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The bathwater smelled like roses. Not like actual rose water, but like a grandma’s perfume. It was overwhelming, like she was getting squished into her long-croaked Noni’s bosom and suffocated by great sagging breasts and tissue paper skin.
Toko hated it. She kept her arms held firm around her legs, mouth and chin held tight against her kneecaps. Bubbly water fizzed and swarmed up to her waist.
“I’ve got you.” A gentle and firm statement. “Ready for the washcloth?”
Toko could only make a harsh grunt. She tilted her head and tried to see Komaru’s face, but without her glasses, all she got was a rubbish smear of bob-cut hair and a vague, wife-shaped lump kneeled over the rim of the tub. Being near-sighed was such a pain.
Komaru’s distorted face grew a crack that had to be a smile. “Hey, angel. Just let me know when you’re ready, kay?”
“Don’t call me that, it’s disgusting.” Toko sneered. “I’ll vomit right now if you call me that again.”
Even through a near-sighted grainy haze, Komaru’s lopsided and self-satisfied smirk was clear enough from her tone. “Shnookums. Sweetie Pie. Honeybee.” She capped off each endearment with a kiss to Toko’s forehead and each of her cheeks. “My smart as a whip wife who I love so, so, so much,” she cooed.
“Ugh.” Toko felt her gut do a nasty somersault. “You want me to sneeze? I’ll do it. Right now.”
“Go ahead.” Komaru dipped a plum tinted washcloth into the bathwater. “Jack’s always been better at baths.” She swished the cloth around and let a corner brush against Toko’s side. “You ready?”
“Hmph.” Toko closed her eyes and let herself tremble. “Go ahead. Just…” she paused for a beat, “can you keep talking to me? I-It uh… it helps.”
It was the very definition of pathetic that Toko needed a decade of a relationship to be able to let herself be vulnerable for her goddamn wife of all people. Komaru never complained or commented on it.
Sure, they did couples therapy every other Thursday. But that was good. They were coming up on seven years of marriage, with each one more stable and communicative than the last.
She was brought back to Earth with another kiss, this one to the crown of her scalp. “Alright, Tokie. I’m gonna start with your back, kay?”
Toko managed a bobbing nod. She winced at the sloshing water sound in her ears and flinched as dripping warm fabric pressed up against her spine.
“Tonight’s gonna be a real disaster.” Komaru’s laugh was a musical one, all soft-edges and powder sugar smiles. “Remember last year? I bet this’ll be just as bad.”
“It’s at that hotel again, right?” Toko tried to keep herself tethered to Komaru, tried not to focus too much on the abrasive back-and-forth rubbing against her spine. “The Marriott?”
Komaru hummed an affirmative. “Makoto told me that since I’m his plus one, you get to be the only exception to the whole ‘limited space’ thing.”
“Thank god. No crotch fruit goblins.”
“Toko,” Komaru chided, but Toko could hear the smile in her voice. “Come on, be nice.”
“I’m just being honest.” Toko sniffed and hunched up her shoulders as the washcloth migrated to her arms. She shivered. “Please tell me that there aren’t going to be any terrible speeches this time. I wanted to die hearing Aoi blubber into a microphone with all that reverb last year. That was so awkward.”
Komaru spared a breathy chuckle. “Moving to your chest now, kay? Put your legs down.” She tapped the front of her wife’s shins. “And I think Makoto said it was just Hinata doing the annual recap or whatever. He’s always pretty good at public speaking.”
Toko reluctantly peeled away her legs from her chest. Her knees bumped the sides of the tub as she awkwardly crossed them. “Well, yeah. Kamukura’s good at everything, right?”
“Okay, you cannot call him that if you see him, so get it out of your system while you still can.” Komaru sighed and dipped the washcloth into the sudsy water. “Seriously. Try not to tick anyone off? Please?”
“What’s the point? It’s not like I work there anymore.” Toko twitched when the cloth skimmed underneath her breasts. “No bridges to burn.”
Quitting her FF job had been the best suggestion her therapist had ever given to her. She had done it seven years back and never looked back. Writing full-time and being a general homebody suited her a lot better. How else was she able to put out three bestsellers in three years? It helped pay utilities, and it kept her away from people.
Komaru didn’t seem too amused. “My brother is like, the director? So yeah, I’d say there’s a pretty big bridge to burn. Come on, it’ll be nice to see everyone, won’t it?” Submerging the washcloth, she ran it over Toko’s legs in long, slow stripes, from the tops of her feet to the middle of her thighs.
Toko watched with a half-lidded grimace. “It’s always so phony. Everyone just playing nice and gassing up on how gosh darned great their lives are. That’s what I can’t stand. It’s just a bunch of lies.”
“It’s Christmas, Tokie.” Komaru wrung out the washcloth and draped it over the bathtub’s edge. “People like to just focus on the good parts. It helps them reconcile with the bad parts.”
“Psh.” Toko drew her knees back up and glared down at the water.
Komaru took up a fluffy towel and dried her hands before laying one on top of Toko’s head, scratching lightly. “You up to hair washing?” she asked. “Or will that be too much? We can just do dry shampoo if that’s better.”
Toko took a minute to think. The old Toko would have lashed out, would have snapped at Komaru that she didn’t need to be babied like this.
But this Toko, the new Toko, the one who had a least a little more of a rudimentary understanding of her limitations, simply muttered “dry shampoo, please.”
Komaru grinned and held out the towel. “Alright. Come here, then.”
Like a slavering little lap dog, Toko obeyed. She always did. She stood, loathing the sensation of liquid running down the malformed sack of gristle and bones that she called her body.
But Komaru took her into a hug, eased her onto the bathmat, and brought the towel around her like a protective shawl punctuated with a long and lazy kiss. She stroked her wife's hair.
“You did so well,” she whispered, “I’m so proud of you.”
And god, was Toko a sucker for praise.