"Will You Give Me A Massage?"- One Man & The Eternal Battle
Okay so I hate doing this, and it irritates the life out of me when other writers do it. Write an annoying intro trying to justify everything I am about to write. I love my girlfriend, I adore her. She is my fiancé, and it winds her up when I say girlfriend, so I’m off to a good start.
I still feel lucky and grin when I take her cup of tea before waking her up each morning, see her little face and smile when she opens her eyes, her little sweaty feet poking out of the end of the duvet. I don’t have a foot fetish by the way, and I am aware people with food fetishes say that. I’m not in the hallway smelling her shoes whilst the kettle is boiling, not every day anyway. She is an incredible little person. Literally, she is five foot nothing, and I’m taller than everybody.
Her name is Lily Pecker because she is a peckerwood. Melon as her head is shaped like one or Crumbs for the constant little bits and things that seem to follow everywhere she’s been. I’d do anything for her, anything except willingly give her a massage.
Now it wasn’t always like this, early on in our blossoming romance my hands and forearms permanently ached from the almost nightly massages. There wasn’t any other intention or expectation of this ritual. Not like when you’re a young teenage boy and Sarah from number forty-two’s neck aches from all the homework you’ve done together and offering her a massage might be the only chance you have of undoing her bra.
It was a way of feeling close after the long summer days spent bumming out on the beach. They made her feel good, which massaged my fragile ego and I’d wake up with the softest hands smelling of rosehip and lavender blowing out expensive candles that had been burning all night.
At some point I made the mistake of saying ‘yes baby, I will always give you a massage whenever you need one’. This was a seriously misjudged error on so many levels. One, I didn’t realise quite how long forever is. Two, Lily is a dancer and dances every day. Three, she has a sciatic nerve problem in her back. Four, she’s hooked on feeling good: if she could become a resident in a health spa she’d give up everything right now. I could go on, but the long and the short of it is she always ‘needs’ one.
This never was an issue until one night whilst trying to find parts of her body to wipe the excess oil off my hands onto and putting the bottle back on the radiator, so it’d be warm the following night. Little Pecker announces, ‘I’m booked in for a massage tomorrow morning, could you pick me up please I don’t want to walk home in the cold after’.
Something she’d accidentally forgot to disclose before her nightly rub down. I’ve been on strike for the last year. I felt used. Like I wasn’t good enough, annoyed I hadn’t been given the night off. My pride was genuinely hurt. If I was good enough, she wouldn’t need to book one. Just to make it clear a massage with Lily isn’t her sat between my legs at the sofa with the tv on whilst I gently rub her shoulders. It’s a light down, warm oils, lit candles, old towels, heating up full and whale music kind of affair. A tiny little neck rub, no such thing. A tiny little neck rub ends at the calves with oil reflecting in the candlelight from every bloody body part.
Lily has to change, tie her hair up. I have to change into the tracksuit bottoms she destroyed with hair dye’ baby why didn’t you wear your own?’ ‘because I didn’t want to ruin them.’
The strike didn’t start immediately, I obviously couldn’t admit I was hurt. For a moment, I was looking forward to being relieved of my duties, after picking Lily up from Hillary’s Holistic Healing studio and waiting outside in the rain for twenty-five minutes. I was told my massages with my strong massive hands were so much better than Hillary’s puny attempt, how she hadn’t done Lily’s bum and that’s what was really hurting. My ego mania kicked in and I’m back on duty with that gratifying knowledge of giving better massages than the pro.
So I’m contently rubbing oil into Lily’s buttocks, candlelight flickering, thin trails of incense smoke drizzle through the air, only to find out she’s signed up to a twelve weeks massage loyalty scheme. I suddenly become highly aware that Hilary probably has fucking massive strong hands and I’m not the masseuse prodigy I thought I was.
Now our evenings mostly consist of what can only be described as massage top trumps. It’s a back and forth competition of attrition, who’s the most tired, who does what for who. I constantly need to arm myself with different levels of excuses, make mental notes in the day when something crops up that could be part of my armoury in this nightly war.
I win ninety-nine times out of a hundred because I’m always handed an advantage. Lily deals herself a handicap before battle commences, they’ll be a stretches followed by a small almost to the untrained ear inaudible sigh. Maybe a little crack of the neck or hips some fidgeting and rearranging of cushions underneath her.
I know what’s coming next spending these precious moments to prepare my defence and getting my excuse counterattack briefed. The attack is the best form of defence, so knowing the conversation is coming I will drop a little ‘baby my hands are so sore at the moment, I wonder if its this cold weather’ pretending I haven’t noticed the signs of her discomfort. Surely if they are sore, she wouldn’t wish to inflict more suffering on them.
Wrong. ‘My sciatica is really playing up’ fighting the knot of guilt trying to form my stomach, ‘Have you done your physio stretches yet? They should help.’ ‘I’ve had such a long day at work, I’m exhausted,’ ‘I’ve been doing my ballet rehearsals all day,’ she’ll respond.
‘Baby if you really had sciatica you wouldn’t be able to dance,’ this one can be dangerous because her MRI scan results are never far from hand. ‘Rick gives Leah a massage every day.’ Oh, slick Rick this motherfucker does it whilst he has their dinner simmering away on the stove. ‘Perhaps Rick is making up for the other deficiencies he so obviously has, anyway have you seen where I burnt my hands making your tea this morning?’ I have let this belief creep in, this attitude develops that as I make the tea in the morning, I no longer have to do anything else for the next 24 hours.
‘I just want to be close to you, it helps me feel connected and it gets me in the mood when I feel your hands on me’ - Lily says this whilst sat at the other end of the sofa as far away as physically possible scrolling on her phone. In the mood? She falls asleep the second I stop, which I do point out.
Before long we are low on cards and we are in the playground: ‘if you loved me you’d just do it. It’s because you think I’m disgusting, isn’t it? Are you bored of me? Oh my god, you’re so amazing, please?’ I usually come back with ‘yes I’m amazing but not enough for you. When are you booked into Hilary’s?’ or ‘sex is good for muscle pains.’
When she has won, I will stomp and sigh my way around the house to get the massage essentials. Exhaling as loudly as possible, marching with purpose. Not light any candles or incense because ‘you lose all the bloody lighters.’ Put on a playlist of songs she hates rush the whole operation missing the parts she likes massaged the most and generally trying to make the experience so awful she’ll never ask again.
It doesn’t work, my skills are just too good. I’ve even been known to try and fall asleep before the oil has warmed up on the radiator. Really, I need to get over this, it’s pathetic. Lily deserves more, it’s a little bit sick to make her beg for something I should want to do.
I’m hoping writing this will be the livener I need that slap in the face to compromise, although I have used writing this as another excuse, painfully going over each sentence for hours each night for the last two months. I’m also incredibly diligent at making sure we never run out of teabags. Stubbornness is definitely my best quality.
Written by Chris Wade
I'm 37 from newbury. I've been cooking professionally for 20 years mainly in London. I now live in the beautifully quaint Weston Super Mare with my fiance.