The lead investigator—Ms. Ariana Poplin—glanced at her watch and nodded to one of the women next to her, who switched on the voice recorder. “As we all know, Ms. Fenhurst has made some serious accusations against Ms. McLaren,” she began. “If we decide that Ms. McLaren did in fact engage in sexual misconduct, we will revoke her national certification. The behavior of which Ms. Fenhurst accuses Ms. McLaren is a violation of Standard VI, Part d, which states that the practitioner shall not touch the client’s genitalia at any time. We will also consider whether Ms. McLaren was in violation of Standard I, professionalism.”
They had arrived in Wilmington early. Kira had helped her fuss with her appearance in front of the restroom mirror, smoothing the collar of her blouse and the lapels of the chocolate brown jacket they’d picked out together, teasing her about her pantsuit, tucking a flyaway hair into place. Megan had felt prepared. But now, with Kira waiting in the reception area outside the conference room where she’d left her looking calm and gorgeous in her own business clothes, Megan wondered how prepared she really was. Two minutes in and her blouse stuck to her body and she already stank.
“You seem to have received a lot of massages from Ms. McLaren,” Ms. Poplin told Barbara. Her voice sounded far away. Megan strained to hear above the roaring in her head. “That would suggest you liked her work. Would you say she was a good massage therapist?”
“Yes, at first,” Barbara conceded, patting her hair and touching up her lipstick. “Until she touched me inappropriately.”
This couldn’t be happening. And since when did Barbara know the meaning of the word “inappropriate”?
“Could you tell us what happened during that last appointment?” Ms. Poplin asked.
Taking her time, Barbara nonchalantly snapped her lipstick shut. “We were about halfway through the massage when she started working on my legs, massaging my inner thighs. She kept going higher and higher up my leg and then, you know, before I hardly even realized what was happening, she was touching my privates, massaging my crotch. I wasn’t wearing any underwear, of course—you’re supposed to be naked. I never expected her to take advantage of me, her being a woman and all. But that’s what she did. Made the moves on me. I couldn’t believe it. I jumped off the table and yelled at her to take her hands off me.”
“That never happened,” Megan protested.
“We’ll ask the questions,” Ms. Poplin reprimanded her.
Megan shrank back in her seat. Yes, she’d walked in here knowing what Barbara Fenhurst was going to accuse her of, but nevertheless it was a shock to hear her say it out loud. How could she make up such a big, disgusting lie? How could she make up those details? After all the love Megan had poured into her during so many massages? How could anyone—especially Barbara, who always raved about her healing hands—hate her so much?
“Then you got dressed and left?” Ms. Poplin said.
“She begged me to make another appointment,” Barbara said smugly.
Megan put her head in her hands.
“And you never returned,” Ms. Poplin prompted.
“To tell you the truth I think she kind of fell in love with me, seeing me every week.” Barbara looked proud of herself, impressed with her own version of reality. “Monday nights at six thirty, that was our day. Never missed a week. Well, there was that one time—”
“My question was, did you return?” Ms. Poplin said.
“Why would I?”
Sure, lie about that too. She should have saved those damn brownies and brought them as proof. And she should never, ever have torched the stack of handwritten greeting cards begging her to take her back.
“Ms. Fenhurst, back in mid-July, you had a massage with Ms. McLaren every day for five days in a row. Do you remember why you did that?”
“My back was acting up,” Barbara said.
“Did Ms. McLaren pressure you to come in every day? Coerce you in some way?”
“It was her idea to schedule five massages that week,” Megan interjected. “I think it was her birthday.”
Ms. Poplin ignored her. “Ms. Fenhurst, did Ms. McLaren encourage you to get several massages a week?”
“I’m sure she wanted my business.”
“You must have felt close to her after so many visits. Did you ever suspect she was inebriated during a session?”
“Uh…” Barbara looked like she couldn’t decide which answer would be more incriminating, but finally just shrugged. “Uh…not really.”
Before that small victory could sink in, it was Megan’s turn to talk.
“Ms. McLaren, did you encourage Ms. Fenhurst to schedule frequent appointments with you? Did you suggest that she see you every day?”
“I usually recommend that my clients see me once a week or once a month, depending on their needs. It’s up to them what they want to schedule.”
Ms. Poplin shuffled some papers on her desk. “Both of you agree on the date the alleged incident occurred, but Ms. McLaren, in your treatment notes we see no mention of this session. Are we missing some of your treatment notes?”
“I think you have everything,” Megan said. “I didn’t make any notes for that session.”
“It certainly would have been incriminating for you to write down what occurred if Ms. Fenhurst’s allegations are correct.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then why did you not make any notes for this massage, when you were so consistent about making notes for all her other sessions?”
“I was too upset. I should have written something down, I guess—and I wish I had so you could see it—but I was too upset and I forgot.”
“So something did happen during that massage,” Ms. Poplin suggested.
