Chapter two: Cleansing
She turned from him and strode into the bathroom. He heard the flat tink of the toilet seat cover rising. He stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. She had drained him wholly. His breathing steadied, the sounds of her relieving herself flowing gently from the adjacent bathroom. The toilet seat fell back to its rest as a flush roared. Metallic clinking as she pulled the shower curtain back. His drew in another deep breath and released it, taking stock. He was soaked. In sweat. In spit. In her. He yawned and gathered himself, rising to his feet. A shower sounded incredible.
She had left him near the center of the mattress. He set off for the foot of the bed, stumbling awkwardly over the rolling hills of blankets along the way. A mountain of her dirty laundry was heaped on the floor at the end of the bed, reaching halfway up the mattress. She joked now that she left it there for him, but it had predated his Diminishing and been a facet of every bedroom he had known her to keep. He could not dispute the utility now, though. The bed stood around three feet off the ground; slightly over three times his height these days. Most furniture required additional accessibility options now. He turned his back to the edge of the mattress and dropped clumsily to his stomach, his feet dangling over the edge. Gripping the plush down comforter under him, he let himself slide down until he was clinging onto the side of the bed, where he kicked off and landed back-first in the pile of her clothing.
It was an easy landing. Occasionally a pair of pants with the belt still looped in or a stray shoe would offer an unwelcome surprise, but she had become much more cautious about what made it into the "hamper" as she called it since he had almost dashed himself upon a boot two weeks ago. He sank into the laundry on impact. He enjoyed this practice; the fall was, for the most part, safe, and the brief exhilaration of terminating in a cozy pile of clothes that smelled strongly of her still excited him. Standing among her discarded outfits – wading through socks and crawling through pantlegs – drilled home his smallness in ways both comforting and thrilling.
He had landed on a strewn sweater. The fabric was thin and soft, and she had recently worn it out: the perfumes of hairspray and lotions still clung to it. He attempted to rise from it and stumbled back, briefly unable to find firm footing. He waded through the tumbling spread of wool, cotton, lace, and denim, emerging from the pile and onto the cheap, hard carpeting of their apartment bedroom. Recovering from another brief stumble as he finally left the laundry behind, he made for the bathroom door.
"Clear!" he called when he had put a little over a foot between himself and the hamper. That cue was hers. The black lumpy ball of her t-shirt careened out of the bathroom doorway as soon as he spoke the word and landed expertly in the heap. The walk to the bathroom was quick. Quicker for her, to be sure; she could clear the space between bed and doorway in two or three steps. But he was typically only ever a few seconds behind, eternally grateful that their apartment was small and single-story.
He crossed the threshold into the bathroom and turned to the shower along the left wall. She leaned slightly over the side of the tub, throwing the faucet on. The drumming cacophony of the bathtub faucet quickly gave way to the hissing rain of the shower, and she rose to her full height. He admired the twinge of muscle in her legs as she did, following her motion upwards, lingering over the soft lines and round fullness of her backside.
She had a hand in the stream, testing the temperature of the water. It was too cold for her – it was always too cold for her – and she worked the dial again. These were practiced motions and did not require her full attention. She turned her head as he entered and smiled at him. "Sleep well, lil goblin?"
"Mhmm," he answered, approaching her. He stopped to her left and ran his arm up and along her calf in a half-hug, resting his head where muscle met shin. "That new blanket is so nice. Thanks again."
"It was on sale!" She reminded him, beaming down at him. "I'm glad it's working for you. You looked so cute all bundled up in it this morning. Such a cozy bug." The last words came as teasing baby-talk. She had in recent weeks begun to tones she had previously reserved for small animals. It didn't bother him. There was a sweetness to the doting, and he suspected that it came from a place of irony as much as love. She reached over him and pulled the door closed.
He had begun to idly massage her calf as she spoke, squeezing at the malleable softness of the relaxed muscle, tracing slow lines up and down her leg. It tensed and pulled as she strained to swing the door closed without stepping away, relaxing into a jelly-like mound upon its return. He looked up and met her gaze.
