Dating Game (13 page)

The voice at the other end of the line was somewhat ethereal, and there was Indian music playing in the background, which Paris found irritating, but she was determined to keep an open mind. The woman's name was Karma Applebaum, and Paris forced herself not to laugh as she wrote it down. The massage therapist said she would come to the house, she had her own table, and she said she would bring her aromatherapy oils as well. The gods were with them apparently, because Karma said she had had a cancellation providentially just that night. Paris hesitated for a beat when Karma offered to come at nine o'clock, and then decided what the hell. She had nothing to lose, and she thought she might sleep better. It sounded like voodoo to her, and she had never had a massage in her entire life. And God only knew what aromatherapy involved. It sounded ridiculous to her. It was amazing what one could be driven to, she told herself.

She made herself a cup of instant soup before the “therapist” arrived, and when Meg called, she admitted sheepishly what she was about to do, and Meg insisted it would be good for her.

“Peace loves aromatherapy,” Meg encouraged her. “We do it all the time,” she said cheerfully, and Paris groaned. She'd been afraid of something like that.

“I'll let you know how it goes,” Paris said, sounding cynical as they hung up.

When Karma Applebaum arrived, she drove up in a truck with Hindu symbols painted on its side, and her blond hair was neatly done in cornrows with tiny beads woven into them. She was dressed all in white. And despite Paris's skepticism, she had to admit that the woman had a lovely, peaceful face. There was an otherworldly quality to her, and she took her shoes off the minute she came into the house. She asked where Paris's bedroom was, and went upstairs quietly to set up the table, and put flannel sheets on it. She plugged in a heating pad, and brought a small portable stereo out of a bag, and put gentle music on. It was more of the same Indian music Paris had heard in the background on the phone. And by the time Paris emerged from her bathroom in a cashmere robe that she seemed to live in these days, the room was nearly dark, and Karma was ready. Paris felt as though she was about to participate in a séance.

“Let yourself breathe away all the demons that have been possessing you…. Send them back to where they came from,” Karma said in a whisper as Paris lay down on the table. She hadn't been aware of being possessed by demons lately. And without a word, breathing deeply herself, Karma moved her hands several inches above Paris's somewhat anxious, rigid body. This felt silly. Karma waved her hands like magic wands, and said she was feeling Paris's chakras. And then she stopped abruptly just above Paris's liver. She frowned, looked at Paris with concern, and spoke with genuine worry. “I feel a blockage.”

“Where?” She was beginning to make Paris nervous. All she wanted was a massage, not a news flash from her liver.

“I think it's lodged between your kidneys and your liver. Have you been having a problem with your mother?”

“Not lately. She's been dead for eighteen years. But I had a lot of trouble with her before that.” Her mother had been an extremely bitter, angry woman, but Paris hardly ever thought about her. She had far bigger problems.

“It must be something else then … but I feel spirits in the house. Have you heard them?” She'd been right in the first place, Paris decided, trying not to let the “therapist” unnerve her. It was a séance.

“No, I haven't.” Paris's philosophies were generally firmly rooted in fact, not fiction. And she wasn't interested in spirits. Just in surviving the divorce, and Pe-ter's impending marriage. She would have preferred dealing with spirits. They might have been easier to get rid of. Karma had begun moving her hands again by then, and she stopped with a look of horror two inches above Paris's stomach.

“There it is, I've got it,” she said with a victorious look. “It's in your bowels.” The news was getting worse by the minute.

“What is?” Paris asked, torn between a sense of the ridiculous and a wave of panic. The idea of this woman finding something in Paris's bowels did not reassure her.

“All the demons are in your intestines,” Karma said with a look of certainty. “You must be very angry. You need a high colonic.” Whoever this woman was, she was obviously from the same planet as Peace, Meg's vegan boyfriend. “You're really not going to get what you need out of the massage until you clean all the toxins out of your system.” This was getting more frightening by the second.

“Could we just do what we can this time, without the high colonic?” It was the last thing Paris wanted to contemplate. All she had wanted was a massage and a decent night's sleep immediately thereafter.

