The air was crisp and cool and the bright sun made Manhattan levitate and when it landed I had both feet on Fifth Avenue headed downtown.
I hit a “don’t walk” signal and stopped to breathe the cool air. One day before, I felt nothing. Today, I felt everything. Yesterday, a weight on my chest. Today, I could breathe.
Then it caught my eye. “Body Work. Foot Rub.” The sign towered above the head of the 75 year old woman holding it, which put it roughly at eye level for me. With the crowds of shoppers and tourists around me I tried to discreetly read the phone number…had I called them before? Was this a place I’ve already visited, or yet another unknown hole in the wall with a rickety massage table and questionable fire safety standards?
I couldn’t match the number but by now it was too late. The teeny tiny grandma holding the sign noticed I was looking at it and approached me. She sidled up to me, her discount store boots toe to toe with my snakeskin shoes.
She put a business card in my palm: “Oriental Bodywork.” On the back, I saw the usual down-market rates - $30 for 35 minutes, $40 for 45, $50 for 60.
She asked me how much I wanted. I looked at her sideways. What if I didn’t want any? That was a stupid thought. I pointed at the 35 minute choice and said “half hour.” She said “hour?” I said no, “half hour.”
She pointed stubbornly to the 60 minute rate of 50 bucks. Not a chance. I pointed to the 30 buck rate for 35 minutes. She smiled. I started to walk in the direction of the address on the card and...so did she. I realized, suddenly, that she planned to lead the way to the place with her "body work" sign held high, like she was leading a guided tour of my personal embarrassments. "To your left is the place where this guy got three blowjobs from three different girls on one day. Coming up on our right you will the place where he got such an oily massage he had to buy a new shirt before he could go back to work.”
I’m fearless about this kind of shit to a degree that’s potentially foolish. I walk into places that I know will be dingy, dirty, maybe even disgusting by some standards. I don’t particularly worry about who sees me going in or out. But somehow being paraded down Fifth Avenue by what looked like a miniaturized Chinese Grandma carrying a sign almost twice her height advertising massages had even me feeling embarrassed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: when I commit, I really commit. So even though the pervert parade down Fifth was vaguely mortifying, and despite my certainty that I was about to do something I would come to regret, I forged ahead and followed my Shame Sherpa to a building on Fifth Avenue.
There are moments in life that seem so precisely, sublimely, perfectly calculated as practical jokes that it's almost enough to make me question my own atheism and accept that there is a supreme being out there somewhere with a sense of humor so dry you might think Kalahari's just another punch line, and as the tiny great grandma opened the door and led me inside, I had one of them. Turning to make sure I followed, she started walking up the stairs and I had an actual true moment of rising panic, thinking to myself, "Oh, wait...is this...am I...is she...is SHE going to do the fucking massage??"
I trod carefully up the stairs behind her and heard god's low rising laughter evolve into a full-blown guffaw as she pushed a door open on the second floor and I saw a younger woman stand to greet me. Bear in mind, gentle reader, that I use the comparative construction of the word "young," meaning that my massage "girl" was younger than my Shame Sherpa but I implore you, friend, do not make the mistake of assuming she was "young."
My massage "girl" was "Betty," or so she said. For me, the name "Betty" conjures an image of a 1940's bar girl with seams up the back of her stockings, stiletto heels, big red lips, hair that looks like a wingback chair, an ass like a sculpture and breasts that fill a bullet bra that could double as a shelter from the sarcastic sandstorms of a night in god's Kalahari of irony. It does not conjure a Chinese soccer mom with a pronounced overbite in mom-ass jeans and a red "Gap" knock-off t-shirt that somehow manages to spell "Gap" wrong. God tried to muffle the laughter but I could hear the snickering anyway. Ask for a Vargas girl...get the lady who does your dry cleaning.
I told Betty "half an hour" and eyeballed the place. How many months ago was this someone's little import/export business or whatever? Two plywood stalls were crammed into a studio - short walls and curtains, a microwave oven and the smell of cheap perfume and defeat completed the desperate ambiance.
