Elizabeth 06: The Honeymoon

"She is a product of it as much as we are," I said. "Just a very unique one, I suppose, and an especially enthusiastic one. You will hear all sorts of stories of her in the baths - men and women alike."

"Wouldn't do to talk about her now that she's married, would it?" Keith asked. "Particularly to a bloke who goes to the baths himself?"

"You are in for a big surprise as to just how open the atmosphere there is," I told him. "No story I could offer you would prepare you in full."

Frances was quiet, although clearly willing, on the walk through the rainy streets. She did comment on the futility of an umbrella in such heavy rain when we arrived in the lobby of the ladies' baths, bidding Keith adieu with plans to meet for dinner in an hour's time. "I do hope my dress will be somewhat drier by then," Frances groused as the door swung shut behind us.

"It shall be," I promised her. "The soap stones they use to heat the water do a marvellous job of keeping the locker room dry. We depend upon that on days like this!"

Elizabeth had left her membership card with me for the very purpose of introducing Frances to the joys of the baths, and I presented her card and mine to the young woman behind the desk. Reading Elizabeth's name, she said, "Ah, yes, she's off on her honeymoon, isn't she?"

"Yes, the lucky thing," I said. "Has Irene arrived yet? She said she would be joining us."

The desk attendant shook her head no, but only seconds later Irene appeared in the doorway. "Frances!" she exclaimed. "How nice to have you along!" She was dressed brightly like Frances, and it was a tremendous relief for me to find our other best friend in such spirits as she blossomed forth into the warm, dark lobby. Seeing Irene in a dress anymore was something of a novelty; she had gravitated increasingly to trousers since even before my arrival in the city, a trend that was beginning to catch on with other young women, although I had no interest in partaking of it.

"Hello, Irene," Frances said with a nervous nod as Irene embraced me tightly just before handing over her card. She seemed to give some thought to greeting Frances in the same manner, but Frances did not show any sign of welcoming it just yet. To me, she said, "That was lovely, Agnes. Do you two and Elizabeth always greet each other so warmly? That is not what we hear of life in the city, I can tell you."

"And that is just why we do it!" Irene explained, taking Frances' arm in hers as the three of us meandered to the locker room. "A city can be a cold, heartless place all right. But it can also inspire people like us to form wonderfully tight bonds. On a nasty day like today, I live for Agnes and Elizabeth's hugs, I can tell you!"

"Frances and Keith are considering a move here themselves, you know," I told Irene, not caring to steer the conversation to the finer details of our relationship; it might have been a bit much for Frances to learn just now that Irene and I had an on-again off-again sexual relationship, after all.

"That would be lovely!" Irene said. "Whatever its faults, Westfordshire City is a wonderful place to be young and in love. Not to mention the baths." On that note, she pulled open the locker room door and stood aside for Frances to enter our sanctuary for the first time.

Frances stepped inside gingerly, as if not knowing at all what to expect, which I suppose was indeed the case. As usual, there were women coming and going, all in various stages of undress, and we were greeted with a round of comfortable hellos and smiles. Frances returned them all politely, but seemed deeply unsure as to what to do next.

I had been in exactly that position not so long before, and I stepped up to help her through the initial shock. "It's all right if you're feeling embarrassed just now, Frances," I told her as I opened an empty locker. "The first time is like that for us all. I promise you will be amazed at how quickly you find yourself feeling perfectly comfortable." Rather than pressure her to undress, I began doing so myself. Irene, who had claimed a locker on the other side of the bench, followed my lead.

When we were both down to our brassieres and panties, Frances at last began fumbling with the buttons on her dress. I was about to offer to help her when our friend Eunice, perhaps the baths' most loyal visitor, appeared from the next row of lockers. She was on her way into the baths, and of course she was stark naked. "Irene! Agnes!" she squealed in greeting. "Lovely show at the wedding yesterday, and I barely had the time to say hello to either of you." She turned then to Frances. "You were there as well, weren't you? We were never introduced, though. My name is Eunice."

"I'm Frances. Very pleased to meet you, Eunice." To see how pleased she was, one only had to look at the expression on Frances' face as she took in Eunice's big body - enormous breasts and a matronly belly that kept her bush out of sight when she was standing - and her even bigger smile and show of confidence. Eunice could be a bit of a trial with all her gossiping and monopolizing the conversations, but she did set a wonderful example for the very accepting atmosphere that made the baths what they were.

