Oil and Orders

I'm sixty-three years old and I pour coffee for a living, or at least part of a living. Retired from the office two years ago and the pension don't stretch like it used to, so I work mornings at the Roasted Bean on Maple Street. Six months ago I moved into the apartment building on Cedar and that's where I met Elias Duffy, the lawyer next door. He's thirty-four, good looking in a tired sort of way, and he carries his back problems like a man carries a wet dog, always trying to set it down.

That Tuesday I finished my shift at two, walked home in the cold, and found him standing at my door leaning on the wall like the wall was holding him up.

"Brenda," he said, and he winced when he straightened. "You mentioned once you used to do massage. Back before retirement."

"I did. Ten years of it, weekends, at a spa off Route 9. Why?"

"My back is killing me. The firm has me in a chair fourteen hours a day and the chiropractor just tells me to stretch, which I don't do. I heard myself asking and I couldn't stop." He rubbed his side, real slow. "Would you? I'd pay you, obviously."

I got my door open and waved him in. "Sit down first. I just made coffee and my feet hurt."

He sat at my little table and I poured two cups of the dark roast I keep for myself, the good stuff. He held his cup with both hands like it was warm soup.

"Here's how it'll be," I told him. "No money. I'm not running a business. I did that for ten years and I don't miss the receipts. It's a favor between neighbors, free, no strings, and either of us can call it off any week with no hard feelings. Separate from that, you take yours down to the curb Sunday nights anyway, so take mine too. That's just being neighborly. It's got nothing to do with the back. Fair?"

"That's it? That's nothing. Fair. And thank you." He drank half the cup in one go. "Sundays work. Weekly?"

"Weekly. Sunday afternoons, your place since you've got the bigger table. I'll bring my own oil. And Elias, I'm sixty-three, my hands aren't spa hands anymore, but they're strong. You'll feel it Monday."

"Monday is exactly what I'm hoping for," he said, and he grinned for the first time since I'd known him.

So that was settled, plain and simple, a free favor and no cash between us. It stayed that simple for about one Sunday, and we'll get to the rest.

That Sunday came around and I walked the fifteen feet between our doors with a bottle of sweet almond oil and an old bath towel under my arm. He'd cleared off his kitchen table and laid a blanket over it, which I thought was thoughtful for a man who apparently couldn't bend over.

"Face down," I told him. "Shirt off. Arms at your sides."

He got up there and I could tell right away this was a man who hadn't been touched with any purpose in a long time. His shoulders were up around his ears before I even started. I warmed the oil in my palms and put my hands flat on his back, just resting, letting him get used to it.

"Breathe out," I said.

He did, and his whole back dropped about two inches.

Then I got to work. Ten years of weekends comes back quicker than you'd think. I worked his shoulders first, thumbs digging along the top edge, and he made a noise like a door creaking open.

"Oh God," he said into the blanket. "Right there. That's the spot."

"That's a knot the size of a golf ball. What do you carry in a briefcase, bricks?"

"Court filings. Depositions. Everything." His voice was getting loose, muffled. "I've had that knot since probably law school."

I worked it slow, feeling it give up under my thumbs little by little, then moved down to the muscles alongside his spine. Long strokes, flat hands, oil dragging warm over his skin. His back was broader than I'd guessed, and there was a scatter of dark hair low near the waistband of his sweatpants that I noticed and then told myself not to notice.

"Lower," he groaned. "Please. The low back is the worst of it."

I pulled the blanket up so it covered him to the waist, kept everything professional, and worked the small of his back with my knuckles and the heels of my hands. Every time I hit a tight spot he let out a groan that I could feel in my own chest. It had been a long time since anybody made those noises under my hands, and I'm not made of stone. I kept my eyes on my work and told myself it was just the massage. It was just the massage right up until he said, easy and half asleep, "You've got magic hands, Brenda. Nobody's touched me like this in years."

"How long is years?" I asked, working a spot by his hip.

"Three. Since the divorce."

Well. That settled something in the room, though neither of us said so. I kept stroking, oil and heat and the slow give of muscle, and he kept groaning, and I kept my hands professional for another full ten minutes before I told him to flip over.

I did his arms and his neck while he was on his back, and he watched me the whole time with half-open eyes. A man relaxing for maybe the first time that year.

"That's it for today," I said, wiping my hands on the towel. "Drink water. And stretch, or I'll hear about it from your spine next week."

He sat up slow, blanket around his shoulders, and looked better already, loose and pink. "Sunday. Same time?"

"Same time. And the cans tonight, neighbor. That's got nothing to do with this."

He laughed, actually laughed, and I gathered my oil and went home. It was only on my own couch, an hour later, that I caught myself thinking about the sound he made when I hit that knot, and how much lower I could have gone, and how I'd stopped at the waistband like a good professional, and how maybe I hadn't wanted to stop.

I was sixty-three, not dead. I'd had dates over the last five years, good ones and dull ones, and one man named Frank who lasted a winter. But nothing lately, nothing warm, and here was a thirty-four-year-old lawyer fifteen feet away making noises of pure relief under my hands every Sunday if I wanted.

"Careful, Brenda," I said out loud to my empty living room.

The next Sunday I brought the same oil and a different attitude I wasn't going to look at too closely. He was face down on the table before I'd even set my keys down.

"Eager," I said.

"Punctual. I've been counting the days."

I shouldn't have let that sentence sit in the room the way I did. But I warmed the oil and got to work, and his shoulders were looser this time, so I went deeper. He groaned into the blanket and I felt it start, that pull in my belly, the one I'd figured was packed away with the spa apron.

"Harder," he said. "Please. I won't break!"

I gave him harder. I worked his low back until the muscles finally quit fighting me, and my hands were slick and his skin was hot, and when he turned his head to breathe I could see his face, eyes shut, mouth open, and lord, that face did something to my plans.

"Flip over," I said, and my voice came out lower than I meant it.

He flipped. I did his chest and arms, and this time I let my hands linger more than the job called for. He noticed. He was a lawyer, he noticed everything, and he said nothing, just breathed.

At the end I wiped my hands and he sat up and didn't reach for the blanket right away. He sat there looking at me.

"Brenda. Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

"Next Sunday," he said, and stopped, and started again. "Is this massage, or is this something else? Because I'd take either. I just need to know which one I'm showing up for."

I stood there with my oil bottle and my towel, sixty-three years old, heart going quicker than it had any right to.

Well, I took a breath and answered him honest, because lying to a lawyer seemed like a bad hobby. "Right now it's a massage. Ask me again next Sunday and we'll see where we've landed." He nodded slow, like a man accepting terms, and I let myself out before either of us could say anything stupider or braver.

All week at the Roasted Bean I poured coffee and thought about where we'd landed. Lila, the girl who works the register with me, asked twice if I was sick because I kept smiling at the creamer like it owed me money. I said it was my sinuses. She's twenty-six and sharp as a tack, so I'm sure she believed me.

Sunday came around and I knocked on his door with the almond oil in my bag and a whole argument in my head. He opened it in his work pants with the shirt already half unbuttoned, and that stopped me right on the mat.

"You're undressing before I even get here now?"

"Saves time," Elias said, grinning, and pulled the shirt off right there in the doorway. Thirty-four years