Tales from the Spa

Picture the scene, because this is narrative prose, not a comic book. It was last summer, I had been with my girlfriend for two years to the day, and as is customary, we decided to celebrate by exchanging money for goods and services. Not with each other; paying for services rendered by your partner would suggest a different kind of relationship. The kind that, if continued uninterrupted for two years, would hardly be a cause for celebration. Although a voucher would probably be appropriate.

(Ah digression, that beckoning temptress I trained myself to resist only for the essay-writing days of university. It’s good to see you again.)

Anyway.

We exchanged gifts on the morning, and had booked the day off work in order to go to a spa together for a swim, a sauna and an oil massage – easily the most popular liquid-based relaxants aside from alcohol. We got into my car for the journey from Bristol to Cheltenham, only to realise that my car battery was entirely flat. I wandered around helplessly for a while, soon finding some nearby builders who agreed to help try a bump-start. All the while my girlfriend stood watching at the side of the road, on the phone with the spa trying to reschedule our massage appointment. The bump-start failed, but I found a highway maintenance van up the road with some highway maintainers more than happy to lend some jump leads. I carried these to my new builder friends who maneuvered their big white van front bumper to front bumper with my little red Yaris, and connected the cables. We successfully jolted my car into life, just in time to deter me from making the observation that it looked like our cars were kissing.

The massage had been rescheduled, we could make the appointment, and after a tearful goodbye to the jump leads, and firm handshake from the builders, we left Bristol an hour later than planned.

We arrived at the hotel spa, recounting our story to the reception staff who laughed politely while nudging forms toward us. “Oh that sounds awful! Yeah, I bet you were panicking. Do you have any medical conditions?” The forms seemed unnecessarily long at the time, but with that much liquid around I’m sure there’s plenty of opportunity for slips, trips and drownings. We had some time to kill before the massage, so went for a swim in the hotel pool. If there’s one thing that dampens the intimacy of a romantic swim with your partner, it’s the concept of ‘lengths’. Since it was a hotel pool, not just for spa users, there were old ladies paddling up and down, staving off death for another day, while making the whole experience feel like an aquatic version of Frogger. You wouldn’t need to change the name of said version of course, since frogs are amphibian. One-nil.

A short sauna later (with me delivering the well-worn yet obligatory line of ‘it’s like a sauna in here!’) and we went for our massage.

The receptionist led us up some stairs and through some glass doors to the massage waiting area. They’d obviously gone for a mix of eastern mysticism with a dash of woodland cabin décor, and a pinch of capitalism. Lotions, unctions and oils were all on sale under the counter, as if daring people to try and recreate the experience at home, knowing that without the addition of whale song and the added frisson of just being out of the house, they would likely fail.

After sitting for a while, I noticed a pinboard on the wall to my left, with pictures and mini profiles of all the masseuses. The revelation that none were male was a source of no surprise, but slight relief to me. The lack of surprise was because I referred to them all as masseuses, not masseurs, only two sentences ago, and I assumed the relief was due to some latent homophobia or fear of my own sexuality. I mentioned this to my girlfriend who agreed that she also wouldn’t want to be massaged by a man, but obviously not because of an aversion to homoeroticism, more that she would be worried it wouldn’t be as gentle or relaxing. While I couldn’t decide whether this was the actual reason for my own relief, it became clear that both of us would prefer it if only one gender would work in a profession in which gender was largely irrelevant and that we know nothing about. While sitting there, feeling like a stupid sexist, I started reading the masseuses’ profiles in lieu of any stray copies of Good Housekeeping magazine or leaflets on STIs. I noted that all seven or eight of them had massaging qualifications, but found myself more drawn to each profile’s ‘Hobbies’ or ‘Personal Interests’ section. Stereotyping again, I decided not to expect interests such as ‘the works of William Blake’ or ‘quantum entanglement’ to crop up, but was hoping for something more than ‘going out’ or ‘going for meals with friends’, which unfortunately did crop up a number of times. I thought it odd that the concept of simply ‘leaving the house’ was a special enough occurrence as to mention it on a personal profile, while ‘leaving the house and then eating while not alone’ seems only slightly less odd. My girlfriend pointedly mentioned that ‘travelling’ also came up a lot, perhaps rushing to come to the rescue of her gender, fuelled by the guilt of her earlier sexism. “Travel broadens the mind,” she reminded me. I countered that, while ‘travelling’ did come up a lot, that was a very generic term, and that perhaps the corridors between massage rooms were particularly long, interesting, and mind-broadening.

Minutes later, we were finally called in to the massage room.

Next time on the Bandwagon, is it too late for you to make it as a chef? Plus the thrilling conclusion to our story.