Sponge bath (continued)

Once you’ve finished her chest and shoulders, you walk around to her front where her head hangs low in relaxation. You move her tangled mane of black hair to one side, then gently lift her chin until you can see her face. The muck and sweat and trails of puke can’t begin to diminish Wonder Woman’s breathtaking beauty. Her eyes are closed, whether in relaxation or to avoid eye contact. Either way, you wash her face as gently as you can, caressing her cheeks, her nose, wiping her forehead, and her eyelids until she again looks like the unsullied goddess that she is. She keeps her eyes closed as you tenderly kiss her forehead, lower her head back down, and go out to change out the water one last time.

This time you hold the bucket over her bowed head and slowly pour warm water over her hair. Once her black tresses are thoroughly soaked, you add a handful of shampoo and begin massaging it into the mane. Her hair is so thick and long a second handful of shampoo is required. Your fingers also massage Diana’s skull, the back of her neck, her crown, and the sides of her head. She doesn’t even try to hide her contented moan this time. You wash out the shampoo and repeat the process with conditioner. By the time you’re done and you rinse her hair with the rest of the bucket, Wonder Woman is practically purring like a kitten. You wrap a big fluffy towel around her hair and dry it as best you can. Then you pull out a hair brush, squat down beside her head, and send several minutes brushing the kinks and tangles out of her hair.

You check her IV to find she’s drained the whole thing, unsurprisingly. The next time you return to the cell you bring not a bucket of water but another saline bag and a bottle of skin cream. Resisting the urge to make the obvious Silence of the Lambs joke, you rub the lotion into her dehydrated skin, starting with her hands, working down her arms, her neck and shoulders, her back, around to her chest and breasts (again lingering longer than might be strictly necessary), on to her stomach, hips, her ass, then down her long, powerful legs all the way to her toes and the soles of her feet. You finish by again lifting her head and working the cream into her exquisite face.

Through it all, Diana remains silent except for the occasional sound of contentment. When you’re finished, you let your hands gently stroke her extended arms, her shoulders, the side of her torso, and her head.

“How do you feel?” you ask as you slide your fingers through her hair, which is once again as lustrous as a shampoo commercial and smells faintly of strawberries.

“I am perfectly aware that torturing someone and then giving them comfort is a classic way to manipulate a prisoner.” But she sighs when she says it.

“But you still enjoyed it.” You don’t need a magic lasso to recognize the truth when she says “I did.”