She had not meant to call him at midnight.
She had meant to call him at ten. She had meant to call him at ten because her shoulder had been hurting since Tuesday, and the hurting had gone from the kind of hurting she could ignore to the kind of hurting she could not, and she had remembered, on Wednesday afternoon, that her friend Renata had once mentioned a massage therapist who did house calls, who worked late, who was good with people who couldn’t sleep, and she had looked him up, and his name was Henry, and his reviews said he was a widower who had been a physical therapist for fifteen years and who now did private bodywork for people who needed it after hours.
She had meant to call at ten. At ten she had been brushing her teeth, and she had decided to call him in the morning instead, because calling at ten felt like an imposition. At eleven she had been in bed, unable to sleep because of her shoulder. At twelve she had picked up the phone, because the shoulder was now the kind of hurting she could not have, and because she was divorced and allowed to call a massage therapist at midnight if she wanted to.
He answered on the second ring. He sounded awake.
“This is Henry,” he said. “I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”
“It’s not a social call. I’m sorry for the time.”
“You’re not sorry. You’re in pain.”
“How did you know.”
“People who aren’t in pain call at ten. People who are in pain call at midnight and apologize for it. Tell me about the shoulder.”
“It’s been hurting since Tuesday. The right one. Right here.” She touched it. “It feels like a knot under the shoulder blade. It hurts when I breathe in. It hurts more when I reach behind me.”
“How old are you.”
“Thirty-four.”
“What do you do.”
“I teach second grade.”
“What else do you do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What else. Do you work out. Do you play a sport. Do you do anything with your arms that involves lifting things above your head.”
“I moved apartments on Sunday.”
“That’ll do it. Can I come by.”
“Now?”
“In about thirty minutes. I have a session ending at twelve-thirty. I can be at your place by twelve forty-five.”
“I — yes. Yes, please.”
“What’s your address.”
She gave him her address. He said he would see her soon. She hung up. She went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing an old T-shirt and sleep shorts. She considered changing. She did not change.
She went back to the kitchen and put the kettle on, because that was what she did when she was nervous, which she was not.
She was a little.
He arrived at twelve-forty-three. He was carrying a small leather bag, and he was wearing a gray henley and dark jeans, and he looked like someone who had thought, on the way over, that he would probably take his shoes off at the door, which was the first sign, she thought, of a person who had been raised right.
“I’m Henry,” he said.
“I know. You said on the phone.”
“I did. Show me your shoulder.”
“Should I — here?”
“Here is fine. You can stay standing. Can you take your shirt off, or do you want me to work over it?”
“I can take it off.”
She took it off. She was, underneath, wearing a soft bralette that she had not thought twice about at midnight and was now thinking twice about. He did not react to the bralette. He looked at her shoulder with the look of someone assessing a piece of furniture he wanted to fix.
“Upper trap,” he said. “And the levator scap. And probably a referred pain from the rhomboid. Lay on the couch, face down, if that’s okay.”
“That’s okay.”
She lay on the couch. He put his hands on her shoulder. His hands were warm and very large and very precise, and the first thirty seconds of the touch hurt in a way she didn’t expect, and the next thirty seconds felt like someone was unlocking a door she had forgotten was a door.
“This is going to hurt,” he said, “and then it’s going to feel better.”
“Okay.”
He pressed. She inhaled sharply. He held the press. After about fifteen seconds the pain under his hands turned into something else, and the something else felt, against her will, like a small cry that she swallowed.
“Good,” he said, very softly. “You’re doing good.”
“I’m doing good,” she said, into the cushion.
He worked for twenty minutes. He worked in silence except for the occasional breathe in and breathe out, and the silence was not uncomfortable, and the silence was, she thought, the silence of someone who had spent a long time learning when to talk and when not to talk.
After twenty minutes he said, “How’s the shoulder.”
“Better. A lot better.”
“Can you sit up.”
She sat up. He was sitting on the coffee table in front of her, which he had pulled close while she had been face-down. He was looking at her the way he had been looking at her shoulder — with the look of someone assessing a thing he wanted to help.
