Chapter 14: Hydrotherapy Temptation
The apartment smelled of lemon cleaner and stale takeout. The silence, after the hospital’s constant hum, was a heavy, living thing.
Willow sat propped on the living room sofa, a fortress of pillows at her back and sides. The hip spica cast was a monolith. It encased her from ribcage to knee on her left side, a hard, white landscape that rendered her a statue. Her newly-plated left arm, in its shorter cast, rested on a stack of folded towels on the armrest. She stared at the blank television screen, her reflection a ghost in the black glass.
“Okay,” Daisy’s voice came from the hallway, tight with forced cheer. “Bathroom is prepped. No rugs on the floor. Temp check on the water. We are… operationally ready.”
The word “bathroom” sent a jolt through Willow. At the hospital, nurses had done cursory bed-baths with clinical efficiency. This was different. This was home. This was Daisy.
“Do you want to wait?” Daisy asked, appearing in the doorway. She’d changed into old sweatpants and a grey t-shirt that was already dark in patches from her anxious palms. “We could just do a wipe-down here.”
“No,” Willow said. Her voice was quiet but firm. “I want to feel clean. Really clean. It’s been a week.” She’d fantasized about it in the hospital, the simple luxury of water on her skin. Now, the fantasy was a knot in her stomach.
“Right.” Daisy clapped her hands softly, a nervous tic. “Okay. Let’s get you mobile.”
The transfer from the couch to the wheelchair was a practiced, wordless ballet of grunts and careful leverage. Daisy had become frighteningly strong. She slid her arms under Willow’s body, her touch firm and sure where it wasn’t prohibited by plaster. Willow’s good arm hooked around Daisy’s neck. They moved as one unit, and for a fleeting second, Willow’s nose was buried in the soft hair at Daisy’s temple. She smelled like laundry detergent and nervous sweat.
The bathroom was indeed a sanctuary of danger. The fluorescent light buzzed, bleaching everything a stark white. Steam from the running shower in the tub fogged the mirror. Daisy had laid out a plastic garden kneeler pad on the tile floor and covered it with thick, folded towels. A bowl of warm, soapy water sat beside it, along with several clean washcloths and a new bar of unscented soap.
“We’re doing it here, on the floor?” Willow asked as Daisy positioned the wheelchair alongside the kneeler pad.
“Bathtub’s too risky. Can’t get you in and out without… you know.” Daisy didn’t finish. “This way. We can use the handheld shower after.”
She locked the wheelchair brakes.“Okay. Ready?”
“No.”
Daisy paused. “We can stop.”
“Just do it.”
The second transfer was harder. Getting Willow down onto the towel-covered pad required Daisy to bear almost her full weight. Willow hissed as her body settled, the hard cast thunking against the tile floor beneath the towels. Daisy knelt before her, breathless. A long strand of blonde hair had escaped her ponytail and stuck to her damp forehead.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Not your fault.” Willow looked around. From this angle, the bathroom was a foreign country. The underside of the sink, a tiny crack in the grout, the dripping showerhead. She felt utterly exposed, propped against the base of the toilet, her cast a sprawling, ridiculous sculpture.
Daisy’s hands went to the hem of Willow’s oversized t-shirt. “I’ll be quick,” she said, not meeting her eyes.
The shirt lifted. The cool air hit Willow’s skin, making her shiver. Goosebumps rose on her stomach, her right side, the curve of her right breast. Daisy was meticulously careful, folding the shirt and setting it aside. Willow wore only a pair of cotton underwear, cut high on the right hip to avoid the cast’s edge.
Daisy’s gaze was a physical weight, traveling over the landscape of Willow’s body. The angry red marks where the cast chafed. The pale, untouched skin, almost translucent in the harsh light. The swell of her breast, the tight peak of a nipple hardened by the cold.
Daisy swallowed, her throat working. She dunked a washcloth in the warm water, wrung it out. The first touch, on Willow’s collarbone, was so warm it made Willow gasp.
“Too hot?” Daisy froze.
“No. It’s good.”
Daisy began to wash her. It was methodical.Shoulder. Arm. The slope of her right breast, the cloth moving in slow, careful circles. Daisy’s other hand came up to cup Willow, to steady her, her fingers splayed against the soft underside. The touch was clinical in intent, but the effect was not. Willow felt her nipple tighten further, a bright point of sensation that seemed to connect directly to a low, coiling heat in her core. She stared fixedly at the ceiling, at a small water stain shaped like a moth.
