The car they were in, a brand-new Corolla, hit the first speed bump at twenty miles an hour. The three of them, passengers and driver, shuddered with the impact. The girl in the backseat shot the not much older woman in the front seat a look that went unnoticed, and the male driver grumbled to himself with the only audible words being "my fucking suspension," slowing down as they drove slower with more grace over the next one.

"Tony, are we almost there yet?" the girl asked from the back, sliding forward.

Tony Martinson mumbled some monosyllabic that sounded like a yes, and so she slipped back again, looking out the window while the car snaked across a dusty, dirt road. There were only cactuses and houses, which were of a very suburban contrast to the Wild West-vibe coming off the rest of the surroundings.

A coyote howled in the distance loud enough to cut through the din of the local Rock radio station. They were getting further and further out of range to pick up a decent signal to the point that intermittent static had become so commonplace that it was almost part of the instrumentation of every song.

The girl in the back was Ginger Castillo, who had just graduated from high school a few weeks earlier with the gloom of June still hanging with a heaviness in the air. She had turned 18 back in February, but she had decided that this night was going to be just as a momentous--a rebirth of sorts as one of the the first steps in becoming someone new. Someone who hadn't spent most of their life growing up in Orange County, California, or the last two years waiting tables at Marie Callender's. She had lived five miles away from Disneyland her whole life until then but always wondered if there was something more out there.

She could've gone to the state university around the corner from the eatery she used to work at. She had the grades and the smarts, but she knew that if she stayed in the OC, then she might die there. Some of her classmates had already married their high school sweethearts and were having babies. Ginger didn't want that. At least, not yet and not with any of the boys that she had grown up with.

With that thought in her mind, she packed up only clothes, toiletries, and any other essentials and moved out of her parents' house. Heading north of LA-proper to the virtual wasteland that is the San Fernando Valley. There she rented a small studio apartment, where she was living out of boxes: the only amenities were a futon, a microwave, and a mini-fridge. Her diet was mostly salads and Top Ramen. She was living the undergraduate lifestyle minus going to school.

"See that house up there?" Adela Banks, the woman in the front seat asked before continuing, "That's it. That's where we are going. They have the best parties. It's the best way to network and make contacts in the Industry. You'll love it."

Ginger had met Adela online, and she had been the one who had convinced her to move to The Valley. In a way, she had become a de facto mentor figure, showing Ginger the ropes of not just her new homestead but also this career path she was embarking on as Adela had been working for months now.

Tony lit a very thin joint, taking a hit before passing it to Adela, who also took a toke. Ginger had been smoking pot since she was in her pre-teens. There was a familiarity there as the smoke entered her lungs that soothed any nervousness that may have existed in her. In reality, she knew what she wanted and any doubts in her mind were couched behind the drive that would've earned her a Bachelor's if she had taken another route.

They parked near the corner as the driveway and surrounding street parking was packed. As they started to walk up, the muted bass thumped ad thrummed from the house. Laughter and the clinking of glasses became apparent as they got closer. Ginger looked down at her outfit (hot pants, a white and blue tank top, and slip-on Vans). She was going for the So Cal-girl-next-door-look, which she hoped was intriguing. Although rail thin, she had curves. A booty and thick legs she had earned playing soccer from a young age. She had been told by the older men she had dated that it made up for her A cups. She was young enough to take that as a compliment, but it chided her in some way that she didn't quite understand yet.

Adela rang the bell, and a man with a shaved head and braided goatee opened the door.

"Hey, I'm Jeff. This is my place, so come in and enjoy yourselves."

There was something raucous going on behind Jeff, but Ginger couldn't tell right away as to what was happening exactly. It seemed like a majority of the partygoers were standing around watching. The trio inched closer and broke in through a gap to see what was going on. Ginger assumed people were playing Twister or something of that nature. She was shocked to see four women, nude and engaged in eating each other out. Their undulating flesh forming a writhing square. Ginger traded glances with Adela who just smiled and said,

"It's called a daisy chain...what they're doing."

One of the chicks on the floor looked up at them and waved, "Hey, Maxine," and then went back to munching. Maxine was Adela's name on-screen.

Ginger looked and saw a keg in the corner of the living room which was catty-corner to the dining room. Jeff, the helpful host, was pouring people drinks. She walked over and grabbed a red, plastic cup.

