Lilli and I: so Therapeutic

"Oh my God, you thought I'd forget, didn't you?" I ask you incredulously as we drive along M Street. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"Not a monster, per se," you say, stroking my hair from the passenger's seat. "But when you get as old as you are, things just kind of slip your mind."

"True," I admit, "I may not remember the order of the first fifteen presidents, or my brother's name, but I've got your birthday etched permanently in there. Credit where credit is due."

"Okay, okay, you get credit," you say, idly pointing through the windshield at some idiot cutting me off while almost running over a gaggle of elderly pedestrians. Traffic in Georgetown on a cool autumn afternoon is predictably an irritating nightmare. "Now where exactly are you taking me again?"

"Well, it's all explained in the envelope," I tell you, turning off M Street and heading up a hill past the university and into the cozy private neighborhoods where prices start at No Freaking Way and go all the way up to You've Got to Be Yanking My Freaking Chain. "Check the glove compartment."

You rub your hands expectantly and lean forward, popping the glove box and reaching in to pluck out a red envelope fastened with a blue seal. You open it up and remove what looks like a concert ticket, except on closer inspection it's not quite what you think.

"Oooooooooh, day spa," you say excitedly. "The Quiet Grove, I've never heard of it....I get the whole day? Terrific!"

"Well, you won't even need the whole day, from what was explained to me," I say with an air of mystery, guiding the car off a cobblestone street and past a sleepy park where a man tosses a tattered white Frisbee to a German shepherd. "In fact, it's only a couple of hours, but it's not like any spa you could ever imagine. We're not talking about the pedicure-facial-massage-and-get-out kind of place. These people are intense. I forget the name of the treatment, but they promise you'll be more relaxed than at any point in your life when you walk out of there."

"I can't wait," you say, noting how expensively the gift certificate is crafted. A silhouette of an embracing man and woman-actually, a half-silver hologram, no less-is emblazoned in one corner, and they personalized a little message to you about how much they're looking forward to seeing you there. You note the date and look at me wide-eyed.

"Today?" you ask me. "We're going there right now?"

"Yeah," I reply. "In fact, it's coming up on the left, I think. I'll drop you off and you can call for me to pick you up when you're all done."

"Brunch was really enough, Ben, you didn't have to do all this for me," you say, obviously not meaning it, relishing in the thought of being absurdly pampered for a couple of hours.

"My pleasure," I say. "I'm going to love thinking of how relaxed they'll make you." We pull up in front of an elegant brick townhouse, the largest one on the block, possibly in the whole neighborhood. "This is 207, right?"

You look down at the gift certificate and then back up at the townhouse, finding this hard to believe. "This is it?" you say wonderingly. "Wow, ritzy, not even a sign or anything. Look at that place."

"They know their stuff," I say, and lean over and give you a kiss. "Okay, call me whenever. And remember, this is really a different kind of place. They told me everything they do, and it's all about what you want. Whatever you feel like doing, just go for it. Really."

"Hmmmmm," you say, giving me a kiss in return. "I don't think you'll have to worry about me indulging myself at a spa. They'll have to boot me out of there."

"Yeah, indulge is the key word," I say. "Take it to the limit. Happy birthday."

"Bye!" you say cheerfully, and hop out of the car with the gift certificate in your hand. You turn to wave So Long and I pull away smoothly, disappearing down the street, leaving you there to embark upon your gift.

You stand on the tastefully paved walk that winds up to the front door for a moment, then approach it. You admire the carefully manicured lawn and the rose bushes on either side of the three steps leading up to the entrance. After banging the brass door knocker a couple of times, you stand back and note the white gazebo perched under some trees around one side of the house. This is indeed a high-end place, the kind usually snatched up by senators and diplomats.

The front door opens and an attractive young woman with dirty blonde hair tied in a ponytail stands inside, smiling at you. "Hi, Lilli," she says cheerfully, and steps aside.

"Lucky guess," you say, laughing, moving into the townhouse.

"Not at all," she says. "Declan told me what you looked like."

"Oh," you say, impressed. She closes the door behind you and you absorb the atmosphere. The foyer looks like the foyer of very wealthy but very normal people. The living room off to the side is done in dark wood and deep brown carpet.

