Exhibit A Part 2

"We're twenty yards from the courtroom."

"Exactly. I've worn it long enough."

She looked down at herself. The absurd little sweatshirt covered her breasts and shoulders. That was essentially its entire contribution.

Below her belly button she was already naked. Her rounded hips were exposed. So were her backside and thick thighs. From the front, there wasn't any mystery left either. Her neatly trimmed pubic hair formed a thin strip, and below it her pussy was plainly exposed, including the naturally darker pigmentation around her pussy and the visible contours of her labia.

Natalie stared down at herself for a second.

Then she looked at Linda.

"Everybody can already see my pussy anyway."

Linda's eyebrows rose.

Natalie pinched the filthy sweatshirt between two fingers.

"What difference do two tits make?"

Harris looked away.

Linda's mouth twitched.

Natalie caught it.

"Exactly."

A women's restroom sat almost directly across from the elevator. Natalie pointed at it.

"I'm taking this fucking thing off."

"You don't have to," Linda said.

"I know. I want to."

She disappeared into the restroom. Inside, Natalie stood in front of the mirror. For the first time since the holding cell, she got a good look at herself. Her long brown hair was drying unevenly, falling in slightly tangled waves around her shoulders.

Every trace of makeup she'd arrived with was gone. Her face looked tired. Her cheeks were still flushed. Her eyes had the unmistakable expression of a woman who'd had quite enough of Thursday morning.

Then there was the hoodie. Dirty gray. Faded logo. Sleeves too long. Body ridiculously short. And nothing whatsoever beneath it.

Natalie stared at her reflection.

"You look fucking insane."

She grabbed the hem and pulled it over her head. Immediately, the smell disappeared.

Natalie stood completely naked in front of the restroom mirror. Oddly, it felt better. She looked like herself again. A very naked version of herself standing in a county courthouse restroom, admittedly, but herself.

Her natural, relatively small breasts settled softly against her chest, with compact medium-brown areolas and darker nipples. Her abdomen was soft rather than perfectly flat, with the gentle lower-belly roundness of a real body. Her waist broadened into full hips and thick thighs, giving her the pear-shaped figure that had always made buying pants more complicated than buying shirts. The thin strip of neatly trimmed pubic hair was visible between her hips, with the darker natural pigmentation of her groin below it.

Natalie turned slightly sideways. Then back.

She'd spent most of the last hour desperately wanting clothes. Now she'd voluntarily taken off the only piece she'd been given.

She shook her head.

"What the fuck happened to my life?"

She carried the hoodie out between two fingers. Harris and Linda were waiting. Natalie emerged completely naked.

Linda looked at her.

Then at the sweatshirt.

"What are you doing with that?"

"Returning it."

"To lost and found?"

Natalie stared at her. "Absolutely not."

She spotted a trash can against the wall, walked over, and dropped the hoodie into it.

"That thing's journey ends here."

Harris looked into the trash.

"You sure?"

"Deputy, if its owner hasn't come looking for it, he made the correct decision."

Linda laughed.

Natalie pointed down the hallway.

"Where's my judge?"

"Right there."

Courtroom Four. Natalie's humor faded.

She stared at the heavy wooden doors.

This was different.

A holding cell was private. The secured corridor had been mostly empty. Even the elevator had contained only a handful of people.

A courtroom was a courtroom.

Judge.

Bailiff.

Court reporter.

Attorneys.

Jurors.

Strangers.

Natalie suddenly became intensely aware of her body again. The air against her bare breasts. The slight movement of them when she breathed. The cold floor beneath her feet. Her exposed hips and thighs. The fact

that there was no angle from which she could pretend she wasn't completely naked.

Her heart began beating harder.

She instinctively started bringing one arm across her breasts.

Then stopped.

"No."

Linda looked at her.

"You okay?"

Natalie lowered her arm. "Nope."

She inhaled.

"But apparently that's no longer a requirement."

Harris walked ahead and opened the courtroom door.

