She stood in the shower, leaning forward, hands pressing against the front wall, providing much needed support. Her eyes closed, the showerhead directed at the top of her head, hot water cascading down over her body. She hated mornings; she hated everything about them. Everyone that knew her avoided meaningful interaction with her until after 9:00 am, and those that did not obey this rule suffered a fate worse than death.
She heard the shuffle of the shower curtain and felt the presence of someone behind her. "Good morning," he said.
"Morning," she replied, the word basically falling out of her mouth, and no there was not anything good about it. "What are you doing?" she said. There was no reply. She sensed him moving closer. "It is not going to work," she spit out, hoping to scare him away.
It did not. She felt his hands on her head, massaging her scalp and temples. He was right behind her, their bodies barely touching. He reached up and unhooked the showerhead so it dangled on its hose, spraying into the bottom of tub. He took her shampoo and began to lather up her hair, massaging again as he had done before.
"It still won't work," she mumbled, not much force left in her words, still supporting herself on the front wall of the shower.
He massaged the top of her head, then, with both hands on either side of her head, he massaged back from her temples, behind her ears and down to her neck. He worked his hands back up to her temples, retracing the same route. He reached for the showerhead. Holding it in one hand, he used the other to gently massage and rinse the shampoo from her hair. Once the last of the lather slid down the drain, he began to paint her body with the showerhead.
He aimed the hot water at the base of her neck, and then he swept it from left to right then back again, working slowly out over each arm then back to her neck. He started down her back, lower and lower with each pass. Her eyes still shut; she concentrated on the hot water splashing and streaming down her body, shoulder blades first, then middle back and finally her lower back.
He switched the showerhead to slow massage when he reached her lower back and pointed the streams at the base of her spine and slowly traced her spine up to the base of her neck then back again. Turning back to normal spray, he resumed his painting, spraying back and forth again down over her ass, across the backs of her thighs and calves, down to her feet. Changing to slow massage again, he directed the pulsating streams up and down each leg from the bottoms of her calves to the tops of her thighs. Alternating again to the soft spray, he applied the hot water to her body once more in sweeping strokes, standing up as he did.