As you turn the taps, you remember the night you caught a saboteur, the way he looked at you, the way he touched you. Vera had said to close your eyes and think of England, but when you closed your eyes, it was only Betty you saw.
The very idea of her kept you calm enough to get through it, until you could run to her and collapse in her arms. You felt dirty so she ran the tub for you that night and turned to go wherever she'd been staying (somewhere far away from you, because you didn't deserve her; you didn't even deserve to be near her. You'd tried to tell the truth about your father but she stamped her feet until she got away with it, then she didn't even let you know when she got out. She left you; if Gladys hadn't found her you may have never seen her again. She wanted the best for you, but she was too blind to see that she was the best for you), but you implored her to stay even as you shucked off your dress. She blushed and looked away but she stayed, and she made you laugh and she made you forget, even momentarily, how terrifying that night had been. She perched on the side of the tub and watched over you, the way she'd been watching over you all night - practically outside the door, ready to come in with her fists flying if she thought she needed to.
You didn't feel clean, even after the bath, until she hugged you goodnight. She caught your chin with her hand, cradled your face momentarily, then she was gone, and with her she took the sense of peace that had been becalming you. It took a long time to get to sleep that night, with the smell of that man still permeating your room, your haven. Betty'd left her scarf though, and if you draped it over your face you found that it blocked out anything that wasn't her, that it let you sleep.
Gladys appears in the bathroom when the tub's about halfway full.
"I got lonely," she says, and shrugs. You don't know if she's referring to being alone downstairs or whatever she did with Betty while you were gone.
"Did you… kiss her?" You ask a little abruptly, because you really need to know. Gladys nods, and a smile creeps across her face. You look away, fiddle with the taps, get a towel out of the cupboard. Gladys starts to unbutton her blazer and you blush and turn away. You really, really didn't need to know. You had to ask, but you didn't need to know, you didn't need to see that smile as she remembered.
You excuse yourself and check in on Betty. She looks so peaceful in sleep, bruise fading already and hardly noticeable in the light from the hall. You hover in the doorway before turning back to the bathroom.
"What else did you do?" You ask once Gladys is submerged, and Gladys shrugs.
"That was it. She started crying." You sigh, a little with relief, a little with frustration because you don't know, not really, what comes after kissing. You overheard things from Gladys and Vera, but it all seems foreign in the context of Betty.
"What… what would you have done?" You ask hesitantly. Gladys chuckles.
"You little voyeur," she says.
"It's not like that," you tell her, blushing, "I just… don't know anything about that."
"And you came to me for help? Blind leading the blind, Kate."
"You know some things; you at least know the male equivalent." Gladys turns thoughtful.
"I'd forgotten how… inexperienced… you were," she says.
"I know some things," you tell her, a little defensively. "Just… not enough."
Gladys sighs. "I don't know much more than you, when it comes to this. You could ask Betty?" You shake your head.
"If you're not comfortable enough to talk to her about it, maybe you're not ready," Gladys says.
"It's not that, I'm still not… I don't want to raise her hopes. If I'm not sure. I can't hurt her any more, Gladys. And asking a question I may not intend to fulfill would be cruel."
Gladys nods thoughtfully.
"I'll tell you what I know," she says. "When I'm wearing clothes," she says a little more firmly. You take the hint and leave her to her bath.
Author's note: Sorry about the delay, housemate fried the house circuit, killing my writing laptop. It's been resurrected, finally.
Lots of stuff going on, too. I'm off to a state I've never been to for training next week, and after ten months I finally spoke to someone other than HR about the casual homophobia prevalent in my team and they had it sorted in two hours. Life is so drastically better than I ever could have imagined a year ago.