Rescue You

by Elysia Whisler

  Rhett grew quiet, twiddling his thumbs as he stared down at his hands.

  “Right now, everything about you is a bit...” Constance drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, gesturing with her arms in a dropping motion. “Like that. You need to recharge.”

  Rhett looked up at her with narrowed eyes, all sarcasm in his face gone. “And you can help me do that?” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  Constance stopped herself from saying yes. She couldn’t make a definitive promise, so her words had to be chosen carefully. “Your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive. My job is to get you into parasympathetic. That’s easier to do with some than others. But I’d love to try.”

  A soft smile played around his lips. He spread his hands open. “You’re great with the leg. But this is different. Some things just can’t be fixed, Stanzi.”

  Constance leaned next to him, against the massage table. “I had this guy I used to see every week, at Walter Reed. The first week I met him, all he would let me do is hold his head in my hands while he lay faceup on the table. We stayed like that for the full half hour. Just a blanket over his body, music in the air and my hands supporting his head. He barely relaxed.” Constance watched Rhett’s eyes change. Usually, he had some form of guard up. Now, she could see him opening. “Week two, same thing. But by the end of the session he’d relaxed enough I could feel his weight grow heavier. Week three, he fell asleep about twenty minutes in. Week four, he let me move around to other places, just putting my hands on his shoulders, his arms. No massaging, just placing my hands on him. It went like this for months. By the time he went home, I was able to do light massage over his clothes and he called me by name. He even gave me a hug goodbye.”

  Rhett sucked in his lower lip. He looked around the room. After a while in silence, he turned back to her and shrugged. “Okay. I’m all yours.”

  * * *

  Constance started with a warm towel to his back. This would begin the massage on a relaxing note. She checked in with Rhett once, who gave one-word answers to her questions about being comfortable and the temperature of the table, and then went quiet. She let the music fill the room. For the first few minutes, she didn’t even touch him. Just as she’d massaged Humphrey, Constance worked only the energy that lived several inches above Rhett’s body before she finally rested her hands on his back. His muscles twitched as she neared, but once she finally laid her palms on his bare skin, he didn’t resist.

  Over time, she slowly deepened her pressure. This was the first time she’d seen Rhett with his shirt off, so was the first time she saw the tattoo he had on his heavily muscled upper back, between the shoulder blades. He had a cross there, the horizontal portion done in Celtic knot-work and the vertical portion in colorful Mexican tiles. The center read USMC. Constance hadn’t seen one like it, and she’d seen a lot of tattoos. The unique blend of cultures and affinities suggested Rhett had had a hand in creating it himself.

  The lower portion of his back had several scars on the left side, the most lateral one a circular shape. Constance slipped her hands around the front. As she suspected, there was a similar scar there, just outside the obliques. She didn’t touch him there right away, just swiped over the wound a few times before finally giving a light massage to the affected tissue.

  Constance worked Rhett’s back longer than most clients. She found tension in all the muscles along his spine, which was no surprise, based on all the heavy gear he’d have worn for years. Despite that, she kept her touch medium. This session wasn’t the time to go deep, risk him bracing or focusing on breathing to keep his mind off the pain.

  He did that every day.

  This session, Constance aimed to focus on flow, energy transfer and rhythm. She let her own mind go, feeding into the movements and allowing her body and his to guide her strokes and pressure. She covered his back and moved on to his left leg, adjusting the drape for modesty. When it came to lifting the legs to undrape, there were two types that always tried to help: women and military men. Constance usually told people up front that they didn’t need to help support any part of their bodies during the massage but that had slipped her mind this time.

  Rhett’s leg was dead weight. She draped and adjusted him carefully, then watched him breathe for about fifteen seconds. Just a quarter of the way into the session and Rhett was out. Constance could tell by the stillness and weight of his body and pattern of his breathing that he was fast asleep. Many people did fall asleep during massage, which was normal. Most did not go quite that quickly.

  She smoothed some oil in long strokes onto his leg and up into his hamstrings, which were large and strong, before moving into the hip muscles, finding tightness in the glute med but not so much in the lateral rotators. Just like with his back, Constance worked with medium pressure and focused on flow and energy, noting that her breathing was in time with his own.

  Once in a while, Rhett twitched in his sleep, but that was the closest he came to waking, even when Constance covered his left leg and moved on to his right. When she was done, she slipped out the bolster under his ankles, straightened the sheets and blanket and came up near his shoulder. His back rose and fell with deep, slow breaths.

  Worst part of the massage, every time, was waking a client to roll over. But you only got so much time on the table and nobody wanted to waste it. Constance leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Rhett.”

  Nothing.

  “All right, then.” Constance put one fist on his shoulder, the other on his hip, and rhythmically rocked his body while he snoozed. Rocking was a legitimate finishing stroke in Swedish massage. At the end of the day, she had to be a body detective and give each client what he needed most. Her mind went back to the countless massages she’d done at Walter Reed, on the many, many service members who’d come home injured. Every case was different, everyone an individual. Her gut told her that this was what Rhett needed most.