There was something that stirred deep within him during these glances. Standing at her feet, staring up into her clear eyes. She was all soft, curving lines. Long arching toes to smooth feet; ankles yielding to the gentle slopes of her calves and legs. Her thighs were strong and pale, thicker around than he was, and greeted one another warmly when she stood. Her love handles and the small round of her stomach stood out when he admired her from such a steep incline, accentuating the air of softness about her. She often stood with her shoulders pulled back slightly, drawing the line of her stomach up towards her full breasts. She often teased him for how distracted he became when they spoke at close proximity like this, both standing on the same surface. He couldn't help it, though he rarely tried. She was enchanting.
"Very cozy," he absently assented just a few seconds too late. He earned a smirk. She held a hand to the stream again. Apparently appeased, she pulled the curtain back farther, creating space for her to enter. She stepped one foot in, then the other. "If you're going to drool you may as well do it in here," she offered.
"Fair. I'm still pretty sticky," he said, running a hand through his hair. She had sucked a lot of her arousal from him, but what lingered had begun to dry on him. He felt it most in his hair. He clambered up the old two-step ladder she found for him, and ascended to the rim of the tub. She pulled the curtain shut behind him.
Steam was already beginning to swirl around the stall. Her back was to the faucet, her closed eyes pointed towards the ceiling as she worked the roaring water through her hair. She luxuriated in the heat of the spray for a moment, letting it run down the dark waves of her shoulder-length cut and over her body, drowning the chill winter air of their bedroom. She breathed deeply as the water ran over her, and found him when she at last opened her eyes.
She stooped towards him – far lower than she needed to, torso running almost perpendicular from her legs – affording a generous view of her bare chest as her eyes drew nearly level with his. She enjoyed dramatizing the extent to which she needed to lower herself to reach him. She brought both hands – hot from the steaming shower – around his midsection. She considered it too slick and dangerous in the shower to allow him to jump or slide down to her, and had forbidden him from entering through any means but her own. She moved him delicately, his arms slack over each of the hands that framed his torso. She brought him first to her face. They held one another's eyes for a moment, and he felt his groin lurch, trapped so in the hands of his naked partner, inches from that larger-than-life smile. She pressed his face into her puckered lips, her kiss a familiar force visited upon him whenever she held him so. She centered her lips around his, though their fullness encompassed a considerable portion of his face and the totality of his view. He kissed back just the same, pressing his face into the puckered embrace of her mouth to silently communicate his adoration for such affections. She held his face to hers for a moment, admiring the nuzzling glide of his head against her lips, then lowered him to enamel floor, centering him before her.
He stood facing her, feet firm where she placed him. Her body insulated him from the stream. He had always appreciated the high water pressure in the shower at his former height, the force of the water making it easier to clean the thick curls of his hair, soothing him as it battered his shoulders. It was too much for him to take on unprotected now. Even down by the floor of the tub the water fell too forcefully to be comfortable for him. He took a single step forward, placing himself directly under her.
Trickling streams of water fell gently from her and rained down around him. The torrent of the showerhead blasted water to her scalp and shoulders, where it ran down her form. It fell in long, steady drops from her breasts and elbows and poured in an unending column from her center – running along her stomach, over her vulva, and down to splash against the enamel between her feet. Here was his shower. He turned his back to the faucet, a tiny mimic of her own posture. He raised his head up, eyes shut as the water ran over his face, working it back into his hairline and massaging his scalp.
The water ran from her as though from a tap, far from the pressure of a shower, but it made up in volume what it lacked in force. He ran his fingers repeatedly through the areas of his hair and beard where her arousal had dried, feeling the strands break free as he worked the hot water through them. The natural texture of his hair returned . He opened his eyes, still facing upwards, and took her in. The water's course over her bodyscape placed him directly under her vulva. The swelling from the morning's excitement was going down, though still visible, its soft uneven folds glistening hues of heated pink in the cleansing rain. Droplets perched in the dark wire of her hair. The two rounds of her cheeks carried a deep line along under her and up to her backside. Water collected and dripped there too, the sound of their splashes against the tub's floor almost imperceptible over the rush of the torrent above. Her legs ran like spires above him, reaching a height more than two of his body lengths above his own head before melting into her midsection. He followed the steep lines of her and saw that she was staring down at him.
