Works/Dry Water

I admit it. I'm a sucker for bath stuff.

The makeup counter doesn't tempt me. I don't accumulate shoes compulsively like some women. I'm definitely no fashion plate. But when I come near a store with bath products, I really should have someone confiscate my credit cards before I can go in.

Hey, baths are important to me. Some people go home from their lousy jobs and have a stiff drink. I come home and usually I'm already taking off my clothes as I walk down the hall from the front door. When I pass the first doorway, I try to see how far I can throw my bra. Most nights I can hit the living room windows. Then I start the bath water. Hot. I never bother with cold water. The water heater can't work hard enough to scald me anyway.

I go to feed the cats. Yes, I walk by the living room windows with nothing on. If anybody gets off on seeing a body like mine then they're welcome to their fun. I'm not hideously ugly, but that's about the best I can say for myself.

By the time I get back the tub is ready. I lower myself into that hot, hot water and I feel the tingle scream up my spine to the back of my neck, where it spreads over my scalp. I lean my head back to let the ends of my hair tickle the back of my neck. Sometimes the heat and the rush make me almost want to pass out. That's my stiff drink.

My bathroom. Apothecaries' jars with ground-glass stoppers, full of colored gelatin balls and mysterious powders. Soaps of all sizes, shapes, colors and smells, most used only long enough to round down their corners and make the text stamped into them illegible. Loofahs, natural sponges, unnatural sponges, washcloths, towels, bath gels, bath oils, bath brushes, shampoos, conditioners .... Every horizontal space stacked precariously with chemicals and concoctions. I wear makeup maybe twice a year, and perfume never ... yet my bathroom is full of bottles anyway.

I wanted variations. Then I guess it got to be a habit.

I started developing little rituals. I went through a bath bead phase. I'd buy fifty or sixty of them at a time. Then, every night when I started the bath, I'd shake the jar with my eyes closed and pick one bead at random, drop it in the tub. Then I'd keep my eyes shut tightly, so I couldn't look into the tub to see what color it was, and run out of the bathroom before the smell gave it away.

I'd try mixing various bath oils, like I was creating a new perfume. I had little bottles with graduated droppers, the kind that you sometimes use to give medicine to very small babies. I'd take notes. Seven cc's of lavender plus two cc's of bergamot - does it smell good, or horrid? Does it leave traces on you the next day?

No matter what I did, it got boring after a while.

"You're a junkie," Lisette said. Lisette is a friend, and the sole proprietor of this little shop I visit a lot. Perfumes, natural cosmetics - and bath goodies.

"I am not a junkie. I just like a good bath."

"Uh-huh. Who was it who had to sample every single kind of bath bomb from that mail-order place even though she decided after the first three that she didn't like them that much? Who tried mixing her own bath salts for a month, then gave up because she was worried she was missing some good recipes that the ones in the stores might be using?"

I sighed.

"And now you're in here with that desperate face," she said.

She had a look in her eyes that made me turn away and study the nearest shelf. "So, you don't have anything new and fantastic, I guess."

"What would you do if I said there was someone I'd like to introduce you to?"

"Lisette! Are you trying to set me up?"

"He's very nice ...."

"They're all very nice."

She shrugged. "So happens that I do have something new here for you." She reached below the counter and came up with a plastic bag, the same shape as one of those little tiny bags of potato chips, and about as full; plenty of room to shake around whatever was in it. Felt like sand. The label was just a sticker:

KINETIC BATH
For Women
Instructions: Add to a full tub of hot water. Mix well before getting into bath.

No ingredients. The fine print - "Dry Water Inc? What is this stuff? Looks like it was made in someone's basement. This isn't going to turn my skin blue or anything like that?"

"No, no, it's safe. They just don't have the money for real labels yet. This is just, like, a sample."

"I don't know -"

"Oh, give me a break. You're dying to try it - you should see your face. Besides, it's free."

I took the packet and stuffed it in my purse, then practically ran out of the store. Like I was buying a dirty magazine or something. I don't know, something about that weird label felt criminal to me. Bath supply espionage.

"Kitties! I'm home!" Blouse off and onto the hall table; bra thrown against the front windows; little bag of mystery stuff dropped on the toilet tank.

