The strings that contain me, the ropes that hold me down, the chains around my arms, the irons on my legs...they control me and restrain me and prevent my escape from myself. But somehow there are moments of glorious freedom, moments that happen in the least likely circumstances, moments I can't predict, moments that can't be repeated. These moments bring impossible pleasures, fleeting seconds of bliss that give me reasons to live. They make sense of all the garbled bullshit the world can't stop churning and turning and throwing our way.
I have learned to let them happen, to accept the ordinary in the pursuit of the extraordinary twinkling microseconds that arrive when my guard is down and my expectations low. The pleasure of the moment brings the freedom of the hour, which breeds the satisfaction of the day and finally they add up to a reason to plod onward and upward to the next one.
Let's figure on average there's one massage parlor for every square block in midtown Manhattan. Some blocks have none...but others have two or three or more. Leaving out a couple of blocks all the way west and all the way east, let's call Midtown ten blocks wide and thirty blocks long.
That makes 300 massage parlors in Midtown. In each of those 300 there are hundreds of little stories. Stories of women who came to this country to do what they needed to do to support themselves and their families. Stories of the men who come to see them seeking furtive moments of satisfaction and escape from reality.
I take a walk at lunchtime and find myself on a block with two visually apparent massage parlors. This induces in me a biochemical response that I try, at first, valiantly to resist. For a full ten seconds I resist...before I cave in and make a call. A place on my list, a place I've never been to, a place nearby...
Lucky Midtown Spa it calls itself. Yeah, the spas are taking their names from the laundries and the restaurants now. New York City, 2012. Love it or leave it, too fucking bad there's no place else to go.
The sidewalk rises to meet my feet when I have a destination. The click of my heels on the spit-stained pavement is the rhythmic clank of a hammer, the up and down of a handjob, the whip on the broken back of a slave...a slave to desire that presents itself as need, desire that I tell myself to ignore but which grows in shape and size with each passing moment.
I pass the blue walls of a demolition site and it is plastered with the deranged missives of a paranoid mind...the NSA killed Kennedy...both Kennedies...all the Kennedies...hell it's a wonder they haven't killed the airport. Is it different from my narratives, from the dark and desperate words that tumble from me inexplicably and land right here like clockwork, like destiny, like some mewling muse meant me to make music in my mind and drop it...right...here...right....now.
I have reached my destination but I hesitate before entering...a business I have frequented in life outside my addiction is on the same floor of the building. For a full five seconds I hesitate before committing and heading up the rickety stairs that smell like Pine-Sol and defeat.
I am greeted by a woman from Singapore who calls herself Nina. Her face is far from stunning...hard to tell the age, in one light I think late thirties, another angle says younger...doesn't matter, does it? She's here, so am I.
Nina asks me how I heard about the place. I flash her my biggest smile and I can see her melt a little bit. The smile is my only skill, really. I can talk, I dress nice, I have enough money not to be cheap...but I ain't the only guy with nice shoes and a wallet. The smile is my tool, my device, and I deploy it carefully. "My friend told me to come," I lie. My friend's name? "John," I lie. She looks at me funny. "I bet you see a lot of guys who say their name is John" I say with a tiny little laugh. "But I bet you never saw a guy with my name." She takes the bait and I reel her in with all the wattage my lips can muster, my biggest smile. "Otis," I tell her. "My name is Otis." She leans forward and kisses me on the cheek and takes my hand to lead me down the hall. She's got a nice smile too.
60 for the hour. The place has three or four little rooms, which would be perfect except that the rooms have no doors, only curtains. Spring for doors and double your revenue, I think.
Apart from the curtains, though, the place is decent. Clean linoleum floors, a nice clean standup shower, fresh covers on the tables. The towel she gives me is clean but I note the absence of a towel steamer which could bring trouble as far as the "hot towel" business is concerned if the place gets busy.
I get undressed and I give her a little once over. Slim but not skinny. Breasts pushed up and out by a padded bra. Cute ass. Nice warm glow on her smiling face. Nothing special, no, nothing special to look at but there's something about her I like.