Natalie entered.

The room beyond was polished wood, muted carpet, flags, monitors, microphones, legal pads, suits, and institutional seriousness.

Heads turned.

Then stopped.

The judge had been looking down at paperwork.

He glanced up. His expression changed immediately.

"Whoa."

Natalie stopped inside the doorway.

The courtroom became utterly silent.

The judge looked at Natalie.

Then Linda.

Then Harris.

Then back at Natalie.

"Ms. Moreno?"

Natalie raised one hand.

"Unfortunately."

"I was told you had been provided a sweatshirt."

"You were."

The judge waited.

Natalie gestured behind herself.

"It smelled like a construction worker died in it."

A sound came from one of the counsel tables that might have been somebody suppressing a laugh.

The judge removed his glasses.

"I see."

Natalie glanced down at herself.

"Yes, Your Honor. That's sort of the problem."

The judge looked toward Linda.

"There's nothing else available?"

"No, Judge. We checked facilities and lost and found."

"Nothing?"

"The sweatshirt was it."

The judge looked back at Natalie.

She waited.

Surely this was finally it.

Ms. Moreno, given the circumstances, you're excused.

Home.

Clothes. Coffee.

Preferably alcohol later.

Instead, the judge asked, "You've completed the decontamination?"

Natalie's eyebrows drew together.

"Very thoroughly."

"The fire department cleared you medically?"

"Yes."

"And you're otherwise capable of serving?"

Natalie stared at him.

"Capable?"

"Yes."

She looked down at her naked body.

Then back at him.

"Physically?"

"Yes."

"I suppose."

The judge nodded.

"Then I don't see a reason to excuse you."

Natalie's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

For perhaps the first time all morning, Natalie Moreno had absolutely no comeback. The judge continued.

"This was certainly an unusual and unfortunate accident, but your lack of clothing doesn't prevent you from

listening to testimony, evaluating evidence, or otherwise participating as a juror."

Natalie found her voice.

"Your Honor."

"Yes?"

"I'm naked."

"I'm aware."

"Completely naked."

"I can see that."

Natalie blinked.

"Okay. Just making sure we're working with the same facts." A nervous ripple of laughter traveled through the courtroom.

The judge's expression softened.

"Ms. Moreno, I'm not going to penalize you for something beyond your control. Nor do I think it automatically disqualifies you."

Natalie stared at him.

"So you're not excusing me."

"No."

"Even though I'm standing naked in your courtroom."

"Correct."

She processed that.

"That's a sentence I didn't expect to hear today."

The corner of the judge's mouth moved.

"Nor one I expected to say."

Natalie gave one short, exhausted laugh.

Then she looked around.

Nobody knew where to look.

One attorney had suddenly developed a passionate interest in his legal pad. The court reporter sat unnaturally straight behind her machine. The bailiff seemed to be studying a spot on the opposite wall. Prospective jurors

kept looking toward Natalie and then snapping their eyes elsewhere whenever they thought she'd noticed.

She noticed every single one of them.

Of course she did.

But something had changed. She'd already been blasted with filthy storm water, stripped in a holding cell, caught a deputy looking at her, showered with decontamination soap, dried herself with brown paper towels,

argued with jury administration while naked, worn the world's filthiest hoodie, and voluntarily thrown it away.

Apparently this was Thursday now.

Natalie exhaled.

"Fine."

The judge raised an eyebrow.

"Fine?"

She nodded toward the jury box.

"Where do you want me?"

The bailiff indicated an empty chair. "Juror fourteen."

Natalie started walking.

The first few steps felt impossibly exposed. Her breasts moved naturally with her stride. Her bare feet made almost no sound against the courtroom floor. She could feel eyes attempting not to follow her and knew perfectly well that some of them were failing.

She passed the counsel tables.

Up one small step.

Into the jury box.

Seat fourteen.

Natalie turned and sat.

Her bare backside touched the cold wooden chair.

Her entire body jerked.

