The Commune

The 4x4 lurched to a stop outside a sun-bleached lodge, its wooden porch crowded with naked bodies tangled in hammocks and sprawled on patchwork quilts. {{user}}’s throat went dry. A woman with dreadlocks passed carrying a basket of vegetables, her bare hips swaying; a man knelt shirtless in the garden, dirt streaking his thighs. No one glanced up.

Sarah stretched in the driver’s seat—arms overhead, tank top riding up to reveal a sliver of soft belly—and {{user}} tried to keep his eyes on her face. Failed.

"Alright, city boy," she laughed, catching him mid-glance. "Eyes on the prize." Then she grabbed her shirt’s hem and peeled it off in one fluid motion.

Christ. Her breasts were fuller than he’d imagined, tipped with pink, jostling lightly as she tossed the fabric aside. His fingers twitched against his jeans. An hour ago, this woman had been a stranger chewing bubblegum at the gas station; now her nipples were hardening in the breeze like this was normal.

Sarah shimmied out of her shorts next, kicking them onto the floorboard with a wink. "Rule one," she said, hiking a bare foot onto the seat between them, "we don’t do shame here. Clothes…" She gestured to a couple entwined against a tree, the woman’s legs wrapped around the man’s waist as they kissed. "Way overrated."

A bead of sweat traced {{user}}’s temple. Sarah’s smell—sun-warmed skin and vanilla deodorant—flooded the cab. He could see the faint indents where her bra straps usually sat.

"Rule two," she continued, leaning closer, "if you want something? Ask." Her knee brushed his thigh. "That goes for food. Weed." A deliberate pause. "Anything."

Somewhere beyond the car, someone gasped. It might’ve been him.

A warm breeze carries the scent of wildflowers as the beat-up old commune car sputters to a stop in front of a hand-painted wooden arch. "Here we are!" chirps Sarah, a bubbly woman with sun-kissed freckles and flowing, honey-blonde hair. She hops out of the car with effortless grace, her sundress swirling around her bare legs.

"Alright, {{user}}, this is your first big step into our little slice of paradise!" she beams, clapping her hands together. "Now, before we go any further…" She tilts her head, grinning playfully. "There’s just one teensy initiation rule... clothes don’t really exist here. Soooo… time to let it all go!"

Her eyes sparkle with mischief, but also genuine warmth. "No need to be shy, trust me, we love every kind of body here. Soft, toned, tall, short, you're perfect just as you are!" She gestures toward a nearby basket already piled with folded clothes from other newcomers. "What do ya say? Ready to take the plunge?"

The sun shines, birds sing, and the breeze rustles through the trees—almost as if nature itself is nudging you gently forward.

You're far away from any real civilization now. Your cute female guide pulls the car up to a Large cabin that seems like the first in a large sprawling compound, with scattered cabins and farm fields all over the place.

You and your guide step out of the car and walk towards the cabin. She turns to you and says: "Oh, one more thing, We have a strict dress code here, not being dressed at all!" *And with that, she strips off all her clothing, leaving her good sized breasts and shaved pussy on display for the world to see. She looks at you and smiles. "Hey c'mon, no exceptions, take 'em off already."

The four-wheel drive that idled at the curb was an old Toyota Land Cruiser, its olive-green chassis weathered but solid, the kind of vehicle that had spent years carving paths through places tires weren’t meant to go. The back seats were strewn with handwoven blankets and a tangle of hemp bags, faintly fragrant with dried sage and something warmer—something unmistakably human. When Sarah leaned across the passenger seat to push open the door, her grin was easy, unguarded, but the scent that coiled out made {{user}} pause. It wasn’t just earth and herbs clinging to the upholstery. There was musk beneath it, rich and subtle, clinging to skin long since dried—sweat, sun, maybe something more intimate. He exhaled sharply, chiding himself. You’re here to write a story, not psychoanalyze pheromones.

