I haven’t showered in two days. I didn’t shave at all. There’s a nasty scratch on my leg that I did to myself; I mean, it is mosquito season. And she’s going to see it all.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of massages. Seemingly relaxing, I’d hate to just lay there while someone touched most of my naked body; the idea fills me with dread and mild panic. Why did I even agree to this?
The masseuse asks me to remove my clothes, my jewelry, all but my underwear, and steps out of the room. Immediately, I am uneasy. I’d hoped to be dressed, or at least to be able to keep my socks on. I’ve never liked people looking at my feet. It’s been a hot day and I’m sweaty; my shirt smells a bit as I remove it and I know I smell the same. Clad with a towel around my breasts, I call out in a shaky voice, “I’m ready!”
I lay on my back, arms folded over my stomach. As she begins to run her palms together with oil, I stare at the ceiling for a moment before decidedly shutting my eyes. I don’t know what else to do. Are we supposed to talk? Do we stay silent? Would she mind if I don’t want to talk? Are her other customers chatty?
And, oh, she’s brought her palm up to my nose. Inhale and hold. Exhale and hold. It smells thickly of rosemary, clearing my airways.
She presses her thumbs to the center of my forehead. I know what this is. This is a chakra point, isn’t it? She then runs her fingers down my temples, stopping over a spot on my right side I know she can feel the smallest of lumps on. It’s not life-threatening but I wonder what she thinks of it, if she’s going to ask me about it.
After repeating the motion a few times, she then brings her hands down the back of my head with surprising force; not uncomfortable but unexpected. Someone once told me that a quick cure for headaches was to squeeze your skull at different angles, a solution my mother had always stood against after hearing that someone, somewhere, squeezed too tightly and fractured a child’s skull. My masseuse doesn’t squeeze hard at all and it’s over in a moment.
Her hands move down my neck and over my shoulder blades, leaning down on them. “You can let me know if the pressure is too hard,” she says in a soft tone.
“Okay,” I answer, with a slight hint of a question at the end. I hear her laugh so I add, “It’s fine at the moment.”
I usually don’t like anyone touching my neck. I don’t like anything neck related; it gives me the creeps. But I find myself utterly relaxed under her hands, the pads of her fingers touching the sides of my neck and I don’t flinch at all.
She moves up to my face now and runs her fingers down my cheeks and over my lips. I wonder if she can feel the braces on my teeth; the thought makes me smile. A 20-something woman with braces. She presses down on my eyebrows and cheekbones, fingers somehow hooking over the bones; she’s bypassing my very muscles and reaching my skull. We really are literal bags of flesh, filled with muscles and organs all held upright by a skeletal structure. I’m just a skeleton, and the pressure points she draws attention to sooth the very core of my being.
It’s easy to lose myself and forget where I am, the soft guitar music and forest ambiance lapping over my head like waves. I think I might cry after this.
She begins working on my right arm, adjusting the angle so that my palm now lies beside my head, gently holding the position with one hand. I catch a whiff of my sweat and squeeze my eyes tighter. It’s fine. It’s fine. It must not bother her anymore, touching so many different bodies, all sorts of people walking in with the day on the shoulders and grime all over.
As she moves her hands down my forearm, I try to remember the last time I was hugged, as in properly hugged. I’m not sure why this comes to mind. Working from home, I don’t get enough human contact in my day-to-day activities. I don’t even hug my family as often as I should. Yet she’s touching me so openly, over and over in soothing patterns, I remember that I forgot I needed to be touched.
Isn’t there a name for that? Touch-starved?
She lifts my arm to a 90-degree angle. It’s a bit unnerving how she follows the lines of my veins. It feels as though she’s travelled over every inch of my body: skin, muscle, bone, and even veins. How does this last only an hour?
Her fingers massage my own and I hold back a smile as she rubs over the rough bits at the base of my fingers. I know my hands aren’t soft. What does she think of it? What does she imagine goes on with my body? Like the lump on my right temple or the scabs on my hands, what can she read from my body?
And then she twines our fingers together, her thumb massaging my palm while the other holds my arm upright. It’s a small thing but I really want to hold her hand all of a sudden. I just want her to stop so I can hold her hand and bring it to my chest. They do that in some parts of the world, don’t they? Places where people offer themselves up for hugs and cuddles, just because others need it. How starved are we that touching another person can becomes a lucrative enterprise?
When she puts my arm back down to my side, I fight the impulse to return it over my belly. I never sleep with my hands to my side, like a soldier; I need to be wrapped up in my own body otherwise I’m too exposed, as though someone where going to choke me in the middle of the night. Without raising her hand from my body, she moves over to my left side. Her hand drifts up my arm, across my clavicle, and down my left arm. It lies numb and stiff in comparison to my right arm until she lifts it up and stretches it, repeating the same exercise as before.
I hadn’t noticed that the music has changed, a flute now playing the main melody, swirling violins in the background. The calling of birds play to the tune and it’s more than enough to distract from the movement outside the tiny room, the sound of traffic and the rumble of wheels over asphalt.
