“Beautiful Bones” was previously published (without illustrations) in Connecticut Review, Vol XXXIII, No.2. Fall 2011, 115-119.

Muriel slams the car door, ducks her head, and scrinches her eyes nearly shut behind wraparound sunglasses. Offshore winds whip the ocean to froth. Wind-driven sand stings every inch of exposed skin. It’s the tail end of the hurricane season, but this one seems to be staying offshore. Charlie would never come to their Outer Banks house this late in the fall, but Muriel revels in it. Few owners or renters are in residence. No one was on the wind-scoured beach that morning, and few cars creep along Route 12. The Sandpiper Day Spa is a welcome oasis.

In the changing room, Muriel shakes sand from her blond curls. Charlie never allowed anything as frivolous—or as expensive—as a massage unless the indulgence was his idea, but she has one every month now. Catching sight of her reflection in the full-length mirror, she mutters, “One of these days, I need to buckle down and lose twenty-five pounds.” Charlie always said she had beautiful cheekbones, had complimented her dainty hands and feet. But Charlie’s dead, and the rest of her bones could do with a little less padding. She shrugs one shoulder and belts the thick terry robe around her naked body.

An attendant shows her into the dim, hushed waiting room where a tabletop fountain burbles, and lemon slices float in a pitcher of ice water dappled with condensation. The Sandpiper is on the sound side, and the wide windows frame a surprisingly tranquil view of waving grasses edging the sheltered patio.

“Have a seat. Woodrow will be with you soon.”

“Woodrow? My appointment is with Amy.”

The attendant purses her lips. “Oh, dear. Did no one call you? Amy’s road is flooded, so she couldn’t get in. Woodrow is taking her clients today. Is that a problem?”

Muriel has never had a male massage therapist. She gnaws her lower lip and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “No. No, of course not.” Alone with the view, Muriel tells herself it’s no big deal—that he’s a professional, like a doctor or a nurse.

***

Muriel lies face down on the massage table, the sheet draped across her legs and buttocks. Woodrow’s massive hands work the muscles of her upper back, slick with scented oil. His hands are strong but not rough. She visualizes his hands, dark against her skin. If Charlie had ever allowed a massage, it certainly wouldn’t have been with Woodrow. Woodrow is mixed-race, and she can’t identify the mix. Not being able to categorize him makes her anxious.

Standing at her head, Woodrow slides both hands down her back, his thumbs rippling along the bumps of her spine. He repeats the stroke using the heels of his hands, and again using his forearms. Muriel feels that, somehow, Woodrow is touching her very soul. When he leans on his forearms, his loose shirt brushes her hair. Muriel realizes how much of his body hovers over hers and forgets to breathe. Using his palms and fingers as before, each stroke is longer than the last until his hands are completely under the edge of the sheet, kneading her buttocks—never quite making a move that is clearly inappropriate.

“Relax,” he says. “You’re tensing up.”

Muriel tries to relax as he moves to the foot of the table. He draws her right leg toward him and lifts the sheet off that side, tucking it between her legs. Amy never exposed so much at once—a wide strip of bare flesh from shoulder to toe. Half draped. A vision of cemetery art comes unbidden, the half-draped urn that symbolizes sorrow and mourning slipping away—not that she ever mourned Charlie. The friends who thought they had such a perfect marriage would be shocked. But that was all surface. Who could mourn the freedom that came with the passing of total control? If she felt sorrowful at all, it would be for the children they never had. Tears sting her eyes, but she reminds herself that at least children never suffered. She still blesses the day the fertility specialist told them that it was Charlie’s failure, not hers—though no one used that label, of course.

A breath of cool air wafts along the strip of exposed flesh. Can so much nakedness be quite proper? She wants to protest, to ask for more coverage, but can’t find acceptable words. She doesn’t want him to think it’s because he isn’t white. Blood suffuses her face and she wonders whether her back is blushing, and if it is, whether he can see it in the dim light. Woodrow kneads her calf and pushes her foot toward her buttock until the stretch in her quadricep begins to burn. She’s about to say “Enough” when he releases the pressure. He stretches her other quad, then grasps both ankles and shakes her legs. Her thighs jiggle like Jell-O, and she silently wills him to stop. He pulls the sheet across her lower legs and slides—what? his forearm again?—up her back, and draws something—a hot stone?—down her spine. The oil is warm. After several minutes he says, “Tell me if this is too hot,” and wipes her back with a steamy towel. As he rubs her arms and neck, Muriel thinks of a parent scrubbing a toddler in the bath. Just when she thinks this segment is done, something gritty circles gently over her flesh. She says, “I didn’t schedule exfoliation.”

Woodrow says, “I always include a light buff. Underneath all that dead skin, there’s a whole new you.” Muriel thinks she hears a smile in his voice.

The sanding thing clicks onto the side table and suddenly something soft caresses her torso. It feels like satin, fur, and feathers. Is he dusting her with powder? Not wanting to focus on the sensuality, she says, “How long have you been a massage therapist?”

“I finished training five years ago.” He pulls her hand up behind her shoulder blade and kneads the muscle under her scapula. Not moves she’s had before.

“How did you come to be a massage therapist?”

“I was career military. Twenty years as a Green Beret. After that, I wanted to do something good with my hands for a change.” He lifts the sheet high enough to hide his face and invites Muriel to turn face up. “Just tell me when you’re settled.” She rolls over, hands covering her breasts, wondering whether he peeked.

