Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Isra

I had never paid a man to come to my hotel room to touch me while I was naked. But that’s what I did in Jerusalem. I asked the Harmony to arrange an in-room massage. “Isra” showed up on time and wasted no time pushing the furniture around in my room. He was a powerfully built guy, and after I got undressed and laid down Isra took his shirt off. Always in the past I’ve had massage therapists who were women. But I don’t remember any of them going topless.

It was a pretty good massage. A bit more “IDF” and a bit less “namaste” than I am used to. I ended up with a couple of bruises, actually, which I’ve never experienced after a massage before.

After the hour was up, Isra did this quick swipey-thing to my head with both hands and announced it was finished. I sat up, and he said, “OK, so nothing special?” I didn’t say anything and the moment passed.

I guess I’ll never know if there was a language miscue, if some cultural difference existed, or if the Harmony had arranged a different kind massage than the one I had in mind…