The Disappearer

Entering through the doorway the familiar sound of gentle, knowing thumps of bare feet and another unfamiliar sound of percussive, decisive heeltoe…heeltoe…heeltoe dress shoes vibrate from the recently polished hardwood floors and into the drums of my ears. One inevitably of Zubeida, my loyal assistant, and the second of my next receiver. I can feel the ever-so-slight warming and thickening of the air in the small room from the addition of two more bodies. It will continue to thicken throughout the rest of the session. Not even a whisper is shared between them, just the gestures of guiding movement and the gentle rustling of clothes and shoes being removed of the receiver. It is possible this person has been here before or has anticipatorily prepared for our session from word-of-mouth instructions provided by previous receivers, but there will be no way to tell until I lay my hands on them.

I am blindfolded. What started as a voluntary experiment for willing participants so that I could elevate my craft turned into a lucrative business model where people pay a hefty buck for me to massage them sans sight “to create an intimate, slow-paced, and effective bodywork treatment”. At least that is what the website says.

Zubeida stays in the room to protect both the receiver and the bodyworker in case anything goes awry. It is not customary for a third person to be in the room during a session, but because of the nature of this experimental work, it is in everyone’s best interest for Zubeida to be present. Zubeida gets fifty percent of all the revenue that comes in. Trust is the bedrock of this industry, and I trust Zubeida with my life.

The table cushion whistles softly as the receiver rolls onto it. I can tell they are face down by the sound of their breath in space—it’s muted, a bit distant. A vague aroma of sourdough encompasses the aura of the receiver, and as I approach the head of the table, it slices through and swallows the knock-off Baccarat Rouge 540 they layered on. The densest layer always swallows even the most expensive fragrances. I have played the guess the perfume game with myself every session for the last one thousand and one sessions.

I can feel the moist heat emanating off their back, so I know I won’t be using much oil for lubrication for this session. Wafts of anger and suppressed sadness of this mystery receiver rise to meet my ears and cheeks. I can feel my face redden. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is no perfect science, but there is a method I must follow, so that the end result is art.

The first minutes are crucial in discerning and defining energies. It could be less than two minutes or as high as thirty but time is the thickest substance in this room so I have not an actual clue of how it passes. Not a word is spoken, but everything is heard. Zubeida invisibilizes her aura to clear the way for the receiver’s and my own energies to comingle. In fact, they call her The Disappearer. While I spend some time alone cleansing myself from the previous receiver before making contact with the next, this is still the first step in all my sessions. I need to be able to delineate what is mine, what is theirs, and what is not theirs but nevertheless they have brought into the room with us that day.

Next, I must neutralize the voices in my own head that echo I am an imposter. I am a hack because I am not actually blind. There are plenty of bodyworkers who are blind, not blindfolded. I remind myself sensory focus is a tool, some are born with it and some simulate it. The ultimate purpose is to tune into the body in front of us so that we can serve. I have become especially good with this tool.

Sometimes I skip that step if it’s not a particularly strong voice in my head, but today it’s strong enough that I can feel a warm pulsing behind my eyeballs. To my right is a tray with a warm towel, and to my left is one that is chilled. I reach toward my left and place the chilled towel over the blindfold so that the coolness seeps slowly to my eyes. I wonder if the receiver also thinks I am a hack. Not a word is spoken, but all is heard.

Nevertheless, I move onto my third step in the process. I remove the now body temperature towel from my face and proceed to sync my breath to their breath until I feel their rhythm in my own body’s water. There is no conscious thought in this step, just a flow. I bend down on my knees to level my ears to their head which is face-down in the cradle.

I hear Zubeida replace the towel I just put down. If it were not for the sound of her bare feet on the floor, I would not have realized she did this since she is an expert at quieting her energetic presence.

After a moment of syncing, I realize this is the most perfectly controlled breathing I have ever experienced with a receiver. Two four-beat counts from a metronome fit precisely into the inhale-exhale of this person’s breath. I feel our breaths deepening and descending with every cycle, from soft nostrils and shallow throat down to heavy chest and tight traps and finally to the deepest diaphragmatic solar plexus. I started to feel our pattern shifting; my breath would follow their breath, almost as if they allowed me to be in sync earlier and are now floating me out and away to follow them. Our bodies are a wave. They breathe in, then I breathe in, then they breathe out, then I breathe out.

