The Masseuse Read online

Page 4


  Jasmine couldn’t have seen Jade’s lips part. She seemed to be concentrating on the movement of her body until eventually she sat up. “Turn around, Hideki.” Her voice was silky smooth.

  She rose slightly as he turned and then lowered herself on his leg. Her back arched. It was obvious she pressed down on him. She poured oil on his stomach. This simple gesture was erotic even before she leaned forward and rubbed his chest, his stomach and thighs.

  His penis tightened—Jade could see it in the slight movement upward. Jasmine lowered her body, her slim ass up in the air. She held his penis and rubbed its tip on her nipples. Then she moved upward and slid on his chest, his penis squashed between their stomachs.

  Hideki’s hands were on the table, lying on either side of her ass. Jade could see by the clenching fingers he wanted to touch Jasmine and wondered if he would’ve tried to hold her if there was no witness. Would he usually be able to feel the smooth silkiness of her skin and pretend they were fucking?

  She saw Jasmine rub her breasts on his penis again and thought she could never do that, but she knew she had to. It was expected. “You touch them,” Caroline had told her, but she never said in what way.

  Jasmine finished her slide and sat up. She wiggled her ass so Jade knew Hideki had to feel her ridges. Jade saw a hint of the smile Jasmine threw at Hideki as she moved her hands up his thighs to his penis. She started to stroke it with gentle ease at first then built up speed, though still taking her time. There was no urgency in her movements. Jasmine’s lips parted and she licked the lower one, leaving her mouth wet and sultry. She looked as if she enjoyed the feel of him.

  She tightened her fingers around his erection and Hideki’s body tensed. His head moved back and his eyes closed as she went faster while her hips moved up and down his leg. He grasped the table when he came. His chest shuddered and his toes reached for the sky.

  She didn’t release him, only slowed down. Little gasps came from him. Once he was still and silent, she moved her hands away, and with one easy movement she was off the table. She got tissues and cleaned his stomach as he lay with a grin on his face. Jasmine winked at Jade. Before she followed Hideki into the shower, she smiled and, with a flick of the wrist, said, “So that’s it,” as if she’d just taught how to bake apple pie. Then she left the room, leaving Jade to dress alone with shaky hands.

  * * * *

  Jade was even more scared after Jasmine’s alluring demonstration. The doorbell rang three more times but she refused to go. She told Sasha she was too nervous after the Italian, but it was Jasmine, with her easy swaying body, and the memory of her sliding up and down the naked man that threw her. The idea that the body slide was expected of her kept her rooted to the spot.

  She was all hard corners and head. There was no easiness in her hands or body. She was nothing like the other girls. Take Arlene, who moved to Sydney with her father to leave a life of prostitution behind.

  After Arlene’s session with Jade’s disgruntled client, she shared some of her life story with Jade. Arlene’s father had tried everything in Perth but could not get his daughter to settle down. At the tender age of fifteen, Arlene met her pimp. During the next six years, she never managed to leave him for long. She dabbled with drugs for a while but didn’t like them too much; they made her feel adrift from everything. It was her body she loved. Sex was her drug.

  In Sydney, Arlene tried to start fresh. Her father had enrolled her in a computer course, which she found impossible. The inability to grasp the lessons made her feel small and inadequate so she gave up after the first week. She looked for work but the money she had earned from using her body made her laugh at minimum wage. Why bother?

  So she came to the massage parlor. It was still a lot better than the life she left. She no longer spread her legs or took a penis in her mouth unless she wanted to. Her father still tried to get his daughter away from the industry completely. He always gave her brochures for different courses, but he had slept better in the three years in Sydney than he had in the ten before.

  Jade appreciated Arlene’s attempt to help her relax by regaling her with tales about her youth, but it only made Jade feel more worried about working at the parlor. Arlene loved sex and her work while Jade felt too distant from her body and cringed with the idea of touching the men. Added to this was the fear of being a disappointment to the clients.

  She didn’t know if she’d return to the Beauty Suite until Sarah arrived.

  The moment Sarah walked into the living room with her long flowing skirt and tank top, Jade eased. There was a carefree excitement in the way Sarah looked around the room that told Jade this was new to her too. But while her job as a masseuse worried Jade, Sarah beamed with the idea of adventure.

  When Sarah looked at her, there was recognition in her eyes. “You must be Jade, the other new girl.”

  Jade nodded and managed to smile. Moments earlier, she would have thought even that small release impossible. “Yeah but I don’t know how long I’m going to last.”

  She knew when Sarah landed beside her on the couch and took her hand as if she was an old friend that she had hoped for this attention. “You can’t go, we’ve just met.” Sarah grinned and Jade couldn’t help but mirror it.

  Sarah’s real name was Julie. They told each other who they were straight away, because like Jade, Sarah’s other life trailed behind her. The names they used in the parlor represented parts of themselves they were trying to discover or understand.

  Jade and Sarah were not there to pay the bills and survive. They did not decide to work at The Beauty Suite because they knew of nothing else to do. While Jade was doing it because she wanted to feel something again, Sarah wanted to learn about a part of her she never knew existed until recently.

