Compulsive massage (Part 1)

I’ve written a fair amount about my favorite fantasy and my fondest sexual memory (which together provide all sorts of information as to what Jack Morin, Ph.D. (that’s apparently his name), the author of The Erotic Mind, calls my “core erotic theme.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a little puzzle: if my fantasies and memories featured oral sex, why was my “go-to” means of acting out sexually the “happy ending” massage? I had a highly ritualized relationship to those massages, and I thought I might explore, here, just how that ritual went, in hopes of uncovering a bit of wisdom. Because for all of the intensity of my “core erotic theme” (which seems to feature some combination of women both blessing, facilitating, and indulging in my fantasies regarding oral sex without ever actually wanting to fuck), the number of experiences I had that were permutations of that theme pales in comparison to the number of trips to dark massage parlors I made.

So what did I get out of all those trips to massage parlors?

In the spirit of continuing exploration of my sexual landscape, what follows is a granular deconstruction of my experience of a typical “massage.”

First, I would find myself craving…. Sometimes, this was a craving for a handjob by a particular woman; other times, for a handjob from a fresh, new woman. But always, it would progress like a wave – a wave that swelled, slowly, occasionally appearing avoidable, but ultimately reaching a state of inevitability. I would be resisting all along. I would think, “I don’t want to do this any more,” “I don’t want to spend the money,” “I don’t want to take the time away from my family,” “I don’t want to take the time away from my work,” or “I’m not so sexually pathetic that I need to pay a woman to jerk me off for 30, 45, or 60 minutes.” And then, sometimes before the point of inevitability, and sometimes after, I would call around – to the roster of massage parlors that I kept in my phone – five or six or seven at the peak, each of which had at least one, and sometimes as many as five or six (and in one, two or three locations each) – women working at any one time. I would collect a list of who was available at the time preferable to me (typically RIGHT NOW). And I would then go to a memo I kept in my Outlook/Blackberry (this was back when people had Blackberries), and see which of the women I had seen before. I had, over time, a variously complex taxonomic system for tracking the women I’d seen. Sometimes, it was as simple as y/n (where “y” = “yes, I like” and “n” meant “no”). Later, I added “*” to those “y”s that I really liked. And there were other notations that I can’t remember now – notations for those who seemed genuinely to get off with me, for example.

And of course, some women had schedules – Chanel might have worked Mondays and Thursdays; Sarah, Tuesday evenings. I had it all in my Blackberry (and much of it, but not all, because I’m not a fucking genius) in my head.

So I’d call around hoping to confirm, perhaps, that a woman I particularly liked was working, available. Or to learn whether women I liked were working. The truth is, I rarely had a hankering for “new,” though “new” was always preferable to someone I knew but wasn’t crazy about.

And as I called, I’d leave each “phone girl” – the industry term for the woman who answers the phone, who in most places was different than the woman giving the “massage” – with the sign-off, “OK, well, I’ll call back in a few if I can make it.” Unless I was specifically seeking one woman and she was available. But more often, I’d promise a call back. And one might come, or it might not. I mean, I’d almost always call one back – the one with the most desirable woman for me. Or, if none of the women available was known to me, the one with the best description: Was she short? were her breasts natural? where was she from? these were my key determinants of desirability, with “Eastern Europe,” generally, being the least desirable place of origin for women because of the relentless, crash commercialism, purposefulness (and clear boundaries) of so many of the women I met from there.

So I’d call back, and head over. “I’m stepping out for a few,” I’d say to my longtime assistant, if I was leaving work. Did she know? I’m pretty sure not. Years later, I told her my secrets. She seemed genuinely surprised.

I’d walk – maybe five or ten minutes – or take the subway, or a cab, if I was headed to a more distant location. And I’d be in something of a trance. I might “fluff” myself on the way, imagining perfection in an encounter.

