Slipped Through My Fingers - Anne Wright

Of all the clients I’ve had, I most looked forward to working on Howard’s body. I am a masseuse. How I became a masseuse is a story which I will tell you some other time. I find it hard to say exactly why I love Howard’s body because if you saw him walking down the street, the first thing you would notice about him is that he has an ungainly limp, like someone who is walking on the side of the earth, instead of on top. He uses a dark wooden cane, carved from some jungley wood he found in South America, with swirly patterns along its length. He told me that his leg was bitten by an alligator but I think it was something else, something ordinary like a motorcycle crash.

He comes to my office in a black sweatshirt and long fleece pants because the weather this summer has been foggier than ever. I light a candle and turn on the flute music, a low floating background sound that makes the time seep away. I can close my eyes and with that music, move my hands in a dance along his soft flesh. I let Howard into the room and he will disrobe and lie face down under the flannel sheet.

When he is ready I enter the room and cover his torso with the warmth of another blanket so his muscles will relax. I know Howard so well that I don’t even have to ask him if he wants the warmth, because he is cold from the inside out.

Starting with his good leg, I rub the oil with the grain of his skin. I bet you didn’t know that skin has a grain and a nap. My fingers sweep softly along his curled calf, then dig into the places that need release. That poor leg, it has to work hard to carry his body and make up for the crippled limb. I talk to the good leg with my fingers, slipping the music into the muscles and hoping the high notes of the flute will bring it energy. My hands move up the good leg along his hamstrings and knead the hardened muscle meat, loving this overworked piece of his body.

Then I move to the sad leg, the one that almost makes my fingers cry because it is so thin and the muscle is mostly gone, chewed away by disuse and the surgeon’s knives. The scar is thick and ropy like a muscle lying along the bone of his calf. My fingers trace along the leg and want to be kind, to heal, to bring a firm lively step back to his leg. And here, the flute music slows to a mournful sad sound, like the echoes from inside a fallen tree trunk. I cover the leg with the flannel sheet and move to his shoulders.