“I want to ask you a question,” he said, “and you can say no.”
“Okay.”
“Are you sleeping.”
“Not really.”
“Is it the shoulder, or is it something else.”
“It’s the shoulder. It’s also something else.”
“Do you want to talk about the something else.”
“I don’t want to talk about the something else with a stranger at one in the morning.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I also don’t want you to leave.”
He looked at her for a long time. The kettle, on the stove behind her, started to whistle.
“You made tea,” he said.
“I made tea.”
“Is one of those for me.”
“One of those is for you.”
“I would like one of those, if you don’t mind. And I would like to sit on the couch next to you while I drink it, if that’s okay. And I would like to stay until you fall asleep, if that’s okay. And I would like, before I leave, to leave you my card, so that you can call me at ten in the morning next time, instead of at midnight, and so that I can come back then, instead of now, when it’s actually convenient.”
“That sounds like a plan,” she said.
“That sounds like a plan.”
She made the tea. He sat on the couch. She sat next to him. He did not touch her shoulder. He did not touch her at all. He drank the tea. She drank her tea. The apartment was quiet. Outside, a car alarm went off somewhere and then stopped.
“Can I tell you about the something else,” she said, after a while.
“You can.”
“My ex-husband used to make me tea at midnight. When I couldn’t sleep. He used to sit exactly where you’re sitting. He used to do this thing where he’d put his hand on my knee, just his pinky, just the outside of my knee, and he’d leave it there until I fell asleep.”
“What happened to him.”
“I left him. Three years ago. He was kind, and we were wrong, and I couldn’t stay with someone who was wrong.”
“That’s a hard thing.”
“It was. It was the hardest thing.”
“And the tea at midnight.”
“I haven’t had tea at midnight in three years. I haven’t had anyone sit where you’re sitting in three years.”
“I’m sorry. I can go.”
“No. I want you to stay.”
“Okay.”
They sat. He did not put his hand on her knee. He did not put his pinky on the outside of her knee. He sat, and he drank the tea, and he let her sit, and he let the apartment be the apartment she had not let it be in three years.
“I lost my wife,” he said, after a while. “Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was cancer. It was very fast. She was very kind. She made tea at midnight.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was the hardest thing.”
“It was.”
They sat. The tea cooled. He finished his cup. He set it on the table. He looked at her.
“Can I put my hand on your knee,” he said.
“You can.”
“The outside of your knee.”
“The outside of my knee.”
“Only my pinky.”
“Only your pinky.”
He put his pinky on the outside of her knee.
They sat.
She did not fall asleep on the couch. She fell asleep, eventually, in her bed, with his pinky on the outside of her knee, because he had walked her to the bed, and she had asked him to stay, and he had stayed.
In the morning he made her coffee. He made it in her kitchen, using her beans, in her French press, and he made it the way she liked it because she had told him how she liked it at one in the morning, when she had asked him to stay, and he had listened.
“Call me at ten next time,” he said before he left.
“In the morning?”
“In the morning.”
She smiled. “I will.”
He kissed her forehead, brief and careful, then picked up his coat.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Goodbye.”
He left. She closed the door and drank the coffee he had made her. Her shoulder did not hurt. For the first morning in three years, her chest did not hurt either.
At 9:58 she set the empty mug in the sink and called him.
“This is Henry.”
“It’s ten,” she said. “Almost.”
She could hear him smile. “It is. How’s the shoulder?”
“The shoulder is fine.” She was standing in her kitchen in the T-shirt she’d slept in, and her heart was going hard enough that she put a hand flat on the counter. “I’m not calling about the shoulder.”
He was quiet for a second. Not the uncomfortable kind.
“Then I have to say something boring first,” he said. “If you’re calling as a client, I’m going to refer you to a colleague of mine. Dana. She’s better on shoulders than I am anyway. I won’t book you again. I don’t do it both ways.”
“I’m not calling as a client.”
“Okay.” A breath. “Then I’m not coming as a therapist. I’m coming as Henry. No bag.”
“Come at noon,” she said.
