“When are we leaving?” she says. “I want to see Oma and Opa,” which is what she calls Cole’s parents.
Typical of a child, she doesn’t seem to understand the finality of our move. I’m eternally grateful. I will be saving about $600 per month by living in the carriage house. And despite my protests, Cole’s parents won’t charge me a security deposit, which eases the transition cost.
Cole unwraps a heavy duty lock from the packaging and secures the truck handle. A lock of dark blond hair falls into his eyes as he leans in. He manages to think of everything, particularly since it’s a relatively short trip, but knowing Analise, we’ll have to stop at least once for the bathroom. And it would really suck to have someone steal our stuff.
Once we get on the road, I recognize that look of mission-accomplished in Cole’s eyes. When he’s fixated on a task, it’s no use talking to him about anything other than the project at hand. He is focused, determined, like a wild animal with the prey in its view. And I don’t want to be that twitchy bird in the trees.
“I’m so glad you’re out of that place,” he says, almost to himself.
“It wasn’t so bad,” I say, because really it wasn’t, in my opinion and I guess I’m a little defensive because I lived there with my daughter. And I don’t want Cole to pity me, feel like I’m someone that needs to be saved.
He turns and gives me an are-you-kidding expression. I turn my head to look out the window and he fidgets with the heat, cranking it up so that the noise muddies the silence. I’m amazed at how much snow is still left on the ground. Usually it melts within a day.
“Thanks for helping,” I say. “I could never have done it myself.”
Sometimes I feel like I owe him too much. At least with Jack, it’s an easier transaction, in a way.
As soon as we are fifteen minutes away from my old place, I allow my shoulders to drop, lean back and listen to Analise sing to her doll. As all the tasks of moving are finished, I realize this is something I should allow myself to be excited about. I exhale. I try to picture having coffee on the carriage house’s back patio. Maybe I’ll put up a bird feeder and buy an outdoor bistro set.
Though the drive is only an hour, Cole never misses an opportunity to buy Analise lunch. We don’t eat out often, mostly because the places she likes to go are so unhealthy and I simply won’t do fast food.
“Who wants to eat at Mama Roni’s?” he asks Analise through the mirror.
“Me!,” she replies. It’s her favorite restaurant and one of the few on my approved list.
We sit at a table giving Cole an eye on the van in case anyone attempts to “monkey” with the lock and Analise sits happily between us like a child who finally has her estranged parents together.
Cole gets a menu for Analise to draw on, but makes sure the waitress doesn’t bring a drink with a lid, which would insult Ana because she’s not a “baby.”
I close my menu, look up and do a double take. It’s a client. I remember him vividly though I haven’t seen him in about six months. He’s one of those guys that has to get me turned on during a massage. It’s important for him to realize he still has it, even at the age of 56 or whatever he is, and with a little less hair and a bit more pudge than he probably had in his frat house days.
“Just let yourself go,” he would often whisper in my ear as he tried to work his fingers into me.
I would correct him, let him know as politely as possible that I didn’t offer any additional services, but some clients just couldn’t be convinced that rules applied to them. He was a good tipper and a suit-wearing, tidy client so I let it go, but eventually I cringed when I saw his number and stopped booking him.
Frank, the client, gives me a smug smile as he sits with the rest of his group, a bunch of middle-aged white guys who look like they just finished up a day of comparing financial portfolios.
I would have been better off if he had been with his wife, then he would have been the one to bury his head in the menu. I’ve been in this position before, occasionally seeing clients from work, either the strip club or massage and usually it’s an unwritten rule that you pretend you don’t know each other. Just to be safe. But I’m not sure how Frank feels about how we left things. Most guys just move on to the next girl if they don’t get a call back from their erotic masseuse. But most clients don’t try to get me to sleep with them, insist that I admit to being turned on. I may have hurt his feelings. And that is something a sex worker never wants to do.
“What’s wrong?” Cole says looking quickly over his shoulder at Frank’s table. I look up to see if Frank is still looking our way, which is foolish and a giveaway.
“Nothing.”
“Do you know that guy?” Cole’s grip on the menu is getting tighter.
“Ana, what’re you going to eat?” I say in a cheery voice.
Cole lowers his voice and touches my elbow. “Do you know him from the club?”
Ana looks up from her crayons, “Mac and cheese,” and then quickly resumes drawing.
“No,” I say simply. “What’re you having to eat?” I say to Cole.
“Is he bothering you?”
“No,” I say, trying hard not to look over at the table.
Cole puts down his menu and sits back in his chair, arms crossed. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on? Why does everything have to be so secretive?”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say.
“Your face says otherwise.”
Analise looks up. “Are you guys fighting?” she asks. Being a single parent household has provided one advantage: no spousal bickering and therefore she isn’t used to it.
“No honey,” I say to my daughter. I give Cole a look and he shakes his head.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I say in a barely audible voice with my head down.
“There never is a later with you,” he says, in an equally quiet tone. Ana’s head pops up again to search for a blue crayon and Cole gives her a reassuring smile.
I turn to look at him, directly in the eyes, for the first time since we sat down and I see the hurt. And then I feel guilty for holding back.
