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The sauna was a cedar box at the bottom of the spa, dark and glowing orange, with two tiers of benches and a bucket of eucalyptus water. I got there at nine, in a towel, and made myself comfortable on the top bench with my eyes shut.
At five past, the door opened and Kat walked in.
She was wearing a towel too, black, knotted high on her chest, and nothing else but the ink. The swallows and peonies on her arm, the star behind her ear, a line of script along her ribs that vanished into the towel. She sat on the opposite bench and stretched her long legs out in front of her.
“Terms,” she said. “First one out buys the other breakfast and admits the other is better at something.”
“At what?”
“Whatever the winner decides.”
The heat pressed down like a hand. Ten minutes went by in silence. Sweat ran between my breasts and pooled at my navel. Kat’s skin was shining, her hair stuck to her neck, and I did not look at her thighs. I looked at them twice.
At fifteen minutes I was dizzy. At eighteen, Kat tugged the knot on her towel loose and let it fall open around her, her small tits bare, nipples tight in the heat.
“It’s hot,” she said innocently. “Isn’t it?”
I could stay and outlast her. Or I could cross the room and tell her it was a draw.