She crossed the room and tugged the curtains open. The view of the sound stretched out in front of her, sun reflecting like glass over the water.
“Okay... this might be the best view I’ve seen since we got here.”
The words left her mouth in a whisper she didn’t even mean to say out loud.
She moved toward the bathroom, opening the linen closet and grabbing a towel. Just before shutting the door, her eye caught a bottle of bath bubbles tucked behind the folded linens. She reached for it with a soft grin. “This’ll work.”
As the soaker tub began to fill and foam, she wandered back to the closet—this time to grab a disposable razor. She had noticed the pack earlier, and tonight felt like a clean slate kind of night.
She walked to the full-body mirror.
Still in her bathing suit. Hair half-dried. Skin still sun-kissed from the afternoon.
She studied her reflection like it wasn’t hers.
Then slowly, she reached behind her neck, untied the burnt-orange top, and let it fall to the floor.
The floral-patterned bottoms slipped down her legs next, sand falling in little specks around her feet like remnants of something she was shedding.
She walked to the tub.
Sat on the edge.
Ran her fingers through the bubbles.
Steam rose to meet her skin, and when she finally sank into the bath, it felt like slipping into something sacred.
Water, heat, silence.
Her body relaxed under the foam as her mind slipped somewhere else entirely.
She rested one leg on the rim of the tub, razor in hand. Dragging it slowly from ankle to thigh, watching the suds vanish beneath each stroke. Then the other leg. Slow. Intentional.
Clean skin, smooth again.
She leaned back, hair damp against porcelain. Bubbles kissed her collarbone. Her eyes closed.
And that’s when the fantasy began.
I get home from work and if nothing else is planned, I come to soak in the tub.
Soon after I get in, my husband walks in.
When he is turned away from me, I watch him slowly undress. I can only see the back of him, the vanity is blocking the front of his lower half.
As I lean up, trying to get a peek in the mirror. All I can see is the look that he is giving me. As he turns and comes toward me, he doesn’t stop glaring into my eyes.
The broken contact comes from me looking down at the abs he keeps hidden beneath his shirt.
As my eyes keep wandering down, just before he puts his leg in the bath, I see the rest of him.
Hanging there, still swaying from the walk over, just as he steps over the side of the tub.—
Sara gasped.
Bolted upright in the tub, water sloshing over the edge as steam rushed her flushed cheeks.
Her heart thundered. Her breath came in shallow waves.
