Yasmin Khan and the castle of embarrassment

The light illuminated a fairly dark skinned woman, her long black hair stopping just short of hiding her nipples, and she was lifted up into the air to be suspended in front of the Judge, high in the middle of the courtroom, again.

She squirmed, vainly trying to cover up with her arms again. The Judge seemed oblivious.

“Yasmin Khan. Denizen of Earth, 2018,” the Judge said. “Please inform the court of a time you were naked, and your reaction to it.”

The same question. Yasmin squeaked, and bit her lip, but as the light over her head flashed she found it very hard to keep silent. She fidgeted as she spoke, but could never move enough to do much more than press her legs together and try very, very hard into deluding herself into thinking that offered her any kind of modesty.

“We’d landed on another world. It didn’t look like anything special, though when we arrived we couldn’t see much of it. It was night, stormy, and the ground underneath us was covered in puddles and mud. As soon as we stepped outside, we ran for cover.

It was only after that we realised how close to the edge of a cliff the TARDIS was parked. As thunder rumbled across the sky, the tip of the cliff gave way and the blue box fell down into the valley below.

It wasn’t irretrievable, but it would take more work to find a route down to it, if there even was one, and just then we were more concerned about finding shelter. Luckily, nearby, we saw what looked like a castle.

We ran over there through the pouring rain, and the Doctor and Ryan banged on the doors until they opened.

I never understood how so many patterns repeated across worlds. It looked like a castle that wouldn’t have been out of place on Earth; even the inhabitants looked human, mostly, despite the patches of unnatural blues and greens and yellows that sometimes popped up on their skin. They were welcoming, though.

There were a couple of guards that led us through the castle. They weren’t threatening or anything, but apparently guests had to present themselves to the Queen, so that was where we were going.

It wasn’t far to the throne room. The Queen sat at the far side; it was easy to identify her, the bright violets and golds of her elaborate dress as much as a clue as the ornate throne she sat on.

“Your majesty, we’re just travellers, we were passing nearby when we were caught in the storm and this was the first shelter we saw,” the Doctor said. She was usually good at either befriending locals or getting us arrested within the first minute of landing, and nothing in between; thankfully it was the former this time.

“One understands,” the Queen said. “Nevertheless, tradition dictates guests in my realm present me with a gift.”

“Oh, ah, I’m not sure how much we have,” the Doctor said.

“Allow me to judge,” the Queen said.

She stood up, her skirt springing out now it was no longer constrained in the throne, and she walked from one of us to he next in turn. Luckily whatever alien world this was, whatever their appearance their idea of gifts wasn’t a human one.

She just wanted to hear Ryan say a certain word; apparently she liked his voice. Graham had rummages around in his pockets and pulled out a stray sweet wrapped, and that was enough for her; it probably would have been a novelty this far from Sheffield high street. She asked for a lock of the Doctor’s hair (I hadn’t passed any blondes in the castle, so apparently that too counted as a rarity).

Then she came to me. She looked me up and down for a moment, and then spoke.

“What are those?” she said.

I followed her eyes down.

“Um. My trousers,” I said.

“Trow-sers? Excellent! I’d like those,” she said.

I stammered. The Doctor leaned in to whisper to me to make sure we stayed on good terms with the Queen; we’d probably need her help to get the TARDIS back after the storm cleared.

I couldn’t blame her for wanting them, they were certainly more practical than the massive skirt she had on, but I didn’t exactly have any replacements with me. And I didn’t have any choice either. Reluctantly I pushed them down my legs; they clung to me slightly after the rain so I had to bend over more, pushing harder, my cheeks warming as I finally succeeded in kicking them off and watching the Queen pick them up curiously.

I had on underwear, of course, but it wasn’t exactly… the most modest. I liked having something secret on underneath, just for fun; it wasn’t like I’d expected to lose my pants!

But now I had, and what I was standing there in basically left my ass completely bare. I couldn’t meet Ryan or Graham or the Doctor in the eyes, and stood there, nervously trying to pull the hem of my shirt down. It didn’t work.

“Now, do you require a room?” the Queen said.

“That’d be great, your maj,” the Doctor said, grinning. “Sorry to be a bother, but our, uh, transport got caught in the storm.”

“I’ll see what I can do tomorrow,” the Queen said. “For now, Captain! Lead them to our guest rooms.”

We were guided through the castle. It felt like a much, much longer walk than the one to the throne room with as little as I had on, and I kept to the back, not wanting any of my travelling companions to see me from behind like this. I turned any time someone else passed us in the corridor to keep my ass facing the wall, but my legs still felt so exposed.

There were two rooms. Ryan and Graham took one, which left the Doctor and me in the other. I hurried inside gratefully, shutting the door behind me and taking a moment to catch my breath.

That was when the Doctor started taking her clothes off.

“Um, Doctor,” I said.

