Chapter 5: Twenty Minutes

The bathroom in Lena's apartment had a clawfoot tub as long as a canoe.

It sat under a frosted window, full of steaming water, with a white kitchen timer perched on the rim.

Lena turned the dial to twenty and set it down.

"Rule Eight," she said. "Twenty minutes."

"And if I go over?"

"Then I handle it at my discretion."

"What if I want to go over?"

"Get in, Mina."

I had come down in my cardigan and nothing else under it, and I let it fall on the tile.

The air was warm and wet, and the whole room smelled like cedar soap.

Lena didn't look away.

She stood by the door in her flannel with her arms folded.

Her eyes went down my body and back up, slowly.

My nipples hardened in the heat.

I climbed into the tub, and the water closed around me up to my breasts, hot enough to make me gasp.

"Good," Lena said.

She pulled a wooden stool to the side of the tub and sat down.

She rolled her sleeves to the elbow, and I saw the strong tendons of her forearms.

The timer ticked.

"Lean back," she said. "Put your head on the rim."

I leaned back, and the cool enamel met my neck.

She dipped one hand into the water and laid it on my knee.

Her palm traveled up the inside of my thigh, under the surface, slow and deliberate.

"Open your legs."

I let my knees fall apart, and the water stirred around me.

Her fingers reached the top of my thigh and stopped there.

"Lena."

"Say what you want."

"Touch me."

"Where?"

"My clit. Please."

She found it at once.

Her middle finger rubbed one small, firm circle, and the warm water made it feel like silk.

I moaned and gripped both sides of the tub.

"There," she said. "That's what I wanted to hear."

She kept going, circle after slow circle, and her eyes never left my face.

The timer ticked on the rim, loud as a heartbeat.

"Sixteen minutes," she murmured. "You have time."

She slid two fingers inside me, easily, because I was so ready.

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