In the house-call massage business, the late-night orders are the ones that test you most. At midnight I picked up an order, the address a downtown apartment, the note just eight words: insomnia, male therapist only. I hesitated for two seconds — late at night, a woman living alone, a male therapist specifically requested; every colleague in the trade knows the delicate undertone of an order like that. But I took it anyway. I told myself: I am going there to work.
The one who opened the door was a woman in her early thirties, bare-faced, faint shadows under her eyes, dressed in loose loungewear — clearly someone who had not slept well in a long time. “Come in,” she said, her voice very soft, “I have set things up in the living room.” The place was very clean, and very empty, empty in a way that felt lifeless. All at once I understood: her insomnia was probably not just a matter of the body.
“Just lie on your front.” I washed my hands and pressed onto the back of her neck through a thin towel. Her whole body was rigid, rigid like a slab of iron welded shut. “Relax,” I said, the heel of my palm grinding open the hard knots at the base of her neck bit by bit, “these shoulders of yours have been braced too long.” She said nothing, but I could feel that, as that knot slowly loosened, her breathing was little by little growing longer, growing deeper. Halfway through, I heard the faintest sound — she was crying, very quietly, muffled into the towel.
I did not stop, and I did not call it out; I only softened my touch further. What some clients want is not a massage, but for someone, at last, to be willing to properly touch a body they have kept braced far too long. When that hour ended, she sat up, her eyes red, yet looking as though something had been set down. “Could I … add another hour?” she asked. “I do not want to be alone.” I looked at her, and the technique I had already half packed away, I spread out once more.