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WARNING: Shower scene. Please cover your delicate electronics with drool-proof plastic sheets. Nothing explicit...
Mishka
Chapter Five: When You're Hot
Okay, so I was giving Pete a hard time about the sauna… actually I was looking forward to it.
I had been enjoying sauna with my teammates for months, as part of our physical training routine. But it was one thing to disrobe in the gym and quite another to mingle in public. Perhaps it is just one of those odd American hang-ups—but nudity is generally synonymous with vulnerability, and it's very difficult to relax when all I’m wearing is a length of terrycloth in a room full of strangers.
Still, I had a responsibility—so I sucked it up and hurried to the Sauna Bar. It wasn’t far from the hotel, and I enjoyed the walk through the endless golden afternoon, even though it was actually closer to evening.
When I arrived, I received my next surprise: it was mixed couples’ night at the Sauna Bar.
Sigh. I wished Pete had given me a larger towel.
The steam was so thick, it was like walking across the Golden Gate Bridge during a fog—except for the temperature. Mac was sweating even before he’d found an empty seat among the wooden benches lining the walls. He sat down, towel wrapped firmly around his waist, trying to breathe in the stiflingly hot atmosphere. Water condensed on the ceiling and dripped down on his head like warm rain, running in rivulets down the smooth walls.
People appeared as blurry shapes around him, barely distinguishable from one another in the thick, swirling air. MacGyver guessed that the temperature was higher than any sauna he’d been in before… it had to be almost 200 F.! Very soon the towel was off and he was leaning back against the dripping wall, breathing though his nose and mouth and feeling as if his very skin was yawning with an effort to draw air.
It was delicious. Mac quickly relaxed, modesty forgotten in the security of the anonymous steam. With eyes half-open, he circumspectly noted anything he could perceive of the faces of the people around him, but nobody seemed to be looking in his direction.
A woman walked close by, a colorful tattoo writhing down her hip and along her thigh as she swayed through the thick air. MacGyver decided it was time for some cooling down; he knotted his towel securely at his hip and swam carefully out of the steam room.
There was a very nice pool available to the guests for this purpose, surrounded by huge, airy ferns and equipped with a submerged bar providing a variety of beverages. MacGyver didn’t stop, however, opting for the privacy of a shower—at least for now.
He passed the wall of foliage and stepped into a stall and hung up his towel. A motion sensor detected his presence and turned on the water automatically, sending a refreshing wash of cold water over his steaming skin. He gasped with the shock, then leaned with his hands braced on either side of the shower head, letting the water course over his head and through his hair.
Water dripping out of his hair, he walked back toward the steam room for another sweat, but paused beside a drinking fountain near the pool-bar. The woman he had seen earlier that day, the Russian woman who had accidentally tried to get into his room, was sitting at one of the floating tables, talking animatedly in her native language with two other women.
MacGyver understood what they were saying well enough; DXS training expected their international couriers to learn as many languages as possible. MacGyver had studied Russian, among others, although he understood it better than he spoke it. And he often found it useful to pretend not to understand: people would say the most amazing things in front of him when they thought he didn’t know what they were saying.
It crossed his mind to go up to her and ask her name—until he remembered his disrobed state. Wishing heartily that he was wearing more than a flimsy towel, he walked past the pool, thinking invisible thoughts.
The women’s talk suspended as he went by, and then resumed in loud whispers, accompanied by giggling. Flushing, he clutched his towel and tried to maintain a dignified pace as he returned to the blessed anonymity of the steam room.
Somewhere, flying high above the petty earth, Peter Thornton was laughing at me—I just knew it. I vowed that I will have my revenge!
 Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
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