Water splashing on a wooden shower deck

Dot leads the way out Greta's back door, holding your hand.

The garden is dark now. The outside lights have a warm gold tone. To one side of the door are the shower and the hot tub which is a great wooden half-barrel. Greta stands under an outdoor shower head. She sways in the streams of water.

You pause, and Dot stops a half pace ahead, still holding your hand.

The water sound changes as Greta moves. On her skin the water has a dull splatting sound. On the wooden shower planks, the sound is hollower and more musical.

Above her full square buttocks, slick with water and streaked with soap suds, the daisy tattoo shows clearly. It pictures her name, Margaretha. Daisy.

Greta turns her back to the shower head and rinses the soap away. "Plenty of warm water. Step right up. Get washed and into the tub."

"Dot? Greta?" you say. "We all wrote that we like touching other women in the shower. I am starting a little slowly tonight. Dot, can Greta and I wash you?"

Dot looks to you and then to Greta. "Yes. Be careful, I'm ticklish, and I'm not ready for that. Not yet."

"No tickling," Greta says. "I would be happy to wash you, Dot, Anna's good friend and housemate."

You and Dot step up on the low wooden platform under the shower.

Dot is giggly and a chatterbox. You like hearing her happiness spill out in words, letting them wash over you like the warm shower spray. Greta is sure and steady with her hands, making sure that Dot's pale freckled nakedness is soaped and rinsed, turning Dot by her shoulders from wash to rinse. You mirror Greta's actions, a beat slower, making sure Dot feels your touch as firm, not ticklish.

Greta has a few scars on her hands and arms. Perhaps cooking and chores at the hippie commune where she had once lived. Not like Betty Box, whose life is written on her skin in scars and ink.

And then it is your turn to be washed.

You think about the sheets of Yes No Maybe you So, and the lists Greta made for you, Dot, and herself.

You whisper a desire to Greta.