How to Wash a Girl Guide

Jo comes into the kitchen, her sandals undone, and as she walks they slap against the stone floor, the buckles ringing like little bells. She is in her Girl Guide uniform — brown shorts, yellow shirt, and a blue neck-scarf tucked inside her collar.

'Ooh, biscuits!' is the first thing she says. She makes straight for the chocolate bourbons and crams one into her mouth. Then she pours herself a mug of tea from the pot.

'That'll be cold,' says her sister, Helena, sitting at the table. 'I can put the kettle on.'

'No time,' says Jo indistinctly, her mouth full of biscuit. 'I don't suppose you've seen my cap, have you?'

'Your what?'

'Cap , ' says Jo, patting the top of her head.

'No.'

'Bugger.'

She takes another biscuit, eats half of it, and takes a gulp of tea.

'When did you last have it?' asks Helena.

'Saturday.'

'It's not in your room?'

'No.'

'The coat-rack?'

'No.'

'Did you look?'

'Obviously I looked.'

'How about in the back hall?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'It does matter.'

Helena watches her sister finish the second biscuit and reach for a third. There's chocolate on her face. Her shirt is rumpled, the collar sticking up at an angle.

'You're a complete mess,' says Helena. 'Why do you bother being a Guide at all, if you make such a poor job of it?'

'You know precisely why.'

Jo is seventeen — nearly eighteen — and in her last year at school. Whereas most of her friends left the Girl Guides several years ago — if they were ever Guides at all — Jo continues, every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning, to put on her uniform and present herself at a community hall the other side of Chiswick, where she squats, bare-legged and ridiculous, and promises to do her best; and then goes to paint a community fence, or mow a community lawn, or tidy the living-room of a housebound old man, who is often not too old to put a papery hand on her thigh and call her a good girl. She suffers this because her parents insist upon it. Liberal in most ways, they are inflexible on this point. Helena, three years older than Jo, was a member of the Guides until the very week she went off to university. And when Helena left the Guides, Jo begged and pleaded to be allowed to leave too. For two whole days she sulked, reasoned, proposed alternatives, but met a wall of resistance. It's putting something back into the community, said her parents, and it's character building. If I had to do it until university, said Helena, it's only fair you do as well. The difference is that you enjoyed it, said Jo bitterly, as once again she was sent upstairs to change into the hateful uniform.

That was all three years ago. If she still resents it now, it doesn't show. It's now Wednesday, and although her parents are abroad for the week, at six o'clock Jo dutifully goes up to her room, takes off her school clothes, and puts on her Girl Guide uniform. And now she is standing in the middle of the kitchen, her face alive with gaiety, cramming biscuit after biscuit into her mouth, drinking tea, laughing and chattering.

'Right!' she says, when she has eaten the last of the bourbons. 'I'm outta here.'

'Wipe your mouth at least. There's chocolate all round it.'

Jo wipes her mouth with the back of one bare arm. Helena rolls her eyes.

'Not like that!' she says. 'You really are a disgrace.'

She fetches a cloth. Jo puts out a hand to take it, but Helena ignores her.

'I'll do it. Face up.'

Jo grimaces and holds her face out. Helena roughly wipes away the chocolate.

'Arm!' she says.

'Uh?'

Helena pulls Jo's hand up, and wipes the chocolate-smeared arm.

'Mucky, mucky pup. There you go.'

'Thanks, Sis,' says Jo, and is about to turn and go when Helena's hand grips her wrist again.

'Jo — your fingernails! They're filthy!'

'Oh, don't start...'

'You are not going out with fingernails like that. They're positively black .'

'No-one'll notice.'

'Go and clean them!'

'I'm not going to go and clean them, I'll be late. Let go!'

She pries Helena's fingers off her wrist. 'I'll clean them tonight, okay?'

From upstairs comes the sound of a toilet flushing. The lock clicks. There are footsteps on the landing.

'Rob!' calls Helena. 'Come down here!'

