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As a baby, her parents have always told her, Andy had to be bathed in the sink because she was so tiny: too tiny for the bathtub, too tiny even for the yellow basin bought especially for her when her mom was eight months pregant.
Daily, her mom would disinfect the kitchen sink, then hold her inside so she wouldn't slip while her dad lathered her small body up with baby soap and counted each little finger after washing it to make sure none had detached and fallen down the drain in the process.
It's their favorite babyhood story to tell and, according to them, Andy's favorite babyhood activity. According to them, she would splash and giggle, watch, enchanted, each time a new gush of water emerged from the magical opening in the faucet. They kept the tradition up for three whole months, until Andy was big enough to graduate to the basin.
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Growing up, Andy hated showering. It always clashed with a particularly good cartoon on TV (they were all particularly good and none worth skipping), or it came as an unfair condition ("Take your shower and then you can have a cookie."), or she simply would be too tired after a long day of school or playing with her friends.
As a result, Andy developed a special, brilliant method. It was a flawless plan, guaranteed to go undetected by her parents or anyone, for that matter, who passed by the bathroom in the hallway, and it consisted of obeying her parents like the perfect daughter when they sent her to take a shower, closing the door behind her, and opening the shower tap.
Up until that point, Andy had completed every task leading up to the main event and could easily seal the deal by hopping right on into the tub, but was that worth wetting her body? Going through the taxing process of drying herself off? Making sure her hair didn't get wet? No.
What she did do, though, was think of every last detail: turn the water's temperature up to the max so the mirror would fog up with steams, take her clothes off and throw them in the hamper, wait precisely three minutes (thank god for the clock on the wall and thank god Andy's second grade teacher had taught them to read the time) and turn the water off to give the illusion of a washing break, then wait another three minutes to turn it back on for the alleged rinsing. When she was finally done with her elaborate production, Andy wrapped her dry body in an equally dry towel and stepped, victorious, out of the bathroom, silently celebrating her success in fooling the entire world yet again.
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In her teenage years, having developed better personal hygiene and self-consciousness, and having realized that she had never really fooled anyone but herself, Andy took real showers, dropping the begrudging attitude to make room for the wonderful sensation of hot water cascading down the back of her neck and filling her with pleasant, little tingles. For the pure, private, almost theraputic relaxation that came after a tough day of hunching over homework, the gentle spray from the shower head releasing the painful knots in her muscles almost as well as a professional masseuse could. For the quiet time alone to be left with her thoughts or shut her brain off entirely.
There, under the wet warmth, she'd tilt her head back, close her eyes, and ponder the meaning of life, or think back on the day she'd had at school, or replay a conversation in her head with more wit and sass and better counter points, or make up a story, the words writing themselves clearly one after the other in her mind's eye, and promise herself that she'd transfer them to physical paper once she was done.
Most times she forgot. Most times, time would cease to exist while she let her body and mind get soaked, and the clock on the wall had broken years before and never been replaced. Most times, it'd be close to an hour before she forced her heavy limbs to move toward her bottle of shower gel, or the water would gradually or abruptly become cold, or one of her parents would call from outside the door, demanding she free up the space so others could use it. Most times, Andy didn't want to free it.
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In college, showering became a luxury--not in quality, but in opportunity. At Northwestern, school was so hard and demanding that Andy was lucky if she had an available moment to remember to nourish her exhausted body, and when such moments presented themselves, showering was not the top priority, not when most of her friends showed up to classes in their pajamas, not when she had no one to offer a clean body to, not when she could catch up on some much needed sleep instead.
Showering also presented a practical issue: when she wasn't busy studying or sleeping, she had to endure the shared dorm's showers, and while those had a strict separation between boys and girls, the dorm's halls didn't. Heaven forbid Andy forgot to bring a change of clothes with her and had to make the seemingly endless journey back to her room in nothing but a towel. Or, on the matter of forgetfulness, neglected to bring with her a pair of flip flops and was destined to shower barefoot, unable to enjoy the experience when she was constantly gripped by the fear of fungi.
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As an adult, Andy loves showering. More specifically, she loves bathing. Most specifically, she loves bathing with Miranda Priestly.
That, along with the spacious bathtub, provides an unmatched luxury that has little to do with opportunity and a lot to do with the best quality of life Andy has ever been offered.
Miranda's bathtub has a jacuzzi function. Miranda's bathtub has on its ledge every oil, salt, bubble gel, soap, and shampoo Andy can think of. Miranda's bathtub has Miranda in it.
In Miranda's bathtub, Andy sits between Miranda's legs, leaning her back against her front. In Miranda's bathtub, Miranda kisses Andy's damp neck and closes her palm around a breast. In Miranda's bathtub, Andy squirms and rocks her hips while Miranda's fingers pump inside her at a leisurely pace. In Miranda's bathtub, Andy's thighs quiver inside the warm water as she comes down from her high and rests her head in the crook between Miranda's shoulder and neck, replaying every moment of pleasure even though it's still so fresh she can feel it between her legs; saying words in her head she can't muster the energy to utter out loud; writing, in her mind, a story about Miranda and her.