Massage Parlor And Musical Tourette's

1975

The traffic on University Avenue behaved as if it’d dropped a tab of LSD. Frantic vehicles jousted in a concrete arena wallpapered with layers of tattered concert posters. A pedestrian would be fumigated with diesel bus exhaust and VW Beetle backfire. No wonder I felt like I was going crazy. It didn’t help that I was bone-deep lonely, and broke.

I walked to the job interview. I didn’t own a car, have a boyfriend or a friend to bug for a lift. Normally, I wouldn’t traverse as far as University Avenue, three miles from the room I rented on Panoramic Way near the UC Berkeley Stadium. Mostly I hovered around the north side of campus, Euclid Avenue, familiar territory, woodsy, less stressful than other areas of the city that were adapted to bring on another panic attack.

I had run out of money, not that I’d ever possessed real money, mostly minimum wage smatterings. At eighteen, I’d been serially employed and unemployed. Call it immaturity? I’d hopped out of the nest the day after high school graduation and ran back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

My parents had thought the move to the country, six months earlier, would be a sanctuary for our family. Endless rural roads, the smell of straw baking in oppressive summer heat, and pasture dirt in every crevice, drove me crazy.

I loved Mom and Dad, and my siblings, but this city-girl was lost around horses and farm life. Years later, I would regret that I didn’t stick around to help my family during what would become their darkest days.

Out in the elements again, I was chasing down another gainful prospect as I walked along the city sidewalk in high heels, the only kind of shoes I owned. High School in the early 1970’s required girls to wear skirts and dresses, stockings and dress shoes. We were never permitted to wear jeans or shorts except once a year on Earth Day. On that momentous occasion, the student body gathered on the football field—peace signs, hand painted posters and crowns of flowers, mildly reminiscent of Woodstock. I didn’t participate. I still had a little baby fat around my thighs and didn’t like how they looked in pants.

The advertisement for the job stood out from the others. It seemed more exciting than being a cashier at the local co-op, working retail, or a waitress at Denny’s. I’d grown up in a theatrical family. The experience honed my antenna to gravitate towards the unconventional. The receptionist job at Xanadu Massage Parlor had provocative possibilities, I thought.

I’d seen the exterior of the building before from a bus and car windows. The place looked exotic, polished teal tiles trimmed with faux white marble, Grecian almost, with a neon billboard. No barkers out front like the strip clubs, and other adult massage parlors advertising “Girls, Girls, Girls” on Broadway and Columbus in North Beach, San Francisco.

When I entered the business, it took a moment for my eyes to focus. The transition from a sunny day into a darkened den was initially disorienting. Maybe it was intended, a method to appraise the clientele while they were adjusting their vision. Were they a creep, a cop, or cool?

An attractive young woman in a leotard, bare legs, red-red lipstick and stilettos stood up from an elongated leatherette bench that stretched around the room. Three similarly outfitted women remained seated.

“Hi, may I help you.” Her voice and manner reminded me of Roberta, an old acquaintance who’d been a bottomless dancer in San Francisco. She used to drink Grand Marnier and played Russian roulette with heroin. Their speech wasn’t sloppy, no slur, just slow motion, very relaxed.

“I came about the receptionist job?”

“Oh yeah, Doug will help you. I’ll get him.” She walked away gracefully, a sexy ballerina.

I couldn’t help it. I stared at her legs. They were stunning, not a trace of cellulite, perfect proportion. A little peek of a flawless round rump escaped her covering. I wondered if giving naked massage to men was good exercise. The other women on the bench were equally endowed, toned legs, long hair, red-lipped coy smirks. Their only articles of clothing were the dancewear and ultra-high heels.

I felt over dressed in a short skirt, blouse, underwear and a bra. My heels were not as tall as theirs. Comparing myself to them was unavoidable. I was already suffering a hit to my self-esteem traipsing around town job hunting. The physical beauty of the leotard clad girls at Xanadu took my ego down another notch.

I watched Doug, I assumed, descend the metal staircase from a loft that looked like a guard’s tower in a prison. The catwalk above provided a bird’s eye view of the employees below on the bench. And there was enough space for a couple of desks, a table with chairs and a refrigerator and microwave, an elevated staff lounge.

As he approached, Doug reminded me of a gangster-type from the movies, burly swagger, ill-fitting sports jacket strangling his biceps, a shadow on his jowls, a half-lipped cigar smile.

“How ya doing?” A deep Marlon Brando voice. “So, you here for the receptionist job?”

“Yes,” I smiled, a little nervous. I still hadn’t totally adjusted to the dim lighting. Felt like I was wearing horse blinders—stunting periphery.

“Let me show you around.” His outstretched hand invited me to join him on a tour of the facility as if guiding me onto a dance floor, gracious, big black shoes, a slow waltz.

“These are some of our ladies,” he said as we stopped at the bench and he rattled off names—no Trixie, Cherry, or Honey among them.

“Hi,” I said as they stretched like felines on the leatherette and softly purred their greetings.

“Come this way.” He pushed open double swinging doors; the kind used in restaurants without windows. We entered the inner sanctum.

The scene was from ancient Rome. Steam rose from an authentic tiled bathing pool, columns and urns. Clients could submerge in azure healing waters, where muscles, and quite possibly libidos, could be soothed. Luxuriant and extravagant, big money must have built the replica from the days of Moses and Spartacus.

A series of rooms surrounded the bath, doors with numbers where the massage occurred.

“This is beautiful,” I said with wonder.

He chuckled. “Would you like to start tomorrow?”

“Sure, what do I need to do?”

Doug explained the receptionist’s tasks—sit at the desk in the lobby, greet clients, bring them to the bench to choose a masseuse, and that was it. All money matters were handled by the girls.

“Your hours will be noon to nine. Does that work for you?”