I stood nude in front of the mirror in the bedroom. Okay, it wasn't horrible. Office life wasn't doing my body any good, sure. But I'd have my fingernails pulled out before I went to a gym again. I'd tried that once. It had reminded me why I gave up on the whole game - getting pretty, competing for attention -

Damn it, did I really look desperate? Can't someone just decide she doesn't want to deal with something and leave it behind? Can't it be a voluntary thing?

I hurried to the bathroom and grabbed the packet again. I studied it while waiting for the tub to finish. Kinetic Bath, huh? I turned off the water and opened the packet carefully. Black powder with silver glints. I was a little disappointed when I tossed it in; I'd hoped the water would turn some interesting color. I reached one arm in and swirled the water around. It didn't feel any different either, not oily or anything. No smell. I was beginning to think the Kinetic Bath was a dud, but I stepped into the tub anyway and lowered my ass into the water, letting the sparks slide up my spine.

Mmm. Well, a hot bath was a hot bath and nothing to sneeze at, even if the Kinetic Bath was a fraud. I leaned back, resting my neck against the cool enamel, and closed my eyes.

I must be more tired than I thought, I said to myself. Usually when my limbs feel all heavy and hard to move, it means I'm rock-bottom exhausted. Or sick - I lifted my arm out of the water to feel my forehead, and when my arm came out of the water I realized it wasn't that my limbs felt heavy, it was that the water was getting thicker.

Maybe that was a packet of gelatin, I thought, and chuckled. I suppose a tub full of gelatin wiggling around could be a "kinetic bath," although still kind of deceptive. Actually, being molded inside a block of gelatin would be really interesting - feeling it shift as it pressed against your skin - when you tried to move part of your body, the whole thing would shake ....

I realized that wasn't too far from what was happening now. I panicked a little. I sat upright - I think trying to prove to myself that I actually could lift my body out of the very thick water. I started to stand up. Then, before I could do that, the skin on my legs started to tingle.

No, not "tingle" exactly. It felt like - like - hmm. Oh! I figured it out. It felt like someone was rubbing my legs, massaging them. The water was moving!

Truth in labelling, kiddo. Sit back down in the tub and trust Lisette.

I reclined again; the water resisted, like sinking into a foam cushion. I let it congeal over me, warm and semi-solid. Now it was rippling over all of my skin, vibrating gently on my breasts and belly. I felt my breasts lift themselves off my chest where they had rested. Through the water it looked as if they had suddenly decided to defy gravity. It felt as though they were being cradled, being squeezed gently and soothed on their undersides where the bra always chafed.

I was going to fall asleep in the tub if this kept up. I already felt like I couldn't possibly move, and not all of it was the thick of the water. My arms were lifted slightly away from my body by invisible tides, so that gentle pressure could rub all sides of them at once, and caress my palms and each of my fingers.

Then - then I left the bottom of the tub. That got me to open my eyes.

The water lifted my whole body up a little bit, not much but suddenly the only place I could feel the tub was where my neck and head rested. Then the water pulled me a little forward so that I slipped lower into the tub, and I was suspended entirely, with only half my head emerging from the surface.

I really did panic then, I'm afraid, but it made no difference. With nothing to push against, I could wiggle in place a little, but couldn't work up enough force to break out. Now, though, my back was being rubbed - and my butt - and after a few seconds feeling the undulating touches surrounding me, I relaxed despite myself. Oh, my shoulders needed that. I could feel the muscles unknotting as the water pressed and rubbed.

This was so wonderful. I hadn't even given any thought to how this could possibly be happening. It did occur to me that I must be sure to thank Lisette later. I could give her a big kiss - she'd like that. When we'd gone out for drinks I got the impression that she was interested that way. Or maybe a kiss would be bad; same reason. I'd never done anything with another woman before. But, hmm, interesting idea. She has those amazing lips ....

Wait a minute, I thought, this is not normal.

Not all of my flush was the heat. The water had already moved my legs apart from each other a bit so it could reach all sides. Now I noticed that there had been gentle, but steady, massage between my legs as well. And it was doing the job. My clit felt like it was the size of a strawberry. Maybe that man Lisette wanted to introduce me to. Wonder what he's equipped with? Oooh - okay, this is out of control.

