//DISCLAIMER: This story (including its characters) is 100% fictional.
I stood outside the door nervously. Rain pittered on my umbrella in a cyclic rhythm, as if trying to calm my nerves. On the road behind me, lines of cars crawled slowly through red lights, honking and squealing their tires every so often. The door in front of me was a small, black wooden door embedded into brick wall and sandwiched between two stores in the middle of downtown. Looking up, I saw a small balcony with iron railings and a glimmer of lights in the apartment. It looked modern, nice. I sighed.
About two weeks ago, I had mentioned to a colleague of mine that I was experiencing tightness in my neck and shoulders, and general soreness all over my body. I had recently started regularly training for long-distance running, with the hopes of competing in a marathon the following year, and while I enjoyed the high I got while I was jogging through beautiful parts of the woods and around lakes, it often left me spent and unbelievably stiff the next day.
"I know just the thing for you," my colleague, Kim, had said when I explained my situation to her. She wrote down a name and number of a piece of paper she pulled out of the recycling by her desk and slid it over to me. "Just call him. He's a masseuse, and his hands do absolute wonders."
I had never had a professional massage before, always being more on the ticklish side of things. In fact, I rarely accepted massages from anyone. I had had past relationships with partners who would always offer, and I would let them maybe once or twice, but mostly I declined because I simply felt strange about having someone else touch my body in such an intimate way. This was odd, considering I had no problem with sex or cuddling or kissing, but massages posed a certain threat it seemed to my mind more than anything else.
However, with my sheer determination to run a marathon, I knew I couldn't slack off in my training and my body was paying the price having not done much serious exercise for the majority of its life. I came to the decision that I had to do something if I wanted to keep running as frequently as I did, so I phoned the number one day when I got back from work.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Ben? My name is Olivia, and I just got your number from a friend at work."
"Oh, Olivia, hey! Yeah, Kim's told me about you. What can I do for you?"
I briefly wondered what Kim had discussed about me with this Ben, and for a minute, I felt slightly
uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, she just mentioned that you were a masseuse and I recently started running which seems to have made my muscles tense up, so I was just wondering your rates?" I cringed at how awkward I always sounded on the phone.
"Of course. I charge $100 an hour for a full-body massage, but because you're Kim's friend I can get you in for $50."
Any unease I had previously felt about Kim discussing me with this guy vanished, and was immediately replaced with gratitude. "Really? That'd be amazing."
Ben laughed, and I couldn't help but note how sexy it sounded. "Yeah, no problem. What's your availability like?"
"I'm booked up for this week, and most of next. Maybe the Friday after that?"
"The 21st?"
"Yeah, the 21st would work for me."
"Consider yourself booked."
I took a deep breath. "Is there anything I should know about.. um.. massages, I guess, in general? I've just never had a professional massage before."
"No worries. I'll give you the basic run-down. I work out of a makeshift studio in my apartment, which is downtown. All the oils and lotions I use are natural, organic, and most of them are vegan. I worked at a massage clinic for around two years before deciding to switch to more freelance work, since I wanted more freedom with my schedule to pursue other interests. Hmm, oh, when you show up at the door, just ring the doorbell and I'll come right down. Maybe you already know this, but sometimes newcomers don't realize that full-body massages are often done nude. If you feel uncomfortable, you can always keep your clothes on, however, I don't recommend this as you won't get nearly as much out of the massage. You can also request to be covered with a towel, if that helps."
I swallowed. I knew that I would probably have to be naked for the massage, and this blunt confirmation of that fact triggered slight anxiety. "Right," I said. "Cool. Cool. Alright, well, I'll see you on Friday then."
"Alright, Olivia. Well, it was nice talking to you. Let me know if you have any more questions."
"Thanks, I will. Bye." I ended the call.
And now, standing outside of Ben's apartment in the drizzling rain, a shiver ran through me as I realized I would have to strip naked in front of a man I had only ever talked to once. Fear coursed through my veins, but I also detected something else, faint but there. As scary as it was, I was also the tiniest bit excited to try something so out of my comfort zone.
I rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later, Ben opened the door. He was 5'8 or so, with curly dark brown hair and warm brown eyes, with light freckles splashed across his nose. Athletically built, but still slim and not bulky.
"Hi, welcome," he said, motioning for me to come inside and follow him up the stairs. "It's raining pretty hard out there, hey?"
"Eh, it's not too bad," I replied. "I feel like if you live in this city, you just have to get used to it."
He smiled as he turned the key in the door to his apartment. "Fair enough." He opened the door and I peered in from behind him.
It was a small enough place, but very open. He had set up a bamboo divider in the middle of the room, sectioning off an area where he placed the massage table and a tray table with various oils and lotions. The apartment itself was filled with light, even on such an overcast day, as there were three nearly floor to ceiling windows overlooking the street below. The bamboo divider sat between the windows and the massage table, blocking any view from the street.
