“You are the most beautiful girl to ever exist, my sweet.”

His nails brushing against her cheek. Watching his fingers in the mirror waterfall down her face. Her eyebrows knitting together, innocent curiosity reflecting through grime.

“Are there others to have existed, Daddy?”

His knuckles clenching against the back of her neck.

“No.”

A white towel hangs from a rail above the bath. She pulls it down and clutches it in her hands, the fibers rough and scratchy. The kind of scratchy that pleasantly satisfies an itch. She brings the towel to her nose and inhales. The smell is fresh; the faint, icy scent of her daddy lingers.

She lays the towel down on the sink and turns to the bath. From the porcelain sprout two knobs indented with ridges and a faucet like the sink. She realizes that she’s never seen her daddy fill the bath—he’s always had the water ready for her before the blindfold was removed.

She steps into the tub and crouches in front of the controls. There are two—one red, the other blue. Looking at the blue one makes her think of the cold. Of the frosty bathwater that always chilled her spine. That she put up with to be able to look into her daddy’s blue eyes without interruption. That she put up with so he wouldn’t leave.

She grabs the red knob and twists. A stream of water pours out from the faucet and drowns her toes. Ribbons of mist rise from the centimeter-deep surface. She tries to sense a temperature like her daddy would ask her to do, but she can’t gauge it. It simply feels wet.

She twists the knob again. The stream of water turns into a blast, raising the surface level to drown her ankles. She sits against the porcelain and rests her head on the lip of the tub, feeling the distant pleasure of warmth as the water engulfs her—its barely perceptible pulse of heat makes her ache for more. As the water rises, the pressure grows. It weighs down on her, a soothing presence across her body like a heavy blanket keeping her grounded. Her fingertips travel to the hem of her dress, hesitate, then float away.

The water rises to her armpits. She uses her feet to twist the knob and the faucet stops its purging. The only noise now is the gurgle of bathwater sloshing around as she adjusts herself into comfort.

The pipes creak. She closes her eyes and listens but does not hear footsteps or scratching. She looks back into the bathwater. It’s murky, darkened by brown sludge and thick blood, her legs hidden by the opacity. She rubs down her dress, squeezing out as much filth as she can from the fabric. But there’s more underneath, against her skin, hiding. She can feel it touching her, rolling across her stomach, crawling down her center.