While I got some clothes out of my luggage in the living room that was getting noticeably warmer by the minute, Lauren was unpacking the groceries in the kitchen.

“You really took quite a lot of stuff with you.” She chuckled and then looked back at me. “Do you want me to pay you back now or later?”

“You really don’t need to pay me back.” I shook my head slightly. “I get paid pretty much the same as you do.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am more than sure, Lauren. You are allowing me to stay at your home after all… and you’ve already paid for plenty of stuff already for that matter…”

“Hmmm…” Lauren turned back around and put a couple of cans of soup orderly in her cupboard. “I guess you are right. I’m just not very used to splitting costs.”

“Not any more than I am.” I replied. “I’m even still getting used to the entire human money thing.”

Lauren looked back once more, squinted, and then nodded with a smile. “Fair enough.” She then closed the cupboard and started filling up the next. I did notice that all those cupboards had been empty beforehand. She presumably cleared everything out before. I suppose that’s to avoid coming home to some nasty surprises. Although I’m actually not that sure how much the Antarctic climate affects that… So I just decided to ask.

“Well, inside of a house it’s still not going to get as cold as it is outside. Especially not in these kinds of houses. But have you not read about Antarctic and arctic expeditions?”

“Not really.” I shook my head. That’s one of the subjects I hadn’t really explored much. I knew that they had been explored and that Roald Amundsen had been an arctic explorer, but apart from that I knew very little.

“In the 20th and 21st century, when more scientific expeditions came to the polar regions with modern equipment, they would find these supply caches with food that had been very well conserved that belonged to the first expeditions. In a region that is as cold as this, bacteria have a very hard time to get stuff done.”

“That’s kind of what I presumed.” I nodded.

“Actually, even when those modern expeditions really got going, people would still eat food that had gone past its expiration date. It was really hard to get supplies to the research sites, it wouldn’t happen very often. So when it did, it often came in bulk. Which results in some foodstuffs that are quickly out of date, like cheese and the likes.”

“I hope that’s not the case nowadays?”

“Not really, as you’ve seen by the rail network. We are pretty well-connected. Though, it has to be said, expiration dates are more of a recommendation than a rule anyway. Best way to tell if something is spoiled is still to taste test and smell.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh!” Lauren put the last of the groceries away. “Do you want to know something else that’s actually very fun about that time in history?”

“Sure.” I giggled. Lauren sounded really excited.

“It’s actually still the case in some systems, but in those research stations they actually had to warm their freezer, weirdly enough.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I have this old video clip that shows a tour on one of those old stations. I’ll share it with you later.”

I smiled as Lauren continued to tell me some more fun facts. It was really wholesome to see her geek out about something like this. She wouldn’t do that often and it was definitely something I treasured experiencing.

“I think the bathroom should be warm enough by now.” Lauren commented as she looked at her holostick. “A good old cozy 21°C.”

I took up my little pile of clothes I’d selected to wear after the bath and walked over to her. “Can you lead the way?”

“Definitely.” She smiled and put her holostick down. “Don’t mind the dust upstairs though. I’ll get the auto duster working later.”

“Shouldn’t we do that first before washing ourselves?”

“It’s not hard work, just need to adjust a couple of things. At worst I’ll need to wash my hands afterwards.” She smiled as she led me up the stairs and into the hallway. The bordeaux red walls were rather empty. It seemed that Lauren hadn’t spent much time on decorating this part of the house. She then led me to the second door on the left and opened it up for me. When I walked up to the door opening my jaw dropped open. There was a shower in the far right corner. A double sink right in front of us with a big mirror and to the left was a bath that appeared to be incredibly big to me. “Wow. Is it just me or is that a big bath?”

“It is quite big, yeah.” Lauren chuckled. “I’ve actually not used it much but it was something I definitely wanted in my house.”

“Wow.” I walked over and inspected the tub. It was more than big enough for the two of us and even had some massage water jets too.

Lauren closed the bathroom door behind us. “What do you think of the tiles?”

She had chosen a beige wall tile with dark gray tiles on the floor. To me it gave me more of a cool vibe than it looked cute. If I had to pick, I would probably have picked some kind of pink tiling though.

“It looks really good.” When I turned back around to Lauren she had already taken her shirt off and the only thing she was wearing now was her thermal sports bra. It immediately made my face go tomato red.

“I’m glad you like it.” She smiled and then tilted her head. “Is something wrong, you are turning a bit red.” After which she gave me a wink.

“Y-you know full well what you are doing…”

“I was under the impression that you wanted to bathe together. Was I wrong? I could come and shower later.” She reached back for her shirt but I stopped her by taking her arm. Lauren grinned. That woman just knew how to push my buttons in just the right way… it was terribly unfair.

“I’d prefer you to stay…”

“Hmmm, alright then.” She gently took the pile of clothes I was holding and put them on the sink cabinet, making sure that it wasn’t dusty before she did so. After that she started to make the bath run full of warm water.

“What will you be wearing?” I asked as I started to take of my own clothes.

“I have loungewear in the cabinet over there.” She nodded towards the cabinet next to the door. “I moved some of my clothes there to make sure I didn’t have to run through the hall to get clothes in case I forgot to add some. Now it just comes in handy to be closer to my girlfriend for longer.”

“Oh.” Lauren approached me once more and helped me get out of the rest of my clothes. Not that she needed to, but I let her have her fun. In the meantime the bath had already filled up quite nicely and had automatically stopped.

After she had undressed me, Lauren pulled out a little bottle out of one of the other cabinets and added a couple drops of it to the water. I didn’t really know what it was that she had added but the room suddenly started to smell very flowery. “I’ve actually never used that before. It should be good for your skin too.” She offered me her hand which I gladly took.

“It definitely smells nice.” Lauren helped me get in the bathtub, making sure I didn’t slip. Probably a smart move as this was my first time and the smoothness of the bathtub was even smoother than I had expected. But one thing was for sure, the warm water was just the right temperature for me and I felt my body start to relax the moment I let myself sink in a bit more.

Lauren then got out of the rest of her clothes and got into the bath with me too, getting in on the other side to give me plenty of room. “Oh Goddess.” She moaned a little as she slowly sank into the water, leaning back so she was submerged to her neck. “Damn it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a bath.” She then slowly sat back up again, using her good hand to massage the edge of where her prosthetic met her own flesh.

“Mhmm.” I decided to slide up real close to her and I put my hand on hers as it was still up against her shoulder. “Want me to massage it for you?”

She let her hand slip from underneath mine so I could gently massage the area at my free leisure.

Although, it didn’t take long before Lauren, with her now free arm, pulled me even closer, halting my massage of her shoulder and substituting it with a long passionate kiss.