I shifted my ass and my legs as much as I could. Open sesame. You want to play with that, go ahead.

The water continued to pulse against my clit, but my new position allowed the fingers of the water to gradually work my labia apart, to wrap around all the small folds and surround them. I squeaked. Even my vibrator can only buzz one area at a time. This was rubbing everywhere. My labia were standing up, it felt like, defying gravity like my breasts were, being squeezed into an unnatural and ecstatic shape.

I felt water slowly enter me, penetrate me, as if someone were pouring it into me to fill me up. And it did fill me. The water flowed into me, expanding, stretching the available space. It was so hot and the pressure was so intense. I wanted to scream.

I felt packed in fluid, from clitoris down, as if someone was taking a mold of my private parts in plaster of paris. Hot and semi-solid. The water didn't enter my ass, but it had definitely flowed between the cheeks and was sort of holding them apart, squeezing them. Suspended.

I exhaled slowly. Then I tried to shift a little bit - gasp - no, bad idea. It didn't matter. The fluid inside me was beginning to wriggle of its own accord. Expanding, contracting slowly, like it was pumping in and out of my body ... sliding across the already too-sensitive skin. It was all connected. When fluid moved in or out of me, it had to flow across my clit. I wanted to reach out, grab it, pinch it, squeeze it - but I couldn't move. I didn't want to move. I just wanted the water to keep doing that.

Faster. Go faster.

I tried to find the rhythm, to push my hips back and forth against the flow. I couldn't do much actual movement, but every tiny bit felt like a huge tremor, I was so oversensitized.

I closed my eyes again.

Deep in a marble pool, the maiden. Given over to the naiads. A hundred hands made of water, touching, stroking, exploring the mortal body given to them as a plaything. Fifty pairs of lips, kissing, tasting, licking. And Neptune mounted, surmounting, claiming his sacrifice. I wanted to reach up to him, explore his chest with my hands, touch his liquid lips, but I could not move and his presence filled me to distraction.

I pushed against the water as hard as I could. More, just a little more. I felt like I was dissolving into the water myself, that so much of it was inside me that it was only a matter of seconds before I fell apart and merged with it, a single body of liquid.

And I shouted as I came, my scream echoing on the white tile walls.

I lay there, unwilling and unable to move. The pressure inside me continued, but had stopped pulsing for the moment. Or maybe it was still moving, but I was throbbing even more and could not tell. Would it happen again? Could I bear for that to happen again?

But the pressure gradually subsided, and I felt myself pushed back into a sitting position against the surface of the tub. The fluid was losing its thickness, its coherency. Then I realized that the bath water was getting cold.

My hands shook as I dried myself off.

"So, did you try the new bath stuff?" Lisette asked as I walked in the next day. She was doing a bad job of hiding her grin, and when she saw my face in response, she burst out laughing.

"I don't know whether I should thank you or kill you," I said.

"Now, don't tell me you didn't like it!"

"I'm more worried that I might be addicted. You sure do take a lot on faith, you know that? What if I was, like, morally opposed to it or something?"

"Oh, please. Look, don't be mad at this but I've been thinking for ages that what you really needed wasn't bath salts -"

"I get it, thanks. So you decided to help me out a little. You know, I can manage that on my own."

"Really? When was the last time you did?"

"You mean alone or with somebody?"

"Either."

"Um." The last actual sex with another person had been, hmm, four years ago? And the vibrator - well, it had been a while ....

"But that doesn't mean I'd lost interest!"

"So, about this guy I want you to meet ...." Lisette said.

"Oh, no. Look, maybe you're right about the sex part, but that doesn't mean I want to get back into the dating and mating game. No way. Now, if you have more of the bath stuff ...."

"Well, that's kinda the point."

"I don't understand."

"He invented it. Look, he really is a nice guy, very intelligent -"

"I'll do it."

"- charming, cute - what?"

"I said I'll do it. Set it up. I have to meet this person."

"That easy, huh? You must have had a really good bath last night."

"Have you tried this stuff, Lisette?"

She just grinned.

Copyright © January 2000. Do not distribute or reproduce.