April
2000 ac/dc by Todd Levin |
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The Boy
with Perpetual Nervousness
Relaxing is not what I do best. In fact, on my personal list of things
I do best relaxing ranks embarrassingly low, just below x-ray vision and
menstruation. Spiritual tautness is a quality that actively drips from
every rigid pore in my body. I am not much for napping. Nature sounds
make me paranoid. And stimulants like caffeine, gummie bears, cocaine,
and adrenachrome have no discernible effect on my behavior. I generally
don't even dabble with relaxation, preferring to hop about and fidget
with things like an autistic child until I am restrained by a law enforcement
officer or medical professional. It's just my way and, I think, part of
my charm. (My remaining charm resides in the varsity jacket I wear with
the "Kiss My Millionaire Ass" patch on the back.) So, with all of this
evidence under review, what was I doing on a massage table?
It seemed like a good idea. Thanks to computers, office chairs, and
overall poor posture, the muscles in my back and shoulders were beginning
to resemble a cluster of tightly clenched fists just beneath the surface
of my skin. Several friends had suggested massage as a way of temporarily
correcting my wracked physique, but to me the idea of having my body
attended in that fashion drifted somewhere between needlessly self-indulgent
dilettante and prostitute's john. I had gone 28 years without paying
someone to rub me down (Unless you count Ray, the delightful neighborhood
transient whose massage services I compensated with my world-famous
orange stick treatment.), and it seemed silly to start now. Then, while
planning a vacation to the west coast, I decided to pad my trip with
a bit of sissy pampering and in no time at all I was hiding beneath
a fresh towel, waiting for my massage. Unfortunately, this was on the
flight over. However, once airport security forced me into some clothes
and put me on the next flight, I repeated the whole towel ritual on
a massage table at the Napa Valley Health Spa and squirmed nervously,
anticipating the arrival of my masseuse and/or spa security.
In a switch-and-bait of unprecedented grandeur, my masseuse turned
out to be a masseur named Eric, forcing me to immediately discard about
300 million brain cells I had earmarked to hold vast amounts of inappropriate
erotic fantasy material involving my masseuse, my skin, and a sold out
audience at the Carrier Dome. Eric was nice enough, though, and his
physique was certainly not intimidating or alluring. He was tall, boyish,
and doughy, the kind of person who might take out a personal ad like
this:
I'M GREAT WITH MY HANDS! I didn't tell Eric that I was nervous because I didn't want him to
interpret this as A) homophobia or B) homosexual attraction. Instead,
I decided the best course of action would be to lie beneath the fresh
towel and try as hard as possible to forget that I was naked and about
to be slowly molested by a total stranger who lingers in the 'self-help'
section of Barnes & Noble. As if trying to send out a distress signal
of its own, my body decided to twist itself into tighter and tighter
knots as Eric walked me through the fundamentals of massage therapy.
I told him this was my first massage and we shared something very Thelma
and Louise for just a single moment. But the camaraderie ended right
there, rather abruptly.
I lay on my back while Eric positioned himself directly behind my
head, in a place I could not see him. As he slipped his hands around
my neck his voice, which up until now had a calming but conversational
tone, suddenly became 100% Dr. Love. It was vanilla fudge trickling
warm sex into my ears, a vocal trick he should have probably reserved
for the ladies. Nonetheless it had a challenging effect on me, extra-powered
by the slightly heated oil he was rubbing into my tight, stressed muscles.
This was, in a word, confusing. And the situation was aggravated further
by the fact that he kept offering me raw oysters and cognac. So, for
the next 50 minutes, while I should have been submitting to pure relaxation,
I chose to spend my time concentrating as hard as possible on not getting
an erection.
My brain was forced to play tricks on my body to desensitize me to
Eric's vocal and physical caresses. Naturally, my mind's uncanny ability
to mutate even the most banal or potentially repellent scenarios into
something erotically charged made this an exhausting task. Here is a
sequenced list of images I fired off in my brain as Eric worked his
way up and down me like a Bangkok hooker. (Comments marked with a "*"
indicate accidental erection-producing images, usually followed by extra-powerful
emergency erection-destroying imagery.)
ballpoint pen; ballpoint pen writing on unlined white paper, scratching
slightly into its surface; ballpoint pen exploding, dribbling thick,
blue ink from its casing*, axe chopping off fingers all at once; axe
chopping off toes; axe chopping up my grandmother; grandmother asking
me 'why, why, why?' as I hold the axe; grandmother, unaxed, on bed,
asking me for a hug; naked grandmother, arms outstretched*; me punching
grandmother in stomach repeatedly; me punching Eric in the stomach and
face repeatedly; Eric punching me back, harder*; A crippled child's
shoe on my left foot; my bare left foot dipping itself into a shallow
pool of acid, as I watch the flesh and bone of my foot being slowly
eaten away by the quick effect of the acid (here I have about 5 minutes
of pure relaxation); (until Eric starts working over the inside of my
thighs with a slightly melted creamsicle Ð here I ask if this is standard
procedure, at which point Eric switches out the new age 'Sylvan Echoes'
cassette and pops in Lou Rawls' Greatest Hits. Eric makes the 'shh'
sign by placing his finger to his lips and I sink back into extreme
discomfort)
When the massage was finally over I felt twice as tense as I did when
I disrobed 50 minutes earlier. My mind was still spinning from fending
off platoon after platoon of sexual invaders. After waiting 28 years
for a professional massage, I finished up feeling anything but relaxed.
I didn't have the heart to explain all of this to my personal massage
therapist. (Who had casually slipped back into normal voice mode as
he explained the need to consume plenty of water as a means of avoiding
light-headedness.) So instead, I pretended it was great, lied and assured
him I was perfectly relaxed. I thanked Eric, shook his hand, hopped
off the table, and fell into a crumpled heap on the floor. "Good." Eric
noted. "Perfectly relaxed." And we were married that very day.
back to the junk drawer
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