by Various
“One of the backroom boys,” the Minister smiled blandly, already searching the room for the next photo opportunity. I never thought of myself like that, always thought I was on the front line of the war against terror, at the bleeding edge of technology. I suppose what I do could be considered dull, by some people. But then Bond doesn’t get BUPA.
His every muscle is so very sharply defined beneath the skin; it is as if he is made out of knotted string and strong sticks. I think that you could use him for teaching anatomy classes, as a mannequin for showing the major muscle groups. I am not saying that he is a perfect specimen. I do not think, for example, that he would be able to model; he’s far too pale, too skinny. But the way his back triangles down from very broad shoulders to narrow hips, well, he is certainly possessing a kind of male beauty.
I must know John’s body more intimately than his girlfriend – does she ever look at him this closely, or does she no longer really see him, observe every freckle and mark, every scar and wrinkle? I wonder if he even knows he has stretchmarks across the base of his spine, those silvery threads as if a snail has crept along the surface of his skin, crossing and branching like streams across the plateau of his back, spreading out from his slim hips. When I massage him, I feel the bones clicking beneath the skin, moving like well-oiled engine parts beneath my hands. Yes, he is quite perfectly constructed.
He is much younger than I thought; it was the almost white, silvery-blondness of his hair that made it hard for me to judge him. I looked at his records you see, I checked up on him. I do not trust easily, and I find that some people take this the wrong way. Especially men. But I am determined that people will fool me only once.
“Oh, Hana, but your English is so good,” they say, a little disappointed when they realise I comprehend them, as if I would really have cast myself adrift over here without being able to speak, to understand what was happening to me. That would be much too scary. Even so, at first, I was quite overcome by the strangeness of it all. The voices around me, all speaking in a different tongue, the many accents and tones of that language, they sounded like roaring waves crashing over and around me.
When I arrived here, the employment agency sent me for a position at an establishment that was in need of masseurs – The Kensington Clinic. Avery nice name I thought; it sounded like what the English would call ‘posh’. Well, if that was posh, then I am the Queen. I am not stupid; I could see what sort of place it was when I went there the very first day. It looked very clinical, all white tiles and shiny floors, very clean, but I noticed that everything was wipe-cleanable, disinfectable. Not very pleasant, if you think about it. If you are doing your massage properly in a therapeutic way, you shouldn’t be needing to hose down the walls afterwards.
There was a bouncer on the door but they did not call him a bouncer, they called him Gerald. And all the cubicles had the little spy holes in the doors so that Monique, the supervisor, could check-up on the girls. I wondered if they had, you know, the hidden cameras. They seem to be crazy for them here in this country so it would not have surprised me at all if they had cameras to look at the clients and take dirty pictures. I was thinking they could make a lot of extra money that way.
The uniform for all the girls at that place was like a comic sexy nurse, a tight white gown with pop-fastenings down the front, very low cut. Monique looked me up and down, frowned at my flat shoes and suggested I might want to wear higher heels, and possibly a more enhancing brassiere. An employer should not be so very interested in the way you look, should they? That was not an encouraging sign. Oh, they were ridiculous outfits, designed not for comfortable movement, but instead for easy access. It wasn’t hard to tell which girls were doing what they called ‘extras’.
“Now Hana, my girls often like to use a different name at work,” said Monique, “For security purposes, you understand. I thought you could be Veronika,” she added.
“There is no V in Polish,” I told her, “it does not work on my tongue.”
She gave me a funny look, snapped, “OK, you can be Zsa Zsa then. Is that exotic enough for you?”
I did not stay long. I was not going to participate in the way they wanted me to. It is not what I was trained for; I shall say no more than that. I think that some girls there actually liked the power and the big tips, but only for their attractive clients or the ones who looked rich. I waited for my first week’s pay, for I was not going to leave without what they owed me. When that woman handed me the envelope of money, it felt very light. I opened it and counted out the notes in front of her. She sneered a little, but I was not yet accustomed to the British notes and wanted to be sure I had enough.
“There is in fact some money missing,” I told her, after counting through twice.
Monique sniffed, “Well, we deduct the price of your uniform and name badge,” she said, “We can hardly reuse them on another girl can we?”
I made sure I took the uniform with me when I left. I use it now for when I am cleaning my flat. I dropped that name badge with the silly Hungarian name in the trash. Then I went back to the agency and told them exactly what I thought of their so-called ‘Kensington Clinic’.
And so, I came here instead. This is a good place, a real clinic approved by the doctors for therapeutic treatments. Here I can do what I trained for, what I love. People come in bent and worn and tired, with aches ground deep into their bones, their muscles all tight with strain and fatigue and sadness. Then after an hour with me they walk out of this room with a spring in their step and a dreamy smile on their faces, a new look in their eyes, as if to say that for a little while at least, they can cope with anything. I rub them with the scented oils, creating a blend to lift and inspire them, warming it first in my hands if I like them, though sometimes I am putting it on cold if they have been rude or disrespectful to me.
