Based on the short story:
A Very Hot Sauna
by Sweet Peril
Used by Author's Permission
"Oh, Eddie. I didn't know you were here!"
Ellen had just stepped into her cedar-lined sauna, surprising her son's eighteen-year-old friend, who had been lying quietly on one of the benches.
Eddie sprang upright on the bench, his face flushing with embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Feinman. I guess I should have asked if I could use your sauna."
Ellen laughed and waved her hand dismissively. "It's absolutely okay. I've told you before: the two weeks you're here with James and I, my house is your house. And that applies to the sauna as well," she added, reaching for the doorknob. "I'll just come back when you're finished."
Eddie jumped to his feet. "No, please, Mrs. Feinman! Don't let me put you out." He rubbed his palms up and down his shorts in a way that made Ellen want to laugh. She so liked this young man.
"Thank you," she said. "It's nice to have someone to talk to while you're working up a sweat. James prefers his privacy."
"Not me," Eddie answered too quickly. It was obvious that he'd not anticipated company, wearing only a pair of baggy gym shorts. Ellen felt a bit of embarrassment herself. This young man obviously worked out, took pride in his sculpted chest, his ridiculously narrow waist and powerful arms. Ellen thought he might have the broadest shoulders she'd ever seen, despite their being hunched slightly in embarrassment.
She laughed, shaking out the brightly colored towel she'd come in with tucked under her arm. "Well, good. I'll be glad for the company."
While Eddie stood politely aside, Ellen laid out her towel beside Eddie's on the bench. There was no denying her interest in this boy, she realized, not with her elevated heart rate and her difficult breathing. She had to force herself not to gulp, nor to bite her lower lip. Self-consciously reaching for the belt securing her terry-clothe robe, it occurred to Ellen that maybe her choice of bathing suit had been a bit shortsighted. An encounter like this should have occurred to her. Her face reddened even more.
Resolutely, refusing to display embarrassment before this boy, she nonchalantly turned toward him and drew the robe back over her shoulders and brought it around and draped it over her right forearm. Her heart stuttered and a shiver ran up her spine seeing Eddie's reaction. And traitorously, her nipples began to harden.
"Excuse me," she said, turning hurriedly away and walking stiffly toward the row of pegs by the door. Slowly hanging up the robe, seething with embarrassment, she discreetly rubbed her nipples through her bikini top and begged them to go away. The rough kneading worked; when she turned back, her nipple erections were almost gone. It didn't stop her from feeling almost naked, however.
At thirty-seven, Ellen was not your typical soccer mom. For one thing, she worked out religiously at the gym, ate a balanced diet, stayed away from soft drinks and red meat, drank rarely and never to excess. She rode a bicycle or swam every chance she got. Consequently, she looked more twenty-seven than thirty-seven--especially in this skimpy bikini.
Oh, God, she berated herself crossing to the bench, why hadn't she considered this?
"Is that tan real?" Eddie asked unexpectedly.
Startled, halfway through her turn to sit down beside him on the bench, Ellen hesitated. "Why, yes. If you call a tanning bed tan real. I normally go three times a week at the gym."
Eddie's face had grown a bright red. Obviously, he'd blurted that question during what her son derisively called a brain-fart. He looked away, which added to Ellen's embarrassment, rather than easing it.
"Sorry. That was impolite," muttered.
Ellen swallowed audibly before answering. "It's OK. James comments on my tan all the time. He thinks I'm inviting skin cancer."
In truth, it was one of the few evils Ellen allowed herself, beside the occasional bite of chocolate or sip of Diet-Coke. She was aware of the dangers, but couldn't seem to control herself faced with a bed with ultraviolet lights. Her payback would come in her later years, she knew, in the form of wrinkles and an increased risk of melanoma. It was less risky than smoking however, and how many people did that?
Obviously grateful for her attempt at levity, Eddie turned back and grinned, rather bashfully Ellen thought. It was only too obvious that this boy was as dazzled by her outward appearance as she was by his.
I bet he wonders what touching my breasts would feel like, she mused distractedly, just as I wonder what his muscled chest would feel like under my hand. The thought made her turn her head away and grin.
"Can I ask you a question?" Eddie asked.
"Do I have to answer truthfully?" she answered teasingly, hiding her self-consciousness.
What if he asks me my measurements, she thought, a little panicky. What if he wants to know if I go out with younger men, or if I like to dance, or what's my favorite color? She had to concentrate a moment to retrieve that answer: yellow, of course. Just like her ridiculously tiny yellow string bikini.
She nervously fingered her short black hair, sweeping the right side behind her ear as she always did when unsettled. She wondered if Eddie suspected the color was out of a bottle. Not that she was horribly gray or anything. It was only that Ellen really hated that scattering of hair, which seemed to magically change from black to white overnight. She hated the vanity dying her hair implied, but was no more able to control the impulse than she was to stay out of a tanning bed. It occurred to her suddenly to wonder if the two activities were linked. She also wondered if Eddie knew that her sparkling brown eyes were courtesy of the contact lenses she wore.
Why are you wondering all this, she wondered mournfully.