"I'm Faith," says the woman, who's dressed in white slacks and a soft blue turtleneck. "I'm your guide today."

"My guide, okay," you say, and Faith directs you with a friendly arm gesture to one of the antique chairs set beside the fireplace, which boasts a modest flame. You take a seat and she sits across from you in a high-backed thing which must have cost a fortune. For the first time you notice the paintings on the walls. Instead of the usual impressionist clichés, the spa has hung three or four prints by an artist whose focus was the forms of a man and woman intertwined. The paintings are frankly sort of erotic, and in one of them it's obviously suggested that the woman's hand is touching her lover's penis. You can't take your eyes off it for a moment.

"So today we're going to introduce you to touch immersion," Faith says, her manner not so much suggesting a professional therapist as a close friend excited to show you something new. She's not holding a clipboard or anything like that; she just folds her hands in her lap. "You'll love it, I promise. And Declan made it clear that you should be totally free to go as far as you want with it."

"So what is....touch immersion, exactly?" you ask. "Have you had it done to you?"

Faith laughs. "Oh yeah, I'm really into it, and you'll be too. I won't even explain it. It'll ruin the experience. Just assume that while you're here, you're going to feel so physically amazing that you'll never be able to forget a moment of it. I'll see to it personally, believe me."

"Sounds great," you say. "Do we start with.....what? A massage?"

"Well, you're going to get the best one ever, no doubt, but first I want you to pick who your masseur's going to be."

"It won't be you?" you ask, secretly a little disappointed. Faith's hands look soft as clouds.

"I come in a little later," she says, reaching beside her to a low marble table on which sits what looks like a scrapbook. "Here's some photos of our staff. Pick who you like to give you your rubdown."

Amused, you take the book from her and open it to the first page. Each page, you find, features two glossy black and white photographs of young men, ten men in all. Each has been photographed posing in a white T-shirt and rather tight shorts standing on the lawn in front of the house. Each one of them is well-muscled, very attractive. Your face gets a little red at the prospect of choosing one over the other. You didn't know a spa could work this way.

"Tough to choose, I know," says Faith. "They're all hot, aren't they?"

"Oh yes," you say, and the two of you share a look and you laugh. "I guess it doesn't really matter who does it, so I'll just say.....ah....Tom." You point at the very first photograph in the book as if you didn't give any thought to your choice, when in fact you find him to be the sexiest of them all, his dark hair and broad chest really turning you on. His hands on you alone will make the trip to the townhouse worthwhile, you can sense it.

"Excellent choice," Faith says knowingly, and tips you a little wink. Wow, you think, this place could really give someone the wrong impression of what they're here for. Faith picks a cell phone off the surface of the marble table, dials two digits, and holds it up to her mouth.

"Hi Tom.....it's going to be you," she says, and that's all. She turns the phone off and smiles at you again. "Okay," she says, "let's start your day. To begin with, you're going to get all the usual treats, and then we'll move into touch immersion. Get you all warmed up for the grand finale. Come this way."

You rise and follow Faith out of the living room and down a narrow hallway which passes a kitchen and a spacious dining room. She opens a door at the end of the hall and you see a softly lit staircase winding downwards. Faith heads down and you're right behind her, noting how there's absolutely nothing in the house that suggests it's anything other than a cozy weekend getaway you yourself might live in if you had the money.

The basement, if a place so nice can be called something so plain, opens up in a space twice the area of the first floor. It's been divided into several rooms with mostly glass walls. Beside you on your right is a room containing a large, still pool, and the one on the left, where Faith is leading you, features what looks like a miniature indoor lawn. Faith opens the glass door and you go inside. Low lamps cast warm yellow light around the room, revealing a lounge chair, a stereo system, some bookshelves, and a massage table. The lawn, it seems, really is a lawn, specially treated to live inside and underground. Faith steps onto the grass and you follow, never having seen such a thing before.

"Kick off your shoes and feel it on your toes," Faith says. "It's great." She actually beats you to it. Your toes curl in the soft stuff, and Faith asks you to step behind a Japanese screen and take everything off except for a white robe slung over it.