I both feel and hear her thumb crack, a small sound against my skin. It reminds me of where I am and who she is. A masseuse. A person qualified to touch and relieve stress. Her thumb cracking against the pressure is a sign of usage, of her work.
I wonder again, what can she read from my body? With eyes closed all I feel is her nimble hands, the gentle yet firm motions, knowing exactly where to touch and how, the way she keeps a hand on me as she pumps more oil into the other, as if saying Wait a moment, I’m here. I don’t experience the same need when she twines our fingers again, a motion I know now to expect, but it still feels nice. Because she’s holding me.
She places my arm back down and this time I join them both over my stomach. I can’t help it. She then lifts the cover over my left leg and shit, now it’s embarrassing. I really really don’t like it when people look at my legs, much less touch them. I can’t tell her to stop, though. This is the whole point.
She runs her hands up and down my leg, which now feels absurdly long, from my ankle and up to my knee. She gathers more oil while keeping one hand on my ankle and I just know she’s now going over my foot and toes.
My feet, always tucked into socks, feel so large. I wonder if she judges my crooked toes. When she presses against the sole of my foot, I’m reminded of a time my mother and sister went to get a massage a few years ago. It had been a special kind of massage, one with magnets, meant to deal with stress on an emotional level. Apparently, their masseuse began the session by lifting their legs gently into the air, explaining, “I have to ask the body permission to let me in.”
Is that what she’s doing, even though we’ve been at this for a while? What can my body say that I don’t? Is it that different from myself, a separate entity that can think independently, react independently? And yet wasn’t it my body that let me know I needed help when I was depressed? All the signs were there: hair falling out, my belt getting tighter and tighter, the dark rings under my eyes that weren’t just a product of insomnia but something deeper.
And here my masseuse is, pushing down to my bones. She’s not undoing knots, she’s exploring the pieces that comprise what I am.
A ticklish sensation on my foot brings me back and I stifle laughter. I can’t help but tense my leg. When she finishes, she lays my leg back down and pushed up against the heel. The pressure is firm, as though I were standing while laying down.
She moves on to the other leg, repeating the process when…my stomach grumbles. Oops. I did eat before coming, at least half an hour earlier so I wouldn’t be as full. Maybe I didn’t eat enough. I clench my stomach, tightening my hands over it. She still doesn’t comment on anything, the only sounds between us the brush of her hands against me and the music that swells and ends just as she places my leg back down.
Did she time that? Is the session really that calculated?
She moves up and around my head, fiddling with the table. She must be assembling the little donut pillow; I know something of massages and it’s far too soon for us to have finished. I’m not ready yet.
“We’re moving on to your back so if you’ll please turn around,” she says, turning her head away as she lifts a little towel and covers her face, waiting for me to move. “I won’t look.”
I turn as instructed, my arms curled under my chest before she’s telling me to place them to my sides again. Now I really am exposed. She gently rolls the blanket back, a cold breeze from the A/C blasting directly at my bare back.
This position is kind of funny. She massages my scalp again, leaning down just as before. I scrunch up my face to keep my skin from stretching uncomfortably.
I watch her legs moving about below me as she spreads oil throughout my back. She then presses down my shoulder blades, tracing my spine. I am skin and bones. But she’s touching my entire back and it feels more intimate. I wonder what it would feel like to have an emotional connection to this woman.
Does she realize she’s touching me, and probably others, in ways I’ve never experienced before?
A few months ago we went to the ballet. Mayerling, I think it was. Incredibly dramatic. I walked out with my jaw hanging open. Watching those people dance, I couldn’t stop wondering how they kept from falling in love with each other. The total surrender, the absolute trust in your partner to keep you on your feet, to keep you from collapsing, sensual dances that drive people together.
Isn’t that what I’m doing? Surrendering my body to a complete stranger, letting her expert hand guide my muscles?
I guess some moments are meant to be shared only with strangers. I’d feel too awkward to let anyone I personally know come so close into contact with me. I can trust her because we don’t know each other. This is her job and I am her client.
I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how there are some people who do it over and over again, taking an intimate situation and making it casual. It feels like an affair, a one-time affair.
And it ends like an affair when she says, “Alright, we’re all done here. I’m going to leave a few towels so you can wipe the excess oil off but you can stay like that for about ten minutes so you won’t get dizzy when you stand.”
“Okay.”
By the time I push myself up, she’s gone. I’m naked under the blanket, feeling drowsy, relaxed, and a bit sorry. Just as I sit up an instrumental version of Amazing Grace starts playing. I’m glad I didn’t recognize any of the other songs; for some reason it feels as if that would’ve tampered with the experience. Everything was new.
I begin dressing myself, a thick loneliness washing over me. I think I might start crying. My body feels heavy yet loose, my fingers light and nimble as I put my necklace on in one go. And I’m leaving the room just as Amazing Grace fades out.
In the end nothing has changed. The sun has set and I’m climbing into my mom’s van in silence. Nothing has changed. The van’s A/C blasts the lingering scent of rosemary back into me.
Nothing has changed.
I was just broken into pieces.
