Mystical Massage

Gloria was astride me as I lay on my stomach. My face was in the hollow on the hard massage table looking at the floor. She had decorously covered me and would slip the towel in sections. She used a non-greasy lotion…the room was dimly lit with flickering candles.

“Hurting?” she asked in her lilting Oriental accent.

“No…” I mumbled.

She de-stressed the muscles on my back all the way down to my legs, then asked me to turn over.

“Can I do your stomach?”

“Yes, go ahead…”

She then came to the face, the nape of the neck and a bit lower down.

I began to think about how much intimacy we share with people we may never meet again.

Gloria had seen most of my body, felt me melting beneath her hands. Did she know my mind? Would she have been interested?

I admit to feeling a bit uneasy, especially with women, for they seem to be evaluating you. I was like a live corpse. She left me to relax with a warmed-up pillow. I tried not to think of anything. But thoughts knocked hard at my door.

What if this now hot pillow strangled me and I choked?

What if the flame from the candle leaped out and set the place on fire?

What if I wouldn’t be able to move at all?

I jumped out of the bed. In the dark I could not find my clothes and I forgot where she had told me the lights were. I touched a wall and followed it till I felt the denim. I quickly got into my jeans and blouse, found the door and walked out.

“How was it?” I heard a voice ask.

It was Gloria. I was seeing her in the clear light for the first time after over an hour of her being all over me.

Strange, isn’t it? As always I saw an analogy here. We let things overwhelm us in the darkness of our dark moments and are lulled into believing that we will be relieved of even ourselves. And then the demons come to haunt us when we are left alone.

When the light shines, we finally get to see things for what they are.

It is either too late. Or too early.

That night my back hurt.

What feels good for a while often does…later.