Chapter 9 #2
“Maybe I’ll start with a strawberry,” I said, and he presented me with the platter.
I bit slowly through the chocolate coating, which crumbled from sitting in the humidity beside the tub, sucking in to avoid losing any in the water and getting a mouthful of sweet strawberry juice in the bargain.
Ricky took a strawberry, too, and as I chewed my bite, I watched him tuck into his.
The supple workings of his lips around the fruit, the tip of his tongue flicking out to catch the last bits of chocolate and juice, the rhythmic motion of his jaw as he chewed, the pure pleasure in his shining brown eyes … this tub was making me awfully hot.
“Maybe I will try that wine after all,” I said.
Twenty minutes, three chocolate-covered strawberries, and a glass and a half of Prosecco later, I was feeling much more relaxed.
At some point, I had loosened the tie on my robe to try to cool down, and then it came completely untied and the ends of the belt dipped into the tub, and then the robe had fallen open.
I had failed to care about any of this. “Cute undies,” Ricky had said, and I’d said “Thanks,” and then “Woo-woo” as I waved the lapels of my robe open and shut, and then “Bloop-bloop” as I’d dunked the ends of the belt in and out of the water.
I was feeling very tingly. Buzzy, even. Buzzed? Buzzed. I understood that one now.
The only problem was that my tongue had outgrown my mouth.
“So you like Prosecco, eh?” Ricky said.
“It’th not tho bad,” I said, sounding like Daffy Duck, then I giggled at how silly I sounded.
“Wow,” Ricky said.
“You’re wow,” I said, waggling my eyebrows at him. I slapped a hand onto his leg, reaching into the gap at the hem of his robe and drawing my hand up his inner thigh. He laughed and caught my wrist before I got too far.
“That’s fun, but let’s circle back to that later, when you’re feeling more like yourself,” he said.
I looked straight into his eyes and tried to feel serious. “I’ve never felt more like mythelf,” I said, then dissolved into giggles again.
“Uh-huh.”
We were already sitting close to each other, but I scooched closer, leaning in and nuzzling my head onto his shoulder.
I had a moment of tingly clarity. “We’re awfully cuddly, conthidering we’re not really boyfriendths,” I said, “and considering I’m not normally a cuddly person.
” My tongue was shrinking again. Maybe a sign I needed more wine.
“Maybe you’re cuddlier than you think,” Ricky said. “And it’s okay to cuddle with friends. I think more guys should be physically expressive with their friends.”
“You think that because you’re a horndog.”
“I’m a horndog? You’re the one sitting here with your robe open,” he said, woo-wooing the lapel of my robe to emphasize his point.
“Hmm. I’m a cuddly horndog,” I said. “Thanks, wine, for revealing my secrets.” I hoisted my flute and took another sip. “But are we really just friends? I mean really?”
He put a finger under my chin, lifting my face so I could see him. “You tell me,” he said solemnly, then abruptly cut his eyes away. “But that’s also probably a conversation for later.”
The knock at the door seemed to agree with him. A soft voice from the hallway called in, “Let us know when you’re ready.”
“Oop,” Ricky said, then called back, “one minute.” He handed me one of the fluffy rolled-up towels and we both quickly dried our legs and feet as we scrambled out of the tub.
“What do we do now?” I hissed in a whisper.
“Take off your robe and lie face down on the massage table. And put the sheet over your backside.”
I did as he said, and in a moment he called out to the hall to let the waiting massage therapists know we were ready. I tried putting my face down into the little padded donut at the end of the massage table, and discovered an impediment I hadn’t considered.
“Ricky, what about my glasses?”
Shawn, walking into the room, said, “I can take those for you.” I flailed a little to prop myself up on my elbows so I could remove my glasses and hand them to her, and she put them on the credenza next to one of the fake candles.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the other massage therapist coming into the room behind Shawn before I’d taken off my glasses, but I was now aware of a tall, well-built, blurry figure taking up a position by Ricky’s massage table.
“Hello, Ricky, I’m Cole and I’ll be taking care of you today,” the blob said in one of those voices whose confidence comes from being really good-looking. I knew immediately that I hated Cole.
Shawn, meanwhile, had begun arranging my sheet, pulling it up over my back as I settled back down onto the table, now able to rest my face comfortably. She said, in her soft singsong, “Is there anything in particular bothering you today? Anything you want me to pay special attention to?”
