Of all the things....
Dirty, she was still so dirty. The water burned her skin as it rushed over her, the spray sending small droplets careering from her body onto the walls and steamed-up glass around her. She could still smell him on her, feel the rough skin of his hands pulling at her as she tried to get away, to run to safety, to attempt to defend herself.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she bit back a cry of guilt, a cry of pain that would not long be stifled. How foolish she had been to go alone, knowing full well the danger of leaving the house at such a late hour. If she had waited, if she had just chosen another way of getting the groceries it never would have happened.
He never would have happened.
Why wouldn't it go away? Why, no matter how much she scrubbed at her skin, no matter how much it hurt, could she not remove the feel of him? Why couldn't she get the shame to go away?
Beyond the sound of the water crashing down past her ears she could hear a voice. The voice that for a year had made her head dizzy with happiness and her stomach fill with butterflies, it was now a voice that now filled her with dread, a voice that she couldn't face.
Not like this.
It called her again, its tone slightly more demanding but yet still restrained with a patience long tested. Again the voice called her name, closer now. She heard the creak of a door opening and knew he was close to finding her.
Biting down on her lip again she held back a cry of shock as the fingers she had always enjoyed lacing with her own knocked on the door to the bathroom. He knew she was in there and she would be able to hold her silence no longer.
"I'll be out in a minute!" She called over the noise of the water, hoping it obscured the shakiness she heard with her own ears.
Behind the door she heard the muffled acknowledgment and the creaking of the hinges as the bedroom door was shut. Breathing out a long, heavy sigh she leant against the cool tile, feeling the change of temperature upon her hot back.
Moving away from the wall she turned towards the tap and turned off the shower, opening the door she reached round and grabbed a towel from the towel rail. Wrapping it around herself she exited the shower cubicle and began to dry herself.
She had to attend to her master.