The Solo Shower Experience That Turned Out to Be Anything but Solo

Claude

Incense and clove and moss with faint traces of spa lavender and lemongrass invaded my nostrils.

The smell of him. Warm, clean, spiced, and doing things to my anatomy that ought not happen while we were sharing a bed. Subtly, I ran a hand over that area to ensure it was level and nothing was creating a tent of shame. At the same time, I peeled my eyes open and rolled to my side, unsure how I felt about seeing Sonny’s face first thing in the morning.

Nervous? Was I nervous? Shit, maybe I was excited?

I needn’t have worried. The space next to me on the bed was empty. Cold. Flat. The smell of him came from the pillows. I pushed them away from me and fell onto my back again.

What a strange night last night had been. No, scratch that, the entire day. From the second I found out Professor Daye was Sonny, until the moment he lulled me into the most peaceful, restful sleep I’d had in years—decades even. The whole twenty-four hours had been bananas. And now I was lying alone in my bed, breathing in his smell, with raging morning wood.

My hand still rested on my dick, so I took it away, and immediately missed the minuscule amount of relief it brought me.

But no, it was wrong to think about Sonny with my hand... there. Wrong. We’d shared a bed because he’d had no other option. And until yesterday, I was pretty sure neither of us liked the other. Pretty sure that was still the case. That we were both saving face and getting along for the sake of uncovering mushroom-magic secrets.

I was sure once we’d figured it out, Sonny would go back to Remy, attempt to write up his paper, and when that never materialised, he’d hate me forever. Never speak to me again. Which I would wholeheartedly deserve.

It was definitely wrong to rock the heel of my palm against the head of my cock whilst remembering the contours of Sonny’s face partially illuminated by the dim light from the moons. The curve of his Adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down with his speech. His breath occasionally tickling the side of my neck and my cheek. The way he would almost physically glow when he spoke about something he loved.

I didn’t even know what half of his words meant. Stakes and nets and cloches, and I was pretty sure I’d misheard him when he’d mentioned pee-bales, but he’d been so full of joy, I hadn’t wanted to interrupt the moment.

Had I ever found that much happiness in something? Something so seemingly unimportant to the rest of the world? Maybe once upon a long time ago. When I first started working at U-Rail, when the city was new to me, and everything was a million miles away from the middle-of-nowhere, fae-only village I grew up in.

Yet Sonny was alive with love for what he did. At once it made me jealous that I didn’t have an equivalent in my life, and blessed to have been the one to bask in his moments of sunshine.

He was beautiful. Absurdly attractive. A mesmeric oddity. But he was beautiful on the inside, too. Pickpocketing aside, he was one of those pure-of-heart, do-gooder, live for the moment types. An optimist.

And I was a cantankerous, grumbling, sour old jerk with no noble life goals—except to get a bigger telly and fancier chai tea—humping his own hand to the lingering scent of a man who probably hated him.

Awesome.

I threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. I needed a shower. A cold one.

I set the water temperature as low as I could bear, stripped off, and stepped inside, sucking in a quick, hard breath at the shock. If this didn’t scare my boner away, I wasn’t sure what would. After washing my face, my hair because I hadn’t washed it last night, and the rest of my body, I glanced down.

Still hard. Despite the sub-zero conditions of the water.

“Please go down,” I whispered.

How about you get rid of me using the old-fashioned method? It seemed to whisper back.

“No, I’m not doing that,” I said, not entirely sure why I was still talking aloud to my cock. No way was I wanking to the mental images of Sonny. Again, that was.

But we have new images. What about his muddy hands? Why don’t you pretend yours are his?

“Nuh-uh.” It just felt wrong, to think about Sonny in that way, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why. “I’m gonna wash you now. Don’t enjoy this, okay?”

But the second I wrapped my soap-slicked hands around the base of my cock, I knew I’d reached one of those too-late-to-turn-back moments. My other hand shot out to brace myself against the glass door and a groan slipped from my throat, resonating off the tiles.

Oh, the sweet, delicious friction. I slid my hand up my length and down, and up, no longer lying to myself that I would simply wash and get out. That ship had sailed ages ago. Perhaps the moment I invited him into my bed and accepted the inevitability of breathing in his scent all night.

Besides, it wouldn’t take long. I was already teetering dangerously close to the edge. And nobody but me would ever have to know I’d stroked myself again to the thought of Sonny. The guilt was mine alone. Perhaps I could atone for it somehow.

Gods, it felt good. Wrong, but so, so fucking good. My pace quickened, my fist speeding up. I tried to bat away the images of Sonny’s bare thighs poking out the bottom of his scruffy tee, the newly conjured image of my fingertips digging into his muscles.

Faster still.

Of his pert lips. What they would feel like trailing hot little paths down my chest.

Faster.

Of those thick, feminine lashes. How they’d tickle the underside of his brows when he’d roll his eyes up and gasp in a breath at the moment of sweet oblivion.

Oh, fuck.

I fell. Fell hard. Tipped my head back, released a cry of ecstasy, and my orgasm splashed across the green glass tiles over and over.