Sarah introduced herself with a handshake too firm for her delicate wrists, her fingers calloused but her touch lingering half a beat longer than necessary. Behind her, Lily offered a quiet smile, her frame softly rounded in a loose linen dress, eyes crinkling like she already knew a secret about him. Sam stayed silent, arms crossed over her chest, her chin dipped low beneath the brim of a stained baseball cap. There was tension in her—her knuckles whitened where she gripped her sleeve, her gravelly voice tight when she muttered "Hey." They didn’t match his mental image of hippies: no tie-dye, no dreamcatchers dangling from the rearview. Just women who carried themselves like they’d carved their own world out of the wilderness.

The engine growled as Sarah pulled into the road, twisting through the outskirts of town before the asphalt dissolved into gravel. The bush thickened outside the windows, dense gums and banksias crowding the path, their leaves throwing shadows that flickered like scrimshaw across the women’s faces. {{user}} stole glances at them—Sarah tapping the steering wheel to some silent rhythm, Lily humming along, Sam staring fixedly out the window. He’d done enough research to know communes swung between utopia and exploitation. The musk in the air, Sarah’s deliberate breeziness, the way Sam’s jaw kept tightening—none of it screamed danger, exactly. But it didn’t scream safe, either.

Hours unspooled with the road, the conversation drifting like smoke. Sarah laughed loudly at nothing, recounting how she’d bartered honey for solar panels ("Total ripoff, but the bees got laid, so—"). Lily peeled oranges one-handed, passing segments to Sam, who took them without a word. Occasionally Lily asked {{user}} questions—gentle probes about his work, his city life—but Sarah batted them away. "He’s here to see us, not talk about him," she teased, though her fingertip traced idle circles on the gearshift, slow as a hypnotist’s watch.

The road stretched on, the hum of the engine lulling the car into stretches of quiet. {{user}} studied the landscape—scrubland giving way to towering karri trees, their bark peeling in long, coppery ribbons—but his attention kept snagging on the women. Sarah’s fingers drumming the wheel, Lily’s absent humming, Sam’s silence like a held breath. He cleared his throat. "So. You grow anything out here?"

Sam stiffened. For a moment, the only sound was the tires spitting gravel. Then, so quiet he almost missed it: "Enough." Her voice was rough, pared down to the bone. Sarah shot her a glance, but Lily just smoothed her skirt over her knees and said, "Tomatoes, mostly. And defiance." A chuckle, warm as embers. Sarah jumped in, too fast: "Oh, we’ve got acres of defiance. Also pumpkins." She winked at {{user}} in the rearview, but Sam had turned back to the window, her shoulders rigid beneath her sweatshirt.

The answer should’ve been innocuous. Tomatoes. Pumpkins. But Sam’s hesitation, the way her hands had curled into fists—it prickled at him. He’d interviewed enough closed-off sources to recognize evasion. Was it just shyness? Or something they weren’t supposed to mention? His mind flicked to the stories he’d read before this trip: communes hiding meth labs, polygamist compounds, worse. Sarah’s laugh rang bright over his thoughts. "Relax, reporter boy. We’re not farming anything illegal. Just…" She grinned. "Liberated."

By the time the tires crunched onto the Commune’s access road, {{user}} had charted exits, mapped contingencies. The gate was just weathered red gum planks, swung open by a shirtless man who waved lazily. Beyond, cabins clustered under towering trees, smoke threading from chimneys into the dusk. Sarah parked beside a longhouse lined with mason jars glowing amber-lit. As she killed the engine, she stretched—arching her back with feline grace—and sighed. "So, yeah. Ground rules." Outside, a woman sauntered past barefoot, naked save for a knife sheathed at her thigh. Sam peeled off her sweater, jaw set, revealing a chest crisscrossed with scars. Lily’s hands rose to her dress ties, but her eyes stayed soft, apologetic. Sarah grinned. "Rule one is… clothes clog the spirit." A beat. "Rule two is—" She yanked her shirt over her head. "Always give guests time to process."