The Only Time

Natalie never really got it.

We lived together for a year; we’d been an item for three months before that and friends for about eighteen months before that; and in all that time I only saw her get all her clothes totally wet on one occasion - not that there weren’t a few near misses.

It began just after we became an item. It was the first time I’d spent the weekend at Natalie’s flat in Manchester and having spent Saturday morning - and indeed most of the afternoon - in bed, she was getting ready to go to work. She worked in a call centre from 5 till 10 most evenings, which made spending a whole day together decidedly awkward. “Never mind,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “we’ll just have to do something extra-special tonight to make up for it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is this going to be one of those ‘Tell me your wildest fantasies’ conversations?”

She laughed. “Well, maybe not your absolute wildest fantasies, but I want to do something to make up for having to go to work. Tell me what turns you on.”

Well, she did ask. I took a deep breath. “Would you take a shower with your clothes on?”

“Eh?”

I ran through the standard explanation of why I found girls in wet clothes incredibly erotic, but I wasn’t sure how much of it she was actually taking on board. Still, she didn’t seem completely opposed to the idea. “Just dressed like this, you mean?”

I cast an eye over the black jumper and dark blue jeans she had quickly slipped on. I could have asked her to change into something a little more glamorous, but I didn’t want to push my luck. “That’s fine,” I assured her.

She shrugged. “Okay, if that’s what you like, I’ll do it!”

We kissed goodbye and she went off to work. How was I going to kill the next five hours? I sat flicking through the TV channels, unable to concentrate. Only four and a half hours till she came back... only four hours... only three and three quarter hours till she came back and took a fully clothed shower for me. Time seemed to be slowing down. I started to wander around the flat, reading the titles of all the books on the shelves, browsing through her CDs, anything to pass the time until she came home.

Eventually the door opened and Natalie came in. I was tempted to grab her and pull her into the shower there and then, but decided to play it cool. Apparently, so had she. We found time to have dinner and even snuggle up on the sofa to watch some television (although I wasn’t really concentrating) before I decided to force the issue. “How about a shower before bed?” I asked, with as much innocence as I could muster.

Smiling, Natalie took off her shoes, then her watch. I watched with interest to see what else she would remove, but she simply stood up, leaving on her glasses, her earrings and all her clothes, even her socks. She said nothing, but led me by the hand to the bathroom and turned the shower on. Once it was up to temperature, she leaned on me for support as she lifted first one leg, then the other over the side of the bath. With a slightly uneasy look on her face, she stepped forward into the stream of warm water which dribbled from the rather feeble shower.

I watched eagerly as the droplets came down on her clothed body. There was no reaction from Natalie for a good few seconds, then she suddenly announced “Oh my God, I’m in the shower with my clothes on!” as if she had just woken from some kind of trance to find herself in this predicament. After probably only half a minute, Natalie withdrew from under the stream and leaned on me again as she climbed out of the bath. She had kept her head clear of the water so her hair was still dry, and the water had barely had time to penetrate the thick fibres of her jumper and jeans, but it was a good enough place to start. We rushed through to the bedroom, Natalie’s wet socks leaving a trail of comical footprints as we went. Our passions aroused, we threw ourselves on the bed, Natalie still in her damp clothes, and made love until they were practically dry again.

The next week I went out and bought a digital camera. Events like this need to be recorded, I reasoned. I took it with me to Natalie’s flat the following weekend and was pleased to note the glint in her eye when I casually mentioned why I’d bought it. “Maybe we should have a bath then,” she suggested coyly.

I ran the bath while Natalie placed some candles around the bathroom and lit them. “You get in,” she told me. “I’ve got something to do first.”

She left the room. I was slightly surprised, as I had anticipated that she would enter the bath dressed just as she was, but I was happy to play along. Quickly, I undressed and settled down in the warm, bubbly water, wondering what clothes she was going to change into. Being a very specific kind of pervert, I was somewhat disappointed when Natalie returned a minute later wearing just a thin, white satin nightdress. It was almost see-through already, but I hid my disappointment as best I could. To be fair, as she stepped gingerly into the bath and the bottom of the nightdress began to float on the surface of the water, I found myself quite turned on; and by the time Natalie had fully immersed herself, allowing the saturated material to hug every curve on her body, my disappointment was forgotten.

