The Best American Short Stories 2015 by T.C. Boyle

from the corners. He smelled something complicated like herbs or hay but pleasant and then she touched him again with warm oil on her hands and he lay still this time. It was like getting a haircut, the way he knew where her body was around him, the accidental brush of her breasts on his skin as she bent over him. Small as she was, she had a firm hand and surprising strength and after a few minutes he understood that she knew what she was doing. Her breasts were everywhere but he wasn’t even thinking about that now or maybe thinking about that from a different direction, because it was just very nice. He didn’t know till now how many troubles he was carrying in his body. They just kind of stopped being there after a while. He felt light and free.
    She massaged his feet, which was something that had never happened to McHenry before and although he liked it, he felt the pressure on unexpected places, as if his liver and his testicles and even his eyes were all connected somehow to places in his feet and he had not known this. Then she worked her way up his legs. It was pleasant but he felt vulnerable. Her hand just grazed his scrotum. Something woke up then and stayed awake as she worked on his back, his neck.
    McHenry hoped he was in the right place.
    He let go for a while. Time passed, he wasn’t sure how much. It wasn’t important. All touch, all her hands and music of a kind he generally hated and dim lights and the scent of the oil. Then when he had basically turned into a puddle of goo she rolled him over on his back. The towel came off. Tracy put it back on after half a minute but she must have noticed.
    She did his feet again from another angle and then his face and then his chest. All this was absolutely new to McHenry and surprising. Also, her breasts, just touching, spilling out of her top, and the feel of her small strong hands and the scent of her perfume mixed with the scented oil. This should have been relaxing but McHenry got more and more agitated in his need. Did he need to ask? How would he go about asking? What were the words, what was the code? She must see. She must know.
    In the end, he didn’t need to know anything. Tracy worked his calves and then his thighs and then leaned down toward him, her breasts dangling, and whispered in his ear: “Happy ending?”
    â€œPlease,” said McHenry.
    â€œTwenty extra.”
    â€œPlease,” he said.
    She laughed, but pleasantly, dropped the towel to the floor, and got him off with her strong little hands. It didn’t take much. McHenry kept his eyes closed, all touch and scent. If he kept his eyes closed, this moment would never end. It was magic.
    â€œOK,” said Tracy. “See you next time. Shower’s right outside that door.”
    McHenry opened his eyes. He was naked in a room with a stranger. The lights were still dim but the magic was gone. Tracy smiled at him and was pleasant. He unfolded his pants, found his wallet, gave her a twenty and then another. He would have stood there handing her twenties all night if she had wanted him to. He had made a fool of himself. He understood that much.
    Â 
    He made it two weeks before he was back. The girl at the front desk didn’t like him any better this time. She said that Tracy was busy but she could get one of the other girls to take care of him. Either that or he could wait.
    McHenry waited. Nobody else came through, just him and the bored girl, reading a magazine in what he assumed was Thai or Vietnamese.
Remember what you’re doing
, he told himself.
That girl is with somebody else in the next room. It’s what she does. It’s her job
.
    Still he felt the excitation, like bees or butterflies, at the thought of seeing Tracy. It wasn’t love. He was almost sure. But it was something like it. Not even the sight of a trucker in a ball cap coming out of the back could deter him. He had noticed the eighteen-wheeler in the parking lot. It was hard