My father is a businessman, and frequently traveled for his work during my childhood. One day after school, he told me he was supposed to go to India the following weekend. My mind was immediately flooded with images of a marvelous and exotic place India was supposed to be, so I begged my father to let me go.
He finally agreed, and purchased my ticket. I was walking on sunshine. Not only did I get to go to India, but I was looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with my dad. Unfortunately, my happiness was short lived. My little sister found out that I was going, and she decided she wanted to go too.
After two back to back ten hour flights, we finally arrived in the magical land of elephants and princesses. (Please note, my only prior exposure to India was through Disney movies). I was immediately disappointed as we left the airport only to see a billion cars and other things I could already see in America. I should have known at that point that it would not be my first disappointment.
We all had to pee really badly, so we took a detour the closest bathroom. What greeted us was not a large, round porcelain toilet. What we saw looked exactly like this.
Imagine our extreme confusion when what we saw looked like a hole in the ground, and a faucet and bucket on the other side. Since we didn’t want to look like stupid tourists, we excused ourselves from the bathroom and tried to hold our bursting bladders until we got to the hotel room.
After relieving ourselves in a slightly more familiar toilet, we decided to tour the city with the courtesy driver. The drive started out pleasant enough, we even complimented the beautiful scenery and the driver’s ability to drive.
But what goes up must come down. My hopes of enjoying a comfortable drive through the beautiful city were almost immediately crushed. As soon as we hit traffic, the driver was violently honking his horn every three seconds and literally bumping into the other driving cars.
To make matters worse, we then learned our driver barely spoke any English.
By some miracle, we survived in one piece and arrived at our destination. We wasted no time getting out of the car and onto safe land. We walked around and did some shopping, until we came across a quaint little massage parlor. After our previous near death experience, we decided that we could all use a good massage. However, we learned that there is a law in India that only females can massage females, and only males can massage males. To top it off, the massage parlor had only one female masseuse, so that meant only my sister and I could go and only one of us could go first.
My sister got to go first.
My father and I waited in the lobby while my sister was having her massage. An hour later, my sister comes out of the room looking perfectly oily and glamorous. Not only did she look completely relaxed and happy, but she may as well have been touched by the hand of God.
This was a massage I knew I needed to have. But I couldn’t have my massage yet. My dad had to get back to the hotel room and get some work done, since we had wasted so much time nearly dying in the driver’s car. It was a long ride home so we needed to get going. I dreamt of what the massage must have been like.
The next day came and I was ready to take on anything. The outside world could have been covered in Swastikas but it still wouldn’t stop me from my hour of oily awesomeness. (Interestingly enough, India is covered in the Swastika symbol, all over their buildings and in the marble floors, because it means “power” and “peace”. It has also been known as the "Heart's Seal" - fact just for funsies!)
So my father and I went to get our massage. We went to a larger spa so that we could both get our massage at the same time. I expressed gratitude and excitement to my father, but my father had some reservations about being massaged by a male.
When we arrived, we were each escorted to separate rooms. Nothing could stifle my excitement. That is of course except for the giant wooden butchering table with reservoirs that I was surely about to be murdered on. The massage table was not the flat comfortable table I had envisioned, but what appeared to be a mechanism for harvesting my organs.
Before I could fully assess the danger of the situation, she told me to get naked and handed me some floss.
This is the time I think I should tell you that I am not a slender person. Not only was the idea of getting naked in front of a complete stranger in a foreign country repulsive to me, she also handed me some sort of thong underwear that was supposed to give me a sense of security. The underwear, mind you, was no more than an inch wide and wouldn’t have covered anything even if I had only weighed 85 pounds.
She was so insistent that I remove my clothes that she didn’t even give me time to reject before she was taking my shirt off for me. I promised her I would get naked and wear her floss panties as long as she wouldn’t kill me.
After I got naked and put on the underwear, she directed me to the “massage” table and told me to get on. But just as I was about to get on, she told me I needed to take off the undies. I realized that the underwear was only meant to stay on for my three steps to the table, and suddenly the floss was really, really comforting. I did not want to take them off. To me, they represented the difference between life and possible death. I ignored her and got on the table, pretending not to hear her.
It started with me lying on my stomach. I didn’t notice how vulnerable I was face down on the table until she quickly untied the life-saving floss panties and ripped them off of me. Since I was still trying to assess how much danger I was in, I decided to lay as motionless as possible. Unfortunately, my massage therapist was not a Tyrannosaurus Rex, she could still see me even though I was not moving.
She poured hot, thick oil on me. She rubbed the oil around, keeping her hands flat and never once applying any sort of pressure. I felt like a Thanksgiving turkey being basted before going into the oven.
And just like a Thanksgiving turkey, she must have thought there were holes for stuffing as she was not ashamed to touch my no-no parts.
This continued for half an hour. Or maybe it was 12 hours, I don’t actually know. My sense of time was distorted by my paralyzing fear and desire to escape. After what I assumed to be thirty minutes, she told me to flip over. I did as I was told, and like any victim in the face of danger, I averted my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else.
Then it was over. I had survived. She never tried to bleed me out or sacrifice me. I walked naked and oily into the next room and took a shower. I let the cleansing water wash away all traces of her aggressive advances on my no-no parts. But just as my sense of security was coming back, I heard her clear her throat. I turned my head and saw that she was standing right beside the curtain-less shower, waiting to hand me a towel.
I was beyond the ability to be shocked at that point, and silently took the towel from her hands. I dried off and got dressed as she watched me do it. I was dressed and ready to leave, ready to go home and never reflect on the bad massage memory again. But she was standing in the doorway with her finger pointed towards me. She asked me to sniff her finger, which was covered in red powder.
The conversation went like this:
Her: Sniff my finger.
Me: No.
Her: Yes. Sniff my finger.
Me: Where I’m from, we don’t sniff each other’s fingers.
Her: It brings good luck.
Me: I don’t believe you.
Her: It’s special red powder for luck. Sniff it.
Me: I don’t want your magical lucky powder.
Her: It’s me. I don’t lie to you.
Me: We don’t sniff powder where I’m from either. People go to jail for that.
She must gave grown tired of the argument, because she stopped trying to put her finger under my nose. Instead, she swiftly rubbed it on my forehead and stepped aside.
Then I remembered something I had forgotten all along. My father just received the exact same massage I did, but from a man. He had already been uncomfortable with the idea of being rubbed down by a gentleman, and I couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through. I rushed out to the lobby, and there he was. He was covered in shame and regret. There was a big red smudge on his forehead.
Me: Dad?
Him: We are going home. We are never going to talk about this again. Don’t tell your stepmother.
To this day, I have no idea what kind of massage my sister had that left her basking in her own glorious fragrance and relaxation. All I know is that I will never get a massage in India again.
THE END
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