K's slim body straddles mine, her hands on my shoulders. Her hands attempt to attack the knots in my upper back. She works hard for a few minutes, her professional hands skillfully making progress on my stress.
“Is this helping you relax, Daddy?”
“Sure.”
In truth, I barely feel her hands on me at all.
I am lost somewhere else. My mind wanders back in time, to the last time I had allowed someone to massage my back.
Her hand traces down a thick scar on my right shoulder blade.
“What’s this from?” she inquires.
I try to deflect. “Eh, it’s a long story.”
“Tell me.”
Fuck. This is when the honest, open communication I’d been preaching since day #1 comes and bites me in the ass. Thanks, Karma.
So I tell K. I paint the picture. The coked-out sadistic sugar baby. The offer of a massage. The knee on the back of my neck, pinning me in place, strength fueled by the cocaine. The hot fire poker burning through the skin, the muscle, even the scarring on the scapula itself. The weeks of therapy to regain normal function. The lying to doctors and physical therapists about what really happened. The real reason I don’t accept massages.
I turn and look over my shoulder. K's wide blue eyes stare back at me from beneath strands of dark hair. I roll over under her. My hands find her hips.
The look of astonishment flees from her face. Her hand finds the scar on my right bicep where a bear had bitten me ten years before.
“What’s this scar from?”
Her eager eyes bore into mine.
I smile.
“This one is a funny story about a love/hate relationship with an animal species,” I begin.
Although inwardly my thoughts slip back to that night, long ago, and the fire poker. Sometimes the scars that hurt the worst are those no one can see, but you can feel inside you, in our darkest moments of regret.
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