"Oh!"

The judge looked over.

"Problem?"

Natalie shifted carefully on the seat.

"No, Your Honor."

A pause.

"Cold chair."

That broke the room.

Laughter rolled through the courtroom. Even the judge laughed. Natalie leaned back, folded her hands in her lap, and shook her head.

Forty-five minutes earlier she'd been walking toward the courthouse drinking coffee, fully dressed, and congratulating herself for arriving twenty-three minutes early.

Now she was completely naked in seat fourteen of a county jury box.

She looked toward the bench.

"Can we at least agree I've satisfied the dress code to the best of my ability?"

The judge smiled.

"I think we'll make an exception."

Natalie nodded.

"Appreciate it."

And just like that, court resumed. Apparently she had jury duty.

Comfort came much faster than Natalie would have believed possible. Not actual comfort. There was nothing particularly comfortable about sitting naked on a wooden chair in a

county courtroom surrounded by strangers. What arrived instead was familiarity. Five minutes passed without the ceiling collapsing. Nobody fainted. The bailiff didn't arrest her for indecent exposure. The judge simply continued with the morning's business, and eventually the sheer normality of everyone else's behavior began dragging Natalie toward normality with them.

The judge addressed the panel. Natalie listened.

The attorneys organized papers. Natalie listened.

The court reporter's fingers moved steadily. Natalie listened.

Her nakedness didn't disappear, but it gradually stopped occupying every inch of her brain.

That was a relief.

It also meant she started noticing everything else.

The courtroom was cold.

Not chilly. Cold.

The air-conditioning vent above the jury box seemed to have been positioned by someone with a personal grudge against jurors. Every few minutes, another stream of refrigerated air rolled downward across Natalie's shoulders and chest.

Her body responded whether she wanted it to or not. Goosebumps spread across her arms first, then her thighs. The fine hairs on her skin lifted. Her nipples tightened noticeably from the cold, standing darker and firmer against the compact brown circles of her areolas.

Natalie noticed.

Naturally. She looked down.

"Oh, come on," she whispered.

The woman beside her glanced over.

Natalie shook her head.

"Air conditioning."

The woman followed Natalie's glance for perhaps half a second, understood immediately, and quickly looked

forward again.

"Sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"I don't know."

Natalie almost laughed.

"Neither do I."

Everyone else was more uncomfortable than she was becoming.

At first, she'd caught people looking constantly. Quick glances. Accidental glances. Longer glances disguised as looking somewhere in her general direction.

There was apparently no established etiquette for sharing a courtroom with a completely naked juror.

Some people overcorrected dramatically. One attorney seemed physically incapable of looking anywhere below Natalie's chin. Another juror had spent so much time staring rigidly at the judge that Natalie wondered if

his neck hurt.

Others weren't nearly as disciplined.

Natalie noticed those too. She wasn't imagining it.

A person's eyes moved differently when they were reading a document than when they were trying to sneak a look at somebody.

She began recognizing the pattern.

Eyes to her face.

Down.

Back up.

Pretend nothing happened.

At first, every instance sent a fresh wave of heat through her cheeks.

After twenty minutes, her internal response had become considerably more sarcastic.

Yep. Still naked. Another glance.

Nope. Didn't grow pants.

Another.

Congratulations. You found the tits.

She shifted in her chair.

The wood had warmed beneath her, at least.

That helped. So did the realization that nobody in the room had actually died from seeing her. Natalie gradually stopped holding herself unnaturally rigid. Her shoulders relaxed. Her hands moved from their protective position in her lap. She tucked damp hair behind one ear. She crossed one ankle over the other. She even forgot, for short periods, that she wasn't wearing anything. That was when the truly dangerous part of becoming comfortable arrived.

Habit.

People didn't normally sit while constantly thinking about how much of themselves their clothing covered. Natalie certainly didn't. You sat down. Shifted around. Crossed your legs. Uncrossed them. Leaned forward. Leaned back. Clothes handled the rest.

