Deep Tissue

I don't cheat, okay? Let me say it again. I. Do. Not. Cheat. The same way I don't drink-drive or wear yesterday's underpants. It's a built-in rule and one that with a little forward thinking is never broken. I'm engaged now to Amanda and our relationship couldn't be stronger. It's built on honesty and it's built on trust, got me? We have a varied, healthy and satisfying sex-life and we don't screw other people. End of story.

This is most reassuring when, for example, I end up talking to the new temp across the photocopier at work. Or when I go out drinking with mates at the sort of club where randy, dissatisfied wives and girlfriends go to prove they're still attractive to other guys. The subtle explanatory reference is never far from my lips, should I fall into conversation with such ladies: 'I was on holiday there with my girlfriend.' Or the more direct 'Thanks, but I'm already with someone,' if required. And then there's that old faithful back-up: 'Yes, but I'd know, even if she didn't.'

Nothing is ever going to happen.

This is especially good to bear in mind on a day like today. One of the days when I visit Kelly. In fact, no - that's not even a cause for mild concern. Kelly's in a relationship as well, and she really likes the bloke. He's quite the romantic, it seems. Last time she told me all about her high expectations for Valentine's Day and I in turn described my plans for Amanda and myself. The two of us, client and professional, sharing the same warm glow from our respective love affairs. So the Kelly situation is nothing to worry about.

Okay, all right - so the reason we ended up talking so earnestly about our significant others was to deflect from a certain...frisson that passed between us. Now hold on, I didn't hit on her - don't think that for a second - and she didn't take it as such. I passed some vague compliment about her loose perm suiting her, or something like that, and she took maybe a little too much pleasure in it and then I held eye-contact a longer than was perhaps wise... And then it was all embarrassment and rapidly changed subject and very deliberate mention, on both our parts, of the people we were involved with.

Well massage is intimate after all, even purely therapeutic massage. Kelly is a consummate professional; she's friendly without being flirtatious, very careful to keep that businesslike edge. But after several sessions you get to know each other a bit. And if you have a natural connection and a degree of mutual attraction, however unspoken, well, anyone's guard can drop. Okay, it's true - I did carry her final smile with me for the rest of the day. And that night. When I was...having sex with Amanda. There I was, my body moving on my fiancee's, and when I closed my eyes, Kelly's smiling face was floating before me. Amanda's moans and Kelly's smile... Shit, look, I mean everyone has those thoughts! It's not as though I deliberately dwelt on them...

And - and - why the hell am I even feeling guilty? The massage sessions were Amanda's idea in the first place. She was driving the bastard car when the accident occurred! If she hadn't braked to save that frigging pigeon, we wouldn't have been back-ended, I wouldn't have whiplash, there'd be no need for bleeding massage therapy! And I haven't even done anything yet. Not that I'm going to!

Like I said, nothing is ever going to happen.

Nice to know, as I pass through the revolving doors of Blue Haven Health and Fitness Spa. As I check in at the desk. As I make my way along the bright corridor to the massage suite. The massage suite where I know Kelly, the lovely manipulator of my limbs, will be waiting... Thank fuck she has a boyfriend.

'Hello?' Deep breaths as I knock on the door. I'm building this up out of nothing; it's a fantasy I've apparently been entertaining too much. Kelly'll be her bright, brisk, professional self. But I can feel my balls tingling as I hear her welcoming response. As I enter the brightly, clinically lit room, she's busy fluffing towels over by the massage table, but looks up with a grin of recognition. More welcoming than usual? But then we're naturally getting more relaxed with each other after four sessions.

'Hi Ed,' she grins, with a degree of warmth that surprises and gratifies me. 'Come on in, I'll be right with you.' I close the door behind me, acting casual, relaxed. She's dressed in her usual white overalls and gym slippers, and I divert my mind from the supple, tanned body I suspect lies beneath. Her wheat-blonde hair is tied back revealing her sharp-featured, pretty face. The pastel-walled room, with its posters on the virtues of acupuncture and various styles of massage, Eastern and Western, is unchanged from before; so why am I more aware of its intimacy, complete with bed-table and en suite shower?

'How's the back?' she inquires. 'Have I made it better or worse?' It's the usual relaxed style of chat, but there's some indefinable difference in her tone that makes me wary. Look, stop being an asshole, Ed - this is some type of twisted wishful thinking. Don't fucking flatter yourself.

'Almost all better,' I say. 'Couple more sessions and I'll be fine.'