"Is this your first time in the baths?" Eunice asked, and not waiting for an answer, she continued, "I take it the answer is yes? You're going to love it, dear. I shall be seeing all three of you shortly in the water!"

"Certainly, Eunice," agreed Irene, who had removed her underclothes while Eunice was introducing herself. Frances turned instinctively at the sound of her voice and was nonplussed to see her nude as well. I set about removing the last of my clothing.

"Well, she certainly is comfortable with herself, isn't she?" Frances asked, at last unbuttoning her dress as Eunice waddled off toward the bath chamber door.

"Everyone is after a visit or two," I told her, as I closed my locker and stood before her without a stitch of clothing or a trace of embarrassment. "You will see, I promise."

Frances pulled her dress off, revealing that she was wearing old fashioned short pants of the type I had abandoned as soon as I had seen Elizabeth in her stylish panties. "I must say, I adore your underclothes here in the city," she said, avoiding eye contact with Irene or myself as she hung the dress in her locker. "I feel absolutely ridiculous in these by comparison!" She plucked at the fabric of her short pants, but did not remove them, opting instead to do away with her brassiere first.

"My thoughts exactly last year," I said. "If you'd like, we could bring you to a lingerie shop just down the high street. The baths bring them a lot of business, actually."

"I think...I think I'd like that!" Frances declared. With no other cause for procrastination, she looked down and bit her lip, and hastily she pushed her short pants down. Knowing that Irene and I were curious due to the story we had heard the prior summer, she stood back and let a nervous laugh escape, and said, "Here it is, ladies."

There it was, indeed. Scarcely less broad than Elizabeth's triangle and seemingly just as thick, Frances' ladygarden belay her initial shyness with an undeniable declaration of adult womanhood. It was a remarkably erotic badge, and her first-time awkwardness could not defeat the obvious pride she felt in it.

"You're beautiful, Frances" Irene said, giving Frances a quick hug. "You are going to love the baths."

"Indeed," I agreed. I considered offering her a modesty cloak, but her demeanour persuaded me that she had no interest in one.

Together we walked to the bath door, and Irene opened it for Frances. With a girlish squeal of nervous delight, she stepped into the steamy chamber. It seems Eunice had told the others in attendance of Frances' name, for several of them greeted her by it. Amidst the welcomes as we three eased our way into the hot water, Eunice once again stepped over the boundaries of decorum. "Well, I can see how you made friends with this pair, Frances!"

I was mortified on Frances' behalf...but to my surprise, she responded with a laugh. "Indeed," she said, "I knew I would be here in very accepting company." She sat back triumphantly between Irene and me, and appeared to have conquered her shyness.

"That you are," Eunice conceded. "I must say, though, I shall never understand how a characteristic as mundane as having a lot of pubic hair should cause such celebrity in a place like this where we all have our unique bodies on display."

"That is because you have never had to live with being a hairy woman," Irene pointed out.

"Oh, well, I haven't said there was anything wrong with it, now have I?"

"Not quite," I admitted. "But come now, if Frances wants to talk about her bush, she will. There is no need for the rest of us to draw attention to it."

"Perhaps I welcome your attention," Frances said.

I assumed at first that she was joking; but upon turning to share a laugh with her, I saw Frances looking most determined, defiant even.

"Well, come now, aren't we all here to see and be seen?" she asked us. "Perhaps that is not the only reason, but surely you will all concede that our being naked in public is a very large part of the attraction of it all. Having been more inclined than most to hide in my clothes for so very long, I know all too well what a blessed relief it is to finally allow oneself to be absolutely vulnerable and to be rewarded with the embrace of acceptance. It is almost addictive, wouldn't you say?"

"Bravo!" Irene said. "This is why we need fresh visitors to the baths from time to time. You're quite right, Frances, and yet I never thought of that. Exactly right."

