I wash and massage his body while he lays flat on the concrete slab in the Turkish Hammam. The room is bare except for the shower head and blue grotto light. It's 120 degrees Farenheit and the steam hisses around me. "Focus," I tell myself for fear I will be drained from the heat and incapable of bathing him. I soak the scrub in the sudsy water and wash his body with bubbles that smell of coconut. Even when others walk in, I focus on him. I have been taking heat with Gus every Sunday for two years. We are not lovers, but I know his body. It is strong and wide; the muscles are thick. In the humid heat of the room, I stand over him and dig into the walls of his legs, arms, neck and back to massage his skin with purpose. There are boundaries to a strong touch and there can be no violence or aggression to it, and striking such a balance of firm determination and gracefulness is challenging for me.
He brings the home-made salt scrubs, liquid soaps, and branches for the platza, branches I wave in the air to collect heat before pushing the leaves into the small of his back and back of his legs. Every Sunday, we share our passion for the ancient rituals of shvitzing, sitting in the Russian Radiant room with buckets of freezing water we pour over each other's heads after taking all the heat we can stand.
Sometimes, we go to the beach and smoke pot, taking drags in the along the sea oats on Miami Beach. He talks about his women-- the ones he's married, divorced, and the ones he sees every weekend. He's in his fifties and wrecked by regret: the mothers of his eight children -- his first two wives --are cocaine addicts. His fault he says. He married young, was into drugs, and got them addicted. His brother was gay and a world-famous ballerina. When I Google his brother's name, I learn he died of AIDS. When he asks about my love life, I tell him I'm not comfortable with the topic. Anyway, there isn't much to say: I was sheltered in my marriage. Now I'm divorced and learning about a whole new world. When we go back inside the bathhouse he bathes me.
Sometimes, we go to the beach and smoke pot, taking drags in the along the sea oats on Miami Beach. He talks about his women-- the ones he's married, divorced, and the ones he sees every weekend. He's in his fifties and wrecked by regret: the mothers of his eight children -- his first two wives --are cocaine addicts. His fault he says. He married young, was into drugs, and got them addicted. His brother was gay and a world-famous ballerina. When I Google his brother's name, I learn he died of AIDS. When he asks about my love life, I tell him I'm not comfortable with the topic. Anyway, there isn't much to say: I was sheltered in my marriage. Now I'm divorced and learning about a whole new world. When we go back inside the bathhouse he bathes me.
At first, I did not know how to touch the body of man I did not love, but he taught me (the secret is to adapt the tension of the touch to the weight of the muscle so that you are neither too gentle or too rough with his skin). He says I put my heart into. I agree. He also says I have soft cowboy hands. I thank him for the compliment. I tell him that I've always wanted to be androgynous. I remember a favorite quote by a French connoisseur of the 17th century: A beautiful woman who has all the good qualities of a man is the most wonderful thing in the world.
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