Except Natalie didn't have clothes.

The defense attorney was speaking when Natalie adjusted herself again. She leaned back and moved one leg slightly outward because her hip had begun aching from sitting in the same position. A few minutes later, the other followed. Not dramatically. Just comfortably. Her knees were slightly apart. She listened to the attorney. Then something made her look toward the defense table.

The defendant was staring at her.

Not at her face.

Natalie's eyes narrowed.

She followed his line of sight downward.

Her stomach dropped.

"Oh, shit," she whispered.

With her thighs relaxed and slightly separated, the thin strip of neatly trimmed pubic hair and the darker natural pigmentation of her pussy were unobstructed from his angle. She'd become comfortable enough to forget that without underwear, slacks, or even the ridiculous hoodie, an ordinary relaxed sitting position could reveal

far more than she intended.

Natalie's thighs closed immediately.

Her face became hot.

Then hotter.

She looked directly at the defendant.

He realized he'd been caught and snapped his attention toward his attorney.

Natalie stared at the side of his head.

Motherfucker.

For several seconds, the old embarrassment returned at full strength. Her pulse accelerated. Her shoulders tightened. She placed one hand over the other in her lap.

Then irritation began overtaking embarrassment.

She hadn't chosen this.

She wasn't performing for anybody.

She'd been ordered into this courtroom after repeatedly explaining that she had no clothes.

And now this asshole was treating jury duty like he'd accidentally gotten the best seat at a show.

Natalie continued staring until the defendant finally risked another glance toward her face.

Their eyes met.

Natalie raised one eyebrow. His gaze immediately returned to the table.

That's what I thought.

The woman beside Natalie leaned slightly closer.

"You okay?"

Natalie kept looking forward.

"Apparently I got too comfortable."

The woman hesitated.

Then understood.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Another pause. "Was he staring?"

Natalie glanced toward the defense table.

"Like he was trying to memorize something."

The woman covered her mouth.

Natalie fought a smile.

"Don't make me laugh."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

That only made it worse.

Natalie pressed her lips together, shoulders beginning to shake.

The judge looked toward the jury box.

"Everything all right, Juror Fourteen?"

Natalie immediately straightened.

"Yes, Your Honor."

The judge studied her.

Natalie maintained an entirely innocent expression.

"Just adjusting to the climate."

A couple of jurors snickered.

The judge looked toward the vent above

her.

"Is it too cold?"

Natalie glanced down at her bare body. Then back at him.

"Your Honor, I feel like I'm operating with a slight disadvantage in that department."

The courtroom laughed.

The judge nodded.

"Fair point."

Even Natalie laughed this time.

And just like that, the embarrassment loosened its grip again.

She sat back.

This time she kept her knees together.

Lesson learned.

Her body would continue doing normal human things. Cold would raise goosebumps and tighten her nipples. Sitting would flatten and shift soft flesh. Walking would make her breasts and hips move. Her hair would

continue drying into whatever shape it chose. None of those things meant anything beyond the fact that she was a living human being whose clothes happened to be sealed downstairs in a hazardous-material bag.

She couldn't control any of that.

She could, however, control one thing. Natalie looked toward the defendant. He immediately looked away. A small smile appeared on her face.

Good.

They understood each other now.

The strangest thing was that Natalie never forgot she was naked.

She'd expected that if she remained that way long enough, her brain might eventually tune it out completely. It didn't. There was always some reminder waiting for her. The cold air from the vent moving across her bare

shoulders. The wooden chair against her backside. Her hair brushing skin that ordinarily would have been covered by a blouse. The subtle movement of her breasts when she shifted position. The complete absence of fabric when she crossed her legs.

She knew.

Every minute, she knew.

