Off To See The Wild West Show Part 1, Chapter 16 (2/3) By Frank Beill 1886: Hull, Yorkshire

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3). Part 1 Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Part 2 Prologue, Chapter 1, 2, 3.

It had been in my mind that I needed a wash before working with the animals. This thought became a certainty afterwards. Laughing Waters felt the same need too. She led me down many flights of stairs and along a passageway to a cargo hold where running water was available. A thick flexible pipe was attached to a metal tap on the wall. She held up the pipe and said: 'At home in the Dakotas we would find a stream to clean ourselves but here we have to use this.'

Her words made me think. What was a stream? I'd never seen one. I'd seen the River Humber and the River Hull but they were too big to be called streams. There were open drains in Hull where boys went to swim. I wouldn't have fancied washing in their green slime covered waters. She dropped the pipe onto the floor and pulled off her buckskin dress. She was completely naked. It was the first time I'd ever seen a naked female body. I don't think a baby sister in a bucket bath counted. How different a girl's body looked compared to a boy's. 'Come on! Take off your clothes. We can wash each other!' There was no hint of shyness in her voice.

The pipe was in her hand again and she loosened the tap head fixed to the wall. I was staring, intrigued by her gently rounding figure but a spurt of cold water shot in my direction. It made me jump to one side and shook me out of my frozen posture. I'd never seen my own brown body naked in a mirror. How beautiful she was with long black tresses falling down her back didn't enter my mind at the time. I was still a boy and an innocent one at that. She was on her way to womanhood. 'Come on!' she repeated but without paying me any attention.

She was too busy letting water from the pipe gush into her hair and flow down her body. I pulled off my jerkin and kicked my moccasins into a corner but I was still reticent about going further. A sideways glance came in my direction. It was more powerful than any of Jolly Rodgers' cajoling. One deep breath and I forgot more than two years of religious indoctrination. My leggings were on the floor and I was alongside her caught in the lukewarm spray coming from her body. There was a bar of soap on the floor. She picked it up and rubbed it into her hair. I caught the familiar carbolic smell and I was back to the orphanage again. 'You can wash my back.' The solid pink bar was thrust into my hand and Hull was a million miles away again. 'Then I will do yours.'

Dutifully I applied the soap and broke yet another taboo. Becoming a member of the Lakota meant forgetting many old behaviours as well as learning new ones. Her back was soft and smooth. I'd no recent experience of the feel of another human, except from physical conflict and George's feet in bed, of course. I didn't dwell on this new sensation. It was only another task to be performed like rubbing down the ponies as far as she was concerned. 'Let me wash you now.' The tone of her voice was matter of fact. There was no reason it should have been otherwise. Only when we were older did this same activity become a source of great pleasure for both of us.

She grabbed back the soap with one hand and sprayed water on me from the pipe in the other. The scrubbing she gave my back was much more vigorous than the one I'd given to her. When we were finished she turned off the tap and the remaining water ran away down a grating in the floor. There were towels on a shelf in the corner and she threw one at me.

Continued... Next Page (3/3)

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