Silence Is Golden (Storm and Silence 3)

No! No, of course I didn’t!

Really? Think about how it felt, unbuttoning his shirt, sliding your hand over those smooth, hard pectorals of his…

Well, all right, maybe I did like parts of him. But purely in a sinful, lusting manner! It didn’t have anything to do with really liking him or, God forbid, any of that yucky romantic stuff! That would be just…Ugh!

The thought of romance alone made me shudder. I felt like I needed a bath to wash the filthy thought off my skin. Actually, there were a lots of other things stuck to my skin - including sweat, little twigs and dead mosquitoes - that could do with washing off. But it wasn’t very likely that I was going to find a bathtub in this wilderness, was it?

Sighing, I settled back against the wall of the hut outside of which I had been conducting my little foray into personal philosophy. Someone stepped out of the hut and I felt a familiar presence settle beside me.

‘Something bothering you?’ asked the old lady, a kind, if gap-toothed, smile on her face.

‘I need a bathtub!’ I sighed. ‘Badly!’

‘Bath…tup?’ The old lady repeated, puzzled. For once, it seemed, I had hit on a Portuguese word she didn’t know.

‘I need to wash,’ I explained. ‘But I not think there are things like bathtubs or showers here in village.’

‘Wash?’ Her face brightened. ‘Of course you can wash.’

‘I can?’

‘Of course. You see there?’ She pointed towards the centre of the village, where a little stream meandered through the huts. ‘Stream run into lake. Lake spill over cliff. Waterfall come down from cliff. Small waterfall, not dangerous unless it rain. Go there and wash. Take your time. My grandson show you way to bottom of cliff.’

I was so elated to be able to wash all the grime of my skin that I didn’t even notice the devious twinkle in her eye. In retrospect, of course, I know I should have. Oh yes, I definitely should have.

*~*~**~*~*

The path down to the foot of the waterfall was winding but not long. The old lady’s grandson guided me down as promised, grinning all the way. Normally, I would have been more than a bit concerned about being shown to a bathroom without doors or walls by a grinning adolescent boy, particularly if there were convenient bushes nearby to hide behind. But, in this particular case, the adolescent boy ran around butt naked among a community of equally butt naked people. Even if he were to spy on me, I doubted very much he’d see anything he hadn’t seen before.

The boy called out and pointed ahead. I couldn’t see anything yet, but then we rounded a corner and my mouth fell open.

The water fell down over the sharp, ragged cliff in a rainbow of glittering colour and silver, collecting in a charming little pool below that was so clear I could see the scales on every fish waggling their fins in the water. Flowers in golden-yellow, red and purple bloomed around the pool, interspersed here and there with a fresh spot of green. The scene looked like something out of an ancient Greek myth - a spring so clear only the gods would dare drink from it. But it was far more than a scene from a storybook. It was alive. In a flash, one of the fish jumped, water spraying in all directions, and before I could blink he had swallowed a mosquito and disappeared into the silver waters again.

Awed, I approached the beautiful spot. With care, I knelt down and slipped a finger into the water.

My eyes slid shut in bliss.

Oh…

Cool. Blessedly cool.

I slipped in my whole hand, then my arm, splashing the water all over my dirty face, and then, suddenly, there was no holding me back: I tugged off my boots, and without even bothering to pull off my chemise, plunged into the water. What the heck! It could do with a wash, too, anyway.

The water was like balm on my skin. No, actually better than balm, because balm is medicine, and medicine itches, and usually stinks into the bargain. This was…pure. Soothing. Cool. Clear. Wonderful.

The pool was not deep - just above waist height. I let myself sink back into the water and drift under the cool spray, just letting the water soothe my aching muscles, luxuriating in every second. I heard scuffling and, cracking one eye open, saw the boy running back up to the village. I was alone with the fish and the water and the wonderful, wonderful coolness all around me.

For a while I just drifted. Then I slowly forced my eyes open.

Get a move on, Lilly! You came here to clean up, not just to float around like the Lady of Shalott on hol

iday!

Taking a deep breath of the cool air - yes, even the air was cooler here in this heavenly spot - I got to my feet and started washing my hair, strand by unruly strand. My chemise was soaked by now, and while it was blissfully cool against my skin, it was also just about as see-through as you could get. So, just in case any of the boys from the village were spying on me after all, I moved behind a picturesque rock that rose out of the centre of the pool.

It took a while to get the worst tangles out of my hair. Finally, when I no longer felt as if I had a mop plastered to my head, I leant back against the rock with a sigh and for a few minutes just enjoyed the feeling of being (partially) clean. After a while, I decided it was time to stop lazing about, and started to pull off my chemise, to give it a thorough wash as well. The moment I began to pull the thing up, the water rushed in from all around me, tickling me deliciously. I was so lost in the bliss of cool air around me and clean water on my skin that, for a moment, I didn’t even register the sound of approaching footsteps.

Wait a minute…footsteps?