Digging my fingers into my client’s skin, I seek out the knotted muscles I’ve come to know intimately. My thumbs work in unforgiving circles, knowing exactly how much pressure is just enough to keep Fred Winslow coming back for more every week. He groans on the table beneath me, a sign for this particular client that I should lighten up.
“You’re in a mood today,” the older man gasps out.
I feel that familiar flash of discomfort that I get whenever a stranger acts like he knows me. But I remind myself that he’s a regular.
Some people prefer the anonymity of silence and professional distance, but this client is the kind who prefers to pretend he has a close relationship with his massage therapist. I know he sits at a desk for most of the day, managing databases for a car rental company. I
