And then she thought of Jake and the way he had looked when he had climbed into the hot tub last night, of him shirtless, his cute pompis in those swimming shorts. She felt a strong wave of sudden lust wash over her. She then thought about when he kissed her on that trail behind his father’s house, about how his arm had felt around her, about how his lips had felt touching hers. Without even realizing how it had happened, she found herself with her fingers between her legs, touching herself. Her nipples hardened and she began to rub them with her other hand, alternating from one to the other, twisting and turning them on a layer of slippery soap.
“Madre de Dios,” she muttered, her breathing suddenly heavier. “What am I doing?”
A dumb question, of course. The real question was: did she want to stop doing it?
She found that she did not. She closed her eyes and began to rub herself in earnest, her fingers making a V around her clitoris, pinching it and squeezing it, making herself feel good. In her mind, Jake was before her, his shirt off, his lips on hers. Her hands were his hands and they were touching her just the way she liked to be touched.
She began to pant and the orgasm exploded out of her in less than two minutes, making her see spots before her eyes, making her knees weak to the point that she almost fell down. As it faded slowly away, so did the images of Jake, leaving behind a vague feeling of shame at what she had been thinking about.
A harmless fantasy, she told herself when she finally stepped out of the shower and began to towel off. Everyone has them. It’s nothing that I would ever, in a million years, actually do. Right? Of course right. That was why they called them fantasies.
I wonder, she thought, as she dried the water from her skin, moving the towel with the mechanical precision of a daily routine, if Jake ever thinks of me when he’s in the shower and touching himself. The very thought of that was enough to send another shiver of lust through her.
“For God’s sake,” she said aloud, banishing the thought. It went with a considerable amount of reluctance. “I need Greg to come visit in a bad way.”
She tossed the wet towel into the hamper and then grabbed a dry one, which she wrapped around herself and secured. She then went to the door of the bedroom and cracked it open.
“Paulie!” she yelled down the stairs. “The shower’s free!”
“Okay,” Pauline’s voice came drifting up. “Be right there.”
She settled herself in behind the mirror and used yet another towel to start drying her hair. The door opened behind her and Pauline came in, a handful of clothes, towels, and toiletries in her arms.
“Thanks for letting me use your shower, C,” she said, closing the door again with her foot.
“No problem,” she replied.
“Are you okay?” Pauline suddenly asked her.
“Uh ... yes,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“You look kind of flushed,” Pauline said.
Oops, Celia thought, embarrassed. “Uh ... it’s probably from the hot water,” she said. “I like my showers steamy.” She flushed again. That had certainly not come out as intended.
“Yeah,” Pauline said wistfully. “Nothing like a good steamy shower, all right.”
“That wasn’t really what I meant,” Celia said, her eyes looking everywhere but Pauline’s face.
Pauline chuckled. “I’m sure it wasn’t,” she said. “Guess I’d better climb in.”
The shower was around a broad partition wall from where Celia was working on her hair, so she did not actually see Pauline undress and climb in, but she heard it. She paid no attention, simply went back to toweling. When it was as dry as she could get it by towel alone, she picked up the blow dryer on the stand before her and turned it on. For the next four or five minutes, she blew hot air over her long hair, evaporating away as much of the water as she could. She then shut the machine off and set it down, picking up a brush. She would brush for a bit to smooth things out and then probably have to hit it with the dryer for a few more minutes. Guys really did have it easy when it came to hair maintenance.
As she brushed, she could hear that the shower was still running, but she heard something else as well. Pauline was singing as she showered. The talk of Journey’s Frontiers album must have inspired her, because the tune she was belting out was Send Her My Love, one of the ballads on the album.
Celia smiled as she heard this. Pauline actually had a pretty voice. That was unsurprising, really. She was Jake’s sister, after all, and shared the same genetics as he. Hadn’t Jake told her once that his dad had been known to belt out a tune or two in his time? And, though Mary didn’t sing, she certainly had the musical genes in her as well.
Pauline got to the bridge of the song, the part about how he was calling out her name and dreaming. She hit the notes pretty good, and her vocal range was actually quite suited for covering a Steve Perry production. She sounds like a soprano, Celia thought, as she started humming along with the tune herself. Wasn’t that funny? A soprano was exactly what she needed to accompany her on several of her tunes, yet they didn’t have one. And there was Pauline in there, singing out a Journey song in exactly the range that...
The brush suddenly came to a halt in her hand, mid-stroke. In exactly the range that I need!
“Madres de Dios!” she said, thoughts of naked Jake, of jealousy, of how she was going to rape Greg when he got here, of the sneaking suspicion that she had just been caught masturbating, all flowing right out of her consciousness. Pauline could sing!
She got up and nearly ran into the shower area. Pauline was behind the door, a pink blur of femininity seen through the steamy glass. She was still singing. Celia went to the shower door and ripped it open.
Pauline squealed in alarm, the song dying instantly on her lips. “Jesus Christ, Celia!” she barked at her once she identified her intruder. “What the fuck?”
“You can sing!” Celia said. “Madres de Dios, you can sing, Paulie!”
“What?”
“I heard you singing in the shower,” Celia said. “You’re a soprano!”
“I’m a what? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Sing for me,” Celia said. “Sing ... oh... Magic Man, by Heart. Everyone knows that one, right?”
Pauline was astonished. “Celia, I’m standing naked in a shower and you want me to sing Magic Man? What the hell is going on?”
“Ann Wilson is a soprano and so are you,” she said. “Sing it for me. I want to hear how you do it.”
“I was just singing in the shower, C,” Pauline said. “I always do that. Was it bothering you? Is this some kind of weird Venezuelan ritual or something?”
“No,” she said. “Just do it. Please?”
Pauline sighed, the shower water still cascading down her naked body. “Can I at least close the door and rinse off while I do it?”
“Oh, sure,” Celia said. “Sorry to burst in on you like that, but inspiration needs to be followed immediately.”