Redeem for a Couples’ Massage

This Christmas, my husband’s daughter sent us a gift certificate for a “Deluxe Couples’ Massage” at the Nurture Nest. As we are not typically massage people, the coupon languished in a desk drawer for months before insisting on being redeemed.

My step-daughter, I’m sure, put much thought into what we would enjoy. Joe and I lead hectic lives, rarely sitting down together for more than a half-hour meal in front of the TV. The thought of placing us both in a cozy, darkened room, on adjacent cots, breathing in the same aroma-therapy laden air, while being forcibly nurtured was, doubtless, irresistible.

It took months to synchronize our schedules. When we had time, the Nurture Nest didn’t have enough hands for the “Deluxe Couples” treatment.” Finally, we pinky-swore to set aside two hours whenever they could work us in. Joe called to say they had an opening if we were okay with a male and a female masseuse. I said that was fine, as long as I had the woman and he had the man. Grumbling, he agrees.

The day of the massage I begin to get nervous. Sure I’ve had a massage before, for shoulder pain, but a recreational “massage a deux” sounds creepy.

“There will be wine,” Joe reassures, sensing my rising anxiety, “and nibbles.” Good, I think, happy to be lured with food. It’s our anniversary and I will try to be open to the experience.

There is much to do to prepare for a couples’ massage. Better than usual underwear is required - a matched set, green with lace and a silver heart in the middle, legs are shaved, neck scrubbed. How much acreage does a “Deluxe Massage” cover? Do they do legs, buttocks, belly? My stomach begins to rumble and I feel queasy, but, somewhat calmed by the prospect of a glass of wine, I join Joe in the car and we head to the Nurture Nest.

The small house, in need of fresh paint, is trimmed with a wreath of dead flowers and sprays of other parched plants. A sign on the fussily decorated porch insists you leave your cell phone behind and demands you whisper upon entering. My anxiety peaks. I’m only disconnected and my voice has been silenced. They might as well have put a patch of electric tape over my mouth.

The house’s entryway is dark, simulating the womb. A woman greets us in hushed tones, waving off two other patrons who leave with serene and silent smiles. We are ushered into the “Meditation Room” furnished with a dark leather sofa topped with feathery black pillows that make me wonder exactly what germs droplets linger there. Eerie piano music—so random that it doesn’t seem played by human hands— is piped into each room. Joe reclines on the sofa while I sit stiffly, waiting for my glass of wine.

A large but pleasant-faced woman appears and introduces herself as Tonya. She asks if we’d like something to drink— water or an alcohol-free spritzer. I glare at my husband while he says water would be fine. Then an energetic young man in stocking feet bounds in and says his name is Ricky. When asked, I follow him to an even darker, heavily curtained ‘treatment room’. Tonya has stayed with Joe, where he is filling out paperwork and, I imagine, signing over our souls to the Nurture devil.

When I’m alone in the dark room with Ricky, him fiddling with the glowing candles that sit precisely where our hearts will be on the blanket-covered massage tables, it finally hits me that he plans to do my massage.

“You will be here,” he says, “and your—- husband?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“I don’t like to assume,” he says, as if Joe and I might be lovers meeting for an adulterous tryst at the Nurture Nest.

I take this opportunity, in a voice well above a whisper, to tell Ricky that I’d requested the female masseuse. He exits gracefully, and the receptionist slides in to tell me it was her mistake and that men invariably want their massage from a woman. She’d assumed the male masseuse defaulted to me.

Joe reappears and we are left to disrobe and to plant ourselves on the cots. Since it is our anniversary, I say nothing about the miscommunication or my general discomfort. I slide off my clothes and attempt to relax under someone else’s covers.

A gentle knock signals things are about to begin. All communication is whispered as if we are lovers sleeping in the bedroom next to our parents. I hear Tony noisily squirting lubricant into her hands. I assume this from the sound it makes— I can’t see a thing as she has shoved my head into a concave pillow. God! I can’t breathe, so like a disobedient child, I turn my head to the side and am offered a plump little booster pillow instead.

