Chapter 6: The Naked Spa
The taxi ride to the spa was filled with Julie’s effusive chatter, a bright, relentless stream that left no room for the thick silence Chris and Ava had carried from the balcony. She talked about the article in the travel magazine, the mineral-rich volcanic mud, the celebrity clientele. Chris stared out the window at the blur of emerald foliage. Ava, sitting between them, watched her own reflection in the glass, her fingers twisting the strap of her beach bag.
“The ultimate reset,” Julie declared, squeezing Ava’s knee.“You’ll feel like a new woman. We all will.” She shot Chris a playful glance.“Even you, grumpy.Maybe especially you.”
He forced a smile. “Can’t wait.”
The spa was a vision of serene luxury, all pale wood and soaring glass overlooking a crescent of white sand.The air smelled of eucalyptus and plumeria. A receptionist with a calm smile handed them thick white robes and digital wristbands for the lockers. “The main hydrothermal circuit is through those doors.Please remember this is a clothing-optional, co-ed environment. Respect and discretion are our guiding principles.”
Julie beamed.“Perfect.”
Chris caught the term. “Clothing-optional?”
“European style,” Julie said, already untying her sundress. “Very liberating.Don’t be such a Puritan, Chris. It’s just skin.”
Ava’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. She looked from her aunt’s confident disrobing to Chris’s frozen expression, then down at her own robe.
Julie, now gloriously, unselfconsciously naked, folded her dress into a locker.“Come on, you two. Robes go in the lockers too. It’s about authenticity.” She didn’t wait, pushing through the frosted glass doors into the humid, misty world beyond, her bare skin gleaming under the recessed lights.Chris and Ava were alone in the locker room. The muffled sound of water and soft music filtered in.“Ava,” Chris began, his voice low.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly, not looking at him. Her fingers went to the belt of her robe.“It’s not a big deal. It’s just… a spa.”
He saw the flush on her neck, the rapid rise and fall of her chest under the terrycloth. He knew then that the memory of the night before was as alive and electric in her as it was in him.This wasn’t liberation.It was an ordeal.
He turned his back, giving her a semblance of privacy, and began to undress mechanically. The cool air raised goosebumps on his skin. He kept his eyes on the metal locker door, hearing the soft rustle of fabric behind him, the slight gasp as the robe hit the tile. He didn’t turn until he heard her locker click shut.
She stood facing him, one arm crossed over her breasts, the other hand cupping her elbow. She was trying for nonchalance but her posture was a diagram of vulnerability.Her skin was pale, flawless. The memory of his hand on her waist, under her shirt, was a phantom burn. He forced his eyes to stay on her face, but the periphery of his vision took in the dip of her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder.
“Ready?” she whispered.No. “Yeah.”
They walked through the doors together, two inches apart, a mile of tension between them.The hydrothermal circuit was a paradise of liquid heat and shifting mist. Steam curled from turquoise pools set into polished marble.A waterfall cascaded into a grotto. People, mostly nude, some with towels draped loosely, lounged on stone benches or drifted between pools. The atmosphere was, as promised, discreet. Eyes were softened by steam, conversations were low murmurs lost in the rush of water.It should have felt anonymous. To Chris, it felt like a spotlight was following them.
Julie waved from a steaming mineral pool, her blonde hair piled atop her head, her body submerged to her shoulders.“Over here!This one is divine.”
They approached. Chris kept his gaze fixed on a point over Julie’s head. He lowered himself into the searing water, the shock of heat a welcome distraction. Ava slipped in opposite him, her body vanishing into the churning, azure bubbles.Only her head and the tops of her shoulders were visible. She looked at the waterfall, at the lush ferns—anywhere but at him or her aunt.
Julie sighed, leaning back against the stone.“See?Isn’t this incredible? No titles, no costumes.Just people. It strips everything away, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Chris said, his voice rough.Julie smiled, mistaking his meaning. “Told you.” She closed her eyes.“I’m going to do the full circuit. The cold plunge, the steam, the mud room.You two should try the steam room next. It’s phenomenal for the pores.”
Ava’s eyes flickered to Chris for a fraction of a second, then away.
“Maybe,” Ava said.
After a few more minutes, Julie hoisted herself out of the pool, water sluicing down her body. She grabbed a towel, not bothering to dry off, and padded toward a curtained archway. “Meet you in the steam room in ten!”
Her departure left a vacuum.The roar of the pool’s jets seemed to grow louder. Ava stared at the place where the bubbles broke the surface, hiding her. Chris watched a droplet of condensation track down the glass wall.“Ava,” he said again.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she said, still not looking at him.“Julie’s right.It’s just skin here. It doesn’t mean anything.” The lie hung in the humid air between them.
He wanted to believe her.He couldn’t.
“Let’s just… go to the steam room,” she said.“So she doesn’t ask questions.”
They rose from the water simultaneously. Chris turned away, grabbing a towel, keeping his back to her as they walked the short distance to the dark, heavy door of the steam room. He pulled it open, a wave of engulfing, cedar-scented heat rolling out.
