It was excruciating. Don’t fight it, she said, as she pressed her finger further into my buttock muscle. You’ll be bruised tomorrow, she said afterwards, adding, but a bruise is less painful, isn’t it? Yes, it is. She has helped. She is a wonder, if at all brusque. She doesn’t flinch in digging deeper into the source of pain, even as her victim, (in this case, me) is gripping the massage couch in agony. I yield to it all. I have to. I want to be healed.