Next, the sticky oil is squished onto my back and Tonya begins a series of movements that I can only assume are meant to flatten me like a pancake or some sort of manta ray—with only my eyes and blowhole remaining above the surface. She is immense, this friendly masseuse, and leans her plentiful breasts and abdomen against my side and spine for lord knows what reason. It hurts, but I am tough and assume this is the desired effect. Once she has accomplished the initial flattening, she goes around to scrunch me down on the other side.

Then, warm oil again in hands, she begins the “performance art” part of the show. I am folded, needed, my limbs bent in bizarre ways. I feel like a human slip-and-slide as her hands and forearms slither and whoosh over my body parts in rapid succession. The lubricant is doing a great job. There is no traction. Her hands linger nowhere for any length of time. I think at one point that she is guided by the music, knowing when to move on to the next muscle by the variation in the piano’s drone. At one point I nearly chuckle as the piped in piano suddenly flips to a funereal version of the Tennessee Waltz. As the waltz continues, the masseuse starts squirting lotion into her hands again. She has pummeled my shoulders, my spine and my arms. I panic and wonder, where will she pounce next? Black tape over my mouth or no, if she goes for my breasts, I’m speaking up, telling her “No way. Keep your hands to yourself!.” Instead, as the waltz ends, she moves to my feet and wiggles and pulls at each toe. I expect her to break into “this little piggy eats roast beef,” but silence prevails.

In the inexorable chain of events towards forced relaxation, time loses all meaning— but I keep worrying about our dinner reservation. If we miss it, I’ll go ballistic! And I feel like a jilted lover when I hear Ricky whispering to Joe on the next table. What secrets are they sharing? Have they met before under the glide of bergamot-scented body oil and are they making plans to meet again? Has Joe been here before with some babe that they’re discussing in hushed tones?

Tonya suddenly leaves the room, and in my euphoria I envision myself in the tub, sudsing all the goop and finger prints off of my body— but, no, seconds later she is back. A hot towel is lowered onto my back and I cry out in pain!

“That’s burning me,” I say, and add more meekly, “I’m a little thin-skinned.”

Reluctantly, Tonya waves the towel over my back, cooling it as you would a child’s hot mac and cheese, and within seconds, lowers it onto me again, where, having protested as much as is seemly, I steep for several minutes, like a puffy tea bag expanding in a cup of mercilessly hot water.

As I lie in wait, wondering where the action will be next, my masseuse zooms in low and asks how I feel. I struggle to get out “Fine” in an appropriately relaxed tone. Satisfied that she has done her duty, she pulls the covers up over my head as if I’m a supine corpse, ready for pick up.

Moments later, Joe’s ‘pleasure pal’ also leaves the room. We’re alone on our anniversary at last.

“How are you doing?” I ask, in the first audible words of our session together.

“That was great!,” he says.

We’ve been instructed to drape ourselves in white plush robes and to return to the Meditation Room. Joe checks his cell phone. We just might make it to dinner. Unified in our matching robes, we slink to the small room where the sofa and icky pillows await. A tray is brought offering strawberries, grapes, wrapped chocolates and two small glasses of non-alcoholic bubbly. You lied about the wine, I’m thinking, but keep the thought to myself. We clearly ceded all control when we crossed the threshold to the Nurture Nest.

After we down a few chocolates, Tonya and Ricky arrive with basins of sudsy water for our feet. Then Joe and I get a tootsie and heel rubdown and pat dry. They move quickly as they’ve now been tipped off about our pending reservation.

They inquire in unison, “Doesn’t that feel good?”

Joe and I murmur appropriate responses, me hoping this will hurry them on their way out the door and end this nonsense.

Before Ricky leaves us, he turns and says pointedly, “The room is all yours. No one comes in until you leave.”

We are wrapped in robes and Joe’s is draped a bit loosely over his moving parts. Our belongings await in cloth-covered baskets at our feet. I give my husband the look that has famously permeated our marriage and we both grab our clothes, tugging them over sticky shoulders and backs.

Bounding past the “no cell phone” sign on the porch, I realize my stepdaughter has succeeded after all. She’s given us a unique experience that we braved together. And that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it?