Rich & Rare| A Filth Odyssey| Episode 4| No Occasion

Romy was in the bathtub. The water had been reset three times now. The first time was when she was pouring herself another helping of champagne. Some of it had spilled from the bottle and made a small puddle of beige bubbles on the floor. She’d watched them for a little while, tilting the flute of sweet bubbly to her lips. Her toes scrunched the rear lip of the porcelain and she let herself lean all the way back, the sudsy water obscuring the view of her naked lower torso.

Earlier in the day she’d gotten waxed.This soak was part of her monthly post-Brazilian ritual. The woman who did it wasn’t her usual lady and she hadn’t spoken much. Anne? Her name was lost on Romy, but she remembered a few details. Details like she wore red lipstick, had a red manicure and had bright red hair. Other details like she chewed gum, loud and fast. While Anne wasn’t nearly as close to her mouth as she was to her bare body, from the air Anne exhaled, Romy had guessed it to be cinnamon gum.

Big Red.

She'd finished the Brazilian in 20 minutes. Bettie, her usual esthetician, would take up to about an hour and a half, but they usually talked during all that time. Once a month, Bettie would agonize over her career aspirations to Romy. She struggled between fulfilling her personal desire to become a plumber and listening to the invite of her friends, who pushed her incessantly to take up modeling.

“Either way, you’re gonna encounter a lot of shit.” Romy would always offer, to which Bettie would laugh, but after, always after pulling up the strip.

“When you’re right, you’re right. Ok, I’m just gonna use the tweezers to get these little stubborn hairs.”

I wonder where Bettie was today, Romy mused, setting the empty flute on the toilet seat lid. I hope she’s okay. That woman is gonna be a great plumber.

The water was just hot enough now. Here’s the thing about bathwater. And depending on where you live and how old the home is and how old those pipes really are...it really could go either way. Sometimes, the hot water knob could be fully turned all the way up, with no assistance whatsoever from Mr. Cold. It could be enough to carry you to cleanliness without insult. The insult being bathing in lukewarm temperature. Disgusting, juvenile... Other times, a full turn to hot could turn your entire body into what the roof of a tongue feels like with piping hot pizza. Ouch.

The worst were the sensitive and confounding settings of temperature controls that shifted by the centimeter. The ones where you needed to sit down with a stethoscope, an assistant nearby to take notes, and a stopwatch. All three of those elements needed to find exactly when, where and how you should introduce Mr. Cold.

Halfway? A third of a turn? Time would tell. You would be freezing or burning all within 11 seconds.

Romy’s phone rang and she shot up. An hour ago, when she was buzzing, the phone had fallen to the floor to the right of the toilet, but she was too loopy to care to retrieve it. Now It rattled loudly against the tile.

Wrapping her elbows alongside the bath, she hauled herself forward to squint at the display.

T-REX

Calling

A lazy stupid smile spread across her face.

Hey babe, she mouthed, her eyes fixed on the call screen. Standing, she carefully placed one foot and then the other on the bamboo bath mat, her whole body warm and dripping. She dried her hands on a discarded pair of jeans, and then answered on the fourth ring.

“Heyyy.” she cooed.

“Heyyyy, String Bean. Are you soaking?” Rex sounded like he was outside. Driving? she wondered.

“How did you know?”

“I can always tell when you’re wet.” He growled.

“Ha.” she rolled her eyes at falling into that one, but nevertheless felt a swelling between her legs.

“You also sound a little bit drunk, and it’s your day off, so anyway, I figured.”

“I sound drunk?” Her eyes darted around the bathroom for a bottle of water. Nothing. Dammit.

“A little tipsy, anyway.” He chuckled. There was the sound of a car door being shut. The beeping of an alarm followed. Keys.

“Where are you?” she asked suspiciously. The cool air from the window was seeping in, teasing her shoulders and sending goosebumps over her flesh. Her nipples began to harden.

“I’m outside your building,” he said playfully. “Buzz me up?”

“What? You’re here? What’s the occasion?” She grabbed a silk robe off her towel rack and made her way to the front room, leaving wet footsteps in her wake.

“No occasion, I’m just here to fuck your brains out. Let me up.”

*