Megan paled. Barbara had fooled the committee. As the investigator looked at her expectantly, she felt her blood pressure drop and wondered if she was going to faint. The room turned to fog. She saw herself at the stake, flames licking at her feet. In that lifetime, people had killed her to stop her from healing the sick. They knew she was good at it and they killed her anyway. They killed her because she was good at it. The same thing was happening again. Barbara Fenhurst, with her stupid play for revenge, could take away her license and stop her from doing the job she loved.
She wasn’t going to let her. She was not going to let this happen again. Not this time. She wasn’t bound to a stake this time. She could fight. She could win this thing.
Megan rubbed her eyes and the room swam back into focus. “Something did happen,” she said. “Barbara asked me out on a date. I immediately terminated the session and told her I couldn’t work with her anymore. She didn’t take it well. She made up this whole lie about sexual contact to get back at me.”
Ms. Poplin’s expressionless face never changed. “Did you touch her genitals at any time?”
“Never.”
“How about in a therapeutic manner?”
“That’s against our code of ethics.”
“Glad to know you’re familiar with that.” Ms. Poplin turned to Barbara. “How did Ms. McLaren drape you? Did you feel securely covered by the sheet at all times?”
“She told me it was better not to lie under the sheet if I didn’t want to. I think she wanted to see me naked.” Barbara glanced over at Megan and smirked.
Megan gave her an angry, tight-lipped smile in return. The liar thought she could get away with this. She thought she was winning. But she hadn’t won yet.
“How did you feel about this optional draping, Ms. Fenhurst?”
“I thought it was inappropriate.”
Megan thought back to her notes. She’d looked over them dozens of times in the past week, but she hadn’t known what she was looking for—it was all muscles and techniques, reminders to herself about what she had worked on. The committee had requested her notes, but what could the notes tell the committee? Nothing. They couldn’t honestly be hoping she wrote down in her treatment notes that she had sex with a client.
But draping—th
at was another story. Megan’s heart flooded with relief. Barbara had just handed her the proof she needed.
“Ms. McLaren,” Ms. Poplin said. “Do you deny this allegation that you encouraged Ms. Fenhurst to be undraped?”
They knew. Ms. Poplin and the others knew Barbara was lying. At least about the draping. And since the draping had not been part of Barbara’s original complaint, Megan would have had no reason to lie about it in her notes. They had to know.
Megan tried not to show her elation. “Absolutely,” she said. “I always drape my clients securely. It’s very important to me to be conscientious about that so my clients feel safe.”
“There is some leeway—some difference of opinion—as to what constitutes appropriate draping. Ms. Fenhurst, did Ms. McLaren at a minimum cover your pubic region with a small towel?”
Megan waited for Barbara to dig herself in deeper.
“Nope. I was buck naked,” Barbara said.
Megan sat up straighter. “Ma’am, I’d like you to look at my notes from her first two visits. I know I made a note to myself to remind Barbara about proper draping procedures during future visits. I had to insist that she stay under the sheet.”
Ms. Poplin pointed to something in her files and showed it to the woman seated next to her, who nodded. She looked up from her files and looked sternly at Barbara from over her reading glasses. “We do see that in the notes.”
“She could’ve written those notes last week for all we know,” Barbara complained. “She could’ve lied in there about all kinds of stuff.”
“Yes, that is always a possibility,” Ms. Poplin said.
Megan tensed. No. They were not going to believe Barbara. They couldn’t.
“She did say a few minutes ago that she liked my work up until our last visit,” Megan said, thinking fast. “She came back every week, week after week. That’s a lot of money to pay someone who’s making you uncomfortable. Why would she keep coming back if she didn’t like the way I draped her?”
“Ms. Fenhurst?”
“I didn’t say being naked made me uncomfortable,” Barbara groused. “I said I thought it was inappropriate.”
“So you do know the meaning of the word,” Megan snapped.
“Thank you,” Ms. Poplin said. “We’re going to deliberate on the information you’ve provided. When we’ve come to a decision—”
A siren interrupted her—the building’s fire alarm. One of the committee members flinched and pressed her hands to her ears.
Ms. Poplin glanced at her colleagues. “What should we do?”
“We should get the hell out of here,” Megan said. She grabbed her purse off the floor and hastened out the door without looking back. Fire alarms made her twitchy.
Kira was sitting in the reception area, watching the door to the conference room. Her face lit up when she saw her.
Megan reached for her hand. “Let’s go.”
“It’s probably a false alarm,” Kira said, but she followed her out into the hall and toward the stairway, anyway.
“I hope you’re right.” Her legs wanted to run, but she forced herself to keep to a fast, purposeful walk.
They trotted down the stairs and made it down several flights before a small group entered the stairwell from a lower floor and impeded their progress. Megan’s nerves twitched with impatience. People just did not take these things seriously enough. It was a fire alarm, people. Get out!
