Page 19Moving up

There was one little snag in my careful planning. Alright, my general ad-hoc planning. And that was that changing on the roofs was all good and well, but I didn't realize that I'd have to strip down completely. This being an ocean side city, it was a smooth slope up the further away from the water. So, while the nearby houses were fairly the same height, there were plenty of buildings further back that had windows looking out over the ocean and, if I wasn't careful, a naked me.

That simply wouldn't do.

Alright, I knew I wasn't really that careful with things like nudity, and cared little for them, but that didn't mean I was going to change in plain sight. I was already wearing my new shoes though as I jumped from roof to roof to find a slightly more secluded place to change. It was darker than I'd thought here and it took me a long time to see why.

The ocean.

The light from the city was a lot less, as the ocean was just one black darkness that appeared to absorb it all. At street-level it wasn't too bad, but here above the streets, there was almost no reflected light. The roofs were therefore nice and dark. Nice because I could see fine but others would not be able to see me. There were even some clothes-lines on some of the buildings, with doors opening out to them. Maybe people would even sit here when the sun was nice and friendly.

Which in turn meant...

Okay, I wasn't expecting this exactly, but it was perfectly understandable after I thought about it for a second. One of the roofs had a sort of protection around it, higher especially towards the other buildings further away from the sea. That, combined with two long chairs, it was likely used for sunbathing as buff as possible or as they dared. Perfect for my little changing act.

For some reason I decided to do the unpractical thing and strip down completely. I was glad I did though, for even the tension that I might get caught was a sweet feeling. But that was nothing compared to the lovely feeling of a late evening's breeze from the ocean. Ignoring the subtle scent of ships and people, the salty sea air was like a lover's caress on my sensitive skin.

I did miss Hitori.

With a shiver, mostly from pleasure rather than the cold, I opened the backpack and retrieved all the clothes. The new shoes I'd already been wearing, but socks were definitely preferable for running in them I'd noticed. Even just standing in my underwear, my new bra, socks and panties, felt so gloriously naughty. I was tempted to purr with pleasure and almost caught myself doing it too.

With a blush I put on the rest of my clothes, the dark shirt, the jeans and the shoes.

They fit so nicely. With the tags gone and a after a bit of movement I felt them settle on me quite neatly. I folded up the remaining set and put them back in the bag. It was then I wondered what I would do with the old clothes. There was a sneaky idea that formed in my head but it was too evil, too naughty to actually do..

I couldn't...

But I did...

Testing out the new clothes, as it were, I jumped easily from roof to roof, smiling at how easy it was and how I felt like a black panther in these clothes. As I did so, I hung each of my items, shirt, bra, panties and pants, on different washing lines with different houses. Not too close together either. I basically wanted to limit the chances of any of them knowing each other and finding out that there had been a few of those items. It was only four, so I doubted it would even make the news.

After I'd hung them all in various places, I realized how far I had ventured through the city. With the houses being almost all the same amount of floors, the height difference between them was fairly minimal and definitely traversable for me. Even the houses with a floor extra were doable as long as I kept my eyes open and thought before I leaped.

It only took a minimal of getting used to.

Though the wind was blowing from the ocean, I caught the voices of two men a little further on the roofs. They spoke in whispers and they weren't near a normal house, as far as I could tell. In fact, many of the buildings here looked quite expensive, even business-like. They were either very small offices or boring apartments of sorts. The headline of the newspaper flashed in front of me for just a moment. They wouldn't be burglars or something, would they?

I was about to find out.

They were with the two of them, late thirties at a guess and fairly fully dressed for the warmth. Long sleeves, thin gloves, balaclavas. Yep, burglars. Two villainous encounters in one night, I must really be lucky. They hadn't seen me. Not that that was particularly surprising. I hardly made a noise in my jumps and it wasn't exactly a normal way of travelling for most people. They were fumbling with the door of one of the higher buildings. I was lucky enough to have another, probably office, building next to it to climb on that was the same height. That way I could spy on them without them seeing me.

"What's taking you so long?" The one on the left sounded agitated.

"Almost done, these locks are harder than they look."

"If you can't do it, just say so."

"Nah, Jay's helped me out. Look."

With a gentle click the guy had finally managed to open the lock and, as a result, the door. They headed inside, the right guy picking up something he'd left at the door before they headed in. The door fell gently closed behind him, I had only a fraction of a moment to decide if I would dash over there and follow them. It would be slightly stupid to go in there unprepared, dangerous with possible alarms and perhaps guards. Well, it didn't look like a place that had anyone walking around there at night. Not that there was much to see with the windows being all tinted and reflective. I wouldn't be crazy enough to go after them and put myself in unknown danger, would I?

Of course I would.

I was just in time before the door fell back in it's lock and pushed it open silently. At least the hinges weren't rusted or anything, not a noise. I heard the other two walking further inside and, after another breath, followed in after them.

For a moment I thought they were wearing a Turkish dessert until I read it again and noticed she did spell it better than my mind percieved. Candlelight, while nice and calm, can play tricks on you sometimes.