I usually carry tens and twenties so I can pay and tip without having ask for “change.” But this was an unplanned excursion and I had in my pocket a fifty and two twenties. I handed Betty the fifty and as I took my clothes off she went to get “change.” She came back in and acted like she was ready to get to work. Sigh. The fucking Kalahari wasn’t quite enough, god? You just have to keep tossing ‘em at me?
In the grand scheme of things, do I give a shit about 20 bucks? No. But on the other hand, I knew damned well if I didn’t ask for the twenty dollars it would be “forgotten” and then when it came time to tip I’d have to talk about it or pay twenty more than the service was actually worth. I asked. She pulled a rumpled bill from her back pocket and handed it over like it was a used Kleenex, which it might almost have been.
On to the massage. Nothing to report. Another mediocre to bad massage.
Then she asked me to flip and I did. She looked at my cock and held up four fingers, the universal symbol for “care for a 40 dollar handjob?” Sure, I wanted a 40 dollar handjob.
She oiled up her hand and started tugging. I ran my hand over her ass but, you know, it wasn’t that nice an ass, really. I looked up at her face and the big choppers…she did have nice eyes. I focused on the eyes. I got hard. God coughed up another desert.
I ran my hand over her breasts…Nice, firm B cups…my cock grew as the sands of the Sahara pushed a little further outward, consuming another chunk of arable land as god removed his hat to cover his almost uncontrollable giggles.
She started the usual Chinese jackhammer and I got my hand under the shirt, into the bra, felt a hard nipple, closed my eyes, and imagined I was somewhere else. Now, gentle reader, allow me to remind you why most men begin the dangerous habit of paying for sex: the pursuit of satisfaction for an urge or need they cannot otherwise satisfy on their own.
One man may simply not get enough sex at home, so he supplements his sex life with paid activity. Another man may crave variety, or have a fetish or need for a particular act that won’t or can’t happen in the marital bed. Another may have no shortage of women willing and able to attend to him without direct financial compensation but what he craves is freedom – the ability to walk away a couple hundred dollars lighter and 100 pounds more free. But in any event, the purpose of paying is ultimately to get what you can’t acquire at no cost.
So, to review, I was laying on a grubby massage table – far less comfortable than any furniture in my home – getting jacked off – yes, I have two fully functioning hands my own self – by an apathetic woman who I had to close my eyes and imagine was someone else. In other words, I could have saved myself 70 bucks and jacked off to internet porn and then gone out and bought a new hat and I would have been even. Was that the sands of the Gobi I felt around my ankles?
I decided if I was going to rely on my tired imagination, I’d go big. Betty…Betty…yeah, Betty. She was a U.S.O. girl. I was on shore leave and we danced to Louis Jordan’s Tympani Five and went outside to smoke. Her hair was like a fountain, her ass was like a mountain. That bullet bra could fire a hundred rounds but it wouldn’t keep me from her…and with that thought, I felt the levee break and I finally unleashed a sad little load that was as dry as the sands of Death Valley. Fuck you, god. Fuck you.
I put all the fucking clothes back on in a tired ritual that desperately needs an efficiency upgrade with some Velcro or whatever. Underwear, undershirt, shirt, socks, pants, shoes, the fucking shoes, Jesus Christ again with the fucking shoes could he please stop mentioning his god damned motherfucking shoes, tie, hat, coat, check the oil, dollar gas, forty bucks to Betty and I hit the road.
On Fifth Avenue, it was still bright and clear. I looked up and saw my Shame Sherpa…holding a card...talking to a fat guy in a hat and sunglasses…and as the desert wind swept through one last time, I took a deep breath and let it go and I stood in the cool December air and I laughed out loud with god. Finally. I laughed right along with god, and it felt good.
Brothers, it felt damned good.
Oriental Bodywork
212-967-0607