She soon loses the towel

The next half hour took days to pass, at least in Mackenzie’s estimation. She tried several times to resume reading her book, but couldn’t muster the concentration. Her tenuously clothed situation was too distracting to get out of her mind entirely. So instead, she simply sat there, listening to the hum of the machines and staring out into the room. All the while, both hands were clamped firmly on the top and bottom edges of her towel, her sole vestige of modesty.

Peter, as far as she could tell, was doing largely the same thing. At least in terms of silently staring into space. He was, thankfully, not blatantly ogling Mackenzie. Although she swore she noticed his gaze drift over in her direction a handful of times.

When the buzzer for Peter’s washing cycle went off, Mackenzie practically jumped off the bench entirely. She hadn’t realized quite how tense she’d been that entire time! As Peter rose to extract his laundry, Mackenzie took advantage of finally being out of his view for a few moments. She gave herself a quick once over, making sure the towel hadn’t slipped or moved in some way she hadn’t noticed. Luckily, it seemed she was in the clear. The redhead sighed in relief. It would’ve been just her luck to have been sitting there partially exposed all those minutes, not having even noticed it!

As Peter moved his laundry over to a dryer, Mackenzie noticed that he was placing it in the machine directly left of hers. Thanks to her frequent use of the laundry room, Mackenzie had gotten a pretty good feeing of which washers and dryers worked best and which ones left something to be desired. In truth, almost all of the dryers had something wrong or slightly broken about them, each quirk a bit different from the others. And Peter was putting his wet clothes in the dryer that barely functioned. He had helped her before, even if it had been kind of embarrassing. Plus, he’d been about as polite as possible to her so far, considering the circumstances. So, Mackenzie felt obliged to return the favor.

“Um, hey,” she said, opting to stay seated, “you might want to use a different machine. That fifth one from the left barely dries your clothes at all. It took me like three full cycles to get everything dry the last time I used it.”

“Oh thanks,” he replied, glancing down at the dryer he’d been putting his things into. “Um, but wait… This one’s the fourth from the left?”

“Huh?” Mackenzie blankly replied.

“Yeah,” he said, visibly counting the dryers to the left of him. “This one’s the fourth. Your stuff’s in the fifth one…”

“What?” Mackenzie gasped, standing up and walking forward to get a better view of the machines. Peter was right. In her haste and embarrassment earlier, she’d transferred her damp clothes into the fifth dryer, not the fourth dryer as she’d meant to. “Shit!”

The redhead hit the Stop button on the dryer, stopping the machine with 16 minutes still left on it. With a CLICK! the small circular door unlocked and Mackenzie was able to swing it open. Sure enough, her clothes felt barely drier at all, despite their half hour spent in the machine.

“Ugh, just great…” she mumbled as she began moving her clothes into the machine on her right. What had been wrong with this one again?

“Ah, sorry about that,” Peter said after a few moments. “Do you, uh, want to use this one?”

“Not your fault,” she replied, forcing herself to drop the edge from her voice. She was mad at herself not him. “And no, you go ahead and use it. You’ve already got your stuff in there anyway. Thanks for letting me know, at least.”

Peter nodded and started up the fourth dryer as Mackenzie continued moving her things into the sixth dryer. It didn’t take long, and by the time Peter had sat back down on the bench, Mackenzie had everything inside and ready to tumble. She took a few moments to make sure she hadn’t dropped any other errant garments this time before shutting the door and moving her finger up to the control panel.

That’s when Mackenzie remembered what the sixth dryer’s deal was. It was missing the Start/Stop button. However, rather than actually repairing the machine, whoever held that responsibility had found a much simpler workaround. A small yellow note taped to the machine read “Machine Still Works!!! Select Cycle Settings Then SLAM DOOR “HARD” And It Will Go!!!!”

Mackenzie once again rolled her eyes at the quadruple exclamation marks and use of quotations for emphasis. She’d used the machine previously, so she knew the dryer actually did dry the clothes once it got going. And so, not wanting to waste more time transferring her clothes to yet another machine, Mackenzie opted to just take the simple route.

She chose her settings, double checked that everything was inside the machine, and placed a hand on the circular glass door. It had taken her three tries to slam it closed hard enough last time, with the final attempt having the added bonus of jostling her towel free of her body. She had been alone in the laundry room that time, at least. But still, it wasn’t the kind of thing Mackenzie wanted to repeat now that she had an audience. So, resolving to get the door closed in one go, Mackenzie opened it fully, preparing to shove it as hard as she damn well could. Her other hand kept its grip on the towel, clutching it together at her chest, just in case.

In one swift motion, Mackenzie put all her strength into swinging the door shut. With a resounding CLANG! and a loud CLICK! the door closed and locked into place. She had done it! But in her efforts to get the door closed, Mackenzie had also accomplished something quite unfortunate. As the door had swung shut, it had caught the hem of her towel. And with all of her **** behind the swing, the towel had come undone and slipped free of her body with practically no resistance at all. The dryer door had ripped the towel off her body and deposited it with the rest of the clothes, about to undergo a fresh 45 minute cycle.

As the machine whirred to life, tumbling and clanking away with no way to pause or stop it, Mackenzie was left standing there. Stark naked.