Hedy rolled her eyes. “Sonja got a five-hundred-dollar tip from one customer this morning.”
Marisa’s jaw dropped.
Before she had a chance to ask what Sonja had done to earn such a bonus, Hedy said, “Don’t ask.”
Marisa insisted that her clients’ private body parts be covered with a sheet, and she made it clear up front (pun intended) that she was a therapist, not a prostitute. Not even for “a little bit of touchy-feely,” as one man once coaxed her. That didn’t mean that the recipients of her massages didn’t get turned on occasionally, both male and female, but she just ignored their physical reactions and chatted away about everyday things to distract them. “How about them Marlins? Did you see what Miley Cyrus did on that MTV special? I hear the weather will be good all week.” It usually worked.
Not everyone liked to talk during a massage, and Marisa respected that. Usually, she played it by ear, and if she sensed they didn’t want to talk, she just put on some soothing music and did her work. She was versatile.
“Tell me about your little girl,” Hedy said. “Eleanor told me you’re here to earn extra money for her treatment.”
“Isobel . . . Izzie . . . has a terminal brain tumor. Except that there’s an experimental operation being tested with some success in Switzerland. Because it’s experimental and being done in a foreign country, my insurance won’t cover the cost.”
“How much?”
“One hundred and seventy thousand.”
“Phew!”
“Tell me about it. I’ve managed to raise a hundred thousand through various fund-raising drives and grants and such, but time is running out, and . . .” She let her words trail off.
“How much time does she . . . do you have?”
Marisa shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Less than a year. But the longer we wait, the less chance there is that the operation would succeed.”
“And you expect to earn that kind of money here, massaging and waitressing?” The look of pity on Hedy’s face pretty much said that Marisa was being hopelessly optimistic.
Marisa dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and laughed. “No, I don’t expect to earn seventy thousand dollars.” Unless I do something really drastic. “But I will earn a substantial sum to put toward that goal, lots more than I could earn at home. And I’m hoping to meet someone who could help me raise the cash. The Internet is where it’s at today, for everything. Millions of people can be reached with one tap of a computer key. The right person might be able to set up a website that could save Izzie’s life.”
Hedy cocked her head to the side, and her heavily lacquered hair went with her. “Haven’t you tried that yet?”
“I have, but only on a limited basis. I don’t really have the knowhow to do it in a big way, and, frankly, thousands of other people with equally needy medical situations are vying for the same dollars. I need a creative, Internet-savvy person to put a new angle on her case and create a buzz. Someone told me that some of these porno sites are among the most sophisticated and creative, and that’s why they’re so profitable. Makes sense that some of these Web designers would be here.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetie, but the computer nerds I’ve met here so far are just self-centered young twits who care about nothing except lining their pockets, or hacking some super-secret government operation.”
“Guess I’m looking for a miracle.”
“Or a sugar daddy?” Hedy guessed, but there was no judgment in her voice.
“If all else fails . . . maybe,” Marisa admitted.
Hedy reached over and patted her forearm. “We’ll both pray for a miracle.”
Hedy urging prayer? She sounded a lot like Marisa’s mother. “Why are you here, Hedy?”
“Same as you. Money. I want to open my own women’s gym and spa in Jacksonville . . . that’s where I’m from . . . and even though I’ve always worked and earned a good salary, my louse of an ex-husband emptied our bank account when he took off for the circus.” She rolled her eyes and laughed heartily.
“You don’t seem angry or bitter.”
“I’m not. Oh, I was a little, at first, but I’d been trying to get rid of the runt for years. Good riddance to him!”
Before they got up to return to work, Hedy said, “I can put a donation jar for Izzie on the front counter, if you don’t mind.”
Marisa wanted to object. She hated being the object of pity, making herself and her problems so conspicuous. But where her little girl was concerned, she couldn’t afford foolish pride. And every dollar counted toward that seemingly impossible goal. “Thank you. Izzie and I would be grateful.”
