Chapter 15: Traveler’s Tales
The four of us left Salt Lake early on Thanksgiving morning for Moab, since our various school and work schedules had us busy through Wednesday. Due to some strange tradition that neither Kaitlyn nor Vin was able to explain to me, the Gutierrez family held Thanksgiving lunch late, about 2pm, so we’d get there in plenty of time.
We were in Kaitlyn’s Subaru, it being the best balance of size and safety of the three cars available to us, the others being Jess’ small luxury sedan and Vin’s ancient high-mileage Chevrolet Impala.
In a lull in conversation on the drive down, I said, “Kaitlyn, you never did tell me the story of your massages at the Alexanders’ Halloween party.”
She looked around the car nervously, deciding whether she wanted to tell these stories in mixed company, particularly in front of Vin, but then she shrugged and began, “Well, my first client was this tanned surfer dude…”
A few minutes into the story, she said, “Anyway, there he was, completely naked, stiff as his surfboard, and I just sort of blurted out, ‘I could really carve a wave on that stick!’ Aloud!”
“You didn’t!” Jess called out from the back seat, scandalized.
“I did!” Kaitlyn replied, chortling at the memory and Jess’ reaction, the rest of us joining in with her.
Jess finished her surfer dude story, and then I told them about my first client that night, the iron worker.
“Lame,” opined Vin callously.
“Oh, hold tight, it gets better,” I assured them. “But now it’s Kaitlyn’s turn again.”
“I’m having trouble thinking past that first one,” Kaitlyn teased. I posed a flicking finger next to her earlobe threateningly, and she said, “All right, all right, I remember, Torquemada!”
“Huh?” I replied.
“Ah, too Western a bit of history for you to have run across yet. Torquemada was the Catholic priest that started the Spanish Inquisition. You’ve heard of that, right?”
“Monty Python, sure,” I said, joking.
“Yeah, well, only a lot less funny. Through him, the Catholic church created a reign of imprisonment, censorship, property confiscation, torture, racial cleansing… Well, let’s just say that it’s one of the big reasons I’m an atheist.” She took a centering breath, gripping the steering wheel and pushing herself back into the driver’s seat. “Anyway, I wasn’t seriously accusing you of that.” She reached across the front seat, stroked my thigh, and said, “Sorry, bad joke.”
“Thou art forgiven for thine error,” I essayed in my best 15th century English.
“Tomás de Torquemada was Hispanic,” pointed out Vin from the back seat.
“Well, you get to work on the translation, then, Vin. Be sure to use period grammar and vocabulary. Meanwhile, it’s story time for the rest of us,” I returned a bit sharply, annoyed by his pedantry.
“Right, my second client,” Kaitlyn resumed, raising her voice to talk over any developing argument, “was a morbidly obese middle-aged guy in a Castro style camouflage coverall and round military cap. There’s not too much to say about him. He was polite and respectful, but not exactly fun.”
That perked my ears up. “I didn’t say this about my first client, Kaitlyn, but she was pretty chubby. She was the biggest woman I’d massaged to that point, in fact. I got one bigger later that night. The thing is, Kaitlyn, I liked doing them both!”
“Ewww!” said Vin from the back seat, and Jess smacked him on the arm.
I just looked over my shoulder at him, staring him down. I wanted to tell him to grow up, but I didn’t want to make an enemy of my friend’s new lover, my wife’s little brother. I just waited for him to look sheepish, then turned back front and continued. “I liked it a lot,” I repeated. “What I’m wondering is if you found your first chubby client to be the same.”
“Not chubby, Davie, I said morbidly obese, and I meant it. Anyway, I can’t say I did enjoy it, Davie. Sorry, but I like them in shape. Well, a bit of a belly is fine, but this guy’s belly would hide his belt buckle, if he’d been wearing a belt instead of that tent he called a coverall! He was nice enough as a person, and I didn’t exactly recoil, but I don’t think I enjoyed it like you did. Are you saying you want me to get fat?” she asked.
“No, I think I’m just saying that I like massaging people, period. Well, women, anyway. I haven’t had a really fat male client yet.”
“We’ll doubtless get some of that in class as the course goes on,” she offered. “Anyway, your turn.”
