THE SICKNESS.

The heat.

Lucille always tried hard not to speak or make any noise at all during her baths. She would concentrate on the sensation of warmth that engulfed her body while it was immersed in the hot water. The calm that always came over her mind while she gazed through the gauzy steam at the blue porcelain tiles of her bathroom was usually the highlight of her day. The water itself had always been infused with the same mix of essential oils that every D'avencourt woman had used since trade had been established with the spice markets. Lavender...with hints of rose and peppermint that when combined gave the same relaxing effect on a person that sitting in a garden at the cusp of summer did. Lucille had always taken her time in the bath and she'd always enjoyed it solitarily. After all, it was the only place in the world where even her mother could not perceive her or affect her happiness.

Lately however, Lucille had enjoyed her time in the bath for a completely different reason. She didn't understand where the desire to be washed by the girl Nilou had come from. It wasn't at all uncommon for the women of households such as hers to be bathed by servants, as a matter of fact it was the norm. Lucille however had only begun to take interest in this tradition when Nilou became her handmaid.
"Are you comfortable young mistress?"
Nilou often asked this question as her warm hands gently maneuvered the flesh at Lucille's shoulders. She was as diligent and efficient at this task as with all the others that she was given. Her hands when satisfied with the soft pink hue of the skin at Lucille's shoulders would carefully find their way into the cascading mass of hair on her head and settle there.
Nilou's fingers were long and slender and once they were tangled in Lucille's hair, they made slow, careful and intentional circles. She applied pressure here and there and it was all Lucille could do to stop herself from making any wayward sounds. She kept her eyes fixedly on the blue wall and her arms, resting on the rim of the tub, supported her head and kept her upper body resting just above the water. Each touch of Nilou's fingers left a searing heat in it's path that Lucille could feel even while she was surrounded by steaming hot water. Sometimes, the tip of a finger grazed Lucille's ear and the whole area burned, with embarrassment or with something else she wasn't quite ready to acknowledge for some reason. It's name wasn't quite clear to her yet.
"I'm comfortable."
The words came out much quieter than Lucille had intended them too and she couldn't help the sudden rush of heat to her face as a result of the realization. She suddenly felt grateful for the heat and steam from the bath that made it so Nilou couldn't tell she was blushing.
"I think it's about time you came out of the water young mistress. You wouldn't want to get light headed now would you?"
It's possible that Lucille was just being as delusional as she had always been, but Nilou's voice also seemed several octaves quieter than it usually was when she addressed her mistress. Most days, her instruction to Lucille was curt and painfully polite. But whenever they were in the bathroom together, surrounded by humid warmth and the heady scent of Lucille's oils and bath salts, her voice took on a low dreamy quality. The words she spoke to Lucille were gentler and more coaxing than instructing. Even her touch changed in that hour they spent in silence together daily. It wasn't the firm indifferent touches that she gave Lucille as she went about her day, no. They were gentle and careful...as though in that wide echoing bathroom Lucille transformed from a disliked young mistress into something fragile and delicate. Something she needed to handle patiently and with all her attention lest the strange spell around them would be broken. Lucille had noticed that in the bathroom, Nilou never looked at her directly. There was a portion of the wall directly to the right of the tub in which Lucille sat that was made entirely of flawless reflective crystal. It is at Lucille's reflection in that wall that Nilou gazed when she cleaned her mistress's body. Lucille did not have the courage to look at their reflections in this mirror for several reasons. It was bad enough that she couldn't ignore the feeling of Nilou's hands as they roamed incisstently all over her heated flesh, but if she had to see her handmaid kneeling on the floor besides her naked form in the tub, rubbing oils into her skin and watching Lucille turn pink, if she had to see Nilou's eyes darkening in concentration and her lips parted on a breath from exertion, Lucille would lose her mind.