Daisy rinsed the cloth, soaped it again. She moved lower, over Willow’s stomach. The muscles there fluttered under the cloth, involuntary. Daisy’s touch slowed. Her knuckles brushed the sensitive skin just above the waistband of the underwear.
“Turn, a little, to your right,” Daisy murmured, her voice thick.
Willow braced her good hand and tried to shift. The movement was minimal, but it gave Daisy access to her back. The washcloth swept over her shoulder blades, down the knobs of her spine. Daisy’s free hand came to rest on Willow’s waist, holding her steady, a warm anchor. Then her fingers were tracing, not with the cloth, just the bare pads of them, following the path of a droplet of water that had escaped, sliding it down into the hollow at the base of Willow’s spine.
Willow’s breath hitched.
Daisy’s hand retreated. She was breathing heavily too. The air in the small room was dense with steam and something else, electric and unspoken.
“Your leg,” Daisy said. Her voice was strained. “The good one.”
She washed Willow’s right leg, from the thigh down to the toes. Her touch was thorough, almost reverent. She massaged the calf, kneading at the muscles cramped from disuse. Willow let her head fall back against the cool porcelain of the toilet tank, eyes closed, surrendering to the simple, profound luxury of being touched with care.
“Okay,” Daisy whispered, more to herself. “Now the hard part.”
She took the bar of soap. She wet it, working up a lather in her palms. “I need to try and get under the edges,” she explained. “Where the skin is itchy. I have to use my hands. Tell me if it hurts.”
Willow nodded, unable to speak.
Daisy’s lathered hands went to the top edge of the hip spica, where it curved under Willow’s armpit. Her fingers slipped beneath the rigid lip. The sensation was intense: the warmth of the water, the slickness of the soap, the gentle, probing pressure of Daisy’s fingers tracing the line where plaster met skin. It was maddening. Willow could feel her own heat, the dampness trapped there. A trapped, desperate itch. Daisy’s fingertips worked in small circles, cleaning, soothing.
A soft, broken sound escaped Willow’s lips.
Daisy’s movements stuttered. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Willow’s eyes were still closed. “Keep going.”
Daisy continued. She moved around to Willow’s side, her knee nudging Willow’s good leg apart to get closer. Her soapy hand found the lower edge of the cast, at the top of Willow’s thigh. Her fingers slid beneath. This area was more sensitive.Much more. The touch was a direct line to a pulse point Willow had tried to ignore for weeks.
Her back arched, a small, involuntary spasm. The cast scraped against the floor.
“Sorry, sorry,” Daisy whispered, but her fingers didn’t withdraw. They pressed deeper, a slow, insistent exploration. The soap made everything slippery. Her knuckles brushed against the soaked fabric of Willow’s underwear.
“Daisy.” Willow’s voice was a ragged thread.
“I know.” Daisy’s reply was a strained hush. Her other hand came up, not to wash, but to cradle Willow’s face. Her thumb stroked Willow’s cheekbone, leaving a slick, soapy trail. Her eyes, when Willow finally opened her own to meet them, were dark, pupils swallowing the blue. They held the same terrifying, gorgeous awe from the hospital.
Daisy’s fingers, still working beneath the cast’s edge, crooked. The pressure shifted, intentional now. She touched a specific, aching spot, just a graze through the damp cotton.
Willow cried out. It was not a sound of pain. Her good hand flew up, grabbing a fistful of Daisy’s t-shirt, pulling her closer. Their foreheads touched, steam and soap between them.
“Tell me to stop,” Daisy breathed, her lips inches from Willow’s.
Willow shook her head, a frantic, tiny movement. “Don’t you dare.”
That was all the permission Daisy needed. The careful, clinical pretense dissolved. Her mouth crashed into Willow’s, a desperate, hungry kiss that tasted of steam and salt. Her probing fingers pressed harder, rubbing in a slow, maddening rhythm against the soaked cotton. The barrier was agonizing. The pressure, the friction, was everything and not enough.
Willow kissed her back with a wild, furious abandon, her free hand tangling in Daisy’s hair, pulling her closer. Her hips strained, but the cast held her fast, an immobile anchor. Every sensation was amplified, focused on that single point of contact. A raw, shuddering heat built, coiling tighter and tighter, originating from a place she could not even see.
Daisy broke the kiss, her breath coming in ragged pants. She looked down at her hand, disappearing under the white plaster. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen. Without a word, she hooked her fingers into the waistband of Willow’s underwear. She tugged them down, just enough.
