With her outer clothes washed and hung to dry, she then proceeded to lather up her drawers she was still wearing and then her hair. Alex had kept it cut pretty short during their enlistment. She closed her eyes tightly after lathering her drawers and head. Then she went under the water slowly moving her head around to rinse. She ran her fingers through her shining black hair. She enjoyed the feeling under water for as long as her lungs would allow and then she slowly re-emerged. She felt as if the world was fresh, if only for just a few seconds. Letting the sun warm her wet drawers and the creek water drain off her hair, she stood motionless for a few moments. No sound, no movements could she detect except for some birds singing in the woods along the creek. Assured of her solitude, she went under the water to her shoulders and unbuttoned her shirt. Lathering up her hands, she went on to scrub under her arms. She stood up out of the water a bit. J. N. had told her about lice getting on the body hair not long after they joined. She had checked from time to time during her very infrequent bathing and had found the things a few times and felt them once on her head and once in her down below hair. She doubled her scrubbing when she thought about those creatures on her body, clinging to her hair. Satisfied that she had accomplished as much as possible, she went on to soap her chest and mid-section. She'd not really seen her breasts it seemed for quite a spell and was a bit shocked to see how they'd grown. They now were the size of one of Mother's good china cups. They felt weighty and they would lift as she soaped under them. Her nipples, dark brown, offered feelings when she soaped them that she found surprising and pleasant. Preoccupied with her feelings and washing, she gloried in the experience. It was a spell of peace in a relentless hell.
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Major Stevenson was drawn to the splashing sound. As he cleared a thicket of scrub brush and middling cedars and brushed bramble away from his knee he looked at the sound and saw. The brown eyes looked like those of a doe he had killed when he was sixteen and grieved about for a long time.
Lou grabbed her breasts instinctively as she stood to scramble out of the creek. The major saw everything and with a rush retreated into the cedar thicket in a panic.