"Fill'er up, milady?" Jeff asked.

Ginger nodded and thought to herself,

"So this is my first porn party? Cool. Happy First Birthday, Gina Rey!"

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.”

– STEPHEN KING, Carrie

Back in the spring of '98, Lydia Chen would always see them everywhere, but most especially when she'd make her way down the hallways of Stevenson High’s English Building that semester. She'd see Marcus and Karen as they seemed fused and pressed together against one of their lockers, usually his. Either they thought no one noticed or cared, but he'd have his hand up her shirt and over one of her still brassiered B cups. Most likely, they were the ones who gave no fucks about what they looked like. He was dressed in his customary uniform of unbelievably baggy jeans and an oversized band t-shirt. That day, it read “TOOL” in big bold letters, and Lydia wondered if the irony of such a statement was lost on Marcus. Karen had on her black flight jacket with the orange lining that she always wore. It was a size or two sizes too large for her, which probably made it easier for her to get groped without too many people noticing.

Lydia made an effort not to stare at them, but they were painfully in the periphery of her vision. She tried to act that they were just faces in the crowd as did they, but they surely knew that it was Lydia passing them by. Of course, their coolness made for the perfect pretense to act like they didn't. It was the same frigid indifference that they held towards everyone.

If any kids decided to be that bold and level an old cliché on them like “Get a room” or something of that nature, then they'd have to deal with the physical repercussions. It wasn't just Marcus they had to worry about either, Karen was known to be a bit of a scrapper herself. Red-hot misanthropy radiated off of them and bluntly cautioned everyone to stay away or at least clear a path if anyone saw them coming.

Lydia tried to hide from them and everyone else with her bleached and then Kool-Aid dyed hair, black wife beater, plaid skirt, fishnets, and combat boots. Lydia's ensemble was all armor though, a protective carapace that kept her safe inside. Karen and Marcus used to be allowed in, but she didn't like to think about it too much; besides, she was almost going to be late for 4th period Honors English with Mr. Savage.

The walls and floors of the school shared the same color scheme with such glamorous institutions as an old folk's home or maybe even a prison. Dull and drab beiges, muted blues, and soul-sucking-grays contrasted harshly against a giant golden rod banner that read "Go, Buccaneers, Go!" in big bubble letters, which Lydia presumed was drafted by equally bubbly cheerleader.

She looked at her watch and decided to get a move on and got into class right by the skin of her teeth. The bell rang and seconds later, Chen's sixteen-year-old frame barely crossed the threshold when Savage called out to her as he scrawled the day’s agenda on the blackboard.

"Ms. Chen, what time does class start?"

"Now," she deadpanned.

"Right, but you should be in your seat by now. Not rolling in like a listless tumbleweed right as the bell rings." He said with a smile, pleased with his own use of figurative language.

Lydia liked Savage a lot, mostly because he assigned good books to read and had a very modernly progressive viewpoint. Also, he was young. Probably barely out of grad school for about two to five years and hadn't had the fight beat out of him like all her other stale and stodgy mentors that she was forced to study under.

She was more than annoyed that he was putting her on the spot like this. She was the one to sit in the back of class and didn't say anything unless called on, and she liked the anonymity of that understood status. None of the other teachers questioned it, but Savage liked to push the envelope.

He'd make the wannabe gangsta kids write essays about the history of sagging when their pants drooped almost past their asses and broke the dress code. The minute someone called someone else a derogatory name, he'd call their parents and ask that they could stay after school to watch movies like Roots and Schindler's List. They would stay and watch the whole thing for the entire 2-3 hours. Afterwards, he'd ask them what it must've been like for African slaves and Jews in the camps to be discriminated against so fiercely then he'd ask these kids to really, truly, and deeply think critically about what language meant and what happens when it is abusive. He was that teacher. One of those often lampooned Dead Poets-style ones, but he got results. He had a reason to be kind of smug and in your face because that's what worked for him in the confines of Stevenson High.

Right then though, Lydia could care less about all of that. She just wanted to get into her seat, which Savage silently pointed to with a smile. Her vintage Care Bears metal lunchbox was plopped down on the hard wooden tabletop with a thunk, which drew looks of derision from all those around her. She tuned them out and opened her makeshift purse, pulling out a pen and a small spiral notebook then closed it quickly, so that no one could sneak a peak at what else was inside it. Savage finished writing on the board, which were flanked by posters that implored onlookers to read.