Her next client, Yolanda Dupre, a sex toy entrepreneur, wanted a hot stone massage, one of Marisa’s specialties. While Marisa used the smooth, round stones that had been heated in hot water as extensions of her hands, she massaged the tension out of the woman’s neck, shoulders, arms, back, and thighs.
The whole time, Yolanda talked. All it took was a single question from Marisa: “How did you get started in your business?”
Yolanda was probably about fifty, but looked forty, thanks to some expert plastic surgery. (Marisa could recognize the signs at twenty paces and knew where to look for the hidden stitches.) Her neat cap of black and white waves bespoke an expensive hair salon. She wore diamond studs in her ears. Probably Cartier or Tiffany. When she’d first arrived, Marisa recognized a Chanel suit, and it wasn’t a knockoff, either. The real deal! Which had to cost at least a thousand dollars.
Speaking with a cultured British accent, Yolanda said, “I first got into the sex toy business on a small scale, just bits and bobs, vibrators and dildos for home parties, that kind of thing, when my twin sons were sophomores in high school, talking about going to college. We had moved to the States by then. I met my husband when he was a visiting prof at Oxford University; I divorced him when he was going for his fifth master’s degree in yet another liberal arts major at NYU. I tossed him to the dust bin and never looked back. I was never on the dole, but my sons had to pick Stanford, one of the most expensive schools, of course. Oh! Oh! That feels so good. Try to work that area a little more.”
Marisa had been massaging the woman’s nape. It was a stressed area for many women.
“Anyhow, I was in the right place at the right time when the sexual revolution broke out. Not the women’s lib revolution, but the one in the nineties with the Internet explosion. It started with that website that sold soft porn novels for women. In the past, women hesitated to buy such literature openly in their local bookstores, but the Internet allowed them to make purchases without anyone ever knowing. The bloke who started that erotica website became an instant millionaire. I saw my opportunity and jumped right in, or you could say, I vibrated right in.”
“How do you find new products? I mean, there can be only so many variations on a vibrator or . . . or . . .” She hated to say that D word. “. . . male appendages.”
Yolanda smiled at her seeming prudishness. She was on her back now, with her arms crossed under her nape, staring up at her. Marisa was working her feet and calves. A sheet covered her from breasts to upper thighs.
“You’d be gobsmacked. There’s always something new. Inventors come to my company with ideas, uninvited, or I attend trade shows.”
“Trade shows. You mean, like car shows?”
“Yep. Sexual electronics. I pick up most of my new products at these events. That’s where the Whirly-Girly was discovered.”
Marisa wasn’t about to ask what a Whirly-Girly was.
But Yolanda sensed her confusion and said, “I have one in my purse. I’ll leave it for you at the front desk.” She laughed at Marisa’s heated face.
Inga and Tiffany are right. I don’t get out enough.
“Right now, I’m looking for a good nipple product, something that simulates warm, moist male lips and tongue, with the proper suction, rhythm, and the feel of a real, semi-abrasive tongue. Thus far, all we have are these suction cup thingees that don?
??t do diddly, if you get my meaning.”
Okaaay!
Yolanda grinned impishly at Marisa, enjoying her discomfort.
“I don’t mean to be offensive, but you seem like a woman more accustomed to the country club than the porno club. Don’t you find this a bit . . . well, embarrassing?”
“Oh yeah. I blush all the way to the bank.”
Well, she told me!
“What one person finds grotty, another one finds perfectly normal.” She shrugged. “And I’ll tell you something that will surprise you. I feel as if I’m doing a service to women. Not every woman has a man to shag in her life, by choice or fate. They deserve pleasure and satisfaction, even if it’s at their own hands. I also feel as if I’m doing my bit to liberate women about sexuality. It’s all right for women to be randy, too. I’m so knackered of folks who still think it’s a man’s world.”
