“Stressed again?” Elaine asked, looking up from her book, which she had covered in plain brown wrapping paper to disguise its out landishly bright cover. “Have you palpitated recently?”
He winced again and dropped his head to the table, slumping in his chair. “If I ‘palpitate’ any more, I’ll palpitate myself to pieces.” Wiping his forehead on his forearm only smeared the sweat around; it did nothing to remove the damp, sticky feeling. “What Ineedis a shower.”
“I’m afraid all we have is a bathtub in this day and age,” Elaine reminded him. “But if you mean to bathe, do not look to me to heat up your water. I’ll go nowhere near the stove in this B-beastly weather.”
“I’d rather have a C-cold bath instead,” he muttered. “One more week of this, and then it’s back to blessed air conditioning.”
Elaine hmphed. “I distinctly recall suggesting that I come to the future again. But no, you insisted you wanted to live in the past. To revelin its lack of amenities. Well, R-revel all you want. It was your own choice.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you at least had a swimming pool,” he pointed out, rolling from his forehead on to his cheek so that he could look at her.
Elaine looked up, but not at him. The thoughtful pinch of her brow intrigued him. Nodding slowly to herself, she picked up her book ribbon, marked her spot and set it aside. She nodded sharply and placed her hands on the table. “Up you get. I might not have a formal pool, but there is a small pond down at the bottom of the hill. Down about where that mini-market thing is located in your era. If we take a lantern and a blanket, some towelling cloths and so forth, we can go down there and . . . erm . . .” She paused, blushing. “No, that wouldn’t work. You didn’t bring a bathing suit, did you?”
It’s been a couple of weeks,the devil in the back of his mind whispered. Or maybe it was the one in his trousers. David shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t. But I won’t tell if you won’t. Thisisa private pond, yes?”
“As private as it gets. The land goes down to the bottom of the hill, where the Attenborough Farm takes over; technically it’s a stock-watering pond,” she explained, “but the Attenboroughs havebeen pasturing their cattle on the west side of their property of late. However, there are many bugs to worry about. If you don’t wear a proper swimming suit, you’ll run the risk of being bitten in unpleasant places.”
“Then the bathtub it is,” he decided, pushing himself upright. “At least the windows of this house have mosquito netting on them.”
“I am not going to heat any water for you,” she reminded him tartly as he rose. “Nor am I going to pump it into the heating pails. I’m too warm as it is to work that hard. Though . . . well, a cold bath does sound like it would be L-lovely.”
David grinned and flexed his arms. “No worries; I’ll raw enough for you, too.”
Pumping water for the primitive needs of the household was a better way to exercise than stopping by the gym. It didn’t take that long to get the kitchen pump working, nor to carry two buckets at a time up the stairs. The activities of pumping, lifting, climbing and pouring worked his arms, waist and legs. The fourth trip was tiresome, though. The Cuttleridges had spent all of their money on fitting their house with the latest electrical gadgets, not on upgrading the indoor plumbing.
Even the tank in the water closet had to be filled by bucket every third or so flush, though Elaine had mentioned her father had plans to rework the plumbing upon his return from his latest lecture tour in Europe.
Once the beautiful, nearly new, claw-footed tub had been filled halfway, David stripped off the remainder of his clothes. The water was somewhere between cooland slightly cold, enough of a shock that he sucked in his breath. The contrast to the humid evening heat was too heavenly to resist, however. Settling happily into the tub, he lazily scooped cool water over his chest and shoulders, and splashed some of it up on to his face, scrubbing away the residue of too much perspiration.
Just as he started to feel better, to feel human once again, the bathroom door opened. Startled, David splashed upright, then into a ball, trying to hide his groin from her view. Elaine poked her head around the corner. Her face was redder than the summer heat could account for, and she looked more hesitant than he had ever seen her before. Which wasn’t all that hesitant, for after ascertaining eye contact, she stepped fully into the smallroom.
“Erm. . . I wrote myself a letter – as you may recall – and in it. . .” She hesitated, then reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a small blue square. “Well, it instructed me to take a twenty-dollar bill out of your wallet on the last visit, and to go down to the mini-market to buy some of these. And to bring them back with me to here and now, to be used when you take a cold bath after I suggest you go and palpitate.”
Heat suffused his face. It accompanied a tickle in his chest, which turned into a wry laugh. “Nowonderyou keep suggesting I should go and palpitate myself! You lascivious little . . .! Come here,” David ordered, grinning and holding out his hand. She approached and handed him the little condom packet, blushing and smiling. Setting it on the shelf built behind the sloped back of the bath, David gestured at her clothes. “Well? Take everything off! You’ll want to get nice and coolin here before we start heating things up again in the bedroom. And I did say I’d draw enough water for you, too.”
She smiled and blushed, and started unbuttoning her ruffled white blouse. “I feel so N-naughty, doing this. And yet . . . so free. So future-modern.”
“Whereas I feel so R-randy, and never so grateful for a lack of air conditioning in my life,” David countered, grinning. Uncurling from the last of his protective huddle, he settled against the sloped back of the tub, displaying himself as well as enjoying her half-shy show.Brains, beauty and boldness, all wrapped up in time-travelling papers and quantum-mechanic strings.
She paused in her disrobing, catching sight of his erection under the cool caress of water bathing his flushed skin. The look in her eyes was almost the same one he had seen in that first photograph, that small smile with hints of lascivious pride.
Yes, these aredefinitelya few of my favourite things . . .
“Come here, my dear, B-beloved Elaine,” David coaxed as she unfastened her skirt and shimmied her hips, helping her lower garments to drop. “Join me in the tub, and, together, we’ll make some steam.”
Climbing into the tub, Elaine argued, “I’m not so sure that steam should be considered a viable comparison, David. Electricity has so much more potential. Your own era proves my point.”
Rolling his eyes, David pulled her down on top of him. “And I say,steam.”
As their bodies met, his cool and damp from the bathwater, hers warm and sticky with sweat, he silenced her with a thoroughly modern kiss. Not until both of them were once again hot and breathing heavily did he release her.
“All-right, I’ll concede your point. Steam, it is,” Elaine stated, pulling back just long enough to capitulate. She recaptured his lips with another kiss, proving herself as quick a student of passion as she was of everything else. Murmuring against his lips, she slid her hand boldly down his ribs, underneath the waterline. “Lots of lovely S-steam . . .”
Falling in Time
Allie Mackay
One
