Angel's Touch (6 page)

Something pinched in Megan’s sternum—her breastbone—shooting pain through her chest and into her shoulder. Yikes. This was not good. She lifted her hands off Barbara’s body and stretched.

Cautiously repositioning herself, she pressed her thumbs into Barbara’s upper back, near the shoulder blades. She shifted her weight to push with better leverage, but each time she bent a certain way, something caught in her chest as if a rib were out of place, making it hard to breathe. As much as she tried not to hunch over or move the wrong way, it was almost impossible not to put pressure on whatever it was. This wasn’t the first time she’d experienced this type of problem, but it had never been this bad before.

“Right there,” Barbara encouraged her. “You found a great spot.”

Megan barely registered the compliment. Right now she was more concerned with making sure she could get through the next twenty minutes without hurting herself. And not think about what it would mean if she needed to take a week off. Or more.

It couldn’t be too serious if she was able to keep going with Barbara’s massage. If she ever got injured so badly that she had to quit massage… She was
not
going to worry about that now. What she needed to focus on was ignoring the pain and keeping her back as straight as possible to avoid pinching that nerve.

With just a few minutes left in the session, Megan dug her fingers in one more time.

Agony stabbed the front of her right shoulder.

Oh, shit.

She eased her hand away from Barbara’s body, wondering which direction was safe to move. Muscles spasmed and pain radiated from the pectoralis minor across her chest and down her arm. She stifled a gasp. “All done,” she whispered. Thank God this was her last session of the day. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Barbara groaned. “Do I
have
to get up? Can’t I just lie here all night?”

“Take your time.” Megan headed for the door. Occasionally clients did fall back asleep when she left, but today would not be a good day for that. She’d check back in a few minutes, after she washed her hands.

“Wake me up tomorrow, would you?”

Megan was still soaping the massage cream off her elbows when she heard Barbara open the massage room door and wander down the short hallway. So much for falling asleep. She must have shot off the table the moment Megan left the room. Either that or she was walking around in the nude.

“I’ll be right there,” Megan called out, rinsing off her arms.

Barbara stuck her head in the open door of the bathroom where Megan was washing up. “Hi.”

At least her client was dressed. “I’ll be right there,” Megan repeated. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the massage room…”

“Okay.” Barbara left.

Megan reached for a towel and swiped vigorously at herself, trying to hurry, and squeaked at the sharp pain in her chest. Three of her fingers were numb. She abandoned the towel and dashed across the hall.

“Your house has great energy.” Barbara fingered a conch shell she’d plucked from one of Megan’s displays of seashells and crystals arranged on pedestals in each corner of the room. She returned the shell and pulled out her checkbook. “Very welcoming. I love it.”

Megan picked up her appointment book, gritted her teeth at the stab of pain caused by that small movement, and dropped her book onto the massage table.

“Although I’m not crazy about your walls,” Barbara continued obliviously. “I think moss green would look better. My masseuse back in California had moss green walls. Really soothing. I’d be happy to trade you a massage for some house painting.”

“Uh, no thanks.” Barbara didn’t think it was odd to offer to paint her house? Usually it took clients several months before they felt comfortable making suggestions about her personal life. And besides, Megan loved her pale peach walls.

“Suit yourself. Just thought I’d offer.” Barbara looked at her sideways like she couldn’t believe Megan would pass on her offer. “Great massage, by the way. You have great hands.”

“Thanks. Same time next Monday?” Megan flipped open her appointment book and wondered if she would, in fact, be seeing clients at all next week. She kept her doubts to herself. She’d make sure the pain was gone by then.

“I can’t wait to tell my acupuncturist all about you,” Barbara said. “You two should meet. That reminds me, I’m having some friends over for dinner this weekend and I’d love it if you could come. Saturday? Seven o’clock? I’ll give you directions.”

“Sorry, I make it a rule not to socialize with my clients.”

“Oh, come on. Why not?”

“It helps me keep this a safe space for my clients,” Megan explained. “If we tried to be friends, then you might worry about whether I like you or not. I want you to relax into the massage and not worry about keeping me entertained.”