And a note: even when I was off to see one of my favorite providers, it was never with the hope that our session would be as good as the last. Rather, I had the eternal hope that this session would be the one – that I finally would find what I was seeking. I didn’t have a clear sense of what that was, ever. Sometimes there were discrete things I wanted: let her have an orgasm, let me finger her, go down on her, let her spend the whole time on my cock, or whatever. But whatever it was, it was never enough. Even if things materialized just as I hoped, there would always be a hope that followed quickly on the heels of that previous one for something more, something different.

So I’d arrive – in a trance. I’d walk up, or in, and greet whoever was there. In some places, I would only encounter the woman from whom I was about to receive my massage; in others, I’d be greeted by the owner of the place. In every place, in every instance, I presented a relentlessly cheery, affable, good-natured demeanor. In fairness, this is how I am in life. But I did it especially there. And just as I am that guy who befriends cab drivers, and cashiers, and flight attendants, and whomever – not in a flirty way, but in a genuine, I’m-interested-in-your-life way, I would do the same here. I would talk with the women about their (other) jobs, their businesses, their days.

And then, I’d be left to myself for just a moment, to undress. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back,” the provider would say. And I’d undress, and lie down on the massage table. In a few cases – if I knew the woman well enough to have established a routine based on my preferences – I would lie on my back, and stroke my cock. More often, I would lie on my stomach, counting the minutes until I would be allowed to flip to my back. (As I’ve written, my ideal was to have the entire time spent on my cock, indulging my infinite stamina, my perfect control.) And if I was on my stomach, I would almost immediately begin fantasizing about – and not just fantasizing about, but preparing the words to bring about – the flip, that moment when I switched to lying on my back, when my cock finally got the touch for which I, it, had come.

So I’d be preparing the words: sometimes, I’d manage to get them out right away – usually some variation of, “You should know, I have infinite stamina and perfect control, so if you’d flip me over as soon as you can stand, that would be great.” Or maybe, “The sooner you flip me over, the happier I’ll be.” But other times (most times), I’d just chew on the words, switching from one set to the other, to a third. What would the magic formulation be? It was as if, somehow, what was needed was the right words – if I could produce them, I could produce the ideal encounter. And some sessions, as I said, I’d get some words out right away. Others, I’d never get them out – I’d just lie on my stomach until the woman, of her own volition, on her own initiative, flipped me over. And sometimes, when I got the words out, the woman would flip me instantly (jackpot!); others, it would seem only to delay the ultimate flip.

This all has echoes of my experiences in strip clubs, where I would pick out the woman I most wanted a dance from and then… wait. Would she come over? I would be paralyzed by the absurd, improbably, impossible fear of rejection, coupled with the delicious imagining that there exists, at the other side of acceptance, a bliss of unimaginable magnitude. (There’s something in this… this formulation of the question, struggling to get it out, fearing its reception, dreaming about its acceptance. I’ll get back to this….)

In the massage parlor, rejection was possible: some women would say, “Well, I’m not giving you a 45-minute handjob,” or, “I’m not jerking you off for an hour.” This was enough to kill any pleasure I might get from a session (though of course, not to prevent an orgasm). But a woman who said something like that would be a woman I’d never see again.

And what would I be feeling all this time? I’d feel excitement, of course, anticipation – the hunger for my cock to be touched – paired with the knowledge that it will be momentarily – is unlike anything else. Often, there would be disappointment at a new woman. I would rarely be excited at a new woman, because – well, because the best case was that a woman would live up to the fantasy I had concocted of her based on her description. But she might not live up to that fantasy, in which case I’d be devastated: even before the session had begun, I would declare it a total loss, a failure, a waste.

And in each of these situations – the one in which the woman responds badly to my request, or the one in which I can’t make the fucking request, or the one in which the woman at the door is a disappointment – in each of these situations, I would then spend the remainder of my time, or damned near all of it, plotting my next handjob. Who would it be? When could I do it? Etc.

In my next post, I’ll pick up where this leaves off – just after the flip….

One comment

  1. My first time was very similar. I can still remember every detail, even the smell of the candle she was burning. Thanks for writing this down. Tall.

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