Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
DREW
On Friday morning, Ally walks into the kitchen as I’m finishing a bowl of cereal.
She’s wearing a slouchy white t-shirt and pajama shorts, and her hair is mussed from sleep.
It’s the closest I’ve come to seeing how she looks when she first wakes up, since she never lets herself fall asleep in my bed.
“Morning,” she says. “You have clinic today, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’ll probably be done at a reasonable hour?”
“Hopefully, why?”
Ally walks to the cupboard and reaches for a box of cereal. Her shirt rides up, and I get a glimpse of skin. It’s not much, maybe an inch at the side of her waist, but I can’t look away.
She sets the cereal on the counter and her shirt falls, but when she reaches for a bowl it rides up again.
It’s like a grown-up game of peek-a-boo.
“Drew? Would that work?”
Damn. I don’t have a clue what the question was.
“Sorry, Ally, what was that?”
“The couple’s massage, at the Glow Studio? I just checked their website, they have an opening at six today. Would that work?”
I blink. “What?” I’m paying attention now, but still can’t follow this.
She gives me a funny look. “The Spring Fling door prize, remember? You won a couple’s massage?”
I’d completely forgotten about that. “You want to do that today?”
“Sure,” Ally sets her cereal bowl on the table. “It’ll be fun, and we might as well use the gift card.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her I have some better ideas for a couple’s massage, and none of them require a gift card. But Ally seems so keen on the idea that I can’t say no. I’m pretty sure she’s hoping it will keep my mind off tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment.
It won’t, but I appreciate the effort.
“Yeah, six should probably work,” I tell her.
“Great.” She pulls her phone from the pocket of her shorts and taps the screen. “It’s booked,” she says a moment later.
“Okay. I’ll text you when I finish in clinic. If you’re still at work, maybe we can go straight from the hospital.”
I glance at the clock and realize I have to get moving. I’m teaching a resident seminar this morning, and it’s supposed to start in fifteen minutes.
I load my dishes into the dishwasher and grab my lunch from the fridge. Since I leave so early, Ally always packs our lunches the night before.
“Bye Drew,” Ally calls as I head out the door.
“Bye, Ally.”
The Glow Studio is in an upscale plaza close to my condo, sandwiched between a pharmacy and a dentist’s office. Ally and I make it to our massage appointment with five minutes to spare.
It takes me less than five minutes to decide it’s not my kind of place. The first clue is the sign on the front desk that says: ‘Quiet, please. This is a healing space.’ Right beside it, a slightly smaller sign reads: ‘As a courtesy to other guests, we kindly ask that you turn off your phone.’
Yeah. No way in hell is that happening.
Ally gives our names to the receptionist, who whispers a welcome before handing us each a consent form on a clipboard. “You can take a seat in the waiting room. Your therapists will be out to get you shortly.”
“How risky can it be to get a massage?” I mutter as I skim the legalese on the consent form. There’s more text on this page than on the forms I have people sign before brain surgery.
“Nervous?” Ally teases, as she scribbles her name at the bottom of her form.
“I wasn’t before,” I retort as I sign the page. “But this form is terrifying.”
Ally giggles, and I notice she’s flipped her form over. I do the same, and find the other side asks for a medical history. I tell the Glow Studio I’m perfectly healthy and scribble my signature again.
Two women in scrubs appear and introduce themselves as our massage therapists. They take our clipboards and lead us back to a treatment room, where two massage tables are arranged side by side.
“We’ll step out while you change,” one of the therapists says. “You can disrobe as far as you’re comfortable and lie down under the sheet.”
The therapists leave, and Ally and I are alone.
Alone, and expected to take off our clothes in this tiny room.
It shouldn’t be a big deal—I’ve seen every inch of her body—but our relationship has never involved casual nudity.
We don’t watch each other get dressed in the morning or change into our pajamas at night.
We only share a bedroom for an hour or so each night, and that’s for sex.
The situation doesn’t seem to bother Ally, though, and she strips off her shirt without a hint of self-consciousness. She’s wearing a pink bra that does spectacular things to her breasts.
I’m staring, but I can’t help myself. She folds her t-shirt and sets it on a chair by the wall, then slips off her skirt and folds that too. Her panties match her bra—pale pink, with a thin strip of lace at the top.
The Ally reaches around and unclasps her bra, and it joins her skirt and shirt on the chair.
I feel a sharp tug in my groin, and I’m not sure how I’ll survive the next hour. This is supposed to be clinical, not sexual, and there are two massage therapists waiting in the hall.
