Ripples

Her nose relished the taste of steam as she settled into the bathtub, and felt the caressing heat of water soaking into her soreness and carrying it away like a colony of sea ants on a mission for ache-food.

She watched the water flow in to accommodate her shape. Her thighs and breasts were islands, her stomach a great sandbar between them, her hands and feet ships sailing and docking alongside them, her hair a forest of reeds and seaweed. Every breath she took sent a triad of concentric ripples out  onto the otherwise still surface of the water. Every inspiration was a suspension; every expiration released energy out, rippling, rippling.

Suddenly, she was struck with the idea that she could move the water, push it, make an impact, make it express her.

She started slowly, swaying subtly, watching water slosh to and fro as she willed it. Shifting up gears, she pushed the throttle and threw water and flesh around like a failed juggler in a butcher shop. The movement became increasingly chaotic until she realized that she was no longer so much moving the water as it was moving her. In her climb to power beyond her capacity, she'd been overcome by a force that just dared her to mess with it.

She threw down her guns and threw up a white flag, and her body swayed to a stop as the water regained its composure and smoothed down its hair, ever so slightly ashamed of what it had just done. When they were at rest, both agreed to never revisit that moment again; but each secretly remembered how hard the other could hit, and nothing was ever the same again.

And the only witnesses to this moment of violence were a water spout that could not see, faucet handles that could not speak, and a towel that could only hold one of them.