Massage Therapy

He glanced down at the paper in his hand to confirm that the was at the right room, let out a sigh, and stretched his neck from one side to the other, rotated his head, sighed again, and gathered himself to knock. When he'd gotten the training to be a masseuse in law school it had been to help get through law school, not with the intent that it be his sole income at 38, but losing his temper with another in a parade of lying, dirtbag, guilty clients had cost him a bar suspension. For maybe the thousandth time he regretted hitting the man, but for the thousandth and one, he again smiled at how good it had felt, and stopped stalling.

He cleared his throat, wishing he didn't still have a residual rasp from the winter weather. He knocked, expecting another in a long line of heavyset, middle-age women who benefit far more from some regular exercise than from one massage in the middle of their vacation while her husband was sitting in a conference room hearing about sales techniques or getting Continuing Legal Education. When the door was opened by a man younger than him in an expensive suit, he was confused and a bit shocked, but he kept his face locked into the calm, pleasant expression he tried to maintain for clients. The man looked hurried and irritated, and when he spoke, Ryan instantly disliked him.

"It's about time," he said, but made no move to allow Ryan entrance to the suite.

"I'm sorry if I'm late, Sir, I came as soon as I got the call. If I could come in and meet the...client?"

"Client?" The man asked sarcastically, and then rolled his eyes. "Look, just give her a massage and put her in a better mood before I come back tonight, huh?" He asked and pulled a money clip from his pocket. He peeled a hundred dollar bill from the clip and held it up to Ryan.

Ryan took a deep breath through his nose, forced down his temper as he looked down at the man, and pushed a smile onto his face. He took the bill without comment, stuck it into his shirt pocket and turned to edge past the man into the room.

"Who's that?" a woman's voice sounded from within, and something about it bothered him.

"A massage," the man answered, Ryan turned back toward the man when he realized the woman didn't know he was coming, but he was already gone and the door swinging shut behind him.

He walked slowly down the hall into the suite and spoke to the back of a tall woman with chestnut hair. She was on a cell phone with her back to him staring out the window.

"I uh...I'm here to give you a massage," he said, clearing his throat again, and realized he was staring. She was built like an athlete, but a decidedly feminine one. She had wide shoulders and narrow waist, but with rounded hips. She was a trim hourglass. She was wearing pajama pants and a camisole, but he could picture her dressed in a Speedo bikini swimming laps or playing beach volleyball.

"A massage? He got me a male masseuse. I don't even want a massage. Unbelievable," she said into the phone without turning.

"Look, I'm sorry, but it's already been paid for and I made the trip, so it's up to you, but it sure seems to me that you could stand to get rid of some tension," he said with a wry grin, thinking that he was in a no lose situation. If she cancelled him, he had a $100 in cash plus the percentage that the agency would give him for the cancellation, and if she didn't he got to give a massage to an attractive woman for a change the $100 and the full fee from the agency.

She made a huffing noise and gave a small wave over her shoulder. "It's fine," she said. Given the go ahead, he quietly and efficiently set up his massage table, unfolded a silk sheet and a large, thick, cotton towel and then turned back to find her still on the phone.

"I'm going to use your restroom to wash my hands if it's ok with you, and if you'll give a holler when you're undressed, and on the table, I'll come out and we can get started."

She gave another move along gesture with her hand, as she turned away from the window to walk toward the bed. When he saw her in profile, his mind went blank, and he froze for a moment, realizing why her voice had bothered him, before turning in a rush toward the bathroom. When he had washed his hands, he stood staring at himself in the mirror as his mind raced.

He knew this woman. Knew her at an almost molecular level. She was an attorney too and they'd met at a training a few years before. They'd somehow connected in a way that neither of them were prepared and that neither of them had known how to handle so they'd tried to pretend none of it was real until they'd stopped talking because the lie was too hard to bear. Seeing her brought all of those intense emotions hammering back at him. He rinsed cold water across his face, and decided there was nothing to be done but lose the money and get the hell out of there.

He stared another moment into the mirror, and then quietly snarled, "Coward."

"I'm ready," she called out, just as he was about to tell her who he was. When he opened the door, she was lying facedown on the table, the large, thick towel covering her from just below her shoulder blades to mid-thigh. She was leanly toned wherever her flesh was bare, her calves and thighs, shoulders and arms, upper-back muscled under pale skin. He drank in the sight of her and knew there was no way he could just walk out of the room, but he didn't know how to speak or what to say. And then he did know what to say.

