I accept. How crazy am I for accepting food from his fingers? I give my head a shake at the ridiculousness. He’s so… disarming.
He smiles and licks his lips. “It’s good, right?”
I swallow. “It’s a banana,” I state.
“And it’s good.” He squeezes an inch or two down to make some more ooze out.
“Here.” I take it and show him how the peel comes down, one petal at a time, and he gives me a giant smile and breaks a piece off and shoves it in between my lips, making me startle before sticking the rest of it in his mouth.
“That’s so good,” he says around a whole mouthful of banana.
I can’t help it; this makes me giggle.
He smiles and looks at me with questions in his eyes as he chews.
“I need a shower,” I tell him, sobering.
He swallows and shakes his head. “First, you need to eat.”
“I’ll eat. I’ll take a shower and then I’ll cook us something. Something with flavor.”
He stares at the banana peel in his hand.
“I like bananas, too, Tyson, but not for dinner.”
What’s his story? How does he know how to drive a truck but not how to peel a banana? He paid for groceries. He can build a fire and he obviously has basic survival skills.
He shrugs. “I’ll take a shower, too.”
He drops the banana peel and then drops his jeans, steps out of them, and grabs my hand, pulling me out of the bed. I scramble to reach for the quilt so I can cover myself, but he doesn’t seem the least bit worried about us both being naked. Of course not.
I’m tugged into the bathroom where I’m feeling very bashful. I’m naked and I need to pee.
“Wait until I finish,” I tell him and try to nudge him out of the bathroom.
“I’ll take a shower with you,” he’s decided.
“Okay, but wait until I use the bathroom.”
He tilts his head, confused.
“I need to use the toilet,” I clarify.
“Okay, use it.” He moves to the shower and turns it on and then gets inside and pulls the curtain over.
I stare at the white curtain with the faded purple flowers for a minute and then realize that there’s something of a cultural barrier here. I sit on the toilet and go about my business.
His head pokes out and he looks at me.
Oh shit, I want to shrivel up and die right now.
“Don’t try to leave!” He points and then he’s behind the curtain again.
I say nothing.
“Or I’ll need to teach you some more,” he adds loudly.
I glare at the curtain and after wiping with toilet tissue from the dusty-looking toilet paper roll, I flush.
“Oh! Brrrr” This comes from behind the shower curtain and I grin. The water turned cold. Serves him right.
I pull the curtain aside and he’s shivering, holding his biceps with his hands, and standing back from the water stream.
He looks at me with alarm and holds his hand out to halt me. “Wait, Ivy. It’s gone cold. It shouldn’t. The hot water might be broken. Oh. That’s better. Come.” He grabs my hand and I climb into the tub. He’s immediately washing me with the striped green bar of soap that he slides over me, everywhere, including between my legs. It falls from his hand and he keeps going with soapy palms, rubbing up and down and up and down between my legs. I squeak and try to cross them, but he’s adamant and focused on his task. He then reaches for the shampoo bottle and squirts some standard green 2-in-1 shampoo into my hair and lathers it up, smiling at me.
He starts purring happily as he’s playing with the bubbles in my hair.
I close my eyes and soak in the feeling of his fingers on my scalp. Then those fingers are on my breasts, so I take over pushing water back down the length of my hair under the stream but then I feel a hot mouth close around my nipple. His fingers walk their way between my legs.
“No, I’d like to stay clean for a bit,” I tell him. I squeeze my thighs in an effort to deny him access while I also squeeze the excess water from my hair. I move past him to get him in front of the flowing water and grab the shampoo and squirt it into his hair.
“Your turn,” I say, deciding on a distraction.
It works, I guess, because he smiles. He’s too tall for me to reach his scalp properly.
He slides a little on the slippery soap he dropped, and he catches himself by grabbing the shower curtain, tearing half of it off the shower rod. His look of panic vanishes, and he stares down at the offending bar of soap and lifts it. “Slippery,” he says and tosses it over into the sink.
“One sec,” I say, seeing way too much water escape the confines of the tub because the shower curtain is hanging by just three rings now, and I squat to twist the steel plug in to block the drain. I flip the shower knob so that water begins filling the tub before the entire floor gets flooded.