Under a Muscadine Moon

Under a Muscadine Moon

     Ginny enters into my sacred space with her soft words, “Are you comfortable?”    
     My deep voice whispers, “Oh yes I am.”    
     She is the complimentary brownie whose smile is a Caribbean spice found only where cannabis is legal for pre-rubdown relaxation given to massage parlor virgins as a secret ingredient called Jamaican moonlight express.    
    She has me lying on my stomach on the massage table. “Why are you crying, John?”    
     “I miss her.”    
     “Your wife passed when I was born and I’m in my thirties.”    
     “We went to a Native American powwow every year. For the first time since she passed, I revisited the Indian gathering. But if I talk any more I’ll cry and it isn’t fair to unload my burden on you.”    
     “Oh, John, I’ll take care of you tonight.”    
     She reaches beneath the towel and gingerly clasps my buns in her dainty palms. With her calligrapher’s finger, she traces the crevasse dividing my derriere. She says with forgone surety “Is it ok to touch you there?”    
    “Rowena would understand. A woman’s touch is so consoling. Just don’t touch me where only a lover should.”
     “My body is naked when I massage. My nudity relaxes men’s fear of emotional intimacy so healing can happen. My men are a wounded lot with women their only cure. How could I deny males like you the sight of my bare body which brings ya’ll such great joy? My ministry is to bless the poor of spirit with the kingdom of heaven. And so I shed my inhibitions like a cicada does its shell.”    
    “There is courage in your nudity. You are a Florence Nightingale to the suffering men of humanity” I reply.
     “Oh, she was my heroine when I was young!
But I learned the secret to male happiness here in Natchez. Since then, I’ve made the bottom rub into my own art. It became the essential ingredient that turns an ordinary massage into an opiate for oedipal men. They flock to my studio for my hour-long panacea. But the grail they all seek is a spanking. How can I deny them expiating their sins by me chastising them as they do their women?”    
     I reply, “You are my Karmic dessert.”    
     “Men find religion through me.” She works her magic on my supple body. “You’re a good-looking man,” she says. My mannish buns, like two scoops of vanilla ice cream, slicken under her touch.    
    Her hands crawl across my shoulders. Their spidery prisms web her touch. My rose blushed hips rise in her hands which tenderly cradle and cup my twin moons.
     “Do you like these nighttime sessions, John?”    
    “I like them a lot,” I say.    
     Ginny replies, “I get more daring at night. I’m glad you undressed completely. I love working on a naked man. Skivvies get in the way.”    
     My heart beats in a bath of ambient music. The waves of sound wash over me like a tropic surf. I am her client, yet her hands hold me like a lover. I am naked underneath the cotton towel which drapes me like an altar cloth. Deep in the crux of my manhood, I feel my nexus pulse.
     She places her hand upon my manly bottom in the heart of my pleasure. “John, feel my hand upon your tuchis. You are so soft like down.  I want to be soft and feminine with you, but you are so naughty. Your body is tender like a bamboo sprout. You’re trembling. Don’t be afraid. You are so much older than me but still in need of my guidance.”
     Suddenly her hands spank my fanny to send surges of Caribbean warmth flooding under her touch. Her smacks are met with my moans of gratitude.
     “Old man here comes your first real lesson in Ginny’s class.”
     My hotcakes turn nice and warm. After her act of disciplinary compassion, words come. “Ginny’s hot sauce got some kick to it don’t it?”
     “Ginny, there ain’t no Tabasco as hot as yours.”
     “Did you like your derriere workout?”    
     “It felt like the ache of lilies dying to flower blossoming in my buns.”    
     “Oh, John your poetry melts my heart.”    
     Her heart is guarded but disclosure comes. “I’ve never had a boyfriend or husband. Better than sex sweet corn fresh from the garden satisfies my sweet tooth but the cob doubles my pleasure when used for my squeezebox. Have you ever gotten
satisfaction other than with your hand?”
    I reply, “My heart’s furniture would be rearranged to show the work of another interior decorator. Rowena would weep when we reunite in heaven.”    
     Ginny says, “But you’re here with me naked though draped.”    
     “Confucius say a sheet is the difference between oriental massage parlor and board-certified masseuse.”  
     I lie in acquiescence to her kneading of my body’s need. Ginny unfolds like a fan with intimations. “When I was a kid I had a dog. He didn’t like men. But he liked me. I think it’s because I was a woman and he was a male.” She has me pivot onto my back and says, “So you won’t feel too vulnerable we’ll cover your family jewels with the towel. I won’t touch your kielbasa if that’s what you’re worried about,” I nod assent.
    She speaks “You know one of my colleagues has a problem with giving men a bikini wax. She doesn’t like the guy’s rod slipping out of his underwear. I tell her to just push it back under. I don’t mind massaging a man’s rod, if not for the rules. It’s just another part of the human body. It’s natural. If you point ‘it’ down I can go lower.”    
     I look up, “What is ‘it’?”    
     “Point ‘it’ down and I can go lower.”    
     My voice quivers. I tell her “Darling if I weren’t taken you’d be my personal bic flicker.”    
     “What do you mean taken? Your wife is pushing up the daisies, John. Now, let me give you a happy ending. When she greets you at the pearly gates tell your wife that Ginny kept you warm for her.”
     “You’ve never made me a VIP among your clientele before.”    
     “You’ve never needed it so bad.”    
     “How about I’ll just be your very interesting person and we’ll leave it at that?”    
     My eyes close in the unmistakable float in her sea of sensuality which I’ve experienced countless times from Ginny. After an eternity of bliss, she tells me “I hid my true identity from you to confirm that the flames of your passion for me haven’t abated, that you still miss me, and most importantly that you kept your promise to wait for my return and didn’t get involved with another woman in the meantime. I am your Rowena come
back and all grown up.”    
     I exclaim, “You exiting the stage of the earth was a mere technicality that had no bearing on my love for you. Did you doubt me because I got a massage with a presumed other woman?”    
     “Naw, not at all. So long as you put Miss Ginny’s roving hands in their place I trusted you.”
     Rowena grips my face with her hands. She says, “Your wrinkles are like tree rings, the history of a life lived well.”
     I reply, “Well I’ve got a lot of rings to appreciate, especially around my eyes.”    
     “This go-round, you get me as a younger woman in her thirties. Can you handle me you ole codger you? Honey, I was a loose masseuse for those men, I confess. But I only did it because they were my bread and butter. And I never offered them what I did you. You are my only full-service client. I held off revealing our history to you, in part, because my profession has been part of who I am and if you held that against me our reunion would be on a sour note. But now that our bonds are reestablished a happy ending is in order.”    
     I scarcely dare to breathe as I feel her fingers rub my match-head until stricken into liquid fire. “Now I can quit massage and devote myself to being your housewife. But they would think it strange if I changed my name back to Rowena.”    
     “Let them think us strange.”    
     My late wife returns as a Creole cutie. Her eyelashes bat like a Mamou Two-Step while my gaze follows her lead. The Zydeco of her lash-hooded hazelettes turns me into her Clifton Chenier ready to fiddle away her bayou blues when gumbo is the appetizer on our Oyster bar of love.