She liked taking baths with him—“Gould, I’m in the tub, want to join me?” or “Want to take a bath together?” and he said “I already showered today,” and she said “So take it just to relax”—sitting on him with her back to his chest and his penis floating or sticking up between her legs. “So this is what I’d look like with one,” she said the first time. “But I’d like mine clean, I never see you really wash your cock — go on, show me how you do it,” and he said “Come on, what am I, Brons? I’m the cleanest guy around, often to the point of manic-compulsiveness,” and she said “Your hands, yes, but I’m serious about this: I want to know how clean something is that goes so deep inside me,” and he washed it with his hands and then splashed the soap off and she said “That’s washing it? You didn’t scrub; you missed several parts. What about all those folds there and the hole? You don’t open it to wash inside?” and he said “That’d burn; what I did was enough. I’ve been doing it like that most of my penis’s adult life and never had a rash or sore or anything like that on it and no smell or smegma ever,” and she said “Will you permit me?” and grabbed it and he thought she was going to play with it and he lay back and rested his head on the top of the tub and shut his eyes and she washed it hard with a soapy washrag—“Hey, take it easy!”—seemed to get at almost every part but the eye, and then she said “What about the balls?” and he said “Leave them alone,” and she said “Do you ever wash them? Because silky and clean as they might feel, they’re just as liable to be dirty. And though they don’t go in me they do often sleep against me or at least roll around on the sheet and there’s hair on them and hair collects germs like nothing does,” and he said “I do wash them, but in my own way: very gently. I know just the places where if I washed them even a little less than very gently, it’d hurt like mad. So never touch them, or if you do, then very lightly, but never the balls parts — only the top of the scrotum without the balls, okay? No, best you never touch them at all; a woman could never know how sensitive they are,” and just with her hand this time she washed his penis but the way she was doing it with the soap it seemed more to get him hard and then tried putting it in her but it didn’t work and the two or three other times they tried doing it in the tub like this it didn’t work and she said one of those times “I wonder why men can’t keep it stiff in water,” and he said “What about women, not that I’ve truthfully ever tried doing it in a tub with anyone else, but are you so slick and open inside?” and she said “I think so,” and raised her rear above the water and he felt her and she was. “Well then I’m sorry, it must be the warm water,” and she said “Cold would make it worse even,” and he said “Then maybe we should try something in-between,” and they let the cold water run till the tub was lukewarm and then tried doing it and it still didn’t work and then let the water get cool and it didn’t work and he said “I’m sure there are some men who can do it in any temperature or some who are better at hot than cool and so on, but I’m just not one.”