He could see only the bridge of her nose and up, the rest of her face obscured behind her raining chest, but he could tell by the pull at the corner of her eyes, the luminescent shine in their brown, that she was smiling at him. "You'll die a noble turkey's death, staring slackjaw into the rain like that, lil man," she teased.
"Lil ol' me?" He offered back, "I was just standing here minding my own business when you came out of nowhere!"
"Mhmm, sure," she intoned, drawing out the vowel sound in mock acceptance. "You good for shampoo?"
"Yup!" He had to shout to be heard over the water, and he offered an exaggerated nod to ensure that she caught his meaning. The smile in her downturned eyes deepened for a brief moment before she looked away to the caddy at the far corner of the tub. She found her shampoo, a large purple drum with a pump nozzle at its top, and filled her palm with a few squirts of gel. She had taken to filling her shampoos, conditioners, and washes in these containers after he Diminished; she had often let the slick plastic of traditional bottles fall from her hands in the shower, and was afraid for him. The sweet floral medley of her shampoo washed down to him.
She stepped forward, away from the water, and he hustled along with her, keeping the balls of their feet roughly aligned. Her hands worked the gel into a lather in the wet mop of her hair. Dry and in the light her hair shone a deep auburn, lighter tones peeking out from the layers of her rich waves. Here, soaked, and with the bathroom's light on the other side of the curtain, her hair was almost black, contrasting sharply with the white suds she worked around her scalp.
The stream he had been relying on had dwindled to long, steady drops when she stepped away from its source. They drummed around his shoulder as he leaned against her leg, head resting towards her calf while she lathered. The bathroom had quickly grown hot and muggy in these short minutes, the mirror surely fogged by now. A slight chill managed to find him, though, creeping over the rim of the tub and settling in the spaces outside of the water's touch. He drew closer to her leg.
"Here it comes," she warned, taking a pump of a lilac body wash into her palm and stepping back towards the water. She worked her hands around her chest and stomach, under her arms, and then down each arm. She wiped excess lather from her palms onto the fronts of her thighs and spread it up around her hips and back over her buttcheeks.
The water was beating against her again and his stream beneath her resumed. It no longer came as clear bathwater, though, but carried the soapy lather of her shampoo and bodywash away from her and down to him. He closed his eyes and looked up again, stepping into the fullness of the stream. The water eased his chill away instantly, and his nose filled with the mingling sweet and floral scents of the soapy water raining over him. He had until then still been able to smell her body on him, but the rich musks of her sex gave way to crisp notes of cucumber, vanilla, lilac, and melon as he worked his secondhand soap through his hair and over his body. The aches of the morning's exercise melted away from his thighs and chest as his nose filled with the sharp cleansing scents. She continued her work above him, rinsing her body clean of the wash, fingering through her hair to rinse away shampoo. Huge wet sheets crashed behind him when she threw her hair back to let the water seek out lingering soapy pockets. He steadied himself on her, arm wrapped loosely around her leg as the water from her hair woke a current around his ankles and water rushed towards the drain.
"Ready?" She called down to him, head angled sharply up, the water thrumming the floor behind him and kicking against his bare back. Her elbows were bent, hands overlapping at the crown of her head, hair bunched up and away from her.
"Ready!" He called, yelling over the rush of water, pressing twice against her calf in case his voice failed to reach her. Her hands twisted and slid to the ends of her hair, ringing a great wave of water free. He stepped back and into the wave, letting the water crash over him. He staggered at its force but remained upright, stepping backwards against the shock of its weight. The water was mostly clear of shampoo, and he ran his hands through his hair and over his face, down his arms and over his body, rinsing himself of soap.
She leaned forward as he rung his own hair out, twirling his wet mop into a ponytail that reached his shoulderblades, ringing water from it. She pumped at a third bottle, collecting conditioner this time, and worked it into her hair. She pushed the showerhead away, sending the stream cascading against the tile wall, to allow the conditioner to set. She took more body wash into her palms and squatted down towards him. Her tummy bunched as she lowered, the rounds of her ass parting.
