Both concentrated on avoiding the really deep puddles as they splished their way down the road past the few rather pretentious houses situated on small, cleared lots, and the equally few small cottages situated on large, treed lots. Myrtle’s house was one of the latter. In fact, when Fred had previously driven down this end of the road just to look around, he had assumed this last lot was vacant. But a short distance along a narrow, muddy path revealed a tiny, yellow cottage cozily nestled in amongst the trees and bushes.
Myrtle led him around to the back porch where she took both their plastic raincoats and flung them across the picnic table just outside the porch door. Then she turned the hose on them as Fred stepped inside the porch to remove his boots. He pulled his right foot out of the boot and tried to balance on it as he struggled out of his left boot. His right foot was dry, but his left foot had squished along inside his boot all the way to Myrtle’s. He finally extricated his left foot with a great "thwick" noise, and stood trying to balance on his right so that his muddy, left sock would drip into the wet boot. It was difficult to stand there that way, with his stiff neck brace on, and he offered Myrtle a pathetic glance as she hung up their now clean but dripping rain coats in the porch and turned to face him.
She understood the problem instantly and reached down to pull off his left sock. Her grabbing his foot that way very nearly caused him to topple over onto his back, but her dexterous fingers got the job done quickly and Fred was able to put his foot down just quickly enough to steady himself. Then Myrtle took both boot and sock outside and took the hose to them while Fred stood shivering in the porch, wondering what he ought to do next.
"You’ll have to take your pants off," said Myrtle as she re-entered the porch with his wrung out sock in one hand and his wet boot in the other. The suggestion came as something of a shock to Fred and he was about to protest when Myrtle added that she’d get him a blanket, then disappeared into the house. In just a few moments it seemed she was back with the blanket, her own bare but muddied legs sticking out beneath a heavy overcoat.
"Just leave your trousers there, wrap the blanket around yourself and come in," she instructed.
“But Myrtle, this is so much trouble,” he protested mildly.
"Oh, it’s no trouble, Fred," she declared with mild surprise. "I have an automatic washer back of the kitchen... and a dryer too. It won’t take long... and I’m sure I can find something for you to wear after you’ve showered off."
He stared at her. This was turning into a major operation and she had only offered to allow him to clean up a bit. Myrtle just smiled and turned back into the house so he could remove his pants in privacy. As he reluctantly did so, he stretched to steal a glance at his undershorts and discovered that they too were quite muddy. He stood gazing at the toes of his one bare foot a moment, contemplating the matter. Should he remove them or not? He didn’t want to get Myrtle’s blanket too muddy. He shrugged and removed his shorts. It wasn’t as if they were all that personal anymore, he decided, what with him wearing the jock strap underneath. He dropped his shorts on top of his pants and carefully wrapped the blanket about his cold, spindly legs. Then he stepped into the house.
He looked around. There was a closet to his left and a wall to his right. He was in a hallway with an arched doorway evident down and to the right, and part of the doorway to what looked like the kitchen was visible at the far end. "Myrtle?" he called uncertainly.
Myrtle’s still muddied face appeared suddenly from around the corner of the arched doorway, her one eye staring at him. "Come in, come in," she said a little impatiently.
Fred started toward her and stopped suddenly. He blinked, then turned and looked behind him. A corner of the blanket he wore was trailing and had caught under the screen door. He smiled rather sheepishly at Myrtle, backed up, shoved the screen door open as hard as he could, and with tiny steps, trotted quickly toward her before the door could close on the blanket again.
Myrtle smiled her encouragement and motioned for him to follow her. She led him to the kitchen doorway and turned left down a hallway, stopping at the end in front of what was obviously the door to the bathroom. "I’ve put a towel out for you," she explained, "and there’s a robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door... I hope it’s big enough for you. You go ahead and shower off while I put your pants into the washing machine." Feeling quite helpless under the circumstances, Fred could only obey.
With him looked after for the moment, Myrtle whirled into action. She had already lit a fire in the wood stove in the living room. By the time Fred was through showering it would be nice and cozy in there. She hurried to the porch to retrieve his pants and was only mildly surprised at encountering his undershorts as well. They were that muddy that she really couldn’t blame him for taking them off. She checked the washing instructions in the trousers as she hurried to the washing machine where her own muddied slacks and Fred’s sock lay waiting. Then she flung pants and sock into the washer and stood thoughtfully regarding Fred’s shorts, holding them delicately between thumb and forefinger in front of her. They were a bit lighter in colour than the other things, but into the washer they went as well. What else could she do?
The washing machine in motion, Myrtle went to work on herself. She already had a towel and washcloth sitting on the kitchen counter in readiness. She slipped quickly out of the overcoat she still wore and filled the kitchen sink with hot water, then climbed onto the counter using a chair, and dangled her legs over the sink in order to wash them off. That done, she climbed down and went after the mud on her neck and face with the washcloth. Then she encountered dried mud in her hair and wound up washing that under the kitchen tap with dish-washing liquid. Wrapping her head in the towel, she then raced to her bedroom to put on fresh clothes.
She really needn’t have rushed so, for what with the washer filling up with cold water and her using so much hot water at the kitchen sink, Fred was forced to spend much of his time in the shower adjusting the hot and cold knobs to keep from either freezing or getting scalded. Nevertheless, he was quite happy in there, having discovered Myrtle’s shampoo. He removed the cap to smell it. It smelled very much like his mother’s lilac bushes and he merrily poured a generous dollop into his hand and massaged it into his thinning hair. He chuckled with satisfaction. Here he was quite naked in the shower of a woman he’d only just met. And he was feeling quite gleeful about it.
When he was through and put on his jock strap, he carefully strapped his neck brace back into place. His neck hadn’t bothered him that much during his shower and he joyfully resolved to exchange the stiff brace for a soft collar on Monday. Then he put on the robe Myrtle had left for him and, his shirt over his arm, he strolled out of the bathroom.
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