I had to think a bit, then remembered, “Ah, my second was the Bride of Frankenstein!” I went on to tell how I’d had to help her out of her bridal dress and how she’d asked me to get out of my clothes and join her. “This bodes well for our idea that we’ll be able to have our future clients select our outfits.”
“I thought you weren’t going to let your normal clients see you naked,” put in Jess.
“This was a special situation. We weren’t being paid for the work, so it was just between us and each client. It made my client happier to have me naked, so I obliged, simple as that. If she had made me feel like a stripper, I would have refused, but she asked nicely.”
“Will you strip naked for me, Davie?” asked Jess in a sticky-sweet tone.
Before I could come up with a way to express my refusal of this joking request with a joke of my own, Kaitlyn put on the car’s blinker, signaling back into the highway’s slow lane, a small grin stretching her right cheek. She was giving the cover I’d need to play along, letting the faster traffic zip by us, me clearly visible only to someone creeping by us. So, I silently began to strip as Kaitlyn began her story, unbuckling briefly as necessary to get certain pieces off, looking back over the seat at Jess occasionally, her incredulity slowly transforming to delight. Behind me, I heard rustling, apparently Vin deciding he had to keep up or get left behind.
Kaitlyn’s small smile had broadened by the time she began her third story, but she told it as if there weren’t two men disrobing in the car she was driving. “My third client was an astronaut. Well, dressed as one, anyway. He had an amazing costume, not something cheap off the rack. It looked like the real thing, Davie. He said he’d downloaded the specs from NASA and had the suit fabricated from them by a movie special effects artisan.”
“What the rich do for fun,” I said musingly.
“Maybe we’ll get rich enough one day to get you an astronaut suit, too!”
“I already gave that life up for a quiet life in the desert, remember? We wouldn’t be together if I was still living up in Salt Lake, slaving in a cube farm.”
She looked over at me, looked my nudity up and down, then said, “Yeah, I can give up on being rich. This is better!” Then she reached across the car and stroked my thigh, sending a thrill up my body.
Smiling, she resumed her story about the astronaut client.
When she’d finished, she said, “Your turn, Davie!”
“Well, I’ve got a topper for you. My third was also difficult to get out of her costume, and she was also complimentary toward my skill when it came time to get her back into it. The difference being that my client was Catwoman, not Buzz Armstrong, and she went naked!”
That caused mixed chortles of glee and cries of jealousy among the car’s occupants. I took the time to look around, first at Vin, noticing that he was indeed now naked, but then being surprised to see that Jess had been quietly peeling off a piece at a time as I was telling my story. She pointedly popped a button on her blouse and grinned when she caught me staring. I turned to face front once again, resuming my story, telling about the sexy massage.
Then a thought occurred to me. I turned back to Jess, who was now down to her underwear. Plain black cotton stuff. “I thought I recalled those underthings!” I cried in realization. “Those were left behind by Catwoman!”
Vin replied sharply, almost screeching, “You’re giving Jess underwear now?”
“Relax, Vin!” she said placatingly. “Davie is a good friend, and he was passing along a gift he couldn’t very well use himself. It fits me perfectly, by the way, Davie, so it’d definitely be loose on Kaitlyn.” Then she returned her gaze to her boyfriend. “Are you upset by this sight?” She gestured up and down her body. “Maybe I should cover up?”
“No no no!” he said quickly.
I could sense he was saying this out of confusion and testosterone poisoning, so I turned and faced him, saying quietly, “Are you certain you want to be acting all jealous about who did what to whose girl?” I just stared at him until he gulped. He knew what I was talking about. We hadn’t spoken about it yet because I’d decided the situation didn’t need any input from me, but if he was going to get stroppy about a little gift between me and Jess, I held the high trump card in this game, and I’d use it.
“I’m sorry, Davie.” Then he thought better of that and corrected himself, “Mr. Bhat.”
“For your outburst just now, I accept, and it is forgotten now. If you’re apologizing for something else, we can talk about that later.” I waited until I got a nod out of him, then added, “So relax,” making it a double entendre, both placation and demand. He nodded again.
