Chapter 3 #4
I followed him across the room. We regarded the hot tub.
This, too, was smaller than we’d hoped. The promotion had made it seem like every room had its own private swimming pool.
This tub was just a bit bigger than a typical bathtub, except that it was cut in a rectangle shape into the floor with a step inside where you could sit.
JC reached for the taps. “Does hot water bother you?”
What did this mean? “Does hot water bother anyone?”
“I mean, how hot?” asked JC. “Some people don’t like it super hot. They’re really sensitive about hot water.”
I wondered how many girls JC had taken baths with, and whether those girls were sensitive about hot water.
“I think whatever you like will be fine with me,” I said.
“Okay.”
He turned on the taps. We sat on the edge of the tub, waiting while the water pooled around our ankles.
JC stripped off his clothes. He did this so casually that it didn’t seem like that big a deal, and so I stripped off my clothes too.
I was still clinging to the hope that this experience didn’t have to be sexual.
Maybe in other countries, boys and girls took baths naked with each other all the time.
“I’m cold,” said JC. “Let’s get in.”
The water came up just over our butts. The tub wasn’t so large that we could spread out our limbs. We sat facing each other, our knees drawn up to our chests. I felt like a toddler. I flapped my hands like they were fins, and JC winced as water splashed across his face.
“This is fun,” he said.
Obviously, the point of this bath was not to get clean.
But if we were not to get clean, then what were we taking a bath for?
I hadn’t taken a bath since I was a small child—showers seemed so much more hygienic, and anyway I could never stand bathing in that tub clotted with my sisters’ hairs.
I had never been to a public bath, and I wasn’t sure what to do in this one.
Was there a distinct pleasure to be found from steeping in the water?
How long would we have to sit? When would we know if it had worked?
Maybe if I could have a deep and meaningful experience with the water, then this sexual business would go away.
But the water didn’t seem anything special.
It came out of the taps perfectly clear, not jade-green, like the water at the Geothermal Valley.
It didn’t smell magical at all. If anything, it smelled faintly of rotten eggs.
That must have been the sulfur, and I supposed that was proof this water really was from the springs, but I still doubted that sulfur had healing qualities, and even if it did, I didn’t have any diseases that sulfur could clear.
I tried splashing the water across my cheeks.
Possibly it would do something for my acne.
“Hey,” said JC.
He was now leaning against the far back wall of the tub, his elbows propped against the edges. His eyes flickered down to his crotch. I followed his gaze and saw to my dismay that he had an erection.
He scooted toward me. “I really like you, you know.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I’m really glad we got to know each other. I’m glad you’re here this summer.”
“Me too.”
“I think you’re a really special person.”
“Oh! Well, thanks.”
He lowered his chin. His gaze had become very intense. The intensity came from his eyebrows, the arch of them. I wondered if this was something he had control over—whether he practiced it in the mirror before he tried it out in public.
I ran through a mental catalog of JC’s features, trying to decide how I felt about this situation.
Yes, JC was very beautiful, but when I looked at him, I could not feel any stir of desire in my loins.
In fact, I had never felt the stir of desire in my loins for any flesh-and-blood boy.
I understood lust as an abstract concept, something I felt toward fictional characters, and though I wanted desperately to feel it around a real person in the moment, this had never happened.
At this point, I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with me, and I was truly disappointed that JC was not the one.
But there was no good way out of the situation, and it seemed that the old mantra applied. The only way out was through.
JC pushed his fingers through his hair. “Look how hard I am.”
I suppressed a snort.
I had learned over the past year that boys were not subtle about getting me to handle their penises.
Sometimes they grabbed my hand and placed it down there.
Sometimes they just rolled over onto my thigh and started rubbing themselves until I took over.
Sometimes they said things like look how hard I am, touch it, feel it.
The general strategy seemed to be shoving the penis at other people and hoping for the best, and this did not reflect well on me or my fellow women, but most of the time it worked.
“So hard,” I said.
“I bet you can make it even harder.”
I splashed some water across my arms, which felt like the equivalent of rolling up my sleeves. My freshman year had been very instructive. I knew how to handle a penis.
