Gluteus Maximus

The stickies had me this week. Waiting for the weather to make up it's mind is more unsettling than my indecisions about going to the Block. By Thursday, I felt the absolute need to play hooky, my body was racked with pain. I dialed the phone for anyone in the polarity massage office to take my mind and body for an hour. Hello. I hung up. I can't leave now, I've got to.... I dialed again. ''Hello.'' ''Hi, it's Ruth.'' Hi Ruth, he said with his Asian accent. ''Do you have any openings?" ''Yes, at 4:30. I have a cancellation.'' "No good, I have to be on the floor by then.'' 3:00 with Jane?'' " "Good, I'll be right over.'' I must be out of my mind, but I grabbed a check, then remembered I had cash, good old cash. Going up Wickenden Street, I kept my eyes open so I wouldn't miss the alley way. Couldn't lose any time. I ran in like one of those movie stars in heat, taking my clothes off before I even got to the room. Jane was waiting for me like I had just arrived in an ambulance. ''What room? I said." ''Room One," she said. "Would you like me to start on your back or your stomach? ''What's good for you?'' I said almost undressed. Jane made the decision that I would lie on my back. She left the room to give me privacy while I put my nude and aching body between those sheets. Laying there, in that dark room at three in the afternoon, waiting to have my body massaged, not having to talk or give anything back sent my mind to other worlds, to those wonderful trips I used to take so long ago. Those stolen hours away from home in dark rooms in the afternoons of my past. Oh, how I remember feeling that I never wanted to open those doors and let the world in ever again. I just wanted to stay in those dim rooms, and let my private pleasures go on forever. Jane knocked softly on the door, like those maids who wanted to leave towels or whatever maids do. ''Is there any area you would like me to work on''? Jane asked. ''If you could raise my gluteus maximus up an inch, that might help.'' I was afraid she was going to be chatty, but she was quiet as she began warming her hands with oil. Already, my mind was ready to be launched out of this world. Her hands held my head, for a long time it seemed, and then the count-down began that took me into lift-off and back into time. Those dim rooms in cities like Montreal, Washington, New York, San Francisco.... And once in Toronto, the masseuse in the hotel was out, and this wonderful man dressed in white said with a French accent, "I'll be happy to work on you." But I chickened out. It wasn't till years later, maybe early in the 80's, that I had a massage by a man. Alone in these big cities after shopping sprees and lunches, the thought of my quiet hotel room gave me a safe feeling. Still, I sometimes shook when I shut the door of my oasis behind me. I fantasized of another human being sharing those dim rooms where justified lust would turn into rivers of sweat and an urgent and large order from room service. "Let's never leave here," we would whisper to one another. "Never, never." Jane whispered, "We'll turn over now." Fine, I said like I knew where I was. My gluteus felt raised as Jane's healing hands massaged the backs of my legs. Every vertebra of my back was given loving attention for the next thirty minutes. Jane then covered my body and made circles with her hands over the sheets, the ritual signaling the end of the massage. My spaceship prepared for landing. ''Take your time. I'll be outside when your ready''. Jane left quietly shutting the door. No astronaut ever jumped out of a capsule as fast as I did to get dressed. No pleading with Jane to stay, to go one more hour, disregarding where the next forty dollars would come from like in my needy days of long ago. No, I took my comfort back into daylight. There was no doubt about it, that massage paid off. Gravity may have had my ass down for a while, but it is here, in the light, that I choose to return to, like the infant who knows when it's time to leave the womb. It's the light that sustains me over all the pleasures of the dim rooms of my past. Thank you, Jane, for my slap on the ass.

Copyright; Ruth Mahoney 21-Sep-89