"Alright, you little monsters, who did the reading over the weekend?"

No one raised their hands. Savage pretended to sob uncontrollably, then flung his open hands that looked up to the ceiling and screamed, "Why God, why?!!?"

It eased the slight tension of the room that often came with students potentially not doing their homework. Hands slowly started to be raised and his faux pathos gave way to his usual cocksure demeanor. Even Lydia raised her hand, while looking down at her notebook where she doodled a drawing of a sunflower with a smiling cartoon skull in the middle of it. She was almost done with it when she heard her name being called.

"Lydia, sorry to be a bother, but would you mind halting your artistic expression for a second and share with the class your overall impression of the Twain essay?" She did as he asked, looked up, and said, "It sucked."

At that, the class tittered and some even gave her what amounted to a golf clap.

"Well, you're one of our great critics in this class. So why don't you expostulate on what you mean by 'sucked,' won't you?" said a nonplused Savage.

"Both of the main characters are liars."

"Oh, how so?"

"The mesmerizer is a conman and the kid pretends to be hypnotized for what reason? Because he just wants people to notice him? That's dumb."

"Why is that dumb then?"

"Because it is dishonest and conceited."

"Do you mean thinking that your life has more value than anyone else's is?"

"They just both seem full of themselves."

"Well let me ask you and the rest of the class as well. Do you feel cheated when you go to the movies or watch a play? A magic show?"

No one really said anything but a lot of heads began to shake.

"No, right? You just accept that it is simply nothing more than an act. A piece of fiction. An illusion and what is a synonym for that?"

"A trick." A voice behind Lydia said.

She turned around to see Jack Kessler, who quickly caught her gaze and looked away. There was an empty seat between them. She looked at Savage and said,

"So?" with a shrug.

"Well, Jack my boy, it's your turn to have your feet put to the fire. Do you mind?"

"No, I don't." Jack said with an uneasy smile.

"Of course, he didn't. He's just like the boy in the story." Lydia thought.

Jack squirmed in his seat and cleared his throat.

"People just wanted to believe in what they were seeing. They just wanted to escape."

"Interesting observation and I'd expand on that by saying that Twain still lived in a time of supreme superstition, meaning that people were scared of everything and anything and yet science was at the very beginnings of a bunch of the technological advancements that we take for granted today. So show business was just about how well you could play on the psychological weirdness of your audience and their need for some hocus-pocus. Like Jack said, people just wanted someone who could make them believe for even an hour. That's why movies became so popular when they were invented." Savage said, surveying the classroom to make sure he hadn't lost anyone before continuing,

"Anyway, Jack, do you want to escape sometimes?"

"Uh yeah, right now I do. I don't like being under the microscope."

"No one forced you to speak up."

"I had something to say though, so I could muster up at least some courage, I guess."

"Where would you go then?"

"Excuse me?"

"Where would you be if you weren't here right now?"

"Promise not to laugh?"

"I promise, but I can't say the same for your classmates though."

Everyone laughed a little bit, even Jack and Lydia, who let out a chuckle under her breath.

"I'd be on the Millennium Falcon."

The room was quiet as if no one had seen Star Wars ever.

"Han Solo's ship?" Savage asked to which someone yelled out, "Nerd!" and another made a trilling Wookie noise.

"Quiet," he continued "why?"

"Adventure, friendship, having a reason to be alive, a cause, a purpose. Sometimes, it just feels like being a teenager is like trying to find your way out of a desert without a map or a compass."

"Well said and on that note, everyone pull out your composition notebooks and get ready to do some free writing for the next 15-20 minutes."

This was met with the requisite moans and groans, but they did what they were supposed to.

Savage continued, "Write your thoughts about the story and what you think it might truly be about. I don't want a summary. What do I want?"

"Commentary." The class mumbled in unison.

***

Lydia wrote in her journal in other classes and had already written about "The Mesmerizer" when she had gotten done reading it the night before.

While everyone else feebly scribbled down their two-dimensional thoughts about their homework, she scrawled a line from one of her favorite Tori Amos songs into the margin of her notebook in all caps, "DIDN'T KNOW OUR LOVE WAS SO SMALL." She etched it so deeply into the page that its imprint would be present on the blank pages that followed for the rest of the semester.

