Bald Guy shrugs and Man Bun is rubbing his hands together over Damian’s back.
You know, from this angle, massage is the strangest thing…
I get into the locker room, drop my towel long enough to completely disrobe, unintentionally flash an older woman who’s coming out of the showers in what looks like a nightgown with legs, and feel through my pants for something, anything I can take back in there with me to explain why, oh why, I would delay the healing powers of massage, but all I have are my keys and my room key. Everything else, even my cell phone, is back in the room.
Room key it is.
I go back into the other room and set the room key under the hole in my table so I can look down at a constant reminder about how I wasn’t quick enough on my feet.
Finally bare—with the exception of the towel—I lie down on the massage table and scootch into position.
This is actually pretty nice.
“Everything come out all right?” Damian asks.
“What?” I respond.
“Never mind,” he laughs. “So,” he says, “tell me more about what it is to be intimate with someone.”
“Well,” I start. I start, but I don’t continue.
Last night, I was basically listing off qualities that were opposite to my experience with Ben. Now, I don’t know, I guess I really don’t know what intimacy is.
“It’s not something you are,” I tell him, “it’s something you find in the other person.”
“That tells me absolutely nothing,” he says. “Come on, you were so spirited about it last night. What’s next? What is it that we’re really looking for here?”
“Tell me a story,” I tell him, “something real, you know, something that’s happened in your life.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “What is your best memory of your childhood?”
“That’s boring,” he says. “Ask me something harder, something closer.”
Something harder, something closer.
“What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” I ask.
“Maybe something a little softer,” he says, “at least for now.”
“Fine,” I say. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been in love a bunch of times. It’s never really the same, though. Everyone talks like love is one set emotion that everyone experiences the same way, every time,” he says. “For me, love is when you don’t know what to expect, but that’s not a bad thing. I guess if there is one single thing I can tie to my experience with love, it’s being able to let go of all my shit and just be Damian Jones without all the actor shit even coming into it. Being able to do that and not have a nervous breakdown is a pretty good indication that I’m in love.”
“So being able to give up control of your image is what tells you that you’re in love?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Why? What is it that lets you know that you don’t just like a person, you love them?”
“I don’t know,” I start. “It’s hard to describe. I think love is simple. It’s just that perpetual wish to be around a person. Love is what happens when you only care if one person takes you seriously. Everyone else just doesn’t matter quite so much.”
The room’s quiet a moment except the sounds of hands moving over oiled-up celebrity.
“That was very nice,” Man Bun says.
“Thank you,” I answer.
“The last time I knew I was in love—probably the only time I really knew was with my high school sweetheart, Jamie,” Damien says. “With her, it wasn’t just the swirl of emotions, but a full-blown tempest all the time.”