"I know it's an unusual request. I want you to know that I appreciate your being so flexible."
"No problem," Katie replied, though in reality she felt a bit irritated. None of her massage clients had ever asked before if he could play one of his own CD's during a session, let alone bring his own CD player along. However, Tim was a new client, and she wanted him to feel welcome. Besides, he seemed like a nice guy.
Katie inserted the CD into the rather odd-looking boom box and pushed the play button. Then she walked back to the table where Tim was already lying on his stomach under a sheet. She didn't pay much attention when the music started playing, but it had a peaceful New Age feel to it. It reminded her of some of her old Windham Hill CD's.
"There's just one thing I need to say before we start," she began, resting her hand lightly on Tim's upper back. "I'm a licensed massage therapist. I'm a professional. There are no happy endings here like in those seedy massage parlors you may have read about. I want to make sure you understand that."
"I understand completely," Tim said.
Before she could go on, a flicker of light drew Katie's eyes back to Tim's CD player. A series of lights were pulsing on and off around the frame of the player, sometimes white, sometimes colored. It reminded her of the lights at a rock concert, and for a moment she just stared at it, transfixed
"Wow," she laughed. "Your CD player has its own light show."
"That's why I bought it," Tim replied. "I'd never seen anything quite like it before, and I had to have it."
Katie gazed at the lights a moment longer before turning back to the massage table. The swirling music seemed somehow connected to the pulsing of the lights, and she felt oddly relaxed now. She turned down the sheet to the top of Tim's buttocks and began to massage his shoulders.
"That speech you just gave makes me think you've had some problems with male clients," he said, while she went to work on his back.
"Sorry about that," Katie said, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, but you'd be amazed at how many guys think a massage therapist is a type of prostitute."
"That must be frustrating," Tim said, "especially after all of the training you had to get."
Katie found herself looking past the end of the table at the pulsing lights of the CD player. They seemed to move in some kind of complex pattern, and for a moment she just stared at them trying to figure the pattern out. It wasn't until Tim spoke again that she finally forced herself to look away.
"I imagine you must run into embarrassing situations sometimes even when guys don't have the wrong idea about your profession," he said.
"How do you mean?" Katie asked, as she continued to knead the muscles on his back.
"Well, I imagine that some guys might have an involuntary response to having a beautiful woman running her hands all over their naked bodies, a response that embarrasses both them and you."
"You mean getting an erection?" Katie asked. She always felt it was better to deal with these matters frankly, and she wondered if Tim might be worried about getting an erection during their session. "That's just a natural bodily response some men have," she went on, "but I'm a professional. I can handle it."
"Oh, I'm sure you can handle it," Tim said, putting an extra stress on the word "handle." "I just wondered if it's ever uncomfortable for you having to work so close to an erect penis. I would think it might even be arousing sometimes."
Katie laughed. "If I got aroused every time a client got an erection, I'd be in trouble," she replied.
But now she found herself looking at the lights on the CD player again, and she noticed a warm, tingling sensation in her groin that hadn't been there a moment earlier. The truth was that her boyfriend had dumped her five months earlier after running into his high school sweetheart at a reunion, and she had been feeling quite frustrated lately, though she wasn't about to tell Tim that. Instead she concentrated on the swirling, ethereal music, which was making her feel more and more relaxed.
"Even so," Tim went on in that calm, low voice of his, "I would think that there might be times when you got a bit preoccupied at having an erect penis so close to you. I can see how you might start having trouble getting that image out of your head."