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I’m looking forwardto my day with Chris. It’s going to be a roommate-bonding experience, I tell myself. An insight into the man I’ve been living with for over two weeks and hardly know.
I’m in the living room with my laptop when Chris comes into the kitchen in the early afternoon. I pull my headphones off and tease him. “Good morning.”
He nods at me and starts the coffee machine.
“Our tickets are for four p.m., and I was wondering. What do people wear to the baths?”
He blinks at me for a moment. “What?”
“What should I wear to the baths? The website doesn’t have any advice on that.”
Chris crosses his arms on his chest, and then one hand goes up to cover his mouth, and I think he might be laughing, though I’m not sure why this is funny.
“What?” I ask, but he just looks up at the ceiling. “What?” I get a little louder and try to poke him with a finger, but he twists out of my way.
“It’s a nude bath,” he finally says.
“What?”
“It’s a nude bath.” He says it a little slower, and at first, I think he’s teasing me, but no, he’s definitely serious. The blood drains out of my face.
“It doesn’t say that anywhere!” I click over to the open browser, and Chris moves around to look over my shoulder. This close, I can smell him, just the natural scent before he's had coffee and cigarettes. He smells like detergent and cotton and warmth.
“Right here,” he says, pointing down at the small text at the bottom.
I squint and read it out loud. “Joint, textile-free Roman-Irish bathing. Textile-free? Can’t they just say nude?”
“I think your browser is translating the words,” he suggests.
“Oh, that makes sense. Wait, what do they mean by joint?”
Chris coughs and really can’t hide his laugh now. “It means . . . I think you might say unisex?”
I take a step back. “Excuse me? I’m going to be naked in front of you?” The end of the sentence pitches up into hysteria territory, and now Chris really is laughing.
“Stop laughing!” I insist and smack his arm with the back side of my hand. “I didn’t know!” He just doubles over, and I’m pretty sure his eyes are tearing up.
“Oh my god,” I say, another thought hitting me. “I was going to do this with Zoe.”
It’s mildly horrifying, but also, I have to admit as Chris wipes his eyes, very funny.
Finally, I join Chris’s laughter, and my laughing starts Chris back up again.
Once we get control of ourselves, he asks me, “Are we still going to the baths?”
I pause, feeling like uncool and uptight. But do I really want to spend a few hours in close proximity to a wet, naked Chris? My body clenches just thinking about it.
I shake my head adamantly. “Absolutely not.”
After cancelingmy tickets to the bath—no refunds—I try to get back to work. The embarrassment lingers, though, one of those moments in life that’s going to pop up in my head at unexpected times.
Part of me wonders, though, what would have happened if we had gone.
Of course, in real life, I would have spun around the moment I realized we would be naked, but in my mind, I play out what it would be like if I was comfortable and casual with it.
I would see Chris naked. He would see me naked.
I’ve already seen him shirtless, and that image stuck in my mind more than I would like to admit. Granted, it has been a very long time since I’ve had sex.
