Journaling is good for you. All the therapists say that, and I've always found it to be true. It's certainly helped me in the past. After a long and horrendous day dealing with unappreciative students who don't actually seem to want to learn anything, sitting down and pouring out my thoughts to my diary has often cleared my mind and helped me to re-focus.

Alright, so Latin may not be the sort of skill that everyone applies every day - but it's extremely useful in reading, in deciphering languages, in understanding botanical names and medical terms and so on… and why am I being defensive in my diary? Only I am going to read this, for heavens sake! I need to calm down again. If I don't calm down I am never going to be able to tell you about what happened today.

Well, here goes…

I've spoken to you about Adam before. He's the neighbour who moved in almost a year ago. He's about my age, possibly a little younger, and he's one of those fit, strong-looking men who aren't built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but seem to have no difficulty in lifting lounge suites with one hand. He's a builder, and obviously a successful one, because this is not a cheap area to live in (if the size of my mortgage is an indication). He's a nice enough man, although he has more than his fair share of noisy parties, and his trash appears to consist largely of empty bottles, but I guess that's to be expected of a single man with a high disposable income.

He wolf-whistled me the first time he saw me jogging (I've told you on a number of occasions about my views regarding sports bras and their inability to provide an adequate service to the well-endowed woman), but the lecture I gave him on that occasion put a stop to that. Apart from that, he's been okay - other than his tendency to call me "Cathy" and his seeming inability to keep a shirt on for more than 10 minutes at a time. Yes, he has a nice torso and the sort of tan that would have a skin cancer specialist booking him in for a consultation in 20 years time, but does he have to flash himself about like that quite so often? I've always believed in modesty, diary. It's something I was raised to believe was important.

Which leads me to today.

As you know, diary, I've known for some time that the drains in my bathroom are rusting. The previous owners did not look after the property and much of it was sadly run-down when I moved in, and a university lecturer's salary does not stretch as far as I'd like it to when it comes to home renovations. I certainly don't make anywhere near as much as plumbers seem to. I couldn't believe it when I was told how much a plumber charge just to come and look at the drains - not the pipes, mind you… just the drains themselves. I think I'd have to sign the house and my (future) first-born child over if I needed him to do anything serious with the pipes themselves. The upshot is that the drains have had to wait. Well, today they decided they'd waited long enough.

It was just a shower, diary. How dangerous can a shower be? There I was, performing my usual ablutions in my tiny little shower cubicle, when I noticed that the drain in the floor was looking as if it was falling apart. I know from past experience that there is insufficient room for me to comfortably bend down (meaning that I have to get out of the cubicle to pick up the soap if I drop it), so instead of inspecting it visually, I made my first mistake and stuck my toe on it. Unfortunately, my toe went into instead, and became wedged between two metal parts which fell apart in the middle but held very firmly around my toe.

I didn't panic. Despite the fact that two parts of the drain were now digging into my toe, I calmly reached for my soap, carefully bent down (wedging myself against three of the walls of the shower cubicle to do so) and rubbed some of the suds on my toe. It didn't work. With some effort, I managed to drag myself back into an upright position. Clearly, some force was going to be required. The metal digging into my toe was not sharp - just firm, so I decided to try to drag myself out of it. The tiles inside the cubicle are slippery, so I reached up to the top of the cubicle frame and attempted to wrap my hands around it. Unfortunately, it was too wide around for me to be able to grip it firmly, so I dug my fingers into the little grooves at the top and pulled myself up, hard. Mistake number two.

Since I still had soap on my fingers from the failed "toe extrication" exercise, my fingertips slid easily into the little grooves. I felt them go. I still didn't panic, because if they slid in, they'd slide out again, wouldn't they? Well, I was half right. My right hand slid out, with some effort, but the fingers of my left hand were wedged tightly. Oh - and did I mention that my toe didn't budge from its little metal prison?

Let me paint the picture for you, diary. My toe was trapped in a broken drain, my left hand was wedged in the ridges of the shower frame above my head, I was standing on the tiptoes of my other foot, and I had only one remaining limb with which to do anything useful. To top it all off, my ancient hot water system was running out, and I was being sprayed with rapidly cooling water. I am not a woman without resources. I tried all manner of things, including smashing at the drain with my back-scrubber, sliding open the shower screen and reaching up with my other hand (carefully) to see if I could free my trapped hand from the other side, and a whole suite of other useful things, including swearing, kicking the shower door with my one free foot and crying.

Nothing worked. Yet, despite the cold and the lack of comfort, I think I would probably still be there if it hadn't been for the spider.