He found himself eye level with her vulva once more. Water trickled down her legs, beading along the folds of her scrunched midsection. Her knees peaked just over his head, passing behind him; she walled him in on three sides.
"Soap me up, babeh," he sang, puffing his chest and raising his arms straight out to his sides. She smiled and brought her hands together above him, rubbing them slightly to lather the body wash. Some of it dripped onto his head and shoulders, slowly sliding down him, tickling as it crawled. Her hands were against him then. They came with a sharp coolness, the bodywash making first contact, but the heat of her hands were only an instant behind. She worked up and down the column of his body, caking him in thick soapy foam. He was clothed in it, the lather rising from his chest as high as his mouth. He looked ridiculous. He blew from his mouth in exaggerated puts, clearing his mouth as dramatically as he could.
Her work done, her soapy hands rose up to the shower's stream, clearing the lingering bubbly clouds from them, and then traveled to her knees. "The abominable soapman," she noted dryly. "Get to work before you melt away."
He began to move, and frothy wisps of the wash fell from him as he did. He stepped towards her, ducking under her vulva, and walked under her, shoulders hunched deeply. He rose to his full height when he was out from under her, turning to face her spread cheeks. He ran his arms up along the inside of her glutes, painting the interior of her cheeks with white foam. She braced herself against the rim of the tub and brought her knees – left, then right – to the cool enamel surface. His canvas lowered slightly and scooted towards him in the process. He stepped back to allow the roundness of her bum to settle at its new, more accessible height, and went to work. He ran his hands and forearms along the thick rounds of her glutes, wiping fine bubbles onto her. When he ran low on his supply he scooped liberally from the soapy armor that adorned him. He worked inwards, from the peak of her heat-flushed cheeks towards the valley between them. He rubbed vertically in the valley, driving soap into the skin around her asshole. She shuddered slightly as his arms found her there, tracing over its ridges, placing a flat pressure against it, each motion flirting with entry.
She drew a sharp, pleasured breath as her rectum twitched at his touch, then rose slightly and flexed her cheeks, binding him in the plushy maw of her ass. "Pace yourself. You get me too worked up in here I'll fall backwards. My weight is a lot less forgiving in the tub than in bed."
She relaxed her glutes and freed his arms. He returned to massaging the soap into the soft flesh of her cheeks. "Sorry. Can't make an omelet without stimulating a few butts."
A sarcastic sound of disgust rang out above him, but she wriggled her hips, flaring her ass towards him, threatening to knock him over as it swayed to soundless music. The soapy mix he had spread onto her mingled with the coating still surrounding him. He had been acutely aware of the heat radiating from between her legs during these labors, but his mind was temporarily flooded with thoughts of losing himself there. He pushed them away, knowing she expected him to finish up so she could continue getting ready for work. He patted her left cheek twice, cueing the next step.
She shifted slightly atop her knees, rising higher above him. Soap floated absently against the back of her thighs where her ass had rested. He turned from her, stepping over her left calf, and straddled her Achilles heel, facing the scrunched, water-reddened plane of her sole. He leaned forward and hugged her foot, squeezing his soap-drenched body against her puffy feet. His face found the space between the pads of her toes and the ball of her foot. He left the smell of lilac perfume behind him, but he could smell the slight, sweet sharpness of her toes in the first moments of his embrace. He breathed deeply, planted a kiss on the pad of her second toe, and righted himself.
He rose to his feet, approached her left ankle, and repeated the motion. Stooping as if in prayer to visit soap upon her soles, breathing their soft scent, withdrawing with a small kiss. She wriggled her toes into him upon his descents.
Both feet now covered in a base coat of soap, he rose from her right leg and knelt between them, facing the left again. He scrubbed and massaged over the surface of her sole, working from heel to toe, massaging the soap into her pruning foot. He visited the same devotional upon her right.
She eyed him while he worked, right shoulder forward, lower back arched, craning over her left side to stare down at him. He was aware of her eyes on him while he washed her. He stole glances up at her as he stooped over her foot. Her eyes smoldered as she cast her gaze down at him, basking in the sight of his small body working up a sweat cleaning the feet of the woman he loved.
