Living alone was too stressful. I was crawling out of my skin, the bars were closed, and I’d already burned my bridges with my last two girlfriends. I’d told myself six months ago I wouldn’t go back to the ‘hobby’, but here I was browsing the stories and personal ads on the internet. I had to do something.

I found a note on one website, titled “Realign your energies the Eastern way”, from a woman who described herself as an Oriental bodywork professional. I sent off an inquiry, and she offered a same-night opening. It was kind of pricey, but I’d been out of the loop for a while so maybe that was normal for a new client. I had to scan and email my driver’s license, although masking out my name was fine with her.

She also wanted a negative COVID test. Who has one of those handy? Well, I did because of the careless hygienist at my dentist’s office. Her blouse was loose, which I had enjoyed, but her mask turned out to be loose also. Not so good, when they notified me of my likely exposure. At least I didn’t have to scan and email the COVID test; I could bring it with me to my session.

Her apartment turned out to be in a megacomplex not far from the baseball stadium, with visitor parking ten minutes away. By the time I found the right building and the right door, I hoped I had some energy left for her to “realign”.

Qui Dao was a young Vietnamese woman wearing a sheer pool coverup over a yellow bikini. I put my open envelope on the side table, and she took in the visible twenties with a quick glance before turning deep green eyes on me. “So why are you here, big boy?” I mumbled something about my energies needing realignment, but she cut me off with a deeper look that pinned me in place. “It’s your money and you can waste it any way you like. Or you can answer my question. What aches inside you so badly that you came out here? What do you NEED?”

She grabbed and squeezed my hand hard, and the intensity of her question cut deeply into me, opening a fault line I didn’t know was there. My mouth opened and words poured out. “I need to feel connected to a human being; I need skin contact; I want to come from something other than my own fingers!”

To my own ears my sudden babbling sounded harsh, desperate and angry. But the young woman took no offense, and smiled instead, taking my hand and leading me from the entryway into a more private room. “See, don’t you feel less stressed letting all of that come out into the open? Now, get undressed like a good boy, and we’ll see what we can do together.”

I looked around - there wasn’t a massage table in sight. While I took my clothes off, I counted a chest of drawers along one wall, shelving next to that with stacks of folded blankets and towels, and a collection of what looked like gymnastic tumbling mats. On the right was a small college-sized refrigerator and a line of low tables with drawers, a microwave sitting on the one next to the refrigerator. In the corner was a low polished wooden bench, and that’s where I put my things. The carpet was plush and soft, feeling nice under my bare feet, but the temperature was a little low for my taste.

“You look nice.” I hadn’t heard her come in behind me, and jumped as I turned around. “I get a lot of middle-aged men looking for – well, I’m sure you can guess what they’re looking for.” She brushed past me, leaving a faint scent of some perfume, and dragged a mat into the middle of the room, then covered it with a large beach towel. “Lie down on your stomach, and we will begin.”

I laid myself face down, taking a short wriggle while I decided how to position my cock, finally taking the polite route of lying atop it. The woman straddled my upper back and pressed her fingertips into the line across my shoulders. This obviously wasn’t going to be a weak tease of a massage.

She worked her hands slowly down, digging into my shoulder blades, and scooting her bottom further along down my spine. I like a firm massage myself, but this was feeling like something more, different, as if instead of applying her skills to loosen and unwind my muscles, she was placing my body into a space where it would just give up all that stress without her needing to extract it.

“Breathe!”

I must have zoned out, as she was now sitting across my ass, rocking side to side and rolling her knuckles across and around my lower back. I now regretted lying on my cock, as her rocking was making my pubic bone roll against it, bringing on a distracting erection.

She lifted her legs and swiveled a half-circle around, coming down still on my ass but facing my feet. I felt the shift of her bending atop me, and her hands wrapped around my right ankle and lifted my leg up and back, rotating my ankle and tugging my inner thigh taut. Her fingers tapped and probed from my hamstring to my calf. I didn’t recognize this method at all. She muttered something like “shot” and laid that leg down to jerk the other one into the air, poking and prodding into those muscles as well.