It Started with a Massage

As soon as everyone had left my cubicle, I groaned softly and crossed my arms on my desk, resting my head on them for a minute. After a few minutes, my stress-induced headache had changed from a loud pounding noise to a dull roar, so I sat up and massaged my temples while breathing deeply.

"Hey Nate? Are you alright?"

"Huh?" I mumbled, turning around to see my co-worker Alyssa leaning against the wall of my six-by-six prison. "Oh yeah, I guess so. It's been a hellacious day, and I just want this headache to go away."

"It was hard not to notice the crowd that you had around you ever since lunchtime. What was going on?"

"Nothing much," I sighed, leaning back in my chair and slapping a random button on my keyboard to wake the computer up, then pointed my thumb at the screen, "some sadist thought it would be funny to assign me this helpdesk ticket, and when the director gets involved, you know it's almost impossible to reassign it to someone else. Some customer had a problem with the ordering system, so I was the unlucky soul that got to work on it. Only after I found the problem could I send it to someone else to fix, but that means I didn't get any of my regular work done today, so now I'm about four hours behind."

"Oh yeah, I heard that you got some 'attaboy' praise from the director for it too. Mind if I peek for a second?"

Waving my hand in indifference at the screen, I stood up and leaned against my desk while Alyssa sat in my chair. While she read through the entries, she leaned forward, and I pulled out my cellphone to check the string of texts that I had missed. I'm not sure what prompted the move, but for some reason, I glanced over at Alyssa, and my breath caught in my throat. Her loose blouse had billowed out because of her posture, and I was treated to the first down-blouse view I'd ever had of her.

Pretending that I was still looking at my phone, I shifted slightly to get a better view, and I felt silly for blushing, but I could feel my face starting to warm up. She was always friendly to me, and while we had never flirted, I always thought that I felt something growing between us. We acted completely appropriate at work at all times, and since Alyssa always seemed to be completely in control of herself and aware of surroundings, the only thing I could think of was that she was doing this on purpose.

My eyes traced the outline of her bra, and from only a few feet away, I could easily see the subtle design sewn into the otherwise plain and work-appropriate design. I loved the way her arms rested on her knees pushed her smaller-sized breasts together, and from my vantage point, I could see the soft orbs of skin gently touching in the middle of her chest. Near the top of her breast, I could also see a gentle dip in her skin, instantly making me wonder if that meant her breasts sagged slightly when she was naked.

My breath was staring to get faster and shallower as I continued to stare, and only now did I notice that my mouth was hanging open slightly and my jeans had apparently shrunk a little. I closed my eyes and tried to compose myself, moving back a few inches so I was now sitting on my desk and I could conceal the embarrassing bulge in my jeans. Luckily for me, my timing was perfect, and I was again looking at my phone when Alyssa turned back to me. With my phone and both hands covering my growing lump, there wasn't much of a chance she would have known.

"So right here, Nate, I think this is the important part."

"Yeah, how so?" I managed to croak out.

"It says that they used our website for part of the order, then they called in the rest of it."

"That's right. Their customer profile was a little messed up, and the problem came up because our systems sometimes have different address formats for the older customers. Their PO lists the whole purchase, but the online order sheet doesn't have the part they called in because our computers couldn't link them together."

"Oh, I think I see what you mean now," Alyssa nodded, reaching for the mouse to navigate through the virtual paperwork and diagrams, and as soon as I thought that the screen had her attention, my gaze dropped again.

With one of her arms up on the desk, it stretched out the neck of her shirt a little bit, giving me a slightly different view. I still loved the sight, and as she moved the mouse around, it made her breast move a tiny bit. Only one breast was in sight now, but with the movement of her body, her bra had shifted, and I could see the edge of her nipple now.

'Knock it off, you jerk,' I mentally yelled at myself, 'she is your business associate and a friend. She doesn't deserve to be perved over like this. Get your mind back on track - think job, not boobs!'

"So this part..." Alyssa started, making me flinch.

I jerked my head up to look at the screen, my cheeks turning pink again as she almost caught me staring down her ,. Her mouth dropped open a little, and from my peripheral vision, I swear I caught a smirk as she turned to face me again, but she didn't change her position one inch.

