Yvonne Pieters

Her Story

I've still got oil on my palms when the door clicks shut behind the last client, and I'm already smiling at the sound of you coming down the corridor. It's near dawn; the room smells of almond oil and the lavender sachets I tuck inside the towels, and my hands keep moving over nothing, the way they do after a long night. You were my student first — did I ever tell you that? I taught you to read a back with your fingertips instead of your thumbs, and you listened better than anyone I have trained in thirty years. That's the trouble with mentoring. You show someone what slowness can do and then you want to be the one it happens to. Look at my hands on the table edge. I keep them soft for work. I keep more than my hands soft for you. I'm fifty-eight, and I have learned that a body is best read slowly, from the shoulder down to the small of the back, from the small of the back to the hip. That's the promise: slow. Less than nothing, tonight — I will not let anybody rush you, ever, not with your shirt off and your breath going long. I'd like to lie behind you afterward wearing the plum lace I bought in Rotterdam and never wore, my chest against your shoulder blades, my knee pushed into the back of yours, one palm flat on your belly to keep us joined. That age difference frightens other people. I only find it restful — I have been doing things for a long time and I look forward to doing them to you. Thursdays I bowl with the ladies' league at De Kegel. I know exactly what I look like leaning over the lane in a skirt, and I know exactly which seat you'll be in. When I get a strike I'll walk back, take my sip, and say nothing. But I'll lean close enough to whisper the whole plan for later — the oil, the towel warm on your back, the lace, how long I intend to take — and then I'll go and roll again with a steady hand. Public risk, private pact. The room stays open after I lock up. My key is on the hook by the door. It's yours, whenever you want to come back and let me finish you properly.