“I can try, but you're really not going to get my best work without it.” It was a sacrifice Paris was willing to make, despite the fact that Karma looked extremely discouraged. “I'll do what I can.” And then, finally, she pulled a bottle of oil out of her bag, basted Paris liberally with it, and began rubbing it into Paris's arms and hands and shoulders. She worked on her chest after that, her stomach and legs, and made unhappy clucking sounds of despair each time she passed her hands over Paris's stomach. “I don't want to make the demons comfortable,” she explained. “You have to flush them.” But by then the music, the oil, the dark room, and Karma's hands had begun to work their magic on Paris. In spite of the alleged demons in her bowels, she was finally relaxing. And she already felt better, by the time Karma whispered to her to turn over. And what she did on Paris's tense back and shoulders was the best part. In spite of the demons and bad karma she was now lying on, she was so relaxed, she felt as though she were melting. It was exactly what she had needed. And as she lay there with her eyes closed, it felt heavenly—until suddenly she felt as though she'd been hit between the shoulder blades by a tennis ball flying at a hundred miles an hour, and then felt as though Karma had ripped a piece out of one shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Paris said, opening both eyes in panic.

“Cupping you. You'll love it. It'll pull out all the demons in your body along with the toxins.” Not them again. Apparently, the demons had moved from her bowels to her upper body, and Karma was determined to get them. She kept hitting Paris's back with a hot cup, which created a suction, and then she ripped it off with a loud popping sound. It hurt like hell, and made Paris squirm, but she was embarrassed to ask her to stop it. “Great, isn't it?”

“Not exactly,” Paris said, daring to be honest finally. “I liked the other part better.”

“So do your demons. We can't let them get too comfortable, can we?” Why not? Paris was tempted to ask. Because when they were comfortable, so was she. The cupping seemed to go on forever, and then mercifully stopped. And with that, she began kneading and slapping Paris's bottom. It was obvious to Paris now that the demons were sitting on her buttocks. But if so, they were getting a hell of a beating at Karma's hands. And then with no warning, she took hot rocks, almost beyond bearing, and laid them on Paris's shoulders, took two more from her bag of tricks, and kneaded the soles of Paris's feet with them until they felt like they were on fire. “This will clear your intestines and your head until you do the high colonic,” she explained, and while she was still torturing the soles of Paris's feet, the smell of something burning filled the room. It was a cross between seared flesh and burning tires, and it was so pungent that Paris began to cough, and couldn't stop. “That's what I thought. Breathe deeply now. They hate this stuff. We need to get all the dark spirits out of the room.” It was a smell Paris feared would be in the room forever, and she was beginning to worry that she had set fire to the couch, as she opened her eyes and looked around. There was a small heater with a votive candle under it, and a bottle of oil poised over it in a clamp.

“What is that stuff?” she asked, still choking from the fumes, as Karma smiled. And the purity of her face reminded Paris of Joan of Arc as she was engulfed by the final flames.

“It's a potion I mix myself. It works every time.”

“On what?” It was going to wreak havoc with the carpet and the curtains. The pungent, oily smell seemed to permeate the entire room.

“This is great for your lungs. See how you're starting to clear everything out.” Paris was beginning to fear she might throw up. It was starting to clear the instant soup she'd eaten before Karma arrived to massage her. And before she could ask the woman to put the votive out and get rid of her magic potion, Karma put a different bottle over the flame, and within seconds there was a smell so powerful in the room that tears had filled Paris's eyes. It was a smell somewhere between rat poison, arsenic, and cloves, and was so overwhelming Paris could hardly breathe.

“What does this one do?” It was becoming something of a challenge just to survive in the room while Karma continued the massage. Paris was still lying on her stomach, and the small of her back was now on fire from the hot, oily rocks. It was agony, and yet in a funny way, both the heat and the weight of them felt good. She was beginning to understand the philosophy that led some sects to sleep on beds of nails, or swallow flames. It turned the mind away from its many ills and made you concentrate on all the places in your body that were either burning, in agony, or simply hurt. And when Karma told her to turn over again, and Paris did, without warning she spilled a cup of salt onto her abdomen, covered her belly button, and dropped a hot ball of incense on top of it, while Paris watched in fascination.

