Healer © Sven the Elder Jan 2002

I knew her through the office of course, that and helping her manage and learn to use her computer in the facets of her new job. She was a quiet, slim, slightly mousy woman in her forties. Divorced, slightly bitter, but otherwise not the sort of person you'd look at twice if you passed her in the mall.

I was working on her computer's connection to the network. We'd had new network cabling carried out and while most of it was to a very high, extremely reliable standard we had had one or two machines where the connections were not as reliable as they should be. In the end we'd traced it to a very small faulty batch of wall-boxes - as there were only a few yours truly was replacing them rather than spending more of my company's money having it done professionally. I'm big hearted like that!

The only way I could get at the wretched box was to lie on my back under her desk, other than that it was shift a damned heavy desk having cleared all her kit off it first! I'm idle - I went for the easy way. Maggie hadn't been in the office when I started the work, one of the reasons for getting on with it, it really wasn't either a big or a long job. I slowed down when Maggie came back though, from where I was laid she really had rather nice legs - she normally wore trousers - today a skirt; prim and proper below the knee - but if you're lying on the floor looking up, it brings a whole new perspective onto things. She wore thigh highs as well as French Knickers. I giggled to myself - 'who'd have thought...'

Anyway the end result, what with the view just had and trying to minimise the bulge in my trousers, was I wasn't really paying as much attention as I should have been when I was getting out from underneath and I twisted my back awkwardly. Now if you're a lithe, fit 20 year old this is no big deal, however, if you're a fifty something, pre-wrinkly who really ought to know better than climb under ladies' desks, then it hurts.

I groaned inwardly and outwardly too I guess, as I straightened up and myself eased onto her chair. She turned to see what I'd done and saw the discomfort I was in.

"Sven, what's up?" she said, her voice and her expression showing her concern.

"Oh, don't worry Maggie, it's an old war wound," I joked and then stiffened as pain knifed at my back again.

I was sat sideways on her typist's chair, and she came over and moved behind me.

"Shhh - don't say anything..." and Maggie was holding my shoulder with one hand while running her other gently over my back. "Ahh - found it!" and she started rubbing a point on my back with the ball of her hand. "You've crossed a muscle over a rib," I was told by way of explanation.

Whatever - her hand was warm and soothing. Surpassingly, what had been a sharp and uncomfortable experience eased under her ministrations very quickly.

"Maggie - that's amazing," I said, "That's normally very uncomfortable for a day or two when it happens - where did you learn that trick?"

She blushed a little. "Can't remember," she said, a little defensively, "I'm a healer, I seem to have always been able to do something like it. As I've grown older," she grimaced a little at the word 'older,' "I've learnt to refine it and control it a bit better." Then she carried on, "you have a deep injury lower on your back," her fingers probed down my spine feeling the ridges through my shirt - she caught her breath sharply as she reached the lower end. "You broke your back a long time ago - you're very lucky, it should have paralysed you."

The latter as she now faced me, her hands on my shoulder.

I was startled. Yes I had broken my back some thirty and odd years earlier, but I'd certainly never told anyone in this Company. Letting Personnel know at a job interview that you've had a broken back in the past can do strange things for your future employment prospects.

Absentmindedly she said, "I need to give you a longer session of treatment for that," then more assertively, "what are you doing this evening?"

She had apologised when she gave me her address and mobile number, "Not a good part of the district..." was all she had said.

I understood now as I'd reached the end of the narrow road. I'd heard from someone else, not the usual office gossip you understand, that she had been in a business partnership with her ex - she'd trusted him and when the company crashed she found that he'd been milking it of money for years - that he was in gaol for fraud was of little consolation, in many ways she's been lucky to escape the same fate herself. Whatever, it now meant she lived in a trailer park in a not very wonderful part of town.

I parked up, got out, locked the car and set the alarms, before walking to her front door. I was shaken at the first sight of the person who opened the door to me. To say she had changed into something more comfortable could only be thought of as an understatement of the sort that would describe the Titanic as a minor shipping incident.

Maggie was wearing a see-through blouse and a much shorter skirt; both accentuated her slim figure well. She looked good, and my face was obviously worth her having gone to the trouble she had. She laughed gently, reached forward and closed my wide open mouth and asked me to "Come on in."

I've not mentioned Maggie's voice before, she has a low, quite sexy voice, suddenly now she had the appearance to match it. I followed that shapely rear up the front steps, closed the door behind me and caught up with her down the passage into her parlour. Let's just say that in the way of these places it was cosy. She'd made up for the drab exterior, by having a beautifully decorated interior, I glanced around as she spoke.

"Sven, have you ever been to a healer before?"

"Maggie, I have, several times, in fact enough times to know that you each have individual ways of working. What's best tonight, how do you want me?" I said, without thinking - and then blushed at the realisation of what I had just said.

She laughed, then said, "Well it's a warm evening, and things will probably get warmer as we go along, if it was your first time with a healer I would have said stay clothed, but as you're an old hand, I'd say clothes off down to shorts will be cooler and more comfortable for you. It'll also enable me to work more easily."

I was happy with the idea, so as she got me a padded stool to sit on and then went to prepare by washing her hands I stripped down to my underwear - 'just as well I showered and put clean things on' was my only thought as I sat and waited.