What changed was how much the knowledge bothered her. Courtroom Four was becoming familiar. Natalie knew the woman beside her was Denise. She knew Marcus clicked his pen when he was concentrating. Mr. Alvarez pushed his glasses up his nose constantly. The bailiff was Reynolds. The court reporter was Susan. She recognized both attorneys' voices without looking up. She knew which door squeaked, which chair in the jury box creaked, and exactly how long it took the

air-conditioning to kick back on after it stopped.

These weren't simply strangers staring at a naked woman anymore. They were the same people she'd been sitting with for hours.

That distinction mattered. At the beginning, Natalie had tracked every pair of eyes in the room. She could practically feel someone

looking at her before she caught them doing it. Every glance had seemed enormous. Her face would heat, her stomach would tighten, and she'd become acutely aware of whatever part of her body their attention had landed

on.

Now she didn't bother keeping inventory.

People looked. Of course they did.

She was the only naked person in a county courtroom.

What the hell did she expect?

That didn't mean she liked it.

It simply meant she was tired of allowing somebody else's eyes to determine what she did with her own body.

She sat more naturally now. Her shoulders weren't hunched. She didn't keep one arm pressed across her breasts or both hands strategically arranged in her lap. When her hair fell forward, she swept it back. When her

hip became uncomfortable, she shifted. When the courtroom got especially cold, goosebumps traveled over her arms and thighs and her nipples tightened involuntarily.

Earlier, she'd been mortified when that happened.

Now she looked down once, noticed it, and thought, Fucking air conditioner.

That was about as much attention as she was willing to give it.

Denise leaned toward her during a pause between questions.

"You doing okay?"

Natalie kept her eyes forward.

"I'm sitting naked in a jury box."

"I know."

"Then let's call it a qualified yes."

Denise smiled.

Natalie glanced sideways.

"Don't make it weird."

"I'm not."

"Good."

That was more like it. Natalie didn't need reassurance. She didn't want somebody telling her how brave she was or how well she was handling things. She certainly didn't want to have a meaningful conversation about accepting her body while twelve feet away an attorney shuffled exhibits.

She wanted everyone to acknowledge that the situation was completely ridiculous and then get on with it.

Apparently, that was beginning to happen.

The attorney resumed speaking.

Natalie listened.

A few minutes later, she felt another pair of eyes.

She looked over.

Marcus. His gaze snapped upward.

Natalie stared at him.

Marcus turned red.

She waited.

Eventually he risked looking at her face again.

"You done?" Natalie whispered.

"Sorry."

"Good."

She turned back toward the attorney.

That was it.

No teasing.

No invitation.

No attempt to embarrass him further.

Natalie didn't particularly care whether Marcus found her attractive, unattractive, interesting, or anything else. She just wasn't going to spend the morning pretending she couldn't tell when someone was staring at her tits.

Five minutes later, she'd forgotten about it.

That, more than anything, showed her how much she'd changed. Earlier, the incident would have occupied her thoughts for twenty minutes.

Now?

Marcus looked.

Marcus got caught.

Marcus stopped.

Problem solved.

The defendant was different.

She still remembered him staring between her legs. That hadn't felt like ordinary curiosity. She'd caught the intensity of it. She remembered following his line of sight and realizing that she'd relaxed enough for her knees to drift apart. She remembered closing her legs immediately and the flush that had traveled all the way up her chest.

She hadn't forgotten.

When she happened to look toward the defense table now, the defendant usually looked elsewhere.

Good.

Natalie wasn't going to spend the day guarding herself from him, either. She had a job to do.

That thought surprised her.

A job.

Somewhere along the way, she'd stopped thinking of herself exclusively as the woman who'd been blasted with storm-drain water and started thinking of herself as Juror Fourteen.

A very naked Juror Fourteen.

But still. The judge asked the panel another question. Natalie raised her hand. She didn't think about being naked before she did it.

That realization came afterward.

Huh.

She lowered her hand when the judge acknowledged her, answered his question, and listened as he moved on.

Nobody gasped.

Nobody cared that raising her arm had changed the position of her breast slightly.

Nobody cared that she wasn't wearing clothes.

