Clop ... clop ... clop.
She imagined each drop of water as it fattened, glistened at the end of the tap, plopped against the bathtub's white porcelain.
It took her mind off the jangling of the bedsprings, the slap of the headboard, the labored breathing of the man above her.
She paused for a moment, opened her eyes. Larry's blotchy, straining face looked pleadingly down at her.
She closed her eyes and moaned, long and low, but it was not Larry's face that she saw in her mind.
It was the chubby water drop, sparkling as it fell languidly through space, landing with a delicious plip! that made her tingle.
In her mind, she let the water increase from a trickle to a torrent.
This time, her moans came unfeigned.
Larry's movements became sharp and erratic, and soon it was over. As he faded inside her, a shudder, pleasurable but not all that it might have been, tickled through her.
Larry lay gasping, his cheek pressed against her shoulder.
She let him lay there, reaching up to absently stroke his smooth, bald head, willing him to sleep quickly.
The spoked handles of the bathtub's faucet were cold and slick in her hands. She plugged the drain with the rubber stopper that hung from the faucet by a thin chain, passed her hand through the stream of water, tested its temperature. Shedding her robe, she took one last, furtive peek across the hall into the bedroom.
The sudden heat of the water spread across her skin in an electric wave as she settled, her butt squeaking along the slick porcelain surface. She lifted her feet, savoring the sound as the water tinkled back to the bath, and placed her soles on the tiled wall to either side of the faucet.
The water lapped in the channel of her thighs. Closing her eyes, she savored the warm liquid as it washed like the tide over her, then out, exposing her skin to the cold air, hardening her nipples.
Scooting closer to the mouth of the gleaming faucet, stretching her legs up the length of the tiled wall, she positioned herself directly underneath the flow of water.
Her back arched instantly, her legs tightening. The water seemed to pulse inside her, its heat penetrating into the core of her body. She pushed herself strongly against it.
It built quickly and was almost over.
When suddenly, the water moved.
Not the waves and ripples caused by her motion, rather the water gathered her, embraced her.
She opened her eyes dreamily.
It took a moment to realize what she was seeing.
The water was taking form around her, above her, anchored to the fount that still splashed achingly against her.
It took a defined shape, a rippling, silvery-translucent torso. The stream of water issuing from the faucet swirled about itself and was suddenly a thick column, its shimmering length slipping in and out of her with solidness and strength.
A globe of water distended from the mass above her, a face, with long silvery hair, blue-silver eyes.
She could smell the sea on it, salty and tangy and fresh. She could see the bathroom tile and her legs distorted through its body as if through a glass of water.
Their lips met, and its kiss squeezed small tears of salt liquid into her mouth.
The creature's movements quickened, but its pace remained smooth and even. She looked into its face, the bathroom lights sparkling inside its eyes.
It ejaculated with a force that brought an intense, wracking orgasm from her.
She cried out, for it was both unexpected and nearly painful. Her legs immediately cramped, and she pushed herself back from the wall, straightened them.
Water sloshed from the tub, soaked the small rug lying on the floor nearby.
She opened her eyes again, nearly fainted.
"You have given me shape," it said.
It bent to her, and she would have pulled away had she been able.
It kissed her again, and she found herself returning it without volition.
Then, it melted around her, spilled back into the tub. Leaning forward, she spun the faucet handles until the water faded to a drip, unplugged the rubber stopper.
She leapt from the tub, fell to the floor, crawled to the opposite end of the small bathroom.
Her first instinct was to scream, but that would bring Larry. Pulling herself up, she took a towel from the linen closet, began to dry.
Her pubis itched maddeningly, and she drew the towel briskly between her legs, savoring its friction. It came away covered with fine, white powder.
The insides of her thighs were coated with the powder.
Without knowing why--or perhaps fully knowing why--she drew a finger through some of it, touched her finger to her tongue.
Salt.
Alarmed, she refused to take her usual long, arousing bath for days afterward, opting instead for a shower, brief, businesslike and without intimacy.
But she found herself thinking about the incident over the next few days, while doing laundry or cleaning the house. She thought of it when making love with Larry. It was so vivid, so unlike her old fantasies, that even Larry's demands concerned her only fleetingly.
As he ground away at her each evening, she remembered the feeling of the water slipping in and out of her, its smoothness like polished glass.
For a brief time, she felt she had the best of all worlds.
She laid out her bath items in the morning as Larry prepared for work. Each thing, from the soap to the towel, was readied, put in its proper place. She spent the moments before he left brushing her hair, thinking about, then deciding against perfume.
When she heard the downstairs door close, she walked into the bathroom, dropped her robe, stepped into the empty tub.
It erupted from the tap almost immediately when she turned on the water. Surprised, she fell backwards, was cushioned by a swirl of water that caught her, lowered her slowly, sensuously into the tub.
This time, she shivered as it explored her skin.
Its kisses lingered, salt drying rough on her lips.
This time, it moved with slow deliberateness.
She gasped when it surged into her.
This time, a million drops of water exploded in her mind.
For two weeks, she resumed taking her bath every morning. Each time, though, the creature's embraces became more insistent, their encounters longer. When she began the week, they lasted fifteen or twenty minutes, and then she would bathe normally, taking the time to rinse the grit from her inner thighs, her belly.
Now, though, she found herself luxuriating in its attention, crawling weak-kneed and dizzy from the bath for lunch.
Another week, and she was missing lunch all together.
Another, and she was pulling herself limply from the tub just in time to greet her husband, returning home from work.
So, she decided to stop the baths for good this time, to return to short, simple showers.
To end her affair with the creature.
The creature, enamored of her, began to take shape whenever she turned water on anywhere in the house; at the kitchen sink, watering the garden, doing the laundry.
At first, she avoided its advances. It could not stray too far from its point of origin. Then, she simply ignored it.
"You gave me shape," it wailed at her one morning from the tap near the washing machine. "Why do you deny me?"
"You've got to go!" she finally turned and yelled at it. "I don't know what you are or how you got in. But, you've got to leave me alone. My husband will...."
The creature's face furrowed. "Husband?" it howled. "Husband!" And the pipes rattled in the walls. With a glare, it rumbled back into the tap, disappeared.
She didn't see it again for several days.
)