A few things were bothering me. Cole, or at least the very handsome mental picture I had conjured up from his blurry figure, was bothering me by laying his very handsome, blurry hands on Ricky.
Ricky was bothering me, too, by not letting me take advantage of my alcohol-induced loose lips to tell him how I felt, when he and I both knew how much harder it would be later without being any less true.
I was vaguely bothered by how unbothered I had become about lying on this table being touched by a stranger while wearing nothing but my skivvies.
But all I said was, “No, not really.”
“Any aches or pains I need to know about? Past injuries?”
I’d lived an injury-free life. Blessed, my mother would say, but I knew it mostly came down to avoiding risky situations.
Getting entangled with Ricky had felt risky; he’d showed me how much fun taking risks could be, especially if you had someone to take them with.
And so, once we’d parted ways at the end of our last assignment, I’d done what I always did and avoided him.
But that’s when I’d really gotten hurt, and I realized I’d done it to myself; I’d given myself a deep, acute ache that I was still struggling to get past, even though I was fairly certain both of us wanted to. What was wrong with me?
My buzz was veering from silliness into morose self-recrimination. But all I could say was, “Nope.”
“Okay,” Shawn said, “let’s get started.”
She pulled the sheet down, exposing my back, and I tried not to tense as I felt her hands come down and begin to work my shoulder blades. After a minute, I thought I was starting to relax.
“You carry a lot of tension in your back, don’t you,” Shawn said. So much for relaxation. “You’ve got some impressive knots here.”
I sighed into my donut pillow. To my right, I heard Cole saying to Ricky, “Someone’s really good about stretching after working out, huh? Everything feels really good, really loose and limber.”
“I try,” came Ricky’s muffled voice, and I felt a horrible pang. Was Cole’s gambit merely professional patter, or was he flirting with Ricky? And was Ricky only responding to be polite, or was he going for it?
Suddenly, another pang—a physical one this time. Something cool and liquid had hit my back, and as Shawn began working her hands into it, it became warm and my entire back started to feel slimy and started to smell, a sort of metallic floral mélange.
“Try not to tense up,” Shawn said, gently pushing my shoulder blades apart.
“What is that? What did you put on me?”
“It’s massage oil. It’s supposed to relax you,” Shawn chuckled.
I was not relaxed. The wine had taken the initial edge off having Shawn touch me, but either it was wearing off or the oil was a bridge too far, or both, because I was feeling very, very uncomfortable.
Shawn was spreading her slimy, stinky mess down my arms now.
Was she going to coat my whole body in this stuff?
They had this all backward; I’d need the bath after the massage, not before, to get all this oil off me.
I was trying to forget about Cole and Ricky, but I couldn’t tune them out in such close quarters. Cole asked Ricky, “Ready for the oil?” Why did he get a choice and I didn’t? Why didn’t Shawn ask me first? Could I have said no and avoided all this? I was indignant.
“Sure,” Ricky mumbled dreamily.
“Do you prefer the lavender scent, or sandalwood?” He got a choice of scents? Forget indignant, I was fuming. Never mind that I didn’t want the oil at all; but why did Ricky get so many options, and I got none?
Shawn, about whom I was starting to mentally compose a sternly worded complaint that nobody would ever hear, pulled the sheet up to cover my back once again, the fabric now clinging hotly to my skin thanks to the glue-like coat of oil.
She began rubbing oil into my right leg, pushing and pulling my leg hair in all the wrong directions.
It probably didn’t rise to the level of being addressed by the Geneva Conventions, but this had to be some kind of low-grade torture, right?
People paid for this? They found it restful?
I was grinding my teeth as I stared blurrily down at the floor through my pillow, trying not to squirm too much and resenting the way the cushion was pushing my cheeks toward my nose.
“How are we doing?” Cole purred.
“Mmm, great,” Ricky said, the traitor.
Okay, I was getting too worked up. I shouldn’t resent Ricky for enjoying himself.
People were supposed to find this enjoyable, I reminded myself.
It didn’t work for me, but that didn’t mean everyone else was wrong—or that I was.
Besides, this was supposed to be a big part of my article, and I couldn’t exactly put in my piece that I had hated every minute.
I had to be able to figure out how to say that this was a wonderful, romantic experience, and I realized that I should be grateful that I could rely on Ricky to help me understand why it was for him.
Feeling like I was rising above and being the bigger person helped me unclench my jaw a little. I tried my best to relax my whole body.