Now I’ve done it. Damn, damn, damn! “Honestly, I didn’t mean to be insulting. I have a tendency to be sarcastic.”
“You weren’t snarky, at all. I don’t hesitate to tell people to sod off when they cross the line. That was just my usual podium spiel,” Yolanda said with a smile as she sat up lithely on the table. “What’s your story, Ms. Lopez? What brings you to a porno conference?”
“Don’t you mean FOE?”
“Bugger that!” Yolanda said with a grin.
Marisa gave the short answer, “Money.”
“There you go!”
Marisa wanted to ask Yolanda about her Internet website and how she’d found someone to help her. It was unprofessional of her to want to pursue her own interests with a customer, but then she once again set her pride and good sense aside. “How important is a good website to your business?”
“Essential. It’s everything.”
“Who does it for you?”
“White Cloud Designs from Los Angeles.”
“Are they expensive?”
“Unbelievably expensive. In fact, with this dodgy economy, I’m trying to talk at least one of my sons into an Internet design major so they can take over that aspect of the business when they graduate, but the idiots are more interested in becoming doctors or lawyers. Can you imagine?” She grinned at Marisa, then turned serious when she noticed the crushed expression on Marisa’s face. “What is it, dear?”
Marisa bucked up then and waved Yolanda’s concern aside. “Nothing important,” she said. “It’s been very nice chatting with you.”
To her disappointment, Marisa got only a twenty-dollar tip from Yolanda, which would have been considered good back in her regular job. She expected more here. However, when she went out to greet her next customer, she saw a little gift from Yolanda wrapped in plain brown paper. The Whirly-Girly? She also saw several hundred-dollar bills stuffed in Izzie’s jar. Hedy told her they were from Yolanda. Once again, Marisa had made a rash judgment about someone, only to learn perception was not reality.
That theory was tested when her next client arrived . . . none other than Lance Rocket.
“Ms. Lopez?” he asked, sauntering into the room, thankfully wearing an oversize white towel to cover his generous endowments, not that she was looking below his hairless chest. Seeing as how he had thick, dark brown hair, he’d probably been waxed.
“Mr. Rocket,” she said, leaning forward to shake his hand. “We met briefly last night at Mr. Goldman’s party.”
“Right. Call me Lance.” He shook her hand. “That was something with Farentino keeling over like that.”
“Yes, but I understand he’s going to make it. Thank God! Please sit.” She motioned toward the massage table.
Some people’s legs dangled over the side, but because of his height, about six-foot, his bare feet were planted on the tile floor. He was a handsome man, but up close she could see by the fine webbing at the corners of his eyes and mouth that he was older than she had thought. Possibly forty. You wouldn’t know it by his body, though, which was lean and well-muscled.
“What kind of massage are you interested in, Lance?” She pointed to the sign on the wall, which listed seven different types that she gave.
“Pfff. I could probably use them all, but it’s my thighs and hamstrings that are killing me.”
“Oh?”
“I work on my knees too much,” he told her with an absolutely straight face, assuming she knew what he did for a living.
“Are you a priest?” she asked, just to tease.
“Huh?”
“On your knees. Praying a lot.”
He grinned when understanding seeped in. “I pray at the love altar,” he said, still with a straight face. “However, I don’t practice celibacy.”
She barely stifled a groan. She’d stepped right into that one.
“I had numerous knee injuries when I played football in college. As a result, my knees are shot, especially the left one. To relieve the strain on my kneecaps, I tend to work more in a squat position or leaning back. Try doing that for hours at a time, and your hamstrings would scream, too.”
No way was Marisa going to picture that.
“Have you consulted a doctor?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have time for knee surgery and lengthy rehab. And I can’t take off work for six months, either, like one doc suggested. The best I can do is cortisone shots every three months.”
“Okay. Well, let’s see what I can do. Lie down, face first.”