She wrote out some more lines from that song and hoped that how the words resonated with her at that moment would fade like the inverted embossments would as she flipped through the spiral as she filled those pages with homework assignments and what she hoped was poetry.

She stared at the Amos lyric and flashed on Marcus and Karen in the hallway. Why wouldn't they talk to her, and why had they kicked her out of their little club? She didn't get it and didn't get them. They spread lies and gossip mostly about her sexual orientation to anyone that would listen. Since they were her best friends from 8th grade until this past winter break in the middle of 10th, it felt like she had no one to really listen or take her side.

***

Mr. Savage stood up. He had been grading at his desk. Lydia was jolted out of her memory trance as he started to speak. She wasn't really catching anything other than keywords. It sounded something like,

"Open. Book. Page 213. Work. Partner. Comprehension questions. Twain. Discuss."

She blinked and saw everyone partnering up except her. Almost everyone as she felt someone standing behind her with their eyes gently boring into the back of her off-red head of ratty bobbed hair.

Lydia turned to see Kessler standing over her. He wasn't fat but wasn't the athletic type either. He had almost shoulder length rust-colored hair, a Muppet-looking striped shirt, and a pair of corduroy shorts that came down to his shins and hard-shell Adidas on. If he slapped on some bondage pants and a pyramid stud belt then he might be halfway decent, Lydia thought as he towered over her.

"So I guess we're partners by default, huh?" Jack said.

"Yeah, I guess so. So what're we supposed to be doing? I zoned out."

"He wants us to answer these questions," Jack said pointing into his textbook.

"Oh right, comprehension questions. Alright."

She found the page that everyone else was on when Jack said,

"Oh, do you like NIN?"

Lydia cocked her head at him like a slightly annoyed yet inquisitive puppy.

"You know, Nine Inch Nails?" He said motioning to something else she had scribbled into the margin of the textbook.

She looked down to see where it said, "MADE MY OWN PRETTY HATE MACHINE."

"Oh yeah, of course, I do. I mean, look at me? I'd crawl into Trent's pants anytime. Especially if they were the burgundy leather ones he wore in the 'March of the Pigs' video."

They both laughed a little before she continued,

"Actually, that's a line from a Tori Amos song."

"Is she that redhead who sings about rape and stuff?"

"Not all her songs are about rape." She shot back sharply.

"I didn't mean anything by it. Anyway, is that a NIN reference?"

"Yeah, it is an N-I-N reference. Trent did a song with her on one of her records and is friends with her."

"Oh, that's cool."

They sat there not saying anything for about thirty seconds or maybe it was a million years while all the other kids were a blur of either diligence or goofing off. It was apparent from the look on his face that Jack most likely didn't get why she was so perturbed by him just asking a simple question. She was being judgmental, which seemed to her to be maybe a tad hypocritical considering that people were treating her like a pariah. When she had learned that word in class earlier in the semester, she had thought that Pariah Carey would make a great band name, and that comedic tidbit popped into her head at that moment.

Her epiphany though at that instant could've manifested itself as a big, neon green sign that sizzled the words, "Lighten up, Chen" right over her head. This guy obviously liked Nine Inch Nails, which upped his coolness factor to at least a seven, which was pretty good considering most of her other classmates rated in more of the 0-5 range. So Kessler hadn't heard much Tori Amos. He was just trying to find an in, a way to relate to her, and maybe even become her friend. He was just being nice because that's probably what he genuinely was. But nice people were a rare commodity, especially in high school. Was he a wolf in baggy clothing like the rest of the dips at Stevenson? Also, he had openly made a Sci-Fi reference in a high school class. Again, she heard the buzz of the neon and just when she was about to take her own advice, the beautiful silence that had allowed her to reach more of an enlightened clarity was interrupted.

"Are you two getting along and getting the questions done?" said Savage who must've been in earshot of the whole interchange.

Lydia wanted to say, "What do you think?" Instead, she just nodded and smiled. Kessler did the same. With that, their teacher walked over to another table to basically recycle half of the same question with a group of jocks loudly reciting lines from Dumb and Dumber.

Jack read the first question out loud,

"Number one, what does Twain as Tom do to get the mesmerizer to notice him?"

