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one of approximately one thousand "massage
parlors."

   I called the one with the biggest ad. A young woman answered the phone.

   "Helllllloooooo," she purred.

   "Hi," I said. "Are you closing soon?"

   "We won't be open all night," she said. "You'd better get down here as soon as possible."

   "Will you still be working?" I said.

   She said, "If you hurry."

   I was there in fifteen minutes, on foot. The massage parlor
was
on
the second floor. I walked into a nondescript waiting room and up to the front
desk. A panel opened in the wall. There sat a somewhat Rubenesque woman with
eyes that could slay a deer.

   "Are you the guy that called?" she said.

   "Yes," I said.

   She glanced behind her, leaned forward and whispered,

   "You're lucky I answered the phone. The rest of these women are crack whores."

   "Well," I said. "I guess I am lucky."

   She brought me to her massage room. On her instruction, I took a shower and applied scented oils to my body. I left my bathrobe open and lay on the table. The lights dimmed. Soft music started playing. She walked in.

   "Did you have a nice shower?" she said.

   "Oh, yes," I said.

   "Mmmm. That's nice. Do you mind turning over so I can start rubbing your neck?"

   "Not at all."

   I felt like that was a good moment to introduce myself.

   "So what are you doing here in Toronto, Neal?" she said.

   "I'm a writer," I said. "Looking for a story."

   Generally, when I tell strangers that I'm a writer, their
first response is, "What kind of stuff have you written? Books?" But
my randomly chosen "massage therapist" in Toronto said, "A writer,
huh? Interesting. I just finished my master's degree in literature at the
university. My thesis was on, oh, I can't remember his name now. Isn't that stupid? He wrote White Noise and that book about Lee Harvey Oswald."

   "Don DeLillo?" I said.

   "Yeah!" she said. "DeLillo. That's the guy. Do you write anything like him?"

   "Actually," I said, "I feel that my best work is an aesthetic reaction to DeLillo's worst excesses…"

   She and I spent fifteen delightful minutes talking about contemporary American literature. We argued, laughed, teased, and flirted. It would have been a great conversation in a bar, or on a date. I found myself in the odd position of developing a genuine crush on my massage therapist. Man, she was cute!

   A timer went off.

   "You have to decide," she said.

   "Decide what?" I said.

   "What you want to do now?"

   "Now?"

   She suddenly looked bored.

   "It's fifteen dollars for a hand release," she
said. "For thirty dollars, I'll get on top of you with all my clothes
on.
For

fifty dollars, I'll get naked, but no penetration. We're not licensed for that."

   What I did next, if I may say so myself, took balls.

   "What are you doing tomorrow?" I said.

   "Nothing," she said.

   "I've got two tickets to a baseball game. Let's go together. And afterward I'll buy you dinner."

   She giggled.

   "Okay," she said.

   The hand release happened quickly. She brought me off with warmth and technical skill. I showered again. She came back in. I tipped her plenty.

   She kissed me on the cheek and batted her eyes.

   "We're not supposed to kiss the customers," she said.

   "I appreciate your willingness to break the rules," I said. "See you tomorrow."

   "It's a date," she said.

   The rest of the night, I walked around thinking to myself:

   Pollack, you're a motherfucking stud.

of property so broke that she had to work at a skeezy massage parlor.

   The bedroom was sumptuous. Her bed would have swallowed a dozen
men. The carpet was so soft and thick that you wanted to pass out drunk in it
for a week. Best of all, the master bath had a two-person hot tub. It was time
to get down to business.

   With some effort, I pulled her to her knees and pushed her
shoulders against the floor. We kissed briefly, but this was no time for kissing.
After she'd
jacked me so efficiently the previous day, I wanted to return the blessing. Like
a master locksmith, I quickly unzipped her pants and inserted two fingers. They
began to wiggle around, seeking land.

   "Oooh," she said. "Ooooh, boy."

   "You like it?" I said.

   "Phew," she said. "Oh gosh."

   I looked up at her face, which showed no ecstasy.

   "What?" I said.

   "Did you wash your hands after dinner?" she said.

   "No."

   "I think some of that pepper juice is still on your hand. It might be burning up my vagina."

   "Oh," I said. "Do you want me to keep going?"

   "That's sweet of you to ask," she said. "But I don't think so. Hoo! Gosh!"

   Thank God she was Canadian. They're so polite.

   She writhed on the ground for a bit, then limped to the bathroom for a nice cold douche under her hot-tub faucet.

   "It still burns!" she said.

   About a half hour passed before she could walk without pain. The zip had gone out of the evening. I took a bath. She gave me another hand release, which was dull, quick, and passionless. We exchanged phone numbers and I promised to tell her the next time I came to town. She called me a cab and told it to hurry.

   It had been better when I'd paid.
 n°

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