Nina giggles at my tattoo, leads me down the empty hall with just the towel wrapped around me so I can take a piss. The place is empty but for the two of us, just how I like it.
I lay down on the table and she starts the massage. Hard or soft? "Please, hard," I say. "Don't worry, you can't hurt me," I say. "Ok," she says, more a question than an answer.
The massage is OK, so is the small talk. She's feeling me out, making sure I'm not a cop or an asshole. An asshole is almost certainly what I am, but not to her...no, not to her.
She goes to massage my arms and I start to turn over...a little premature...she giggles. "Later" she says. I laugh at my own impatience and I smile. She smiles back. "I like you." I say. "You have a nice smile." She opens her eyes wide like I've read her mind. "Me too," she exclaims. "Like you smile."
"Nice." I say, because I'm the sort of man who says "nice" when there's really nothing else to say. It fills the space in the air the way her arms fill the space above me, the way her hands and the pleasure they bring fill the hole in my soul that keeps me coming back and back and back again. For a moment, for a second, for an hour the gaping hunger inside me subsides, the cuffs on my wrists are loosened, the pain in my chest that comes and goes makes itself scarce.
She touches me with her warm hands and when she is done she leaves me face down so she can get a hot towel. My mind wanders and I drift away, away, down the streets of Manhattan that are filled with my own ejaculations, so many spoonfuls of my soul, they make a river of come and Manhattan is Venice, a Venice of disgrace, where Gondolas piloted by tiny nude Chinese girls names Lola and Lulu and Lili take the place of taxis...
Nina is back and the lights are low. She rakes her nails down my back to my ass and touches me lightly as she leans over and kisses the back of my neck. She nibbles my ear and I moan my throaty, selfish moan...the sound that means I am going to get what I want, what I need, what I always take.
She whispers the three finest words in the English language into my ear: "Turn...over...please..."
I turn and she touches me again. She leans over and licks my chest, takes my nipple in her mouth, I am hard, yeah, I'm hard baby, what can we do about that, baby what can we do, what can we do?
She pulls her shirt and bra off. I sit up and take her nipples into my mouth. The right...the left...again, again, again...she sighs and growls. I lay back and her oily hand touches my cock. How long has it been, I think, how many days since I came? One day means hard work for her. Two days, easier...three days, fuck, when do I wait three days? It's two days.
She strokes me up and down. I slide my hand over her ass and down her legs. Then back up...inside her shorts. Faster, faster, she jacks me off...she breathes heavily...so do I. "Yeah baby" I say, and so does she. I touch her wet pussy and she lays over me, her nipples touching mine, her hot breath meeting mine...I touch her clit and she shakes a little and I come, my chest collapsing and convulsing like it did that awful night. I can feel the pressure and the pain again and I close my eyes and will them away.
And for a moment the chains are gone, the ropes have disappeared, I am floating above that table and she is right there with me and we look each other in the eyes and laugh...a slow, short careful laugh. She leans forward and kisses me on the lips. I give her my smile. She gives me hers. I take it and I keep it. Its mine, its mine, yeah fuck its mine.
I get up and dress as she cleans up quietly. She wants to ask me something, I can tell. She wants her tip? Maybe...or maybe something else. I give her 60 bucks. She smiles and thanks me but the question is still in her eyes. "You come back soon?" she asks.
"Sure, baby" I lie. "Real soon." And I kiss her forehead and I am gone.
There are thousands of these stories, and new ones are born every day as the old ones fade from memory and disappear from view. This is the story of a moment, an hour involving a man and a woman, a tiny fraction of the reality on the slowly decaying island of Manhattan on a sunny Monday afternoon.
It means nothing. And yet, for an hour, for one man and one woman, it meant everything. It meant everything because it was real and for one hour we held it in our hands and in our lungs and in our eyes and when it was over we exhaled and it was gone...
The chains that hold me are the strings that control me and I have learned to love them. The rope that gives me reason to live slowly tightens around my neck, and I long for its sweet embrace. I need its love, I need all the love it can give me, I need the darkness it supplies. I need its lust more than I need love. More than I need luck. More than love, more than love, more than love.
Lucky Midtown Spa
646-895-5456