"Fuck it."

He dimmed the lights in the room; pushed play on the portable iPod speakers, lit two candles on the dresser, and drew the drapes of the room. The sound of guitar and strings filled the room and he pulled another silk cloth from his bag and carefully draped it over her head so she that even if she lifted her head she wouldn't be able to see.

She didn't lift from the donut shaped leather pad, but he heard her voice drift up, "What's that for?"

"Sensory deprivation, helps you relax, he semi-whispered, and was thankful for the rasp in his voice. Moving beside her, he folded the towel back to her waist, poured some oil in his hands and rubbed them together to warm it. He began rubbing her back, dig his thumbs and fingers into her muscles, finding knots and beginning to loosen them. Slowly, he could feel her beginning to relax and he let her body language guide how much of his strength to use as he rubbed.

"Mmmm," she sighed, "Maybe I was tenser than I thought."

He continued, giving no reply, as he eased down toward her waist and then began to rotate his thumbs into the cluster of muscles and nerves just below her waist. The towel barely revealed the top of her ass and he found himself staring at the dimples in her lower back and at the glow of her oiled skin in the candlelight. She shifted slightly and gave another sigh and he caught his breath, thinking for the first time that maybe it hadn't been such a bad idea to get his law license suspended. He unfolded the towel so that it covered her back, refolded it so that it uncovered her thighs to just the bottom of her ass, poured some more oil into his hands and began to knead her calves.

He slowly focused, working his way up her legs. and as he reached the tops of her thighs, his thumbs grazed the bottoms of her ass. She stirred at the touch, moving her legs farther apart and causing the towel to ride up so that he could see her groin in the flickering shadow of the candlelight. He looked up to see if her head was still covered, to see if the reveal had been deliberate, but her head was still down. He looked at her again, and involuntarily sucked in a sharp breath as he realized that she was still completely waxed.

He gave himself a mental shake and a firm, "NO."

He shut his eyes for a moment, gave another mental shake, and then another silent, "Fuck it." He let his hand move up under the towel almost casually and began to rub her ass, working deep into the muscle, and waited for a reaction as his fingers trailed precariously near the crack of her ass and her pussy.

Watching her body react under his hands, the skin flushing, her breathing changing, two thoughts occurred to him. One was that her body seemed to remember him, remember his hands even if she didn't realize it was him that was touching her, and that brought a smile to his face. The second made him suppress a laugh. If she did find out that it was him giving her this massage and she was angry and she or her boyfriend made a disgruntled report he'd lose him the massage job that he got because he'd lost his attorney job. Clearly he had impulse issues.

"What's funny?" she asked, her voice warm and languid.

He glanced to see that her head was still covered, that she still didn't know who he was, and answered in another semi-whisper, "Oh, nothing, sorry. I was just thinking."

"Don't think so much," she answered, and it made his heart warm. It was exactly the sort of thing she used to tell him when they were each other's closest confidants, and he was suddenly far more aware of his hands being on a beautiful woman's ass in a hotel room, and "Jesus," came out of his mouth in an involuntary whisper.

He pulled his hands from under the towel and she made a little protesting sound and pushed her ass back toward him and he saw for certain that she was the recent recipient of a Brazilian wax.

Trying to distract himself, he moved to stand at the head of the table and began rubbing her shoulders, pushing his thumbs in her traps and the base of her neck. He looked down the length of her, down at himself and the erection that was inches from her covered head and realized he was in a great deal of trouble. Clearly he had impulse issues.

He finished with her shoulders and moved so that he stood at the opposite end of the table.

"Turn over," he said quietly and watched as she reached to hold the towel and maneuver underneath it. Part of him hoped the silk scarf would fall and that she'd look up to see him, recognize him, but part of him hoped that she still wouldn't know who he was and the two of them could continue to enjoy his hands on her body with anonymity, without the depth of issues that would attach to recognition. He held his breath as it slipped down onto her neck but her eyelids remained closed and she reached to readjust it, folding it carefully across her eyes exactly as he would have arranged it himself.

When she was done, he began to rub her feet exactly as he had so many times before, and just as before, she gave a moan, and a, "Jesus that feels good." When he finished one, and then the other, he placed them carefully at the outer edge of the table so that her legs were spread farther apart, and then began to caress her shins, his touch lighter here. Slowly her feet and knees dropped to the side so her legs fell even farther apart as she relaxed more deeply. When he moved to her thighs, normally he would have exerted more pressure, deeper pressure, but he kept his touch light, squeezing her leg with a brush against her skin rather than a more indifferent touch.