“All done,” Analise says and holds up her drawing on the back of the kid’s menu: The three of us, with Ana in the middle, are holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the sky, green grass at our feet and a bright, blue carousel in the background.
Twenty-Six
I get fondled all day. That's my job, and light caressing is something I like, regardless of the guy's age. Usually while a client lies face down on the table, he'll reach around and lightly touch my leg. It feels nice, but I'm used to it so it doesn't have that same electric vibe as getting touched by the guy you've been daydreaming about. It's so common for me, I sometimes wonder what it would take to really get turned on. I'm celibate of course and being touched all day and naked doesn't make me really want to do those things for someone else, for free, if you will. It's like when you take a hobby and do it for a living, like petsitting, and then suddenly walking the dog is something you feel like you should be paid for—always.
And then there are times that surprise me, that yes, I can still feel a fire in my core, to steal a cheesy line from one of my favorite romance novels.
Cole and I were over at his parents' house and they offered to watch my daughter while we went to one of my favorite local bands playing at a bar that's a wanna-be Irish pub. The bar was packed and Cole found a seat and pulled me down onto his lap. You know how things go when you've been drinking a little too much and sex was like, forever ago. Cole whispered a few unmentionables in my ear that I know were the Jack-and-Cokes talking. His fingertips moved around my body while we listened to the music and it was quite possibly one of the most fun nights I've had in a LONG time. And perhaps the most sexual, even though I was dressed head-to-toe in winter clothing. I can tell you this though, the night inspired me to fill out the remainder of my paperwork for dental hygiene school.
Twenty-Seven
As
you know, I get asked often, to be specific, usually while my hands are wrapped around a client’s penis, to be even more specific, “Do you get turned on?” or “You must get sooo turned on.”
The interrogator is usually breathless, erect, and occasionally sweaty. The truth could cause a flatline. And a flatline generally extends a session ten minutes due to futile resuscitation until someone calls it. Deceased. Time and Date. Put the hand paddles away.
So I lie to prevent a penile cadaver. I want my clients to leave happy, stress-free and fully satisfied and overcooked-linguine dicks make everyone sad. So, what’s the harm in a tiny fib? Nothing, I say, but sometimes, I am shocked to realize that, in fact, my lady juices are flowing and I am turned on.
Today was one just day.
It’s worth repeating: I am always floored when a client can turn me on. Talk about a cadaver...that’s me. But every once in a while, a guy will bring me back from the dead. And his name was Ethan.
I was in a poor-me mood this morning as a result of some disturbing medical-related news. And as a tiny tangent—since when have hospital secretaries been left with the task of telling a woman, a young woman, a woman who makes her living off her boobs, that she needs to come back for more diagnostic breast screening because her last mammogram revealed a potential “mass.”
Mass is never a good word, not when it refers to church, and not when it refers to something in your right breast. And particularly not when it comes from the lips of a secretary eating a rather juicy-sounding apple over the phone when this news is delivered. Apparently being a secretary has its benefits, because if the woman on the other end of the phone (i.e. me) goes into a tailspin at the possibility of losing her breasts and therefore livelihood, the secretary can simply dismiss the conversation, saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t answer those questions, because I’m just the secretary.”
But I digress. Back to Ethan. Understandably this news left me wondering: What good are breasts, really? When was the last time my breasts made me feel good? And with the exception of eight months of breast-feeding Analise and the accompanying insane calorie-burning of this breastfeeding, my breasts seem like nothing more than a hindrance, body-rub income notwithstanding. A hindrance, indeed, particularly when one has a family history of breast cancer. At a Very Young Age.
I had seen Ethan before, but due to an iPhone/iCloud mishap, many of my phone numbers were lost and therefore I didn’t realize it was Ethan The Hot Client that called to schedule. He indicated that he had seen me in November and wanted to see me today. Sure, how about 2 p.m.? He agreed.
It was a silver lining when I went to the waiting room and realized my 2 p.m. was The Ethan.
Part of Ethan’s charm is what we have in common: skiing, migraines, elementary-school aged children, and custody issues. He’s a classically good-looking guy: brunette, toned, neatly shaved, and within a decade of my own age.
“Can I touch you?” he asks, face up on the massage—with me positioned between his thighs.
Please do!
“Of course,” I say.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says.
Not a chance.
For my well-behaved clients, I do a front body slide, allowing my breasts to touch their stomach, penis—whatever sticks up.
At this point, I was thinking the things I normally ponder while my breasts are tickling a man’s naked body: When will the cold snap break? Will I have time to go to the bank before I pick up Ana from school? Will the bank have cookies and should I snag a couple for my daughter? Like I said, I’m a corpse.
I was enjoying Ethan’s touches though; he was lightly putting his hands on my hips as I moved over him. Nothing too grabby.
“Can you touch your nipples with mine?” he asks. I can’t say that I get this request often. Nipple-touching is a very individual thing for men, I have discovered in my empirical research. Some men love it and others find it highly annoying. I would’ve guessed Ethan to be a non-nipple guy due to his highly sensitive foot arches, which I mistakenly massaged without warning and nearly received a knee to the nose.