“Aren’t you going to take any pictures then?” she asked after we’d enjoyed ourselves in the bath for a while. I hadn’t been sure whether she was too keen on the idea, but I wasn’t about to turn down an offer like that. Quickly I climbed out of the bath, gave myself a brief rub down with a towel and went to fetch the camera. The next day I would attempt to get her to understand the difference between “fully clothed” and just “clothed”, but this wasn’t the time or place.

Now that Natalie knew how to get me going, I confidently expected that when we moved in together our water bill would go through the roof and the spin dryer would be running twenty-four hours a day. Of course the reality was nothing like that. Natalie realised very quickly that she could get the desired effect just by suggesting that her clothes might somehow get wet, without her having to actually do anything. One day during the following week I received a text message which read, “I’m texting you from the bath, I’ve just gotten in with all my clothes on to see what it feels like!” I quizzed her for details on the phone later, but I was never sure if she really had done it or not.

On another occasion a casual remark about an upcoming job interview turned into a full scale description of how she might get caught in an unexpected downpour on the way home from the interview, and how her dripping wet, dishevelled appearance would leave me so helpless with desire that I would have to have her up against the front door as soon as she came home, or even drag her into a readily prepared bath, totally saturating her already wet business suit, black stockings, high heeled shoes, even her raincoat. Once she knew she could get results by teasing me this way, there wasn’t an item in her wardrobe she didn’t threaten to get wet in, from wearing a t-shirt over her swimsuit in the pool on holiday to taking a bubble bath in her beautiful red silk dress. Of course, it was all bluff; none of these things ever actually happened.

The one time it did actually happen was towards the end of our relationship. Natalie had been invited to a party (I hadn’t, but that suited me fine as that particular clique of her friends didn’t like me and I didn’t like them). Of course, being Natalie she had no spare cash but simply couldn’t go out without a new outfit - and simply not going out wasn’t an option that occurred to her. What to do, what to do?

An answer presented itself to me. “Tell you what,” I told her. “I’ll buy you a new outfit, if you’ll do something for me in return.”

Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Is this going to involve me wearing said outfit in the bath or something?”

“Bingo.”

She sighed. I could tell she wasn’t keen, but on the other hand she had to feed her craving for new clothes somehow. “Alright,” she finally agreed, “it’s a deal.”

It certainly brightened up what would otherwise have been a dull and frustrating Saturday afternoon’s clothes shopping. Normally I would be trailing along behind Natalie, trying to look interested and offer helpful comments as she picked up item after item without actually buying anything. Now I was actively involved. Each time she picked something up I imagined what it would look like wet. I resolved not to suggest an outfit but to let her decide what she wanted to wear, partly because I didn’t want to dictate to her but also because it gave my imagination more of a workout - after a while I had to buy a magazine and carry it strategically to hide my excitement as I spent the whole afternoon visualising tops, skirts, trousers, jeans, even a couple of dresses, all soaking wet and clinging to Natalie’s body. By the time she had finally selected an outfit - a red off-the-shoulder top and a pair of jeans - I was having trouble walking. If I’d thought of doing this before it would have made her endless shopping trips so much more interesting...

And so, once again I found myself hanging around on a Saturday evening waiting for Natalie to come home. This time, however, I wasn’t going to play it cool. If I didn’t remind her of her part of the deal, she certainly wouldn’t mention it. She reckoned she’d be home about midnight, so shortly before that I went upstairs and started to run a bath. A nice hot one, which had cooled down to a reasonable degree by the time she did appear, half an hour later. Perfect.

As soon as she came through the door I launched into my plan. “Oh, there you are. I was just about to have a bath.”

“Oh really?” she replied with an air of resignation. “I thought you might be.”

I started back up the stairs, turning round to make sure Natalie was following. I led her into the bathroom and dipped my hand into the bathwater. “Just the right temperature too,” I said knowingly.

