Chapter 6: The Shower and the Soak
The heart on the dropcloth had dried into a faint, wrinkled stain. Xavi lay on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, listening to the syncopated rhythm of their breathing slow. The high, singing silence in his veins was a physical thing, a warm liquid occupying the space where his nerves used to be.
Clara’s finger traced a lazy path through the cooling mess on his stomach. “Sticky,” she murmured, her voice rough.She sat up abruptly, the movement stirring the thick air. She looked at her painted finger, then at him, his spent cock lying soft against his thigh, the evidence of their fucking smeared across both their bodies.“Up,” she said, slapping his hip lightly. “We’re a disaster.”
He groaned, a protest of pure physical reluctance, but obeyed, letting her pull him to his feet.His legs were unsteady. She led him by the hand, not toward her bedroom, but past it, down the short hall to the bathroom. She flicked the switch; the old bulb buzzed and cast a jaundiced, flickering light over the tiny, tiled space.Her mug of tea sat on the sink, forgotten and cold.
She turned on the shower, a sharp hiss of water against porcelain. Without testing it, she pushed him toward the stream and followed him in, pulling the stiff plastic curtain closed with a rattle.
The water was a shock.Pure, biting cold. It stole his breath, made his skin contract instantly into gooseflesh. He gasped, stepping back, but Clara was there, a solid, warm pressure against his chest, holding him under the punishing spray.
“Shhh,” she said, though her own teeth were clenched.“Feel it.”
The cold was a violence, a scouring. It washed the sweat from his skin, turned the drying paint and come into chilly, slippery rivulets. It was a baptism in reverse, washing away not sin but sanctity, leaving only raw, shivering animal truth.After a minute that felt like an hour, she reached past him and twisted the knob. The water shifted, becoming lukewarm, then comfortably hot. Steam began to rise, clouding the mirror, softening the harsh light.She turned him around, his back to the water. Her hands were on his shoulders, pushing down with quiet authority. “Kneel.”
The porcelain of the tub was hard and unforgiving under his knees. The hot water pounded his back, streamed over his head and down his face. Clara stood over him, the water slicking her dark hair to her skull, running in tiny rivers between her small breasts, down the flat plane of her stomach.
She spread her feet slightly, planting them on either side of his knees. The thatch of dark curls between her thighs was beaded with droplets. He could see the faint, swollen evidence of their earlier use, the tender, pink folds.
“Clean me,” she said, her voice almost lost in the drumming of the shower. “Make me new again.”
His hands found her hips, steadying himself.He leaned forward, his mouth meeting the cool skin of her inner thigh first. He kissed it, licked away the taste of chlorine and salt. He moved inward, his nose nuzzling into her curls, breathing in the deep, musky scent of their combined sex. It was primal, utterly intimate. He kissed her outer lips, then traced the seam with his tongue.
She shuddered, one hand coming to rest on the top of his head, not guiding, just holding.
He delved deeper, his tongue finding her clit, hard and sensitive under his prodding.She let out a sharp breath. He licked slowly, deliberately, lapping at the mixed flavors—her own clean, sharp essence and the remnants of his come, slightly bitter, leaking from her.He drank it all, the tangible proof of their connection. His cock, limp a moment before, began to thicken against his stomach, responding to the taste of her, the submission, the absolute ownership of the act.“Good,” she whispered, her fingers tightening in his hair. “So good. You’re so good at this.”
He redoubled his efforts, swirling his tongue, sucking gently on her clit until her hips began a subtle, involuntary rocking against his face.
Suddenly, her grip in his hair became insistent, yanking his head back, breaking the contact.Water streamed into his open, panting mouth.“Look at me,” she commanded.
He blinked up through the spray.Her face was a mask of fierce concentration, her lips parted. The hand not in his hair went to her lower stomach, pressing down.
“Open your mouth,” she said, her voice low and thick.
He obeyed without thought, tilting his head back further, his mouth open to the falling water.She stared down at him, her eyes locked on his. There was a moment of suspended silence, broken only by the shower’s roar. Then, a new stream joined the water from above. A hot, insistent, golden arc, hitting him square in the chin, then splashing across his lips and into his open mouth.
The taste was strong, salty, profoundly organic.It was nothing like water. It was her, a part of her, marking him from the inside out.He didn’t close his mouth. He swallowed instinctively, the warm liquid hitting his throat. He kept his eyes on hers, accepting it, drinking her in as she emptied herself onto him, washing the last traces of paint from his skin, the last ghosts of worry from his mind.It was the ultimate act of cleansing, of reclamation. She was pissing on him, in him, and it felt more holy than any prayer.
When the flow stopped, she let out a long, shaky sigh. She released his hair, her hand sliding down to cup his cheek, her thumb wiping a stray drop from his lip. Her expression had softened, the fierce dominance melting into something like profound tenderness.
She turned him gently, so the hot water washed over his face, rinsing it clean.Then she pushed him back to sit on the tub floor. She took the bar of lavender soap and worked it between her hands until a thick lather bloomed.
Her touch changed.The commanding pressure became thorough, diligent. She washed his neck, his chest, his arms, paying careful attention to the crook of his elbow, the spaces between his fingers. She washed his back, her small hands kneading the muscles, which had begun to ache from the painting and the fucking.She soaped his legs, his feet, each toe. It was clinical and deeply caring.
Finally, her soapy hand closed around his cock, which was now fully, achingly hard again, standing upright from the nest of dark hair. She didn’t jerk him off with frantic urgency this time. She used slow, firm, deliberate strokes, her fist moving from root to tip and back again, the lather making a soft, slick sound.
“Just feel this,” she said, her mouth close to his ear, almost drowned by the water.“Just this. My hand on you.The heat.The water. Nothing else exists.”
He leaned his head back against the tile, his eyes closed.His world narrowed to the exquisite, tightening friction of her grip. There was no room for thought, only sensation—the scrape of her wedding band against his shaft, the perfect pressure of her thumb over his slit on every upstroke, the heat of the water on his shoulders.
It built slowly, a deep, gathering wave in his belly. He made a soft, choked sound.“Come for me,” she whispered, her pace increasing slightly. “Give it to the water. Let it go.”
His orgasm wasn’t a violent explosion this time, but a profound, sweet surrender. It pulsed out of him in thick, long ropes, mixing instantly with the soap and water, swirling down the drain between his legs. A low, continuous groan vibrated in his chest, a sound of pure release.
She held him through it, her hand gently milking him until he was soft and spent.Then she rinsed him clean, turned off the water, and opened the curtain. The air of the bathroom was cool and thick with steam.
She stepped out first, grabbed a large, clean towel, and wrapped it around herself. Then she took another and began to dry him with the same thoroughness with which she had washed him. She patted his skin dry, rubbed his hair, even dried between his toes.
When he was dry, she led him, quiet and pliant, to her bed.She pulled back the covers and pushed him down. The sheets were cool and smelled faintly of her. She climbed in beside him, shedding her towel, and pressed her naked back against his chest, pulling his arm around her waist.His nose was in her damp hair. His body was a hollow shell, scoured clean, weightless.
“The mural…” he mumbled into her scalp, his voice slurred with exhaustion.
“It’ll be there tomorrow,” she said, her voice already thick with sleep.She squeezed his hand where it rested on her stomach. “So will I.”
In the dark, with the flickering light from the bathroom cutting a thin line under the door, he felt the last tight coil in his soul—the one that always remained, the one tied to some deep, ancestral fear—finally unravel and lie still.He was empty.He was owned. He was, for the first time in weeks, peacefully, completely asleep before she was.