"So this part is where the whole thing broke, right?"

"Ummm, yeah, I think so." Cursing myself mentally again, I tried to wipe my mind of the image of her breasts. "Yeah, that is it. That stuff is done by IT, so I sent this whole thing to their team, and they promised to get it straightened out today."

Nodding her head as she clicked through a few more screens, she paused to look at a complex diagram, but this time I kept myself in check. Not once did I turn to look down her shirt again. Well, OK, I did, but it was just for a second. My heart rate bumped up for a moment, but I was worried about getting caught again, so I did my best to keep my thoughts pure.

"Well cool, thanks for letting me take a peek," Alyssa said with a smile, pushing the chair back and standing up.

"No problem," I replied, making a determined effort to look nowhere else but at her face, still kind of worried about the smirk that I know for a fact she had on now, but also trying to not repeat her comment to her verbatim.

"You know, you look really tense, Nate. Maybe you should get off now and take an early day. Try to relax on the bus and have a few drinks when you get home, or maybe a long relaxing shower. I know that getting a massage really helps reduce my stress, do you ever get massages?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea, I probably should run away while I can. And no, I don't do massages, they seem weird to me somehow unless it's for a medical reason, like a kind of therapy."

"Well it was just an idea. I've gotta run, but I hope you can burn off your stress tonight and recover before you come back in tomorrow all relaxed and ready to take on the world."

Just like uncountable times in the past, I watched Alyssa's ass as she walked away, but her loose skirt refused to show anything that would excite me. As always, she didn't sexualize her outfits like some women in the office did. It was part of the reason I liked her as well; she relied on her brain and skill to move ahead instead of trying to get promotions based on her gender or by being a flirt. It wasn't until she was out of sight and I was sitting in my chair again that the meaning of her comment hit me.

"Son of a..." I said under my breath, closing my eyes in embarrassment, "she did catch me looking, and she was laughing at me with that smirk. She seriously just told me to have a beer get off in the shower." Shaking my head as I started to chuckle, I pictured the way she stood at the entrance to my cubicle. "Damn it, Alyssa. You knew what was going on, and you were able to take my rudeness in stride and still make light of it while you were making fun of me."

Typing up a quick email to my manager and my team, I told them I was taking off for the day, and before anyone could respond, I shut down my computer and packed up my things. Tossing my backpack over my shoulder, I was headed for the back door when I saw Alyssa walking with my manager as they talked.

"Hey Nate, Alyssa told me you're taking off early. Is that right?"

"Yup, I'm beat. If you need me to stay, I will, but I need some time to clear my head after that BS troubleshooting I did all afternoon."

"Oh no, it's fine. Take the time you need, you scored some big points for us today with management."

He clapped me on the shoulder and walked away, and Alyssa flashed me a wide smile as she followed. Even though I was looking her square in the face, my heart skipped a beat to see that as soon as they both had walked close to me, her nipples quickly hardened, and the two bumps pointing at me was almost too much of a distraction for me to speak normally. As soon as she walked past me, another detail struck me.

"No way," I whispered as I walked towards the bus terminal, "right now she had two more buttons fastened than when she was at my desk. That damn woman did it on purpose! What the hell?"

( .)(. )

During the ride out of the city, all I could think about was Alyssa. I couldn't understand why she acted the way she did, but with the view I had been given, I wasn't about to complain. It was the 'why' that still bothered me though. In the couple of years that I'd worked with her, we had always clicked, and as much as I wanted to be more than friends, I knew it was best to not try and kindle any work relationships. I could only imagine how bad things could get if we started something and then broke it off. Working daily with an ex wasn't on my list of things that made for a positive work environment. Besides, as much as Alyssa focused on being a competent worker and not a sex object, I doubted that once the quitting bell rang she would pull a full one-eighty and work just as hard at being a girlfriend.

Shifting in my seat, I cursed myself for letting my libido get in the way. I had always lusted after her, but almost all the time I was able to keep those feelings at bay. And now a couple little quick peeks down her shirt had knocked down all of those walls I had built up to keep our relationship on a friendly basis.

