Honey, Nothing Happened

I had a headache yesterday (Saturday). Bad. It was the kind that builds from a nuisance to one that made me want to vomit. I knew I couldn't ignore this thing so I asked my friend Lucky to help me buy some medicine. What he helped me buy, he assured me, was made up of all natural ingredients all "from the mountain".



I took the maximum dose. It didn't work.



I tried laying down in my hotel room. I tried doing what I though were the breathing exercises I see my wife do when she has a brutal headache. I tried eating the headache away. I tried drinking the headache away (1 liter of beer). Nothing doing. I looked up acupuncture but have no idea where I would get it done at (and I'm afraid of blood borne diseases). I had only one option left, a massage.



There is a "Health Club" that shares the parking lot/courtyard with my hotel. I had asked Lucky about it and he said it was on the up and up but that I could get a sexy massage there if I wanted.



I didn't want a sexy massage I wanted a get rid of my headache massage.



I walked over to the health club and immediately began to make a fool of myself. I didn't take off my shoes when I reached the carpet. This would be a theme for me. So now I've been flustered by the shoes thing, I have a headache of epic proportions and I'm worried I'm going to get sexually assaulted.



They ask me what I want.



I want a massage.



Yes, yes. Up to #2 or #3?



I don't know. Someone decides for me, #2.



They hand me a little towel wrapped in what I later discover is a bracelet with a number on it, #308. I get to the 2nd floor and am directed to strip by a guy they find who speaks a smattering of English. I do so in short order and an attendant, who is really too close, takes my stuff and puts it in a locker. The bracelet thing has a chip in it that activates the lock. Cool. I turn around and hear a none too disguised grunt of surprise. I think its the Irish curse I've got. I'm a grower, not a shower. In hindsight it must have been the hair. I have plenty, they have none.



So I'm nude and a bunch of people are staring at me. Great. I walk into the bath area and note there are a bunch of tables at the far side of the room with guys laying on them getting rubbed down. I hear some shouting behind me and discover that I've walked into the shower area without having put on some conveniently supplied slippers. I put them on and shower up. It seems like the right thing to do.



Now I have to take a piss.



The 1 liter of beer I drank trying to get rid of my headache is pushing for the door. Nude I pantomime to the nearby attendant that I have to piss. Yes it looked like that. They show me to the bathroom and I make my water. I then walk back to the massage tables and the guy who spoke English to me asks me to lay down on his table. I do so while clumsily kicking off the slippers. He then proceeds to give me a thorough rub down.



This is heaven. I only really needed a good head massage but he works the whole body. He actually works up quite a sweat doing it. There is only one problem. Its a little hard to breath. With my face down on the table and no convenient opening to get some wind through I am struggling to keep my head aligned properly. Oh well, I use it as motivation to work on breathing. The massage ends and I step back into my slippers. Or at least I thought I did. In retrospect I put my feet down on the opposite side of the table as where I kicked off my slippers. Oh well.



I'm feeling much better, not all the way right though.



I walk back to the showers and rinse off my sweat and the soap my masseuse used to lube up my back for the rub. I finish my shower and am leaving the area when my masseuse jogs up to help me dry off. Uncomfortable. A minute ago he was wrist deep in my back and now he's just waving the towel at me and sort of brushing on my dick to dry it off. Again I'm all flustered. There are no less than 4 guys watching the proceedings. I step out into the dressing area with my slippers on. A no-no. Dammit can't I get any of this right?



Evidently not.



At this point I'm really kind of OK to leave. The attendants, though, seem to expect me to go up to the third floor. What the hell, maybe this was just a warm up phase. I'm feeling better but not fixed. I'm directed to put on a canvas-y outfit of shorts and a wrap around shirt. So I do and I go upstairs. I know I've made a mistake when I get upstairs because I am greeted by a room that looks like a mash up of a booking hall, a movie theater, and a gentleman's lounge.



And a couch full of girls.



Either I'm an idiot with too much pride or I secretly want something to happen but I don't turn on my heel and leave. I find a couch thing and lay down. A guy comes over and asks if I want something off the card standing on the table next to me. I can't read it. He says how about a beer. OK. He brings me the beer and asks if I want a massage. One of the girls is behind him. He assures me she is quite good. She keeps making massage motions down around my legs. I feel like a moron but I don't know how to say no. The massage offered by the girl is all of 128 RMB, something less than $ 20. This doesn't seem like sex for hire money so I think I'm safe.

Now its fairly dark in this room and also sparsely populated so I thought the massage would happen there. Nope. She leads me upstairs to a private room. Now I'm freaking out. She instructs me to undress and I take off my shirt. I lay down on the bed face up and she begins the massage.

I'm tense.

She's rubbing my arms and chest and can't seem to get over the fact that I have body hair. That's all well and good, borderline cute even (its nice to be novel) but I can't help thinking any move she makes is a sexual overture.

She tries to chit chat. I finally understand she's trying to tell me her name, I couldn't remember it if you put me under hypnosis. Her name tag says she's # 322. I learn she's 25 I tell her I'm 33. She wants to know where I'm staying. I tell her the Faguo Hotel next door. I don't tell her my room number. Now she's rubbing my belly. Fuck if that isn't close too my dick. I concentrate on not getting a hard-on. This is fairly easy considering I have to take a shit.

I'm not kidding.

My belly keeps rumbling and she keeps massaging. She also seems to think its cute that I'm a barrel bellied fat-so. She keeps thumping my stomach and hearing the hollow sound. Ha ha. Finally I get up and tell her I have to go to the bathroom. She shows me to the end of the hall. I miss the slippers and almost step into the WC in bare feet. She quickly points out my mistake.

Guess what, the shitter is of the Turkish type and no railing to hold on to.

The Chinese can squat all day long. I can't. I strip off my shorts, squat and dump. Yuck. All sexuality leaves the building when I flush. I clean up and leave the restroom. The girl is at the other end of the hallway waiting for me. Smart girl.

We re-enter the room and I climb back up on the table. She recommences with the massage, starting with my belly. I can't take it anymore I need to close out this issue. I try to ask her if we're supposed to have "sexy". I sound like Borat. She doesn't understand. I try to tell her that I'm married by making the ring on my finger motion. She responds with a quizzical look and does something that looks like the having sex motion. She doesn't understand. Finally I take her hand and say me, you and put her hand on my dick. No! No! She says.

Good. She understands.

I relax and she continues the massage. She works my head and neck (I needed that), my legs, and finishes up with some super hot towels on my back. With the exception of by stomach making a farting sound from the rearrangement of whatever was left in there, I guarantee I didn't pass gas, everything goes smoothly. The massage ends and she collects her little baggie of stuff and my untouched beer and we head downstairs.

I've had enough.

I don't go back to the "Lounge Room" I head straight downstairs. I get my stuff out of my locker and bug out. My bill comes to 255 RMB. Not bad for two full body massages but I think the second one did more harm than good.

When I get back to my room, the Australian contractor we have here doing inspections gives me a call. I ask him if he has any headache medicine. He does, its got codeine in it. Something special you can get OTC in Australia.

This stuff works.

My headache is gone for good in a half an hour. I don't know what to make of my experience. I think I was toying with the idea of a "full service" massage but it turns out I'm not that kind of guy. Instead I get back to my room and sign up at Suicide Girls. That and my little green lady will have to do.