She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked down at herself.  She was naked, but there was a robe hanging on the door, and a pair of slippers under the bed.   She got up and put them on, and padded around the room, looking again at the things he’d shown her last night.  The closet, neatly housing a half-dozen sundresses on hangers.  Her summer wardrobe, he’d said. And the chests-of-drawers, pre-stocked with socks and underwear.  Some for everyday, he said, showing her a pair of plain cotton panties.  And some for special occasions, he said, rubbing the silky fabric of a lace thong against her cheek.  His smile was mischievous now; he knew she didn’t like to wear thongs.  “You can bring your own bras and shoes,” he’d told her before.  “I don’t want to get you the wrong size.  But everything else is a fresh start.  You’re mine now; I don’t want to see anything on you that reminds me of a time when you weren’t mine.” 

She’d assumed he would take her on that first night; bring her into his own bed and do to her the things he had long promised—threatened?—to do.  But when he got her home he told her he wanted her to get some rest, that she had a big day ahead of her and he didn’t want her to be tired, or shaky.  And with that he had taken her into the bathroom.  He made her kneel next to him on the rug as he sat on the edge of the tub, running his fingers through her hair and drawing a bath.  When it was ready, he told her to stand up, and he stripped her, pulling off her sweater and shoes, and her jeans and her bra and her panties.  She shivered a little, a fresh chill of fear running through her as she noticed the animal lust in his stare and the bulge in his pants.

But he only took her hand, and helped her into the tub, and as she slid into the hot water she felt the fear melting, just a little.  And even allowed herself to relax a bit as he washed her, every inch of her, holding her hands over her head as he firmly but gently scrubbed her armpits with a washcloth, and then her back, and her breasts and stomach, her thighs and knees, her calves, and between her fingers and toes and finally between her legs as well.

“I want to give you a shampoo,” he said, pouring warm water across her nipples to sluice the soap away. “I want to wash away everything to do with the life you had before me.  But we’re getting your hair done tomorrow, and I imagine they’ll wash it at the salon.”

And after the bath he had dried her off with a big fluffy towel, paying special attention, she noticed, to her breasts and neck and the crack of her behind.  He sent her to bed then, as relaxed as she could be under the circumstances, and still she’d slept hardly at all.