He came at 11:52, which she decided to find charming. Gray henley again, no leather bag, a paper sack from the bakery on the corner that he set on the counter without explaining. He took his shoes off at the door.
She had changed, then changed back. She’d ended up in a soft cotton dress she wore on Sundays, nothing under it, and the decision had felt reckless in the mirror and felt correct now, watching him look at her from the doorway.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Last night you had a pinky rule.”
“I remember.”
“I’d like to renegotiate the pinky rule.”
She laughed, and the laugh broke whatever was left of the nervousness, and she crossed the kitchen and kissed him.
He kissed carefully at first, his big warm hands just resting at her waist, like a man who had spent fifteen years learning exactly how much pressure was enough. She pressed closer. He let out a slow breath against her mouth and his hands spread across her back, and then down, and then he found out what wasn’t under the dress and went very still.
“Oh,” Henry said.
“I didn’t want to waste time.”
“That’s—” He laughed, low, and pressed his forehead to hers. “That’s a very efficient choice.”
She led him to the bedroom. The same bed he’d sat beside last night with his pinky on her knee. In daylight it felt like a different room. She pulled his henley over his head and he let her. Solid, soft at the middle, a scatter of gray in the hair on his chest, a scar under his collarbone she’d ask about later. She put her palms flat on him the way he’d put his on her shoulder.
“Your turn to lie down,” she said.
He lay down. She climbed over him, the dress riding up around her thighs, and undid his jeans. He was hard already, thick, straining against his boxers, and when she pulled them down and wrapped her hand around him he closed his eyes and said her name like he’d been saving it.
She stroked him slowly, learning him, watching his face the way he’d watched her shoulder. Then she bent and took him in her mouth, and his hand came up and rested on the back of her head, not pushing, just there, and he made a low rough sound that went straight between her legs.
“Come up here,” he said after a minute, voice gone. “I want to touch you. Please.”
She came up. He rolled her onto her back and pushed the dress up to her ribs and kissed her stomach, her hip, the inside of her thigh, unhurried. Then he put his mouth on her.
She had not been touched like that in three years. She had not been touched like that, honestly, ever. He went slow and broad and patient, his tongue flat, then circling her clit, then flat again, reading every hitch in her breathing the way he’d read the knot under her shoulder blade. When she tensed he eased off. When she pushed her hips up into his mouth he gave her more. He slid two fingers into her, curling, and said against her, “Breathe in,” and she laughed so hard she almost cried, and then she couldn’t laugh at all, because he did something with his fingers and his mouth at once and she came with both hands in his hair and her thighs shaking around his head.
He kept going, gentle, until she pushed him away, oversensitive and gasping.
“You’re doing good,” he said, smug, wiping his mouth.
“Get up here.”
He got up there. She had a box of condoms in the nightstand that she had bought eleven months ago in a fit of optimism and never opened; she tore it open with her teeth. He rolled one on and settled between her thighs and pushed into her slowly, his weight on his forearms, his eyes on hers, waiting at every inch until she nodded.
It was not fast. Neither of them wanted fast. He moved in long deep strokes that she felt everywhere, and she wrapped her legs around his back and held on, and the bed creaked in a rhythm she had forgotten a bed could make. He kissed her neck. He kissed the shoulder, the right one, the one that had brought him here, and murmured, “Still okay?” and she said, “Harder,” and he laughed and gave it to her.
She came again, slower this time, rolling up through her with his hand between them, and he followed a few strokes later with his face pressed into her neck and a long shuddering groan that she felt in her own chest.
They lay there in the noon light, sweaty and breathing. Her Sunday dress was somewhere near the closet.
“What’s in the bakery bag?” she asked eventually.
“Two almond croissants.” He turned his head on the pillow. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to stay for lunch. I figured you could eat both if you didn’t.”
“Stay for lunch.”
“Okay.”
Later, at her kitchen counter, she ate half of his croissant too. He put his pinky on the outside of her knee under the table, just to make her laugh, and it did.
That afternoon she called Dana about her shoulder. The appointment was for Tuesday, at ten.