I believe in the sanctity of life. I have been known to catch mice in old towels and let them go in the forest (probably to be gruesomely killed by birds, but at least I'm not responsible) and I generally just move grasshoppers off my plants. I even carefully trap moths in my cupped hands and carry them outside. The silly creatures usually immediately fly back in and incinerate themselves on the light bulb, but again, I know I've done my best. But when it comes to spiders, my sense of "oneness with the universe" dries up. I hate them with the sort of passion that a wine buff reserves for vintage Krug champage. Even small spiders have me contemplating moving suburbs, and for this reason I have a very environmentally unfriendly treatment sprayed throughout the house on an annual basis. The spider that was now surveying me at eye height and from about four inches away survived this spray for the very simple reason that it was as large as an elephant. No spray would kill this spider. A tank would have had trouble killing this spider.

Oh alright, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little. Nevertheless, it was the size of a dinner plate (okay, a small dinner plate) and from where I was standing, I could count every hair on its eight legs. I could just about see its eyelashes and smell its breath. I could see it looking at me and thinking "hmmm… what a big insect. where will I start munching first?" …and I could do nothing but scream. And scream I did.

In the confined space of the shower cubicle, my screaming was so loud that I almost deafened myself. Nevertheless, my spider-induced panic was enough to make me keep going. I'd say the decibel level was approaching that of a space shuttle take-off when I noticed that someone was yelling back.

I should mention here that I don't keep my bathroom window slightly open through any desire to provide entertainment for my neighbours. It's an old sash window, and it's difficult to open and shut. My bathroom steams up completely as soon as any hot water is turned on, to the extent that a foghorn and miner's light is required to find your way out after a shower. The only way to beat it (short of installing an exhaust fan, which I can't afford) is to leave the window open a little. This, and only this, saved me. Taking two deep, calming breaths, and maintaining eye contact with the spider (which hadn't moved, but looked as if it might pounce at any minute), I stopped screaming and listened. It was Adam.

"Everything okay in there, Cathy?" he was yelling. It sounded as if he was right outside my bathroom window.
"Yes," I replied, deciding to let the "Cathy" go for once, but unable to control my sarcasm (it comes with the job - all university lecturers are tested on their levels of sarcasm annually). "Yes, I was just testing my lungs, Adam."
"Well they're working fine," he responded. "I'll leave you to it."

I don't believe for a minute that he would actually have walked away then. He was just being smart. Unfortunately, at that minute, the spider decided to do some sort of soft shoe shuffle (minus shoes, but with eight feet) a little closer along the cubicle wall towards me.
"Help me!" I shrieked. "I'mstuckintheshowerandthere'sahugespiderandIcan'tgetoutand…"

How he made sense of all of that I have no idea, but the next moment I could hear him shoving at the window. Again I managed to calm down (mostly because the spider stopped moving).
"You won't get in that way," I said. "The window is blocked with a piece of wood. You'll have to come in the front door."
"How do I get in?" he asked.
"The key is under the flowerpot next to the brunfelsia minutiae," I said, marvelling at how steady my voice was. There was a pause from outside that took me a little while to interpret.
"The little green and purple plant next to the yellow rose bush," I tried.

"Right," he said, and I heard him moving away. I concentrated on outstaring the spider. Show no fear. Show no fear. I'm shaking now just thinking about it. That spider was HUGE. And it had a very mean look in its eyes.

I heard the front door open and close and I heard him walking down the hallway. His footsteps were almost off the polished wood and onto the carpet of the bedroom when I suddenly realised that this was not going to work at all.
"Adam!" I called out before he came any closer. "Don't come in!"
"Why?" he responded.
"Because I'm in the shower!" I yelled back, hoping that yelling was necessary and that he'd stopped just inside the bedroom door.
"I know that," he said, and his voice was much closer than I'd hoped. "You told me."

"Well, I'm nak… I'm undre… I don't have anything on!"
"You're kidding me!" he responded. "You mean you shower like that?" Clearly, university lecturers weren't the only people who majored in sarcasm.
"Very funny," I said. "Can you throw a shoe into the cubicle for me and then go and get Mrs Carlisle?" I had never killed a spider with a shoe in my life, but at this point I genuinely believed that if I didn't kill it, it was going to kill me - and since it had eight available limbs to my two, I needed a weapon.
"What?" he demanded. He was in the bathroom now. I was thanking heaven for my bronze frosted shower screen.
"There is a huge spider in here," I explained as patiently and slowly as I could. "If you throw me a shoe, I can kill it. Then, if you get Mrs Carlisle, she'll be able to help me get my hand of the shower frame and my toe out of the drain."

