Masseur

I was staying with friends at their guest house in the country.

I'd retired to my cottage, the night was over, the guests were now on their own.

I was just laying on my bed, the fire was blazing, I'd just stacked it up for the night. The forty watt bulbs barely did their best, just how I liked it.

I thought about all the chocolate easter eggs that I'd eaten. More alarming was the fact that I enjoyed the easter egg hunt. It was a fresh night, barely a need for a fire. The door was open...

... Tonight was the first time I'd, actually, told people that I was a fully qualified masseur. I'd never been brave enough to tell anyone in the past. It would mean that I was expert enough to answer their questions, that I was expert enough to diagnose their ailments. 

Working at the half-way house as a volunteer had boosted my confidence immeasurably. It had even been fun, once I stopped shaking, and thinking all the time that I was going to fuck up. It was rewarding, once I'd stopped being tongue-tied. 

It had been hot when Daniel came in, the maintenance boy, to give it a go. I got to touch those muscular thighs.

Tonight, had been fun. I'd even got a few tentative offers of work. Handsome Max was keen to have his corked-thigh done. Smiley, dark, shaggy-haired, blue-eyed, big, white teeth, gentle mannered, Max.

Fuck nine to five, I thought. This plan may actually work. Then I could hone my singing talents more flexibly. You set your mind and babe, it's that easy. And if singing is only ever be a pipe-dream, so touching people and making them better, isn't such a bad outcome.

Even if that’s all I ever do. Plan B, so to speak.

The joint smoke curled around the lamp light. The frogs croaked in the lake. The place I could just lay back and let go.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” I replied. Someone was at my door? Who the hell?

“It's Max,” he said. His handsome face slide through the door with a smile. “Er. Um. I hope you don't mind?”

I wondered what I may have minded. “No, not at all.” On the contrary, I thought. “Come in.”

“I saw your light on.” Smile. Very nervous. Continues to smile. Fixed. “Remember, Mark sent me down for you... um... er... earlier. That's how I knew, er...”

“Cool,” I said. How drunk is he? They all discovered the spirits late, the footy guys and their girlfriends and they were already smashed on beer and wine.

“I couldn't sleep... with the thigh and all. You said you were going to have pot...” he looked at the joint.

“Sure. Absolutely.” I looked at the joint in my hand. I handed him the joint. I wondered if he'd remember that he told me the two things that dope does for him, why it was so hard to give up as he rabbited on in my ear. And that was sleep and sex. It puts him to sleep and it turns him on. 

Max puffed hard twice on the joint, then swallowed. His handsome face contorted, then relaxed, as he exhaled. He puffed hard, twice again. Double shots. He did it a third time. Big smile. Big exhale.

“Good party,” he said.

“You were a good bunch. Nice guys,” I said.

He went to hand the joint back to me, then he withheld, smiled kind of drunken, flirty, gently, “Do you mind if I go again?”

“No. I don't mind.” Go for your life, I thought.

Puff twice. Exhale. Puff twice. Exhale.

He handed it back to me, in jerky body movements, like he wants to get close. And then he can't. He's drawn. He's repelled. It'll put me to sleep. My leg's aching a bit. Been on it too long. Gorgeous smile.

He really is a man, I thought.

“Happy to help.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

He kind of lurched toward the door.

“Hey...?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Thanks.” He moved closer to the door. “Rebecca's asleep. And... er... my leg was throbbing. I just needed something.”

“Happy to help.”

“That'll be good... Thanks.”

Awkward pause. Is he going or not?

“Um.” He's steps back through the door. “I don't suppose you could give it a rub, for me. My thigh?”

Then, I'm sure, he smiled cheekily, double entendre style. But, admittedly, the dope was really starting to kick my arse. I was tired and what I really needed was sleep.

“It's kind of late...”

“I think that, and the dope... would really help.” There, that same smile again.

“Okay.” Was this all in my head. Had I been working too many hours?

“Where do you want me?”

“Well...” I got up. “On the bed.” Where else?

He lay down on his stomach.

“It's your thigh, roll over.” He rolled over obediently.

He looked up at me, eyes completely glazed. I looked down at him. Time froze. His eyes closed several times. He looked serene. Sleeping beauty.

“You have to take your pants off.”

“What?” he mumbled. I think he was drifting off to sleep.

“If you want your thigh massaged, you have to take your pants off.”

Don't make me do it, I thought. 

His hands came around to his belt. He undid them and I pulled them down, he lifted his arse, so I grabbed the bottom of his pants leg and pulled them off.