'And then I won't see you any more,' she says with a mock pout. I must register some of the surprise I feel, because she adds, 'Well you're easier to talk to than a lot of my clients. Take off your jacket.' I've been curiously immobile and she's noticed.

'So how was Valentine's?' I ask, slipping the jacket nonchalantly off my shoulders and draping it over a chair. Get the conversation straight on to her fella, don't focus on the fact that you'll soon be undressing in proximity to this girl.

Her face darkens. 'God, let's not go there,' she says. But after a long, angry sigh she does. 'The bastard was cheating on me.' I'm knocked back. This is not what I've been expecting. Or hoping for. I think. 'Yeah, I know,' she goes on. 'Think how stunned I was. Mr bloody Romance. Only he's gone and had it off with some girl he picked up at a night club. At the same happy hunting ground where he met me! Except one of my friends sees him. Stupid bastard.' She pauses, seeming a touch embarrassed. 'You're sorry you asked now.'

'No, I'm not - get it off your chest.' Good God, I'm quoting lines from a Seventies british sex comedy now! Confessions of a Massage Client With a Dodgy Back. Get it off your chest? For fuck's sake...

'So,' Kelly is finishing off, 'my Valentine's Day consisted of him trying to tell me it was only a one-off and he was drunk, as if that's supposed to console me, and then me finally telling him to piss off.'

'So is that it? No chance you'll get back together??' I hope I sound sympathetic rather than hopeful.

'No, that's that,' she shrugs, matter-of-factly. There's the slightest of pauses. 'So I'm single again. How did things go for you?'

'Oh - okay, okay,' I say. Don't want to set up my happy Valentine's evening against her crap one, after all. 'Went to a new Tapas place, exchanged cards, usual stuff. Sorry things didn't work out for you...'

She waves it away with a friendly smile. 'It's not your fault, Ed. Now go behind the screen and get stripped off for me.' She says this with a cheeky grin, flinging a towel my direction. 'And don't forget to wear that!'

Conversation has never been any problem with this girl, so why is every opening gambit dying in my throat right now? A great yawning silence is opening up, as I drop my shirt on the chair provided and set about unlacing my shoes. Don't be so bloody ridiculous, Ed. This is not a problem. Despite the fact she hasn't removed herself discretely from the room while I undress, like she usually does... Not a problem at all.

'No, I got too serious too soon with Nick.' Kelly's back on the subject of her break-up. I'm listening in a semi-daze, removing my trousers. 'Should have seen it for what it was. Should have seen him for what he was. No, Ed, it's given me a whole new attitude.'

'It has?' I want to hear, despite myself.

'Yeah - forget serious, forget meaningful. I just want to enjoy myself a bit.'

'Sounds fair enough.' I slip off my briefs.

'Yeah, if I meet someone I like, I'm just going to fuck him.' She applies a lusty weight to the f-word. Fuck with my head, more's the point! A powerful current channels from my brain to the root of my dick, as soon as she says it. I'm standing naked behind the screen in an aching conversational void, groping clumsily for my towel. 'So what do you think of that, Ed?'

What I think is, When did Kelly the sweet-natured masseuse become Kelly the husky-voiced little prick-tease? What I say is a stammered 'Well - I mean - yeah.' Okay Ed, don't lose your cool. Just wrap the towel around as loosely as possible - try to disguise your embarrassingly extending organ. 'You deserve to cut loose a bit after what he did to you.'

'You said it. Ready yet?'

I sidle sheepishly out from behind the screen, clutching my towel about me, vainly trying to hide the tent-pole effect at the front. Kelly's eyes flick momentarily there and back again to my face. Shit - my arousal is duly noted. 'Shame you're taken, or I might just have you here on the massage table,' she laughs. The come-on is jokey, but I must look as if I'm about to choke. 'Sorry Ed, I'm being wicked - I don't know what's come over me. Lie down on your stomach and I'll get the oil. You're safe with me.' But her smile is teasing and she brushes a soft hand across my upper arm before moving away. I have to adjust my hardened member in order to lie comfortably on the massage table.

She's small-talking in a relaxed fashion, as she pours the warm oil smoothly down my spine, but there's a sly undercurrent that's never been there before. My mind flits about for something else to cling to, but her hands are slowly, rhythmically kneading the back of my neck, and her words, whatever the hell she's saying, have a breathy, hypnotic quality to them.

