Omi

 

Omi saw the couple come in. Western man and Asian wife. He had gray hair and was handsome. Big pointy nose and narrow face, light eyes. She was too demanding. She was older too and very skinny. Maybe Chinese, she talked like they do. Very demanding but also a silly laugh.

 

They both wore the Covid masks. Omi and MeiMei and the owner also. They both wanted massage. She wanted Thai massage and he wanted oil massage. She wanted a room with no air conditioning for her but he could have air conditioning. She wanted no fan, no wind. She wanted a table with a hole for her face. She wanted a bathroom. She had a whole list of things she wanted.

 

He wanted an oil massage.

 

Omi washed their feet in the basin with the smooth round stones. The man first because the woman wanted to show MeiMei a picture of a person with little dots all over it. An acupuncture map. "Okay, okay," MeiMei said, while the woman pointed and said "Here. And here." The man didn't care that the water was cold and then hot. When it was the woman's turn she kept saying "Too Hot!" and "Too Cold!".

 

Omi led them back to the furthest room. They were the only customers, and it was the best room. It had two tables with face holes and a bathroom. She turned the air conditioner off while the woman cowered outside saying it was too cold and too much wind. The man started to unbutton his shirt, smiling at Omi and cocking his head to let her know he knew how silly the woman was. Omi chuckled. The woman called something to the man and he grunted something back that sounded like an affirmative. Omi left them to get ready.

 

When Omi came back with MeiMei, the man was on his stomach under the sheet. His broad white back and shoulders looking slim but muscular in the dim light. His arms were up around the face pillow, holding it in place. The woman was still changing clothes and showing the diagram and speaking words neither MeiMei nor Omi really understood. They both nodded.

"Okay, okay," they said. Everyone kept their masks on.

 

Omi started on the man's feet. Legs and feet were Omi's specialty, and she took great pride in how well she did them. First she patted the soles of the feet through the sheet, then began to dig her thumbs into the soles a bit, judging how jumpy this man was. He was not very jumpy. That was good.

 

After a few minutes pressing his calf and upper leg muscles through the sheet, she moved to the man's right and lifted the sheet back from his leg. He wore massage underwear. The unisex bikini bottom that the fancy spas handed out. It stretched over his butt and showed the white skin underneath. The crotch of it imperfectly held the man's apples. Omi had these words for the sex organs of her customers. Apples, and banana.  Sometimes little brother. Clam or little sister for women. These names made her smile to herself.

 

As she tucked the sheet down between his legs, she felt the edge of her hand brush against his apples. He didn't move or make a sound. She slid her finger under the edge of the bikini where it went across the widest part of the man's behind, pushing up the edge so she could smear the oil on his butt muscle. As she worked the oil in, she used her rubbing motions to push the edge higher and higher, then started to spread the oil down the leg. He occasionally made a little grunt when she pushed extra hard into a muscle.  She finished with the first leg, made a motion of untucking the man's bikini bottom on that side, covered the leg up and then squeezed it through the sheet, to absorb some of the oil. She went to the other side. Repeated the process on that leg.

 

The Chinese woman, after the initial period of instruction, let MeiMei do most of the massage unguided. Omi kept working on the man until MeiMei was finished with the woman, even though she had started earlier. She liked working on this quiet man who endured all the hard pressure of her thumbs.

 

After the massage, the man and woman sat in the front room to drink a cup of complimentary tea. They whispered to each other with smiles. The man paid and they called a Grab car and left.

 

They came back the next week.

 

The second time, Omi pushed the sheet in a little further between the man's legs. When the time came to pull his knee wide and fold his lower leg back. Omi saw the effect that had on the bikini bottom. One of the man's apples was really bulging out of the side. Her hand brushed them several times very quick, during the massage. When she got up to squat over him and do his back, she pulled down the top of the bikini so that his valley was exposed. Her oiled fingers slid easily into and over the top of that valley. He seemed to be enjoying it. She wasn't letting herself think too deeply about it.

 

They kept coming back. Every Thursday for 3 months, always the same. Omi had gotten to being fairly free with her hands while avoiding a direct grasp of the fruit. The man never gave any sign of being uncomfortable with this, sometimes even coming out with a little grunt of pleasure. This gave Omi a tingly feeling and she began to really look forward to Thursday mornings.

 

Apparently they lived in town. Local gossip mentioned them on occasion, nothing too shocking, perhaps a comment on what they could afford. They paid rent on a 4 bedroom house. He had an expensive electric bicycle.  They never seemed very extravagant to Omi, the massage parlor was just a tiny one on a side street, with the lowest prices, not a fancy spa that cost two or three times as much. But they kept coming back.

 

Until one Thursday they didn't come. Or the next. One day MeiMei came in and said she'd heard a rumor that the Chinese woman had died. Omi couldn't quite explain the lurch in her heart when she heard this. She'd never liked the Chinese woman and was glad she'd never had to give her a massage.

 

Meanwhile the travel restrictions were lifted. The tourists were coming back and they were getting more random male customers, most of whom just had wandered down the street, looking at the massage places. Looking at the women waiting outside. The owner brought in some new younger, prettier girls to work with the men. Omi mostly washed the feet and did a few leg massages for the locals, or a full massage if there were so many customers the girls were all busy. She didn't mind, giving massages all day was tiring and she'd been working for 30 years or more, she'd lost track. The new girls played with their phones a lot, taking selfies and watching that TikTok thing and whispered their appraisals of each new man customer to each other behind their hands, giggling. Would this one be worth trying to get close to? Would he fall for one of them and take her away to America? Some of those girls made their own deals with some of the men, once back in the private rooms.