He didn't pause or give himself time to gauge her reaction before he continued north, putting his thumbs into her hip muscles and his fingertips along the sides of her ass, the towel riding up so that he could see that she was wet from his touch.

"You're very...thorough," she said, and he, knowing her, could hear the desire in her voice. He continued what he was doing, but raised his head to watch her face, to see her lips move. Her breathing was changing and he knew she wasn't just relaxed, but that she was moving into a tensioning from desire. On impulse he moved to her head and whispered to her, "Let me get your neck."

She picked up her head so that he could reach beneath it and with a quick movement tied the scarf off so it was more completely and accurately a blindfold. She opened her mouth to say something, but he was already working on her neck and she let the moment pass, resting the back of her skull on his forearms as he manipulated the muscles in the back of her neck. After a moment, he gently lowered her head and then began on the muscles of her upper chest. He let his hands stay there longer than normal, spreading farther than was proper, trespassing at the tops and edges of her large breasts, the towel bunched and barely hiding her nipples until finally she spoke in whisper so low that had he not known what she was going to say, he wouldn't have heard it.

"Touch me."

He folded the towel down further, exposing her so that it was only her stomach and groin were covered and drifted his hands over her breasts, ran his thumbs across her nipples so that she shuddered. His hands roamed then, gliding delicately and without warning from the hollow of her stomach, down her ribs, back to her breasts and finally to the flatness of her bikini line. She pulled one knee upward, angled it toward him so it was clear what she wanted him to do and he slid the middle finger of one hand down the slit of her pussy and began to rub little circles around her clit. She gasped and her knee canted away from him, opening herself up wider and he pushed his finger, and then another, inside her before bending forward to run his tongue along the area his finger had just left.

He didn't rush, licked her with long strokes alternated with fluttering ones, building the tension in her and the sensitivity of her clit as he ran his fingers inside and out of her. When she came, it was explosive. She howled and clutched at the silk underneath her, and then his wrist, scratching at him and jerking it outward as a stream of liquid shot out of her.

Giving her no time to recover, he undid his pants and slid into her in one motion, pulling her from behind her knees so that her ass was at the bottom edge of the table. Again, he didn't rush. He fucked her with long, slow, strokes, and he could feel himself hit her g spot on most of the inward thrusts because of the angle at which they were joined. He pulled his shirt over his head and let his pants fall to the floor, but took no other time or concentration away from being inside her.

Eventually he couldn't maintain the control necessary for the gentleness and began to pound into her. He was no longer in any semblance of control, and he fucked her with crazed intensity, gasping and feeling his hip muscles hitting her ass viciously. She rocked to meet him and clawed at his forearms and crunched herself upward to claw at his shoulders and came again, and her orgasm set his off so he scrambled and fought to pull out of her and spent himself on her stomach.

"Fuck, Jesus, Holy Shit, Balls," she gasped, and he smiled as wide as he could remember in a very long time but didn't speak. He pulled his phone from his pocket as she still quivered and came down from the orgasm and took a silent picture of her naked body, gleaming with oil and the flush of orgasm, his ejaculate white against her pale skin that contrasted even further with the dark silk beneath her. She was smiling, and reached for the blindfold, but he stopped her with a whisper.

"Don't. Leave it until I leave, the sensation will last longer," he said, knowing it was a lie but wanting to leave something of himself with her.

She sat up, and started to speak again, "I don't," but cut off when he wrapped the hotel robe around her shoulders from behind and guided her to her feet and then across the room to the bed. At the bed he picked her up easily and set her carefully in the middle of the thick down comforter that covered the king size bed. As he backed away, she spoke again. You're going to think this sounds strange," she began, "but your smell reminds me of something, of someone maybe, and I can't place it."

"Maybe you know someone who uses my cologne," he answered softly, thinking how many times she'd said that she loved his smell with her face in his chest, but didn't speak again. He packed quickly, and was gone.

When she heard the door close, she reached to untie the silk scarf he'd left behind and as it passed down her face, she again felt some forgotten hint tug at her mind at the scent on the silk, and inhaled deeply. Whatever it was, it made her feel good and safe, and content.