Soul Collective

Three great things happened after I quit strategic consulting. I got fit and learnt to surf. I started a new career as a massage therapist. And Maria. Maria happened.

I had started with McKinsey straight out of graduate school, and spent the next four years travelling and working, without a break.

I had no real life outside the firm, no girlfriend, and no interests beyond accumulating frequent flyer points, and the occasional pat on the back from one of the senior partners.

My old life came to an end at Colgate.

This was my second engagement with their global innovation team out in exotic Piscataway, New Jersey. The partner on the engagement was Sheryl. She was new to the Colgate account and was leaning heavily on me because of previous experience working with Colgate's innovation team.

I was used to long-hours analysing data and producing reports and presentations, but on this engagement, I was also being expected to help manage the client relationship too, and help Sheryl navigate the internal politics at Colgate. What had always been brutal hours became almost physically impossible.

I remember the day I quit vividly. The night before, dinner and drinks with the client team had ended at 11:00pm, and then I was up all night working on a sales forecast model for a potential new product launch, the central component of our final presentation.

I had fallen asleep at my desk in my hotel room sometime in the early morning, sitting slumped at an awkward angle, and was woken by the phone ringing: Sheryl chasing the sales projections I had been working on.

As I lurched to get up from the desk and the phone, I twisted the wrong way and found myself in agony on the floor unable to move. The phone kept ringing, my back kept hurting, and soon I was practically crying from the pain and frustration.

Sheryl had been less than understanding when she finally got hotel staff to open my door. She looked at me lying on the floor, and strode straight past me to my laptop, barking at me to tell her my password so she could copy the sales projections onto a USB drive, and ranting about the presentation she had to give in an hour, all as I lay on the floor in agony.

It was then I realised that I didn't want to be living out of hotel rooms anymore, didn't want to be a Sheryl, a partner with nothing to live for beyond the bonus cheque and no compassion for anyone else. There had to be more to life.

It took more than quitting the firm to get my life on track.

First, I had to recover from the persistent back pain I was now suffering. My physiotherapist told me I had to lose 40 pounds if I wanted long-term back health.

I was good with numbers and systems. And soon I was calorie counting, step counting, and doing the three-sets-of-ten back exercises every day that I had been given on neatly photocopied sheets.

According to my forecasts I should have met my goals in three months and then I had planned to start looking for a new job. But three months became four became five and I was still suffering from persistent back pain.

It was then that I first met Maria.

***

I had seen Greg a few times before, walking laps around the park with airpods wedged in his ears and a look of far-away concentration on his face.

He always seemed distracted, like he was solving trigonometry equations in his head, but I learnt he had a kind and nurturing soul.

I had come to New York three months ago from my home in Madrid, and I was a live-in Nanny for a Japanese family.

Their four-year-old daughter Sakura was a delight. Her Okasun (Mom), Akako, was quite the opposite. But I was paid well, their loft apartment was beautiful with a room of my own, and I had Sundays and my evenings to myself. I didn't have many friends here, and I spent most of my free time at 'Soul Collective' where I was learning to be a Yoga instructor.

I remember Sakura was coming down with a cold one day, and was grizzling, and wanted to go home, but Akako was adamant that Sakura must spend two hours outside every morning, come rain or shine -- "and no devices" -- and so I was trying my best to keep her entertained.

Grizzling became crying and I was almost at my wits end when Greg came striding passed. Without a beat or so much as a glance at me, he spun on his heal, squatted down to Akako's level and showed her his phone ...

"So this important", he whispered conspiratorially to her with a warm smile.

"The fate of the world could depend on it. Who is stronger?", gesturing to a picture on his phone.

Sakura didn't smile in return, but she stopped crying and pointed seriously at the phone. I peered over his shoulder at a picture of Anpanman and Doremon, two Japanese anime characters.

"Doremon, huh", he said, and then to my surprise started talking to Sakura in Japanese. And before too long she was smiling and engaged deeply in a conversation about what I later learnt was a possible alien invasion and the role of cute Japanese anime characters in saving the world.