I look down at John, stretched out on my table in total relaxation. I have never dripped cold oil onto his back. I love the silky sheen of his well-nourished skin, healthy and glowing with the friction of my rubbing, gleaming in the low lights. My hands merge warm and gentle with his flesh, feeling as if I am becoming part of him. My clients very often fall asleep, but what they do not know is the trance state the massage can bring on in me. If they do not chatter and fidget, but let me get into a steady rhythm, then the scents of the oils and the soft music and the warmth of the room can take me into a state beyond myself, quite calm and powerful.
The sleepy clients apologise, embarrassed, as if they think they are the only ones who do this. I should some day tell them that I prefer the silent ones to the people who try and make conversations. I do not like to talk too much myself, so I do not like a continual stream of chattering.
“Shut up!” I want to say, “I am not a counsellor, I am not what you call a shrink. I don’t need to know this stuff about you, I do not care.” I cannot let myself care.
I am not always unfriendly like this, and am not really lonely, you understand. I have even had one boyfriend since I came to this country, though I do not think that he understood me. It was all about appearances, showing me off. He always wanted to miec sex with me, but never wanted to talk. I tried to acquaint him with my life back home, but he would laugh at me. I once told him how on Smingus Dyngus last year I was soaked with water by the town boys.
“Smingus Dyngus? What the hell is that? It sounds dead stupid.”
“It is our Easter Monday,” I said, “a kind of celebration, where the family throw water on anyone who is caught sleeping late in bed, and then boys throw it at the girls in the street. It is a sign of popularity. Fathers get annoyed if their daughters are not drenched.” Of course I did not have a Dad to be proud of how many boys threw water at me. Being wet through is supposed to mean you will marry in a year. I told him of this and he laughed,
“Well, I s’pose if you haven’t got proper TV, you have to make your own entertainment somehow.”
I do know he admired me, for he would gaze at me, with that certain l
ook in his eyes.
“As rare as black diamonds,” he said, picking up my hair and letting it spill over his hands, “as dark as your heart.” Wrong I thought, there is nothing dark about me, I make very sure of that. I am always being sunny and smiling a little, for I do not like to be thought of as miserable. So maybe that was some kind of English joke. I don’t know. I think he was kind of a jerk, a swinia. It is always hard to tell with men, and harder even still when you do not even think in the same language.
I do get some strange looks when I am speaking Polish on my phone, or when I am talking to people in the street. Some of the folk here, they can be very unfriendly. They are hissing at me in the supermarket when I stop to look at the foods in the Polish section. Imagine that – the shops are so keen to help us poor Polish spend our wages that they stock shelves upon shelves of our foods. It is all wrong though; stuff that tourists would buy, or people longing to remember their childhood, nothing you could use to make everyday meals. There are sweets and tinned pickles and the little gingerbread cookies that we only ever used to eat at Christmastime, but they can never recreate the food my mother used to make. Besides I mostly like the English food, there is a whole street in the supermarket just for breakfast cereals of every kind. How can you not love a country with so many choices?
They do not all love us. I hear the old ladies making their remarks; loud enough so I can hear, but not so much that they can’t pretend that I have misheard their private conversation. I sometimes wonder if they think we have no feelings.
“They’re taking over,” one woman muttered, “All these bloody Polish and suchlike.”
“They kill the swans, you know,” her friend said, “They go to the park at night and catch the fish, then they kill the ducks and the wild birds so they can eat them. That’s all part of their culture, over there.” She looked across at me darkly.
Now that is all so wrong. I do not know any Poles who eat swan – the very thought. And anyway, why would anyone go to all that trouble when everyone can buy £3 chickens from the Tesco? These women are so very silly.
The men don’t seem to disapprove as much – they have a kind of longing in their eyes, looking for foreign meat. There is a hierarchy though, I find. If I were blonde, they could happily think I’m Swedish, because you see, North European is classy, Mediterranean is sexy, but we are merely slutty Bolshevik peasants. Even here, in this nice place, there have been moments. That is something I like about my manager, Kathie. Once she had hired me, on my first day, she said she wanted to have a little talk.
“Massage is very much misunderstood, and I am aware that you will probably be the most vulnerable of all my therapists.”
I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t know what she was referring to, though I didn’t feel it was the correct time to share my experiences at the Kensington Clinic.
“I want you to stop and leave the room if you ever feel uncomfortable,” she said sternly, “I don’t expect you to take any nonsense. Massage is a therapeutic profession to rank alongside physio or chiropractics, not a way of getting a cheap thrill.”
I thought she was a very sensible woman for that, though actually her rates here are not particularly cheap.
It was not so very long before I encountered a cheap thrill client. I unpeeled the towel from around this young man’s waist a little, to reach his lower back muscles and found he was not wearing any under things. I said this to him, in surprise, and he said,
“I don’t wear them love, don’t like to have my old man constricted, nowarrimean?” No, I didn’t know what he meant, so he rolled over and waggled his czlonek at me like he was pointing a little pistolet. Kathie said next time any man does that I am to hand him a pair of baggy disposable paper underpants and tell him I am leaving the room until he puts them on.