One of my hands remained braced against the wall, the other still gripped my cock as I steadied my breathing, waited for the shame to catch up with me, and watched the evidence of my momentary lapse in control swill down the drain. What had I done?

There were boundaries I shouldn’t cross, even mentally, and I’d ignored them.

I smashed the water-off button and reached for my towel.

The din of a radio drifted through the shower doors. “By all accounts it looks and sounds painful, but the frequency with which they do it leads me to believe otherwise. Therefore, I have concluded wanking must be enjoyable. Or at the very least, a necessity.”

It took me a moment to realise I had not left the radio on, and the voice was coming from somewhere inside the bathroom. I whipped the towel around my hips and backed myself into the corner, looking about for the intruder.

But there was no one. It wasn’t even steamy in the bathroom. That had to have been the iciest wank I’d ever had.

Holy fuck. Had someone been watching me?

“Who’s there?”

Nothing. No response. I definitely didn’t imagine it.

“Oi pervert, I know you’re there.”

Still nothing.

“I heard you. Talking about . . . wanking.”

“Oh my gods,” the voice said again. “Oh my gods! He can hear me? You can hear me.” The voice was neither feminine nor masculine, and somehow both. Somehow a little alien and otherworldly.

“Who are you?” I said, panicking now, shooting my gaze around the small space, expecting to see a pair of eyes staring back from some nook or cranny. “Where are you?”

“You can actually hear me?” they said.

“Yes, I can bloody hear you. Where are you, and why are you spying on me?”

“I can’t believe it! I’ve been talking to you since you arrived and only now you can hear me. It’s a miracle.”

My heels hit the wooden skirting boards as I backed even farther into the bathroom corner. “Who are you? And why were you watching me... do that?”

“It’s me,” they said.

My initial panic waned, replaced by anger. I was cold, wet, naked, and a hidden stranger had just watched me masturbate, and was now... what? Holding me to ransom? Would they blackmail me?

“Who’s me? What do you want?” Was it one of the other guests? Maybe someone I hadn’t yet met. Were there any others? They sure sounded too friendly to be Mrs Ziegler or Mr Dupont. Besides, there’d be no hiding that nine-foot monster in this tiny room.

Was the speaker a ghost?

“It’s me! It’s just me! I can’t believe you can hear me!”

“Who the fuck is me? Show yourself and get out of my bathroom so I can get dressed.”

“Well, I can’t. Not really,” they said, their voice singsong and light. “The bathroom is me. I am the bathroom. And everything else. And don’t worry, I’ve already seen you naked, so no need to hide from me.”

I couldn’t make sense of it. They’d already seen me naked. “You’ve been watching me?”

“Since you first got here. I watched you pull up on the drive. You looked like you might try to drive away, so I froze the wheels of the car.”

“Wait.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What are you? Some sort of sprite or faerie? And where are you? And why the hell are you watching me in the shower?”

“Aren’t you listening? Or am I speaking a different language? I am the shower. I’m the toilet too. And the tiles and the floor. I am the bathroom. I’m everything. Your bed, your couch, the armoire.”

It clicked then. Like a light switch being flicked on. “You’re the house!” The magical, pain-in-the-ass house was sentient. Actually had a voice. And it was talking to me. And perving on me.

“Yes, I’m the house,” it said, sounding both exasperated and relieved I’d finally caught on.

“So...” I wrapped the towel tighter around my waist. “You just watch me? You’ve been watching me since I arrived?”

“Yep,” it said. “It was pretty boring until you got here. Can’t see inside the guest house. Well, I can, but not well, and people hardly ever come to visit me. Except for John. Urgh, that man does my bloody nut in.”

“Does John speak to you?” I didn’t know where to look when I spoke to the house, so I stared at the ceiling.

“Yes. Everyone talks to me. But nobody’s been able to hear me for ages. Not since your dad. For a while, I didn’t think you’d be able to hear me either. Until just then. Can I tell you, I’m so relieved. I wondered whether you really were the heir of Stinkhorn Manor. You don’t have to stay shivering in the corner of the bathroom, by the way. You’ll still hear me in the bedroom. At least, I think you will. We should try it. Go into the bedroom.”

It took a moment for my joints to lubricate themselves, and my body to stop tensing enough to pry myself from the wall. I gripped the towel in my left hand and balled my right into a fist as I stepped back into the main room, shooting my gaze around as though I were about to be ambushed.

My couch had returned, so I perched myself on the arm. “So, you’ve seen me naked before?” I said. It felt stranger, more peculiar now I was out of the intimate bathroom space, and in the echoing, grand chamber of my room.

“Oh, yes, many times. You have a lovely body, by the way.”

My cheeks heated. Damn, it had been so long since anybody had complimented me, I was blushing at the disembodied words of a magical house.

It continued. “I find your rounded tummy and your hairy chest particularly pleasing. And you have a wonderfully large penis.”

“Gods!” I almost slid off the arm of the couch, splitting the towel open, and revealing said penis. I snatched the towel closed again.

