“Thtop.” She broke his grasp and went to get a clean towel to dip in the tub. Now she was working on cleaning her face.
“How about the other thing?”
She stopped and looked at him. “What other thing?”
“You know . . .” he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He had an inkling that what he was about to say would cause further trouble, but he had to know. “The thing you were saying you were going to do to me?”
She stared at him. Now her eyes were unreadable. She said nothing.
He was getting more and more uncomfortable. “That’s all right, stupid of me to ask.”
She continued to stare at him.
“Maybe you’ll kiss Phin a little bit now, darling? Just so he doesn’t think you hate him.”
“Thut up.” She handed him a towel and turned around and put her back to him. “Clean the back of my neck and behind my earth.”
Silently, he wiped her neck and ears. When he was done, she turned around and went back to work on his ears. And she was brutal, scrubbing at him so hard, he was sure skin was coming off. After finishing his face and neck, she did his chest where she had touched him and next his hands. Then she made a move as if to clean his flaccid penis, and he arrested her hand. He was afraid she would be too rough.
“I’ll do that, Caro.”
She shrugged and got in the bath. He wiped his groin carefully. There were only a few smudges of dirt from her muddy hands. When he was done, he looked at her.
“Well?” she asked. “Are you getting in the tub?”
He was sure she didn’t want him in there.
“I promithed you a bath and talking, Phineath, and I am going to keep my word.”
“How is the temperature? Should I put more hot water or more cold water in?”
“More hot.”
He poured hot water in and she closed her eyes as he did so and let out a long sigh. He eased himself in at the other end of the long oval tub. She drew up her legs to give him room and now her knees were poking above the water level.
“Put your legs down, Caro, so your knees don’t get cold.”
She opened her eyes. “My kneeth are not cold.” But she didn’t fight him when he leaned forward and found her feet flat on the bottom of the bath and grabbed her ankles, drawing them onto his lap, straightening her beautiful, long legs under the water.
He held her feet firmly, worried she might pull away at any time. But she only closed her eyes again and sank down deeper into the hot water, so only her neck and head were now visible, her dark hair still pinned up but a few messy strands trailing into the bathwater.
“Go ahead, Phineath. Talk.”
He pressed his thumbs into the soles of her feet. “You know you could call me Phin, if you prefer.”
She opened her eyes. “But you like Phineath.”
She had noticed. “I do like that you call me Phineas.”
“Because of theeth?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head.
“Now tell me somethingyoulike, darling.”
“Darling.”
