Tonight, my friend from high school threw a barbecue. I saw some people I hadn’t seen in years, others that I had seen last week. It was a nice, cool evening and we sat around outside, shooting the breeze and sipping beers until the bugs started to bite.

At one point, I was talking to a guy who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. He said he had just come from work. I asked what he did and he responded that he was now a massage therapist. When I tried to strike up conversation about the life of a masseuse, he corrected me that this was usually the term, at least within the business, for someone who gave happy endings instead of loosened up muscles. Oops.

Feeling like it would be a nice gesture, I decided to make an appointment with him. I tend to store all my stress between my shoulder-blades and, while I’m pretty relaxed right now, I know it’s still tighter in there than it should be. So, I made the appointment and he, out of nowhere, whips out the lotion and starts doing something to my left leg. For the next ten minutes, I hobbled around as one leg was significantly “looser” than the other. Everyone around us was pretty amused.

Later on, I asked him what I was supposed to wear, to which he responded, “um, clothing you’d be comfortable taking off?" 

"I’m going to be naked?” I asked in an awkward lull in other conversations. Suddenly, people were looking at me. I felt myself blush.

“Um,” he was clearly getting just as uncomfortable, “I mean, that’s usually how it goes.”

I nodded and chuckled nervously. I’d known this guy since I was ten and the whole concept was somewhere between way too awkward and incredibly hilarious to me. I realized that I would be comfortable with a complete stranger than someone who I knew, even though I was sure he wouldn’t try anything. However, I managed to respond, “I mean, just as long as you don’t touch me anywhere.”

“That’s kind of going to be hard,” he said. I cocked a brow and he quickly added, “because you’re kind of paying me to touch you, I mean.”

This should be interesting.