I must had been asleep for quite a while. I walked up under another one of the hotel’s large thick towels. I was still lying on the massage table. Si was gone, but there was a small note on the table. “Didn’t want to wake you up, seems like you need a rest. Si’. Her Hong Kong Massage business card was placed next to the note.
On the next morning I felt fresh and hungry as a newborn as a I sat at the breakfast table in the company of my boss and workmates. Grumpy and hangover from last night they were telling me how their bar trips had gone, a long story about drinks in half a dozen of places which they couldn’t remember in details. They gulped black coffee, held their heads and produced pitiful noises. “We need someone to stay for a week here” suddenly announced the boss with a sour voice. “The contract will need supervision in this first stage, it’s decisive. Anybody wants to stay for s few more days?” “I can stay” – I volunteered without even thinking. The chatting around the table stopped for a moment. “How come?” – the boss looked at me incredulously. ‘I thought you were dying to get home quicker”. Then he inspected my face more closely – “Look at you, you’ve perked up since yesterday. What have you been doing?”
In the afternoon I called Si the massage therapist. “You are right about your skills. I would like to ask for another Hong Kong outcall massage session. Can you come tonight? I imagined her serious face, small and pretty, the pearly pink shine of her oval nails, her delicate, strong, skilled hands. “Yes” said Si.
This time the strokes of her hands were stronger, confident, full of energy. Her palms pressed deep, rubbed and slid on my oiled skin, moving across, forwards and backwards, fixing and reconnecting all the broken links in my body. With every massage stroke I felt my muscles regaining power and flexibility and my blood flowing quicker and stronger inside my veins. This Hong Kong tantric massage was curing all my deeply held fears, filling the empty spaces in my human shape with warmth and touch.
“I didn’t leave you a tip last night” I told Si. “Can I take you out for a drink to make up for it? Or may be a dinner? She smiled for the first time, with a bright smile that illuminated her small serious face and curved beautifully her coral lips. She nodded, and I thought I should ask my boss to make me a company rep in Hong Kong, so that I can stay here forever.