Rob, Helena's boyfriend, comes down the stairs and sees them in the kitchen. Some sort of dispute, obviously. Jo is in uniform, he sees, and he quickly looks her up and down. Her hair is pulled back in an elastic grip at the back of her head, making her face look very round and innocent. A blue scarf nestles under her chin. Her arms and legs are bare. Her calves disappear into soft white socks which hug her ankles. Her brown sandals are undone. There is a last trace of puppy-fat about her, which the uniform emphasises. The light catches a few tiny hairs on her forearms.

'Hey there, li'il Girl Scout!'

'I'm a Girl Guide , you dumb-ass American,' says Jo. 'OW!' she adds, as Helena pinches the soft skin above her elbow, and gives her a black look. 'Why, what did I say?' she asks innocently, rubbing her arm.

'I've got something to show you, Rob,' says Helena. She picks up Jo's hand, straightening the fingers and presenting them to him. 'Look!'

He peers closely, like a scientist over a petrie dish.

'Euww!'

'Gross, right?'

'Revolting.'

'See?' Helena looks sternly at Jo. 'Don't move,' she says, and goes to the sink and begins filling the washing-up bowl with water.

'Helena, I said I'd do it tonight, okay.'

'Tonight is too late.'

'I'm also going to be late now.'

She makes for the kitchen door, but Rob is too quick for her. He closes it and leans against it, arms folded, smiling at her.

She growls, exasperated, and stamps her foot.

'It'll be my third "late" in a row.'

'Serves you right. Come here.'

'I'll be on double chores!'

'Whose fault is that?'

'Yours.'

'The more you stand and whinge ...'

'Rob, let me out!'

He shakes his head at her. She blows her breath out, rolls her eyes to the ceiling, groans — and surrenders.

'Make it quick, okay?'

Helena puts the washing-up bowl in the middle of the bench. The two girls sit down either side of it, straddling the bench, facing each other. Helena takes Jo's right hand, dips in the water, and sets to work on the thumbnail.

'Sit closer,' she says. Jo wriggles up the bench until their legs meet, Jo's bare knees contrasting with the blue of Helena's jeans.

Helena dips, scrubs, rinses, and Jo issues a barrage of complaint: 'This is hurting! The brush is too hard! Why don't you let me do it? This is so humiliating! Ow! Ow! Ow! You don't have to scrub the skin away too, you know.'

Helena ignores her. Meanwhile Rob leaves his post by the door and comes to lean on the counter, fascinated. Jo's breasts — rather large, he never noticed before — press against the regulation yellow shirt. Her lips are very red, and her teeth are uneven and not very white. He sees the soft darkness of her mouth, wide with laughter and complaint, and the pink of her tongue.

One hand is finished and presented to him. 'Very nice', he says. 'She's halfway to becoming a human being.'

'Well, thank you ,' says Jo.

'... A vital first step to becoming the perfect accompaniment to a man — a woman.'

'What are you babbling on about, you incomprehensible Yank? OWW!! '

This time Helena has stamped on her foot, rather hard.

'That hurt!'

'Yes, it was meant to.'

She grasps Jo's thumb and sets to work again, more vigourously than before. There is something a little punitive about it now. Suddenly Jo's eyes are moist and she has jerked her hand away.

'Stop being a baby!' says Helena.

'That hurts , Helena, okay?' cries Jo, looking at her thumb. 'You've scrubbed all the skin away! Look!'

She holds it up. The scrubbed area is indeed paler than the surrounding skin.

Helena inspects it, and laughs.

'That's not skin, it's dirt!'

She raises the brush, and Jo flinches.

'I'm not going to hurt you!'

She gently scrubs the back of Jo's hand. Dirt comes away.

'Jo! You're absolutely revolting! When did you last have a bath?'

Jo, grinning now, counts silently on her fingers.

'Five days ago.'

' Five days ?'

'What's wrong with that?'

'You know perfectly well what's wrong with that. You've not had a bath since Mum and Dad left?'

'Uh-huh!'