“Sure,” I say, as he opens his thighs a little more so that I have room to slide up without wetting my panties.
We were a good nipple-to-nipple match. And that is exactly when the thaw occurred. His arms embraced me a little closer and eventually my arm muscles gave out and I collapsed on his chest. His breathing deepened and I sensed he also wasn’t too concerned about time. He smelled like a campfire and his arms felt solid and protective. On a day like today, it’s everything I wanted.
This all leads me to the conclusion that my breasts do still provide me with immense pleasure.
I hope I get to keep them.
Twenty-Eight
Apparently I’ve been doing things all wrong when it comes to eating. Did you know that the food in cans (i.e. canned foods) are essentially transformed into a toxic slurry due to BPA (Bisphenol A) in the can lining? BPA is a hormone mimicker and should be avoided in the spirit of preventing things like breast cancer, fertility issues, and ADHD (not sure if that’s ADHD for the mother or her unborn). Apparently canned coconut milk tops the list of Superfund Foods, and I eat a lot of it due to my love of tofu curry, my erstwhile healthy breasts slowly souring.
I shared this tidbit with Jack over dinner at his favorite Italian restaurant.
“Well, I’m sure this food didn’t come out of a can,” he says, looking down at his plate of salmon portofino.
Jack and I alternate who picks the restaurant. I prefer food from exotic countries that I’ve never been to. Jack tends to pick traditional fare because he travels a lot and hates the food from other countries.
“It’s impossible to know,” I say.
“What are you going to do, never eat canned food? You’re already so thin, I don’t think you need any more dietary restrictions. You’re going to make yourself crazy.”
Does he mean make myself crazy or make him crazy?
I’m not going to press the issue with Jack, but I’m done with cans. I won’t even eat what I have in my cabinet. I won’t even donate it to the food pantry, because what if a woman eats it? As Analise says, I don’t want to be “karma-d.”
“How’s your food?” I ask, wanting to change the subject. Neurotic isn’t sexy, so I’m attempting free-spirited.
Jack stops eating and looks concerned that I’ve switched the conversation like he didn’t realize he muffled me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disregard your concerns,” he says, reaching out a hand to place over mine. I haven’t touched my dinner yet.
I’ve told Jack about my potential problem. This disclosure is likely not a recommended course of action for a client-provider relationship, but I’ve known Jack so long, and intimately, and I feel more comfortable with him in many ways then I even do with Cole. He knows what I do for a living and he still accepts me. He’s still willing to each finger foods with me.
And besides, I want to give him an out, if a scarred breast was outside the parameters of our arrangement, because it appears that a biopsy, at the very least, is on my horizon. Luckily, he told me I was being ridiculous and that he wasn’t with me for my breasts.
“I know, I shouldn’t think about it. It’s probably nothing, right?”
“Think positive thoughts. You’re so young. I’m sure it’s just a false positive,” he says and I nod quickly because I figure he’s eager to get back to his food and here I am making “the best salmon portofino in the west” get cold.
Jack doesn’t talk much when he’s eating so I go back to my neurotic thoughts. I realize that I’m young, a mere twenty-five years old, but although breast cancer survival rates have improved, as high as 95 percent according to some stats, breast cancer in young women tends to be more aggressive. I’d be better off if I were fifty and this was happening.
And if you are wondering, the way I found this was not through a self-breast exam. My doctor recommended getting my first mammogram b
ecause my grandmother got breast cancer for the first time at thirty-five and apparently it’s recommended to get a mammogram ten years earlier than the age that a family member developed breast cancer.
I swear if I get out of this, I’ll change things pronto. It’s a little difficult to pray to God when you give hand jobs for a living. And even when I enjoy what I do, it just doesn’t seem right. But I’ve managed to back myself into a corner, because I’m still living hand job to hand job financially speaking and my breasts might be taken away from me, or perhaps so mangled that I would have to drop my prices to regular, therapeutic massage rates, and that hovers above poverty level in this town.
If I get through this, I’ll make a beeline for dental hygiene school and never look back. Not even when I have a money crisis or anything. And then maybe I can forget about my old life and maybe have a new one with Cole. A true happy ending.
Twenty-Nine
Aubree has graciously agreed to shop with me. Actually it was her idea. So here we are in a downtown boutique. This place is one of Aubree’s favorites and she’s a well-seasoned shopper, and definitely not a bargain shopper, but I don’t need to bargain shop because Jack has given me money to buy some clothes for an “event.”
He won’t tell me the specifics, except that it’s a work thing and he’ll buy anything I need, including spa expenses. I think he’s partly doing this because he knows how stressed I am about my upcoming breast diagnostic exam. It’s a three-hour appointment scheduled for next week and I am determined to put it out of my mind until I get the results. And Jack is more determined than me to have me forget.
“What about this one?” Aubree says as she holds up a backless red dress.
“Um, let’s pick a dress that doesn’t have hooker written all over it.”
“You’re not a hooker,” she says. “You’re an upscale escort.”
“Big difference.”
Confessions of an Erotic Masseuse: A Memoir Page 10