They had found mutual gratification in his service to her even before he Diminished. He knew he was subordinate before they met, aroused by pretty toes, stern orders, and playful smothering; almost more animated when allowed to paint nails, massage, and provide pleasure than he ever was to receive it. She approached the dynamic with more curiosity than excitement at first, content to find a partner who she could offer sore legs to for doting attention after a long day at work, someone who would fold laundry and cook for her with visible excitement. It grew on her quickly, though, and she came to find the dynamic as arousing as he seemed to. She found herself eager to get home after a difficult day so that she could stick the damp richness of her nylons in his face to be licked and rubbed whole again. She relished at his nigh worshipful moans when she found herself wanting and wordlessly climbed onto his face, smothered him as she rode until she had her fill, acknowledging the engagement with little more than a pat on his panting head as she walked away. She found that the things that she loved so dearly about him as her partner – his caring nature, his intuition and deep-rooted empathy, even the self-deprecating and sardonic humor he hid behind from time to time – she could love anew when he served as her pet. They thrived together under this agreement. He, full-time emotional support and doting boyfriend, part-time pet. She, kind, nurturing, and scathingly funny always, goddess of their one-bedroom apartment sometimes. Diminishing had cast all of this in new light, and they were still working on finding their new strides together, but it had all worked to severely deepen this reciprocal cycles of service, care, and love.
His work complete, he approached her behind. They each strained to hold one another's eyes, but her cheeks soon eclipsed an easy behind-the-shoulder view of him, and her attention turned to the floor of the tub in front of her. She did not rise into her previous squatting position, which easily enabled him to hunch under her, but remained on her knees, spreading her thighs slightly and raising herself only a few inches. She left him facing a narrow trench, a few inches of space separating thigh and her core. She'd make him crawl under her. "You make for a good loofah," she purred as she felt him drop to hands and knees between her calves. She was surprised at the arousal in her voice. Her excitement around his new size seemed to be growing on her, not normalizing as she had originally anticipated. "Maybe we'll soak tonight?"
"I'd love that," he murmured, too low and too quiet for her to hear him over the rush of water above. He was on his hands, squeezing along the cavern she had offered him. His shoulders brushed her squashed calves on both sides. He crawled steadily along, holding his head high enough to run the length of her underside, tickling under her tailbone and grazing along her vulva. He pressed kisses into her as he went, offering lapping motions as he passed under her lips, rising into them and feeling the tremors of her arousal all around him.
Her hands were waiting for him. As his shoulders emerged from beneath her they found him, lifting under his arms, pulling him the rest of the way. She lifted up swiftly, dragging the length of his waist and legs against the eager catch of her moistening labia as he rose. She rolled him slightly, moving his full weight to her right hand, fingers wrapping towards his front as they closed.
"You don't listen," she reprimanded, tilting her head in an exaggerated mimicry of scolding. "I believe I said just moments ago that if you played around under there you'd risk an accidental squishing?" He was grinning back at her, his full erection swaying with the motion of her hand. She could feel the flush spreading from the bridge of her nose, the tingling hunger his probing hands had stoked at her ass and set aflame with the sliding, filling pressure of his trip under her.
"Guess I was looking forward to some squishing," he offered back to her, fighting to wipe a stupid grin off of his face and failing, visibly and miserably.
"I have an insolent little goblin today, then?" She gathered her feet back under her and rose to her full height as she spoke, bringing him with her. She held him close, barely above her chest, requiring that he crane upwards to look into the hungry lights of her eyes. She absently moved the faucet to spray behind her again, washing away the soap he had spread around her backside. She was smiling now. He was joy-drunk in her grip, trying to hold her gaze while stealing eyefulls of her water-beaded breasts, gently stroking at the tip of her index finger at his chest with his right hand, his left having apparently discovered his erection. "If you cum I'll put you in the fridge."
He blinked. He had not consciously started masturbating as she held him, and his pumping slowed to a stop. He felt the telltale pressure of an impending rupture. She could see him working through the calculus of her threat in his mind. Surely she wouldn't put him in the fridge. Would she? That would kill him! Wouldn't it? They were playing! Right? His left hand fell away from his crotch, the head of his dick red and ripe with proximity. His grin turned sheepish but endured.
