The Utopian Police

“You take shower before get in!” Hot Tub Mama commanded, her imperious echo shocking Beauteous African Princess, who had just emerged from the steam room, into instant Shower Submission.

DL’s eyes widened in surprised delight behind her dark glasses while PP giggled under the guise of the bubbles. “Guess I better go…..” DL pointed to the showers as she scooped up her clothes and followed BAP to cleanse their hereto concealed germs with the help of the shower's contamination prevention properties.

HTM sunk back into her corner of the tub, her ample bosom pressed against the jets, her hair wrapped in a turquoise turban. PP wondered what was up with her sanitation commands on this otherwise mellow Monday afternoon. She wasn’t usually so vigilant. In fact, even though there were signs all over the hot tub and sauna area with instructions about “NO scented Products allowed to respect those with environmental sensibilities” (PP always wondered about this what with the chlorine fumes enveloping the entire area –weren’t these gases a bit hard on those with these environmental sensibilities?) and “Showers MUST be taken before entering the Jacuzzi or sauna.” and “NO Hair products or Lotions allowed in Jacuzzi.”

Everyone always seemed to ignore all these written commands but went blithely about their hair product and non-shower business.

It took a STERN Command from HTM to put the fear of serious repercussions into their otherwise lax sanitation standards.

DL, back from her shower, big grin on her mug, sunk into the tub, her eyes still wide from her near miss with HTM. “PP, you have to orient me to the Ritual down here in the hot tub. I never come down here, so I don’t know.”

PP nodded, “Of course, just follow my lead.” DL usually just worked upstairs on the torture machines, which she’d spent the last hour showing PP so she could work on her Menopausal Loss of Muscle Mass. But mostly they’d giggled and gossiped. Weight Training was just not PP’s thing.

“Have you been in the Sauna?” PP asked DL.
“No, can we?” She glanced around for HTM—where’d she go?

In the sauna, that’s where, as PP and DL took a seat on the warm wooden benches, the piney smell of redwood permeating the tiny heated room.

“Where your towel!?” HTM questioned imperiously. Ever vigilant, she immediately had noticed PP’s and DL’s naked bums oh too casually sitting on the bare wood.
“Oh!” DL exclaimed, giving PP another wide-eyed giggle, “mine are outside.”
“The Table. It is not Clean!” HTM snorted, her scorn filling the close room.
“Well, we’ll take our chances this time. Thanks,” DL answered as PP just giggled, reminded of China once again.
“When I was in China, I was always being admonished for sitting on the bare wood without a towel. The women in the sauna there would always get me to sit on a plastic bag and then it would stick all gooey on my ass from the heat. ”
“You in China?” a Familiar Asian Woman sitting in the corner asked. PP often shared a lane with her, and was always greeted with smiles and nods, but had never actually conversed with her before.
“Yes, a long time ago.”
”Where?”
”Dalian? Do you know it?”
”Dalian? Yes…no…I not been there…. Shanghai…. Beijing.”
“Cool. Are you from China?”
“No, Taiwan.”
“Ah, yes, those are very different countries.”
DL started to giggle uncontrollably.

“You been to Utopia?” HTM asked.
“We're in Utopia right now,” PP answered.
“You in Utopia?” HTM repeated, confusion in her tone.
“We just feel like we’re in Utopia right now,” DL clarified.
“I from Utopia,” HTM asserted.
The epiphany hit PP and DL simultaneously. Oh! Ethiopia! Not Utopia. Duh!
Giggles took over, replacing the confused scorn with magical hilarity.
“No, we haven’t been to Ethiopia,” PP managed to get out between giggles.

HTM sighed and rolled her huge mass over onto her side. Grunted in boredom as Taiwan Woman pointed to the shredded sweated-on paper towels that she was using, still worried about PP’s and DL’s germ contamination potential.
“You get towel now?” she asked, her voice heavy with concern.
“No, no, I think we’ve had enough,” DL answered, glancing over the top of her dark glasses at PP. Maybe PP usually escaped all this Towel Concern cuz she wore her suit in the hot tub and sauna after swimming. But to keep DL sexy naked company today (“But I don’t have a suit!” she’d protested when PP had first mentioned meeting in the hot tub after their respective workouts—DL wasn’t a swimmer—YET!), PP had happily tossed off her wet suit while in the Hot Tub. After all she was hell of clean after her hour-long chlorination immersion!

Rising with DL, PP shook her head as she held the sauna door open for the two of them to exit. “See y’all next time,” she called out as DL slipped by her, the giggles cascading after her as she hurried off for her second shower.

“Oh, PP, you really must instruct me better on the Ritual of the sauna next time.”
“Hey, you got it now,” PP grinned. “Thanks to the Utopian Police.”
And with a final hearty guffaw, DL shuffled off to the shower, after retrieving her clean, non-sauna used towel from its hook on the locker room wall, giving PP one last startled glance over her sexy dark glasses.