Menolyrical - Final Friday Fiction

This month, I’ve taken the prompt words from a true classic, “War and Peace”, by Leo Tolstoy. One of my all-time favourite books. On this occasion, I used the version found at PlanetPDF.

 8 – complexion

12 – manner

16 – her eyes

Hot, hotter, hottest.

She drops the towel by the radiator and turns the taps. Looking into the mirror while she waits for the water to warm through, her eyes assess the vision. She notes that her complexion has suffered somewhat from the wind exposure of the walk. She washes her face first in the basin with cold water, as is her manner, then turns to enter the shower.

Grasping the nozzle from its rest, she runs it all over her body (below the neck), testing the temperature first on her toes. Once she is thoroughly wet, she replaces it in the rest and soaps up. As always, this is the point where she feels the chill and wants the water hotter. The taps are adjusted until the water runs more to her liking. The soap is rubbed and then removed. Taking the nozzle from the rest once more, it is run again over the whole of her body (below the neck) to ensure the rinse is complete.

Then the taps are further adjusted. The water runs still warmer.

It is exquisite, that pin-pricking sensation of the hot water upon her skin. Down her flanks, across her shoulders, in the small of her back, between her legs. The nozzle is settled back to the rest, and she turns and shifts under the muscle-ironing needles of water, turned up just another notch in heat.

For a few moments more she revels in the steam-filled cubicle. Eventually, she sighs and turns it all off. Pulling open the door she steps onto the mat and reaches for the towel. Oh, the luxury of hot water! Not just hot. The hottest of hot.

Not on her face though. Never the face. That, after all, is her hottest asset.

(293 words)

© Yamini Ali MacLean 2019