Anna and I moved to a larger apartment in Paris in 1989. It was in a very old building near the river and it was on the top floor overlooking the low city. When the apartments were built in the mid 1800's it was not too common to have a private bathroom (or Toilet as it is called there) in each apartment. Sometime in the early 1930's two apartments on the top floor were combined and the communal bath down the hall was included in the new floor plan. We called it the Bath House.
The bathroom was huge and kind of oddly arranged. As you entered there was a wall of uncovered windows on the far side that more or less looked at another building just across the small park. (!) The window ran from floor to ceiling and was made up of one foot squares of old glass. The wall to the right had several sinks and just to the left of the door was lone toilet sitting kind of out in the open on a raised platform.
In the center of the approximately 20 X 30 foot room was a very large tile tub. It was actually constructed like a swimming pool with about one foot below the bathroom floor level and about three feet above it. It was kind of like a Japanese soaking tub except it was also over 6 feet long and 5 feet wide.
When we first saw it, we though it was some kind of communal bathing bath. Maybe it was. But it did not have any seats in side like a spa and it was harder than hell to climb into. The sides were about a foot thick and that was just wide enough to make it hard to throw your leg over but too narrow to make it easy to rotated around on your bottom to step in.
Being so deep Anna and I wondered if something was missing. We placed a garden chair in the tub so that we could step down the four feet easier. It was kind of claustrophobic but the side looking at the big windows was made of glass brick so that made it seem less like a cave ... or a tomb.
The water was warmed by an old water heater in the corner but at least it was close and large. There was also a shower area opposite the sinks and it could host at least three people at a time. It didn't have curtains but relied on the fact that the area was so huge water would not get out into the room. It was kind of like a high school locker room shower.
We just took showers for the first month until we got the bathing area cleaned to perfection. The tub took the longest but the tiles eventually took on a shine like an operating room. We left the windows uncovered. If we had to use the facilities at night when it was easier to see in from the distant buildings -- we just kept the lights low. Nobody was looking. This was Paris!
One Saturday morning when Anna was taking her shower I came in and decided to see how well the water worked in the tub. I was testing for leaks and heat retention for its eventual use. Anna watched from the shower as I opened the two large water faucets. The water roared in and it took only a few minutes to establish that there were no leaks. The tub, if filled to the brim, was about 120 cubic feet. This was over a thousand gallons! Still, the warm water was within a foot of the top in less than 10 minutes.
I tested the water with my hand at it was perfect. The light shown into the bathing room as the sun was low in the winter sky. Anna turned off the shower and gingerly walked over to the side on the slick tile floors between us. She put her hand in the water and hummed with delight. She leaned way over with her sodden cunt-lips looking back as me. Bending over the side, she reminded me of the bath games that I missed so much.
