Demon Stories

Saya: The Bath, 1659, France

Saya 

The Bath

1659, France

Sometimes late at night when the moon is full, the water is full and he asks me to sit in the bath. Naked, the moon shining on my skin, the bath water is warm. The large tub is slipper shaped and made out of copper. Such a thing I had never seen before, but my Beau knows many strange things, and brought it to me one day.

"You love to bathe," he told me shyly, "I have brought the bathing to you."

It is true, in my home, we bathed every day. Here in Europe I was very surprised and sometimes revolted to find how little people bathed. But my Beau, while trying to teach me new things, preserves the old as if they are precious things. Perhaps he does not want to lose what is so base about me in this new world. I can only guess.

This night as many nights, he helps me slip into the bath. I am still shy about him seeing me this way, in this nonsexual way of nakedness. For some reason, when it is in desire, the shame seems to melt away. But this way, so open to the air and so basic, I feel vulnerable like a child.

From his face, looking away slightly, I can tell he feels my vulnerability. I am grateful for it. He knows me too well.

Since the lip of the bath is so high, he gets on the other side and holds my hands as I step inside. It would be so easy to fall and get hurt. "It is slippery," he cautions, "it is dangerous, be careful" saying so in Japanese so that I do not miss the meaning even for a moment. He cares for me so. My heart is warmer than the bath water.

Once stepped inside, the water is already so high on my body, it already feels soothing and relaxing. He helps me sit down in finality, ever cautious of his precious one. I never miss for a moment how in this treatment he still touches me as if I am human, as if I can get hurt or even die. I think, quietly to myself, maybe in these moments he forgets that I can not die. He loves me that much.

Sitting now, my back slightly arched and feeling the warmed metal on my skin, out comes sweet smelling soap. I do not understand how it can smell sweet. I have never heard of such a sweet smell of flowers coming from something such as this. But it is how I discovered his hair smells of rose. How his skin smells of peaches. These soaps. Such mystical things. 

But first, come his arms around my chest. His nose presses into my hair, I feel his face. He breathes in, the smell of his lover after a day. He loves this smell, when his lover smells the most pure, heightened as he calls it. He tells me I smell of rain and the wet earth. How he loves this smell, and I do not understand where it comes from. I do not understand it. 

However, as I think these things, I do recall how he somehow smells of almonds. There is no soap which he uses which smells of almonds. So I wonder, though he has explained I will not yet experience some things which demons do since I am yet young, if I can smell his natural fragrance as well. An imprint on the skin, perhaps, he theorizes. Something from within. But where would almonds come from, on my Mongolian lover? 

But I can not think about it anymore, as a wandering finger floats atop my nipple, and then floats on to my neck. A faux innocence, but one I can not ignore. This is how it is at every bath time, his teasing. He does this because he knows it causes me to be uncomfortable, mixing sexual pleasures with vulnerable bath time. My naughty beautiful lover.

There is a rush of water over my back from his metal basin, a colder water but no less soothing. On my wet skin, he starts to rub the rough soap. The scratchiness of it feels pleasurable, knowing the scratching can get the dirt. In this pleasure I sigh and lean back, and he giggles and pushes me forward so he can clean my back. I close my eyes to feel the lovely scratching, the knowing it is his beautiful, precious, loving hands which cause the soap to go back and forth. 

With precision, he pours water over my head, knowing my eyes would be closed by this point because of the lovely soap. With his strong yet slim fingers, he begins to rub soap into my hair. Deep, gentle massages. Feminine sort of touching, a sort which reminds me of times gone by, when the girl who took care of me used to do it. His fingers remind me of her fingers so much. But it is a thing which I can not place nor dwell upon further, as they are removed and as my head buzzes with the tingling of the gorgeous fingers there comes the water pouring again, cold causing me to shiver. But at my shiver, I feel his warm arms again, hot feeling against the cold of my body, warming me in apology.

Now it is time to wash my front, and for this is the best part. For this, he climbs into the bath himself, and what a spectacular sight. His long black hair is loose, the curls looking as a mermaid's, tumbling down his shoulders and to his waist, inky black and catching the light of the candles in a strange shimmer which is clearly not human, too perfect. In the dim light, I admire how it catches the curve of his Adam's apple, small but there. How it catches the curves of his collarbones, the slight muscularity of his shoulders. In this light, he looks the most masculine, and my shaking heart can only drink him in as if involuntarily but how hungry it is. How much it wants to take him even now, in this intimate moment of the bath. 

However, with purpose, he has brought the soap into the bath with him, and begins to wash my front as unsexually as he can. It is a continuation of how he knows bathing is serious for me. But what he does not know is how bath time is also a time of reflection. How when you bathe by yourself, you are free to think about anything you want. And together, my brain skitters about and wanders and can only think of his body in the bath with mine. 

As he searches for every crevice of my body to wash, tickling me and other times being so rough with the soap I want to cry out, I think about him. With every stroke which is caused by his small yet strong hand, I think about him. He invades my once vulnerable thoughts, and the shame goes away. It goes away, and all I want is him. 

With the basin, he washes away the soap and I watch his eyes as the water goes over my body. His eyes are searching, the irises going from side to side too frequently. In this I know he feels what I feel. Looking at the water trickling down my body, I know what he desires.

But it is yet bath time. A time for innocence, a time for seriousness. He will get none of what he desires until it is over. And when it is over. When it is over.

For I know he is so kind to me because he wants to impress me and cause me to desire him. It is all a delicate dance. A love dance, a form of foreplay so clever. My lover is a highly sexual being, one who's entire life revolves around sex. And this I take gladly. I do not mind how everything he does leads to one thing. For I want him as much as he wants me. Even if he turns such things which were so basic to me into forms of sexual play, I do not mind. For he loves me. And that is all that matters.

I think of these things as I wash him next. As my rough soapings cause him to moan and whimper for me not to be so rough, I think about what will come next. And I know he is thinking about it, too. This painful pleasure. This pleasureful dance.