"Well, then," Frances declared, patting her bush, which was flaring out delightfully every which way in the water. "By all means, admire it, and let us talk about it if you wish. Yes, I was teased about it at school, too. Not so very much as to hurt me particularly, as all the girls had something that inspired teasing of some sort, but enough to make me question my femininity, and to keep it hidden as best I could. Until last year. I would love to say it was my own pride and self-love that enabled me to embrace this as a beautiful feature; but the truth is that it was Keith's adoration for it that brought me fully out of my shell. Since then, I have come to see it is only myself whose opinion should matter at all, but it is nice to know how Keith loves it as well. In any event, so do I: I adore the sense of mystery it inspires and the erotic joy of looking down to see a triangle, and a big one at that."

"Lots of fun to scrub in the shower as well, I am sure," piped up Lindy, Eunice's frequent partner in crime, whose own impertinence had played a major role in bringing Elizabeth and Jonathan together; we were all begrudgingly grateful for that.

"For me and for Keith," Frances confirmed.

"I can only just imagine," Eunice said. Clearly she was still not persuaded. Perhaps that is why I was not put off when she directed her next comment at my own love life. "So, Agnes, I understand you and James had a delightful time at the wedding!"

It was then Frances' turn to look horrified on my part. I had neglected to warn her of just how open the atmosphere usually was in the baths. I patted her leg gently to let her know there was no trouble, and answered, "Indeed we did. He's a lovely young man all right. But do you know, he believed I was as bushy as Frances here? I wonder where he got that idea."

"The company you keep, perhaps," Lindy suggested. "Or maybe the rumours about us get jumbled among the men at the pub. I do hope he did not express disappointment when he saw otherwise."

"He didn't know otherwise, even after I undressed," I said. "I don't suppose he has ever been with a lady as hairy as he thought I was."

"Is that a good thing?" Eunice asked. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him, after all."

"That is where I left it," I said. "No need to embarrass the poor dear when he was already in bed with me. I was only too happy to have him find me so beautiful as I am."

"Yes, but it is such fun to let men know of their misperceptions about us!" Lindy said with a laugh that proved contagious.

On that note, somewhat to my relief, the topic of conversation turned elsewhere, and we whiled away our hour in most agreeable company. Frances proved to be fairly talkative while I, still feeling fairly melancholy, was content to listen. But the warm water and warmer company did a great deal to lift my spirits, as did Frances' remarkably fast adjustment to the intimacy that was so new for her. Despite going back out into the rain, the walk to the pub for dinner afterward found me in a much more positive frame of mind than I had felt in days.

At the pub, Keith waved at us from a table he had staked out with another young man who had his back to me. As we approached the table, I realized the other man was James; he turned around to confirm as much just as we arrived. Keith said, "Ladies, my new friend James here wanted - "

"Agnes!" James interrupted, jumping up from his chair to surprise me with a lovely fond embrace. "I do hope you don't mind, Keith here told me you and Irene were with his fiancée in the ladies' baths and you were meeting them for dinner afterward, and I guess I looked as delighted as I felt to hear you would be here, and so he invited me along."

"No, that's lovely, James," I said, though rather nonplussed at his enthusiasm. Was this what I could always expect of a man once I had partaken of his favours, even if it was only one pleasant afternoon?

I took my seat as James shook hands with Frances and recalled their brief meeting at the wedding. It was not, of course, lost on me that James was careful to switch his claim to the seat next to the one I had happened to choose. What did surprise me was that I found myself feeling happy about that occurrence; he was looking quite smart in a new-looking linen suit and pale blue shirt, perfect for summer. After the waiter had been and gone with our orders, the poor dear finally had to take a breath as Irene spoke up. "Keith," she asked, "How did you find the baths?"

"Wonderful," he said. "Such a pleasant diversion, and under the circumstances you almost have to make friends. Didn't you find as much, darling?"

"And how!" Frances agreed. Irene and I exchanged bemused looks, knowing the full extent of how she had indeed found as much but was too demure to comment on it in present company. "Yes, I had a lovely time," she continued. "All very accepting of everyone, that place is!"

"I am quite happy to hear that," Keith said, and turning to me he added, "Thank you so much for inviting her."

"Oh, Agnes and her friends are always quick to invite a new friend to the baths," James said, I thought rather impertinently; but I was not inclined to antagonize him as my suspicions grew. He had been so very pleasant in bed the other day, after all.