Her fingertips met slick, bare skin.
The sound Willow made was animal, choked. Daisy’s eyes widened, then darkened further. She looked at Willow’s face, watching every flicker of reaction as she began to move her fingers again, for real this time. No cloth, no cotton. Just skin on impossible skin.
It was too much. It was an invasion and a communion. The weeks of frustration, of pain, of guilty, flickering arousal, all converged in that narrow, steamy bathroom. The hard tile under her, the cool porcelain at her back, the hot, clever movement of Daisy’s fingers inside her, the cast an unyielding reminder of how they got here—it all fused into a single, blinding point of white.
Willow came with a silent, seizing intensity, her body bowing against its restraints, her mouth open in a soundless cry against Daisy’s shoulder. Waves of heat and release crashed through her, made more violent by her utter immobility.
Daisy held her through it, her touch gentle now, soothing, as the tremors subsided. She slowly withdrew her hand. They stayed like that, Daisy kneeling, Willow slumped against her, the only sound the distant drip of the shower and their own unsteady breathing.
The fluorescent light buzzed, a flat, mundane drone.
Slowly, Daisy reached for a clean washcloth. She dipped it in the now-cool bowl of water. Gently, with a tenderness that made Willow’s eyes sting, she cleaned between her legs. She tidied the soap from her stomach. She washed her own hand.
Wordlessly, she finished the bath. She used the handheld shower to rinse Willow’s un-casted side, the water lukewarm and pleasant. She toweled her dry with a soft, careful touch.
Finally, she helped Willow back into the clean shirt, and then back into the wheelchair. She avoided Willow’s eyes the entire time, her movements efficient again, but her hands trembled faintly as she locked the brakes.
Willow sat in the chair, clean, damp, and utterly shattered. Her body hummed with a lingering, aftershock stillness. She watched Daisy clean up the bathroom, pouring out the soapy water, hanging the damp towels.
Daisy stood in the doorway, the buzzing light framing her from behind. She finally looked at Willow. Her expression was a open wound of fear and wonder.
“So,” Willow said, her own voice a strange, rough instrument. “That’s one way to give a bath.”
A laugh burst from Daisy, shaky and incredulous. It broke the tension like glass. She slid down the doorframe to sit on the floor, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Willow wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.
After a moment, Daisy peeked through her fingers. “I am so sorry. And also… not sorry at all.”
Willow managed a weak smile. “Yeah.” She looked down at the hard white shell encasing her left side. “It turns out the most frustrating part of this thing… isn't the part that’s broken.”
The silence stretched, thin and delicate as the steam still clinging to the bathroom mirror. Daisy’s watery laugh faded into the hum of the light.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a faint smear. “Okay,” she said, pushing herself up from the floor. Her knees cracked.“Okay. We should… you should eat.Or something. I’ll make soup.”
Willow let herself be wheeled back to the sofa fortress. The apartment air felt shockingly cool on her skin. Every nerve ending seemed newly tuned, raw and exposed. The memory of Daisy’s fingers was a phantom echo, a persistent thrum beneath the plaster.
From the kitchenette, the sounds were deliberately normal: the scrape of a pot, the click of the stove, the rip of a packet. Willow watched the careful domestic choreography of Daisy’s back, the tension in her shoulders. She wanted to say something. The words ‘thank you’ felt absurd. ‘What was that?’ felt terrifying.
“Chicken noodle,” Daisy announced, placing a tray on Willow’s lap. The soup steamed, little globules of fat shimmering on the surface. “The good kind from the deli.”
She sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing Willow but not looking at her, blowing on her own bowl. The spoon trembled slightly in her hand. “I didn’t plan that,” she said to her soup.
“I know.”
“I just… your skin was so hot. And you made that sound.” Daisy’s voice was barely audible. “It just happened.”
“I pulled you in,” Willow said. She struggled to sit up straighter, the cast grinding. “I grabbed your shirt. I told you not to stop.”
Daisy finally met her eyes. The fear was still there, but beneath it something else flickered, something daring. “Did it help? The… frustration?”
A blunt, shocked laugh escaped Willow. “Yeah, Daisy. It helped.” She looked down at her imprisoned body. “It also really, really didn’t. Now I know exactly what I’m missing.”
“Oh.” Daisy’s face fell, the dare evaporating into guilt. “God, I’m an idiot. That was so thoughtless. I just made it worse.”