 

Omi remembered feeling young and cute and invulnerable. Remembered having that dream of being taken away by a rich westerner. Remembered making those secret negotiations in the back rooms using sign language. She was still here. No one had taken her away. She shook her head and laughed at those young girls. They teased her about being old and fat, but she knew they'd be like her someday.

 

One Thursday a month or so later the man came. By himself. He seemed sad and the owner asked about the Chinese woman, though she already knew the answer. The man just shook his head and the owner let it go. Omi washed his feet and then sent him back to the room. Papu and Neen were also there waiting, but he was still Omi's customer.  Neen was a little annoyed when the owner told her to be the foot washer for a while. She stuck out her tongue at Omi as she walked away. Omi just laughed her screetchy laugh.

 

Back in the room, Omi closed the door. The man was under the sheet as usual, face down. Not saying anything. Just like always. She got to work.

 

He came back the next week again. Omi found herself lingering sometimes with the massage, daydreaming. Sometimes, by accident, her hands would brush the man's apples. Or the banana. She would chuckle to herself and shake her head to clear out the fantasy picture that flashed across her mind; giving him a massage in their shared home. It always ending with love making.  Sometimes late at night, alone in her bed, she would let the fantasy run in her head, touching herself.

 

A few weeks later, when he turned over, his banana was bigger than before. Still curled around his apples, but definitely bulging more than she'd remembered. And she had looked every week, just in case.  His eyes were still closed. She pulled the sheet up and tucked it under the top edge of the bikini, fingers pushing rough against the base of his little brother. She could swear the member pulsed. She continued with the stomach and chest portion, her eyes sliding between his face to see if he opened them, and the bulge under the sheet.  She made him sit up and then climbed up behind him for the next part of the massage. She put the pillow across her own cross-legged lap and pulled his shoulders to lean back against the pillow.  She squeezed a little more oil on her hands and then leaned forward, sliding her hands over the muscles of his chest, her breasts brushing either side of his face as she leaned forward. His mouth moved and he sighed.

 

She leaned very far forward, and her hands went down to the bony mound, covered with curly black hair, just this side of the base of his penis, rubbed back and forth a few times, and she saw the mound pulse again. Sliding back and then forward again, her fingers went under the top edge of the bikini, to either side of his little brother.  Little brother had expanded to where the top edge of the bikini could no longer reach his belly. On the next pass down she pressed a finger into his scrotum on either side, then back, and on the next pass down his little brother came out of the bikini and she caught it without thinking.  He made a soft grunt and she looked down, to see his eyes still closed, and looking sad. She began to move her hand.

 

In a few minutes he moaned again and came onto his belly. But kept his eyes closed and mumbled something, maybe sorry. She pulled the sheet up over his chest and slid herself out from under him, whispering sawatdee ka as always at the end of a session. He kept his eyes closed, and she could see the corners of his eyes were wet. He put his hand up over his face and his shoulders quivered. She slipped out of the room and closed the door.

 

Later, as he was leaving, he pressed 200 baht into her hands, out of sight of the others. Kob kuhn krub, he said.

 

He came back the next week. And the next. Every week. And every week Omi would give him the same massage, then slip out as he lay, eyes covered, wet under the sheet.

 

One week when he came he brought a girl with him. A young woman. One of the pretty ones who dress a bit slutty and try to find a foreigner to be mistress of. They dreamed of being wives to westerners. They each knew someone, a cousin or a school friend, who had found a foreign man to marry and buy them a house. Buy them a car. A foreign man who would live most of the year in Europe, or America and just come to Thailand for vacation and to have kinky unlimited sex with their Thai wives. That was the bargain they made, those girls. Omi knew this kind of girl. She could spot one a mile away. This girl was one of those girls.

 

Omi pretended she didn't feel well, that she had sprained her hand. The owner gave her a look and then sent MeiMei and Neen to give them a couples oil massage. The western man seemed about to object, but his new 'girlfriend' tugged his hand and together they went back to the room.  Omi told the owner she was feeling sick and went home.

 

On Saturday Omi went to the herbalist to ask for medicine. She explained what she needed by way of medicine very precisely and the herbalist, though curious and mildly concerned, was a good friend of many years and made up the medicine for her. Omi put the medicine in her bag and left.

 

The next Thursday Omi was back at work. When the man came in with his young girlfriend, Omi said her hands were not good and let MeiMei and Neen do the massages. Omi made two pots of tea, for when the massage was over.

 

Later, when the man and his young girl came back to the front parlor, Omi had a cup of tea for him already set out, as usual. She went to get another cup for her, carrying it carefully from the kitchenette.  The man and the girl sat together, sipping tea, the young girl making silly faces and hanging on the man's arm and shoulder, flattering him with every word, caressing his chest and belly. She made some small joke and then laughed loudly, calling to the owner that the man thought they were the best massage place in old town and that Omi was the best masseuse. She shook her head at that crazy thought. Then she drank the rest of her tea and stood up, tugging at the man's hands and cajoling him to go to the mall. She stepped outside while he was paying, and that's where she collapsed, coughing, choking.

 

The ambulance came, but the girl was dead by then. The man, bewildered, was taken away by the Tourism Police. He did not understand their commands. They handcuffed him.

 

Omi was at the sink, in the kitchenette, washing the tea pot and cup, when the owner came back. The owner looked at her with fury. But Omi just kept her face neutral behind her mask, pretending not to know. The owner sighed and walked away. Omi smiled the tiniest of smiles.