Thoughts of milking a cow rose unbidden to my mind, but once the image was there I couldn’t get rid of it.
Yes, this was what I would have to do—milk him dry, and then I could go to sleep.
I didn’t want to be in the hot water anymore.
It was making me dizzy. He didn’t try to kiss me, which was a relief.
I didn’t like kissing people if they hadn’t brushed their teeth after a meal, and I knew JC had not.
I was not ready to taste pork ramen on his tongue—that would have been the final straw.
“Ow,” said JC.
“Sorry.”
“I think it’s the water. The friction—I mean, you have to lubricate it.”
“Oh, okay. Did you bring lube?”
“No, I meant with your spit. Like with your mouth.”
Water gurgled around us. The water level had reached the jets along the wall, and the way they sputtered sounded so much like wet farts that I couldn’t help but giggle.
“What was that?” JC asked.
“魚水之樂,” I said. We had learned this phrase in Thought and Society last week. “The joy of fish in the water.” I splashed with my elbows, pretending my arms were fins, but JC didn’t look amused. “It means sex, isn’t that funny?”
“Okay, so.” JC settled back against the wall. “Do you want to try lubricating it?”
He clearly wanted me to put his penis in my mouth, but I didn’t want to do that, so I licked my hand and went at his shaft again.
JC’s eyelids fluttered closed. I could see the whites of his eyes.
It seemed like we were getting some good traction here.
Every time I moved my wrist, he gave a little twitch, which I assumed was from mounting pleasure.
I asked him to warn me before he came. I didn’t want to pollute the water.
“Not quite there yet.” His eyes remained closed. His brows furrowed, and his lips twitched down in a frown of concentration.
I redoubled my efforts. It seemed to be taking much longer than it should. My understanding of the penis was that you did not have to contribute much to get it excited. But something was wrong. The penis was getting softer rather than harder, and this meant there was no end in sight.
“Maybe if you put it in your mouth,” said JC.
“But we just had ramen.”
He blinked at me. “Huh?”
“I’m really full,” I explained. “So I think that would make me nauseous. I don’t like, um, giving blow jobs this soon after eating.”
“How much longer would you need?”
“Maybe like a few hours. Until I’ve digested everything.”
“I see.”
I kept going with my hand. I felt a creep of panic; how much longer would this take?
This had always been the conundrum. I was always getting into situations that I was supposed to enjoy but didn’t, and it felt like more of a disruption, even a violation, to force things to a halt instead of sticking it out; keeping a stiff upper lip through all that wet bumping and grinding.
I realized this wasn’t very feminist of me, but the truth was that between the inconvenience of bearing it and the social horror of admitting I wanted to stop, I always chose the lesser agony.
I felt a flare of resentment for JC then, something approaching hatred, but I couldn’t very well blame him for failing to read my mind.
JC’s eyes flickered open and closed. I couldn’t read his expression.
Sometimes he seemed ecstatic, and I hoped I was nearly there, that I had flipped whatever switch made orgasm inevitable.
But then his lips pulled back in a grimace, and I lightened the pressure in case he was chafing.
I tried my best, but it was undeniable: JC was only getting softer, and my attempts to work him back up kept making him hiss between his teeth.
“Sorry,” he said at last. “I don’t think this is happening.”
We sat there a moment in the tub. JC turned off the taps. Then he glanced at me, eyebrows slightly raised, like he was asking whether he should return the favor.
“Oh, no,” I nearly said. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I pretended to think it over, and then I sighed. “Honestly, I’m kind of tired.”
“You’re sure?”
“Very.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t even try to hide his relief. We clambered out, a movement that I could not make dignified no matter how hard I tried.
Toweling off was bliss. The cool air on my limbs.
My vision dimmed, then pulsed back. I flopped stomach-down on the bed and just breathed for a while, relishing the soft, dry sheets beneath me.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” said JC.
“Okay, sure.”
He locked the door and didn’t come out for a long time.
brEAKFAST WAS INCLUDED IN OUR BOOKING, SO WE STOPPED BY the hotel restaurant the next morning before we left.