"I didn't say stop." The calculus returned, then resolved, and his hand shot back to his penis. It was taking slow, deliberate pumps now, agonizing over its length in the hopes of prolonging the pulsing inevitable. She pressed him to her breasts, feeling his tiny hard-on grazing against the sensitive skin of her areola. He practically convulsed. The felt a heat uncurl around the tingling he had set in motion, realized the need that was waking up in her again.
"You're so mean," he gasped pitifully. He watched her free hand swirl along her breast, tracing a light circle over her nipple before meandering downwards, dancing over her stomach and briefly disappearing inside of her. Arousal bloomed through her, taking root around her touch. She brought it back to him, slick with her arousal, and touched her fingers to his face. He inhaled the heady aroma of her sex. "You're so, so mean," he managed, voice barely a whisper, twinged by desperation. He was so tense in her hand, his torso ramrod straight in his strain, feet pointing straight down, apparently invoking the entirety of his small body on preventing the finish that he desperately, visibly, trembled for.
She smiled at him, her tongue curling over the top of her lip. She cupped her hand in the stream of the shower and let it run over with hot water. She brought it over his head and drained it, washing away the trace soap from his writhing body. He cringed at the unexpected flush of water, and relaxed somewhat. "Goblins don't cum before goddesses," she recited, mocking lilt in her voice as she quoted him. "Those were your words, not mine, but I'll happily hold you to them. Run along now. I have to rinse this conditioner out of my hair and get moving."
Much of him deflated at her words, though his dick held arrow-straight. She brought him to her face for a kiss, parting her lips slightly to run her tongue over his mouth and nose. He convulsed again in desperate pleasure, racked with unmet need. She parted the curtain slightly and placed him on the plush bathmat, pulling it tight after him to prevent peeking. "I'll be right out," she said, her animal baby-talk tone returning.
He stood, sunken past his ankles in the thick shag of the bathmat, stupefied. He heard the slapping sounds of water as she worked the conditioner out of her hair. A minute passed as she rinsed thoroughly, and the water shut off at last. He had needed that time for lucidity to return to him, the roiling pressure consuming him outwardly from his groin dulling into a slow ache. He had come so close, agonizingly close, well past what he had thought was a point of no return. But he reined himself in and began willing himself soft.
The curtain opened and she emerged, lithe steps carrying her glistening body gracefully over him. Stray droplets fell from her body and hair rained all around him; they cooled nearly instantly outside of the shower, and the morning chill crept back to his naked body. She reached up to a shelf mounted over the toilet, still standing over him, and retrieved a towel. She rubbed face, arms, and legs with it, before throwing it around her chest and folding it tightly to her. It reached down to her mid-thigh, though his angle still offered him a revealing look upwards. Her wet hair fell about her shoulders in spiky strands of varied length.
She reached down for him with both hands again, placing her right hand to his chest, guiding him into the crook of her left arm. The fingers of her left hand closed over the outside of his right thigh as she raised him like a baby to the warm dampness of the towel around her chest. She held him there as she stepped over to the bathroom sink, wiping the fog of the mirror away with a stray handcloth. She squeezed him to her in bouncy rhythms, an unconscious rhythm to her as she swayed him, before she deposited him on the pedestal of the sink. She reached over him to pull down a fresh washcloth for him. He accepted it and blotted it at himself, eventually tying it around his midsection.
She turned the sink on, freeing a rush of cold water over the bristles of her toothbrush. She tapped it loudly against the sink's twice and squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles. She closed off the tap. The brush entered her mouth as she began to work it in sharp circles against her teeth. He watched her reflection in the mirror. She tried her best to offer a smile while brushing when they caught eyes in the mirror, dribbling some paste along her chin.
"Thanks, bug," she lisped, mouth full of brush and toothpaste. She spit, saliva and toothpaste mingling in a viscous puddle that ran towards the drain. "Same time tomorrow?"
She had placed the toothpaste tube next to him uncovered. He swabbed his hand at it and brought the paste to his mouth. He smiled back at her reflection and began brushing his fingers against his teeth, waiting to speak until his mouth was obstructed by the frothing paste. "You know where to find me."