Sometimes You Get What You Need

Subdued lighting, soft music, my clothes tossed randomly in a pile on the floor. I lie under a sheet in nothing but my white, cotton panties. My hands rest nervously across my breasts. My foot wiggles and I wonder if I shaved behind my knees this year. A slight knock on the door. “Ready?” he says. “Yes,” I chirp back sweetly, innocently. The crack in my voice and the three sing-song syllables of my “yes” give me away. This is my first time.

As a good Catholic girl, this is how I envisioned my wedding night. Things didn’t quite work out that way. It was only the first night of many when we went to bed not speaking to each other. That usually ruled out foreplay.

Not too many years later the local bookies got their payoff. We were kaput!

Many years later, life is good. Good job, good friends, good kids. The only thing missing at the moment is a good man. I don’t want to marry again but I sure wouldn’t mind a little conversation, a shared DVD rental and some human touch. My pool of eligible, desirable men is in need of a good rainstorm, something akin to that Biblical ark incident.

So what’s a “girl” to do? As I lay in bed on a sticky Saturday morning, the dog plastered against my sweaty arm, a scathingly brilliant idea popped into my head.

I was a mature woman of the 21st century, not without some financial means. I could buy myself a man. Not a male escort or a Slavic mail-order groom. Too tawdry. But, I could get myself a massage. A “man massage.” I knew that Sharon, my regular masseuse and new friend, had a part-time employee, Michael. I peeled the dog off my leg and made an emergency call. “I need an appointment with Michael…as soon as possible,” I wailed. “No funny business, you know, just a man’s touch.” She understood completely.

By Monday evening I was gleefully stripping and slipping under a sheet. I’d just met Michael in the hallway. Early thirties, good-looking and confident, the small piercings in his ear giving him a slight edge of danger. He immediately said those wonderful words, “What do you want?” The last time I’d heard anything close to that was from Jack, the deli manager at my grocery store.

Instead of “A quarter pound of ‘skinny’ baloney,” I, with surprising shyness, stammered something about my feet, my hands and my shoulders. Michael nodded deeply and seriously. We were simpatico.

Michael slid into the room and poured warm oil into his hands, jasmine, I think, rubbing his palms together vigorously. Then it began. He lifted the sheet off my leg and began massaging my thighs in a sweeping, no-nonsense rhythm. By the time he got to the other leg my modesty and reticence melted like the patchouli-scented candle near my head. Michael dutifully massaged my feet, then my arms, then my hands. I turned over shamelessly and he loosened my knotted shoulders with a delicious mixture of pain and pleasure. Finally, he had me flip over again and cradled my head in his hands. I tensed my neck muscles in order to prevent my head from slamming, with the full wait of my over-stuffed brain, onto the table. Michael, that sensitive soul, sensed my anxiety and bent down to whisper in my ear. “Relax,” he purred, “I can support you.” Well, those were the magic words. It was official. I was in love. Michael was the man I’d dreamt about so long ago, but had given up hope of ever finding. A man who asked me what I wanted, listened to what I said and delivered the goods. Now he was telling me that he would support me too. It was more than I could have hoped for. And, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. As he lifted my head far forward, chin approaching my chest, he inclined his mouth to my ear again and whispered “Now, I’m going to teach you to breathe.” It never crossed my mind that I’d been breathing just fine for 50+ years. I knew that he would teach me to breathe like I’d never breathed before. Sure enough, I took a gentle, but deep, breath in through my nose and exhaled a long, emptying stream of air through my mouth. I did it again. And again. As I felt myself totally release, Michael slowly lowered my head back down. It felt like falling through space and it was intoxicating. I only wished it had lasted longer.

As I rested my head in Michael’s hands and fell into a light sleep he dipped down next to my head once more. “Thank you,” he cooed, followed by “You can get up whenever you’re ready.” With that he slipped out of the room, followed by a thin jasmine cloud.

I didn’t want to get up. But, I did. I had to get home to the dog, the daughter, the electric bill. And, besides, Michael needed to be paid. This was business, I reminded myself. I wrote my check for services rendered and added a handsome tip. I promised that I’d tell all my friends about him, even the married ones. Especially the married ones.

As I sauntered to my car, the one in need of a new brakes, I was grieving the sad state of my love life. As I turned the ignition key, Mick Jagger, someone who has apparently never wanted for sex, pounded my every sense with “You can’t always get what you want…but, if you try, sometimes you get what you need.” Thank you, Mick, for putting it all into perspective.