kein glückliches Ende – something like that.
As this week is going to be filled with a substantial more amount of physical labor than normal, Gerd had a great idea yesterday, a one hour massage at lunch time. That’s an idea I can get behind. I’d only ever had one professional massage before and it was a couples massage where I watched some dude rub on my girlfriend and wanted to kick him in the sack – so thankfully Gerd and I were not getting couples massages.
He said he knew just the place to go and made the appointment. So we went on a dreary day (cold, raining, and windy) to this place that said – “Authentic Thai Massage”. The first thought that went though my head was “How do you say “No Happy Ending” in German?!” but I managed to keep my cool – Gerd isn’t the type of dude to get a little bit of action on the side.
We walk in and these tiny little Asian women (who did not look Thai at all, more Korean) instructed us (in German, with an Asian accent) that we were to each go into the room, strip down to the underwear, and lay face down on the bed. The rooms had a curtain for a door and as I walked in I instantly thought “holy shit, if I were a pimp in Thailand, my house would look like this” – very cheap and gaudy with a lot of gold paint. I wasn’t there for the scenery though, I was there to relax – though standing there when this lady opened the “door” while I was undressing did not relax me.
She looked like a female Mr. Miyagi. Same build, bamboo cotton pants, some strange colored socks (pink, blue, purple), and a button down bamboo cotton shirt. I felt like she was going to give me a lesson in crane style kung-fu. In hindsight, we call this foreshadowing.
We figure out a nice mix of broken English to communicate and she instructs me to lay on my stomach and slide up until I was comfortable. I find out by her pushing me by the feet that she meant slide higher up the bed so my feet don’t dangle off this bed. She starts by just rubbing me.. not hard, not soft – basically feeling me up. She was uncertain about my choice in underwear (boxers, for the record) as those apparently aren’t popular in Germany (I can tell by all the CK bikini brief stores here) so she was feeling up to find boundaries I think.
She liberally applied this oil all over my back and legs – which felt like she unleashed the fury of 2,000 Asian bee’s on my skin. It was apparently opening the pores.. and forcing me to silently atone for all my sins until the burning stopped. After that it felt fine and I smelled like a green tic-tac.
About the time I was grinning at smelling like a 10 calorie breath mint two things happened at the same time – she copped a feel of my nuts and instantly retracted her hand and made the “oh shit..what the hell just happened” gasp. She had applied too much oil and her hand slipped – the way I was laying, she didn’t have to go far up the shorts to hit pay dirt – so I look at her, she looks at me and time stands still. No, not in the Dirty Dancing way – more like the uncomfortable silence of a loud elevator fart when only one other person is in there with you.
After about 20 seconds I just layed my head back down in hopes that she’d get going again or get up and leave so I could get dressed. She finally got going again and began standard rubbing and then I hear this sound that was a mixture of “Thud” and “Smack” – she was punching me. She started at my ass and worked down to the bottom of my feet where she proceeded to speed-bag my arches then pop my toes!
What the hell.. this was not relaxing this was an ass kicking, Crane Style!
She then held my ankles down against the mattress and simultaneously started walking up my body from her knees. I was expecting a donkey punch at any moment just so she could be the alpha-male. After walking all the way up me and back she started working on my arms where she gave me what I’d refer to as “an Indian burn” and then popped my fingers and punched my palms.
I’m laying there trying to figure out how this is relaxing when I feel it “POP” right in between my shoulder blades, out of nowhere. She just cold cocked me from behind. I didn’t know what to do so I busted out laughing – I don’t know why laughter was the appropriate response to being slugged but it apparently threw off her game – she stopped and gave me that “um, wtf is wrong with you” look. I mouthed “sorry” and put my head down so she could continue the beating.. but that didn’t happen.. something far more sinister..
The Vulcan Neck Pinch
She dug her tiny little hands so far down my clavicle I nearly whelped like a scalded dog. I don’t know if I offended her by laughing at her or what but she was drilling down like I’d offended her ancestors or something. This lasted for about 12 seconds on each side – then, the standard back rub and a few more punches and I was instructed to turn over.
Now I’m terrified of this woman, I’ve just spent 30 minutes of being punched and having pressure points assaulted while being covered in angry bee sting juice.. and now she wants to do the same to the front half of my body. Well, I’m tough enough to handle it and if we have to throw down she was only about 110 lbs and 5′1 – I had a bit of an advantage of throwing her about 40 yards for a touchdown.
She did the foot thing again where she punched my feet and then started putting me in wild ass yoga positions and putting all of her weight behind it so it stretched me in ways I’d never stretched before. She put me in a figure-four leg lock (only using her arms) until I thought Ric Flair had me in the middle of the ring back in 1990.
She wouldn’t make eye contact with me though. I kept trying to plead with my eyes that I’m a fat American and stretching is not part of my daily regimen. She kept avoiding my gaze though and applying pressure.
She then crawled up my body, akin to evil ghost at the end of the Grudge, and had my shoulders pinned with her knees. I had no freaking idea what was next…this was a position usually reserved for someone I’m a bit more intimate with – I started trying to string my best German together in my head for “please don’t sit on my face” – she did something nearly as bad. She took a hot hot wash cloth and put it over my face and held it down.
I was being water boarded.
I am extremely weird about people touching my face and especially vicious if my airway is restricted (even in jest) and so after about 15 panic ridden seconds of this wet thing over my entire face I slid down… which was the wrong way to slide but it got the point across as my face was now an inch from her crotch and I was gasping a little… she finally looked at me like “you’re fucking insane…”
She then said “too hot?”
I said “yeah, something like that”.
She then went behind me, sat Indian style, and put my head in her lap so she could rub on my face. I was fearful I’d get the old “double thumb eye gouge” but that never happened, it was quite gentle until she had me sit up. The finale was intense… I sat on the end of the bed with my feet on the floor and she started digging the point of her elbows into pressure points (see: Vulcan neck pinch, temples, under my shoulder blades) and she whispers in my ear “too hard?”. I answered (obviously without thinking) “No, rough is good” – she giggled and started punching me in the back and elbowing me – then flogging me with a damp hand towel.
“All done, is good?”
“Yeah, was good”
“Please get dressed” was what she said as she was leaving – as if I were going to walk out in the lobby with my ass having just been kicked in my boxers. Nope, dressing was my restoration of dignity. I walked out like “bring it on” and really did feel better after she stopped with the ninja spider-monkey attacks – I was stretched and the deep tissue massage felt really good – but I was hungry like I hadn’t eaten in days. That’s a strange side effect that wasn’t in the documentation.
So I’ve decided that my next girlfriend has to know how to massage like an angry ninja woman because in the middle of the pain, the searing pain, and the punching, my body somehow relaxed. I think it was mental – like one of those people who feel comfort after a bad car wreck – I knew I might die at the hands of this skilled assassin in a foreign land and just accepted it.
The best $60 I’ve spent in ages.
-Keith
