On Breaking

A blind guy broke me. In Ayutthaya, I had a massage at a clinic of blind masseuses, but as the lady who worked me over hailed me as I walked down the alleyway, I'm hesitant to say I had a massage from a blind person. It was a little clamshell alcove in a back alley off of a local market bazaar a little too dense and intense to be farang-friendly, and the three other cots were each occupied by a Thai person—generally a good sign. And it was a good massage, although after one flurry of Thai, all the masseuses had to shuffle over to grope up my leg and squeeze my bony ass compared to that of the stout man in the next bunk.

But then came the clinic in Chiang Mai. A guy who was likely three times my weight and had a thing for picking his teeth between belching and scratching his crotch lit into me pretty hard. I'm accustomed to a massage being right on the verge of painful, but this guy was keeping me right on the edge of screaming. He would lean his upper body up and down a circulatory line, and then lean into a pressure point. I whimpered an spoke up about my right calf a few times—it still hurts like a bitch after the bike wreck—and then he went working his way down it with gouging thumbs. He nailed an extremely tender spot dead on, and I just about lost it. He had me flip over and gave up after a couple smears at my pecs. I was grateful to sit up, thinking I would get a nice neck and head rub, but he dug into pressure points on my shoulders using his elbows, and the crushing broke me.

Enough with the hurting. Enough with the pain. I just want to feel okay, for my body to relax and be happy, or at least not fighting, not aching, not feeling broken.

No more acupuncture—the lady filled me with needles, some of which went a little too deep, and one of which rotated around in slow circles, then put a heat lamp on them and left me in a room without AC for a little over half an hour—no more Thai pummeling, no more aching and bruising, and I'm going to use it as an excuse to enjoy that part of Thailand.

I've decided that the next time I let someone touch me, it will be a Thai girl who makes me look big and bulky, even in my present condition, and if the massage centers on bubbles or breasts, so much the better. Maybe it really is time to hit up Soi Cowboy.