As I was turning back to face front, I saw Jess looking quizzically at Vin, so I paused and said, “It’s between us three, Jess. Please forget you heard any of that.” I waited until I saw her nod with resolution before I resumed my turn to the front.
Kaitlyn reached surreptitiously across the center console to squeeze my hand in support. With faux brightness I told her, “Your turn!” hoping to get the fun conversation back on track after Vin’s derailment.
“So, my fourth was a cowboy…” Then she went on to spin a tale that had us fully distracted by the end.
When my turn came, I began, “My fourth caught me in the middle of changing from my wizard robe back into my massage therapist’s costume,” then told them about my experience with the little round witch.
“You know, Davie, you can change behind the screen, too. It isn’t reserved for clients only,” Kaitlyn pointed out when I’d finished the story.
“Oh!” I said with realization.
She was always doing this to me, kicking me out of rigid mental pathways. I’d gotten it into my head that one side was for the clients, and the other side was for me. Kaitlyn knew this was where my mind had gone, and I recognized her insight, taking it in the spirit it was offered.
“Thanks, babe, I needed that,” I said with feeling. I reached across the center console to hold her hand; she grasped it and stroked my knuckles with her thumb.
I continued now to the car’s passengers at large, “That brings us to our fifth client,” waving a finger between myself and Kaitlyn to explain my choice of pronoun. “She was a skinny witch from the same coven as my fourth client, the round one…”
By the time I finished that story, everyone was loose and smiling again, except Jess who’d gone through “relaxed” and out the other side, now rubbing herself through her black cotton panties, the bumps in the road sending shivers through her barricaded bosoms. Vin unbuckled and slid over into the middle of the back bench seat and began caressing her, the movements causing rather more movement in his wiggly bit. I didn’t know whether he was trying to help her with her task or recall where she was, but she switched from masturbating to kissing Vin lightly while he took over the finger-work.
“My last client,” said Kaitlyn, her eyes on the scene in the mirror, “was that guy I flashed on the dance floor.”
That broke up the kissing, Vin and Jess both demanding, “You flashed a guy‽” in different words, but that was the sense I got from their jumble. Davie just looked over at me knowingly, an amused smile on his lips.
“He was a kind of stereotyped hick farmer guy, and he demanded to see the witch’s kitty, so I showed him!”
Jess broke into giggles, and Vin muttered something like, “Oh my god…”
“Anyway, I thought it was just a one-time joke, but he turned up at my massage room door later in the night, having won the drawing!”
Kaitlyn went on to tell us the story, then told me for the first time, “Oh, by the way, Davie, I arranged for him to do our marketing materials. He’ll be coming down for Earth Day. I promised him massages in exchange. Naked ones. And, um, trips out into the country.”
She had her shoulders hunched up by that point, apparently worried that I’d be upset about her setting such expansive plans without asking me. I decided that while I did in fact wish I’d been consulted, I didn’t actually have an objection to it, so I stroked her thigh and said, “It’s fine. Is he any good?”
“Yeah, I saw his portfolio. He’s actually great, as far as I can tell. He only does corporate web site design because it pays better.” She got a thoughtful look on her face, then said, “He was a bit chubby, but now that I think on it, it wasn’t unpleasant to work on him. I didn’t really notice at the time, but it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t. I think there’s hope that I won’t turn into a body snob.”
“Good. I don’t want get deeply into this business and have you dreading working on the fat ones, the ugly ones. We should be willing to work on anyone as long as they’re reasonably pleasant people. We’ve both got mainstream jobs to fall back on, so we can stop taking calls from the unpleasant ones, but if we reject everyone that isn’t beautiful, we’ll be a long time paying back the dent I put in our savings account for this schooling.”
“I can agree to that,” she said, looking relieved. “All right, your final client that night, Davie?”
“That’d be the ghost,” and I told them about my gorgeous voluptuous anonymous ghost.
“Oh, you drew all the good ones!” Kaitlyn sighed mournfully.
“Well, you’ve still got me!” I said brightly.
She looked over, her eyes roaming hungrily over my bare profile, then snapped her eyes forward dutifully while the noises in the back seat grew in volume, her finger roaming to her own crotch now, enjoying the aural voyeurism along with me.
By mutual consent, we did not tell the younger couple about our final clients that night.