Trying to not focus on my memory of the breasts of a good friend, I stared out the window of the bus, looking down at the cars we passed on the freeway. They were doing half the speed we were in the carpool lane, but when we slowed down for some congestion, the only thing that caught my eye was the view down into the cars, aided by the angle provided by the high seats of the bus. It seemed like every other car was driven by a woman, and every time, I tried to catch a peek down their shirts or up their skirts.

Cursing to myself, I turned in my seat to put my back to the window, hoping to find something that would get my mind off of breasts. Looking around the bus, I noticed that the people who weren't sleeping were engrossed by some kind of electronic device or a book. I heard a shuffle from the row in front of me, and in the gap between the seats, I caught a glimpse of a person using a tablet, and a clear view of a naked woman was visible for a few seconds before they clicked away. As much as I was trying to avoid being distracted by people driving by, and my memories of Alyssa, I was instantly interested in seeing some skin, even if it was in a tiny picture on a small screen.

The guy in front of me had turned his body so the rest of the passengers wouldn't be distracted by his browsing, but I found that by scooting to the side, I could look down between the seat and the bus window and see most of what was on his screen. With a smile, I spent the next ten minutes shoulder surfing someone else's porn browsing, but because of the weird viewing angle, I didn't recognize right away what he was doing. I heard his phone ringing, and he put the tablet down to talk, and I held back a laugh as he talked to his wife in a whisper.

"That's right babe, I have a meeting to attend with a client, so I'll be a little late tonight.

"Yes dear, I know. I'm sorry you're still sick, so I understand. It's been a few months, so maybe you should talk to your doctor. It really shouldn't hurt when we... You know, when we do 'that'. We'll never get pregnant if we don't try.

"No, wait. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, it was rude of me to share that with the rest of my office. So yeah, I've got to go, and I'll talk to you tonight."

'Poor married schmuck,' I thought sadly, 'and that right there is why I'll never make that mistake. Hey wait a second...'

Looking down closely at the tablet, I could see more of the screen and this time read some words, and I was able to recognize the website that he was looking at.

'There's no way in hell...' I thought, taking out my own tablet and getting online, 'I thought they shut down that advertising site ages ago. Now what section is he browsing?'

Since the guy was now using his tablet, I couldn't get close enough to read it, so I used the camera on mine, zooming in close enough to read the top of his screen. 'Well how about that. They have a section for escorts now. Crazy stuff.'

After a few minutes of browsing, I didn't see the same images that I had seen over the other guy's shoulder, so I changed to the next category, which was 'body rub', and I laughed internally at the suggestive wording. As the listings scrolled down the page, my eyes grew wide as I read the descriptions. At first it was all a deluge of data, but as soon as I figured out how to sort by keywords, it looked more manageable.

'Now I see why that guy moved,' I thought as a large image of a naked woman appeared on my screen, and my thumb instinctively hit the button to turn off the display, 'I don't want somebody to get mad at me for sharing porn with the rest of the bus riders.'

By propping up my backpack just right, I found I could surf all the dirty stuff I wanted without worrying about offending someone with an aversion to skin pictures. As I clicked through the seemingly non-stop listings for erotic massages, I was able to figure out the codes the ladies used for hours and pricing, plus a description of what they were willing to do for customers, all in a way that skirted the legal edge of what they could and couldn't say. I was so engrossed by this new find, that when I looked out of the window again, I saw my normal bus stop go sailing by, and the guy that had been sitting in front of me was now on the sidewalk outside. I cursed softly and pulled the cable to ring the bell and quickly packed up my stuff. It took me another minute to remember that the next stop was several blocks away.

'It's a good thing that I'm not in a hurry. With all the back-tracking I have to do, I'll never reach the next connecting bus in time.'

I got off on the next stop, looking around to get my bearings, staring sadly at the intersection I needed to reach, knowing it was almost a mile away. With a deep sigh, I adjusted the bag over my shoulder and started walking, looking around like a tourist at the business signs that I had not seen in at least a year, which was the last time that I had missed my stop.

"Every city has a Chinatown," I mumbled to myself, "and in all the places that I've lived, I can't believe I haven't explored this one yet. It's still early, so why the hell not? I think I'll have dinner here tonight."