Your session at Quiet Grove begins in a more or less routine way, with Faith giving you a manicure and pedicure as you lie back in your plush robe, eyes absorbing the artificial starry night sky that appears to shift and change little by little on the ceiling above you. It's been cued by a projector set in the floor, and the effect is pretty impressive, especially when the night sky becomes lighter and lighter over the course of a half hour and the glass walls on all sides of you become filled with opaque shades of red and orange, until you're surrounded by a soothing simulation of dawn. You allow yourself to close your eyes and drift off, the feeling of Faith's hands on you perfectly relaxing. She urges you to not say a word and just enjoy the sensations. Not once does she ask you to lift a hand or a foot or change position; she moves around from time to time so you don't have to stir an inch. You're surprised to hear a mix CD of some of your favorite tunes playing low on the sound system, and Faith tells you that I made it and sent it in well before the day of your appointment. She offers you a choice of wines and someone you never see enters the room briefly, sets a glass on the armrest beside you, and disappears again. After forty-five minutes, you're pretty much in heaven. Faith gives your feet and hands a careful, oily rubdown and dries them off afterwards. At one point you decide it couldn't hurt to open your eyes a little, and you see that the glass wall looking out on the hallway is transparent again. Finally, you see another person, a woman dressed much like Faith but somewhat older, walking down the corridor beside a completely naked, and wet from head to toe, client of the spa. The woman is smiling and in no hurry. You wonder where she's being taken and at what stage of your session you can expect to be openly nude and soaked by....steam? The pool on the other side of the hallway?

"I think we're all done here," you hear Faith say eventually, and you're so limp with a feeling of simple peace that you don't think you can move right away. Faith anticipates this. "Tell you what," she says, starting to put away her pedicure instruments, "finish your wine, give yourself another couple of minutes, and meet me at the end of the hall, okay? Leave your clothes here."

"Thanks," you say, your fingers, toes, and soul feeling mighty renewed. "I'll be there in a minute."

Faith smiles and pushes the glass door open, turning left and disappearing. After another full minute of easy resting, you slowly work up the energy to rise, tighten the sash of your robe, and step out as well, leaving the empty wine glass behind.

You walk past an open steam room on the left, being entered as you pass by a lone client, a very young woman in a blue towel who closes the door behind her. It looked nice in there, tiled in deep red, lit by standing lamps. On your right, there's what appears to be a completely normal bedroom, only less cluttered with personal belongings. It seems designed as the ultimate place to take a long afternoon nap.

You turn an L-corner and Faith is standing there, waiting for you. "Ready?" she asks, and you follow her up a winding staircase back up to ground level, but then keep rising beyond it, going up one story. The staircase opens in a wide, deeply carpeted hallway. Daylight floods in through the windows on each end. You pass a large bathroom and a large den. Faith stops walking outside it.

"Okay," she says, "time for a little touch immersion. You'll be meeting Tom soon, and I'll be there in a bit too. We just require two things from you. First, let's get rid of that robe. I'll take it."

You undo the sash and open your robe, lower it off your shoulders, and remove it entirely. Standing nude in the hallway, you hand the robe to Faith, who takes a long, very noticeable look at your body.

"Very nice," she says at a volume low enough to make you think it's not just a rote professional compliment. Her eyes linger on your breasts, then finally meet your glance.

"Do I get something else to wear for my time with Tom?" you ask.

"In touch immersion," Faith says, "you'll be grateful to have nothing on. Declan told us he didn't mind another man seeing you naked, so it's all up to you."

Wow. The thought of wearing nothing for your massage with Tom is a sudden and very definite turn-on. You try not to make this too obvious when you say, "I'm game."

"Great. You just need to go into the bedroom with the violet on it and everything will be taken care of from that moment on. Close the door behind you, and relax. You'll be alone for a few minutes."

"What's the other thing that's required from me?" you ask.

"Just that you do whatever comes naturally to you," Faith tells you. "Whatever your body wants, that's what Declan wants for you, and what we ask you to indulge in. Don't feel the need to say anything. Have the most free, most memorable experience you can. It's what we're all about."