You know how you sometimes say things, and you hear what they sound like and you wish you hadn't said them? This was one of those occasions. When I put it like that, my situation sounded bloody ridiculous. Adam obviously shared my opinion, because he started to laugh.
"Stop laughing!" I said tersely. "This is not funny." He stopped laughing.
"From what I can see of that cubicle, it's pretty small," he said in the sort of reasonable tone of voice that made me want to do severe damage to him. "…and from what you just said, you only have one hand free to catch anything. So… if I throw a shoe in there, chances are you will not catch it, it will hit you, and it will shock the spider into moving. Does any of this sound attractive to you?" I considered it for a second.
"No," I admitted. "So, why don't you just go get Mrs CarlaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghAAAAAAAAARGH!"

The initial reason for my scream was because the spider began moving again… quickly The reason for it getting louder was because Adam also moved quickly to the shower door and slid it open. I tried to wrench my trapped hand free, but it wouldn't move, which left me with one hand to protect my modesty. After a quick lunge across my nipples, I decided to move my hand down to cover myself a little lower. I am very sensitive about my breasts. Men have been known to get that glazed look in their eyes and stare at them even when they're clothed, and words like "buxom" and (my personal favourite) "ample" have been used to describe them on many occasions. Nevertheless, when it comes to modesty, the downstairs department wins every time. To do him justice, Adam didn't freeze on the spot.

Without saying a word, he leaned past me, grabbed the back-scrubber and put all thoughts of attack (and breathing) out of the spider's tiny little mind. The hairy body dropped to the floor, landing on my trapped foot, which made me scream again (I know, I'm pathetic - but I really, really hate spiders) and do my utmost to drag my toe or the whole drain away from the disgusting thing.

"Settle down," Adam said, bending down. I could hear amusement in his voice, which should have made me annoyed, but I was too relieved to see the carcass being removed. Of course, in that horrid way spiders have, its body had now shrunk to an infinitesimal size and it looked like something that a self-respecting ant would be able to beat in a fight. Adam backed out of the cubicle with it, his shoulder brushing against my thighs as he went, and I heard the toilet flush.
"There, it's gone," he said, returning to stand in front of me, outside of the shower cubicle, but framed by the open doorway. "Now, how am I going to get YOU out?"

It was at this point that my situation really dawned on me. Without the spider, I was no longer a terrified woman who didn't care what was happening as long as the beast was removed. Now, I was a woman standing naked in front of her male neighbour… that's right… the man I lived next door to, and would have to face every day for the rest of the time I lived here. There I was, wearing a thin sheen of water and an extremely embarrassed expression and nothing else.

As you know, diary, Adam is a good-looking man who has a steady stream of female visitors (many of whom seem to stay overnight). Although he was not staring openly at the bits of me that were bare (that is, everything except what my hand was covering), he was also not looking away… and he wasn't looking evenly vaguely uncomfortable. I, on the other hand, was feeling uncomfortable enough for both of us.

"Can you wrap a towel around me?" I asked, looking at his feet.
"I don't think it'll stay up," he said. "Not with your arm above your head like that."
"Well, give me a towel and I'll hold it in front of me," I said.
"Okay," he said, reaching for one of my big bath sheets.
Damn, it felt good. I managed with one hand to spread it over my chest and hang it down in front of me.

"Better?" he asked. He bent at the knees and looked up into my face. "You can look at me, Cathy," he said, grinning. "No need to be embarrassed. I've seen naked women before." If it was possible, I swear I blushed even deeper than I had been before. His eyes glinted his amusement.
"That's not the point," I said, deciding to change the subject. "Do you think you can help me out of here, Adam?"
"Of course I can," he said with all the arrogance and confidence of a young man. "First things first, though." He reached in and turned off the shower taps (which I'd completely forgotten were still running). They kept spraying, despite his attempts to turn them off even tighter than he had already.

"They don't go off completely," I explained. "But they stop running eventually."
"I'll change the washers for you later," he said. He pulled back out of the cubicle, and his arm (covered in a shirt sleeve for once, I noted) caught on the towel as it went past, dragging it back and exposing all of my right breast.
"Oops, sorry," he said, not even pretending that he hadn't seen. I rearranged the towel as quickly and efficiently as I could.
"Okay," he said, bending down. "Let's have a look at this first." He took hold off my ankle and gave my foot a firm tug, causing me some pain and discomfort and having no effect whatsoever on the drain. "You're definitely stuck," he said.