But Ally’s going to be lying beside me, wearing nothing but those pink panties.
She lies down on the massage table and pulls up the sheet, covering herself from neck to toe. The sheet helps a bit, I guess, but I still know what’s underneath it.
There’s a knock on the door, and I realize I’m still fully clothed.
“One minute,” I call hoarsely. Ally turns her head toward me and looks surprised to see that I’m still fully dressed. I feel the heat of her gaze as I strip off my clothes and dump them in a heap on the chair.
By the time the therapists knock again, I’m facedown on the table and ready to begin.
My therapist—a perky woman named Helen—starts with my right shoulder, and I try to force myself to relax. There’s soft music playing from a hidden speaker, ocean waves crashing on a shore, and I imagine I’m on a beach. Alone.
But I can’t imagine the beach. I know I’m in a tiny room, less than three feet away from Ally, who’s naked except for those pink panties. And a sheet, but it’s been folded down so the therapist can work on her upper back. Like me, she’s lying facedown, and I can see the side of her breast.
“You’re holding a lot of tension in your shoulders,” Helen remarks. “Try to relax.”
“Sure,” I mutter. There’s nothing less conducive to relaxation than being told to relax.
I turn my head so I’m looking away from Ally. Unfortunately, my eyes land on the clothes we just took off, and I can see her pink bra.
A squawking noise splits the air, and I twitch in surprise. “Fuck!”
Helen stops working and rests a hand on my back. “Are you all right?” she asks in concern.
Another squawking noise, and I realize it’s the music. In addition to the ocean waves, we now have bird calls. “Yeah, fine,” I grit out. “I was just startled by the music. The bird calls.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helen says apologetically. “I’ll turn it off.”
“Thank you.”
She steps away to turn off the music, then returns to work on my upper back. “You’re still very tense,” she murmurs. “Is the pressure okay?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. But the truth is I’m barely aware of what the therapist is doing. I’m only aware of Ally, naked except for panties and a sheet, and less than three feet away from me.
I thought sleeping with her would ease this need, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s made it worse. Now I know the feel of her skin and the weight of her breasts. Her softness. The way she tastes.
The noises she makes when she’s excited.
“Mmmm,” Ally murmurs.
I twitch again, and this time it wasn’t because of the bird calls. I know Ally’s just reacting to the massage, but honestly.
“Are you okay?” Helen asks.
No, I’m definitely not okay. I feel jittery and feverish, and I’m starting to sweat. Pretty soon, Helen’s going to ask me to turn onto my back, and when I do, I’ll tent the sheet. I’m hard as a rock, and it aches, and . . .
“Actually, I’m not feeling well,” I blurt out. “I think I should go home.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helen says, her voice full of concern. “Was it something—”
“No, the massage was great,” I interject. “But I think I’m coming down with something. Nothing serious, but I think I should go home.”
“We’ll step out while you change,” the other massage therapist says.
As soon as the door closes behind the two therapists, I vault off the table and scoop up my clothes. Then I turn to face the wall so Ally won’t see my erection.
“Are you okay, Drew?” Ally asks.
“Yep, fine,” I mutter, as I carefully pull up the zipper of my jeans. Since it’s June, I don’t have a coat to cover the problem; I’ll just have to hope no one looks at my crotch on the way out of here.
“You should stay if you want, Ally,” I tell her. “You could get an Uber home, or I could come back and pick you up—”
“No, I’ll come with you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see she’s moved off the table and is starting to get dressed. A moment later, she slings her purse over her shoulder and we’re ready to go.
“Have you already paid?” I mutter as we walk down the hall.
“Yeah, it was all online,” Ally says. “I used the gift card.”
“Great.” I know I should probably leave a tip, but I can’t bring myself to stop. Hopefully they’ll forgive us for that, but I guess it doesn’t matter if they don’t. It’s not like I’m planning to come back here.
“So you think you’re coming down with something?” Ally asks as we walk across the parking lot.
“Probably, yeah.” I climb into the car and cautiously buckle the seatbelt.
Her brow furrows with concern. “Maybe you should cancel your appointment tomorrow,” she says as I turn out onto the road.
“I think it’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Ally asks. “Because if you’re sick with some sort of virus, it might confuse the assessment.”
“It’ll be fine, Ally,” I repeat.
“You sure?” she asks anxiously. “Because you really don’t look very good.”
“I had an erection, okay?” I blurt. “You were lying there practically naked, and I couldn’t control it!”