Steamlust by Kristina Wright

Author:Kristina Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2011-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

7 The Art of Bathing

The tub was a sight to behold. A giant copper tank, it was big enough for a child to swim in. Portholes gleamed on its scrubbed and buffed sides. Round wheels turned on jets of steamy hot water and nozzles bubbled foam into the center of the bath. The heating mechanism sent streams of bubbles fizzing through the tub.

Hannah’s mouth fell open. She’d helped build it, but she hadn’t seen it at work. The air was full of steam and candlelight. She could hear the gush and hiss of the steam heater that ran the bathtub. The smell of perfume hung in the moist air. Elana encouraged her forward.

“You need to relax, darling, relieve some tension.” She pulled the pins from Hannah’s hair, pulled at her dressing gown and unlaced her corset. “It’s terribly uncomfortable, playing the lady, isn’t it?” She smiled charmingly, making Hannah suspicious. The lure of the bath called her, though, and she rubbed at the red marks left by the whalebone on her white skin.

“Thanks, Elana.” A titter came in response.

“You can thank me later!”

Hannah left her dressing gown where it lay and a trail of hairpins and underthings in her wake and nimbly scaled the ladder to the tank. She stepped down the rungs on the other side into a dim world of steam and bubbles. The hot water embraced her, she slipped up to her neck in it, felt the day’s tensions beginning to ebb. Will and Elana were so clever, she thought idly. Perhaps they could fix her conflict with Darien too.

A grinding shrieking noise made her jump and splash and she turned to see the ladder disappear from the high sides of the tub. Will and Elana’s faces appeared at a gleaming copper porthole, sporting gleeful grins.

“Enjoy, you silly children! We’ll let you out when you’ve made up. Resolved your differences. There’s plenty of hot water, don’t worry!”

The steam cleared and revealed her lover at the other end of the tank, looking sheepish.

“Were you in on this?”

He held up his hands and shook his head. “No, this is all their doing, and I plan to have my sweet revenge at a later date. But I don’t see them letting us out of here unless we make amends. So maybe you should come down to my end of the bath and we should talk, before my whirligigs get pruney.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Whirligigs, is it? We may be naked and captive in a giant bathtub, but I’m not so sure it’s time for talk of your whirligigs just yet. I don’t know who you were, in that park today. Watching my pain and walking away from it. They offered me a job, Darien! And the way things are going, yes, I’m this close to taking it. If that’s how you want to push me.” She splashed water at him in frustration and turned away.

Darien dipped under the water and surfaced at her shoulder. His voice was rough when he spoke in her ear.

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