Or, more accurately, they cared less than they had an hour ago.

That was happening to everyone. The novelty was wearing off. When the judge finally announced a fifteen-minute recess, Natalie immediately thought about coffee.

Then she remembered where her coffee had gone.

"Son of a bitch."

Denise looked over.

"What?"

"My coffee."

"What about it?"

"The storm drain stole it."

Denise laughed.

Natalie stood and stretched before she thought about it.

Her arms went over her head.

Her back straightened.

Her breasts lifted naturally with the movement, her soft abdomen lengthening as she worked a kink out of her lower back.

Halfway through, she realized what she was doing.

She stopped.

Her arms remained overhead for a second.

Denise looked at her. Natalie looked down at herself. Then she slowly finished the stretch.

"Well."

"What?"

"Apparently we're stretching naked now."

Denise shrugged.

"You needed to stretch."

"That's not the point."

"What is?"

Natalie considered it.

She honestly wasn't sure.

Finally she lowered her arms.

"Never mind."

That bothered her for a moment. Not because she'd stretched. Because she hadn't thought about it first. She'd simply done what her body needed to do. It was probably the first completely natural movement she'd made since the accident.

The thought followed her as she stepped down from the jury box. Other jurors were standing now. People gathered papers, stretched their legs, talked quietly, and headed toward the door.

Natalie went with them.

Nobody cleared the hallway.

Nobody called Harris.

Nobody announced that the naked woman was moving.

She simply joined the group.

And for several seconds, it felt completely normal. Then the courtroom door opened.

The hallway changed everything. There were strangers out there. A man sitting on a bench looked up.

His eyes widened.

A woman standing beside an attorney stopped speaking midsentence.

Another man came around the corner, saw Natalie, and visibly slowed.

Natalie's comfort evaporated by half.

Her arms moved instinctively toward her chest.

She caught herself doing it.

This time, she let them stay there.

Denise noticed.

"Different?"

"Very."

Inside Courtroom Four, everybody already knew.

Out here, Natalie became an event again.

Every new person had to experience the same first three seconds.

Recognition.

Confusion.

Is that woman actually naked? Then the eyes.

Natalie hated those three seconds.

She moved closer to the other jurors without consciously deciding to. That helped. There was safety in the group, although she couldn't have explained why. She wasn't some naked woman wandering around the courthouse by herself. She was clearly with the jury panel.

At least that gave people context.

Not much context.

But some.

One man walking past looked at her, looked away, then looked back.

Natalie caught him.

He immediately looked forward. She continued walking.

Whatever.

That was new too.

The juror break room was small and aggressively ordinary.

Countertop.

Sink.

Microwave.

Refrigerator.

A coffee machine that looked at least fifteen years old.

Stacks of Styrofoam cups.

Powdered creamer.

Sugar packets.

Natalie saw the coffee machine.

Everything else disappeared.

"Oh, thank God."

Denise laughed.

"That serious?"

Natalie picked up a cup.

"Do you have any idea what kind of morning I've had?"

Denise looked at her naked body.

Natalie stared back.

"Fair."

She poured coffee.

The smell alone improved her mood. She added creamer, stirred it with one of the tiny wooden sticks, and took a careful sip. Her eyes closed. For the first time since she'd reached the courthouse, something happened exactly the way it was supposed to.

Hot coffee.

Nothing exploded.

Nobody ordered her to remove anything. No deputy watched her drink it.

No judge needed to authorize it.

Just coffee.

"Good?" Denise asked.

Natalie took another sip.

"Nobody talk to me for thirty seconds."

Denise nodded.

"Understood."

Natalie stood against the counter drinking.

She was completely naked. And for those thirty seconds, she didn't give a shit.

Marcus entered.

Natalie saw his eyes register her again.

Not stare.

Just register.

She noticed something else.

His reaction wasn't remotely as dramatic as it had been earlier.

"Coffee?" he asked.

Natalie pointed at the machine.

"Apparently the county can provide that."