Wednesday, March 27

Did I just pay someone to hit me? The horror of a rough massage | Brigid Delaney


It is a universally recognized truth that an author submitting a manuscript must be in need of a good physical therapist.

After more than two years working on a book on Stoicism, my body had calcified around my laptop. My joints were always stiff and sore, sleep was unrefreshing, and one shoulder had moved inches toward my ear, as if I were perpetually holding a telephone receiver in the crook of my neck.

When I finally handed in my book, I decided to start healing myself and give myself a massage.

But in Melbourne CBD on a hot Sunday, it seemed like all my old hangouts had closed, perhaps victims of long lockdowns.

After an hour of limping around town, I came across a semi-deserted mall (a tailor, a nail bar, a cheap tax place, all closed or abandoned). In the background was a small red light, a faded image of a bare back, and a brochure taped to the window. Could this be the place to fix myself?

The door was open, so I went in and activated a low energy doorbell. Inside it looked like a disused warehouse. All the lights were off. There was a black vinyl sofa that had been cut into pieces (spewing yellow foam) and a shelf of bottled water on the floor. But otherwise it seemed abandoned.

Then, from the gloom at the back of the store, a woman I would later know as Deane came out to greet me. Deane would have been in her 50s in orange lipstick, purple Crocs, and a blue apron with a wide pocket, like the women in candy stores used to carry things like coins, raffle tickets, pens, and a wrench.

I explained my problem to Deane, “middle back problems, wrong chair, small computer, two and a half years!” and bent in half, walking in circles for a while, a pantomime grin on my face.

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Deane said nothing, but pulled a large knife from her apron. Woof! I saw the flash of the blade as he suddenly advanced on me, before bending at the waist, plunging the knife into the water paddle and furiously stabbing at the plastic.

Handing me a hot water bottle from the platform, he ordered, “Drink this!” “But it’s too hot,” I didn’t say. I drank the unrefreshing drink and enjoyed it the way someone dying of thirst would enjoy drinking seawater.

Deane promised to fix my back as he led me to a small partition in the back of the store.

There were signs on the walls saying that the business did not offer sexual services, which was fair enough, but also another sign that said if any of the staff offered sexual services or asked for money for sex, customers should contact the owner of the business about. number and report them. Hey?

There wasn’t even a ceiling fan to stir up the hot air, and as I lay on the plastic table that was covered with sheeting used to protect furniture, I worried that my sweat would create a powerful adhesive and cause skin loss. when i let go. . I was also wondering about the circumstances surrounding the cartel. What had happened?

Ten minutes passed. I felt vulnerable under the tiny towel. Then a door opened. I recognized Deane from the pair of Crocs on him. Then …

WHACK – I screamed involuntarily. It was as if Deane had hit me with a club. HIT. “Argh…!” HIT.

Deane must have had an implement, no human hand could be that strong. He hit me again, even harder this time, and I protested. “That hurts! It’s sore there.” Deane agreed. “Yeah, it hurts real bad there,” before hitting me again with the club.

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Suddenly the Crocs disappeared. I heard a groan and felt the table bend. What? Deane was there with me. Why? Oh no! No! Deane’s knees were on either side of me so he could use the full weight of his body to press into my upper back. Argh! Deane was giving it his all, hitting me in the middle of the back, making me tender as a steak. I was also making strange growls. I was worried that my nose might break, pressing it so hard against the table. HIT! HIT! I could see what Deane was struggling for: the crack in his mid-back as his errant vertebrae took shape.

The crack never came and finally Deane dismounted. Before I had time to recover, Deane had thrown a bucket of oil at me. There was so much oil that he had trouble gripping the stick, so for a moment it felt like a normal (albeit extremely oily) massage. That is, until he started working on my head. By this stage I had turned around, but Deane had put some sort of hood over my eyes, so I couldn’t see what was going on. But I felt as if Deane was ripping my scalp off with some extremely powerful, possibly motorized, implement.

This didn’t feel like the touch of a normal human hand, it was the touch of a CLAW.

I tried to remember if Deane had long claw-like nails (I concluded that he didn’t, since he would have opened the water palette with his fingers).

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The scratching continued and I wondered how is this helping my back? I was also wondering if my scalp was bleeding. I felt a trickle of something on my forehead, but could it have been sweat or… the oil?

Deane did other confusing things: he washed my feet with detergent, he pulled my hair, he put his hands on my chest like he was giving me CPR. But the strangest thing was when he attacked the upper lobes of my ears, a place no one had paid much attention to before, and he proceeded to energetically knead and pull at the cartilage, as if he wanted to bone my ears. My aching back asked: What about me?

Losing only a small amount of skin as I peeled off the plastic sheets, I limped out of the room, feeling beaten and raw. Deane was nowhere to be seen. “Thank you and goodbye!” I called the store in the dark. It sounded like a sob.

Throughout the night, every part of my body hit by Deane’s hammer took turns throbbing with pain. The next day he was still limping, but like someone with broken ribs and a bruised back. It was impossible to say whether the imposition of the second injury had remedied the original complaint.


www.theguardian.com

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