"I better get her home", I said glancing at my phone after a while. He smiled at me and got back to standing, with a wince, and held out his hand.

My Spanish accent must have been obvious, "Hola, Yo soy Greg. And that's all my Spanish", he said laughing.

He started explaining he had spent six months in Japan, but I couldn't pay attention to what he was saying. I was lost entirely in his warm touch, gentle grasp, and sparkling intelligent eyes.

***

I began to look out for Maria and time my walks for when I knew she'd be taking Sakura to the park.

Maria was beautiful.

She had long straight brown hair, an olive complexion, and green eyes. I'd describe her build as a 'petite pear', with a small bust and slim waist, but generous hips. She had bohemian dress sense, tending to flowing light floral dresses, flat sandals, and wore little makeup. She was only 19, five years younger than me.

At first our conversations were brief, "Hello", "Hola", "Hi", "How is Sakura?", and "What beautiful weather", but soon we were sitting together while Sakura played, sharing stories of our lives.

I learnt about her brothers back in Spain, who she missed dearly. Her love of music, and that she played the guitar. Her interest in new age spirituality and doubts about the catholic church she had grown up in. I learnt about her passion for yoga, and her dream of starting her own yoga studio in America.

I realised she was the first friend I had made since college. And while I was very attracted to her, I was scared of following my attraction and asking her out.

While I had lost some weight in the last few months, I still thought of myself as the fat awkward nerd who couldn't get a date to the prom. My romantic experience was very limited, to say the least.

I'd had my first and only college girlfriend as sophomore, and while it hadn't lasted long, I had managed to get losing my virginity out of the way with her.

And for about a year, on and off, I had been seeing one of my colleagues at work. Sleeping with your workmates was kind of an occupational hazard in strategic consulting.

I had broken it off when I learnt that what I thought was a growing relationship was to her a 'friends-with-benefits' situation, and that she had a boyfriend back at home.

One day while we were chatting, I tried to learn if Maria was seeing someone or if she had left behind a boyfriend in Spain. I told her I was single. I started telling her about my first girlfriend at college. It was a brief and unilluminating conversation.

***

I remember one day sitting with Greg and he started telling me he was single; started telling me about his first girlfriend. I was so nervous. I wondered if he was going to ask me out. I wondered if he was going to try and kiss me.

I wanted to tell him I was single too, but I didn't want him to know I'd never had a boyfriend; that I'd practically never kissed a boy (my cousin Miguel didn't count). All I could do was laugh like a silly girl as he chatted away. I liked him so much.

Seeing him was always the highlight of my day. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was too young and naive for him.

So, I quickly changed the subject and told him about the year I'd spent at University in Madrid, and my friend Sylvia. University wasn't for me, but meeting Sylvia had made it worthwhile.

Sylvia told my fortune with tarot cards the first time I met her, she had introduced me to yoga, taught me to smoke cigarettes, told me to stay away from boys, "solo problemas", we played guitar together and sang flamenco and drank cheap red wine, and she had been the one who had encouraged me to follow my dream of living New York and had helped my find a Nannying agency. I still called her every day.

Of course, Greg had also told me about his work and quitting his job, his goal of getting fit, and his persistent back issues.

So, I couldn't wait to tell him about 'Soul Collective'. He needed healing.

He was always so reluctant to meet me there -- I don't think he liked meeting new people. But one day he finally agreed.

'Soul Collective' was my favourite place in the world, a community space with classes and workshops, a healing space, a teaching space, and a space full of the most interesting people I'd ever met.

Everything good was at Soul Collective: yoga, meditation, tantra, massage, crystals, reiki, singing, dance, and paths to physical and spiritual healing of every kind.

***

If 'Soul Collective' was Maria's heaven, it was my hell, at least at first. "Hippies and spiritual nonsense" was my instinctive response.

I'd rebuffed her invitations to join one of her yoga classes, but she convinced me to book a session with Clarice who was a massage therapist and trainer there. Clarice, Maria promised, worked magic. Clarice would heal me.

