Reflexively, Ricky reached up to the top of his head. “Starbucks bun?”
He looked so genuinely confused that I resisted the urge to reach out and tug his cheek.
“You know, like when girls go to coffee shops with wet hair?” I explained. “And they just kind of”—I made a sweeping motion over the top of my head—“pile their hair up? Like that.”
For a moment, Ricky squinted at me, and I panicked, wondering if I’d offended him. But then he shook his head, incredulous.
“You always say exactly what you’re thinking, don’t you?” he observed. “So. Saunas? Or food?”
The smells coming from the cafeteria were mouthwatering, but I didn’t think I could handle a sauna with a full stomach.
“Saunas for sure.” I scanned the room, pointing to a gleaming, gold pyramid. “That one?”
“Wimp,” Ricky said. “That one’s barely hot.”
“It looks hot,” I countered, heading toward the entrance.
Even though he knew better, Ricky followed me in, laughing when I got inside and realized it was about as balmy as a warm summer day. We lay quietly on the gold floor for a few minutes, then shared a look of understanding and shuffled out the door. I let Ricky pick the next sauna （“this one’s for the vets”） and ended up in a room with a coal fire and a floor so scorching that I had to cross it on the balls of my feet. We sat cross-legged on mats, next to a group of other guests, gathering in a still, worshipful silence as flumes of herbal steam wafted from a central vat. I watched the beads of sweat form on my arms in real time and drip onto the floor. Next to me, Ricky’s eyes were squeezed shut, his hands planted firmly on his knees. What a strange guy, I thought, following a particularly tantalizing droplet trail from his temple to the hollow of his neck. Goes to spas on his off days. Hangs out in gardens to draw. Next, I’m going to find out he plays the mandolin.
After only a few minutes, my throat was parched and my body drenched. I cursed King Spa for making the ladies’ uniforms this shade of pink; my pits and back were now covered in wet, conspicuous splotches. I groaned internally and looked down only to find a large stripe under my chest as well. The dreaded under-boob sweat, the least sexy look after cameltoe. Ricky and I had broken past the “poop jokes” phase a while ago, but this felt like a step too far.
Ricky popped one eye open.
“Ready to go?” he mouthed, and I nodded, clambering to my feet and practically running for the exit. I took a gasp of dry, cool air and nearly cried in relief.
“Pretty sure that room was a form of torture, Ricky,” I said. I could still see steam rising off my skin.
Ricky snickered, as if the ability to withstand being cooked alive was something to be proud of.
“I thought you said ‘fire couldn’t kill a dragon’？” he said, referencing a line from Game of Thrones I’d dropped last week after guzzling a near-boiling cup of tea with ease.*
“That wasn’t fire,” I insisted. “That was a humid hellscape.”
Ricky shook his head in disbelief.
“Don’t you come from a ‘tropical stock’？” he said, clucking. Then he smirked, amused by his own wit. “Come on, you haven’t even done the best part!”
His hand settled on the middle of my back to guide me to our next stop, and then he recoiled. I burned with embarrassment; of course, I was drenched and so very gross right now, and why had I thought going to a place where I would explicitly get sweaty was a good idea?
“Sorry,” I said, holding my arms to my chest. “I’m disgusting right now.”
The next thing I knew, he’d grabbed my hand and placed it firmly on his chest. Underneath my palm his body was warm and firm and wet. I could feel the ridge of his nipple along the edge of my middle finger, and the steady pounding of his apical impulse under the flat of my palm. When I lifted my eyes to Ricky’s, he returned my gaze in a challenge, lips stretched in a feral grin. There was no longer any doubt in my mind: Ricky knew exactly what he was doing.
Annoyed, I snatched my hand back. Ricky seemed to think toying with me was A+ comedy, judging by the way his grin widened.
“It’s a sauna, Ange, the point is to get sweaty,” he said. He pointed ahead of us, to a room shaped like an igloo. “This will dry us off.”
If the coal-fire room was unbearably hot, the Ice Room was the exact opposite. The sudden shock of cold knocked the breath out of me, and this time, Ricky didn’t let me wimp out. We shivered together, my increasingly more creative expletives only making him laugh harder. Eventually, when my cursing turned into threats against his life, he let up.