He did, but had to adjust himself more than usual for obvious reasons. The towel was still draped over his behind and his face rested on the small pillow at the top of the table. Still, he squirmed around. Muttering, “They oughta have donut holes cut in these tables to accommodate us men. Big, padded donut holes.”
What could she say to that? Nothing. Instead, she busied herself with gathering some towels until he was settled.
“I’m putting warm oil on my hands, and then I’m going to try to work these hamstrings. Okay?”
“Just take it easy.”
She tested the muscles on the backs of his thighs, which were indeed tighter than over-wound springs, first with soft presses of her fingertips, then deeper presses by the knuckles and heels of her hands.
“Sonofabitch!” he groaned.
“Does that hurt?”
“Hell, yes!”
She could see that his hands were fisted, the knuckles white.
“But don’t stop,” he quickly added and exhaled whooshily several times until she could feel the tendons loosen and lengthen. “There, that’s the spot. Damn, but that feels good. There. Right frickin’ there.”
Since he was more relaxed now, she changed her massaging to longer, firmer strokes from the tops of his thighs down to the backs of his knees, and even his calves and the arches of his feet. When he moaned intermittently now, it was from the lessening of pain.
“I’m going to massage your shoulders and biceps, too. Often, to compensate for the pain in one place, we tighten up other parts of our body.”
“Whatever works, babe.”
Some women would find that term offensive, but she could tell he didn’t mean it that way.
“So you played football in college. Where?”
“Penn State.”
“Whoa, that’s big-time college football.”
“Yep. Division One.”
“When did you get involved in . . . um, adult movies?” She found it difficult to say “freedom of expression” movies. It just didn’t fit.
He chuckled, perfectly aware of her hesitation to mention the word pornography. “After college. I graduated with a degree in American literature, and—”
Holy moly! A porno poet!
“—the only job I could get was substitute teaching high school English—”
What did he expect, with that major? Really! She constantly ran into people who said such things as, “I got a 4.0 in French medieval history, and I just don’t understand why I can’t land a job.” She was tempted to tell them, “Get a reality check, buddy.”
“—even
though I had imagined myself the next Ernest Hemingway.”
Really? Okay, a writer then. But did he have a clue what most writers made? Think barely more than minimum wage.
“I barely made enough to care for my wife and baby girl.”
Bingo. “You have a wife? And a daughter?”
“Hah! I have three daughters now. And, before you ask, I’ve been married to the same woman for eighteen years.”
Call me naïve, but why do I find it so hard to reconcile a wife at home and a husband boffing dozens of bimbos?
“An old college girlfriend, who had just starred in that Internet sensation Mandy Does Manhattan, mentioned me to her director. You’ve seen that one, right?”
“Uh, no.” She didn’t want to say that she’d seen at most three adult movies in her lifetime and then only parts of each before either laughing herself silly, or being so disgusted or embarrassed she refused to watch more. Instead, she told him truthfully, “I was only about ten years old back then.”
“Oh,” he said, “but it’s a classic. Most people I meet have seen that one.”
Obviously, I’m not most people, and I’m no longer sure if that’s good or bad. “So you didn’t need any acting experience to move from the classroom to the big screen . . . or little screen, in the case of TV?”
“No acting experience. In fact, I didn’t have a lot of sexual experience, either, believe it or not. Yeah, I’d always carried this junk around with me, but I didn’t have a clue what to do with it. Time to profit from what had been an embarrassment before, I decided.” He was lying on his back now and waved a hand toward the bulge down below. The grin on his face belied just how embarrassed he was, or had been. “That was fifteen years ago, and I’m still going strong.” More big ol’ grinning. “Except for these damn knees.”
“Can’t you take a break for a while? Get the operation and do a few months’ rehab?”
“Are you kidding? My wife would have my ass in a sling if I did that.”
She wanted to insist that surely a wife of eighteen years would want her husband to get better, but by now she knew she’d said too much. Surprise must have shown on her face, though, before she could mask it with a polite change of subject.