"He volunteers. He offers himself up." Lydia said, without even looking up from her book. She scratched some excess eyeliner away from the edge of her almond eyes. Jack just stared at her. Noticing, she quickly asked if he agreed or not and he simply nodded and smiled.

Lydia read the next one,

"Two, why did Tom/Twain's feelings change after the mesmerizer left town?"

Looking directly at her, Jack said, "Life went back to being boring. Maybe because he just couldn't recapture that same rush..."

Lydia cut him off,

"Have you ever seen the Basketball Diaries?"

"That movie with Leonardo DiCaprio? Isn't Marky Mark in that?"

"Yeah, he is." Lydia said with a laugh before moving on with what she was going to say,

"It's based on a book by a guy named Jim Carroll. It's like his autobiography about being a hooligan and getting addicted to heroin or something. I read it, but I like the movie more. Anyway, he says the first time he shot up was '...like a long heat wave through [his] body. Any ache or pain or sadness or guilty feeling was completely flushed out.' They show DiCaprio running through a field of poppies," Lydia almost quoted the line verbatim.

"Like that scene in Wizard of Oz?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, totally like that field, but yeah... he spends the rest of the movie trying to get back to that place and has to get clean instead because he realizes he'll never be able to."

"That's a cool connection right there. You could totally turn that in as part of an essay probably." "Shut up, I just like that movie a lot."

"Should I rent it?"

"I own it."

Jack said nothing. Things were quiet for a moment and just when either of them thought that another awkward silence might hang in the air, the bell rang and everyone began to pack up. Jack went back to his seat to grab his stuff as Savage yelled above the maelstrom of adolescent rambunctiousness,

"Read the next story, it's by Poe. Have a spooky Monday night, boils and ghouls. Be ready to talk and write about it tomorrow."

Lydia eyed Kessler, looked him up and down. She thought to herself that he wasn't that bad and even though he was grossly nice and maybe just maybe, she could distract herself with him for a little while. Either way, it was better than the alternative— being alone some more.

Jack was out the door by then when she ran up and tapped him on his shoulder. It was obvious that he was more than a little surprised to see Lydia again so soon.

"Hey?" Jack said.

"I wanted to tell you to wait up. My shrink says I have to broaden 'my friend spectrum' or something like that."

"You go to a psychologist?"

"Not anymore. I had a shrink not too long ago. But whatever, hey!"

"What?" Jack said tensing up as if he was expecting her to punch him or something.

"Do you want to come over and...um, watch Basketball Diaries after school?"

He looked genuinely astonished, but he agreed and she began to talk more than he had ever heard her before in his life.

She told him that she lived with her godfather, Ken, who was a "super busy lawyer" and, "like, never home on week nights."

Lydia told him to be by the Robert Louis Stevenson statue out by the front gate and they'd walk from there.

I.

Angelic yet shrill, a voice to woo all the lovers

and soothe all the mothers but also a fierce cry

of havoc as teen angst embodied, as adult

confusions and contusions voiced plaintive,

contemplative, and combative. Looking

for Spoonman, resting like a stone, and rowing

all along with the slaves and bulldozers.

Now he’s saying hello 2 heaven, and those

who loved him up close and from afar are

left behind to mourn the loss of a personified

scream married to melody, but also, a father,

a husband, a son, a brother, a bandmate,

an icon. Jesus Christ pose, Jesus Christ-long

hair and goatee, Jesus Christ…

II.

Summer 1997, you stared in black

and white back at me from the cover

of Spin. You and your band, who had

already broken up still as the songs

from Down on the Upside burned bright

on radios, Walkmen, and Discmen

all across the world.

My adolescent brain felt loss yet

I did not know why. Now 20 years

older, my adult heart feels loss

and I know why. You, stranger,

left an indelible and undefinable

mark on me and those like me

like shadows scorched into pavement

after an atomic bomb has gone off, like

the ash-statued remains of Pompei:

both unnatural and primordial in their way.

The little rusted bell clattered against the blinds and glass of the door as it was pushed open. The waiting room on the third floor of the nondescript medical building was dim and decorated with all the prerequisite “Oriental” kitsch, which gave it the air of something “mystical.” Ying Yang symbols, pictures of Shinto shrines, and paper mill degrees adorned the walls. One of those cheap, fogging miniature rock waterfall displays sat like a centerpiece on an end table between couches that looked like they had never ever been sat in. An aquarium with no fish flanked the furniture on the other side. Jeremiah Hirsch had stepped about two feet inside when he was greeted by the mama-san sitting behind the counter.

