One night in Bangkok

The other day a massage-crazy friend was telling us about unheard of massages she had tried somewhere in Hungary, making use of not just the usual olive oil, coconut oil, or mineral oil, but also of Dead Sea salt combined with grated Himalayan rocks, grape seed oil, whipped cream and yoghurt mixed with jasmine and ilang-ilang, jojoba, honey, chocolate, wine, and Schnaps.  Wow, you’d think we were talking about making desserts out of the human body.

Since it was an intimate group of real friends, it was safe for anyone to brag, and brag I did, as I told them about the body massage I had one night in Bangkok. “All those massages use the hands!  This Bangkok body massage does need the hands to knead your body!”    

I had it in a place called Valentino, frequented by men wanting to “relax”. There were 120 “massage artists” in a big room walled in by one-way mirrors—we could see them but they could not see us.  All fair skinned, young (aged 18-30), and wearing sexy lingerie, they were sprawled on the multileveled floor, watching television.  They wore numbered bibs so that a customer having cocktails just outside of this veritable fishbowl could survey the bunch and tell the floor manager his number of choice.

Just like the male clients around me, I had to choose my girl.  It was tough.  I started to get cold feet. I did not know what a body massage involved. Appraising the heavily made up “massage artists”, I feared the unknown. I was afraid I’d “get something” just being touched by one of those girls.  On top of that the manager thought I was gay, so he said, “We get around 120 customers nightly, five or six of whom would be women, mostly foreigners.  We have girls specializing on women…” I told him all I wanted was an honest-to-goodness professional job, something that might teach me massage techniques I could apply on my husband, and then I let him choose the girl for me.  He picked Number 32; her name was Ming Ming.

Ming Ming led me to our cubicle, a doorless bed-and-bath affair with a red light bulb, a vase of plastic flowers, a bed, a bathtub, and inflatable plastic mats on a completely tile-covered floor. Ming Ming smilingly chirped, “Remove clothes,” and prepared the bath paraphernalia.  I wiggled out of my jeans.  When I turned, she was naked.  (OMG, what am I doing in this room with this naked stranger?  But I braced myself for the unknown, believing that all experiences in time may be turned to profitable literature).

She had to bathe me before the massage, I understood.  Ming Ming ran the show like the mother she actually was.  While soaping me in the warm tub she kept on talking:  “I leave hasbin in Chiang Mai; he no coot, he have three wifes, no job.  One day I say him, you go away, you no coot hasbin!”  She said her three children were with her mother in Bangkok and that “I work here, give money to mother, so my children they grow up and go school.  You kiv me tip later?”  I replied, “Yes, if you’re good.”

She told me to just close my eyes and relax.  I cooperated.  “Give me arm,” she chirped as she reached for more soap.  She scrubbed the arm quietly.  I was savoring the silence when I heard her chirping again, “Stand up, dahlink!”  She had this amusing way of addressing me “dahlink”—a term of endearment she must have picked up from American servicemen in Pattaya, who knows?  Stand up, dahlink!  Sit here, dahlink!  Kiv me foot, dahlink!   

Ming Ming gave dahlink a second sudsing, a second shampooing, a second bath, indeed, which made me wonder why a massage would need such an elaborate cleansing ritual.  But she went about it like it was serious business.  For all intents and purposes she became for me an efficient nanny, while I virtually regressed to infancy, secretly cooing and gurgling in babyish delight.  Every square inch of my body was scrubbed with a sudsy sponge, except—and this is why she can’t be a perfect nanny—behind the ears!  I had to do it myself.

As my extremities began to shrivel from the leisurely soak, Ming Ming cooed, “Move here, dahlink!”  It was on the inflatable plastic mat on the tiled floor that (ahem) the body massage began.  Scooping more warm sudsy solution onto my passive body, Massage Artist # 32 began to knead my thighs with her breasts.  Repeat—her breasts!  I was speechless.  Then she did my knees, legs, arms, and abdomen—all with her breasts, OMG!  

Then she came to the parts that are verboten to the regular masseuse.  Chiding myself, “Teresa, the things you go through in the name of adventure!”  I nonetheless viewed with clinical detachment the bizarre exercise of flesh rubbing against flesh that might have triggered more delicate responses had my masseuse been a masseur.  I was wishing there were ceiling mirrors to show me how ridiculously funny we must have looked when Ming Ming said, “Other side, dahlink!” 

For the “other side” she switched to using her fanny—her fanny!—amply padded, I must say, and less jiggly than the boobsy.  She massaged my back from the neck to the ankles with her fanny in continuous circular motion—yeah, like a floor polisher.  My whole body done—still without using her hands—she asked me to turn over again and then proceeded to squeeze my legs and thighs with her thighs.  Her thighs!  No wonder they called the girls “massage artists”, I thought; using the thighs to massage is an art!  You have to be an acrobat to do it safely.  

Just as I was beginning to tire of the whole thing, Ming Ming pulled me up and set me smack against the tiled wall.  Before I could protest about the cold wall shocking my back, she resumed her fleshy gyrations, methodically employing only her thighs and the globular portions of her torso to massage.  “Other side, pleeese?” she said.  I turned to face the wall; she continued.  This must look hilarious—I thought—me naked and spread-eagled against the wall doing nothing, and she frantically kneading my backside with her soapy bum.  Looking back now, I’m glad we didn’t have YouTube then, otherwise a secret video of me going through this would have gone viral, like the Hayden Kho collection!

Any experience reflected upon leads to self-knowledge.  That body massage in Bangkok is no exception.  I went in hoping I could learn new massage tricks for my old man, but up to now I say “Forget it!” One needs DD cup breasts and Italian mama buns to do it properly.  I do a better job with my hands.