'You don't have to look so pleased about it.'

She wipes some more dirt off, and shows the arm to Rob.

'So that's how folk get a tan in London,' he says.

'Unbelievable. Mum and Dad go away and she thinks that means she can stop washing.'

'Actually it's an experiment. Helen Barker said if you don't wash for a while, then after a while you don't have to.'

'That's your hair, and it's not true.'

'No, all over.'

Now Helena is busily scrubbing Jo's forearm. 'Rob, get me a cloth, will you, and the washing-liquid.'

Jo heaves a great sigh. 'I'm going to be so late,' she says, but she makes no effort to move, watching the operation instead with a certain interest. '"Why are you late, Jo?" "Oh, my sister insisted upon washing my arms . She's like that."'

'And your face,' said Helena. 'Every visible part of you.'

'Even my knees?'

Helena paused to look briefly at Jo's knees.

'Yes,' she said.

'I hope you realise I'm probably going to end the evening scrubbing Mr Pritchett's toilet, or something,' says Jo. 'I mean, how clean do you need to be for that?'

'You need to be clean when you arrive.'

She takes the cloth from Rob, wets it, puts a drop of washing up liquid on it, and roughly scrubs Jo's arm. It's difficult to do sitting down, she finds. She orders Jo to her feet. Jo stands patiently, like a little girl having her hair brushed. Rob watches from the other side of the table. When the first arm is finished, Jo holds both of her arms out in front of her, turning them around. One arm is clean, glistening, flecked with bubbles; the other sallow.

'No difference at all,' she says.

'Rob,' said Helena. 'Want to dry her? Grab a tea-towel.'

While she gets to work on the other arm, he dries the first, holding it loosely by the elbow. Jo grins, happy to be the centre of attention. A change of water, and Helena starts on Jo's face, forehead first, holding the hair back. They unwind and remove her scarf. Helena does her ears, right inside with a cloth, and behind as well, exclaiming at the filth she finds. Water runs down Jo's collar, and still her neck isn't clean. Rob scratches at it with a fingernail. 'I don't know,' he says doubtfully. 'We could try the brush again.'

'Her shirt's getting soaked. Why don't we take it off for a sec, Jo?'

'No.'

'Come on. You are wearing a bra, aren't you?'

Jo hesitates, just for a second, but it's enough. Helena undoes the top button. 'Over your head,' she says. 'Arms up.' Jo raises her arms obediently, and the shirt comes off.

'Now we can see what's what,' says Helena.

Jo stands half-naked in her bra and shorts. Her breasts are plump, with a little bulge of skin at the edges of her bra. Her shoulders are round and smooth. Every curve is graceful and girlish.

'Want me to do your neck then?' says Rob. He is behind her with the scrubbing brush. He adds in a stage-whisper, 'I've much softer hands than your sister.'

'Okay,' says Jo.

So Rob does the back of her neck, and Helena does her face and her chin. Jo is silent now, enjoying the trickle of water down her back and the feel of the soapy cloths as Helena and Rob slowly work down to her shoulders. The only sound is the splashing of water, and the whirring of the fridge, and the occasional grunt. Jo shuts her eyes. She imagines she is a statue in a museum. Something Greek, a goddess in white marble; a new acquisition being restored to its full glory by a team of experts, before the doors open and ten thousand people come crowding in to stare at her loveliness — her perfect arms, her smooth white belly. A little shudder of pleasure passes through her.

One arm is gently raised, and a cloth damply dabs her armpit. Then the other. The skin above her breasts is soaped and scrubbed and dried. Drops of water run down her body, into the waistband of her shorts.

She feels a wet prickle between her legs.

Rob is soaping her back. He has abandoned the scrubbing brush for a cloth, which he works in between the straps of her bra. The bra tightens as he tries to do underneath the straps. He stops. It tightens again, there is a fumbling. And suddenly the tension disappears altogether. He has undone it. He pushes the straps off her back and shoulders, towards the front.

She takes a long, slow breath.

