Rub Me While I Rub You
receiving is active
I opened a note on my phone that I’d written a couple days prior: Getting many hundreds of massages has taught me that receiving is active. I was going to write you a think piece about intimacy tips from my most expensive hobby.1
But I looked up from my phone. My husband sat there, on the couch, with his legs crossed. His ankles always look so cute with his bunched-up white cotton socks.
I was on the carpet, one knee tucked up by my chin. I stared so long that the blue light went out.
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He looked handsome with uncharacteristically grown-out facial hair. His chin had more gray hairs than I’d realized.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.
“I love you,” I said. “You look good.”
“I don’t feel it.”
We had that in common.
Receiving is active, I thought. Doing nothing, especially when you’re not feeling good, is tempting. But that would give me less than something. And we both needed something.
I’d written the note in my phone during a post-massage haze a few days after we moved. I’d seen the masseuse, Melissa, for years. On this visit, she’d told me what she’d told me before: how pleasant it was to massage someone who participated in the treatment, who breathed deeply instead of tensing, who pulled attention to the tight spots as her hands did. I’m sure that when I was a baby massage client, I just lay there and took the touch. Or worse, subconsciously clenched and fought the care. But practice makes for understanding, and I understood it was time for another, related technique my husband and I have practiced.
“Do you want to rub my neck and shoulders as I suck your dick?” I said.
“How could I say no?” he said…