“Almost there.” Kira tightened her grip on her hand.
Megan barely felt her touch. She was too focused on how good the heavy emergency exit door was going to feel beneath her hands when she pushed it open.
The door was already propped open when they reached it. Once she was out, the relief was immediate. They crossed the street and finally looked back. A steady trickle of people flowed out of the building from all sides. Kira led her farther down the street and into the shade of a sheltered alcove in front of a bank.
“You okay?” Angling her body so no one from the street would see, Kira smoothed the hairs on Megan’s forearm.
“Yeah.”
“How’s the hearing going? You winning?”
“God, I hope so.” Megan slumped against the support of the building’s marble façade. “I didn’t expect Barbara to lie so much.”
“Lying is the only way she could have convinced them to hold this hearing in the first place.”
“I know. When I read that thing in the mail it was obvious she had lied, of course. But I didn’t really believe she would go through with it.” Megan pounded the back of her shoulders into the wall. “I didn’t think she’d be able to lie to my face. All those times she complained about having to stay underneath a sheet. All those times. I fought her on that and now she accuses me of not wanting to drape her.” She would have kept banging herself against the wall if Kira hadn’t put her hands on her shoulders and gently pried her away from it.
“How did she even know there was a rule about using a sheet?” Kira asked. “I can’t see her figuring out that that would be enough to make you lose your certification.”
“I don’t think she did. What she actually accused me of was…was inappropriate…t-t-t…” Somehow Barbara had managed to say it in front of a roomful of people, but Megan was having trouble spitting it out to an audience of one. It wasn’t this hard when she talked to horny male callers on the phone, when she was the one in charge and had the moral high ground. “Inappropriate…” She still had the moral high ground. The only problem was that not everyone knew that. “…Inappropriate…”
“I know,” Kira said, saving her from the need to say more. Her fingers dug into Megan’s shoulders. “I wonder how she figured out that could make you lose your certification.”
Megan freed herself from Kira’s death grip. She was sure Kira meant it to be reassuring, but it was starting to be painful. “Good question.”
“It’s going to be all right.”
“I hope so. I hope the committee’s on my side.”
***
Twenty minutes later the firefighters who’d shown up shuffled back to their truck, looking bored that there was no fire. While Kira went in search of coffee, Megan followed the crowd back into the building. She wanted to hang back for a few minutes in case the firefighters missed something, but knew she had to go in.
When she reached the NTMCA office, Barbara was waiting in the reception area.
“They’re deciding what to do about you,” Barbara informed her. “They said we have to wait here for thirty minutes.”
Megan directed a fake smile at the receptionist. “I’m going to wait outside, if you don’t mind. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“I’ll let them know,” said the receptionist.
“They said to wait here,” Barbara said.
Megan kept her fake smile as she backed away, afraid to turn her back on her former client until she was out the door.
***
“Therapeutic massage is a service fraught with the potential for misunderstandings and sexual misconduct,” Ms. Poplin pronounced, reading from a sheet of paper. “The onus falls on the practitioner, who is taught ethical standards and boundary-setting, to create a safe environment and to protect the client from any real or imagined violation of boundaries. It is the responsibility of the practitioner to—”
How long was she going to ramble on like this? All her fidgeting outside while the committee made their decision had raised Megan’s anxiety level to the point where she could barely process what Ms. Poplin was saying.
“…guard against impropriety…”
“…highest ethical standards…”
Was this directed at her? Did they find her in violation? Did she misread them during the hearing? Megan stared at her hands clasped in her lap, her stubby fingernails digging into the flesh.
“We find Ms. McLaren to be not in violation of NTMCA standards.”
Megan slumped in her seat with relief. “Thank God.”
***
Megan woke with Kira’s arm flung across her ribcage, her fingers curled lightly around her arm, holding her even in sleep. She traced lazy patterns with her fingertips on Kira’s skin, reveling in how good it felt just to be near her.
“You have clients today?” Kira asked, her eyes still shut.
Megan snuggled closer. “Since I didn’t lose my license yesterday, yes.” She wished she could keep touching her for the next twenty-four hours. She’d have to get out of bed eventually, but right now all she could think about was here within reach.
“Are you free for lunch? We should celebrate,” Kira said.
“I thought last night was our celebration.” After Kira had driven her home, Megan had been so worn out from the hearing that she’d slept the rest of the afternoon. Kira had made dinner, and by then Megan was too well-rested to go back to sleep. She didn’t have any trouble talking Kira into an extended discussion on when it was appropriate for a vindicated massage therapist to remove someone else’s clothing, and how exactly it should be done.
Kira moved so she was on top of her. “I think we need to celebrate more. Don’t you?”
She totally agreed, but reality intruded. “Can we make it dinner? I have a couple of clients in the afternoon, but no one after five.”
“That long from now?” Kira moved against her enticingly.
“I could stop by at noon for a few minutes, just to say hi.”
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