Woodrow drapes the sheet across her body and Muriel adjusts it over her breasts. She looks at Woodrow through slitted lids. He’s wearing baby blue scrubs that don’t disguise his heavily muscled body. She closes her eyes against the intimacy and tries to figure how old he must be. If he went in at eighteen, and got out at thirty-eight, spent a year in school and that was five years ago… About her age. Why does it matter? “It must have been a real culture shock—going from the military to massage.”

He manipulates her foot, pressing his thumbs into her instep, and she feels it up her spine. “It wasn’t that sudden. I stayed in San Diego for a while. Knocked around a little, trying to decide what to do. I’ve always been good with my hands—always gave my mom foot rubs, gave my girlfriends back rubs. It was my girlfriend at the time who put me onto massage.” He moves to the side of the table.

All this movement is disconcerting. Amy always started at her head and ended with her feet—none of this back-and-forth stuff. Woodrow rests Muriel’s forearm on his shoulder and massages her upper arm, her shoulder, and her pecs in long, smooth strokes. Her fingertips brush his short beard—surprisingly soft. Touching his beard feels too personal. Who is he? Part black, part Asian. Chinese? Vietnamese? She doesn’t know. His smooth bass has a lilting undertone. Maybe he has ties to the Caribbean? Heat washes over her. It shouldn’t matter. “So did your girlfriend come back east with you?”

“No. She died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago—and very peaceful.” Woodrow stands behind her head, his fingers buried in her hair, slowly massaging her scalp. He tugs her earlobes. He works his thumbs into her shoulders, fingers curled loosely around her throat.

Muriel says, “I once had a boyfriend in the Marines. He said he could kill someone silently by crushing their larynx.”

Woodrow chuckles. “Oh, yeah. Crushing the ice-cream cone. Or you could apply just a little pressure here.” His fingers brush the side of her neck, and linger. “Apply pressure to the carotid for thirteen seconds and you can make somebody unconscious—and do whatever you want.” He presses his fingertips into her neck and she feels her pulse throb. He must feel it, too. Does he notice that her heart is racing? He gives no sign. “A little longer, and you’re dead.” He shifts his fingers to the base of her skull and lifts. Muriel wonders how easy it would be to snap someone’s neck. Woodrow must know. She’s never felt so vulnerable. Would anyone hear her if she screamed? Woodrow says, “In some situations a silent killing is—preferable.” Muriel imagines a trapdoor under the massage bed, imagines Woodrow killing her silently and her body dropping unnoticed into the sound.

When the session is over, Woodrow says, “Take your time getting dressed. Drink lots of nonalcoholic beverages for the rest of the day. And you really need to relax. I’m leaving an herbal tea bag here by your clothes. Try it before you go to bed tonight. You’ll sleep like the dead.”

In the shower, water coursing down her body, Muriel feels exposed, as though Woodrow somehow touched her inner self. That thought is so upsetting that her hands shake and she drops the soap three times. Is it her imagination, or is her flesh loose on her bones?

She feels so defensive that she over-tips outrageously and compliments Woodrow effusively to the receptionist on her way out.

***

Alone with the evening, wind still raging, Muriel obsesses about her massage—tries to dissect her discomfort and chides herself for it. Remembering Woodrow’s hands on her body, she feels a flutter deep in her belly. Is that what a baby’s first kick would have felt like?

She turns on the TV news. Sandwiched between reports on the progress of the offshore hurricane is a story about women found dead in their homes of mysterious causes, details at eleven o’clock. “I don’t think so,” she mutters, and flips to a classic movie channel.

Muriel retrieves the tea bag Woodrow gave her. It’s square, not like most commercial ones, and it has no string attached. She smells it. Herby and sweet and musty. What has he given her? She thinks of drugs that could be delivered in a paper packet—LSD, rohypnol, ketamine, scopolamine, and any number of poisons—drugs that routinely show up in TV crime dramas. She shivers, and tells herself not to be a ninny. Why would he drug her? She tamps down her paranoia and brews a cup of tea. She sniffs the pale gold brew. It smells of hibiscus and honey. She stares into the depths of the cup, mesmerized, as the heat evaporates. Eventually she shakes off her lethargy, gulps down the tepid liquid, and falls into bed, thinking how blessedly bigger it feels now that Charlie is gone. She curls into the fetal position, cradling no bruised limbs. Drifting toward sleep, her body is hypersensitive. She hears her heartbeat, feels the sheet resting lightly on her flesh, notices a slight tingling in her left arm and hand. Definitely alive. Nothing to be anxious about. Remembering the feel of Woodrow’s hands on her body, she sinks into oblivion.

***

In the gray predawn, she wakes from a nightmare in which some of her teeth crumbled away, and some fell out whole. The dream felt so real that she probes her teeth with her tongue, explores her mouth with her fingers. Her teeth are definitely there, but they feel strange. She stumbles into the bathroom and leans toward the mirror. Yes, all of her teeth are still there—though they look bigger than she remembers. In the dim glow of the nightlight, lips stretched to reveal her teeth, she notices the map of blue veins on her chest. As she watches, the blue highways become more distinct. Her skin thins and thins until it is no longer there. When she looks again at her face, she sees her skull.

An image appears behind hers, bones luminous in the dim light. The skeleton is Woodrow. She is not surprised by his presence—or his appearance—only by her recognition of him. One bony finger glides down the side of her neck and across her shoulder, its touch smooth and cool as ivory. She feels his longing, his wish to be joined. As his hands pass over Muriel, her skin and muscles dissolve, melting into the dark. He says, “Do you want to be clothed again in flesh? I could do that.”

Muriel stares at their beautiful bones. She says, “It isn’t about the surface.”

The End