"You think?" I asked. He looked up at me from his crouched position, his eyebrows raised.
"You want help or not?" he asked. His blue eyes were full of mischief, but his voice was serious.
"Yes, I want help," I said.
"And what do you think Mrs Carlisle would do at this point?" he asked.
"Get a hammer and break the drain," I said.
"Little Mrs Carlisle?" he asked. "Seventy-six year old Mrs Carlisle?"
"Just stop it," I said between clenched teeth. "Just get the damned hammer, will you?" He laughed softly.

"First, I'll have a look at your hand," he said. He straightened up, his hand brushing against the towel and lifting it a little way up my leg. He moved back before it got further than mid-thigh. Quite a bit taller than me, he didn't have to reach up too far to the shower frame, and he wrapped his hands around it and lifted himself off the floor to look at where my fingers were. This made the muscles in his arms bulge (and yes, I thought it was quite unnecessary showing-off, too).
"Geez, how did you do that?" he asked, lowering himself down again.
"I just reached up there to try to drag myself out of the drain, and my fingers got stuck," I explained. "Only that hand, though. The other hand came out again."
"That was lucky," he said. "Otherwise you wouldn't have had a spare hand to hold on to that towel for grim death, would you?"
"I'm not holding it for grim death," I argued (although I was). "I'm just cold." He didn't even bother answering that as he lifted himself up again.

"Oh, I see what's happened," he commented. "I have no idea why, but there are two runners along the middle here, and one of them has collapsed. Let's see if I can… " Hoisting himself up higher, he braced himself with one hand and pushed hard at something with the other. "No, my fingers are too big." He landed on the ground with a thump.
"What you need to do is reach up with your other hand, carefully feel for the runner that's closest to you and pull it towards you," he said. "Your fingertips are obviously small enough to get in there."
"But…" I said.
"What?"
"The towel," I pointed out.
"Well, if you're only holding it because you're cold, you won't miss it for a second or two, will you?" he pointed out. He didn't even smile as he said it, but I could see it in his eyes. He relented after a second.

"I'll hold the towel for you," he said. He reached out and grabbed it where I was holding it.
"Spread your hand out," I said. "Like I'm doing… so the towel spreads right across me and…"
"Stops any bits from getting cold," he finished. I chose not to answer that.
I reached up as high as I could with my spare hand, conscious of how close he was standing to me, of his hand clutching the towel at the height of my collarbones, and the towel falling a little away from my body. I ran my fingers along the top until I felt the two ridges he was referring to, carefully slipped my fingers into the middle of them and pulled the collapsed runner back towards me. I felt it move a little, and in my eagerness to be free, pulled with my other hand as well.

"Free?" he asked. I shook my head. There was still no give from that hand. I went to lower myself down and realised that the situation had suddenly got much worse.

"Oh no," I moaned. My other hand was stuck now, too. "Don't laugh," I warned him. "I can still do some damage with my free leg."
"Don't try," he said, his tone somewhere between laughter and exasperation. "You'll probably end up with it wedged under the soap dish."
"I'm glad you find this amusing," I said. His face was far too close to mine. I was looking directly at his chin, his rather strong jawline and his five-o'clock shadow.
"Not amusing," he corrected. "Unbelievable." He backed out of the shower. "Give me another look."

Of course, as he went, the towel went with him. Now, instead of a towel covering all of me, or even an arm covering the lower bits of me, I was trapped on tiptoes, with my hands pinned over my head, leaning slightly towards him with the front of my body completely on display.
"Adam! The towel!" I shrieked.
"Do you want me to stand there covering you, or do you want me to get you out of this mess?" he asked. Again he bent at the knees to meet my gaze as I tried to stare at a point somewhere between his feet.

"Can't you do both?" I asked. "At least wrap the towel around me?" He sighed, shook the towel out and moved towards me again.
In order to get the towel around me in the very confined space of the tiny cubicle, he had to slide an arm around each side of my ribs. He held my gaze, his blue eyes expressionless, as he brought the ends of the towel around to meet over my breasts, the back of his knuckles pressing into my skin as he tucked the loose end firmly into my cleavage.

"I can't see it staying there," he said. He backed out yet again and walked out of the room. By this stage, I didn't feel like asking him what he was doing. I wasn't in any position to argue with whatever course of action he thought was best. I heard his footsteps as he returned, carrying one of my kitchen chairs. He positioned it in front of the shower and climbed up on it.
"I don't believe it," he said as soon as he could clearly see how my hands were stuck. All I could see at this stage was his knees, but I could hear the exasperation in his voice again. I felt his hands grasp my forearms.