“Place must’ve been a dentist’s office at some point,”

he thought as he looked around then at the little woman that had stood upon his arrival. Framed as if she were the star of the most boring television show, she welcomed him from the receptionist’s box. “Hi, baby, what can I do for you, baby?” Delivered in a deadpan tone with a disingenuous smile.

“30 minute massage?” Hirsch asked. “Forty dollar. You want table shower?”

Her smile became more real as she was handed the money. She unlocked the door to the right of the window, and he walked into the hallway that led to the rooms.

Thai or Filipino, she wasn’t bad looking for someone probably in her early 50s with just a tiny potbelly and a flat-landing-pad-like-ass. Her tits seemed proportionate to her frame, not too big nor too small but not necessarily just right either. He was in somewhat of a hurry and cheap, so he weighed whether or not he wanted a “table shower.” He had no idea what it was.

“No, thank you. Can I use the bathroom first?”

If he would have said yes then that would have meant more money out of his pocket, which probably would have meant an even bigger show of teeth on this lady’s behalf.

“Sure, baby, it just down the hall.”

She pointed to what looked like a laundry room and then continued,

“You go into room number 2 when you done, okay?”

He nodded as he walked down past each of the closed doors on either side of him. When he approached where she had gestured, he saw a restroom complete with a normal shower. He shut the door that seemed like it was just a little too big for its frame. Closing it, he had to give it a great push to get it to match up correctly. Once it was, he locked it. The walls were extremely white, which contrasted the orange tile floor in an odd way.

He had been coming to these types of places every other month for the last year. Anytime he felt one of three things: horny, self-loathing, or a combination of either. They were always both at high levels of extremity and seemed to run parallel. He shook with nervous energy as he fumbled with his zipper, while using his foot to lift up the toilet seat. As he pissed, he thought about how quiet it was in the hall. There weren’t any other customers, and he wasn’t even sure if there were any other “employees” either.

He gave himself an almost comical, animated shake. Making sure there wasn’t anything urine left in him. His foot again came up to lower the seat, but this time to flush as well in one fluid crescent kick of a motion. Even though his hand had only made contact with his member, he washed up.

Splashing his face, droplets of water collected along his hairline like condensation on glass. Both his hands rested on either side of the sink, staring into the dingy-mirror for a second. It felt like an eternity, but he forced himself to make eye contact with his reflection for a moment at least. His intense gaze crumpled into a smirk followed by a scoff. It was an act of self-assurance as to say that this was what he wanted because he liked, needed, and desired it. Coming here wasn’t a crutch or escapism. No, the act itself was an adventure: something to keep him from feeling anymore scared or ugly than he always felt. It wasn’t that he was physically unattractive. He looked like someone’s youthful, fit yet paunchy uncle still with his sandy blonde, surfer haircut and hazel eyes. Meeting women had never been the problem, but keeping them was. There had been so many missed opportunities.

As he dried his hands, the name Sandra popped into his head. She had been awesome. A little Argentine Olivia Newton John that he had met through a dating website. They had hit it off, but he had really, really liked her and had decided to take it slow; that hadn’t been the best idea, because she called him one day that she was moving to Oregon to move back in with her ex. Thinking about the slight shock of that revelation, he crumpled up the sopping wet paper towel he’d been using and tossed it into an overflowing wastebasket, then Jeremiah wrenched the door open and made his way back to the room that she had assigned to him.

“#2, baby, #2.” Mama-san yelled from the front.

He didn’t say anything, shutting the door that closed much more smoothly than the last one. He knew the drill and got undressed quickly. Stripping almost completely nude, he left his socks on because he tended to get severely cold feet during his sessions. Grabbing the “fresh” towel off the massage table, he draped it around his lower torso and climbed onto the elevated surface.

Lying down, he stared at the floor through the table’s face-shaped hole. A minute or two went by before there was a tender knock as the door was pushed ajar.

“You ready, baby?”

Jeremiah lifted his head up and looked behind him, not even surprised to see the mama-san. These places advertised on online with pictures of young Asian fashion models or pin-ups, but that was rarely ever what you got, unless you wanted to pay more. Looking her over again, he smiled at her and placed his head back into the hole that it had been in. She fumbled with a cheap boom box before some antiseptic New Age-soundscape flooded the empty space in the room.

