Beth felt better when she began to smell the lavender in the entryway of the small Wellness Center. Lavender had a calming scent that, she had seen, eased the faces of people who arrived in pain and needed relief. As much as the lavender triggered easiness, the subtle ambient music made listeners smile despite no melody or rhythm. Only watery, auditory vibrations.
To further shed the physical and emotional roughhousing of living, the lights in the tall, standing lamps had just a low glow. The dim lighting kept out the pestering brightness of life while offering clients an escape to a rare sanctum.
The large pillows on the leather couch and matching armchairs were the last pieces. A place to get off their feet. People would sit and breathe, rest, smile, soak.
But Beth’s back ached. She had slept on the pullout sofa for the last three nights as guests had commandeered her bedroom—per her polite request. The mattress was thin, and the horizontal bar was unforgiving. Any angle she shifted to in the night had the consequence of pain. The first nights weren’t so bad. She survived. After the third night, though, she felt it. Her grandmother had a quote from Ben Franklin that now was ringing true.
Her grandma would wag her finger and give her own rendition of the quote: “Guests are like fish. After three days, they both begin to stink.”
Having just opened the Wellness Center that morning, Beth grabbed toward one pillow and felt the pain of having guests and it stunk. Her lower back stiffened. She shifted to relieve the deep pain. There was no relief.
Despite being in her late twenties, she felt old when she put both hands on her lower back to straighten upright.
“Not feeling so great today, Beth?” Gary said as he walked through the front door with a handful of file folders and his shoulder bag strapped across his chest.
She tried to play off the misery. “Yep, still here. Just two more days.” She heaved her chest with a deep breath and released it. “Two more.”
He set down his things in his small office.
“Need a massage or suction downtime?”
“I just started this morning. I can’t—”
Gary stopped her without saying a word.
He had the cool, marble eyes that Beth would submit to. While she never admitted it, they calmed her on busy days and intrigued her on days with fewer appointments and more downtime, when they would just chat. They were knowing on several levels—from pain relief to wisdom about everyday things and the rebel teenage life he had once lived.
He was, in fact, twenty years older than she was. That was another aspect she liked. He was a fit fifty-year-old. Graying hair and newly forming wrinkles around those knowing eyes that came with living life. Strong arms and a nice frame. Then there were his hands. Manicured, strong and large. For his chiropractic practice, of course.
“Go in the other room and lay down. I’ll put the cups on your back.”
She tried to balk. However, the smallest twist of his sharp chin overrode her objection.
The lights in the side room were dim, giving an orange glow. She laid on her stomach. Her first thought, after the ache, was her butt.
She was short and buxom. She disliked her body. She wished to be thin. Instead, she had round, strawberry-red cheeks that made her always look cheerful. Her breasts were obvious no matter what her outfit was. Even winter coats couldn’t hide them. Her legs were stout and led up to a bulbous butt. It had been patted, grabbed and pinched all her life from her schooldays on the playground to adulthood in the bars.
Laying there on the table, she complained silently that she should not have stuffed herself into the fitted pants.
Gary walked in. In his quick chiropractic way, he touched her hips, and she stiffened slightly. He raised her black blouse. It wouldn’t allow it.
“Unbutton your shirt so we can get the suction cups on your back.”
“To what?” She looked at him surprised. He stood there with his arms crossed. He waited for her.
“Your shirt won’t rise up. Take it off.” He spoke so directly, so doctor-like.
“Oh, okay.”
She tried to undo the top button while lying there. The pain made her wince, reminding her that it was the reason she was laying down.
She opted to sit up and undo the buttons.
“Just hand me the shirt. I’ll put it on the chair here.” He reaches out his hand.
She feared showing her plain black, D-cup bra and the tight waistband of her pants squishing her stomach.
She slid her arm from the blouse when she noticed his eyes. The doctor’s stoic eyes had changed for the briefest moment. They changed to a man’s eyes.
She quickly laid down and squeezed her eyes tightly. Her cheeks had warmed. They weren’t strawberry anymore but now raspberry-red.
She jolted when she felt his ten fingers push deeply against her flesh. They began at the center of her lower back inches from the point where her butt ballooned, and those fingers spidered upward. She jumped when the pain struck again. He touched there for a moment, dissipating the pain. He continued higher, coming to her bra.
“Mind?” he asked.
Before she could think, she said, “Go ahead.”
He easily unhinged it. She realized his experience—maybe a teenage rebel—when he unfastened the hooks without a hitch.
Her breasts and torso eased from the clutch of the underwiring and the always-uncomfortable tight strap.
He pressed his hands into her back harder. He shoved the heel of his hand against a rib just below where her bra band had compressed her ribcage.
She heard a crack and sudden relief. She cooed.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she whispered. “Right there. Do it again.”
Lying flat on her stomach, her plump lips wobbled as she spoke. She realized it was the same sound as when she was having good sex.
She stiffened. Gary felt it.
“Did I hit a hotspot there?”
“Only a little, I think.”
His warm hands left her tingling back. He grabbed a few suction cups and arranged them across her back. He centered a few on the lower half.
“I need you to undo your pants, so I can get two cups a little lower.”
His voice had become doctor-like again. She reached under herself to her bellybutton and loosened the pants. Another relief from tight clothing.
He peeled back the waistband. She knew her pink panties were in view. What would he think? What would he assume about her? Good assumptions or bad? Would he consider them cute or weirdly juvenile?
“Nice,” he said simply as he touched the elastic band.
She wondered what he meant. He was not clear at all.
He moved them a tiny bit and then pushed a suction cup against her. He placed another across her spine. He tightened them to let the vacuuming increase blood flow to decrease pain—all based on an ancient Chinese treatment.
“Pressure feel good?”
“Yes, very.”