Clarice was a tall, handsome, and wiry woman, with a sun-worn face, black ink tattoos (a raven, a snake, and a dove), and long silky grey hair wound up in a bun. She wore a plain black t-shirt and shorts and was barefoot, and I couldn't tell if she was 30 or 50.

She ushered me into a dim room with a massage table in the middle, lit only by pink flickering salt lamps, scented with sandalwood from an incense burner on the floor, and filled with the gentle sound of waves and Hawaiian singing from a small Bluetooth speaker in the corner, a phone with a cracked screen balanced on top.

I had expected some kind of consultation. I'd expected to tell her about my history; the exercises I was doing assigned by my physiotherapist; the level of mobility in my back; my pain level in the morning when my back was most inflamed; but she was not interested in any of that.

"I hear this is your first massage", she gestured to a chair, "You can put your clothes there, dear. Take everything off, everything, and lie on the table, and I'll be back in a minute". Her voice was slow, mellow, and calming.

I looked around the room as the door swung closed and shrugged and started getting undressed. I paused when I got down to my underwear. "Everything", she said, so I slid them off too, folded my clothes neatly on the chair, and climbed onto the table, pulling the drape over me just as she re-entered the room.

I was face down on the table and couldn't see anything but I sensed her walking around the table passing her hands above me as she whispered a payer or a blessing. I couldn't make out the words but there was an increasing sense of ceremony in the air.

"Breathe", she extolled me as she lay her hands on my back, "open yourself to my touch", "breathe", almost a chant, as she pressed down one hand firmly between my shoulder blades and the other on my lower back.

"Breathe", she whispered this time, running her fingers lightly in rhythmic wave-like patterns over the floral rayon drape laying across my body. I shivered.

She adjusted the drape so that all that was covered was my gluteal-cleft and groin and she started running oiled forearms up and down my entire body, from my feet up over my thighs and buttocks, across the small of my back, over my shoulder blades, and then her strong hands would slide underneath my body lifting and cradling my chest and abdomen.

It was like nothing I'd experienced before, and I became lost in the physicality and sensuality of the experience. And every time her hands ran over my thighs or buttocks, I felt an electric pulse in my groin. At first, I tried to distract myself from those feelings, but soon gave in and lost myself in pleasure of her touch running over my body like deep ocean waves.

"Turn" she whispered after half-an-hour had passed, and lifted the drape, and I was vaguely aware of my semi-erection as I rolled over onto my back. The soft rayon drape floated back down over my body and again she gathered it up to uncover all me again except for my groin. I was thankful for the bunched-up fabric.

This time her hands ran over my chest and abdomen and down my legs, and back up my inner thighs, each time her fingers sliding only millimetres away, or lifting only just in time, to avoid brushing my covered privates.

What was previously a mild jolt in my groin when her hands and fingers pressed near became an electric wave of pleasure I felt deep in the pit of my stomach. My lack of any kind of sexual release for over year resulted in a growing and increasingly obvious erection.

Clarice seemed entirely unmoved by my tumescence and kept up the same steady rhythm: sweeping her hands or forearms in strong dance-like waves over my body. Eventually her touch slowed and lightened, and she again spread the drape evenly back over me.

"Come home, dear" she whispered, "your massage is finished". I opened my eyes blearily and saw her, finally it seemed, appraising my hard cock tenting up the colourful drape. "Your massage is over, but we can't have you going out like that can we".

She slid the drape away, exposing my penis, and put some oil on her hands. I was still lost in the moment and only vaguely aware of her wrapping a hand softly around my pulsing cock.

She then slowly and methodically brought me to a fierce orgasm, and thick ropes of white cum sprayed over my stomach and chest.

"I hope you enjoyed your first massage, dear", I heard her say wryly.

But I was lost in thought. All I could think of was whether Maria had laid naked on this massage table before me and whether she had also been touched by Clarice.

END CHAPTER 1

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