  After a while, Constance eased up the rocking and found her stool. She settled down and closed her eyes. When his body was ready, he would stir.

  Sometime later, her own mind caught between a meditative state and the first wisps of sleep, Constance heard rustling. She opened her eyes and saw Rhett, up on his forearms, peering around the room.

  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

  Rhett grasped the sheets and rolled over on his back. He blinked up at her. “How long have I been out?”

  Constance looked at the clock on the wall, behind the table, where clients couldn’t see it during the massage. She was surprised it was 6:15. “You fell asleep about fifteen minutes into the massage. So you’ve been out about an hour.”

  He folded his hands beneath his head, propping himself up a little farther, and sighed. He offered a wry smile. “Aren’t you supposed to do the other side?”

  She rose and stood over him. “Typically. But it felt like a crime to wake you.” With his arms bare, Constance got a look at the tattoo on the inside of his left bicep, which she’d only had a glimpse of from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirts. Now that it was completely uncovered she could see the all-black ink tribal-style wild horse. The mustang was in motion, left foreleg raised, his mane and tail whipping out to the side like flames.

  Rhett followed her gaze, his eyes sleepy. “Outer Banks wild horse. Back in the day. They’re mostly gone now. One day when I was a kid, I was playing in my backyard. Two of them appeared out of nowhere and started playing, winding their necks around each other. Gave real meaning to the phrase ‘horsing around.’ I just sat and watched them until they took off running. As more and more vacationers came down over the years, they started getting hit by cars in big numbers. They’ve moved the remaining ones to sanctuary.”

  “That’s a great memory. Sad about the horses, though.”

  “It is.” Rhett’s voice was gravelly with sleep. “Eventually everything wild gets taken out by the modern wor
ld.”

  Constance offered a sad smile.

  “No comment?” he said. “You don’t like tattoos?”

  “I do.” She shrugged. “I like yours, anyway. But I can’t comment on them. That could be considered sexual harassment.”

  Rhett stared at her a moment before the corners of his mouth turned up and his body started shaking with silent laughter. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I won’t tell.”

  “Hey, don’t laugh,” Constance said, even though she smiled. “We have to work our asses off to be taken seriously in this profession. Not only is there the stereotype of the illicit ‘massage parlor,’ we’ve got physical therapists and chiropractors who often don’t take us seriously, either. Even though, depending on how much continuing education and experience we get, we can be quite knowledgeable. And often have more freedom than other professions to try different things, because insurance companies and Big Pharma don’t have us in their pockets.”

  “Eh, you don’t have to convince me. I’ve seen—and felt—you in action.”

  Constance smiled. “Mission accomplished today,” she said. “I got you into parasympathetic, big-time. Do you want me to do anything else? Your hour’s up, but it’s my fault I let you sleep. Cocktails are well under way out there.” She nodded toward the door. “But I’ll do your front if you want.”

  “Oh, no.” Rhett rolled his eyes in mock disappointment. “We’re missing cocktails.”

  Constance laughed. “At least let me do your neck.” She plopped down on her stool and rolled around behind him. She lowered the face cradle, squirted some warming liquid into her hands, rubbed them together and slid them under Rhett’s shoulders. “With the tension you had in your lower back, and the issue with your leg, I know you’re going to have neck issues. We all do.”

  “I’m sure I’ve got issues.”

  Constance let the weight of his body sink into her fingers as she drew her hands upward. “Don’t help.” Now that he was fully awake, he was trying to raise his head for her. “Just lie there. That’s all you need to do.”

  Rhett chuckled, but kept whatever amused him to himself.

  Constance warmed up his neck with palm strokes, then slowly worked deeper. He had more tension than she’d expected, even though she’d expected plenty. Rhett’s breathing changed, like he was focusing on keeping still and letting her work. She moved down to his upper traps, which were bulky and tight. He gave an audible, contented sigh. Constance worked them until they were like putty, then smoothed her hands back up his neck and beneath his head, where she held him in traction. She slipped her fingers into his hair and rubbed his scalp in slow, deep circles.

  “Don’t go back to sleep,” she said with a giggle. “We’ve already missed cocktails.”

  “I’m not sleepy anymore,” Rhett said. “But that feels amazing. You can do it as long as you want. I don’t need cocktails.”

  “What?” Constance joked. “It doesn’t feel ‘not horrible’?”

  Rhett laughed a deep, genuine laugh.

  By the time Constance finished, the clock read 6:36. “Take your time getting up. I’m going to go change for dinner. Sunny will kill me if I show up in scrubs.”

  Rhett sat up and stretched, turning his head from left to right.

  “How do you feel?”

  He winked at her. “Not horrible.”

  nineteen

  Rhett had to admit, he was impressed by the Christmas Eve banquet. The dining room had its own tree, decorated in the annual Christmas ornaments sold by the White House Historical Association, and poinsettias on every table. A professional harp player sat in the corner, playing angelic Christmas music. The dinner fare included standing rib roast, Yorkshire puddings, salad, potatoes and dark chocolate cakes shaped like old-fashioned Christmas puddings. People were lined up out the door to fill their plates.

