Bath Waters
"At the Roman Baths spa, massage therapist Celeste offers a visiting professor treatments that go far beyond the professional package."
The Thermae Bath Spa was a temple to indulgence, and I was there on doctor's orders. Two years of hunching over manuscripts had destroyed my back, and my physician had been very clear: "Proper spa treatment or surgery. Your choice."
I chose the spa.
"Professor Williams?" The voice was warm honey poured over silk. "I'm Celeste. I'll be your therapist today."
She emerged from the treatment room like something from a dream. Mixed heritage—Caribbean and English, I'd guess—with skin like polished mahogany and a body that made mockery of the industry's usual aesthetic. She was substantial in ways that suggested strength rather than excess, curves that belonged on Renaissance paintings.
"Shall we?" She gestured toward the room.
Inside was all candles and warmth, a massage table that looked like it cost more than my car. Celeste handed me a robe and left to let me change, returning to find me face-down on the table, trying not to groan at how good just lying there felt.
"You're very tense." Her hands found my shoulders without preamble. "Academic?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"You carry your stress in your traps and your thoracic spine." She pressed down, and something that had been locked for months released. "Typical scholar's posture. Head forward, shoulders rounded, like you're protecting your books from the world."
"I teach medieval literature. The books are quite old."
"Then they've survived without your protection." Her hands moved lower, finding knots I'd forgotten existed. "Your body hasn't. When did you last sleep through the night?"
"I don't remember."
"That's the problem, isn't it? Academics forget they have bodies. You live in your heads, leave the rest to decay." She worked down my spine with devastating precision. "Turn over."
I did, suddenly aware that the treatment—and the therapist—had affected me in ways the robe couldn't hide. "I'm sorry, I—"
"Don't apologize for being human." Her eyes met mine with a warmth that went beyond professional. "Though if you'd prefer a different therapist, I can arrange—"
"No. Please. I'm fine." I wasn't fine. I was embarrassingly affected. "Just... keep going."
She kept going. Her hands on my chest, my arms, my face. She worked with eyes half-closed, like she was listening to something I couldn't hear. And when she leaned close to reach my scalp, her breasts brushed my chest, and I stopped breathing entirely.
"There," she said finally. "All done. How do you feel?"
"Like a new person." Like a person who wanted very much to pull her down onto this table and forget about muscle tension entirely. "That was incredible."
"It's what I do." She wiped her hands on a towel. "Though I have to say, you're more responsive than most academics. Usually they just fall asleep."
"Hard to sleep with—" I stopped, embarrassed again.
"With attraction?" She smiled, and it transformed her face from beautiful to radiant. "Like I said. Human. Nothing to apologize for." She paused. "I finish at seven. There's a wine bar on the corner. If you wanted to continue being human somewhere more appropriate."
The wine bar was small, intimate, lit by candles that seemed to follow the spa's aesthetic. Celeste arrived in civilian clothes—a wrap dress that did nothing to diminish her impact—and ordered a burgundy that cost more than my usual dinners.
"I don't do this," she said after the first glass. "Pick up clients. It's against every rule in the book."
"Then why?"
"Because you looked at me." She met my eyes. "Not past me, not through me. At me. Like you were actually seeing a person instead of just hands that fix problems."
"Hard not to see you. You're extraordinary."
"I'm a forty-five-year-old massage therapist with a body that doesn't fit magazine covers. Most men our age are looking for something very different."
"Most men our age are idiots."
She laughed, warm and genuine. "Fair point." Her hand found mine across the table. "I have a flat nearby. Very quiet. Good wine. If you wanted to continue this conversation in private."
The conversation continued for three hours. Her flat, her wine, her body against mine in ways the spa table hadn't allowed. She was glorious naked—every curve a revelation, every surface an invitation. And when she finally lowered herself onto me, sighing with satisfaction, I understood that some forms of therapy couldn't be scheduled on a spa menu.
"You're still tense," she whispered afterward. "Different muscles now. But I can fix that too."
"I might need multiple sessions."
"I was hoping you'd say that." She kissed me slowly. "Same time tomorrow? I have a cancellation."
I stayed a week. Then I started taking regular trips to Bath. The spa, the wine bar, the flat above a Roman street where a woman with healing hands taught me that bodies weren't just things that carried brains around—they were worth inhabiting, worth celebrating, worth treating with the same care I'd always given my precious books.
Celeste retired from the spa two years later. She didn't need it anymore. We'd moved in together by then, and the treatments continued in private, daily, in a home that smelled of oils and wine and something that felt remarkably like happiness.
Some people go to Bath for the history. I went for therapy and found something the Romans never imagined—healing that started with the body and ended somewhere much deeper. And a woman whose hands could find tension I'd been carrying for decades and release it, one glorious session at a time.