Now that I had a plan for the evening, I walked with a spring to my step. I spied a familiar looking coffee shop and headed in, hoping to get a boost of energy from a cup before heading out into the unknown. Sitting at a table with my back against the wall, I pulled out my tablet to search the internet for a good restaurant, laughing quietly to myself when I saw that I had never closed the site I had been looking at on the bus, clicking the 'back' button so the half naked woman wasn't visible anymore.

My thumb hovered over the 'x' button to close the window, and I almost pressed on it when something on the screen caught my eye. "No way... Chinatown. Seriously?"

Taking a sip of the hot brew, my mouth flooded with the rich bitter taste I had been craving, and I stared at the listings on the screen, now seeing that there were three with the name of 'Chinatown' in the description. My hand shook slightly as I pressed on the link, opening one that I had already seen before. Scrolling past the badly written description and the pictures I knew were taken from some porn site, I looked down at the contact information.

302 South Main Street. Suki's Spa, open 1PM-1AM (or by appt). Happy Hour 3PM-6PM with special. Walk-in OK, more beter with appoiintment.

"Holy shit, there's no way. Really?" I whispered to the screen, ignoring the phone number and looking again at the address and name. "I swear I just saw that address, and I'm on South Main."

Carrying the tablet and leaving everything else on the table, I walked across the shop to look out the window. Sure enough, on the building across the street, I saw the numbers '302' above a nondescript door. As I walked back to my table, my heart was racing, and it wasn't from the caffeine. I bumped into a chair on the way, the sound of it jerking me out of the zone my mind was in.

I stared at the screen until it shut down from lack of attention, my eyes fixed on the collection of buzzwords that the ladies hoped would attract customers. Young, hot, firm, beautiful ladies, experienced, fresh from China, full body massage, erotic touch, stress relief. Glancing at the pictures of nude models that surely didn't work at a massage parlor, I started to imagine that I was potentially ten minutes away from having a woman give me a wonderful work-over, and the possibilities were almost endless. After a glance at the price, I no longer even mentally giggled about the idea of "50 rose donation" being a twist on describing currency, but instead headed straight for the ATM.

( .)(. )

Glancing around like I was trying to be sneaky, I headed for the door under the numbers '302', not really sure what to expect, or if it was even unlocked. Luckily for me, the door swung open easily, squeaking a little as it closed behind me, leaving me all alone in a dimly lit hall that smelled funny. I laughed nervously, flinching when my voice echoed back to me.

"What the hell? This is weird. I think I can smell mold, maybe old socks, boiled cabbage, and... Oh hell, I don't even want to know. Where do I go now?"

Walking down the dingy cement hallway, I passed several steel doors that were securely locked, then I turned a corner to see a curtain of beads covering a doorway, and a hand-written sign proclaiming "Suki's Spa" above the beads. Full of both nervous excitement and worry, I walked up to the beads and looked through, satisfying my feeling of dread that there wasn't anything scary looking beyond it. Instead, there was a circle of furniture around a glass coffee table, and three women sitting down, plus one guy with his back to me.

Steeling my resolve, I fought away the desire to leave, instead pushing through the curtain. Everyone looked up at me, and I chuckled to see the guy was the same one that had been sitting in front of me on the bus, but he clearly didn't seem to recognize me. Good. I didn't want anyone knowing that I had even come in here.

A Japanese lady that looked like she could be either thirty or seventy stood up and smiled at me, bowing slightly, which I unconsciously returned, then I smiled back and nodded a hello at the other people in the room.

"You want massage?"

"Uhhh, yeah, I guess. That's what you do here, right? I've had a long day, and I'd love to get the stress worked out of my body. I don't need an appointment, do I?"

Realizing I was on the verge of babbling non-stop in my nervousness, I shut up and watched the wrinkles in her face build up on top of each other as she smiled wider.

"Yes, you have massage. No wait for you. You pick girl now."

Nodding my head, I replied as I turned to face the couch. "Yeah, OK, I..." My jaw locked open as I stared at the girl on the end of the couch furthest from me. "Alyssa? Is that you?"