Making a Cold Bath by Angedevil on Deviantart

I found myself alone in his bathroom, feeling vulnerable like the spider that was lingering near the drain.  The mirror above the sink was too high to see anything but my neck and face, but I knew my body must be pink with fever.  I felt odd and frightened, being alone for the first time since I had arrived.  I felt this desperate need for the joined-at-the-hip connection we'd had for days on end, but I just couldn't invite him in to be with me, no matter how blase` he was about his mother's presence in the house.

I smoothed my hands across my abdomen and scented the smell of old perfume on my neck.  There was tension in there, the sickly ivory feeling of an infection somewhere I couldn't see.  It was pushing down, wanting out and using all of my energy in its struggle for escape.

I ran the bath with mixed feelings, unsure whether I was pleased with or mortified by the washing down of the odd little spider.  There are always spiders in that bathroom though, so I imagine that their kind is doing alright, despite my one malicious act.

The little buckets with Korean writing along the edge of the tub made me think of Japanese bath houses, and with this vision of steam-filled rooms surmounted by paintings of Mt. Fuji, I stepped in and let the water hold the curves of my body.  It was so deep and hot, deep and hot enough to put a little pressure on my sinuses.  It was the biggest tub I'd ever bathed in.

I didn't feel better though.  I felt weakened and drained and a little slutty, but I held on to the hope that I would feel better soon, that somehow the water would cleanse my organs of whatever had its grip on me.  Fevered steam curled out of my nostrils like dragon's breath, but nothing I could do was going to stop my inevitable boiling over.  I was sick, probably as sick as I'd ever been.  But I knew we only had so much time, and when time is so precious and so secret as what we were sharing, you drink those moments in without letting anything get in your way.

Even though I was decidedly uncomfortable in my illness, I let my head loll and my mind wander to the reality that had opened around me.  I imagine some people would say that reality had closed in around them, but I just knew it had opened.  I had been closed in before, but in that moment, I knew that I had so many options, that my life was wide and vast and unpredictable.  I couldn't see farther than the moment I was in for the sheer knowledge that the world I lived in had literally no boundaries anymore.  It was like living my entire life underground and then learning about the sky.  No one has ever been so free as I was at that moment, free to make right or wrong choices or no choices at all.

But I'd be fooling myself if I said that this feeling was more than fleeting.  While I couldn't quite see what the future held,  the truth of where I was and how I'd revamped my life was dawning on me.  The world I was in was starting to roll off the ground like fog, and I was so aware of its depature while simultaneously trying to block it out.  It was leaving me stranded so quickly after I'd taken that amazing freedom and plucked a choice from it like a star from the sky.  I felt young and privileged, I felt old and deprived, and I had no idea how I would feel the next day.

But while I was so confused, so scared of the events I was evading and what had yet to be, I always felt the twang of connection tugging me forward.  It never left me, and I knew it would be a constant for the rest of my life.  I could feel myself drowning in the empty air without his touch to ground me.  So I heaved myself like an astronaut from zero-g space onto the very earthen surface of his linoleum floor and made myself ready for sallies of kisses and a sweet lingering goodbye-for-now.