Helena, who by now is on her knees, scrubbing above Jo's belly button, sees it.

'Ah yes,' she murmurs, 'Much better.'

She gently eases the bra away. Jo keeps her eyes shut. She feels Helena's cloth work its way back up towards her breasts, slowly, as if to give the impression that when it reaches them, it will do so entirely by accident. She hears a splash of water, a squirt of the detergent bottle, and then, tenderly, the cloth touches her breast. Jo gives a quiet gasp. The water is cold. The cloth lies still for a few seconds, as if to let her acclimatise to it. Then, somewhat brusquely — in a rough, sisterly fashion — her breast is scrubbed. Top, sides, bottom, and — more gently — the front. But Helena, it seems, is dissatisfied with the results. Jo hears her stand up, and rinse out the cloth, and put more detergent on it. Then (Jo keeps her eyes tight shut), a hand gently takes hold of her breast from underneath, cupping it. The cloth is brought into action again, rubbing more firmly now against the soft skin. Now and then there is just a hint of pain, and once, Jo gives a squeak. Finally the cloth approaches the nipple again, which Jo knows is erect. Delicately the sensitive skin around the nipple is washed, then the nipple itself. Sensations shoot through her entire body. She feels her legs go weak, and wills herself to keep them from shaking. She tries to keep control of her breath too, although she can't help inhaling in a series of little gasps. Then the cloth touches the very tip of the nipple, and makes a tiny circle, like someone trying to remove a stain from a window. Jo gives a moan, instantly suppressed. The rubbing immediately stops, and the cloth is taken away. There is the sound of splashing.

Rob meanwhile is soaping around her waist. Jo puts her hands on her head, out of the way. She takes a deep breath and straightens her back.

They're only washing, she tells herself. That's all it is. Don't make a fool of yourself.

She feels Helena's hand on her other breast, and then the soft soapy cloth, sliding over her skin, scrubbing her with a mixture of gentleness and matronly efficiency. Again she silently gasps when the cloth first touches the nipple. She forces herself to breathe calmly, trying to inhale and exhale evenly. Her body goes rigid, as she attempts to suppress the excitement rising in her belly, the shivers that run down her legs.

There is wetness in her knickers now, cold against her skin, and she feels ashamed. She thinks, I'll have to go upstairs and change them before I leave. Make some excuse. And just as she is thinking that, she feels her belt being unfastened.

'Not my shorts,' she says at once. 'Don't take my shorts off, please.'

She drops her hands from her head, and puts them in her pockets, clutching the material.

'Why no, Jo?'

'Just don't.'

'We want to do your legs.'

'You can do them like this.'

Somebody gets up. Jo feels gentle hands placed lightly on her upper arms.

'Open your eyes for a moment, Jo. Look at me.'

Jo opens her eyes. Helena's face is close to hers. She looks tenderly at Jo, and runs her fingers lightly up and down Jo's bare arms.

'Let's do this properly, eh?' she says.

Her hands slowly slide down Jo's forearms, and into the pockets of her shorts. Her fingers caress Jo's, gently trying to prise them open.

'Come on,' says Helena, looking appealingly into Jo's eyes.

Jo sighs, shuts her eyes, and takes her hands out of her pockets.

'There's a good girl.'

Her shorts are unbuttoned and lowered to her feet. She steps out of them. She hears the chink of the belt as they are placed on the table.

Then there's an interlude while the old water is tipped away, the bowl refilled, soap added, and the cloths rinsed under the tap.

Jo waits, standing in her socks and knickers, getting cold, and horribly aware of the damp patch in her knickers. How big is it? she wonders. Will they see it? Perhaps it won't show.

But there is no chance of them missing it, however. When they return with the washing-up bowl, they place it at her feet and kneel down in front of her to begin on her legs. She squirms with shame, thinking of the sight she must present to them — her damp, sticky excitement, inches away from their eyes. Perhaps they can smell her too! How disgusting it must be. Her face grows hot with embarrassment.

