The Massage My Neighbor Asked Me for at Naptime

I’ve been the superintendent of the same building for nearly nine years, and if I’ve learned anything in this line of work, it’s that people end up trusting you with things they wouldn’t even tell their doctor. They see you every morning, greet you in their robes, ask you to change a lightbulb or take in a package, and little by little they let their guard down. This is a confession I never told anyone, because the woman I’m about to talk about still lives three floors above the superintendent’s office.

Her name was Dora. She must have been around fifty, widowed for just over a year, though she still wore the ring out of habit. She lived on the fourth floor with her sick husband, a man who slept almost all day and barely set foot in the hallway. She, on the other hand, always came downstairs with some excuse: a stuck key, the elevator making a strange noise, a little extra coffee left in the thermos.

One Thursday, on one of those days when the building falls silent, she came down holding a jar and wearing a smile I already knew.

“Good morning, Andrés,” she said, leaning on the counter. “Did you know I used to give massages when I was young?”

“I had no idea, Dora.”

“Recovery and relaxation. I stopped when I got married, but I still have the hands for it.” She lifted the jar to eye level. “A new oil just came in for me, and I need someone to be my guinea pig. Up for it? This afternoon my husband’ll be taking his siesta, so nobody will bother us.”

I stood there for a second looking at her, not knowing what to say. I have no idea why, but something told me this wasn’t just about an oil.

“I don’t want to take up your time,” I said, just to say something.

“It’s no bother, man. You’ll see how I leave you feeling brand new. Besides, that way I can practice. Come up at four, when he’s asleep.” And before she left, already in the elevator, she added with a laugh, “Don’t eat too much, or you might get indigestion.”

***

I spent the whole morning turning it over in my head. The truth is, Dora surprised me. Dressed, you couldn’t tell, always in those loose sweaters, but that day she’d worn a tighter blouse and you could make out a huge pair of breasts, the kind I’d never had in my hands before. I handled the mail, sorted the parcels, dropped a couple of notices into the mailboxes, and checked the clock every ten minutes like a kid waiting for recess.

At five to four I locked the superintendent’s office with the “back in a minute” sign, changed my shirt for a cleaner one, and went up. I rang twice, softly, as if knocking hard might give us away.

“Hi, Andrés,” she whispered when she opened the door. “Come in, come in. He’s asleep, so we have to keep our voices down.”

She’d set up a folding massage table in the back room, away from the bedroom. It smelled of sandalwood and something sweet I couldn’t identify. She closed the door carefully and rubbed her hands together.

“Strip down and lie face down,” she said, without looking at me. “I’m getting the oils.”

She left just as I started taking my clothes off, as if she needed to give me privacy or give herself some. I got naked and waited, lying there with my face in the cutout of the table. When she came back, I heard her breathing before I heard her steps. She was breathing the way people breathe when they’re nervous and don’t want it to show.

The first drops of oil landed warm on my back. And then her hands appeared.

They were, honestly, glorious. She started at the nape of my neck, pressing with her thumbs along both sides of my spine, opened up my shoulder blades, ran the flats of her palms over the small of my back. Then she went down my thighs, calves, all the way to my toes, one by one. I had never felt anything like it in my life. I would have wanted that to last forever. But after a few minutes her voice changed.

“Turn over so I can work the front.”

That was the problem. My body had been making decisions on its own for a while, and when I rolled over there was no way to hide it. I went red right up to my ears.

“My, Andrés,” she said, not looking away. “What a body you’re carrying around. No one would guess you sit in a booth all day.”

“One tries to take care of himself,” I replied, in a voice rougher than I meant it to be.

She started with my shoulders, moved down over my chest, my stomach, and left her hand still right where there was no turning back. She said nothing. Neither did I. She simply closed her fingers and began to stroke me slowly, looking me in the eye as if daring me to stop her. I didn’t stop her.

“Your husband…” I began.

“He doesn’t know a thing, he hasn’t known a thing for months,” she cut in softly. “Nobody’s touched me in a long time, Andrés. A long time.”

She didn’t need to say anything else. I lifted my hand and caressed her thigh under the skirt, and she sighed as if she’d been holding that sigh back for years. I unbuttoned her blouse one button at a time, unhurried, listening for the slightest sound that might come from the hallway. When I unclasped her bra, the breast I’d imagined so many times fell warm into my hands. It was even more than the blouse had promised.

“My God,” she murmured, “it’s been so long since I felt like this.”

She bent over the table and took me into her mouth. She did it with a care and a hunger that can’t be taught, that only come out when someone’s been on a diet far too long. I held the back of her neck, moved her hair out of her face, and all the while we kept an eye on the noise, both of us in silence, communicating only with our hands and our breathing.

***

I had her climb onto the table and pulled down her underwear. I traced the cleft between her legs with my fingers, already hot and eager, and kissed her between the thighs until she bit the back of her hand to keep from crying out. She trembled all over, gripped the edge of the table, and when she calmed down she found me with glassy eyes.

“Come,” she said. “Come now, please.”

I opened her legs and entered slowly, holding back, watching her face in case I hurt her. I didn’t hurt her. She dug her nails into my back and whispered for me not to stop. We stayed like that for a good while, changing position without ever separating, she muffling her moans against my shoulder, me covering her mouth with a kiss every time a sound slipped out.

I turned her and took her from behind, holding her by the hips, kneading her breasts with both hands. She trembled again, this time harder, and had to press her face to the towel on the table so she wouldn’t wake half the building. I held on as best I could, because I didn’t want it to end, because I knew something like that doesn’t happen every day.

In the end I sat her on the edge, knelt in front of her, and finished between her hands and her breasts. She didn’t look away. She stared at me with a mixture of wonder and gratitude I’d never seen in anyone. She stayed silent for a moment, catching her breath, and then gave a soft laugh.

“My goodness,” she said. “This wasn’t part of the oil plan.”

“The oil’s very good,” I said, and we both laughed like two kids who had just pulled off a prank.

She stood up, gathered her hair, slipped her robe on over herself, and opened the door a little to listen. From the bedroom came the steady, peaceful sound of her husband snoring. He hadn’t noticed a thing.

“You have to go now,” she said, while I dressed in a hurry. “But, Andrés…” She grabbed my arm and lowered her voice until it was almost inaudible. “This stays between you and me. Discretion, all right? Total discretion.”

“You know I’m a tomb,” I told her. “Nothing happened here.”

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.” And she gave me a quick kiss at the corner of the lips, with her hand already on the doorknob.

“Thank you for the massage,” I replied, and went down the stairs two at a time before the elevator could leave me exposed.

***

I went back to the superintendent’s office, took down the “back in a minute” sign, and sat down as if nothing had happened, though my heart was still racing. A few minutes later a neighbor from the second floor came in to collect a certified letter and greeted me normally, with no suspicion that I still smelled of sandalwood from head to toe.

Dora kept coming down to the superintendent’s office with her excuses, and every so often, when the building fell silent and her husband was taking his siesta, she’d call me again to “try out a new oil.” We never called it anything else again. For the two of us, it was a code word, a word only we understood.

Years have passed. Her husband died long ago and she still lives on the fourth floor, now more alone, quieter. We still greet each other every morning as naturally as ever, as if nothing had ever happened between us. But sometimes, when she leaves me a coffee on the counter and our hands brush for a second too long, I know we’re both thinking about that Thursday siesta, that warm jar, and the secret we still keep. And that, after all this time, is still the most exciting thing of all.