For people who travel for work, the body ages first. Jiang Wan was thirty-two, the ache in her neck and shoulders welded into the bone; heat pads, cupping, yoga, she had tried them all. Late one night, scrolling on her phone, she came across a house-call massage listing and placed the order without a second thought.
The masseur was surnamed Gu; he washed his hands first thing in the door, and did not talk much. He had her lie face down on a mat laid out in the living room, pressed through a thin towel, and at the first stroke she gasped in pain. "Bear with it." His knuckle held steady on the knot at the back of her neck. "This shoulder, from carrying everything alone for years, no?"
One sentence, and her eyes went hot. His hands kept their measure, strong but never flippant, loosening from her cervical spine down to her shoulder blade. For forty minutes she drifted half asleep, half awake; those hands on her back carried a steadiness of being taken seriously that she had not tasted in a long time. Leaving, he left a card. "Do not tough out a stiff neck, call me." The door closed. She touched her loosened shoulder, and then the card, still warm from him.