  Sarah was bubbly and full of energy, with curly blond hair and a body similar to Michele’s. She used to work in an office up until a few weeks ago. Her love affair with her boss made her leave and not for the reason Jade had first assumed. It was not because of awkwardness but rather her daily rendezvous with him on the top floor, which had been left half built and unoccupied, brought a sexual hunger she’d never known existed. Now she couldn’t get enough. She felt there was another person—Sarah, of course—trying to get through.

  She told Jade that after her boss’s first glances toward her, she went to work in g-strings and see-through blouses. Within a few weeks, he called Sarah into his office and she sat on the chair opposite him with her legs crossed. When she uncrossed them, she made sure to do it slowly so he could see what lay between. She wanted him and he wanted her.

  He’d pushed his seat back and she straightened, sure he was going to approach. She thought he mistook her body language and saw the stiffening as defense. He stopped. There was nothing to say. He had called her in on a pretense of something or other.

  Sarah’s blue eyes danced as she told Jade when her boss said something about being satisfied at work, a window cleaner appeared in white overalls. Their building was in the prime area of Sydney and had windows to take in the view of the harbor. The cleaner saw Sarah and raised his eyebrows. She smiled and, without questioning the heat she felt with the idea of being watched, she rose.

  “Are you satisfied though?” she had asked her boss. She was acting, and never knew until then how good she was.

  Her boss had smiled as she approached. He moved his hands to the arms of his chair but, with a hand on his chest, she kept him still and managed to move the chair so her voyeur had a perfect view. She opened his trouser button, and her boss sucked in his stomach as she brought his zipper down. He clutched the seat and raised his ass so she could pull his pants down enough to release his erect penis.

  Sarah couldn’t believe what that man outside the window had propelled her to do. She lowered her lips to the tip of her boss’ cock and she licked it in soft circles before she opened her mouth to take him in. Her breasts rubbed against his thigh and imagining the watcher’s gaze going from her mouth to ass made her hot
and wet. She pictured the other man taking her from behind as she sucked, and knew the window cleaner had his hand in his overalls.

  She tasted every inch of her boss. When she felt him tense, she rose to pull her skirt up to her waist. She moved her panties sideways with her fingers, and her boss touched her pussy, merely skimming her pubis before retreating, as if afraid she would disappear in a puff of smoke should he do anything wrong.

  Sarah sat on his cock and arched backward, her eyes falling on the window cleaner as she swayed. Her moans mixed with the movement of her voyeur’s arm as her boss moved his hands to her breasts then down to her thighs. Her boss groaned before she felt the heat of his cum shoot inside her. She swayed and felt the tremble in her stomach, opening her mouth in a gasp as she shuddered. He smiled, keeping her on his cock as it grew limp and he stroked her erect nipples until his penis slid out. That was the beginning of their affair.

  Her boss wouldn’t take the chance of doing it in the office again, so he and Sarah had become bold, meeting upstairs at lunch time. It was not him she sought, not his face, hands or body, but the desire to be filled. She woke every morning thinking of one thing and had to touch herself in bed. She re-lived the feeling of the cleaner’s eyes on her and imagined him climbing through the opened windows with his thick erection in her hands. She would touch her already wet crotch as she imagined him grabbing her from behind.

  After months of her growing sexual appetite, Sarah knew she couldn’t go on as she had, so she went on a tour of full-service parlors. She was brought down dimly lit stairs to shady rooms, where she imagined lying back like a dummy. She would have no say there. The men would use her then throw her away. It did not excite her.

  When she discovered massage parlors, she knew what she wanted. She wanted to be watched, to bring a man to bursting point and have the power to step back. She realized it was her own body she had fallen in love with by seeing it through another’s eyes on those dusky afternoons. She had made a play of leaning against walls, bringing her skirt up and teasing her boss by rubbing herself. It was this she loved more than his taking of her. She had awoken to herself.

  Sarah made Jade forget her misgivings. Those moments of standing alone and naked with a strange man were erased by the excited chatter. Sarah was so alive. They were so different in their manner yet the lives they had lived up to this were similar.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Sarah told her, and Jade pictured bringing Sarah home to Colin and the sly glances between them. He would watch her with hungry eyes, she had no doubt. Sarah left men with little choice.

  Chapter 4

  “So what are you doing today?”

  Kate looked up from her breakfast. Colin’s head was bent over the newspaper. She wasn’t surprised. He hardly regarded her anymore. Lately his focus barely swept over her face. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you plan to leave the house?”

  “Why?”

  Colin sighed. “I was just wondering if you ever plan on leaving.” When he finally lifted his head, there was no softness in his eyes.

  She couldn’t believe his impatience. “You were the one who didn’t want me to go back to work.”

  “That was last year.”

  “How long did you expect them to keep my job for me? I can’t stay home for as long as you insisted and then jump back into life.”

  “For God’s sake, Kate, don’t you think it’s time you did something?”

  “Do you blame me for what happened?”

  He stared, stunned.

  She reached for him across the table. “Please talk to me.”

