entirely too feminine breasts would barely fill the palms of his hands, he discovered as he passed the cloth over and around them. The nipples peaked under each soapy caress. His mouth watered, and the temptation to simply lean over and try a little taste of her was perversely strong. He kept himself in stern check, his washing hand moving down to rub the cloth impersonally—as impersonally as he could manage it—over the soft trim length of her belly, her hips, her legs. His eyes were drawn to the shadowy valley between her thighs and that slight trim patch of blonde hair, no bigger than the tip of his thumb. He rinsed and re-soaped the cloth, staring at her there for a long time before trying to offer her the cloth.
“Do you want to—” he gestured between her legs, but she made no move to take over the task of bathing herself.
No longer watering, his mouth was now bone dry.
“Okay.” He nudged her thighs apart, looking anywhere but at her as he slipped his hand between them. Those piecing blue unwavering eyes of hers never left him as he stroked back and forth. He felt a sharp prick at the tip of his fingers and, setting the cloth aside, he let his fingers replace it. His fingers slipped soapily all along and around the folds of her womanly sex, feeling for spines and finding two of them. “Ouch. Don’t move.”
He had to sanitize his needle and picked up his tweezers again, and then get all the way down on his knees, peeling her open with one hand and bringing his face in so close that it was an education to discover he had that many twisted, perverted tendencies lurking deep inside himself. Up until that moment, he’d thought he was a pretty respectable male. Up until that moment, he’d also had no idea a female human had a clitoris. It wasn’t even located in the right place. It was outside her body, right where it would be the most awkward to stimulate during sex.
“Hunh,” he said and, once he’d removed the slivers, he touched it. Strictly for scientific, zoological purposes, of course.
The little female stiffened, latching onto his shoulders, her face contorting with pain when she came arching up onto her tiptoes.
“I’m sorry.” He took his hand away at once. “I’m sorry. Your poor, tender feet.”
She eased back off his shoulders and he motioned her to turn around. She shuffled to face the wall, putting her back to him and bracing her hands against the tiles. He kept his hands out from between her tense thighs this time, and washed down her back instead.
Using the showerhead, he rinsed her twice before he could pass that cloth from her shoulders to her ankles without the lather turning dingy. Then he let his hands wander over her, feeling along every inch of her limbs for any more vouka stickers. Tral turned his face away, as if that might make it any less personal while he fondled her buttocks, his fingers slipping easily between them, following the crack down to the slit of her sex.
“No more thistles,” he finally declared, and took his hands completely off her. She was now the cleanest human he’d ever seen in his life, pale here and there, but with the ugliest bruises covering her buttocks and in two nasty lines between her shoulders and across the small of her back. He had no idea what she’d been hit with, but it must have been a terrible beating. He ran his fingertips over the worst of the marks, ignoring it when she flinched from his touch. “I think I can fix some of this.”
He shut the water off and reached for the towel again. Draping it over her head, he wrapped her in the folds, briefly waged a mental debate on where he could grip her that might hurt less than any other place and then just lifted her out. She whimpered when he set her on her feet.
“Yeah, I know it hurts,” he said sympathetically, and she slowly straightened her wobbly legs.
As gently as possible, he patted her dry, taking special care with her back, buttocks and legs.
“It’s hard to