“What is that going to do?”

“Suck all the poisons out, and bring you inner peace.” The incense was an improvement over the burning oils at least, but the next one Karma put on over the flame was like instant spring, and the flower scent was so powerful that Paris sneezed violently, and it sent the incense on her stomach flying across the room. “They're hating this,” Karma smiled, referring to Paris's demons again. But Paris couldn't stop sneezing for the next five minutes, and finally conceded defeat. The oils had done her in.

“So am I, I think I'm allergic to that stuff,” Paris said, and Karma looked as though she had been slapped.

“You can't be allergic to aromatherapy,” she pronounced with absolute certainty. But by then, Paris had had enough. The massage, what there had been of it, had been nice, but the oils and burning rocks and pungent smells had been too much. And it was after eleven o'clock.

“I think I am allergic to it,” Paris said firmly, “and it's getting late. I feel guilty keeping you out at this hour.” As she said it, she sat up and swung her legs off the table, and reached for her robe.

“You can't get up yet,” Karma said insistently. “I have to settle your chakras down before I leave. Lie down. If you don't, it's like leaving all the faucets open, and you'll lose all your energy as soon as you stand up.” A daunting thought, so with a look of suspicion, and in spite of her better judgment, Paris lay down again. And Karma ran her hands above her, chanting something unintelligible with her own eyes closed. It only took five minutes, mercifully, and then she was done. But the smell in the room was so overpowering that Paris couldn't imagine how she would ever be able to sleep there again.

“Thank you so much,” she said as she hopped off the table, and Karma warned her not to bathe or shower until the morning. It would be too great a shock, both for her demons and for her. But Paris knew there was no way she would lie in her bed all night, covered in oil.

It took Karma another half-hour to wrap up, she charged one hundred dollars, which was reasonable at least, and by midnight she was gone. Paris walked back into her bedroom after letting her out, and all she could do was laugh. Some of it had been relaxing, but most of it had been ridiculously absurd. And she had nodded dutifully when Karma warned her that she'd have to have a high colonic and clean her system out before she came back again, or the therapy would never work.

Paris was still smiling to herself as she walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and dropped her robe, and then she saw her back in the mirror. There were round symmetrical bruises all over it, from the cupping. It was terrifying looking, and given the deep purplish-red colors of the marks, it was easy to guess that the result of the “cupping” would be deep blue by the next day. It was terrifying to see, and it looked every bit as painful as it had been while the woman did it. Whatever it had done to her demons, it had made a mess of Paris's back. And when she checked again in the morning, her worst fears were confirmed. She looked as though she had been severely abused during the night, and there were two red burn marks on her shoulders from the hot rocks. And the room it had all happened in smelled like someone had died. But if nothing else, it had made Paris laugh. That was something at least. And what did it matter anyway? There was no one to see her back. When Meg called to inquire about it, all Paris could do was laugh.

“How was it, Mom?”

“It was certainly interesting. Sort of a modern form of neomasochism. And by the way, I have demons in my bowels.”

“Yeah, I know, so does Peace. He got them from his father.”

“I hope you don't,” Paris said, sounding concerned. “She said I got mine from my mother.”

“Peace will be really impressed you did that, Mom,” Meg said, grinning at the thought of it. Her mother had been a good sport if nothing else.

“You'd be even more impressed if you could see the bruises on my back.”

“They'll be gone in a few days, Mom. Maybe you should try Rolfing next time,” Meg said, laughing at her.

“Never mind. My demons and I are just fine the way we are.”

The day after the Christmas party she'd agreed to go to at the Morrisons', Paris strolled into Anne's office, looking pleased.

“Did you have fun?” Anne asked her hopefully. It was the first time she'd been to a party in seven months. The last one she'd attended was her own, the night Peter told her he wanted a divorce.

“No, I hated it.” She looked smugly at her psychiatrist, as though she had proved her point. She had done everything Anne had told her to do, from massage to party, and detested every minute of it.