Chapter 92: Massage at the death’s border
The job of massaging others was quite simple - as long as one had a talent for it.
There was quite a lot of theory behind it, just like it was the case for pretty much everything else in the world. But after shedding all of the bloated theories, the bare truth was rather simple - you either had a feel for it or you didn’t.
And I just so happened to have it.
Maybe it was instinct, maybe a result of constant practice from when my mom asked me to massage her back, maybe it was a gift from God. But my hands just knew how to find the tensed muscles and how to work those knots down to bring an instant relief to my subjects.
Never before did I think long or hard in a bid to figure out just what made me a good masseur. And today I wasn’t going to change it.
"If you will be at any point uncomfortable, be sure to let me know."
With those words, I started on the task by bringing my hands low, barely an inch above Selia’s ass.
There, at the very center of her spine, I pressed down my thumbs.
I was free to look all I wanted, to confirm the position of my hands over her back, to judge the distribution of muscles, to calculate my next moves... But what would be the point of doing so? Just like overthinking rarely led to positive results, I wasn’t going to overdo it now and introduce my vision to potentially spoil my instincts.
No.
Rather than looking, once my fingers found the anchor of Selia’s spine, I just closed my eyes and allowed my hands and my fingers to work their magic.
And so the massage began, with my thumbs digging deep into the tense muscles, forcing them to spread out and relax. Then, once this part of her back would get warmed up, I would press down on it with the bottom of my palms while keeping my arms perfectly straight and by using the weight of my entire upper body to really work those knots down. Finally, I would then dance my remaining four fingers against the very same areas, gently pressing, tapping, almost tickling them...
Only to then either pull my hands slightly further apart or, if they reached the edge of Selia’s back, I would bring them back over her spine before raising them just a little bit higher.
In the end, massage was a relatively monotone, almost boring job. But that didn’t mean it was easy.
No.
For my massage to work properly, especially on someone like Selia who actively used her body and pushed it to its limits, I had to put all of my strength and mental focus to the task, holding nothing back when I attacked her knotted muscles.
There was no room in my head for thinking about just how soft Selia’s back was. There was no time for me to wonder just how beautifully Selia’s chest flattened against the ground, only for her flattened chest to move in one hell of an alluring way when my hands finally reached the same level on her back.
No.
All I could think about was judging my strength, ignoring the exhaustion and pushing myself through the task with just one, singular goal present in my head - to do a good job. To maintain my self-assumed title of a great masseur.
And judging by the moans that Selia uttered now and then whenever I managed to work out a bigger knot on her back, I was doing a good job indeed.
"Haah..." I breathed out a long, slightly exhausted sigh once my hands moved from just above her ass all the way to her shoulder, completing the whole routine.
And normally, that would be enough. Most of the people I’ve ever massaged would be satisfied with just having their back massaged, especially when I was doing it as a favor rather than a paid-for task.
But this time was different.
This time I wanted to do my absolute best and leave no body part of the saintess unmassaged, not-yet able to relax.
And so, at the point where I would usually just end, I moved on to grab Selia’s left arm, lay it flat and perpendicular to her body and then lift it just high enough to bring her hand down on my lap. Then, just like before, I brought my hands over, centered them over the bone of her arm... and then started to work my magic on her stiff muscles.
’Damn...’ I thought once I managed to reach the elbow. ’I thought her back was bad, but for her arms to be like that...’
Despite my inner thoughts, I dared not to utter a word. In my experience, massage worked best when performed in perfect silence, once that helped the recipient of the session to relax, forget about all their pains and troubles and just focus on the gentle pressure of having the tension in their muscles relax.
And so, I continued with the job, going further and further down Selia’s arm all the way to when I reached her hand.
’Damn...’ I sighed in my thoughts as my fingers danced around her wrist, pushing and squeezing at every part of the joint yet too shy to cross this invisible barrier and step into the forbidden territory.
Which is exactly why, once I was done with her wrist, I stood up, stepped over to her other side before getting started on her other arm instead.
Yet, once I was done with that too, I ended up facing even greater plight than before.
Skipping hands I could understand and argue for.
They were weirdly intimate parts of one’s body when it came to massage, just like one’s ears.
But now, to move ahead, I would not only have to skip Selia’s arms... But go over to her legs. And as if to make matters even worse, I would be starting with her feet.
’I can only hope it’s not her fetish,’ I thought before gulping my saliva down, grabbing a bottle of water from where I emptied out one of our sacks and then sitting back right where Selia rested down her legs.
Legs were quite the particular part of the body to massage. And it wasn’t only because they started with feet, a body part that was recently fetishized to hell and back. Still, feet remained the culprit for, contrary to one’s hands, they were constantly at work.
Meaning, I couldn’t just go ahead and massage Selia’s feet.
No.
First, I had to wash them. And to do that, I had to do the one thing that I’ve managed to avoid up until this point - I had to take their clothes — shoes — off.
"If you will excuse me," I muttered, even though I was quite sure Selia had long since fallen asleep, perfectly relaxing under the constant care. Then, after fiddling around for a while, I managed to take her surprisingly simple shoes off.
Then came the delicate part.
First, I poured a little bit of water over Selia’s feet directly from the bottle, just to get them nice and wet. Then, I poured tiny bits of water within the cup of a single hand of mine that I would then use to wash as much of Selia’s feet as I could before the water all sloshed away. At that point, I would repeat the process over and over again, all the way to the point where both of her feet were now pristinely clean, free from the dirt, grime, and sweat of walking all the distance from the town to the very border of the jungle of death.
’And now, for the actually pleasant part...’
I readjusted my position once again before reaching out and giving Selia’s shin a gentle tap.
"Hmm?" only half-awake, all she could produce was just a short murmur.
"I’m about to get started on your feet," I announced.
With Selia half-asleep, starting the treatment on her feet without a prior warning would mean asking for my swift execution.
Human feet were used to walk on relatively flat surfaces since the dawn of shoes. This made them rather sensitive to anything that wasn’t flat, just like sharp stones, dry branches... or a spike of a poisonous animal.
This made the bottom of human feet rather sensitive to any force that applied on just a single point - in other words, exactly what one could expect from a massage.
Which is why, even after Selia produced enough of a voice to prove she wasn’t fully asleep, I tapped on her shin again.
"What?" Selia uttered out in a groggy, tired voice, as unhappy as anyone would be when pulled from the very edge of sleep.
"I’m about to get started on your feet, so..." I shrugged my shoulders, "just thought I would give you a proper warning," I explained...
Before pressing down with my thumbs at the very middle of Selia’s left foot, pushing with all the strength I had left in my hands.
And just like one could expect....
"AAAGH!" A loud, pained cry instantly escaped from Selia’s mouth, likely alerting every predator that lurked in the distance.
But this was the border of the jungle of death. And only beings as powerful as Selia could freely go in and then go out of this place.
In other words, even with Selia’s sudden scream, we should be safe.
And the fact that I managed to then continue and even finish up both of Selia’s feet without any unfortunate incident would have to suffice for an empirical proof of my guess.