"Yes, but Agnes understood there could have been some unpleasantness for me," Frances spoke up, surprising us all with her frankness. "And she and Irene were there to reassure me that there would not be. We should all be so secure in ourselves as they are!"

"Yes," James agreed. Brushing my hand, he added, "I understand Agnes has had her share of difficulties with that in her past. So of course she would know how to sympathize with you on that."

The poor fool still did not realize that I was not like Elizabeth! But now was hardly the time to tell him as much.

I suppose I could have excused myself just after dinner, knowing there would be music and dancing at eight o'clock as usual, if I feared what might be next with James. But after turning the matter over in my mind, I found that I did not fear any such thing but actually welcomed his rather obvious continued interest in me. Throughout the meal he was lively and talkative, and always respectful, and I allowed my mind to wander time and again back to my room at Uncle's house and the gentle caress of his hands on my breasts and how welcome it would be to feel that again. And so it was ultimately with no regret that I lingered over a post-dinner drink as the band began its set, knowing James probably intended to ask me to dance.

The moment I finished my drink, he did. "Agnes, may I have the honour?" he asked me, standing up and holding out his hand.

"Certainly!" I heard the enthusiasm in my reply without being fully aware of it, and it took but a moment to conclude that it was sincere. I could not resist an apologetic glance at Irene, but she was chatting with Keith and Frances and did not look upset in the least.

After our impromptu tryst just a day before, I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I was in his arms out in public. "Thank you for asking, James," I said as we whirled about the floor. "It feels great to be out and about on a night like this."

"A night like this?" he asked. "Surely a bit of rain doesn't distress you."

"Yes, isn't that silly!" I acknowledged. "And yet I have been feeling rather melancholy. That is what brought me out to the baths tonight, I suppose. As I told you yesterday, I've been on my own in the city for more than a year now, and I suppose I'm growing tired of being on my own." After a comfortable pause, I added, "And by the way, thank you ever so much for yesterday."

"Thank you as well!" he said. "It was beautiful, and to tell you the truth, Agnes, I have been hoping there might be more of that in store for us. If you don't mind my saying, I mean, we were quite good at it, and..." his voice trailed away.

"Quite good?" I asked. "That sounds like how you might describe your ability to speak French, James!"

"Oh, I would never claim to be quite good at that," James admitted. "But I mean, Agnes -"

"Oh, James, I'm sorry!" I squeezed his hand affectionately. "I did not mean it literally. I only meant that you were being rather clinical for...that subject. In any event, James, you do yourself rather an in justice, I think. You were far better than only 'quite good', my friend."

"Do you mean that!?" He looked as giddy as a schoolboy in a chocolate shop. "Good heavens, Agnes, here I've been practicing my speech all day long, and...it's as simple as that?"

"It's as simple as knowing we had a lovely encounter yesterday and you have been on my mind today, and when I saw you with Keith I rather suspected you had arranged for us to meet, and I was quite glad you did."

"Well gee, Agnes, if I'd known it would be that easy..."

"Then what, James?"

"I have no idea," he confessed, and we both burst into laughter, and sealed our conversation with a kiss. That, of course, elicited a few audible reactions from other couples around the floor, and I opened my eyes and looked around in morbid curiosity.

Amidst the knowing and approving grins, I saw Keith and Frances had followed our lead. "Oh, dear," I said. "Irene must be all alone at our table..." I looked over, and to my relief saw that she was not.

"She's behind you, dancing with Gregory from the bank," James said.

"Oh, good," I said. "I know she will be delighted for us, James, but I do worry about her still being alone now that I'm not."

"I understand," James said. "I know how close the two of you are, and I know what it's like to be the lonely one in a group of friends. I would never wish that on anyone."

Now I knew I was in love. He understood!

"Might we have dinner tomorrow, then?" he asked me. "At Claridge's, perhaps?"

"Claridge's!" That was among the finest restaurants in the city, known for its romantic setting, perfect indeed for a date; but it occupied an unpleasant locale in my memory: my one and only prior visit had been with Edward during our first week in the city. Poor old naïve young Agnes, fresh from the farm and in love with a man who preferred men! But wasn't that all the more reason to move on from such things? Of course it was. "Claridge's sounds perfectly lovely, James," I said. "Thank you."