Inside was near darkness, pierced by a single dim amber light.The fog was thick, obscuring. He could make out the shapes of a few other people on the tiered marble benches, ghostly silhouettes in the mist. He felt, more than saw, Ava slip past him.They found a spot on the lowest bench, away from the others. Julie was a vague shape in the corner, a pale smudge. “Over here, loves,” her voice echoed softly.They sat. The heat was intense, coating the lungs, pricking the skin with instant sweat.Chris focused on the sensation, on the physical discomfort, anything to anchor himself. But his senses were painfully acute.He could hear Ava’s quiet breathing beside him. He could smell the clean, herbal scent of her sweat cutting through the eucalyptus vapor. And in the thick, shifting mist, glimpses were more devastating than full visibility.As she shifted, the steam parted momentarily. The line of her spine, a taut, damp curve. The swell of her breast from the side, a shadowed, graceful arc.The delicate knob of her ankle. Each fragment was a pulse of forbidden memory. His hands, which had held her, now clenched into fists on his knees, nails biting into his palms.Julie’s voice was a drone about negative ions and lymphatic drainage. Chris grunted in response when it seemed required.Ava was silent.
Then, under the cover of the roaring steam generator and Julie’s monologue, he felt it.The slightest pressure against his thigh.
He froze.It was her knee.Bare skin against bare skin. An accident in the crowded, misty space.It had to be an accident.She didn’t move away.
The heat became something else, a low voltage current running from that point of contact through his entire body. He sat utterly still, prisoner to that tiny, monumental touch. The world narrowed to the few square inches of skin where they connected.He could feel the fine tremble in her leg.
He didn’t pull away.He knew he should. He knew this was the line, not just crossing it but setting up camp on the other side.Yet his body refused the command. It was a minuscule rebellion, invisible in the fog, but it screamed inside him.Julie stood up, her form a blur. “I’m melting.Off to the mud wrap! You two stay, sweat out those toxins.” She chuckled, a warm, unknowing sound, and the door opened and closed, leaving them alone with the other silent, anonymous shapes.
The second the door thudded shut, Ava’s knee pressed firmer against his.A deliberate, unmistakable pressure.His breath hitched. He couldn’t see her face clearly in the mist, but he could feel her gaze on his profile.
Slowly, unbearably slowly, he unclenched his right fist. He laid his hand palm-up on the wet marble bench between them, an invitation, a surrender.For a long moment, nothing. Just the hiss of steam and the hammering of his own heart.
Then, her fingers touched his.Light, questioning.They interlaced with his, their hands slippery with condensation. Her grip was tight, almost desperate.This was madness.This was a freefall.He turned his head toward her. The steam swirled, revealing her eyes, dark and huge and fixed on him. Her lips were parted, breathing hard in the thick air.Drops of water clung to her lashes.
He didn’t speak.He couldn’t. He just held her hand, hidden between their thighs, in the public, private dark. His thumb stroked the delicate webbing between her thumb and forefinger, a secret caress.She shivered, and her fingers squeezed his harder.
One of the other silhouettes stood and left.Then another.They were alone in the cedar-scented gloom.
Her other hand moved. He felt her fingertips, tracing a path up his damp forearm, over the taut muscle, following the trail of water.Her touch was feather-light, exploratory. It was her mapping him this time, claiming the territory she had only seen from a distance.
His control, already cracked, shattered.His free hand came up, not to stop her, but to mirror her. He reached out, his fingers finding the slope of her shoulder in the mist. Her skin was impossibly hot, slick.She inhaled sharply, a tiny, sharp sound that went straight through him.
His touch drifted down, over the rise of her collarbone, his thumb brushing the hollow at the base of her throat.He felt her pulse wild beneath his touch. He was crossing every boundary, but the line was gone, vaporized in the steam.
Her exploring hand slid higher, coming to rest on the side of his neck, her fingers in his damp hair. She pulled him gently, inexorably, toward her.The world reduced to the closing space between their faces. The hiss of the steam was a roar in his ears.He could taste the mineral water on her breath.
The door crashed open.
Bright light from the outer room sliced through the fog, revealing them frozen in a near-embrace, their hands clutching, his touch on her throat.
Two laughing men entered, their voices booming in the previously silent space. “Whoa, serious steam in here!”
Chris and Ava snapped apart as if scalded.His hand dropped from her skin.Their intertwined fingers broke apart. They slid apart on the bench, putting a foot of marble between them.
The new arrivals slumped onto the upper bench, their conversation a loud, oblivious buzz.
Chris stared straight ahead at the wall of roiling mist, his heart crashing against his ribs.The ghost of her touch scalded him more than the steam. He had been a fingertip away from kissing her.In a public place. While his wife was somewhere in the building, covered in mud.
Ava stood up suddenly, her body a pale, graceful flash in the amber light. “I… I need some air,” she stammered, her voice barely audible over the generator.She didn’t look at him. She pushed the heavy door open and was gone, swallowed by the bright world outside.
Chris sat in the punishing heat, the echoes of the men’s laughter bouncing around the tiled walls. He looked down at his empty hand, still feeling the precise weight and shape of hers within it. The toxins Julie wanted sweated out were nothing compared to the poison now coursing through him, a sweet, addictive venom he had just voluntarily swallowed.He had to get out. He had to find Julie, cling to her, use her as an anchor.
But as he stood, his legs unsteady, he knew the anchor line was severed. He was adrift, and the current was pulling him inexorably toward the reef.