Realising there was no way out, Natalie perched herself gingerly on the edge of the bath and began to take off her boots. Oh, the boots. The fantastically sexy purple snakeskin-effect ankle boots. The ones she knew I really liked. I knew she knew because they regularly featured in her tantalising descriptions of how her clothes might get wet. Was it too much to ask her to keep them on?

Well, there was no harm in asking. “Keep them on.”

She glared at me. “You’re joking,” she retorted. “They’ll get ruined.”

I knew it. All those times she had talked about going splashing in puddles in those boots, or how she might caught in a torrential rainstorm in those boots, or how she might come home drunk from a party one night and get in the bath for me in her clothes and those boots, she never had any intention of doing so. I’d suspected it all along, of course, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with it. I picked up the one boot she had taken off and replaced it on her foot. “They’ll dry,” I assured her.

After a few moment’s thought, she sighed and positioned herself on the edge of the bath, with her back against the wall for support and her legs stretched out along the side of the tub. She looked down at the water in the bath, started as if she were about to put one foot in the water, then paused. Looking back up at me, she allowed her left leg to slip off the side and into the tub. The bottom of her jeans darkened and a cloud of bubbles came out of her boot as the water rushed in. “Oops,” she said, without a hint of concern.

“Oh dear,” I sympathised, equally casually.

Turning her head to look at what had just happened, Natalie raised her foot above the surface and allowed the water to run out of her boot and turn the denim around her calf a darker, shinier blue before splashing back into the bath. She wiggled her toes inside her now waterlogged boot before returning her leg to its original position on the side of the bath. “Will that do?” she asked.

I gave her a look to indicate that that would most certainly not do.

Natalie gave another sigh, turned away from me, and slid gracelessly into the water with an almighty splash, rolling over a couple of times so that her entire outfit was instantly drenched. This done, she assumed a sitting position, took a breath and allowed herself to slide forward, bending her knees so that they stuck out above the surface of the water while her head went under. It wasn’t the most dignified position, but it gave me a good view of the shiny, waterlogged denim until she surfaced, spluttering. The water streamed off her hair and down her face. Sitting up, she removed her glasses to wipe the water from her eyes, then replaced them. She slicked back her hair and turned to look at me, her view impaired slightly by the still wet glasses. “How about that?” she asked.

I took a step back to properly admire the view. The water still dripped from her sodden hair and the rims of her glasses. Her red top had gone quite see-through and clearly revealed a black bra underneath. Beneath the surface of the water I could see the jeans had moulded themselves to the upper half of her legs, while below her knees the looser cuffs of the jeans floated around her ankles. And her boots. The toes of the boots just peeked above the water, as if to remind me that the rest of her footwear was completely submerged and full of water. I reached into the bath, unzipped one of the boots and removed it, taking the opportunity to pour the remaining water from the boot over Natalie’s top to prevent it drying out, then placed the boot in the sink to allow the residual water to drain away. I then repeated the process with the other boot.

“That’s fine,” I told her. “Very nice.”

“Can I get out now?”

“By all means.”

Natalie stood up. The water rushed out of her sodden clothing and back into the bathtub, leaving the clothes plastered to her curvaceous body. It was a spectacular sight, so spectacular in fact that an idea occurred to me. “Hold on a second,” I said, dashing off.

“Where are you going?” Natalie protested as I dashed through to the bedroom. “I’m freezing now!”

Her question was soon answered as I returned with the camera and snapped a quick photo, taking her by surprise. “Oh Dave,” she howled, “please, I’d rather you didn’t take photos.”

This puzzled me. “It never bothered you before,” I pointed out. “In fact, I seem to remember you were encouraging me to take photos last time.”

“Yes, but...” She tailed off. Shivering a little, she climbed out of the bath. “That was different.” Silently, she stripped off her sodden garments and wrapped herself in a towel.

I never did find out if the boots dried out okay. A couple of weeks later, Natalie moved to London. Sensing that things were not going to work out between us and not having the desire to continually follow her around the country, I stayed behind with one solitary – and rather blurred – photograph of Natalie’s only fully clothed bath.