Red Water

After sending off my draft stories to my editor/publisher, I felt so light. So, I managed to do much more reading. I've also completed another one of my Turkey stories:)

Red Water - 1st Cut

(continues...)

He takes her straight to the thermal pool. They step up onto a low staircase and enter through the door. The scene before their eyes startles her. It feels like a whole different world altogether.

Rising steams make the walls seem hazy, causing the place to appear smaller than it actually is. Bubbles popping out of the hot reddish murky water makes the pool seem like a huge pot of boiling soup. Its rust-like mineral dregs remind her of a documentary of Planet Mars that she caught on National Geographic.

A Caucasian woman and child have just arrived. The little girl pulls off her top, puts on her bathing cap and slowly steps into the pool. Her mother follows suit.
“I come here a few times a week. My friend gives me a good rate.” He stresses again, in case she has forgotten. “Do you bring your… I don’t know what you call it, you know for swimming?”
“Swimsuit? No, I don’t.”
“Would like to come again? I can fetch you from your pension."

She thinks about it for a while. Obviously he is planning to swim too, to fully utilise the time he takes to drive her there. She squirms inside. Being in the narrow pool in the hot turbid water with an old man for company is too much for her to stomach...

(more)