Helena, as if to tell her it doesn't matter, begins chatting away in a breezy, nurse-like manner:

'Honestly, look at this dirt! Isn't there something in the Girl Guide's Law about keeping clean?'

'The Girl Guide's what?' said Rob.

'Isn't there, Jo?'

'Probably,' says Jo.

'"Probably!"'

'What is the Girl's Guide's Law?'

'Ask the Girl Guide!'

'Jo? What's the Girl Guide's Law?'

Jo is beginning to shiver. They have forgotten about drying her off. She folds her arms over her breasts. The nipples are big and hard.

'It's what we have to say every week,' she says, and her teeth chatter.

'Are you cold, Jo?'

'Yes.'

'Well, we're almost done, and then you can put your clothes back on.'

'How does it go?' asks Rob.

'Tell him how it goes,' says Helena. 'It'll keep you warm.'

Jo begins: 'A Guide is honest, reliable, and can be trusted.'

'Uh-huh?'

'Er ... A Guide is helpful, and uses her time and abilities wisely.'

'Well done her.'

'Don't take the piss, Rob,' says Helena. 'It's important to some people.'

'A Guide ...'

Jo forgets what comes next, because at that moment she feels a cloth moving up her inner thigh.

'... Faces challenges and learns from her experiences,' says Helena.

'Yes,' says Jo, as the cloth caresses the tender, sensitive skin, tracing around the edge of her knickers. She gives a shudder, and doesn't try to hide it now, because she can pretend it's a shiver instead. Her breathing grows laboured and heavy again.

The cloth moves on to the other thigh. She feels it approaching her groin again, delicately washing the skin. She knows it's her sister. She can feel herself producing more wetness. Her pants must be full of it by now. Once or twice Helena's hand brushes against the crotch of her pants.

She hears the cloth being rinsed.

'Is that it?' says Rob.

There is a brief silence. Nothing seems to be happening. And then, without warning, two thumbs hook into the elastic of her knickers on either side, and they are pulled down, somewhat abruptly.

She knew this was going to happen, of course, and she makes no protest now. The knickers are carefully lowered down her legs, although once or twice she feels the sticky cold wetness of them graze her skin.

'Foot up', says Helena, tapping an ankle, as though Jo is a pony at a blacksmiths. And she meekly lifts first one then the other foot out of her knickers. She hears Helena put them straight into the bin. Beyond redemption, obviously.

She stands naked, her arms still over her breasts. Then Helena is kneeling in front of her again, puts one hand on Jo's thigh and the cloth between her legs, properly this time.

'Is that it?' says Rob again.

Helena said: 'We'd got to "A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experiences."'

'A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experience,' says Jo, and gasps. The warm cloth is in among her pubic hair, dabbing at the stickiness, and gently tugging the clumps of hair away from the skin, teasing them apart, cleaning them off. She hears the cloth being rinsed, and in the meantime feels the great fire in her groin, a burning, and when Helena returns to the task there is a new wave of wetness for her to deal with.

'A Guide is a good friend and a sister to all Guides,' says Jo.

'Is she?' says Rob. 'Are you?"

'I try to be,' says Jo, and then she begins breathing very heavily, because the cloth has found the lips of her vagina and is tenderly stroking them. She gives a whimper — almost as though she is crying — and her breath comes in judders. She feels warmth around her neck and breasts, a prickling in the skin, almost like a rash, and she knows what will shortly happen.

Helena eases the lips of her vagina apart. Jo feels the cloth go in, just a little at first. Another wave of excitement sweeps through her. Wetness drips from her. Her knees quake violently.

Her hands, still over her breasts, suddenly and involuntarily begin playing with them. She runs her fingers over the sides of her nipples, and then the very tips. The feeling is the most wonderful feeling in the world. She never wants it to stop. She will do anything to get more of it.

'Two more to go,' says Helena.

'A Guide,' gasps Jo joyously 'is polite and considerate.'

