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Hot Rocks


by Jake Barnes


We go to the spa on my wife's day off and get a manipedi. A swarm of little women pounces and works on our fingers and toes.

 

It tickles, and I giggle. The girl at my feet giggles. The girls are all Vietnamese. They are tiny woman, or they seem so to me. I am a six-footer and the only man in the place.

 

My wife gets her toenails painted; I pass on that. While we sit there a woman comes in, hangs up her coat, and heads for one of the back rooms where there are tables. There is a flyer on the wall advertising a hot rock massage along with a pedicure. I point this out to my wife, waggle my eyebrows.

 

When we get home I tell my wife that what I want for our wedding anniversary is a hot rock massage, but I don't want the girl to massage me, I want to massage the girl.

 

I ask my wife what she thinks of that. She frowns. That's not called a massage, she says; it's called prostitution.

 

I ask her what she wants for our anniversary, and she says a couple of days at the Vintage Inn in Yountville. 

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