Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 88902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
When I reach for his left hand to begin the hand and forearm work, he moves it. Not a flinch. A withdrawal, smooth and complete, tucking it close to his body before I've even made contact.
"Not the hands," he murmurs.
His voice. Low and rough around the edges, the first words he's spoken since I entered the room, and they travel through me like warm water poured down my spine, and my fingers actually stutter on his shoulder for a half-second before training kicks in and I recover, and I'm praying, I'm praying to whoever is in charge of maintaining a therapist's dignity, that he didn't feel that half-second hesitation, because if he felt it then he knows that his voice just short-circuited my nervous system and that is NOT the professional impression I'm going for here.
"Of course," I manage, and my voice comes out level, which proves that miracles are real and I'm currently living inside one. "Is there anywhere else you'd like me to avoid?"
A pause. His ribs expand once. Then: "No."
Great. Wonderful. Good talk. That's our entire conversation so far: four words from him, nineteen from me, and my pulse is behaving like I've just sprinted up twelve decks. Excellent professional conduct all around.
I finish the closing sequence. Long strokes from shoulders to lower back, gradually lightening pressure, the touch equivalent of lowering the volume until there's nothing left but warmth and then nothing at all. My fingers trail off the last point of contact and I step back.
And I stand there. One second. Two. His shoulders, his scarred back, the hands he won't let me touch, and Madame Gilles's voice in my head, saying what she said once when I asked her why some clients refused hand work: The hands are the most intimate part of the body, Étoile. More than the face. More than the throat. The hands are how we reach for things. Some people cannot bear to have that witnessed.
I wanted to reach for his. Not professionally. Not to work the tendons or release the locked knuckles. I just wanted to hold his hand, which is so wildly inappropriate and so completely unlike me that I need a moment to be horrified at myself before I open my mouth and say, in a perfectly calm and perfectly normal voice:
"I'll step out while you dress. Take your time. There's water on the side table."
I leave the room. Close the door behind me. Press my back to the corridor wall and slide down about two inches before I catch myself, because I am NOT going to have a crisis in the hallway, I am NOT going to dissolve into a puddle outside my own treatment room, I am a professional with a certificate and Madame Gilles's highest practical scores in nine years and I am going to stand here and breathe and wait for my client to get dressed and I am going to be completely, utterly, boringly fine.
The heat of his skin is still in my palms. The texture of the long scar is still mapped across my thumbs. And my hands are tingling and my face is burning and I just spent ninety minutes touching a man covered in scars who won't let anyone near his hands and whose body is so starved for contact that his fingers curled when I was gentle with a burn on his lower back, and I'm supposed to do this again on Thursday, and the Thursday after that, and every Thursday, weekly, recurring, and oh chops, add to planner: Thursday 8 PM, have complete emotional crisis, duration 90 minutes, recurring.
Seven AM restock. Eight-thirty, Mrs. Dumont. Don't think about the fist. Ten o'clock open. Don't think about his breathing. Eleven-fifteen—-
It's not just another back. It's his back. And I'm an idiot.
THE DOOR OPENS.
He's dressed. Dark shirt. His hair is slightly disordered from the face cradle, darker at the temples where the oil from my hands transferred, and I am aggressively, violently not going to think about the fact that he's carrying cedarwood out of my room on his skin. I'm not. I'm so not thinking about it that I'm thinking about not thinking about it, which is still thinking about it, which means I've already failed, and it's been three seconds.
He's taller standing up. I keep forgetting this. Somehow, on the table, he was manageable. A body. A client. A collection of muscle groups and scar tissue that I can categorise and treat and remain professionally detached about. Standing, he fills the room the way he filled the corridor four days ago, and all the categories collapse and he's just... him. Taking up all the air. Wearing a dark shirt with oil at his temples. Smelling like cedarwood and clean skin and my own professional ruin.
I've poured his water. Frosted glass, cucumber wedge, spa protocol. I hold it out, because this is what therapists do, we hand our clients water, this is normal, this is fine.