Barbara looked confused. “You don’t like me?”

“Of course I like you.”

“I invite my co-workers to my house all the time.”

“Being friends with a co-worker is not the same thing as being friends with your massage therapist.”

“Sure it is. Heck, people even
date
their co-workers. Happens all the time. Nothing bad happens.”

Usually
nothing bad happens. Megan doubted anything she said would convince her, but she had to try. “Your co-workers don’t see you naked.” At least, she hoped they didn’t. Considering how they’d started their first massage, she could be wrong. She continued before Barbara could contradict her. “What if it was your boss? The therapist/client relationship is very intimate and also very unequal. I want this to be a healing experience for you. That means we have to have rules. The rules protect you. They make this a safe place for you emotionally. And they protect me, too.”

Understanding did not dawn in Barbara’s eyes.

“My boss has seen me naked in the hot tub.”

Perfect.

***

“Let me give you a massage,” Svetlana urged Megan over the phone. “Friday afternoons are cursed, anyway—I never get any appointments. I’ll have hours free to fix your sternum.”

“I appreciate it, but…” Her pectorals were always tight. Bending over a massage table was like doing pushups all day, and all the stretching in the world never seemed to be enough to counter that. And if anyone was going to work on her it was Svetlana. They traded frequently, and she felt safe with her. But anytime anyone, even Svetlana, got close to her chest muscles, her body tensed against the touch and she ended up tighter than before. Obviously, she had issues.

“Why you don’t let me help you?” Svetlana demanded. “I can help. I’m putting you down in my book for three o’clock.”

Megan gave in.

***

Svetlana’s office suite was the perfect space for her and her husband—two treatment rooms, a restroom and a waiting room with utilitarian chairs and a bubbly Zen fountain. Inside the massage room, Megan relaxed on her back while Svetlana leaned over her and tucked her into a navy blue sheet with a race car print.

“Can you believe these sheets?” Svetlana complained. “On sale, Patrick tells me. I now learn it’s not safe to let husband loose at outlet mall.”

“There’s really nothing wrong with—”

“What about solid color, I tell him. What about white? These sheets are for children.”

“At least they’re soft,” Megan said, glad she was in charge of picking out her own supplies.

Svetlana sighed and switched on Megan’s favorite music—a quiet blend of birdsong with wind chimes and flute—and turned the volume down extra low. “So how was your day?”

Megan rotated her wrists, stretching out her forearms. “Someone told another one of my clients I can see angels, and now she wants to know if they have a message for her. I told her I’ve never heard an angel speak, but she doesn’t believe me.”

“What kind of message?”

“You know, a message. Inspirational guidance. Celestial advice.”

“No one ever asks me for divine guidance.”

“Be grateful. People ask me all the time.”

“Why you don’t make something up?”

“You mean, lie?”

Svetlana waved her hands around encouragingly. “Get book of angel messages and pick message that sounds good. If they notice it came from book, tell them you ask angel to guide you to correct page.”

“I’m a massage therapist, not a tarot reader.”

“It make your clients happy.”

Megan shifted uncomfortably on the massage table. “It would be taking advantage of their trust.”

“Why? It’s all a gimmick anyway, no? You can call it angel therapy or what you like, but it’s still massage. It’s still your hands on their muscles, no?”

Yes, it was her hands; yes, it was her intuition. But despite what Svetlana might think, the angels weren’t a gimmick. They were real. With the angels providing extra juice, the healing was more profound than what she could do on her own.

Svetlana positioned one hand on top of the other with the heel of the underneath hand placed firmly on Megan’s breastbone. She sank her weight ever so slowly, deep…deep…deep into her chest until the pain made further conversation impossible. Megan stared at the familiar medical posters illustrating the human musculoskeletal system without seeing them. Svetlana pressed harder.

Wasn’t that deep enough?

