The Four-Hand Massage That Fulfilled Our Fantasy

Tomás had been wearing a strange smile for weeks, the kind he gets when he’s hiding something and dying for me to find out. My husband knows massages are my weakness, my one true indulgence, and that giving me one is a sure thing. What I didn’t know was that this time he hadn’t booked me just any massage.

—You have to let yourself be surprised —was all he told me in the car, one hand on my knee and his eyes on the road.

After so many years getting massages everywhere, I’d learned to tell the good from the mediocre, and I was always looking for something different, something that made me feel it was worth it. That afternoon, as we climbed a narrow staircase to a first-floor place in the city center, I had no idea just how different it was going to be.

The place was small and warm. Soft lighting, earth-colored walls that made you want to lower your voice. It smelled woody and gentle, without that cloying sweetness some places have. A woman was waiting for us by the door to the room.

—You must be Renata and Tomás —she said, holding out her hand to me—. I’m Adriana.

There was a calmness in her voice that put me at ease immediately. Her hair was tied up, her forearms were strong in that way of someone who works with their hands every day, and her dark eyes held mine a second longer than necessary.

—Renata —she went on, now in a professional tone—, today we’re going to do something special. Tomás is going to learn from me how to give you the massage, so he can repeat it at home whenever you feel like it. You don’t have to do anything. Just let yourself be taken care of.

I glanced sideways at Tomás. So that was the secret. It made me laugh to imagine him as an apprentice, him who always boasts about having clumsy hands.

—Go into the room and take everything off —Adriana added—. No underwear, the oil will stain it. Lie face down and cover yourself with the sheet. We’ll be in in a minute.

I went in alone. The massage table was in the center, with a white sheet folded neatly on top. I took off my clothes slowly, feeling the cool air on my skin, and lay face down. I covered myself up to the waist. That familiar flutter of anticipation was in my stomach, the one that always comes before a good massage, but this time there was something else too, a different current I couldn’t quite name.

I heard the door. I heard the two of them step in. And I heard, above all, Adriana’s voice explaining to Tomás where to stand, how to place his hands, how to breathe to follow the movement.

—Warm the oil in your hands first, never pour it cold onto the skin —she told him.

The first drops landed on my back with a warm shiver. They were Adriana’s hands, I knew it right away: firm, sure, gliding from my shoulders to the small of my back in one long stroke. A few seconds later Tomás’s hands joined in, repeating the same path, clumsier, more cautious, as if he were afraid of breaking me.

—More pressure here —she whispered—. That’s it. Follow the line of the muscle. Listen to how she breathes.

I closed my eyes and decided to give myself over completely. A four-hand massage is something to be savored, not analyzed.

I could feel perfectly the difference between one pair of hands and the other. Hers, expert and enveloping; his, learning, gaining confidence little by little. It was a strange combination, almost hypnotic, and it was dismantling me centimeter by centimeter. And every time Adriana corrected Tomás, I heard her moving closer to him, I felt how both their bodies leaned a little more over the table.

I started imagining things. How they would look at each other over my back. How their arms would brush by accident as they crossed their hands over my skin. I shouldn’t be thinking about this, I told myself, and yet I couldn’t stop.

The atmosphere changed without anyone fully deciding it. Adriana’s instructions became softer, more whispered, until they were almost a murmur. Tomás’s hands stopped hesitating. Hers became slower, longer, as if this had stopped being a lesson and turned into an intimate choreography around my body.

They covered my back again and moved down to my legs. Adriana pulled the sheet away until only the lower part of my back remained covered, exposing the rest. The air on my bare skin gave me goosebumps.

At one point, she leaned toward him to guide his hands. I couldn’t see anything, with my face sunk into the opening of the table, but I felt everything. I felt their bodies come closer, I felt the four hands cross over my thighs, I felt Tomás’s breathing change rhythm all at once. And then I knew it, without seeing it: their mouths had met. A short, soft kiss, the brush of two tongues searching for each other for the first time. I heard them smile.

—Very good —Adriana murmured, very close to him—. You’re doing it perfectly.

