Chinese Special Massagy

It is about 5pm and I am having mild hallucinations. I returned last night from eight days in China. I haven't been able to sleep and my internal clock is a mess. Keep your expectations low for this post.

My trip was a blur of temples, pagodas, and tourist traps. China is a land of many contradictions. The economy is raging from foreign investment, but it is still technically a 3rd World communist country. Capitalism is seemingly everywhere, but is never fully acknowledged. Actually, it is denied in almost every official way.

Several things flourish in China, though: tea, the production of knock-off goods, and massage parlors. You can get these items or services everywhere, sometimes all three are offered to you at the same time. "Mister, mister, looky. Hello! Hello! You like Rolex?" is shouted at you while you're sipping tea and getting your feet rubbed in a government sponsored massage hall. It's all very confusing.

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.

I ended up booking a seat on an organized tour of four cities in China with my sister as my vacation for this year. The price was unbelievably low, almost the same as a flight to China alone, but the trip included all meals, hotels, and transportation. The rub is that the tour is subsidized by the Chinese government. They cover approximately 50% of the price of the trip, but you have to visit one or two Chinese tourist traps a day where you are relentlessly bombarded by government workers hawking everything from silk pajamas to dried lizards used to make "medicinal" tea. It's mind blowing. After a few days of sleep deprivation and small Asian women yelling at you in broken, mono-syllabic, English you feel like you're stuck in a Jefferson Airplane song.

Since I was not in the market for any of the garbage the Chinese government was not-so-subtly trying to sell me, I generally opted for the ubiquitous 30 minute, $5 massage that was available at nearly every stop. The massages were generally given in large, unbearably bright, rooms with 25 total strangers. Generally this is not the ideal setting for a massage, but after a 90 pound woman with hands of steel rubs all the tension out of your body you just can't say no. Trust me, these are serious massages.

On the third day a guy in my group told me that he and his wife tried to get a massage in our 5-star hotel (not a Hilton, but another major US chain), but was shocked to learn that the spa would not book one for his wife because the massages were all "sensual" treatments. He explained that for $200US four young (19 or 20 years old) Chinese girls would do anything to you for 90 minutes. That night, while having drinks with another single guy on the trip I told him what I had learned about our hotel spa, and he looked at me like I was crazy. For a moment I thought he didn't believe me, but was then floored when he told me he had been to the spa every night!

I have had many massages, but I have never had a "rub and tug", and was naturally intrigued. I have also never been with a hooker in any capacity. On my last night in Shanghai I decided to book a spa session in my hotel. I took the elevator to the floor where the spa was and picked the most expensive "treatment" they had. I was nervous as hell, and don't remember the description of the treatment, but it was vaguely sexual without ever actually mentioning sex.

I was led into a series of locker rooms where I was given towels, a robe, slippers, and a foot cleansing by several different women. This was all very non-sexual, almost clinical. I was finally brought into a private room where the girl took my robe and I was told to lay on the massage table face down and placed a towel over me. Actually, I don't know what she was saying, that's just what I did.

The lights were turned down, music was put on, and the girl left the room. Ten long, nervous minutes later I heard the door open and a girl said hello in Chinese. I tried to look up but it was too dark and she was slightly behind me, so I couldn't see her. The massage started, and it was like any other legitimate massage in the USA I have had. That was until she walked around the front of me and I spotted black stiletto heals. I snuck another peak, and this time saw that my masseuse was a tall Chinese girl wearing a school-girl outfit a-la Brittany Spears. For the next thirty minutes I had the most unenjoyable massage of my life. My heart was pounding and I was nervous as hell. Then the girl said "Okay, please over" and lifted the towel off my butt and held it in front of her face.

This was the moment I was dreading. From the second the "treatment" started I had a full-blown hard on. It was a nightmare. All I could think was that this was sexual harassment and I would spend the rest of my life in a Chinese prison. When the girl put the towel back down and saw the tent I had pitched, she said "Oh, Mr. Number One Massage (apparently my new name), you want special massagy?" My heart literally stopped and I didn't breath for a long time. Minutes later I mustered a "what's that" in a squeaky voice I had never heard come out of me before. Like nothing this chick said "If you have $200US I do everything. I suckie you, you fuck me all over, then you coming on my here [sic](and pointed to her face and chest)." Then she started to unbutton her shirt. Many things raced through my mind, but luckily the one that flashed the most were the letters H-I-V, and I squealed "no thanks, just regular massagy." She didn't give up easily, and proceeded to call me "cheap" and a few other things in Chinese. For ten or fifteen minutes she kept trying to reach under the towel in the hopes of enticing me into "special massagy" but I was too scared to take her up on it.

The last half of the massage was awful. Realizing that she would not make much money on me, my massage deteriorated into her slapping my back and repeatedly lifting and dropping my limbs and head. After a particularly brutal calf-pinch I rolled over and told her "massagy over, time for dinner, I go now". When I got to the front to pay they still tried to charge me for "special massagy" but I explained that there was only "regular massagy, no coming all over", paid my 450RMB ($60US) and went back to my room where I sulked in the shower for 25 minutes like I had been raped.

That night neither my sister nor any of the guys I had met on the trip wanted to get drinks. I tried to sleep for a while, but I was not tired to I went to the Karaoke Bar in the lobby for a beer. As luck would have it about 15 people from the tour were down there drinking and singing. I talked to them but one at a time they retired to their rooms until only a girl (American) and I remained. We were both drunk already, but we decided to drink until all our RMB (Yuan, or Chinese money) were gone. At 2:30am we got on the elevator to go to our rooms. The wake-up call for our flight was at 4:30am, all I could think was that it was going to be an awful day.

However, when the elevator door closed the girl, Tracy, kind of smirked. She wasn't great looking, but after the massage from hell I couldn't resist trying to hook up. We made out in the elevator until we got to my floor. I told her that I was sharing a room with my sister, and she said she was sharing with her mom, so our rooms were out of the question. We made out in the hallway for a minute, then basically fell into the emergency stairwell.

We kissed for a few more minutes in the stairs, then Tracy turned around and lifted up her skirt. We had sex on the stairs for a little while, and she ended by giving me head. As soon as we were done we walked out and went to our own rooms.

On the flight home we talked for a few minutes, but that was it. I still don't know her last name.