Chapter 2: The Bath and the Burning Questions
The silence after the door clicked shut was a living thing. It breathed with me, thick and expectant, in the dark cottage. I didn’t move from the chair for a long time, curled tight around the echo of his words. Leave the shoes off.
My skin felt like it had been lightly sanded, every nerve ending exposed to the cool night air drifting through the open door. A moth batted softly against the windowpane. Tick, tick, tick. My heart finally began to slow from its frantic gallop, settling into a heavy, rhythmic thud that I felt in my wrists, my throat, deep in my belly.
The heat of the day had long since fled, leaving a stone-cold floor beneath my bare feet as I finally uncurled and stood. I moved through the darkness by memory, my hands trailing over the cardboard corners of my unpacked life. In the small bathroom, I fumbled for the light switch.
The bulb was weak, encased in a frosted glass shade that cast a buttery, intimate glow. The room was simple: white-washed walls, a small sink, a mirror already fogged at the edges from the humidity of the day. And the tub. A deep, clawfooted beast of creamy porcelain, stained with fine, hairline cracks like a map of forgotten journeys.
I turned the taps. The water roared out, a shocking violence of sound in the quiet. Steam began to rise, curling into the cool air. I poured in a generous glug of lavender oil from a small bottle; the sharp, clean scent immediately cut through the dust of the day. I didn’t wait for it to fill. I shed my dress, letting the cotton pool at my feet on the black and white tiles. The air raised goosebumps on my arms, my thighs. I looked at myself in the misty mirror—a pale, slender ghost with wide, dark eyes. A body kept secret, smooth and unused. I turned away.
I tested the water with my toes. Scalding. I hissed, pulling my foot back, but then stepped in anyway, lowering myself slowly, feeling the burn travel up my ankles, my calves, a delicious, punishing heat. My skin protested, flushing an immediate, furious pink. I sank down until the water lapped at my collarbones, until my knees, pale islands, broke the surface. The heat was a shock, a total immersion. It forced a gasp from my lungs, and then a slow, surrendering sigh.
This was how I felt. Scalded. Flayed open by a single afternoon, by a look, by a stupid, reckless sentence hanging in the air between us. If I feel amorous, you're the only one here.
I submerged my head, letting the roar of the water fill my ears, trying to drown out the memory of my own voice. I stayed under until my lungs burned, then burst up, sucking in a ragged breath. Water streamed from my hair, down my face like tears.
I lay back, the porcelain hard and cool against the back of my skull. The steam coated my lips, my eyelashes. I closed my eyes.
His face swam behind my lids. Not just his face—the details. The faint wear on the collar of his postal shirt. The way his thumb had tapped against the mug. The startling blue of his eyes when the shyness had burned away, leaving something direct and unsettling. It was also true, wasn’t it?
My hand moved of its own volition. My fingers, pruned and warm, trailed through the water, over the flat plane of my stomach. They drifted higher, skimming the underside of my breast. My own touch felt foreign, investigative. A shiver ripped through me, despite the blistering heat of the bath. My nipple puckered tight, a sharp, sensitive peak against my palm.
I imagined a different touch. Rougher fingers. A hand that worked outdoors, delivering parcels, lifting gates. I imagined that hand here, in this water, following the path my own fingers traced. Would he be slow? Deliberate, like his speech? Or would there be a hunger underneath, a match to the one suddenly smoldering in my own blood?
The thought was a jolt. My eyes flew open. I stared at the ceiling, at a tiny crack in the plaster that meandered like a river. This was insanity. He was the postman. I’d known him for an hour. We’d shared peppermint tea and a confession of mutual isolation.
But he was the only one. That fact was a key, turning in a lock deep inside me. It stripped away the luxury of pretense, of playing a long game. Here, there was no crowd to get lost in, no time to waste on subtlety. The village demanded honesty. It would drive you mad, he’d said. Or make you honest.
My breath came quicker. The water felt heavier, like a second skin. I let my hand slide down again, over the gentle curve of my hip, through the slick, hairless join of my thighs. The touch was electric, a bolt of pure, undiluted sensation that arched my back off the porcelain. A small, choked sound escaped my throat.
This wasn’t just curiosity. It was a rehearsal. A terrifying, exhilarating practice for a touch I somehow knew was coming. My own fingers were a poor substitute, but they mapped the territory of my own want, a want I’d carefully ignored for years. It was a raw, aching emptiness that now had a shape, a name. Tim.
I moved my hand, the rhythm instinctive and urgent. The water sloshed gently against the sides of the tub. The steam filled my lungs, my head. Pictures flashed—his lips parting as he said tomorrow, the way he’d leaned in the doorway, a silhouette against the night. The promise in his low voice. Four-ish.
Pleasure built, a tight, coiling spring deep within. It was inseparable from the panic, the sheer audacity of what I was doing, of what I was imagining. This was what it meant to be a detail he noticed. It wasn’t passive. It was alive. It was skin flushing pink under hot water and under a gaze. It was a heartbeat thrumming in secret places.
The spring snapped.
My body tensed, every muscle locking. A silent cry tightened my throat as a wave of heat, sharper and more intense than the bathwater, crashed through me. It left me trembling, breathless, staring blindly at the swirling steam.
Slowly, the world came back. The cool porcelain against my back. The lap of water. The distant hoot of an owl from the oak tree.
I felt scraped hollow. Cleansed. And yet, the wanting was still there, a low, persistent ember now banked in my core. It wasn’t satisfied. It was awakened.
I pulled the plug and listened to the water gurgle away, a slow, draining sigh. The air was chilling on my wet skin. I stood, dripping, and reached for a towel. The rough cotton was a grounding shock. I rubbed my skin until it glowed, until the phantom sensation of that other, imagined touch was scrubbed away, leaving only my own, real body.
Wrapped in the towel, I went to the bedroom. I didn’t turn on the light. Moonlight silvered the unpacked boxes. I dropped the towel and pulled a simple, thin nightdress over my head. The fabric clung to my damp skin.
I lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling. The cottage creaked around me, settling into the night. Every sound was amplified. The scuttle of a mouse in the wall. The wind gently worrying the latch on the garden gate.
Four-ish.
The whole day stretched before me, an endless desert to cross until that moment. I had to live through a morning. I had to unpack boxes, make tea, pretend to be a normal person who hadn’t unspooled herself in a bathtub over a man she barely knew.
But I knew one thing. When he came, I wouldn’t be hiding. I wouldn’t be buried in a cushion, screaming. The heat had decided that. It had burned away the top layer of fear, leaving a nervous, shimmering anticipation.
I turned on my side, curling around the warmth still lingering in my belly. The last thing I thought before sleep took me was the feel of grass under my bare feet. And his voice, clear in the darkness.
Leave the shoes off.
Laying in bed beneath the covers offered little reprieve. Though dry and warm, the thought constantly ran through my mind. Unless I was going to look for someone far away or date someone older, he was quite literally the only guy for me. Wait, Was he even single? He never said. Oh god does he already have a girlfriend? WHy am i fretting over this?? I have only JUST met the boy. Man.
I reached out and found my toy seal. I'd had it since I was young, it was my rock and pillow. "Fluffy" it was named. It had been with me everywhere - to the teasing of my parents and my own chagrin.
"What do you think I should do Fluffy?" I asked the inanimate toy. It stared back at me in silence. "You're right... I should sleep..."