I smiled against the table despite myself. He certainly is doing it well. I imagined the scene I couldn’t see and felt the heat gather deep inside me, thick, urgent. The room no longer smelled only of oil and calm: there was a sweet, electric tension in it that made me shiver with every touch.

—I want you to focus now on what Renata feels —she told him, lowering her voice even more—. Not just the muscle. On how her body responds when you touch her.

And respond it did. Every time one of their hands crossed over the other’s on my skin, a sigh escaped me that I no longer bothered to hide. We’d been talking about this in bed for months, after making love, playing with the idea without ever daring to take the step. Now we were living it, and reality was so much more intense than anything we had ever imagined in the dark.

I thought about how curious it all was: the same man I’d shared my life with for years, now learning from another woman how to touch me, and the two of them paying attention only to my pleasure. There was no jealousy, no discomfort, only a new complicity that turned me on even more.

The four hands started moving up my thighs. They kneaded my ass firmly and, when they reached the inner thighs, the need to be touched for real, right where I was already wet, became almost unbearable. I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t ask out loud.

—Turn over —Adriana said.

I obeyed slowly, with the feeling that I was opening much more than my eyes. Now on my back, I could finally see their faces. Tomás’s pupils were dilated and his cheeks were flushed; Adriana held my gaze with a serenity that was almost a challenge. They went back to my legs, this time from the front, moving upward unhurriedly.

When their hands reached the top, they paused for an instant. Adriana must have noticed how hot I was, because she brushed my sex with her fingertips, slowly, measuring my reaction. Tomás looked at me, asking for permission in silence. We had always fantasized about something like this, the two of us, in bed, in low voices, never quite believing we would actually get to do it. I held his gaze and, without a word, told him to go on.

***

They started touching me at the same time. Adriana spread her fingers over me while Tomás drew slow circles on my clit, looking at my face so he wouldn’t miss a single reaction. I arched my back. Every caress tore a sigh from me that I no longer tried to hold back.

—You have a beautiful woman —Adriana told Tomás, never stopping touching me—. Do you like seeing her like this?

—Very much —he answered, voice rough.

She parted my legs gently, leaving me fully exposed on the table. She nudged Tomás aside with a shift of her hip, leaned down, and started licking me with an avid hunger I hadn’t expected. Her tongue moved over me in one uninterrupted sweep, and I grabbed the edge of the table because I felt myself coming apart.

With her right hand she reached for Tomás’s body. She found it, and he understood immediately what she wanted: he unbuttoned his pants, pulled down his clothes, and came closer. Adriana started stroking him slowly while keeping her mouth on me, doing both things at once, never losing the rhythm of either.

Tomás leaned over me, kissed my mouth, my neck, and caressed my breasts with that blend of desire and tenderness only he knows how to give. I had one hand on the back of his neck and the other tangled in Adriana’s hair, holding them both, feeling myself the center of something that, just a little while earlier, had only been a fantasy told in the darkness of our bedroom.

The pleasure was building in waves. When I felt I was close, I pulled Tomás toward me.

—I want you to finish in my mouth —I asked him, almost breathless.

He loves that, and I love coming like that. I sat up just enough to have him within reach while Adriana stayed between my legs. The orgasm shook me completely, long, intense, so strong that even she looked up, surprised. Tomás didn’t last much longer; he came almost at the same time, and I took him all in, his taste spilling from the corner of my lips.

The three of us stayed still for a moment, catching our breath, our skin glossy with oil and sweat.

Adriana stepped back, looked at us with a calm smile, as if she had just finished the most routine session in the world.

—There are towels there to clean yourselves up —she said, tucking a loose strand of hair back—. I’ll wait for you outside and we’ll toast with a glass of champagne.

She closed the door behind her as she left. Tomás and I looked at each other, still shaky, and burst out laughing nervously, that laugh of people who’ve just crossed a line and discover that on the other side there’s only pleasure.

—Happy non-birthday —he told me, giving me a kiss on the forehead.

And that was how we finally fulfilled our fantasy: with a four-hand massage that turned out to be the first threesome for both of us, the gift neither of us had dared to ask for out loud.