  Rhett took a drink of his beer, which he’d gotten from the bar, and searched the crowded room for Stanzi. He hoped to catch a glimpse of her strawberry hair, pulled back with cat barrettes, and her curvy body, growing stronger every time he saw her, dressed in either scrubs or a unicorn T-shirt. But all he saw were other people, many of whom looked like they came from money. Even their ugly sweaters managed to look designer.

  Instead of getting annoyed, or breaking a sweat, Rhett took the crowd in stride. He had to admit, he hadn’t felt this way in a long time. It was hard to pinpoint what was different, but the closest he could come was to say that he felt level. Not too high, not too low. Hungry, relaxed and alert, without being edgy. His body was in less pain than it had been in years, an overall tightness to everything that he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying around, now diminished.

  He almost felt content. Just to be; even if all he was doing was standing there in a roomful of strangers, during a time of year that had lost most of its meaning for him. It was kind of weird, feeling this way, but Rhett wasn’t going to complain. With the line long and Stanzi nowhere in sight, he headed for the foyer to get some air. He had his head down, admiring the shine to the old wooden floor. When he looked up again, his strides halted.

  She stood by herself, just inside the entrance, scanning the crowd.

  Whoa. Rhett wasn’t sure if he thought it or spoke aloud, until a guy next to him said, “No kidding.” He stared at Stanzi, who wore a knee-length blue dress with fluttery little sleeves that showed off her arms. A modest pair of heels made her calves pop and the scoop neck revealed creamy, smooth skin. Her hair had been styled with a few big waves and it looked, as Rhett drew near, like her full lips were dotted with something tinted and shiny.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding out of breath. She scanned him up and down and smiled at his jeans and button-down shirt. “I’ve never seen you in anything but T-shirts and shorts.”

  “Yeah.” Rhett tried to find his voice. The awkward girl in the My Pretty Pony shirt was nowhere to be seen. Dressed up like this, in clothes that actually fit, Rhett felt she was giving him a peek at her personality outside of the gym. The pretty blue Christmas dress was like the shiny wrapping on a present that you knew held something amazing inside.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Stanzi narrowed her eyes and waved a hand in front of his face.

  Rhett shook his head and laughed. She sounded genuinely concerned. “Nothing. I’m just hungry. Starving actually.” He realized he was still staring at her, so he quickly cleared his throat. “For the...the food. C’mon. Your sister went all out.” He nodded toward the buffet.

  Stanzi followed him toward the food line, which had dwindled.

  Rhett guided her in front of him, and they took their time loading their plates, taking a little of everything. The place was packed with people chowing down, but they managed to find a table near the window that seated only two. “Your sister knows what she’s doing,” Rhett said, an unusual nervousness in his gut that he kept covered by talking about the food. But his statement was the truth: the meat was rare, the puddings crisp and flavorful, the salad not overdressed, the potatoes creamy.

  “Sunny doesn’t cook.” Stanzi laughed. “Unless you ask her to mix dog food.” She ate a bite of meat and potatoes. “Great businesswoman, though. I’ll give her that. And, of course, amazing with the dogs.”

  “The two of you are alike. But different.”

  Stanzi’s chewing slowed, as if she were considering that. “Yeah. Sunny’s a lot like my mom was. Bright and perky and comes right at you. I’m more like my dad.”

  “Which is how?”

  “Well.” Stanzi’s fork stopped, poised in front of her lips. “My father lost most of his hearing in Vietnam. He came home legally deaf. According to Mom, he could’ve used hearing aids but he learned sign language instead. Nobody else was really willing to learn, so Daddy didn’t talk much, because when he did, everyone had to practically shout. Mom said I learned sign language from Daddy and was proficient at it b
efore I was proficient at speaking—because I adored my father and would do anything for his attention. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that Daddy used his hearing loss to tune out the world. He liked it that way. He didn’t miss anything, but he didn’t have to hear all the noise, either. But—” she got a sly smile on her face “—he had to talk to me more than anyone, because I knew sign language.”

  “So what you’re saying is—” Rhett thought it through “—you learned early on how to communicate without words. To absorb everything going on around you, without much noise.”

  Stanzi smiled. “To be honest, I don’t know what I was trying to say...until you just said it. I guess I learned early on that we can learn most of what we need to know from other people in silence. More than eighty percent of communication is nonverbal. I mean, the reason I learned to cook was the only surefire way I had to my father’s heart was with food. He never raved over anything I made, mind you, but I knew he loved and appreciated it. He’d never take a damn thing from me, but he couldn’t refuse my food. Dinner, lunch, dessert—he’d eat it all. I couldn’t make him praise me, go easy on me or even talk to me, but I could make him eat, dammit.”

  Rhett polished off the crumbs on his plate. “This is good food, but yours is even better.” At the sly look on her face, he insisted, “I mean it. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass.”

  “Like you’ve ever done that.” Stanzi rolled her eyes.

  “Speaking of. You didn’t show up for the workout this morning.”

  “I know. I’ve been here all day. I’ve done nine massages, though, so I think that counts.”