Warning: explicit imagery ahead! 

She announced her arrival with the softest touch of her chilly little finger on my shoulder.

I was lying on the massage table with nothing but a thin blanket draped across the bottom half of my body, and my favorite hot pink panties between us. I felt vulnerable yet excited to be nearly naked with a stranger in the same room—”dressing up” in my pink panties seemed a somewhat odd response to my anticipation of our encounter.

But the moment she touched me, any modesty I had about being alone in a room with a stranger melted away. I wanted her, and I wanted her to touch me—a lot, all over.

This was already shaping up to be a better night than any date I had had in the last couple of years.

And sex was the furthest thing from my mind.

She oiled up her hands with some thick and creamy sounding, mildly coconutty smelling lotion. Her slick hands slid slowly down my neck, my shoulders, all the way down to my bottom—eep!

She just pushed my hot pink panties down my bottom! My cheeks were bare!! It was the last flinch of my hour in heaven. She literally had me wrapped around her pinky.

She kneaded me, stroked me and rubbed my entire body.

She dragged her knuckles through the knots that crossed my back like Mayan burial mounds.

She dug her little fingers into the muscles around my spine, manipulating them, bending them to her will.

I grunted in pleasured pain and sighed deep, cleansing breaths as she made her way to my oh-so-sensitive feet. I’m fairly certain I whispered my social security number as my toes curled uncontrollably.

For a little while, I completely forgot that feeling this good is just an illusion. (Yeah, I know samsara wins again!)

As I lay there under her spell, my body blissful and yummy, I began to realize that I had spent far too long seeking the gentle caresses of another human being between the sheets. I thought sex was the physical contact that would quench that thirst. But I wasn’t in a relationship—you know, the place where gentle caresses happen.

Dating was more a psychological study on the modern male and his relationship with the internet, and the dates that actually led to sex were a stream of “so-close” and “this-isn’t-happening-for-me-tonight-but-you-can” disappointments.

I couldn’t get an orgasm out of it, much less a sense of connection to my would-be lovers.

She laid her hands on me and I understood that it wasn’t sex I was after at all. The gentle touch of another human being was what I longed for and right here, on that table, I was getting it.

The soft touches of my Mistress of the Massage conveyed more compassion and desire to please than any man I had slept with in ages.

This was the perfect relationship.

We weren’t dating!

We weren’t doing some elaborate “get-laid” dance.

She didn’t care if I had tattoos, wide hips, if I was straight or gay, if I smoked pot, paid my taxes, or worked at some high power DC job.

It didn’t matter to her that I’m a Buddhist or really a dirty blonde, or whether I prefer sushi to Tex Mex. I felt absolutely no pressure to perform, nor any fear that I would be rejected by her. She just went right on rubbing until the hour was up.

There was no post-sex/end-of-date awkwardness. No one witnessed my rolls (when the hell did those happen!) as I bent down in my nudity to get my pants on. I wasn’t embarrassed to pee or that little squeaks might be audible when I went. I didn’t have to worry about my breath—we weren’t kissing goodbye. I had no fear of getting pregnant or genital warts and no anxiety that she might not call again.

I love a banshee-screaming, scrape-me-off-the-ceiling orgasm as much as the next girl.

But that Big O—when it happens—is only a small part of what my body craves. Sometimes, I just need my body to be loved on without any pressure to put out.

Physical intimacy is important in romantic relationships for me, and sometimes the effort and relationship politics and posturing is more work than I want to do. Sometimes, a massage is enough.

 

 

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Apprentice Editor: Sue Adair/ Editor: Travis May

Photo Credit: Javier A. Bedrina via pixoto