With what felt like squadrons of butterflies performing aerobatics in my stomach I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Getting the summons to enter, I walked in and looked at the woman lying in front of me. Her head was turned away so all I could see was her blonde hair and below it her naked back curving down to the rise of her hips which were covered in a pristine white towel that extended a few inches down her thighs.
I briefly wondered what, if anything, she was wearing beneath the towel and glanced at the chair. A lilac coloured bra was dangling from the back and a scrap of matching lace sat on top of he other clothes. It seemed she was naked. I tried to take another discreet deep breath.
This was an important moment; the start of my new life as a professional massage therapist and this was my first proper client. Nor was this one of the anonymous 'models' we had worked on during training at the local college. I knew this woman; she was Vicky, a neighbour taking advantage of a cheap introductory offer I had delivered in the area. She was also the wife of my friend Tom. And now she was lying here almost naked and, instead of being able to hear the other students in adjoining cubicles at the college I was alone with her in the converted back bedroom of my home. It felt very strange.
She was also the first woman I had really been alone with for eighteen months. That's how long it was since my wife, Marie, had died after a mercifully short illness, an event that had left me shattered and caused me to rethink my own life. Our various insurance policies had paid off the mortgage and left a bit of a nest egg. I could either carry on with my job, which had once been exciting but which, like so many others, had degenerated into staring into a computer all day or I could take off in a new direction. So I had taken redundancy and retrained as a masseur. Now I was going to find out if it really was for me. Time for another deep breath.
I crossed to where the oil was warming and began to spread it over Vicky's back. Thankfully the familiar motions became to calm the butterflies and we both relaxed into the massage with Vicky giving the occasional appreciative sigh or moan as I teased the knots from her shoulders and neck. As my hands pushed up her spine and then swept down her ribs I was careful to keep my fingers away from her breasts. I was starting to enjoy the rhythm and the contact.
I moved down to her legs and rearranged the drape to reveal her thigh and buttock but to ensure everything else was covered. "What on earth are you doing?" she asked.
I explained this was the ethically correct way to do it and she simply said: "Good grief" before sinking her head back into the doughnut in the massage table. I worked on her calves and thighs with long, sweeping strokes letting myself get lost in the rhythm but being careful to keep everything within the rules and regulations I had had hammered into me at college. I did not want to get struck off on my first massage and while I knew Vicky reasonably well it had always been as a friend of Marie or with Tom.
With one side done I began rearranging the towel to cover the area I'd finished working on and reveal the other. Vicky looked up and asked: "Is all this bloody origami really necessary? It's so distracting."
Again I explained it was normal practice to preserve her modesty. "My modesty?" she replied. "I'm well past worrying about that at my age. I am what I am and if people don't like it they can look the other way. Tom and I go to nudist beaches on holiday so it wouldn't be the first time I've been on display and I'm sure you must have seen naked women before." With that she reached down and picked up the towel before tossing it onto the chair with her clothes.
"Er..well, Vicky, I am supposed to...." I began but she cut me off.
"Roger, we're alone in the house, aren't we? Unless you think the massage police are going to kick the door down and come running up stairs we're two grown-ups who can organise a simple massage exactly as we want. Can't we? I prefer not to have all this faffing about with towels interrupting my massage and unless you find me so revolting that you can't cope I'd like it this way please," she said. "OK?"