The Scarmaker (An original short story)

So far the evening turned out pretty well. In his mind, Russell totaled the money that he made this evening and it came out to an attractive number.  At Michelle’s spa, located on the first floor of the twenty-five-story hotel, Russell felt more comfortable by two reasons. First no running around with a massage table to client rooms - have some rest between the sessions. Second here in the spa, the atmosphere was more professional. Clients felt restricted; this is massage and nothing else. There were several occasions in Russell’s practice when clients wanted to undrape; men or women: “Oh don’t worry… I feel comfortable with you.”  ‘You maybe, but I don’t’, Russell expression migrated to a fastidious warp.

“Michelle, is this an hour or half an hour?” Russell's face expressed readiness and professional interest. 

“It’s an hour, and it’s a lady. Is this OK?” 

“Makes no difference.” Russell’s shook his head “no.”  ‘Cool, that’s another thirty-five at least.’ Russell nodded in tune with his thoughts.

He didn’t like wimpy half an hour. To accomplish a full body massage in half an hour you have to run like a conveyer belt and then it’s only half the money.  He entered the curtained station. A lady sat on the chair waiting. “Hi.”  Russell smiled. “My name is Russell. I’ll be your massage therapist for today.”

“Donna,” she introduced herself smiling back.

“Please undress, lie down on your back and cover yourself with the sheet all the way to your chin. I will be standing right outside. Let me know when you’re ready. OK?”

The lady nodded. ‘Nice girl’, flickered through his head, ‘so young.’  For a split second his mind wondered around a notion of how and why such a young girl, she looked no older than twenty-five, was receiving a massage, was in a hotel by herself (he somehow assumed she was by herself), and how was she able to afford the massage in the spa, which to his knowledge was not cheap, not cheap at all.  Yet, as he caught himself thinking about it, he shrugged the thought away.  ‘Who cares where the money comes from? As long as she pays.’ 

He walked back and took a look at the covered client. ‘That’s some fine stuff she’s got there,’ inadvertently ran through his mind. The white sheet curved around her body revealing more than it could conceal.  Russell felt himself getting aroused.

Having caught himself again he shook away the irrelevant sensation and concentrate on the task at hands.  He pressured himself to look at this individual only as a patient. He visualized her spinal column, with the 32 pairs of spinal nerves that extending providing innervation to skin, fascia and muscles, then further innervating inner organs. His thought then proceeded to mobilize soft tissues and deforming proprioceptors located in the skin, fascia, muscles and him creating streaming of electrical particles that proceed to spinal segments, stimulating lower motor centers in the spinal cord, inner organs and then returning its influx to the brain to stimulate the central nervous system.  He made a deep breath, cracked his knuckles.  He was ready.

Russell spent a couple of minutes accessing the body. Nothing special.  Lots of tension in the neck and shoulder area, the skin doesn’t move freely on temples, the right side of the back seemed tenser than the left side especially around the lower back area - the third lumbar vertebrae. 

‘I wonder, what could’ve caused that?’ 

He started with the effleurage of her lower extremities that usually relieved some of the stress right away. Then his hands went underneath her neck and further to the fourth thoracic vertebrae and lifting her body with his fingers moved his hands along the spinal cord towards her head.

Russell's experience showed that old Mueller was right. He couldn't change much. But despite obvious, Russell always tried. The naïve dream of making the difference still lived in him. He painfully realized that in his life he didn't become anybody big and couldn't change the world to his liking. That said, the only way for him to affect the outside world was through his work and therefore he tried; every time, one person at a time.

Still, after going through the entire upper part of her body Russell didn’t understand the reason why she came here and what she was looking for. He asked her to turn over implementing the draping procedure exactly by the book so that there was no moment in time when he saw her body exposed. 

While working on her back Russell reflected: “You have lots of tension right her and right here”, he was showing with his fingers. “What do you do?”

“I work for a travel agency”.

“Travel agent”, he responded hanging to this word as if tasting it. “Is it a very stressful job?”

“Sometimes”

That still didn’t explain Russell the genesis of her tightness.  Why, despite the normal body temperature, he had the feeling that she was all stiff as if frozen inside like a snowflake. 

He knew that technically his movements were correct, that he put enough pressure and applied enough lubrication, but he was missing something significant, something very important - he couldn’t connect.

He kept on asking her questions but clearly was missing the mark. As if they played the Blind Man's Bluff in which he couldn’t get any warmer. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the aircraft passing by somewhere very close, perhaps landing. 

When the last overtones of the sound were gone Russell realized that Donna is crying. She cried silently, attempting apparently not to reveal her emotional state. 

“Are you OK?” asked Russell worriedly. 

“My husband”, Donna said, “he died in the plane crash”

“Oh, I am very sorry”

He stopped to petrissage her back. His hand was left resting on her shoulder giving his commiserating enough time to sink in.

“Cry”, said Russell, “Cry. Don’t hold yourself. It’s ok to cry about it”. 

Everything fell into place now. Her husband perhaps also had strong and gentle hands and the two ingredients: relaxation and the sound of the aircraft put together made her cry. 

‘Who knew what happen? Plane crash? He might have been a pilot flying on a secret mission, or an unlucky passenger. Regardless. He was someone she loved, wanted and waited for, while he didn’t come back. The plane crash was apparently recent as the emotional wound was fresh. The event, apparently, left painful, scattered and yet permanent traces in her memory like imprints of the dogs’ feet on a once wet concrete.

Russell felt himself hardening inside as if a metal bar went through his body from his stomach to his throat and was holding himself from crying. His movements now were automatic. It was still basic massage movements: effleurage, petrissage, friction, percussion, but now the meaning of these movements was different. His frustrations with his inability to affect life concentrated in his compassion and poured through his fingertips into Donna’s body.  On some odd spiritual level, they became connected.

When Russell, until that moment occupied with his own thoughts, was finishing her right foot he realized that she fell asleep. Her face looked relaxed and relieved. A little pointless smile rested on her face like a tired pedestrian who just caught a taxi. 

Russell looked at the clock - ten minutes till the end of the hour. He didn’t wake her up.  He savors this moment as long as possible. 

Only when two minutes of the allotted hour remained Russell tapped her on a shoulder. 

“Donna, Donna? It’s time to get up.” Donna woke up the first moment not understanding where she was. The memory quickly came back to her as Russell helped her to sit up on the massage table and was tapping on her back with the ribs of his palms.

“Thank you”, she smiled.

“My pleasure”, Russell answered, smiled back and left the station.

Russell approached the attendant girl returning from the bathroom where he washed his hands after each massage.

She waved the envelope with the tip in front of his face.

“Twenty bucks!” she whistled. “I wonder, what she gave it to you for.”

“For building a scar tissue”, Russell responded absent-mindedly but with the sense of inner clarity, more to himself than to a girl.

“Yeah, right”, said the girl holding on to the icicle of skepticism that quickly melted after Russell’s answer.