“They generally don’t try that one again,” she added grimly.
I have to keep my nails short, though the continual immersion in massage oils and beauty creams makes them so strong and well-nourished that I could grow them into inches-long talons if I wished to. Sometimes, when I have a really annoying client, one who hasn’t showered, or who insists on taking his shorts off, I wish I had let these nails grow and could then dig them in so hard that I’d draw blood, leave ten scarring crescents across their flesh. Explain that to your wife, I would say savagely. Mind you, I am also thinking there are some men who would feel that pain an extra treat.
City boys, they are the worst. The more they are spending, the more truly horrible they are. Oh, they think they can buy anything, anyone. Like that man with no underthings, flaunting his nakedness.
“But I’m paying for you,” he said, and he grabbed my hand, moved it down to his crotch. He probably thought his weeny little thing could lift him off the table, like a one-limbed press up. To me it looked flaccid and wrinkled and a dull purplish colour like an overripe sliwka.
“Plum is very fashionable this autumn,” I wanted to tell him, though for sure he would take that the wrong way.
Mostly it is ladies of course who come for the massage. They are usually okay. There is one older lady I do not like at all. She has the oil poured onto her straight from the bottle in an icy-cold flood. She was telling me about a Spa she had visited in New York, where male masseurs rub the ladies, a place where they ask – do you want everything?
There was an avidity in her eyes when she looked at me.
“I suppose you girls know all about it, don’t you?” She said, licking her lips. I didn’t know I had to be warned about the women. She thinks there are really special pressure points – so you can make an orgasm without penetration, without rubbing. Oh it is so crazy – don’t you think someone would have made money by selling that secret by now?
Women’s parts are less defined; it is less easy to arouse them, though sometimes I wonder how much my ladies do enjoy themselves. It is a very delicate balance after all. So, you are invading their personal space and for some that is painful, not therapeutic at all. I have found that there are even some ladies who come for their first massage without knowing what it really means, not understanding they will have to take their clothes off.
“It hadn’t occurred to me,” one girl said, red-faced, “I mean that I’d have to be naked.”
She was in fact wearing a pair of quite large panties that covered her plump posladki, but I could see that she still felt self-conscious, the way she was cupping her breasts in her hands.
She calmed a little, eventually, let me massage her into relaxation. Her chest was soft and slippery, and I was feeling the little buds of her breasts beneath my hands, the firmness and gentleness of her all together. Quite different from the men, rather beautiful. Is this what I am like, I thought, is this how I feel?
Danielle moved out last week. She said I was never there.
“I don’t just mean physically,” she said, “though it’s taken me a week to find a big enough space in your diary to even have this conversation with you.”
She said it with a kind of grim humour and for a few moments then I did have a pang of regret, remembering that her easy laughter was one of the reasons I let her move in with me.
“I don’t need this, John,” she said. “I’m not exactly a minger but you make me feel like one.”
“No,” I said, “you are really quite beautiful.” But I said it with detachment because I was thinking, yes, but you are blonde, not dark, and I can see your roots.
“I deserve better than this John. There’s a reason why someone gets to your age without being married. You’re emotionally unavailable, a toxic bachelor.”
Maybe I am happy being a bachelor, I thought, not everyone has to pair off two-by-two like animals going into the ark. I once heard a joke about marriage that sums it all up for me – why do men predecease their wives? Because they want to. Something about being in a relationship changes women, and surely marriage would only make that worse. Once a woman starts to relax into a relationship, she stops wearing sexy scanties and
starts dressing for comfort. The first time you find your girlfriend curled up on your sofa in fleece pajamas and fluffy pink bedsocks you know it’s the beginning of the end. But why should you relax, settle for second best? I didn’t change; I continued being exactly the man I always was, I still spent my money, took her to expensive restaurants, so why did she feel able to stop doing the things that I enjoyed? Looking gorgeous was her part of the bargain. I don’t get it. When she stopped making an effort, perhaps I should have started taking her to Burger King instead.
“You don’t want a girlfriend, an equal, a partner,” she said angrily, “you just want an escort.”
She started to disapprove of everything, all the things that make me who I am. She wanted to me to change. Even my flat, so carefully created, so stylish, became a source of dissatisfaction. The huge picture windows have no curtains, but I like them that way, open to the view across the river, the lights twinkling across the city. There is no noise from the wind or the streets so far below unless I open the sliding doors to the terrace. She wouldn’t sit out there, said it was too cold and blowy, too high and exposed. And she wouldn’t ever make love in that room, although I pointed out that it would practically take the Hubble telescope to overlook us there.
She even hated the huge flat-screen TV mounted on one wall.
“A home cinema system,” she sniffed, when I had it installed, “so vulgar.”