Challenges to modesty

One of the recurring challenges that Debbie and I faced while in Scotland was the simple one of modesty. As I mentioned before, of course we have seen each other naked in the past—it's sort of inevitable when you fuck—but that was a long time ago. We have managed to avoid nakedness in each other's presence during any of my other visits, and of course I had promised Marie "no sex and no quasi-sexual activity." Avoiding nakedness is clearly an important part of that.

On the other hand we shared a room in every single hotel we stayed at.  Mostly, each room had an attached bathroom. (You may recall that when we stayed at The Drovers Inn, in Inverarnan, the bathroom was a shared one down the hall, like in a dormitory.) But one way or another, modesty turned out to be … well, … not altogether easy to maintain.

We started simply enough, by changing clothes in the bathroom. (Or if one of us ducked into the bathroom to change, the other might take advantage of the momentary privacy to change at the same time. I did that several times.) Each of us had brought a set of pajamas to wear to bed. I wore mine over top of a T-shirt and a pair of boxers. So I was well clothed for sleep as well as for daylight. I did not look closely enough to establish what Debbie wore under her nightclothes. 

This system worked, as I've said before, up till Day 4, when we arrived at Inverarnan and the bathroom was down the hall. Since it was distinctly inconvenient to retire to the bathroom to change, we just changed clothes in the same room together and made a point of each turning to look at the wall while we were doing so. I finished a moment before she did and was in the process of turning back when I caught a glimpse of her bare back with no bra-strap across it; so I turned back to the wall for another minute until she had pulled on a shirt.

So far, so good.

Four days later, on Day 8 when we spent the day resting (and touristing) in Glencoe, we hit the next challenge. (This was the same day she caught me around the waist to kiss me, as I described here.) Debbie decided to take a shower in the afternoon. She very carefully took all of her clothes into the bathroom with her. (Well, she re-dressed in what she had been wearing before.) I heard the water splash for a few minutes. Then I heard her call out.

Debbie: Hosea?

Me: Yes.

Debbie: I forgot to bring in my towel. Can you bring me a towel?

Me: Of course.

Debbie: I'll stand behind the partition here. 

By way of explanation, the bathtub-cum-shower was divided from the rest of the bathroom by a clear plastic partition. Clear, not just translucent! But of course she had been showering for a few minutes, so it was covered with a layer of steam and a whole spray of water droplets.

I grabbed a towel, opened the door, and shoved it into the room. She reached her arm around the plastic divider and seized it. 

Me: [as I opened the door] It's all fine.

Debbie: Yes, it's all fine.

To be clear, I only looked for her arm. And I tried to avoid looking for anything else. Out of my peripheral vision, there was no question but that I saw a pink, girl-shaped silhouette there. But I made it a point of honor not to look for any details, so I saw none. Nonetheless the whole scene amused me.

Two days later, on Day 10 in Fort William, we hit the next challenge. The bathroom attached to this room had no shower enclosure at all—just holes in the floor where water could drain out. Based on other things we observed, we think this must have been a wheelchair-accessible room that we were given because by chance there happened to be no guests that particular night who needed a wheelchair. Once again, Debbie wanted a shower. Once again, she was careful to take her clothes with her. I reminded her a couple of times to take her towel, because she wouldn't want me to open the door: there would be literally nothing to hide behind! And she made sure to pick up her towel.

Then a few minutes later I heard her voice again.

Debbie: Hosea?

Me: Yes.

Debbie: I can't figure out how to turn on the water for this shower.

Me: Do you want me to come in there?

Debbie: Just a minute. [pause] OK, yes please.

The shower didn't have any walls or partitions, but this hotel—alone among all the hotels we stayed at!—provided bathrobes. During the pause before she asked me to come in and help her figure out the controls, Debbie had put on one of the hotel's bathrobes.

I fiddled with the controls and figured out how to turn the water on. I showed her, she thanked me, and I left. But somehow I had the strong feeling that the Fates were laughing at us.

The next day (Day 11) we took the train to Glasgow, and checked into our last hotel for the trip. And here we hit our final challenge to modesty. Our hotel in Glasgow was a budget hotel, and the bathroom looked like it had been designed for an airplane. There was a toilet, with a sink right in front of it. (The sink was more or less in your face if you sat on the toilet.) Then there was a circular space that must have taken (at most!) the same number of square inches of floor space as I already described for the toilet and sink. This was the shower area: there was a drain in the floor, and a plastic "shower curtain" you could pull so that the toilet and sink didn't get (very) splashed while you took a shower.

The day we arrived in Glasgow, Debbie went in search of something in town (a couple blocks away) while I took a shower. Since she was out of the room at the time, I didn't worry about where I stripped my clothes off. But after she got back, I did warn her that the bathroom was really small, and that we might need to change clothes outside in the bedroom. She said, "Fine, we'll see, but I assume we can just look in the other direction if we have to." [Like we had done before, though she didn't say that.] I agreed.

But the next morning (Day 12), she took all her clothes into the bathroom with her. I ostentatiously sat on my bed and turned to the wall (while writing in my notebook), in the hopes that I could communicate to her that she was safe from my view in any event. But after the sound of the water stopped, I heard the thumping of her elbows (or other extremities) colliding with the wall. And then after a couple of minutes she came out and said, "OK, I'm decent—as decent as I can be, I guess."

That pretty much set the pattern for next couple of days until we left for home. Debbie changed in the vestigial bathroom. If I felt like changing, I'd do it while she was already in the bathroom. About this time I stopped wearing pajamas, because they were two weeks old and pretty smelly. But I still wore a T-shirt and boxer shorts to bed, regardless, to hold up my end of the bargain. And I took that much with me (no more) into the shower for subsequent washes.

And after that we came home.          

English: Modesty (1861), by Louis-Léopold Chambard (1811-1895).
East façade of the Cour Carrée in the Louvre palace, Paris.