I like to feel beat up while getting a massage. I want knuckles dug underneath my shoulder blades and my hamstrings to be stretched out by a heavy forearm that feels like a rolling pin to the back of my thigh. I like the needling feeling of each isolated vertebra being fingered and the sense of relief when my body knows the masseuse is done working on a specific region. I want my blood shot left eye ball to pop out of my face as they gather and squeeze the skin of my neck. l want to barely come out alive. Similarly, I want my thoughts to run out of steam. I want any incessant trampling ideas to surrender to the suspended period of time where I give myself over.
Good or bad, I always feel inspired afterwards and a have a renewed love for my limbs. Plus, its one of the only places where my visual imagination comes to life. Peering into the darkness of the sanitary paper they put over the head rest, I see vividly memories and faces, where as in every day, I have a harder time “visualizing” mentally. It has the effect of a sensory deprivation tank on my brain, but with someone rubbing out your bullshit and stimulating memories that only your body remembers. However, below are examples of times when my mind was not erased.
Beverly Hills 2006
I didn’t always like hands on me. My first massage was by an older woman at an all women’s spa when I was 16. I was on a cot in what felt like a restroom stall and was completely naked. The masseuse was only wearing underpants and flip flops. The notion of nudity seemed like a crazy California ritual that I was not yet comfortable with, but pretended. Firstly, she put a cold, creamy mask on my face that immediately smelled like strawberry Yoplait yogurt. I couldn’t see anything and had never felt so vulnerable with a woman in a stall before. She treated my body coarsely, but precisely, like I was a piece of the same meat she had seen 10000 times that day. I was too nervous to enjoy any part of the process.
Once she mopped the mask off my face, I peered my eye open and saw a Yoplait yogurt container in a little trash can next to me. I had never heard Yoplait was good for your face, but it couldn’t be bad either. During the massage, she squeezed my calf in such a way that I felt I was about to orgasm. I yelped and then coughed and she moved on. Years later I was at a wedding, talking to folks I didn’t know with quiche appetizers in my hands. A man was telling me about how he once had a massage where the masseuse touched his calf and he…. I finished his sentence. “You felt like you were orgasming!” We both pondered this shared reality and then I never saw him again. Could have been beamed up afterwards, who knows. Apparently “backgasms” are somewhat common, but “calfgasms” are a horse of a different color. I wish the man’s calves well.
Baton Rouge 2014
I was in Baton Rouge, acting in a short film where I played a shy murderer who worked at the local antique store and who would kill people with various ornate scissors and knives from the glass case at the stores register. We had a long week of night shoots and so the director treated me with a morning massage. A man knocked on my door around 9 am. I was groggy and felt unprepared for who greeted me. He was a stout, red haired man with a handlebar mustache, suspenders and a bow tie. He felt Santa Clause adjacent, but not as smiley. He had a little stereo with him that he instantly set down and played loud, classical music out of. I told him I would rather have no music. He turned it off abruptly like I had punished him. It was a strange combination of energy, he seemed eager to please me and also, very skeptical of my intentions. I laid face down on the bed with no way of breathing comfortably. The man talked with a friendly Southern accent, but seemed more flustered than I expected. There was palpable tension and I wondered if the music was intregral to his process, going without it might have fucked everything up.
He began giving me the lightest massage ever recorded by the universe, as though bashfully tracing his finger tips over a naked back for the first time in his life. He asked me over and over if the pressure was ok. I would say “you can go harder”. Yet the pressure would remain the same level of soft, frolicking whimsy. Was he scared? Was I still asleep?
About 30 minutes into the massage, I felt a spray of warm liquid on my back. It was a surprise that made me hot behind my ears and my adrenaline rush. He let out a casual sigh and then wiped me with a towel. I convinced myself it was not the texture of semen. He asked me if the room temperature was ok for me. I said “yep” now resentful of… possible semen spray? When I turned over, so the man could faintly graze my clavicles, I peaked one eye open and saw what I can only describe as a poor soul being boiled alive! I had no idea he was so hot! Sweat was dripping from his eye brows and his shirt was drenched. The hose down had been from his sweat! He was the color of a lobster and it made sense that he wanted the temperature of the room adjusted. The air felt too thick for me to suggest anything helpful. He finished the massage quietly and I never saw him again. I wish him well. The thermostat was at 74, in his defense, and thats pretty damn, warm.
Chelsea 2016
I was in New York City, hanging with a friend who had been cheated on, consoling her about how reptilian men are. I was involved in a sext heavy relationship at this time so between consoling conversations I was busy being gratuitous inside my phone. There was an air of gluttonous sexuality that spikes in New York in May and then again in August. I was getting a massage downtown at a place that is $30 for an hour and always had really great experiences, consistently PG rated. This time was different. This was simply an ass massage that lept to new heights of horny. My shoulders and back were barely inspected and I roamed, spaced out, around Chelsea afterwards asking people when The Thanksgivings Day Parade was. I never saw that masseuse again either, but we made brief eye contact afterwards with a deer in headlights look, not an ounce of sex ooze. Just plain old blank paper eye contact. I wish him well.
Despite, the experiences above, I believe in massages and I think people should touch people. My muscles feel better. I feel grounded after someone rings out my spine and hips. Silent information being passed back and forth gives your mind a break and a chance to trust your body. My friend was saying recently how she doesn’t wanna kiss anyone right now because theres too much trauma in the air. Similarly a massage stays with you, the energy lingers and its important that you feel nurtured, and safe and no one is profusely sweating out their mustache.