“Comparatively, anyway. At least with the ones I’ve seen. Not including Mr Dupont’s. I don’t believe that thing in his pants can be classified as a penis. It’s more like a telegraph pole.”

I patted my cheeks with my fingertips just to make sure the flesh on my face was still there and hadn’t melted away from extreme temperatures. “Have you seen many others?” I didn’t know why I asked. I guessed I was curious.

“Fucking loads,” it said vaguely. “The mycologist’s isn’t as big as yours.”

“Sonny? Oh, my gods! You’ve seen Sonny’s dick?” I shot a look towards the door as though the man in question might suddenly walk through it. “He’s been here for a day.”

“He got out of bed this morning, went into his room, sat in the chair—I brought it back for him—and did the same thing you did in the shower.”

“Holy fuck!” That time, I did slip off the couch arm. I picked myself up off the floor and dropped onto the cushions.

Shit. Sonny masturbating. Do not think about it. Do not think about it. Do not think about it.

Crap, crap, crap. Too late.

He’d left my bed and immediately had to... sort himself out.

I shouldn’t read anything into that. He’d had morning wood. Like I did. Nothing else. Morning wood, that for some gods-only-knew reason, wouldn’t go down on its own. He obviously just needed to make it go away.

Can’t go about the whole day with a raging hard-on.

But Claude, you thought about him the entire time. What if he was thinking about you? said a tiny voice in my mind.

“So … you just watched him do it?”

“Hey, it’s not like I have a choice. I don’t have eyes I can close.”

I buried my face in my hands, and blew out a breath. I needed to stop picturing Sonny in that way or I would find myself with another everlasting erection. One I wouldn’t be able to rid myself of without knowing I had an audience. “So...” No, don’t say anything, Claude. Shut up and stop imagining Sonny’s dirty fingers, with his green-painted fingernails, wrapped around his —“So, he just did it there? In the chair?”

Why? Why did I ask that?

“Yeah,” said the house, and I swear it sighed in disbelief. “Hell of a mess.”

“Oh, my gods!” I jumped to my feet. I needed activity. To keep my body busy and my mind occupied with something else, I stomped up the little staircase to the sleeping area and pulled clothes out of my wardrobe. “Don’t look at me as I dress.”

“I mean, I can’t not.”

“Can you at least pretend you’re not looking? You’re not fae, are you? You can lie?”

“Fine, whatever. I’m not looking.”

“Do you have a name?” I said, as I pulled my underpants on one-handed underneath the towel.

“No. I’m a house. Your father used to call me House. You may also call me House if you wish. Or you may choose another name for me? Perhaps Jenny?”

“You want me to call you Jenny?” I continued to dress, choosing one of my nicer brown woollen suits and powder-blue shirts.

“Not particularly. You can call me whatever you want. No, I’m lying. I would very much like you to call me Jenny.”

“What pronouns do you use?”

“Not he or she or they. I suppose it feels right.”

“Okay then, Jenny,” I said, in the calmest voice I had used all morning.

After I’d fully dressed, I sat on the end of the bed and stared at nothing. I thought I’d lost my mind when I was talking to the house before and it had thrown my wallet into my face, but now that the house had spoken back, I reckoned the term bat-shit might be closer to the truth.

So, whilst I was here, I would have to share every waking moment in this place with someone else. Something else. A being? An essence? Not even a person.

Until Sonny and I figured out what this ritual magic was. Wait—

An idea struck me.

“Do you know what the rhizome ritual is?” I asked.

“What, the ritual that will keep me alive? And needs to be performed twice a year at the ley lines by a direct descendant of Mycelium the first? That ritual? Yeah, I do, as it goes.”

I stood. “Well! What is it?”

“Oh, yeah, no. I can’t say. It’s protected.”

“But... you will die? Won’t you? If I don’t do it, right? Will you die?”

“Yeah. Hundred percent.” It made a sawing sound effect. “Dead as a dildo.”

“Dodo. The phrase is dodo. Dildo is...” I contemplated explaining what a dildo was to a sentient house. Decided not to. “Something else.”

“Learn something new every day,” it said in that same chipper tone. Evidently not remotely worried about dying.

“Can you at least help me figure it out?”

“I am already,” it said, an indignant edge to its voice. “I brought you Sonny, didn’t I? I’m doing everything I can to draw the answer out of you both. Not my fault if you’re too basic to see what’s right in front of your face.”

What was right in front of my face? What did that mean? I mulled it over for a few seconds, but all I could think about was Sonny. All I could see was his crooked grin. All I could hear was his bedtime sprouts oratory. Perhaps Sonny would be able to see what was right in front of my face better than I could. He was a scientist, after all. A million times smarter than I could ever hope to be.

“Jenny?”

“Yes, Claude?”

“I’m going to go for breakfast now. In the guest-house dining room.”

Jenny—the house, House—definitely sighed then. “Fine, abandon me why don’t you? Bloody typical.”

“I’ll be back,” I said. “I promise. I can’t lie, remember?”