My whole existence is flawed / You get me closer to God.
Nine Inch Nails
To whet my appetite for dinner, I decided to go on a walk. Blue-gray clouds roiled overhead and I thought about taking an umbrella, but Dallas Raines, the argent-haired spray-tanned flamboyance of a weatherman, forecasted the rain to start around ten or eleven that evening, so I had more than enough time for a brisk circuit up and back down the hills behind my apartment complex.
The streets were quiet and deserted, lined with split-levels and ranches with pick-up trucks and sedans in all the driveways. Rounding a corner, I was struck by the color scheme of the house in front of me. The taupe stucco and smoky topaz roof tiling were offset by cornflower shutters and red-russet trim. It was subtle and elegant to behold in its perfect simplicity, so much so that I was inclined to whip out my phone and document its near-poetic existence. The house next door was very nearly as splendid, boasting deep verdant shutters and vermillion trim.
What a beautiful place to live
, I thought.
I turned off that certain avenue and was making my way downhill when I saw someone coming toward me. It was a man in an electric wheelchair. I moved to the side to let him pass—my mind now set on images of warm food—but I saw him smiling at me, and as I am a strong believer in reciprocal kindness, I smiled back, though from a respectable distance. He kept beaming at me and, as we passed, he held out his hand. A little baffled, I broke stride and we shook.
"How are you this evening?" he asked.
"I'm doing all right." I let go of his hand. He was well-dressed but I was sure that he was about to ask me for money, as everyone you meet on the street always does. He was middle-aged, Asian, very tanned, and still smiling, but his eyes, while narrowed and bright, did not crinkle at the edges.
"Would you like a massage?" he asked, still beaming.
A massage? It caught me off guard. I asked the only logical question: "From you?"
"Ha! Not from me, but from my friend! You'll like her. What do you say, yes?"
I'm not keen on massages, but I had gone on a long run the day before and anyway I didn't want to be impolite, so I said, "Sure, why not?"
"Excellent, excellent, ha!" He took my hand again, this time with both of his. "Come, it is not far." He dropped my hand and took up the joystick of his wheelchair. I turned and kept pace with him back up the hill.
To make conversation, I asked, "So, what kind of massage is this?"
"All kinds, all kinds, you'll see."
I deduced that the man in the wheelchair was Thai, because of his appearance, and because I had seen advertisements before for Thai massages, but those thoughts were overruled by my skepticism of this man's business strategy.
Does he just roll along these empty streets all day, waiting for the odd pedestrian to proposition?
It all seemed rather peculiar, and I was still rolling it around in my mind when we arrived at our destination. It was the same house that I had photographed before, with the impeccably-matched hues of cornflower and russet. I now noticed the ramp in place of the front step, which enabled the wheelchair man to roll up and punch in the door code.
I followed him into the foyer, which, along with the living room, was done up with heavy crimson curtains and mahogany furniture. The curtains were closed and there was a dusky odor of incense. A man was sitting in a winged armchair by the fireplace, but he stood as we came in. He was also Asian, and very tall, and built like an upturned triangle. He wore a black t-shirt and black jeans and gave the distinct impression of a club bouncer, but one from the movies, real bouncers being fat guys with ponytails who sit on stools outside shitty bars and squint at IDs.
"Aso will help you, yes?" said the wheelchair man. Aso shrugged. Aso even held one hand over the other wrist, just like a bouncer from the movies. The wheelchair man gave me a little push forward, then buzzed away.
"Massage is twenty," said Aso, who had a voice like gravel. "Extras are extra."
"Extras are extra?"
"Extras are extra."
That clarified nothing, but I had come this far, so I fished in my wallet and held out a bill. Aso snatched it and jerked his head toward the staircase.
"Upstairs. First door on the left."
"Thanks."
My footsteps made muffled sighs on the carpeted steps. The first door on the left was a crack ajar. I paused, listening, but the house was silent. I went inside.
The walls were lavender and the carpet was deeper lavender. The room smelled herbal, like potpourri, but it might have been lavender for all I know. Light came from two floor lamps draped in beaded shawls and from a row of squat candles on a low bookshelf, which held large ceramic pots but no books. A padded massage table dominated the room and against the opposite wall there was a low couch which I recognized from an Ikea catalog.
"You can close the door."
Startled, I turned and saw a young woman standing in another doorway. She was Asian and petite and dressed in nursing scrubs, which were also lavender. She had black hair, done up in a bun, and she smiled at me demurely.
I closed the door. "Do you give massages?" I asked. I couldn't think of the word for one who gives massages.
"Yes, I'm the masseuse," she said. That's the word! "My name is Mya. Would you like to undress now?" She must have sensed my discomfort because she added, "There are towels in the nightstand."
I had seen enough porn to know that a "massage" did not always mean a
massage
, but Mya the masseuse seemed nice enough and I had come this far.
Mya retreated into the other room and I undressed down to the boxers—no need for gross impropriety—and wrapped myself in a towel. The lavender room was stifling while dressed but now seemed an optimal temperature. I sat on the massage table and waited. I felt like I was at a doctor's office, except without the scratchy paper sheet. I heard a small knock at Mya's door. "You can come in," I said.
Mya wafted in. "We start now. You can lay on your back."
I complied, awkwardly, and readjusted my towel, which was rather short. Mya stood next to the table, rubbed her hands together, and then placed them on my arm. The scrubs only added to the doctor's office scenario. I had the unbidden thought of a nurse-patient tryst, right here on the table. I mentally shook myself. This was a real, legitimate massage, not a perverted distortion. It just happened to be out of a private home and advertised by a suburb-roving wheelchair-bound perpetually-smiling salesman.
We were silent as she worked. I tried to focus on the massage, which felt nice enough. Mya's hands were small and soft yet pressed with substantial force. It was an odd removal of sensation, almost a refocusing. If you touch your own arm, then you feel it with your arm, but more vividly with your hand, since your fingertips have far more touch receptors than your arm. This experience was almost ethereal, to have all the feeling in the arm alone. It was even more surreal when Mya asked me to lay on my stomach and started massaging my back. Other people—women, I mean—have touched my back, sure, but under those circumstances, my mind had been on other things: touching them, particularly. The candlelight and aroma added to my Zen-like concentration on the unfamiliar sensations running up my spine. The one thing that irked me was my stilted, relentless suppression of any thought of sex. I reminded myself that Confucius was an aesthetic and kept those "improper" thoughts at bay...or was he an
ascetic
?
