An adapted excerpt from Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi [read a review]
In High Point, North Carolina, on a chilly and rainy day, I checked my reciprocal gym directory for the nearest location. Twenty minutes later I arrived at the only reciprocal gym in town and was surprised to find that there was no aerobics room and no mats for stretching whatsoever. I was disappointed but vaguely remembered that on the way I had passed a massage center. I figured, “Wow, a massage center, they’ve got to have a yoga space. Maybe I can even catch a class.” So I retraced my path and found the spot. It was called Ruby’s Massage.
The front door did not open, so I knocked. A woman opened the door, with the chain still on, and peeked out at me. “Yes, can I help you?”
“Um, do you have a yoga space I can use?”
She must have thought me a loon, or maybe she thought, “Hmm, the yoga treatment. Well, I’d need the trampoline, an initiation paddle, three strap restraints, and a few sticky mats.” Either way, all she said was, “No, but we do offer massage.”
I’ve always considered massage to be like passive yoga — you get all the same benefits but without any of the hard work. I figure that’s why you pay for it. So I was intrigued.
“How much?” I asked.
“Thirty for a half-hour, sixty for an hour.”
“Fair prices,” I thought.
“And it’s topless,” she added.
“No problem,” I said. “At Kripalu I’m totally naked when I get a massage.”
She nodded but seemed perplexed.
Now, I’m not sure at what point in the above dialogue you caught on, but I was still naively in the dark. Up until then, the only massages I had received were in the small offices of licensed massage therapists at gyms or at Kripalu. When I met up with Zach later that day, he said I should have been tipped off by the fact that the place was called Ruby’s Massage and certainly by the fact that Ruby opened the door with the chain still on, as if I was querying at a 1920s speakeasy. But I’m proud to say that in my quest for yoga I was in some sort of purist, naive state, totally unaware that this sort of thing even existed and totally oblivious to where I was headed.
I began to clue in moments later, though, when she opened the door to let me in and I took in my surroundings. Slowly it hit me: “Hmm, red-velvet wallpaper,” “Hmm, matching red-velvet lampshades.” I don’t know if movies imitate real life or if real life imitates movies, but it seemed that I was upstairs at an Old West saloon, right out of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Finally Ruby brought me into a massage room that confirmed any lingering doubts I might have had. There was no massage table, only a bed — red velvet.
At Kripalu the massage therapist leaves the room while you undress to your own level of comfort and slide under the generous, thick massage table sheet. This bed had no top sheet, only a very bare, red-velvet, fitted sheet.
Ruby told me to undress but did not leave the room. In fact, she was busy running my credit card as I undressed right there in front of her. She ignored me as though I were browsing for shoes, except when the credit card slip was ready and I think she actually handed it to me to sign while my pants were still on one leg. She was either used to all this and oblivious to my discomfort, or she actually enjoyed the power. She told me to lie face down on the bed. I did as I was told. She was a bit dominant, really, but thankfully that is not where this story is headed.
Ruby got on top of me and started massaging my back and shoulders while gyrating on my butt. I was pretty uncomfortable, and the massage was really not very good. Clinging to a false reality, I asked, “Where did you study massage?” She named some school I had never heard of. At least she was playing along.
“You’re not a regular massage therapist,” I added brilliantly.
“Turn over,” she instructed.
I knew a turnover would bring this to a whole new level of vulnerability, and I was nervous. “Fearless, honest, relaxed,” I thought, and I turned over.
The technical massage term for covering a client is draping. Ruby “draped” me in a washcloth. She sat right on the cloth and continued the massage. And that’s when the topless promise kicked in. This was indeed a topless massage. Ruby flicked some shoulder clips and her shirt dropped off, leaving her business to mostly sag and sometimes bounce around as she effleuraged my pecs and shoulders.
Maybe I should have relaxed and enjoyed it, but that was not in my nature. I felt bad that she was doing this for a living, I was not attracted to her, and I’d always been a bit of a bacteriaphobe — so I was very busy at failing to keep my mind from considering the red-velvet fitted sheet on which I lay naked. I imagined the black light from CSI or Basic Instinct illuminating all the hidden stains.
Ruby woke me from these disturbed musings with the obvious question (since, really, why else would anyone be there?), “Would you like any special services?”
There I was, stark naked, nauseated, and lying on this prostitute’s red-velvet bed in the middle of the day, when eighteen minutes earlier I had been looking for a yoga space. At this point “fearless, honest, relaxed” threatened to be my undoing, like saying “yes” was for Jim Carrey’s character in Yes Man. Terrified of her response, I gulped, steadied myself, and squeaked out, “What kind of special services?”
Ruby’s answer still makes me cringe; speaking in an emotionally detached way about sex makes me very uncomfortable, like hearing nails on a chalkboard. So when she let me know, “Hand release $30, oral release $60,” I could have vomited on the spot.
I don’t know why, probably too many episodes of Law and Order, but I said, “How do you know I’m not a cop?”
“You’re no cop,” was all she said. She was right. The thin, bearded hippie on her red-velvet bed didn’t look much like a police officer. I’d have to be full-tilt Donnie Brasco — deep undercover, after months of character development, and I guess she knew that her small operation would not merit such a masterful sting.
I did not enjoy my time at Ruby’s. Afterward I headed straight back to the gym and scrubbed like Meryl Streep in Silkwood after the plutonium accident.
Excerpted and adapted from the book Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi ©2012 by Brian Leaf. Published with permission of New World Library. Brian Leaf, M.A. has 21 years of intensive study, practice, and teaching of yoga, meditation, and holistic health.
Photo courtesy Pink Moose
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