I had just replaced the last dead plant in the office with a newly bought bamboo bush from Ikea when the knock came on the door. I glanced down at my hands, cracked my knuckles experimentally. My hands still felt so weird. I hoped I’d be able to keep it together enough to do this. I’d been out of commission for two months; who knows if I still had it?
God dammit, why did my first customer after coming back have to be Brandon? Why couldn’t it be just another 45-year old factory worker with a beer gut and no fashion sense on a one-time session as per recommendation from his doctor, comped by his health plan? Or some middle-aged housewife who had just turned 30, 40, or 50 and got two hours as a birthday from her kids? I get so many disposable clients – so many people I’m never going to see again. Why did it have to be Brandon?
Brandon, the adorable kinesiology student TAing at the university, who came in once a week, if his schedule permitted it, and got a rubdown to compliment his strict workout routine. His minor-in-economics roommate had found some way to claim it as an educational expense or something and make two thirds of it back every April. But I didn’t care. If he’d have asked me, I’d have done them for free. For two hours every Monday afternoon I’d get to be the luckiest guy in the whole fucking world. It’s one thing to see a gorgeous body sprawled out naked before you. It’s another to run your hand over every beautiful inch of it. It’s a whole new ball game to get paid to do it.
I’d considered asking him out, of course. I tended to spend the last half hour of every session fighting not to blurt it out. I made banter with all my regulars, and I listened to all of them, or at least pretended to. That all comes with the job. But Brandon and I actually engaged each other. We’d have actual conversations. Sometimes he’d tell me all about what was going on with him, sometimes he was content to ask me what was going on with me. Other times we talked about anything; music, books, the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, the latest Warcraft content patch… And in the end, that was why I kept my mouth shut. If he was straight, how would he react to finding out the guy who knows his body better than he does is gay? I didn’t want to risk the one customer I looked forward to.
I took a deep breath before I opened the door.
“Hey Julian.”
“Hey Brandon, long time no see.”
He smiled and shook my hand. He had cut his dark hair since last I saw him. I had liked it better when it was a bit longer, but still, it framed his twinkling brown eyes and impish smile very well. He had lost some weight, too. But the veins in his arms were pumping from a fresh workout, and he carried with him a faint smell of sweat, mostly – but not quite completely – veiled by Ocean Surf deodorant.
“Not that long, considering” he replied, looking down at my hand. “Wow, not even any scars! That’s absolutely phenomenal!”
I blushed under his scrutiny. “I guess you heard about the accident,” I mused, ushering him inside and closing the door.
“Yeah, actually,” he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a newspaper clipping, cut from one of the free dailies. “Amal found this and gave it to me because he knew I went to you.” He handed it to me.
The headline read: “Masseuse Breaks Both Hands in Car Wreck,” and had a black and white photo of my old Cavalier, mangled on the side of the road with a Honda Accord sticking out of its side. I scanned the article. They spelled my last name wrong and said I was 32.
“I didn’t realize I made the papers,” I chuckled.
Brandon smiled. “Oh, you hadn’t seen it? That paper’s got this weird fetish with ironic tragedy.” He started pulling his T-shirt over his head as he walked behind the screen.
“Yeah, I kinda went into rehab right away,” I answered. “Didn’t stick around long.”
“You can keep it if you want,” said Brandon over the sound of his belt clacking open.
“Thanks,” I said absently, setting it on my desk as I selected from my array of massage oils.
Brandon sighed. “Man, I can’t get over it. The way that article paints it, your hands were, like, pulverized. And two months later you’re giving massages?”
“Yeah, my physiotherapist is a miracle worker.” And a total nutcase, I didn’t add. Whisks me off to this all-expense paid experimental research lab in Rhode Island. I sign three dozen waivers and non-disclosure agreements, and stick my hands in some kind of crazy jelly soup for three hours twice a day, complemented by a cocktail of pills every evening that made me crave guacamole and pretty much kept its finger firmly planted on my sex drive’s snooze button. Still, I couldn’t argue with the results. The more hopeful of the first doctors I went to suggested that a fully-functional hand wasn’t necessarily required for my line of work. The less optimistic said I should contact my bank to let them know my signature would be becoming a lot more simplistic. But within four weeks I could type with ease. By the end of the two months I was knitting, weaving baskets, playing piano, making those radish roses… you get the picture.
“I should warn you,” I admitted as Brandon came out from behind the screen wearing nothing but a white bathrobe, “you’re the first since I’ve come back. I only reopened this morning.”
Brandon chuckled, climbing onto the table and unfastening the robe. “I’m not worried.”
I pulled the bathrobe off him, leaving him naked on the table for a few delectable moments before I put a towel across his ass.
It only took one squeeze of his shoulder to get a moan from him, and with that, I knew that I hadn’t lost a thing. My hands still got pins and needles every now and then, but I didn’t miss a beat.
“Anything in particular giving you trouble?” I asked.
“Yeah, if you could give my back and my feet some extra attention, that’d be great. It’s been a while for ‘em.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Well,” he turned to look at me with a shrug. “Two months.”
I allowed myself a modest smile as he laid back down and closed his eyes. I got to work, rubbing my hands over every crevice of his back. I dug in my wrists, fluttered my fingers about. The corners of his mouth kept pinching his cheek with a smile, occasionally gasping. Watching his face, I imagined he probably looked the same when he orgasmed. I allowed myself a brief flight of fancy, our arms around each other, his hands running down my back as mine now ran down his.
Shit, I thought to myself. I’m getting hard.
I shifted to the side, so he wouldn’t be able to see if he did happen to open his eyes. Which was good, too; the shorts I was wearing weren’t very good at hiding an erection. But even as I was getting harder, so, strangely, was his back. It tensed up, the muscles bunching up along his deltoids. Was he flexing for me?
“Can you relax your back, Bran?” I asked. As flattered as I was, I still wanted to do my job right. A moment passed and his back looked the same. “Brandon?”
As if on cue, a light snore issued from his mouth.
Strange, I thought, as I continued. I’d never had anybody get less relaxed after falling asleep on the table. He must’ve been having a strange dream.
And of course the effect only made him look all the more beautiful, which did little to help me lose the hard-on. He stirred, waking up, and I quickly shifted again to the bottom so he wouldn’t see, getting to work on his feet.
He jerked, with a laugh. “Sorry, that tickles.”
I smirked. “Hey man, some people can’t even hear me talking about touching their feet without going into a giggle fit. I don’t understand it.”
“Oh man,” Brandon gasped. “That feels awesome. It’s been way too long.”
Fucking god, tell me about it.
When we were finished, he sat up, and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, man.” He stood up and went back behind the curtain. “Maybe it’s the two-month sabbatical talking, but I think you might’ve gotten even better.”
I laughed, pouring him a glass of water. “That which doesn’t kill you, I guess.”
He came out from behind the screen, tugging on his collar absently. “Seriously, Julian, I feel like… I dunno, man, I feel awesome.” He sat down and pulled on his shoes. “Get any better and I’ll start getting withdrawal symptoms after a few days.” With some consternation, he wrenched his shoe onto his foot. “Anyway, I gotta bounce,” he said, standing.
I shook his hand. “Same time next week.”
“Wild horses couldn’t stop me, man.”
We laughed and I waved at him one last time before I closed the door after him. I looked down immediately, and sighed with relief. My erection had thankfully dissipated. I hadn’t risked a look down there while he was still here.