Chapter 10: Bath Day

On the morning of what later became to be known as "Bath Day" Diana searched the house and filled four large baskets with clothing and bedding. Some of the clothing had belonged to Emil's parents.

"Do you mind if I wear some of your mother's old clothes?" she asked tentatively.

Emil shrugged. "No. Knowing my mother, she'd be happy to see her stuff put to good use."

"Good, 'cause I only have the rags I've been wearing, and if I don't have something to change into soon, I'll smell worse than you."

Emil was a little perturbed that Diana kept mentioning his smell. He never noticed anything, and the dogs that could sniff out a rabbit half a mile away seemed to like the way he smelled. He decided it must be a woman thing. His mother had always been after him to bathe too.

"Did your mother have any special way of doing laundry?" wondered Diana.

"She used the big pot behind the house. She used to take it down to the river, make a little fire, heat up water in the pot, throw the clothes in with a little soap, stir them with a stick, and then rinse them in the river. She sometimes rigged a clothesline to throw them over or else she dried them on bushes."

"Okay. That sounds like a good plan. You go get a horse, and we'll haul everything down to the river," Diana commanded.

"But that could take all day," complained Emil. "I thought maybe we could ride the horses some, or maybe I could do a little hunting."

"Not today," Diana growled. "Today is the day I get you and this place cleaned up, or at least get started on it."

Emil could see that Diana had her mind made up and that it would be useless for him to argue. He muttered to himself but then shuffled off to follow her orders.

The horse did make the job a lot easier. In two trips they managed to get all the laundry and the large pot down to the river. Diana asked Emil to rig a clothesline while she went about gathering wood for the laundry fire. It took most of the morning, but by noon she'd boiled, scrubbed rinsed, and hung to dry everything except the clothes she and Emil wore.

She'd thought about her next decision all morning. Although she still wasn't feeling any compelling urge to prance around naked in front of Emil, she also wasn't too excited about having dirty laundry left to do. Not having to worry about getting wet would also make it a lot easier to give Emil the good scrubbing he needed. The little devil who had recently begun to make lewd suggestions in her ear whispered that it would also be a chance to check out Emil's body. She made her decision.

"Okay, hero, shuck out of those clothes," she ordered.

"Here? Now?"

"Yes. Here and now. I don't plan on doing any more laundry for a while, and you might as well get started on your bath."

Slowly Emil undressed, shyly turning his back to Diana. When his clothes were finally piled in a heap at his feet Diana, admiring his tight body, made a whistle of appreciation. When he turned to protest she tossed him a bar of soap. "Go dunk yourself in the river and scrub everywhere good. I'm going to get these clothes started, and then I'll come to check on you."

Once again, Emil, muttering to himself, shuffled off to obey. He splashed into the river, taking some solace in fact that the deeper water would give him a little concealment. He found a large submerged rock where he could perch with just his head exposed and sat there for some minutes, pretending to scrub, and wondering what it was about women and soap. He was surprised when Diana splashed into the water behind him. She was naked! He almost fell off his rock. The picture of her slender yet womanly figure moving gracefully toward him through the shallows of the river would be forever etched into his mind. She was perfect, and even if she did make him bathe, it was a torture that he'd gladly endure just to be near her.

Diana's take on the situation was more pragmatic. "Close your mouth and quit staring," she chided, feeling more than a little self-conscious herself. "This is for business, not pleasure. Gimme the soap."

She took the bar, stood behind Emil and started rubbing on his matted, tangled and oily hair. When she had sufficient lather worked up, she handed him the soap and began scrubbing his scalp with her fingers.

"Yuck. Your hair is disgusting. How could you ever let it get this way?" She complained.

"Before you came along, no one complained," Emil countered, who was paying far more attention to the sensation of her soft skin against his back than he was to the conversation.

Diana took a long time on his hair and enjoyed every minute of the experience. There was a growing intimacy between them that had an undeniably erotic element. When she was satisfied that no more improvement would be gotten from scrubbing she ran her hands sensuously over his shoulders and back.

"Dunk your head and rinse," she commanded, sounding far more detached than she felt.

When Emil had thoroughly rinsed his hair she once again took the soap, the little devil on her shoulder having told her that she really needed to scrub his body. She listened and enthusiastically undertook the job. Once again, they both enjoyed the experience immensely.

After a time when it was obvious that Diana had scrubbed his body very clean, Emil regained a little composure and his voice. "Don't you think I should wash your hair too?" he suggested.

Normally, Diana would have preferred to do this job herself, but by now her caution had disappeared, and she could imagine nothing that would be more pleasant than the feel of Emil's hands on her hair, and maybe elsewhere. She handed him the soap, and as she did it was like a little surrender. From the back of Emil's mind, the words "go slow and be gentle" flashed. He did just that.

When he finished with Diana's hair, he didn't ask permission, but began to gently soap her body. By the time he finished, she was squeaky clean and although he had controlled himself as best he could, his arousal was evident. The erotic component of bath time had become dominant.