Page 31 of Endless Depths

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to.”

His hands move, slowly at first, massaging around my hip and lower back before focusing on my hamstrings and glutes, increasing the pressure with each pass, massaging at a punishing depth. I gnash my teeth and curl my toes until my calves burn.

“Are you still taking oxycodone?”

“I weaned myself off and stick to over-the-counter stuff.” I suppress the urge to cry out as he attacks a knot strangling my sciatic nerve. “Fuck,” I hiss.

“Sorry.” The pain ebbs away as he eases into a gentle massage. “You didn’t pack any pills with you?”

“To a kidnapping? No. Stop interrogating me.”

Morgan’s parents overdosed on a bad batch of heroin when he was a kid. After my dad died, Lawrence and I got shit-faced onenight. When I got home, Morgan wasn’t angry; he was distraught. He told me addiction was a hard limit, and he couldn’t be with me if I continued down that path. The threat of losing him was enough to scare me into sobriety, but the truth is, I love him too much to put him through the pain of loving an addict.

“I’m not interrogating. I asked because I don’t want you to be in pain.” He massages deeper again. “What about physical therapy?”

“It makes it worse.”

He clicks his tongue. “And pelvic PT?”

I laugh bitterly. “What do you think?”

The only reason I ever went was because he made me. My therapist was professional and gentle, but pelvic PT consisted of uncomfortable and humiliating internal and external work around my groin.

“Do you want me to try?” He clears his throat. “Just the outside.”

I nod in the darkness.

“Okay.” He waits a few more seconds, then gently repositions my knee closer to my chest to grant him more access.

He knows what he’s doing. My therapist taught him how to help me at home when I threw a fit and threatened to quit mid-appointment.

“Tell me when to stop, and I will.”

“Okay.”

I relax a little as he lightly massages my sacrum and around my perineum. He’s not tackling tension yet; he’s assessing me.

“You’re so tight back here,” he murmurs.

“Wow. Buy a guy a drink first.”

“Sorry.” He laughs. “Take a deep breath with me.”

We both inhale deeply as he focuses steady pressure on every tight spot until I’ve lost any shred of humor.

“Keep breathing. I’m almost done. You can hurt for me a little longer, can’t you?”

He’s not fighting fair with that last line, but words arebeyond me. I don’t know how much more pain I can take—body, mind, heart—self-inflicted or not.

Finally, the knot relaxes, and my pain dissipates. Endorphins flood my bloodstream in a heady mix that’s almost as good as sex.

He eases my knee back down. “Less pain?”

“Mmhm. I feel like a wrung-out sponge.”

He doesn’t laugh this time. “If you let me do this regularly again, it won’t hurt as much.”

“I know.”