ALL NOVEL Day Thirty Six
Dear Diary,
You'd think someone with a knack for blending in would read people better.
You'd think.
On the other hand, I am an idiot. I've seen that written somewhere, I'm sure nobody would write it if it's not true, right?
Anyhow, after a day spent punching and kicking heavy bags and speed bags, I wasn't tired, exactly, but I was really sweaty, and really glad I'd asked for a bath after dinner. I sweat enough that I could smell me, and that made for weird flavor combinations at dinner. Ham steaks don't go badly with pumpkin pie spices, but chicken doesn't, nor does beef. Nothing spicy tonight, and I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that, what with pumpkin pie spice pervading everything I ate.
When I got to my room, Marie was waiting for me with her cart and bathtub. She pulled the cart in after us, set the tub in the middle of the room, and waited patiently while I peeled my sweat soaked uniform off. Our usual routine ensued, with her scrubbing and massaging my back and scalp until I felt like melting into a puddle. The big thing that kept me from relaxing entirely was my hands and shins; the former ached from punching things bare-fisted all day, the latter from kicking those same things; Marshall duBois focused on teaching us kicks that hit with our shins, since to quote him, 'you don't have a bunch of little bones to break in your shin'.
"Hey Marie? Could you maybe do that to my hands and shins as well?"
She didn't reply, but after dousing me with the second kettle instead of leaning me back for a reach-around frontal scrub, she moved around to my front, took hold of one of my hands, and plunged it under the water, where she kneaded it with her fingertips. The points of her claws gently scratched at me as she worked, reminding me how scary dangerous Marie registered as most of the time. Just now, though, I couldn't be bothered to care, because my hands desperately needed the attention. After that she pushed my shoulder until I leaned back against one end of the tub, then pulled my shin out of the water, holding it above the tub while she scrubbed it with her spicy honey soap. Once she had my shin and calf clean to her satisfaction, she rested my heel against her belly and first skritched, then massaged my aching shin. It hurt while she did it, but afterward I think that shin hurt less than the other one, so I just moved like she told me when she switched legs.
After she finished with my lower legs, she moved like she was about to start on my thighs, and I hurriedly pushed myself to my feet and said, "I'll take care of that, Marie."
She frowned, clearly upset though I had no idea why. After a moment she looked away and muttered, just on the edge of hearing, "Reported. Required."
It took a second, but then I realized she was talking about my run-in with duBois and my In School Suspension. "Oh, Marie, that's not a problem. We're friends." She jerked a little, like she'd been poked, when I said that, but I continued on. "I don't want you to risk your job for something petty like that."
She turned away from me a little further, then said, "Betrayal."
"No, it wasn't," I lied, "you did what you had to do."
I stepped to her end of the tub, put my arms around her, and squeezed her into a hug; the height difference with her kneeling meant I pretty much pulled the side of her head into my boobs, but I wasn't worrying about that just at the moment. On the one hand, she was my friend and I wasn't going to lose that over some frankly petty 'betrayal' bullshit. On the other hand, I didn't want to be locked into a tiny stone box with an upset seven foot tall woman with hands and teeth like a blender. After a bit where she just trembled, she turned her face back toward me, mushing my right tit as she did, and put her arms around my waist. I'm pretty sure they not only wrapped around me, but practically reached back to her own shoulders. When she let go and her hands trailed down my back, I stepped away just before they went south of my Mason-Dixon line.
"I'm just not feeling being touched today." At her lifted eyebrow, I appended, "Okay, not in any private or semi-private zones." Flustered, I grabbed her loofa and washcloth and made with the cleaning of my front half, my butt, and my upper thighs. At some point in there she stood and pulled out the third kettle and poured it over me. I hadn't even really twigged to the fact that other than sweat, I didn't really have any water on my front; my scrubbing went a lot better with some lubrication. Once I managed to convince myself everything remaining was bathwater and soap, I nodded to her and she dumped the final kettle over me, rinsing me.
After putting the kettle back, she pulled out a towel, holding it out to me with a single lifted eyebrow. I rolled my eyes a little, turned around, T-posed, and said, "Please, if you don't mind?"
I think I'm getting addicted to creepy-mommy-towelings. She dried me off, sat me down in my chair, and started in on my hair. Not just a hundred strokes, but a hundred strokes on each big portion of my hair, although how she decided where one tress left off and another started I had no idea. By the time she finished, I'd mostly gotten into the head space I needed to get to sleep. I stood, pulled her into a gentle hug, and said, "Thanks, Marie. I think I'm going to go to b... sleep now."
Hugging Marie standing up was an entirely different kettle of fish than hugging her kneeling. I wasn't face-first in her breasts, I was face first into her belly, with her boobs kinda settling on top of my head when she hugged me back. Before she got any ideas, I disengaged and tried to help her put her bath stuff away. She shook her head and waved me off when I tried to lift the full tub; I could lift without too much trouble, but Marie, apparently, was capital S Stronk; I got the impression she could one hand it if she got the right leverage.
At any rate, she left for the evening, and I shut the light and settled down.
I'm pretty sure my Maid was hitting on me, and not only hadn't I a clue how to react, I hadn't even much of a clue about how I felt about that.
When I wandered out today I even asked Loki about it while we strolled around the town looking for something interesting to do.
His response? "I've got six kids by three different partners, two of whom are two of my three ex-wives. I'm really not the best person to ask when it comes to relationship advice."
Okay, he followed that up with, "But if you're just trying to bed her? Just watch out for the teeth. You'd think the claws are a bigger problem, but they mostly leave superficial wounds. Bites can hurt."