  He looked at her hand, where her wedding ring shone on her finger like a joke. Time stood still. They were on either side of it in a tug of war of emotions.

  She imagined him pulling her from the seat and leading her to their bedroom upstairs. With his attention dropping to the table, she followed his gaze to their hands and thought of him slowly brushing his fingers against her skin. Her eyes widened as she allowed herself to see him unbuttoning her blouse and looking at her breasts before bending to kiss them.

  Kate wondered if, within his silent stare, he was thinking the same thing. While she imagined her nipple in his mouth, was he debating whether to finally open up to her? Her grip tightened on his fingers as she tried to remember the hardness of his penis when he really desired her. She wanted to feel something between her legs, which were fastened together.

  She closed her eyes, imagining him pulling down her skirt and caressing her thigh and buttocks, and leaned toward Colin without realizing. His hand lay limp under hers, and her breath caught as she pictured it coming to life inside her pants and exploring her softly. Would her body respond? Would she feel more than tense clamminess or would she be too afraid of the tremors his touch would cause?

  Her musing was broken when he pulled away from her, and all illusion tore to shreds when she opened her eyes to the cruel bright light of the kitchen. They looked at each other. She managed to smile and thought her heart would burst through her chest with her need to be held.

  Colin glanced at her hand lying like a dead bird on the table. She couldn’t help but think he had been privy to her thoughts and had just spat at the notion of intimacy between them. “Don’t be silly, Kate. I don’t blame you.” His tone was too light and easy and couldn’t drift through her tension.

  He stood, heedless of the lump in her throat, making it impossible for her to speak. She couldn’t even move her hand, though its emptiness mocked her. He grabbed his jacket. “I have to go.” At the kitchen door, he turned back to her. “So you’ll be here then?”

  His words were like a stab in the back. She didn’t turn or answer but forced a smile. It was small and lacked confidence but it gave her the strength to pull her hand back from the table. The front door slammed.

  No, she wouldn’t stay there. But it was a long time before she managed to get up.

  * * * *

  Colin had rarely been a gentle lover. He liked his strength and domination and had wanted to possess Kate’s body completely. Within months of their relationship, she noticed they had been fixed into their roles. She didn’t fight against it. Some nights they would make love with the tender exploration of their first encounter, but usually, if Kate wanted him, all she had to do was pass him in the kitchen or sitting room and give him a fleeting look.

  Two years had passed since the last time he followed her, and saw her in the middle of the bedroom floor with the top buttons of her blouse undone and her skirt off. She waited until he appeared and then meekly, in a well-rehearsed voice, said, “I didn’t expect you so soon.” She knew the nervous tremor in her voice turned him on in ways her half-naked body could not.

  Her backward steps propelled him forward. He tore her blouse from her shoulders and pressed his mouth against her breast. She moved her hand to his chest in a weak show of resistance and became wet with the power of his body as he leaned toward her and brought her hand to his erection.

  She would refuse to stroke it and move away, reveling in the bright flare in his eyes and the urgency of his fingers as he opened his buttons and released his penis. He would move fast, a smile playing on his lips as he grabbed her hand and, moaning with desire, brought it back to his cock.

  Kate would grasp it then, finally letting go of the illusion of a struggle, unable to hold back as his cock filled her palm. She gasped as he pulled her g-string off so the air nuzzled her moist wetness before he stroked her.

  Colin pushed her on the bed and she moved backward. Discarding his pants on the floor, he crawled toward her and took hold of her feet. Kate felt her heat heighten with the sight of his hard penis rubbing on the blankets. Holding her legs and pushing them apart, he moved until he was over her. Her legs wrapped around him as he took her, and she folded into him once he was inside.

  Kate never worried about his need to dominate. She never considered he would not be able to take her without this act. After all, there were times when she w
as in control. Even now, sitting at a kitchen table, she knew he would not complain if he entered their bedroom and she came at him from behind, pushed him on the bed and ordered him to take off his clothes. While she stood, full of confidence with a belt in her hands, he would obey her orders and strip, and for the first time in two years, she would see his penis rise for her as she ordered him to go up to the top of the bed and place his hands near its post. He would gasp with delight, his toes reaching for the moon as she licked every part of him, passing over his erection, only to return and place it in her mouth. He would declare his undying love while she sat on him and told him to shut up.

  But she hadn’t the confidence to hold him. He would see uncertainty in her shaky gaze and trembling mouth and it would make him walk away. This act needed the players. And now, with the bedroom games at an end, he was dominating her in another way, and she’d lost the ability to turn the tables.

  * * * *

  After she was attacked, Colin was the first person Kate called. “Please come,” she cried. “I need you now.”

  “Where are you?” His voice was already tense with worry.

  Kate mumbled the address, located in a row of houses. Colin said they were small and ugly when she brought him there a few months previously, but he had smiled at her excitement when she showed them to him. The project provided decent affordable houses to those in need. The homes were not free, which was good because people were proud, no matter their circumstances. The families paid for the materials through a no-interest loan.

  “What are you doing there?” Colin had asked while she watched herself disappear.

  “I’m sorry” found its way through her sobs.

  “What happened?”

  “Please...”