“You didn’t.” Willow reached out with her good hand, resting her fingers on Daisy’s knee. The contact was electric for both of them. Daisy went very still. “It was… a preview. A really intense, confusing, amazing preview.”
Daisy covered Willow’s hand with her own. Her palm was warm, a little damp. “A preview of what?”
The question hung in the air, bigger than the room. Willow didn’t have an answer. A preview of them? Of a body that actually worked? She withdrew her hand, picking up her spoon. “I don’t know. Just… something.”
They ate in a silence that was no longer fragile, but thick with unspoken possibilities. Every slurp of soup, every clink of the spoon, felt loaded. Willow was acutely aware of the weight of the cast, the way it pinned her to this spot, this version of herself. The version Daisy had just unraveled with a touch.
Daisy took the bowls away. When she came back, she didn’t retreat to the armchair. She sat on the sofa, right up against the solid wall of Willow’s plaster-encased left side. Her body heat seeped through. She leaned her head gently against Willow’s shoulder, the one that wasn’t broken.
“I’m tired,” she mumbled.
“Me too.”
“Not like that.” Daisy’s voice was muffled against Willow’s shirt. “I’m tired of being the one who breaks you. I’m tired of the guilt. It’s like this constant stone in my stomach.” She took a shaky breath. “For a minute in there, I didn’t feel guilty. I just felt… needed. In a different way.”
Willow’s throat tightened. She turned her head, her cheek resting against Daisy’s blonde hair. “You are needed. In about a hundred ways. Most of them don’t end with me in a cast.”
“Most,” Daisy repeated, a faint smile in her voice.
The evening light faded to blue outside the window. They stayed like that, a strange sculpture of dependency and newfound intimacy. Willow’s mind replayed the bathroom in flashes: the slick soap, the press of fingertips, the unyielding barrier.
“Daisy?”
“Hmm?”
“What if…” Willow chose her words carefully, feeling her way across a minefield. “What if we explored the preview? Without… you know. Major access issues.”
Daisy lifted her head. Her eyes were a dark, searching blue in the twilight. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking the cast has an edge. It has a lot of edges.” Willow’s pulse kicked up. “And I have one good hand.”
Daisy’s lips parted.She understood. The dare was back in her eyes, bright and a little wild. She nodded, once.
Slowly, giving her time to pull away, Daisy leaned in. She kissed Willow again, but it was nothing like the frantic crash in the bathroom. This was soft, a question. Willow answered it, her good hand coming up to cup Daisy’s jaw, her thumb stroking the apple of her cheek.
Daisy shifted, turning her body to face Willow more fully. She guided Willow’s good hand. She placed it on the hem of her own t-shirt.A silent invitation.
Willow tugged. The cotton slid up, revealing the soft curve of Daisy’s stomach, the gentle swell of her hips above her sweatpants. Her skin was so warm. Daisy shivered as Willow’s palm flattened against her, fingers splaying.
This was different. This was control. Fragile, limited, but hers. She traced the line of Daisy’s waist, learning the geography of her. Daisy’s breath hitched, her eyes fluttering closed.
Emboldened, Willow’s hand drifted higher. It skimmed the underside of Daisy’s breast, covered by her bra. Daisy arched into the touch, a small, desperate sound escaping her.
“Show me,” Willow whispered, her voice rough.
Without hesitation, Daisy reached back, unhooked her bra, and let it fall loose. She pulled the t-shirt over her head completely, tossing it aside. She knelt on the sofa now, bathed in the dusky blue light from the window, her body a soft, generous offering.
Willow’s breath caught. She looked, really looked, committing it to memory—the dip of her waist, the beautiful full weight of her breasts, the tight, pink nipples already pebbled. This was the body that had cared for her, broken her, and now sat trembling before her.
Her good hand returned, touching with reverence. She cupped Daisy, her thumb brushing over a nipple. Daisy moaned, her head falling back. Her own hands came up to cover Willow’s, pressing it harder against her.
“More,” Daisy breathed. “Please.”
Willow complied, rolling the taut peak between her fingers, learning the pressure that made Daisy gasp. She touched her with the focused intensity of someone who had been deprived of touch for weeks, pouring all her frustration and newfound longing into this one point of contact.
Daisy was moving now, a slow, rhythmic rocking against Willow’s hand. Her eyes were open, locked on Willow’s, her lips wet and parted. She was beautifully lost in it, in the sensation Willow was giving her. It was a power Willow hadn’t felt in months.
“Let me…” Daisy panted, her own hands fumbling at the waistband of her sweatpants. She pushed them down, just enough.