The Massage Guy

It wasn't that bad, she decided. It could have been awkward, but they were talking their way through it.

She still wasn't sure about getting fingered, though. "I'm not sure," she said.

"I'd like to. If you want me to. But only if you want me to."

Nina thought. "I don't know."

"That's fine. When you decide let me know."

She nodded, still a little awkward just talking about it like this.

"But please don't tell anyone else," Kevin said. "Okay? No friends, no laughing about this later. If it gets back to anyone here..."

Nina nodded. "You get I'm paying you to jerk me off, right? Which is kind of embarrassing. So as far as telling friends goes, I really wouldn't have though you needed to say that bit."

Kevin grinned again, and said, "I'm being careful."

"Okay." Nina sat there a while longer. "This is weird."

"It is."

"Kind of hot, but weird."

He smiled.

"Are you sure you don't want me to jerk you off," she said. "Just once, so we're even?"

"We're even because you pay me."

"Okay," she said, and felt a little awkward again. Put in her place. "If you're sure."

*

Nina spent the week thinking about Kevin's offer, and whether she should accept, and if she did whether it would change things between them because she quite liked having him as a friend.

She also wondered if she should pay him more, if he was going to get her off, and how on earth she could ask without being embarrassed.

"I wondered," Nina said, sitting on the edge of the massage table a week later. "Had you ever thought about doing that to me before? Or hitting on me? Or did that just happen because I made you."

He folded some towels, and didn't look at her. Nina waited.

"You're a client," he said in the end.

"So no?"

Kevin didn't answer.

"Remember I said I had a fight with my boyfriend about you," Nina said. "He was jealous, was all. I said it wasn't like that, but then I wondered if perhaps it was."

"Nina, you're a client. I like you, but you're a client."

She looked at him, trying to decide what that meant.

"Do you do your job well?" Kevin said. "As well as you can? Not letting things get in the way, trying to get it done."

"Well, yeah."

"So do I."

Nina thought, and was fairly sure she understood. She was also fairly sure that settled whether she was going to pay him to finger her.

"Yeah," she said after a minute. "That's what I thought. Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry..."

"I shouldn't have asked."

"I understand why you'd want to check."

Nina smiled, a bit sadly. "And I imagine it's very awkward for you," she said. "How do you tell someone she isn't as hot as she thinks she is."

"Nina..."

"That she isn't worth loosing a career over."

"That isn't what..."

"Yeah it is. And someone had to say it."

"I like my job. No-one's worth losing my job over. And I love Amanda. I just love her, and I wouldn't hurt her like that. That's the actual reason."

Nina nodded.

"If there was anyone, though, it'd be you."

Nina assumed he'd have said that to anyone. "Yeah right."

"Honest truth. But I love Amanda, so no."

Nina sat there for a while, thinking. "Thank you," she said.

"It's really all right."

Nina nodded. After a moment, thinking, she said, "You really are my hairdresser. You give good advice."

"Ah..."

"Maybe without meaning to. I want to love someone like you do. So it's just obvious that's what's there. And I've never felt like that. Not once."

"You will."

"I suppose."

"What about the new guy?"

Nina sat there for a while, then shrugged. "Maybe."

"In time. It always takes time."

"Hairdresser," Nina said. She looked around. "This is all getting too weird. Go away now, I want to get undressed."

Kevin grinned and put down his towels.

"And hey," she said. "No to the rest, okay? To what you offered."

Kevin nodded, and pulled the door closed, and left her alone.