Hilda thought it might be inappropriate, but it did not feel inappropriate.
Some might say it was not right, not professional, not what bodywork was intended for. "This is not a dating service, Hilda," her manager (Trish! Oh no, not Trish!) might lecture her after firing her after-- ("After fourteen years, Trish?" Hilda imagined mustering up the courage in her own defense). "I'm sorry, Hilda," Trish would say. "I hope it was worth it."
"You're damn right it was worth it," Hilda would think, but not say, to Trish in that moment. Or so Hilda imagined herself doing, should the Worst Case happen and a totally appropriate, totally sweet, if totally private relationship might boil over to the point where somebody might take attention or offense.
Bodywork, namely massage therapy, was a near-medical practice, becoming more and more understood for its vital necessity in a balanced and complete human health plan. As some have observed, the body holds the score, and the stresses relieved and the tensions released during a massage therapy were psychological knots as well as, and often tied to, the physical knots.
During a session, a patient engaged in friendly conversation with the therapist may discover that the release of these dual psychological and physical tensions creates an increased comfort and rapport with their therapist. Hilda was well aware that patients were prone to sudden epiphanies after she kneaded away the stress in an area, such as a creaky neck or a tight thigh. "Oh! I just realized this about my spouse!" a patient might suddenly say, lulled into a presumptuous intimacy by Hilda's healing hands.
By soothing their physical ill, Hilda was allowing for the psychological stress, trapped inside the muscle and connective tissue of her patients, to break up and drain into the body's lymph system along with the lactic acids from normal human existence.
Thus, should a massage therapist find one of her new patients handsome and charming, some might argue it a taking advantage of the necessary intimacy of the near-medical relationship, should it be observed by her colleagues that the handsome and charming gentleman was now meeting her after work to drive her--presumably--home and that she was now wearing the simple but tasteful presents of jewelry this handsome and charming client had given her for her birthday, for Christmas, for no reason at all.
"He trusted you, Hilda. He let down his guard with you, Hilda," her naggingly proper housewife sister would reproach her over FaceTime.
"And you got right in there and got some! That's my girl!" her mother, sixty years old and currently fucking the balls dry of a twenty-four-year-old fit young man with both a steady job and a car of his own, would tell her over the telephone.
But Hilda was discreet and she was following her heart and following part of her that was not-quite-her-heart but was equally needy, and the spirits that protect the Valley and have made it a place of salvation for thousands of years for desert-born beauties like Hilda, were protecting and guiding Hilda, with growing regularity, to greater and greater erotic heights.
And, Hilda had to admit, would admit to herself, in those twenty minutes it took for her to drive West up into Lone Mountain, higher and higher every block, climbing above the Valley, how much she longed for the feeling, for that stretch, for that fullness, for the weight and motion of his love.
For the way Sean looked at her like she was beautiful, that all he saw in her hips and her ass and her mommy belly and in the ink around her shoulder and back, was beauty and desirability and fuckability.
For the way he insisted that she pose for his camera, for the way she knew she could trust him when she swore--swore!--"I mean it, swear!"--"I swear! Of course! Have you ever seen any from my collection?" he told her and that made her fierce with lust and jealousy both fake and real and oh so delicious, this sexy man from far away with his far away proper accent, he had a past that Hilda, the ideal of sweet, the ideal of innocent, the ideal of a milf who was still inexperienced Hilda, put-her-kids-first-and-her-needs-second-for-years-for-a-decade! Hilda, celibate-from-before-the-pandemic-even-started Hilda, could be jealous of.
"No wonder he fucks you so good, miha," Hilda imagined her mother telling her. "This one actually knows what he's doing."
When Hilda imagined her mother talking that way to her, first she felt pride, at the warmth of being as adventurous and passionate as her insatiable mother, and then shock and revulsion at the improper and overly-close intimacy that her mother had always forced on Hilda since from before her mother divorced her father, from back when Hilda's mother was merely the easy alcoholic at the local pub in the bleak nothingness of their High Desert Town, where the prison was the largest employer and the townspeople also felt incarcerated.
But that salty taste of having an untraditional mother washed away in Hilda's mouth when she swallowed, and she felt again a sense of excitement and pride. She had the kind of loving, fucktacular relationship her mother had thrown her whole life away to find, but Hilda had gotten it entirely appropriately--except for meeting Sean on her table, at work, under a thin blanket, and under her relentless hands.
And knuckles.
And forearms.
And every Monday morning, after four straight days of her Thursday through Sunday workweek, after four more days of being the top earner and the top-reviewed and most-in-demand therapist at the Spa she had served for fourteen years, Hilda made time for herself, at last.
Every Monday morning, when Hilda's daughter was off to high school and Hilda's son, twenty-two but still living at home, was off at the grocery chain where he worked, then Hilda was off in her little, daily-driver Honda sedan to meet her favorite--her secret favorite--patient.
At his house.
Up the Lone Mountain.
First under the pretense of "teaching massage therapy," by letting Sean pour her a glass of white wine, then one of himself, while he kneaded and soothed her work-weary, world-weary feet, under her expert, professional direction.
For weeks, they drank lightly, he massaged her chastely, made no further passes at her, and Hilda kept Sean as a client.
For weeks, Hilda went no further than the futon in his downstairs living room and the toilet in his downstairs bathroom. She sat back on his folded-up-into-a-couch futon, sipped his wine and instructed him how to provide her with a professional-quality massage of her feet, and then her feet and her calves.
"Start from the ground up," Hilda told him.
Monday started the first day of Hilda's nontraditional weekend. The first day of the week that was for her, and for her to do with as she wished.
So as began their second month of Mondays, Hilda guided him and his touch higher and higher. To her aching thighs, that he praised as "voluptuous" and "sexy."
Then on the next week, from her thighs to her hips, which he kneaded and stroked and never once strayed beyond the boundaries of professionalism, despite this massage taking place on his futon in his downstairs living room while only Hilda's best female friend knew where she was.
"You let him massage you--naked?" "No, under a towel but keeping my underwear on."
She was only wearing a high-waisted thong but she did not mention that part when she confessed the rest of the chaste intimacy to her best female friend.
Nor did she mention how Sean's massage of Hilda's hips caused Hilda to soak that tiny patch of coverage her thong provided.
Caused Hilda to actually think about touching herself on the car ride home, caused her to look at her own fiery, chestnut eyes in her Toyota's rear view mirror and ask out loud, "girl, what are you doing?"
