Refreshed
Date: 7th Mar, 2023, Tue
Writing Prompt: Refreshed
***
Ah.
Lavender. Lemongrass. Jasmine. They smell absolutely divine.
I close my eyes,
and breathe in the scents. I feel them enter my nostrils, and somehow fill my
entire body, like a large warm comforter, enveloping me in calm, my body turning
to jelly.
As I inhale
deeply, lying flat on my stomach, in the background, I hear the tinkle of chimes,
melodious xylophones, even the soft rattle of the angklung, reminding me
of that crazy trip to Bali with my girlfriends for graduation.
For the first
time then, I had let loose, and it was the best time of my life.
I had paid for
it when I came back though, when he found out, but it was worth it. Just like I
will probably pay for this later today. I push the thought aside, and let out a
breath I am not aware I’m holding.
A few minutes
pass. I feel utterly relaxed, and laugh to myself, thinking, At this point,
they could do anything to me, and I’d not even fight it.
Someone comes in.
I hear the soft shuffle of the slippers into the room. “I’m going to start soon,
ma’am.” The woman’s voice is young, like a girl’s, and I am tempted to peek.
But I don’t. “Mm,” I respond, slipping off again into my cloud of calm.
There’s a burst
of lemongrass, and I hear a small slush of oil, hands rubbing together, and then
immediately after, warmth spreads across my back. “Mm,” I sigh. Wave upon wave
of calming pleasure break upon my body, starting with the backs of my shoulders,
my neck, then down my spine, right down to just above my buttocks, the rest still
covered.
“Oh, you’re good,”
I say to the woman.
“Thank you.”
Her voice is
sweet. And I wonder more about the woman whose magic hands feel like they are
taking me to another world, and I’m not really here. Is this what a massage
feels like? Why have I never gotten one before?
Actually, I know
exactly why, but I ignore the thought. Instead, I ask, “So, how long have you
been doing this?”
It is quiet, and
I mentally scold myself. Maybe she doesn’t speak much English.
“Ten years.”
“Ten years? That’s
a long time! But you sound so young!” I don’t resist turning around to look at the
woman this time, and when I do, I am surprised.
I am not
mistaken the first time—she is certainly young, in her 20s. Her dark brown hair
is tied up in a bun atop her head, with only several misbehaving strands
curling down to her neck. But her eyes, though gentle, bear a kind of sadness. I
can’t really put my finger on it; I can’t even explain how I know that. The
woman smiles, pumps more massage oil into her hands, and rubs them together.
“Ma’am, shall we
continue?” She cocks her eyebrow, as if amused, as if this happened all the
time, people being surprised at how young she is.
I return to my
position, rest my face on its side, facing my left. There’s warmth on my back
again. “How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” I feel I’m going to be
surprised yet again.
“I’m twenty
five.”
“Twenty five?
That means when you started working, you were…”
“Yes, fifteen.”
“Wow. How did
you—”
The young woman interrupts
with her laugh, a chuckle, more like. “Okay, ma’am. I tell you story. Not to
worry.”
I blush. “I’m so
sorry if I’m prying. I just—”
The woman’s
hands pause on my shoulders. “I have boyfriend. Long time ago. He is a bad
person. Very bad person. He beat me a lot when he angry. Then I get pregnant
when I am fourteen years old. My boyfriend and me, we get married. But it is
bad decision. He asks me to get rid of baby.” Her voice is even, almost monotonous.
And her hands glide over my lower back. She pushes the cloth covering aside,
and starts working on my calves.
“But I choose to
leave my boyfriend, to have baby. A little girl. We move far away. She is ten
years old now. Back in Manila. My friend take good care of her, take the money
I make here, and buy her food, and clothes, and school things.”
Her thumbs press
down around my ankles, going round in circles, alternating, swift and smooth. Her
voice too, is smooth; it glides over me, but grabs hold of my heart.
So many questions
run through my mind. What happened to the boyfriend? Does he know about their
daughter? How did she get started working here? When will she go back?
Instead, I
whisper, “Was it difficult?” I realize how vague the question is. But I think
of her first step that changed everything—deciding to leave an awful toxic
relationship, start over, all while pregnant, alone, at 15 years old. If she
hadn’t done that, where would she be now?
She stops, her
hands midway up my thighs. “Yes. I very scared,” she replies, as if she had
read my mind, and then continues on pressing on the back of my thighs. “But it
was best decision I ever made.”
I absorb what
she says. She asks me to flip over, and as I do, she takes the cloth covering,
and in one rapid movement, covers my top half, but not before she notices the large
dark blue-black marks on my chest, still healing, and she stills. I see her
purse her lips.
She stares at
me, and I look away. When she still doesn’t move, I look back, and her eyes
have softened. “Best decision I ever made,” she whispers, every word a wisp of
hope.
We finish the
rest of the session in silence, and I leave without another word to her
although I give her a very slight nod at the cashier’s, before she smiles and
moves on to her next client.
I exit the doors
into the blinding brightness of the mall. Compared to the dimness of the inside
of the spa, these lights are stabbing. I blink quickly several times to adjust,
until I almost teared.
Best
decision I ever made. Her words echo in my head.
I take out my
phone, my hands trembling. I know I need to do this. I’ve known for a while. I just
need the courage to do it.
-Jer,
I’m leaving you.-
That’s all I say.
It isn’t much. But it’s a start. And I know, it had to be more than
happenstance meeting that young woman today.
I take a deep
breath, and feel…strangely refreshed. Maybe it’s the massage. Maybe, with the
text I’d just sent, it’s the weight that’s been lifted off my now very-relaxed
shoulders.
I grin, stretch my arms out and up above me as high as they can go. Best massage ever!
-THE END-
(C) Copyright Lisa Kwan 2023
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