Becoming a professional massage therapist had ruined massage for her. She knew too much. She couldn’t stop herself from analyzing Svetlana’s technique, and how could you fully relax when you wanted to micromanage the whole experience? Some days she could shut it out and enjoy being on the massage table, but today was not one of those days.

To be fair, Svetlana was doing everything right—at any hint of defensive clenching in the muscles, she paused and let up a bit on the pressure. When she sensed Megan was ready to let her back in, she continued pressing.

Exactly what Megan would do herself. The only difference was that Megan preferred to use a lighter, gentler touch with her own clients, while Svetlana prided herself on not doing relaxation massage. With her body weight leveraged onto her arms, she was a lot stronger than she looked, and that was saying something, because Svetlana was built. Clients never fell asleep on her table. Blacked out from pain, maybe, but not sleep.

Megan stayed with the pain as it radiated out along the path of her ribs and seeped into her lungs. It hurt to breathe. The edges of her field of vision turned to gray. She wondered if she was going to pass out, and if Svetlana would notice she was no longer conscious.

In the grayness, a vision of a feral girl gradually came into focus.

The girl was emaciated and wore nothing more than a loincloth. She didn’t look anything like her, but she knew she was looking at herself. Herself in some other lifetime.

She swung an ax at a tree and hit it with a satisfying thunk. She had built this ax herself—sharpened and polished the stone, then lashed it with rawhide to a club—and it was performing well. Her brothers teased her for being slower and weaker than a man, but the fact was, there were plenty of others willing to clear boring vines. She preferred to swing at trees.

The trees and brush would be left to dry in the sun, the elders would predict when the rains would come, and on the augured day, the dry kindling would be set on fire, turning that patch of forest into fertile ash for planting.

The day came, the skies flashed, and the fires were set. But something went wrong.

The rains never came, and now the whole forest was on fire. Deer stampeded downhill toward the river. She followed them, fleeing the wall of heat that chased her through the parched forest, but she wasn’t fast enough, she couldn’t breathe…

Something cracked under Svetlana’s hand.

Megan blinked back to the present. It wasn’t the crack of bone. It was the fascia—the net-like tissue that held all the body’s parts together—softening and stretching under the pressure of Svetlana’s palm. Things were moving in there that hadn’t moved in years. Like the cartilage where her ribs attached to her sternum. Nauseating when you were on the receiving end.

She tried to take a deep breath, but her chest wouldn’t let her. Svetlana let up a little, adjusting the pressure, staying completely present even as tears leaked from the corners of Megan’s eyes. That was the great thing about working with someone who was good at this job—she didn’t have to worry about scaring her off if she got emotional. Her body relaxed. She might bitch to herself about Svetlana’s deep work, but this was what her chest needed. Svetlana waited for her to inhale one more time, then rode her exhale down, sinking to her previous level of pressure. Megan’s heart raced. She stayed with the feeling and waited to see if it would dissipate. It didn’t. It got worse, almost to the verge of panic. Her vision clouded again. There was no sign of the burning forest. Instead, the gray darkened and solidified into the shape of massive stone columns.

The ground shook violently, knocking her to the stone floor beside a blazing hearth. The earth heaved again. Voices shouted to each other to run, but they were not shouting to her. She had to stay. She had been chosen. The goddess would protect her against Poseidon’s temper. The goddess would protect her… She stumbled to her knees and prayed the temple would not collapse, that the sacred flame would not be extinguished, for that would bring down a curse upon the city. If it wasn’t already cursed…

Her vision swam. She found herself in a cobblestone town square in another century, squeezing her eyes shut to block out the sight of the pyre and the excited crowd.

A twig snapped.

Smoke filled her lungs and paralyzed them. She was gasping and she couldn’t…

“That’s too much,” Megan said abruptly.

Svetlana stopped pressing, but kept one hand resting lightly on Megan’s breastbone. Standard procedure; but irrationally, Megan wanted to slap her hand away. Instead she sat up and doubled over, clutching the sheet to her breasts.

Svetlana let go and leaned over her with concern. “Are you all right?”

Megan waved her away. “I guess I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was.”