“You want oil, baby?” “Just a little, please.”

Hirsch could hear the suction noise as she squeezed out a meager amount into her palm before rubbing it together in both hands to warm it with her own body temperature.

“You just get out work, baby?” “No, I didn’t have to work today. I just needed to relax.”

He mumbled as she began to rub the oil into his shoulders and upper back.

“What you do, baby?” “I teach adults.” “Oh very nice, baby, very nice. What you teach?” “English,” he said curtly.

Jeremiah hated the small talk portion of it, but he also liked the masquerade of being a “patient” and her being a “masseuse.” It was the sort of role-playing that he felt mirrored the rest of life in general, but in almost a farcical manner. The massage was a cursory formality and they both knew it.

“Very nice, baby, very nice. Teacher good job. Good money.”

The irony that her English needed work wasn’t lost on Jeremiah, which made him smile but he tittered inside at the idea that his supposed job paid well. He wasn’t potentially breaking the bank by coming here, but he wasn’t affluent to any extent. It dawned on him that there was no need to really reveal that much about him. He could go incognito if he wanted to. Besides… he liked to lie to them: these women. He thought that next time, he would say he was an insurance agent or maybe a truck driver after that.

She brushed her dyed auburn bob out of her face as she started to work her way down his back. Grinding her thumbs into it while doing more harm than good. She then moved onto his legs, making her way all the way down to his feet and then back up again, teasing his inner thighs with graceful, light strokes, moving in-between both legs while just stopping inches away from his sack, before moving back down to less erogenous regions.

Without warning, his towel was tugged free from his lower body as she began to rub his ass with a firm grip that actually felt good in comparison to everything else she had tried. Spreading them in rhythmic, butterfly-like motions, she continued to massage, but none of this excited him. This woman was old enough to be his teenage mother. There was nothing erotic about this interaction and Hirsch considered this as routine as taking his car in for an oil change.

“Okay, turn over, baby.”

He did and revealed his still flaccid member. He could tell that she was pissed that he wasn’t ready to go yet. Regardless, she oiled up again and began to caress the area. When that wasn’t working, she lifted her tee to reveal her breasts and placed his right hand on them. With a gentle touch, he began to pinch her nipples, and he began to feel turgid in her hand. She too noticed and presumed to start stroking, which helped.

“Very nice, baby, very nice.”

The strokes were dull and slow at first, but this woman was all about business and for her, this was as exciting as filing paperwork was for Hirsch. The cadence picked up after a minute or two, as it was evident that she wanted him to hurry up and finish. He fought the urge as much as he could, edging every time he felt like he was going to blow by asking her to slow down.

After her hand moved at a breakneck pace, she began to elicit fraudulent moans that were coupled with fake coos and panting. Mama-san knew what she was doing and Jeremiah also knew that however cheesy and unreal those sounds were, they were going to be the climactic lynchpin as he began to tweak her nipples more. His pelvis squirmed. He couldn’t keep it at bay any longer and placed a firm grip on her free forearm. As he expostulated his off-white payload, he just exhaled while she made muffled orgasmic sounds.

“Baby! So much. Such a lovely mess.” “I haven’t… you know… in a couple of days,”

He lay there, still feeling the intoxication of the orgasm that had been a decent one, but as that fleeting pleasure began to fade, it mingled with the revolting notions that were also coming to him.

“I be right back, okay?”

Hirsch tried his best to smile, but all he felt was crushing shame and repulsion. Not towards her, but for himself, and he wanted to be out of there. All he could think about is what his mother would say if she knew what he did with his time and his money. He thought about what Sandra would think of him if she knew whom he had devolved into. The guilt and his disgust for himself sat anvil heavy on his chest.

Upon her reentrance into the room, she administered a hot towel to his area and cleaned off any excess of his love and then told him to get dressed. She left the room again, and he dressed.

Once he had pulled his Hawaiian shirt and khakis back on, he began to make his way out. Mama-san blocked the doorway as he made his way towards it.

“You have good time?”

Without a word, a forty-dollar tip was given; he strode back into the waiting room towards the outside. The little rusted bell clattered against the blinds and the glass of the door as it was pulled open and then swung shut behind him.