Marion whimpered.

“Oh! Well, no,” Hayley said. “Good point. This probably would have worked just as well indoors. But oh well, we’re here now, ready to do this?”

“No,” Marion said.

Hayley poked out her tongue.

And then leant in and kissed her. At the back of her mind, Marion vaguely registered that magical kisses were something of a cliché so it made sense that would enter into it. She’d taken full advantage of the trope a few times to cause several awkward moments.

Most of her mind was panicking rather more over someone leaning against her while she was naked. Her cheeks grew even redder, but before she could yelp, she found herself growing sleepy.

She stumbled back. Marion was halfway to falling to the ground before she straightened, Hayley taking a step back to watch. Marion’s eyes were closed, and her body was limp, arms to her sides; Hayley let go of her hand.

Hayley had sleep-walked naked countless times. She admittedly took a little, vindictive thrill against seeing the author of her humiliation suffer the same fate.

A few steps behind, Hayley kept her distance and followed, watching the slumbering Marion wander down the street. Sleep-walking. Hayley couldn’t wait to see how she’d react to waking up somewhere awkward for once.