An enormous orgasm sweeps her away, as if she is a surfer, and it an enormous wave that lifts her to the sky and down again, tumbles her into the sea where there is no up or down, and the world ceases to exist, and the only sound is the moaning of some animal, that goes on for a very long time, and only afterwards does she realise that it was her own moans she could hear.

Time has also ceased to exist. As long as the cloth is between her legs, playing with her, teasing her, inflaming her, reaching inside her and turning her inside out, and her own fingers on her breasts, then wave after wave arrives, one after another, to lift her up and spin her around. She hears a stream of babble coming from her mouth — disconnected phrases, meaningless words — but all connected with the Guides in some way she can't understand.

And after a while she realises the cloth is gone and Helena's own fingers are inside here — deep inside her this time. Two fingers, perhaps three, working their way in. All the way in. Jo leaves her nipples alone now, and puts her hands, crossed, on her shoulders, her head tilted to the ceiling. She feels Helena's fingers slide in and out of her.

A burst of heat, in her groin, in her breasts, in her stomach. She comes again, an immense orgasm. And suddenly her eyes pop open. She sees the kitchen again, and is amazed to be still in it. Rob is sitting at the other end of the table, watching her. She looks at him, and as another great orgasm shakes her body, she cannot drag her eyes from his. She moans and whimpers, her mouth hanging open, her chin wet, helpless as a baby. And for perhaps five minutes, this is how they stay. He doesn't move a muscle, while every muscle in her body spasms, and she writhes like a snake, and the sobs keep on coming from deep within her.

And then she realises that Helena's fingers are not inside her any more. Instead, Helena lays her hand gently on Jo's mound — just leaves it there for a minute, as if to keep Jo warm. Then she leans forward and gives Jo a quick kiss on the belly, and slowly gets to her feet. She stands close to Jo, looking into her face, her eyes full of tenderness and sympathy. Jo at this moment feels more transparent and tender than she has ever felt in her life. The two girls gaze at each other, and love flows between them. Then Helena wraps her arms around Jo's neck, and puts her head against Jo's. And Jo stands, arms at her side, letting her breath slowly return to normal.

'You're cold,' says Helena at last.

'Yes.'

'Come on then. Let's get you dressed.'

She lets go of Jo, takes the shorts off the table, and hands them to her. Then she briefly glances down.

'Wait a sec,' she says. She picks up the cloth, gives it a quick rinse, and in a no-nonsense manner wipes Jo one last time between the legs.

'That'll do, anyway,' she says.

Jo puts the shorts on. Helena helps her on with the bra, and then the shirt. Jo stands like a little girl while Helena does up the buttons. Finally there is the scarf to be wound around her neck, and Jo is a Girl Guide once more.

Helena steps back to admire her.

'There,' she says. 'Amazing what a bit of soap and water can do.'

'Thank you,' says Jo quietly.

Helena kisses her on the cheek.

'Haven't you got something to say to Rob, too?' she says.

'Thank you, Rob.'

'Well, yes .... but I meant, you never finished telling him the Girl Guide Law. What's the last one?'

'I'm really not that fussed,' says Rob, but Jo is frowning at the floor in concentration. And finally she gets it.

'A Guide respects all living things and takes care of the world around her,' she says. 'Helena, there isn't one about keeping clean!'

'I know.'

'And to think we went to all that bother,' says Rob.

'Well, if I don't go now,' says Jo, looking at the clock, 'It'll be all be over before I get there.'

She goes into the hall and puts on her duffel coat. 'Bye!' she calls.

'Jo!' cries Helena.

Jo reappears in the doorway, looking sweet and fragile, her bare legs emerging — somewhat ridiculously — from the heavy coat.

'Mmm?'

'Shoes.'

'Yuh?'

'Do them up properly.'

'I can't do them up. They pinch.'

A brief silence, as the two girls look at each other. Then Helena raises her eyebrows.

'Okay,' says Jo. She kneels, rests her chin on a bare knee, and buckles one sandal. Then she swaps sides and does the other.

'And now I really am going,' she says, and runs out into the chilly October evening.