I was put more at ease when he moved to my shoulders, safely away from the more vulnerable territories to the south.
It didn’t, and he continued chatting as he kneaded his way up my thighs, his fingers dancing dangerously close to the unauthorized no man’s land. I mumbled responses-I’m a writer and a comedian, usually I didn’t know I had abductors-hoping my terseness would put a damper on his curiosity. “What do you do for a living?” “Do you stretch after you exercise?” “Do you know how tight your abductors are?” I did my best to ignore him, but the questions kept coming.
Hans, however, was unnaturally talkative for a man whose livelihood involved rubbing naked flesh. For me, it’s become the equivalent of air travel or medical exams: I rely on it, but I tend to want the procedure to be over relatively quickly, and I can’t be bothered with idle conversation. An estimated 35 million Americans spend roughly $3 billion annually on visits to massage practitioners, totaling 75 million visits each year. Massage therapy, once an indulgence of the country-club set, has become the Starbucks of the bodywork world.