He covered her with a blanket.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
The pressure felt like a pleasure after three nights on the pullout. The warmth of the blanket added to the peace. The lavender filling the room topped it off.
One more thing lingered on her mind. That flash in his eyes. The half-second when he was a man, not a doctor.
Did he like what he saw?
The thought consumed her, as two sides of her mind waged war: He thought I was too fat, a pooch. No! He liked having me here with most of my clothes off. He wanted me. I can’t believe he found me attractive. You’re crazy. A girl in pink underwear that a preteen would wear! And packed into these clothes like a sausage.
Then that old memory came to mind. On a slow day, they were chatting lightly, both relaxed and jovial. He hopped onto the counter next to the printer. She noticed his mesh Oxford sneakers.
He talked about himself calmly, letting her see a new side of him. He liked bourbon and waterskiing. He had hiked in the Yukon in late fall to see the Aurora Borealis. His next stop would be French Polynesia by boat.
“I want to see things, to witness the world instead of being told about it,” he said.
“So you want to confirm that it’s actually out there, not just take someone else’s word that it’s real?”
“What if it’s all a conspiracy theory? All ancient lies. Maybe I’ll expose the lies!”
They both laughed. It was then that she had fallen for him. All because of his laugh. Few people had that easy, confident laugh. It was the laugh of a man who had seen and been and knew.
“Let me know when you sail the Pacific. For the job’s sake.”
“I’ll close the shop for a little while.”
“I mean. I’d go to.”
“Oh?”
“If you’re uncovering centuries of lies about the world, I want to be part of it.”
“Deal.”
And he slid off the counter and he shook her hand.
It was one of the best touches he gave her. That was until he had laid her on this bed, half-naked physically and emotionally, and pressed his fingers deep into her fleshiness.
He hated touching me. He’d hate to see me in a bathing suit!
The raging war of thoughts launched their missiles in her mind once more.
I can make him like me. A little attention. Some womanliness.
You’re wearing little girl panties!
She exhaled the warfare.
The door opened, swooshing air, fluttering the edges of the blanket. Cool air rushed over her torso. She shivered.
“That should do it for now.” He rolled back the blanket and removed a few cups.
“I can do it anytime you want,” he said, removing a few more.
“Do it?”
“Whenever you need it.” He removed the last two and touched the elastic band of her panties.
His phone buzzed. He left.
He didn’t mention the panties. At least he didn’t tease her about them. But he didn’t say anything. Was that worse?
She wondered about her clothes. Which to put on first. Shirt or pants? He may come back anytime, if at all.
She flung her legs off the table. Her toes were unable to touch the floor.
She kept the bra in place with her right arm across her chest. She slid down to touch the floor.
Her pants were a little looser than expected from his slight tug.
Then he walked in.
“Oh, my god!” He and she said it in unison.
She clamped both arms against her breasts. He patted his chest, his hand still gripping the door handle.
He closed the door. They were alone.
She was caught with her pants undone, as well as her bra.
He lifted her blouse from the back of the chair.
She saw in his eyes he was again the man.
“You’ve got a choice to make,” he said.
He dangled the shirt, pinching its collar by his thumb and forefinger.
“Pants or bra,” he said.
Beth recognized the change in his voice and breathing. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed his shot of horniness. He liked what he saw. Men are obvious. She was pleased.
He tossed the blouse to the table. He took the waistband of her pants. He ran his fingers around her waist. He dipped to cup her butt, exposing more of the panties. He squeezed and smiled. He then fixed her pants.
She tightened her arms against her breasts that were trapped in the undone bra.
He grinned. His eyes were savage, and his mouth was salivating. “You have a lovely body.”
His words relaxed her arms. They pleased her. Excited her.
The bra slid tantalizingly slow down the two mounds of flesh. Her fair areolas began to appear like the sun rising over the horizon.
The bra fell when it hit the hardened nipples.
She shed the bra and studied his reception of her bared breasts, hanging low.
It was good. He stepped forward and cupped them in his hands. He raised them up, gladly taking the weight off her back. She grabbed his neck and pulled him against her.
He put as much into his mouth as possible.
She ruffled his hair as he sucked. She loved having a man attending to her chest for multiple reasons—the not-so-sexy physical ease on her back but also the pleasure that came with a tongue and invigorated lips.
“So good. So, so good.” Her eyes were closed. The low light, the lavender, the comfortable chairs, the ambient music didn’t matter. Her boss’s mouth had pushed away all the pain and roughness brought on by daily life.
“Keep going,” she said.
She let go of her hug and moved her hands to the fly of his slacks. He was hard and strong. He was no doubt ready.
“Do we have time?” he asked out of breath.
She knew the day’s schedule of appointments.
“Yes but be quick.”
She undid her pants, shuffled them down to her ankles, and hopped onto the table—with no pain.
He shed his polo shirt that had The Wellness Center embroidered on the upper left. She tugged his slacks. He had athletic boxer briefs. She pulled them down.
Her cheeks had turned to strawberry red but returned to raspberry in this sexual fury.
She spread her legs. He stopped her though. He took her off the bed and turned her away.
“I’ve always loved your ass. I could only peek at it when possible.”
“Slap it while you fuck me. We don’t have a lot of time.”
He did just that. Her flesh wiggled and wobbled as his dick rammed into her pussy. It was a good, quick fuck. She grunted and winced. He went deep into her young pussy. She kneaded her tits and then moved her hands to her massage her clit during the sex. From the long-time build-up of sexual tension and uncertainty between them, her orgasm rose up quickly. It then suctioned pleasure to the perfect place.
She heard his grunt too. A moment and several faster thrusts and he exploded too.
Beth and Paul exhaled together, relieved. He went to the chair, and she leaned against the bed.
“If you need a break tonight from your guests, come see me.”