As we wave, I begin to feel the warmth rise behind my eyes again. I thought I handled that. It’s distracting. I reached for the chilled towel again and placed it over my face. Yet it only seemed to get warmer. Had I accidentally reached to my right instead of my left? Surely, I would have felt the warmth in my hands?

The waves are less and less in my control, as if the ocean is pulling me into its belly but I resist. I realize that I had not registered any temperature of the towel when I reached for it. My hands are numb, and my eyes are hot. I have never felt this sensation before, but I know better than to panic. Breaking contact while we’re syncing means we must start all over again. I don’t know where we’re going but it’s getting impossible for me to feel anything except the fire in my eyes. The receiver is still a metronome, relaxed on the table. Do they feel what I feel? I haven’t even touched them yet.

Suddenly, a warped, “when is this going to start?” comes from the table. This shocks me as words must not be spoken during the session and my ears start ringing continuously. Don’t they know the rules?!

I retort, “Words are not aloud!” though if I’m being honest, I don’t know if my response reaches the receiver. Every word coming out of my mouth seems to be getting suctioned into a black hole somewhere in the room and I feel a hot liquid seeping through the blindfold. I reach for the hot towel to my right, and it’s still in its place, so what is the moist warmth on my blindfold? I realize that the lavalike liquid is coming from my own head, my own eye sockets. Are they tears? The beginning of every sound is heard, but then the remainder is vacuumed away to who knows where. What do I hear? A gasp? Some footsteps? I haven’t a clue. I have no sense of any breath pattern now. No waves, no control, just gushing. I only feel the color red. I scream for Zubeida three times, and I hear nothing in response. What sadistic universe have I been transported into? I decide it is time.

I undo my blindfold, the first thing I touch this session, only to find that my eyes do not open, and I cannot see. I reach to touch my eyelids, but they are nowhere to be found. All I feel are hot empty holes. Have I lost my eyes? My mouth is open, but I do not know if I am screaming or crying. I frantically search with my hands for something else to touch besides the volcanic craters that just erupted out of my skull. I lose my balance on what I realize are the receiver's dress shoes. But when I reach for the table, there is no moist heat, no breath to sync to, no knockoff Baccarat Rouge 540, no sourdough, no receiver at all. I reach a little further to find an upright body sitting cross-legged in the center of the table. I climb with my hands up their arms to find their face, and the moment I make contact with their face I am pulled into their aura and every ounce of sensory confusion becomes even more confusing.

I am in Zubeida’s protected sphere and Zubeida is sitting on the table. Zubeida my loyal assistant. I am now a passive observer in my mind’s eye into the thoughts and memories they allow me to behold while I am holding her icy cheeks. All one thousand and one sessions flash before my eyes, as if I was lucid dreaming watching myself with the receivers. Then the vision widens, and Zubeida is included in the picture.

Now I understand. And I understand that I know nothing.

In each session again and again it is Zubeida who orchestrates the interactions between myself and the receivers, balancing everyone’s energies, guiding my hands across the terrain of the receivers, and healing these receivers. I am simply a puppet. An empty vessel. I feel the muscles on Zubeida’s face turn into a smile, and I realize she is simultaneously an observer into my thoughts and she knows that the image of my head with empty sockets on a puppet’s body has infiltrated my thoughts. She smiled. Why? Why did she pretend to be my loyal assistant? Why did she allow me to gain fame and fortune? Why did she use me and control me and make me think I was doing important work? The tips of my fingers start to go numb again, she is so icy. But something is dripping. I have lost sensation up to my wrists now. More hot liquid is dripping. Now my forearms and elbows. I am melting. Zubeida is ice, but I am the one melting. I accept my fate. I drip onto Zubeida, and she absorbs me until every drop of my matter is a part of her.

I was never her puppet, I was never her boss, she was never my assistant. And now I am floating inside her every cell. She has absorbed me and she has absorbed the receiver--I can only assume from the presence of their shoes and the absence of their body. I cannot help but wonder what else has occurred beyond my blindfold during our sessions, and who else has disappeared into Zubeida, The Disappearer.