"I promise," you say, giggling a little. It all sounds a little New Age-y to you, but definitely promising.

"Okay, see you in a bit," Faith says, and starts to head back down the staircase.

"Bye," you say, and go unclothed down the hallway, liking the feel of being naked in such a grand house. You take an L-turn to the right and a few feet down there's your door, marked with a colorful violet fastened somehow to its center. You hold your breath for a second at the thought of Tom seeing you enter without a stitch of clothing on. It might be the best part of the day so far....then you turn the knob and push the door open, stepping inside.

Your first impression is that the room is really enormous, seeming twice as big as any bedroom you've ever been in. It's tough to tell for sure, though, because there is no light inside it whatsoever. There are no windows; the room is one big dark, virtually featureless enclosure, like a barren theater stage after everyone's gone home from a performance. At first you even think there's been some kind of mistake, but then after a few seconds your eyes adjust to the dim and you can make out the shape of something in the center of the room. It's a large bed, tinged with the tiniest bit of gold light. The light is coming from a small recessed bulb in the ceiling, just one.

You take a couple of steps toward the bed, and your feet fall in love instantly with the carpet, so plush you literally sink into it an inch or so. The bed becomes a little clearer in your vision. It's a big antique, fluffed up with two pillows and covered by a white comforter. It really is the only thing in the room and it seems more or less in its center, as if you're intended to be left with no choice but to lie on it. Thinking there are far worse fates in this life, you walk naked to it, put a hand out to make sure it's real, and then climb up onto it. You're on all fours on the down comforter for a moment, and then you lie down, your head on the pillows, and sigh. Perfect. Nothing like being in almost total darkness, nude, on an expensive bed, already soothed by your manicure and pedicure. You stretch out and wait for whatever comes next. You wouldn't mind just resting like this for an hour or so. When you look down at yourself, you can barely see the outlines of your breasts. As your eyes adjust further, you see that your entire body is tinged with the gold light in such a subtle way that someone entering the room might not even see you.

There's a scent in the room that you're just now noticing. It's a smell very much like honeysuckle, a wonderful summery smell. You close your eyes and turn on your stomach. It could be that there's nothing in the world better than this; you'll check sometime.

From somewhere off to your left, the perfect silence is ruffled a bit by the sound of a door opening. Yet no light enters the room. You look over and at first you see nothing. Then an image appears before you, the image of a man, stepping into the room from out of the darkness. The gold light touches his hair and his shoulders. When he comes close to the bed, you see that this is probably Tom, your hand-picked masseur. It's too dark to see much of his face, but his muscular build is obvious. He's wearing what looks like a T-shirt and a pair of very, very tight shorts. In fact, those aren't shorts at all, if the dimness isn't trying to fool you; they're boxer briefs, wrapped around the masseur's thighs and buttocks like a glove. You find yourself wishing for a window to let some light in here, but only briefly. The fact that Tom is almost entirely a silhouette lets your imagination be totally free. But what sort of place sends a masseur in boxer briefs?

Your awareness of your nudity is magnified ten times as Tom stands beside the bed, looking down at you, his face essentially invisible. He can see your naked ass, your smooth back. You close your eyes and await his touch.

You feel a firm finger rest on your lower spine. It starts there and, pressing hard against your flesh, it moves up your back, tracing a wonderful path, hitting all the right spots, and ends at your neck. It hesitates, then starts to go in the other direction, detouring across your shoulder blades, relieving subtle tension points with nothing more than a small variation of the pressure, running down your left side at one point, and then swooping softly across your left butt cheek. Finally it withdraws. You almost begin to purr with comfort. Opening you eyes, you see that Tom's form is right beside the bed, only a foot and a half away or so, his boxer briefs more visible now.

His big hands touch you fully now. They enclose your ankles and squeeze, then move up to the back of your knees and beyond. They stop just short of your ass, as if being modest, but then run right over it, hands clenching your cheeks tightly for a moment before they skate up your back, the pressure becoming firmer and firmer as they go. Tom's hands were so firm on your ass that your labia began to part as your cheeks spread slightly. It was a delicious sensation, as is the feel of his hands on your shoulders, rubbing deeply for a full minute before he lets you go.