'We'll have you back to the gym soon,' she's saying. 'You haven't lost any of your muscle tone in the meantime - still in really great shape.'

'Thanks,' I murmur, cheek pressed to the pillow, aware of her face hovering close above me, the scent of the oil mingling with her skin cream. She works her way insistently, skilfully down my spine.

'Your girlfriend's very lucky. She's done better than I did...Just don't tell her that you got excited before your massage.'

'Oh, sorry about that,' I say, tensing again in shock at the very mention. Sorry? She was the one introducing the subject of casual fucking!

'Relax, I'm joking!' she laughs. 'I know what you guys are like.' And she swoops down to run her hands firmly the length of my arms, so that her pony-tailed hair brushes across my neck. I can sense her mouth hovering close to the side of my face. 'Although I'm flattered you got hard before we'd even started.'

The last sentence is a soft, girlish whisper and even minutes later, when she's working her hands up my leg muscles, it has the blood pounding in my ears. Whatever blood, that is, that hasn't been pumped to my now totally swollen cock. She kneads away just below my ass for a moment. 'Tell me something Ed,' she ventures. 'I'd like the male perspective.'

'Sure,' I croak like a bewildered frog.

'I mean, here I am, day in, day out, getting on with my job. And every now and then I'll notice the guy I'm massaging has a hard-on. Mostly he'll have the decency to look embarrassed and try to hide it, and now and again I get some perv who looks really pleased with himself. So Ed, what I'm wondering is, do guys always, inevitably associate massage with sex?'

How fucking naive is this girl? I groan inwardly. Not very, it turns out.

'Tell me honestly, Ed - Do you get a regular stiff one when you're lying here?' There's playful mockery in her laughter as she says this. 'I know I've been very bad today, but - well - do you?'

Rising panic, to accompany my 'stiff one'. 'Kelly, I don't think we should be having this conversation.'

'It's just talk, that's all,' she says, reverting to surprised innocence. Her firm and steady kneading of the area marginally south of my buttocks continues. 'I mean, I'm not trying to flatter myself, but - do you reckon a lot of my male clients think of me sexually? Or do I just imagine that?' Her hands are lingering tantalisingly around my left upper thigh. She knows exactly how this male client thinks of her and is pressing it to her advantage.

'Well - I mean - it's just an involuntary reaction,' I stammer. 'You're an attractive girl whose job just happens to be...'

'...Rubbing oil all over nearly nude guys, yes I know,' she laughs silkily. 'I suppose I've just developed such a professional approach to it over time that I don't think about it in that way. Plus most of my clients don't do much to distract me. Most of my clients...' And she smoothes the oil slowly and deliberately between my legs, running her fingers lightly over my ball sac. 'Oops...'

I give a sharp, involuntary gasp. My cardiac activity is going crazy, my already inflated cock stretching against the towel beneath me. A very scary line has just been crossed by my masseuse. Oops? Don't acknowledge any line - just make light if it for fuck's sake! 'Careful where you put your hands!' I say, my breath shallow. 'I'm as good as married...' That did sound humorous, right?

'Sorry,' she says lightly and sweetly, retreating down my right leg. My state of panicked arousal remains however. She works away quietly for a little while, but it's just a lull before her next offensive on my libido, I know this. 'So Ed.' Her voice is soft, her manner offhand. 'You ever think about our massage sessions when you wank?'

That's it, I'm going to get off the table, grab my towel and get the fuck out as quickly as possible. Now. Right this second. Here goes... No. Can't do it. I haven't got further than prising myself up a bit with one hand. She'll only see my prick pointing to the ceiling if I move any more. 'Kelly, you can't ask me something like that!'

'Why not?' There's a disingenuous girlish sweetness in her voice.

'I'm engaged...'

'What, so you don't masturbate any more? You don't fantasise when you're on your own?'

'That's not what I meant! Look, I'm not like...like your...'

'My weasel of an ex-boyfriend? I know you're not like him, Ed.' She sounds genuinely affectionate. 'But you're still a guy.' She very purposefully begins to run her fingers back and forth along the sensitive strip of flesh between my asshole and my balls. Holy fuck, no...please no... I'm gasping audibly, half propped up on the table, unable to move. 'You like that, don't you? I don't think you want me to stop.'

'Kelly please...' I'm trying to fight the delightful, sinful sensations washing through my body, but she lays her other hand on my shoulder and with the words 'Just relax, darling' causes me to subside back on to the flat surface like a lost soul.