He had boxers on. They had creased and ridden up, concertina-style, from being crumpled in his jeans. I could see the tops of his thighs. I could see his purple testicles and I could see a glimpse of his flaccid, uncut, cock hanging down where his boxer-short leg should have covered.

I had some massage oil by the bed. I warmed it between my hands. He, appeared, to have gone to sleep.

Handsome... Max.

I rubbed the oil into his thigh. He moaned. I worked my fingers along his, hairy skin. He groaned. He had solid thighs. He had beautiful, velvety olive-skin. Neatly covered in, surprisingly, fine hair. 

“How's that?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“So, it’s your right thigh?”

“Yes.”

“Is the pain localised in your thigh?”

“Yeah… I guess.”

He did sound too confident. “What I mean, there is no referred pain from anywhere else?”

“Ah, no.”

“Referred pain from your lower back?”

“No.”

“Do you have any pain anywhere else?”

“No, not really.”

“Not really?”

“No, no other pain.”

I rubbed his thigh right up to his hip. He didn't flinch. The legs of his boxers were loose. He flinched a little when my finger dug deep into the tissue of his thigh on either side of his leg.

“Do you follow the football?” he asked.

I rubbed the inside of his thigh. He shook a little. My fingertips dug into his skin, he groaned. I hoped they were warm, couldn't afford to have him jump in too much paint.

“Oh, I used to, but not so much anymore.”

“It was a great win for The Devils.”

“Yeah, I heard.

“Jorgenson played…”

“That’s about the extent of my knowledge, really, The Devils winning.”

I rubbed back down his thigh. He didn't say anything. No groan that time. He was silent. I rubbed back up his thigh. I wondered if he'd frozen up. 

Had I got it wrong? Failure is more than a rejection, it is a brake in the guy code of ethics. A line is crossed, which may never be healed.

“How does that feel?”

“Where?” he whispered.

“Is that relieving any of the soreness?”

“I guess,” he said.

My hands rubbed back up his thigh. I was feeling muscles and his masculine size. I could feel the man that Max is.

He lay on his back with his head resting in the face hole in the table.

I grabbed his shin and bent his leg slowly to his chest.

He groaned that time.

My hands moved rhythmically back down his leg in time.

I pushed his knee over his body for a slow stretch.

I instinctively, worked on his knee, for a moment, just to see if it had any issues, he was silent.

His thigh relaxed in my grip. Serene. Surrender. 

He groaned when my hand slipped around the back of his thigh and squeezed the muscles.

I dropped his leg back down. I poured some more massaging oil on his thigh. He opened his eyes and stared at me. 

“How does it feel.”

“You have magic fucken hands.”

Mostly, in my experience, especially after booze and mostly, but not always, as long as it’s gentle, I'm sorry girls, but most of your boyfriends are putty in my hands. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t care where I touched them

I started on Max’s left thigh.

He was compliant.

I pushed my fingers into the centre line of his thigh, I pushed fingers in a straight line up his leg

“Yes, don't stop,” he said. He was sweating on his forehead, I could see. 

“So… good?”

“You know what you are doing.”

“I just love what you are doing.” Groan. “Yes, just like that.” I squeezed his muscle in his thigh all the way up. He gulped a bit for breath. Groan. “Oh yes. I don't care. Yes!”

Making the big, strong guys call out in relief, I like it. 

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Um... er... ah... yes... I've played with footy for a few years. So, yes, with the club masseur.”

“Okay.”

“You've got an amazing fucking touch,” he said. I gripped his right thigh hard again so he felt the full heat.

“Yeah, wow,” said Max. Guttural growl. “You can squeeze it... hard!”

“Do you like that?” I asked. He opened his eyes. We held each other's gaze.

“I can’t believe how much better that feels.”

Handsome Max his face told the story. He never looked so relaxed.

I told him to lie there for five minutes, or so, even if it was my bed and it was late, but he got up, visibly jelly-like. I was pleased.

If I can make them tremble, as they get up off the table, it’s better than any compliment.

He stood in front of me in the 40 watt globe light, all six foot whatever of him. In his boxer shorts, riding up his thighs as though they may give the whole show away any moment, but don’t, and nothing else.

He runs his hand through his hair and looks bleary-eyed standing in the middle of my cottage, inert. Pleasured into stillness.

“I gotta go… er… ah, best time I’ve had keeping my pants on.”

“Next time we’ll have to get them off too,” I said. It just came out, almost despite myself. I was stoned and tired and I really just had to stop.

“A happy ending would be the only thing better,” he said. He looked at me and his handsome face broke into a broad smile. He grabbed his stuff. “Thanks.” And he was gone.