"I'm leaning over the shower frame," he said. "I'm going to lift you up a bit. See if you can drag your fingers out as I do it, okay?"
"Okay," I said, looking up. He didn't so much lift me as wrench me up. Since my toe was firmly anchored, this meant that my shoulders were almost removed from their sockets, and in the process of the shaking and stretching (with no discernible movement from the runner that was trapping my fingers), the inevitable happened and the towel fell to the floor. I swore softly.
"Is that Latin?" I heard from above me. The teasing note made me look up.
"Well at least I was proven right about the towel," he added. He was looking at the runners, not at me. He didn't seem to be looking at me at all, but I wasn't deluding myself into thinking that he hadn't had an eyeful of what was on display.

"Where do you keep your screwdrivers?" he asked. "I'll pry this open a bit and we'll have you out of here."

"I don't have any," I said. He climbed down from the chair and looked at me in disbelief. "Don't have any?"
"No, I don't have any," I said defensively. "When I need work done, I pay someone to do it… and… Adam, can you put the towel back round me?"
"It's not going to stay there, Cathy, there's no point," he said.
"You could pin it with some clothes pegs?" I suggested. "They're in the third drawer in the laundry, beside the spare packet of…"
"Why don't I just concentrate on getting you loose, then you can put as many clothes on as you like," he said. He bent down and pulled the towel up again, tucking it round me once more and pushing the edge back into my cleavage.
"I'll just go and get my tool-box," he said.

The towel lasted almost thirty seconds. It would have lasted longer if I hadn't sneezed, but I did, and that was the end of it. By now, my toe was starting to hurt, and my fingertips were numb. That would have been the worst of it if I hadn't suddenly, through the open bathroom door, caught sight of myself reflected in the full-length mirror in my bedroom. Dear heaven, I looked like something out of a pornographic horror film! My hair was wet from the shower and hanging in tangled rats-tails down to my shoulders and over my face, my arms were stretched above my head with my hands curled into hooks, and I was leaning forward as if I was floating on my toes. I tried to ignore the bits between my neck and my knees, but it wasn't possible. There they were in the mirror - the large breasts hanging forward slightly, nipples standing out like thimbles, the shock of untrimmed dark pubic hair standing out like an arrow against my pale skin… I shut my eyes.

He came back far too quickly, carrying a battered green toolbox. I would have preferred to have been asleep, unconscious or dead before he walked back in, since I could so clearly visualise what he was seeing. Of course, he'd been seeing it for some time now, so he hardly even blinked as he entered the room.
"Towel failed again, I see," he said. "Now, what's hurting the most?"
"My pride," I said immediately. Again his quiet laugh.
"I'm not surprised," he said. "And apart from that?" I thought about it for an instant.
"My toe," I said. He nodded.
"Okay then."

He bent down to floor level and made clinking noises in his toolbox, coming out with something in his hand.
"What's that?" I asked. I couldn't see very well, because my breasts were obscuring my view (something I preferred not to think about). He looked up (which I wish he hadn't).
"A small hammer and a chisel," he said. He dragged the towel out from where it had puddled around my feet and tossed it over his shoulder.
"You couldn't put it back round…?" I started.
"No point," he responded, this time without looking up.

It was his turn to swear as he tried to get around my trapped foot to the drain itself. In his efforts, he thumped against the cubicle wall, the impact sending a stream of cold water out of the old shower head onto both of us. He exhaled loudly, backed awkwardly out of the cubicle and tugged his now wet shirt over his head without undoing any buttons. Now shirtless (which was how I was most used to seeing him anyway), he crawled back in.

"I'm going to have to put your leg up over my shoulder," he said. "So I can get in far enough to get at this drain." He was matching his actions to his words as he spoke, lifting my free foot up and sliding in further. The strain on my fingers and trapped foot made me wince, but he quickly positioned himself so that he was taking my weight.

I really don't want to describe how he was taking my weight, diary, but since I'm telling the story, I may as well tell it completely. So here goes… What he did was slide between my legs, lift the free foot up and over his head and then move himself so that I was straddling him, with my… personal bits… pressed firmly against the bare skin of his shoulder and my pubic hair somewhere in the region of his right ear. My foot was no longer touching the shower floor, and the only things that were taking the pressure off my fingertips and trapped toe were my… were the bits that were pressed against his shoulder and ear. To say that this was uncomfortable is an understatement, and I won't dwell on all of the moving about that took place while he bent forward with his chisel and hammer and started attacking the drain. In terms of time, the operation was probably over very quickly. In terms of my dignity, it took forever.

