Scene 8 — Lindsey

Lindsey hugged Cal back; she was ecstatic they had won after all the trials and tribulations of the weekend.

“Alright, well congratulations I suppose,” Laurie said, “you can take off the blindfold, Lindsey.”

Lindsey was immediately on guard ... something wasn’t right. Laurie was always incredibly enthusiastic at the end of challenges. Lindsey had even begun to suspect Laurie was secretly rooting for her and Cal. But the organizer’s tone was one of almost suspicion, or maybe resignation.

‘Did we miss something? Did we do something wrong?’ Lindsey thought to herself, her mind swirling. She slipped off her blindfold and blinked a few times as her eyes readjusted to the light. They were in a small clearing in the forest. Laurie had a small card table with a chair and laptop but had risen and was walking towards them.

“Ok please stand with your feet shoulder width apart, arms to the sides with hands over your heads. Same way you do when you through the scanner at the airport,” Laurie instructed.

Laurie’s orders reminded Lindsey that she was naked aside from her panties and her first instinct was to cover herself. She reminded herself that Cal wasn’t seeing anything he hadn’t before and Laurie wasn’t going to do anything untoward but she still felt embarrassed standing there in so little clothing. She adopted the pose that Laurie had told them to, and bemusedly thought back to when she had gone through security at O’Hare Airport two days ago before her flight down and had to do this pose.

Laurie approached them with a sour look on her face. Lindsey was racking her brain trying to figure out what they had done wrong, but couldn’t think of anything. She looked at Cal with a raised eyebrow and he gave a small shrug to indicate he was equally clueless. Laurie circled around both of them, staring at their bodies, then stopped behind Lindsey and squatted down. Lindsey glanced over her shoulder and the other woman seemed to be staring at her butt. ‘What the hell is going on?’ Lindsey thought to herself, had Laurie suddenly become some sort of weird pervert? She had previously really liked her but was suddenly questioning everything.

“I’ll be damned,” Laurie muttered after a few seconds of close examination of Lindsey’s rear. “I apologize for giving you two the close examination, it’s just that normally when a team finishes without wearing everything they started out with it’s because they are trying to avoid the time penalty for having fallen in one of the pits. That’s why I was looking so closely at your butt, Lindsey, the light pink of your panties would have stained from the beet juice. I do have to ask though, where the heck are your clothes?”

“I used them to fashion a rope to get us over the last obstacle,” Cal explained, clearly proud of the solution he’d come up with. It had been clever, Lindsey agreed, but Laurie stared at them dumbfounded.

“Did you not see the sign to take one from the box after the second to last obstacle? You know that one with ropes?” the older woman asked incredulously.

“Uh, I was blindfolded at the time, so no...” Cal answered and looked at Lindsey. Lindsey felt herself blushing and started to stammer an explanation. Laurie began chuckling, and kept laughing harder and harder. Lindsey could tell she was turning what had happened over in her head and finding it hilarious.

“Wow! You two...” Laurie said once she had her laughter partially in check, “we have seen a lot of great teams out here come up with some amazing solutions to our challenges. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a pair as determined as you though. I can tell you with certainty we’ve never had a team miss the rope and still win this challenge. That does happen, teams missing the rope clue, but it’s always curtains for them as a result. Truly I’m impressed, I’m honestly stunned that you could overcome it, I just can’t believe it. Congratulations, you two are more than worthy champions.”

Lindsey found herself blushing even harder. She also became self-conscious about the fact she was topless and put one arm across her chest to cover her breasts as best she could.

“Anyways,” Laurie continued, “let’s get the customary winning team picture.” She pulled out a slightly dated digital camera and indicated they should stand together at the finish line.

“Erm, at the risk being accused of further white knighting, would you like to borrow my shirt for the picture?” Cal offered.

“I’m going to call that gentlemanly, thank you Cal,” Lindsey replied, grinning. He removed his shirt and passed it to her.

“Laurie, you are absolutely, 100% positive these pictures can’t be stolen, correct?” Lindsey inquired.

“Yes, only on a local area network, no internet connection,” Laurie confirmed.