After a number of polite phrases Lindir left them alone on the terrace. Ílian, like many of the servants at Rivendell, was much shorter than the noble elf-lords and ladies. Frodo looked her straight into the eyes.
"I've felt your eyes on me." Ílian spoke, smiling.
"Tell me, does it bother you to have such a one as myself watching you, drinking in your beauty?"
"Oh! On the contrary. I would you watch me as much as you want, as close as you dare." Frodo knelt at her feet.
"Would you let me do you a favour, and give you a 'red bath'?"
"Only if you let me do that favour to you first, as I must to a guest and a noble soul among mortals."
"Anything you wish you can do to me, for I am only a corpse: my heart lies bleeding at your feet." Frodo wondered if he had gone a touch too far, if the imagery was turning from honeydewed to gory. Ílian kissed him, and led the way to the 'Red Baths'. Frodo saw there were many such, each behind a door, and from the holes cut in the wood of the doors he heard voices in deep delight and high pleasure and saw steam coming, and a dim red light. Ílian soon found an empty room, and showed Frodo a natural pool of steaming water. Slowly she undressed him and led him to a good seat in the bath, and started washing him in tender, caressing gestures. For a moment, when she soaped his hair, Frodo felt as if he were a child again, washed by his mother, but the feeling passed when Ílian chose to kiss his neck just then. When she asked him to turn a bit he saw she had at some point covered her clothes with a white servant's robe. The bath was, all in all, a relaxing rather than stimulating experience, but Frodo guessed there was more to come.
On the other side of the bath there was another door, and behind it, a room with a wide bed. Now Ílian showed astounding expertise in massaging a male body, and not with her fingers only. She made him feel as if he was flying, higher, and higher, then he soared down and could not help shouting in his rapture. She knew how to rouse him again and again, until he was all spent.
"Tomorrow I will do my best for you", Frodo promised her, and drifted away in exhausted sleep.