As soon as my toe was freed, he had a look at it, pronounced it hardly scratched (amazingly enough) and began to straighten up - almost as if he'd forgotten that he had a naked woman balanced on his shoulder. Feeling as if I was in danger of being slammed against the cubicle wall, I instinctively gripped the front and back of his torso with my legs.
"Relax," he said. His hand came up behind me and cupped my backside as he slid his shoulder (with some difficulty, given the death grip I had on it) out from between my legs. He then lowered me to the floor again and removed his hand. I felt as if he'd left a print on me. I swear I could feel the warmth of every fingertip on the cold skin of my bare butt. I was deliberately not thinking about the warmth he'd left in other parts.

"Now the hands," he said cheerfully. His gaze skimmed me quickly from (now free) toes to eyes. "How you holding up there, Cathy?" I shivered involuntarily.
"Cold?" he asked sympathetically. I nodded, although that wasn't what the shiver was about. In ancient times, doctors who saw noble women naked were killed or blinded. I used to think it was a barbarian habit. I now saw the merit in it.
Once again standing on my kitchen chair, Adam was able to use a screwdriver to good effect, and again the "operation" was over in a matter of seconds. My arms felt quite heavy as I lowered them, and my fingers were almost lifeless.

"I'll change the washers in those taps while I'm here," my neighbour was saying. "And I'll get a replacement drain for you next time I go to the hardware store."
I wasn't having one of those dual reality experiences. Here I was, stark naked in my shower and unable to get out because there was a man on a chair blocking my exit… and said man on chair was talking about home improvements he would make to my bathroom.

"I need a towel, Adam," I said through chattering teeth. By this point, it was a mix of cold and shock, I think. He immediately climbed down off the chair and moved it out of the way. It was probably because he still had the chair in one hand that when I fell (tripping over the shower on the way out) and he caught me, he did so awkwardly. For whatever reason it was however, his arm travelled around my middle and his hand fell firmly on my left breast. He dropped the chair and moved quickly to also grab me around my hips, stopping me from hitting the floor by dragging me firmly against him.

"I don't think you should be allowed in a bathroom by yourself in future," he said in my ear, not releasing any of the grips he had on my body. The hand that was cupping my breast was the last to go in fact, and his grip went from firm to steadying, to something suspiciously like a stroke before his hand left my body. Then it came back and skimmed over both of my breasts.
"Adam!" I protested, reaching for the towel.
"Well, I wouldn't like you to think that I hadn't noticed that you have lovely tits, Cathy," he commented.
"It's Catherine," I corrected him for the first time, looking over my shoulders at him. He laughed - louder this time than he had before. It was like a shout in the small bathroom.

"I think we're past formalities, don't you?" he asked. The towel was putting up a fight and I was having difficulty dragging it round myself - a maneuver I had performed with no trouble every day since I was four years old. I finally got it round me.
"Nice bum too," he said, grinning broadly.
"I see. You manage to be a perfect gentleman the whole time you're helping me, but now you're turning into a…" I could think of the phrase in Latin, but my English was deserting me.
"Normal bloke who's just had the privilege of seeing a gorgeous naked woman flashing her bits at him?" he offered.
"I was not flashing my bits!" I said, horrified. "And I'm not gorgeous."

"Now you're just fishing for compliments," he shook his head, still smiling. He bent down and picked up the tools he'd used to free me, dropping them noisily into his toolbox and shutting it. I decided to change the subject.
"Thank you for your help," I said. "I don't know what I'd have done without…"
"Oh please, don't thank me," he said. His voice was shaking with suppressed laughter. "Good deeds are their own reward at times." He stopped fighting it and laughed again, and against my will I found myself smiling ruefully. He patted me on one of my bare shoulders.
"Any time you want help having a shower, you just call me, Cathy," he said. He draped his discarded shirt over his arm, winked at me and left.

I think I may have to move, diary… somewhere far, far away to a place where there are no neighbours and no spiders and no damned showers. And given that I've now recorded everything that happened today in here… I'm sorry, but I'm probably going to have to burn you, diary.

…On the other hand, I could take him up on that offer and ask him over next time I plan to take the dangerous step of having another shower. It is environmentally friendly in that it saves our precious water resources… and after all, it's best to be on good terms with your neighbours, isn't it?