“Yaz?” she said innocently.

“What are…” I said. I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“We were just caught in a storm,” the Doctor said. “Need our clothes to dry. You should too. This places looks medieval, but their technology has to be a bit beyond Earth’s. I’ve been in medieval castles, they’re never this well lit or this warm, so… aha! Radiator!”

She was topless when she pulled a tapestry to the side and flung her jacket and shirt over it, then extended a hand. Cheeks warm, I obliged and gave her my shirt, socks, bra, and finally my panties. She had a point, I was just much less comfortable being naked after my brief exposure out there.

Apparently it was late, local time. We went to sleep, both of us completely naked. There was only one bed, which was definitely awkward, but so was the fact that come the next day I’d still basically have my ass out the whole time.

Well, I say we slept. I didn’t get much sleep. My cheeks were burning, and I felt the unfamiliar bedsheets against so, so much of my skin; I didn’t even sleep nude at home, let alone on an alien world, and let alone with the Doctor.

But there we were anyway. As if the alien sheets against my tits wasn’t enough, I felt her behind me, sometimes bumping into me which really didn’t help how embarrassed I was.

At least in the morning I could get dressed again, for what little it was worth. It was nice to pull on my shirt when it was all toasty and warm. Less nice was what the radiator had done to the plastic of the bra clasps; I don’t know if it was the heat or just some chemical on this world, but they were ruined, meaning I had to forgo my bra.

I was only wearing shoes, socks, a shirt and a thong when I went back outside with the Doctor. I couldn’t stand still; I kept squirming, mortified, my back against the wall every second I could and my hands over my crotch to add what little cover I could to my panties.

That was when we got the next bit of bad news. When the Queen had said ‘tomorrow,’ she’d meant the next day, not after we’d woken up. The day-night cycle on this planet wasn’t like Earth’s; I didn’t get a concrete answer on how long it was, but it was made clear that we weren’t going to be gifted new clothes, just the room. We’d have to pay for anything else and with the Doctor’s usual lack of currency, that left me spending the whole day as good as bottomless.

The Queen started wearing my old trousers too. She found me alone on, I think, our second day there.

“These really are marvellous,” she said. “Where ever did you get them?”

“Our, uh, home,” I stammered. I knew not to say we were time and space travellers. “A long way away.”

“It’s exquisite!” she said. “May I have another sample of the material? I’d like my weavers to take a look.”

She phrased it as a question, but coming from a monarch it definitely wasn’t just a request. I knew that if I said no we’d be kicked out of the castle, which couldn’t happen until we could get to the TARDIS, which meant…

That was how I lost my shirt too. I tried asking for clothes, but she looked at me strangely; the Doctor had mentioned that while most worlds had a nudity taboo, it wasn’t really all that common. Clothes could be looked at more as a fashion statement or luxury rather than a requirement, so no matter how utter embarrassing all this was, asking these people for spare clothes was like asking them for a banquet.

I wasn’t going to get anything.

I ran into everyone else again in just my panties. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, my cheeks burning hot.

“Please. Let’s not talk about it,” I said.

Travelling with the Doctor was meant to be fun and adventure, not a way to show off my tits!”

(“Yasmin Khan, the question was about total nudity.”

“I- I’m getting there,” Yasmin whimpers)

“I made a stupid mistake. I took one of the sheets out from mine and the Doctor’s room to wrap around myself, hoping that it would give me some small amount of modesty, but they considered it stealing. The Doctor tried to explain things, but…

It’s always hard to work out how different cultures will take different things. That time, they thought it was enough of a crime to misuse an object from the castle that they, um…”

(Yaz bites her lip)

“The Doctor insisted that they were more advanced than Earth-medieval society, but they still had stocks set up in a wide open chamber. There was that too; though it looked like a castle, it connected to a network of caves where most of the people of this world seemed to live. It was like a city. And at the border between the castle and those caves was a large brightly lit room with stocks in the centre.

The Doctor tried to talk the Queen out of it, but she insisted she couldn’t just pardon this. There was nothing they could do. The guards led me out and…”

(Yaz whimpers)

“They took my panties. I never got them back even after, apparently it was some equivalent of a fine because they were all I had on me, and they left me there, stuck in place and bent over, starkers.

My head and hands were in the stocks, while the rest of me was bent over and still n-naked. Even if we were technically inside the chamber was large enough that I could feel the wind against me, and so many people walked past, and…

Even when I got out, I didn’t have my clothes back, and it was a long time before day. And even then I had to wait around outside for the TARDIS to be lifted out, before running inside. I never wanted to think about it again.”

Yasmin squirmed as best she could, her cheeks burning hot as she recounted her humiliating tale, still just as naked in front of everyone. The Judge eyed her with its metal shape unreadable.

“C-can I go back now?” Yasmin said, voice high.

Lights flickered.