Mysterious Massage Parlor Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Hello dear patron! I haven't forgotten about Mysterious Massage Parlor (MMP) by a long shot.  It is actually something that I want to work on a lot more.  I am kind of midway or almost finished with chapter two right now and while I like to share things and build momentum, this is kind of throwing something out there from left field.  Despite that I said I wanted to drop more EM in a previous post.

 What can you do?  Illness causes me to make strange choices sometimes. Oh well. So there isn't any explicit growth in this chapter, let alone mention of it as well.  This is mostly laying down some simple groundwork for what will be the basis of the tail.

This is something I think will be fun to work on from time to time, but don't know when I will ever finish it.  Part of me wants to turn this thing into a full blown romance novel with sexy elements as opposed to my normal fare which is full blown sexiness with romantic elements.

 Let a writer branch out, right? I want to expand my range, my capability, and my audience eventually.  This is kind of an experiment for me.  One of a few, but this one I think may still find a home despite its very very slow nature.  In forty-five years when I finally finish it there will be growth and expansion, trust me.  Not sure how much sexiness though.  I am debating about that. I have been writing about weiners a TON lately and that is plenty of fun of course, but I need to give a bit more TLC to other parts and points of view that don't get as much spotlight in the writing.

Anyway. Give it a read if you'd like! I'd be very pleased to hear from you and what you think about it.  Still just a simple plain opening build up scene setter dealie, but something nonetheless and a change of pace.  People have mentioned that they want to see what is going on with this story and it is about time!

Please enjoy the first draft of the first chapter of 'Mysterious Massage Parlor'. There are a couple rough sentences in there, but they will all get fixed up in due time of course. Just go with the flow.

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Chapter 1

It was an awkward half wave with curled fingers, half bow with a head tilt thrown in, eyes closed happily when the gentleman slowly pulled the stack of books from the counter in front of the shy librarian. She thought she was being cute, but the polite yet uneasy look on the borrower’s face told another story.

“Thank you for coming! Enjoy reading!” She chirped kind of half-standing waving goodbye before second-guessing this bold gesture and sat back down dropping her head onto arms crossed on the inner desk section of the counter.  Half measures were her bread and butter. So many things she never fully committed to or second-guessed herself about or outright denied herself due to a Rolodex of reasons she had at the ready. He looked over his shoulder to wave goodbye with a nod and she was gone, hidden and buried in her slight arms taking deep breaths before popping her head up with a quick jerk and smiling at the next reader.

She went through the motions welcoming them, making small talk, commenting on one of their selections, and offering suggestions hoping for some kind of conversation to drum up.  Anything to take her mind off of the disaster that was supposed to be one of the week’s highlights - Seeing Stanley.

Stanley came in once or twice a week and had been borrowing books in a young adult series called ‘The Vampwolves of Weslaco’. It was a fantasy series and when she read all 20 books of the series over one weekend after noticing him working on the series, she had one main takeaway. There were a lot more revolver gunfights taking place during broad daylight between werewolf vampires in Weslaco than she anticipated. The fact that cowboy hats protected them enough from sunlight didn’t make sense and while there were contrivances she couldn’t reconcile many of them. She did enjoy the romantic encounters, though. Regardless of her long list of gripes about the series, she knew a ton about that southwestern town and tried to spark up a conversation about it with him, but it rarely worked. He barely even noticed her. Who would?

 Her name was Madeline which was a pretty tame name she felt. She had medium-length straight black hair that was generally thrown into a messy spikey bun off to the side and a thick pair of wavy asymmetrical side bangs framing her face. She also had a thick pair of round red-rimmed glasses hiding her chunky black eyebrows. But that was where the thickness stopped.

 Madeline was a somewhat smaller-bodied lithe girl that had a shape to be sure, but it wasn’t overtly feminine. If it weren’t for her hairstyle and higher-pitched voice, she could have been mistaken for a young boy who was starting to get taller, but she didn’t have nearly as much acne. She was only a few inches over five feet tall and was generally diminutive and easy to overlook.  The library was a haven for her but more than that, books were a haven for her and after getting her degree in Library Science and landing this job she felt like she was finally home. She didn’t need to deal with peer pressure to party or go out nearly as much, but when she did it was among a crowd of her peers - fellow readers, writers, and generally introverted people who would prefer to keep to themselves but couldn’t be totally allowed to by society for one reason or another.

People would call her a ‘good girl’ that got good grades in school and didn’t ‘get in the way’. She had a few boyfriends in her school and university years and has had some physical and romantic experiences as well, but nothing too adventurous or wild. She liked the idea of romance and even yearned for it, but everything in TV and Film and on billboards and even the covers of magazines was all too much for her. It was overkill and it did titillate her for sure, but simultaneously it crushed her spirit in the same fell swoop.

 She wasn’t competitive. She had no brothers or sisters and her parents were very even-keeled and logical, but not quite Vulcan in their approach. She was fortunate and her family valued information and stories and technology so she had a computer from a young age. She was encouraged to read books, use libraries, learn, and rewarded often when she did. After all things were said and done, she had want for very little in the grand scheme of things and had very few complaints about life in general.

She enjoyed drinking tea, both hot and cold, with or without milk and sugar, and pretty much anywhere. It was one of her hobbies you could say and she had a vast array of varieties both bagged and loose. She enjoyed drinking tea and eating snacks during the day at work, and also at night when watching the occasional show.  She loved reading books more than most things but wasn’t a complete Luddite when it came to popular media and did watch a few shows and movies on streaming services and listened to podcasts and subscribed to youtube channels.

‘Some of these girls are so outrageous…’ she would say to herself through wet, warm, tendrils of steam coming up from a hot cup held in both hands. She’d grab a biscuit or a cheesy cracker from the plate on her coffee table and shake her head sometimes. Other times she would just stare wide-eyed at these literal symbols of sexuality being flaunted so brazenly. Girls which were so brave and unafraid. Girls which were so… curvacious. Hourglass figures were shoved down her throat constantly in advertisements, some of the shows she watched, and even in some of the more racy books she read.  In Weslaco, there was no shortage of busty Wolfpire damsels in distress and she couldn’t deny that reading about it was thrilling. But along with those thrills, there was always light underlying pricking at the edges of her psyche reminding her that she wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t sexy enough. This or that, these or those weren’t big enough or were too big. It was too much sometimes.

Thank goodness for the library and the peace of mind there. People were friendly and unassuming. Nobody made demands from her more than asking where books were or which books she preferred. She would run to the library sometimes and felt like emotionally and mentally she did sometimes.  She was safe here and could grow as a person infinitely just by spending time with books contained inside and she liked the prospect of that idea. She wasn’t a particularly active person and certainly wasn’t picked first when choosing players for teams on the schoolyard. But she lead a healthy life and did enjoy moving around. She was a ‘take the stairs instead of the elevator’ type of person and tried to walk and use public transportation more than going everywhere in a car.

Her thirties were not too far away, she thought one afternoon after taking a bite of a veggie sandwich and reaching for her mug that said ‘Yes I really do need all these books’ on it. She took a sip and followed it with a deep inhaling breath letting the fragrance wash over her.  It was an herbal blend mainly consisting of coriander and anise, a spicy, sweet, nuttiness with hints of citrus.  She swallowed and let out a nice refreshing ‘ahh’. The pesky thought went away from her mind, but not completely.  Oh! Here came Stan, earlier than usual. He must have really enjoyed the eleventh book. It was a page-turner but ended up dragging at the best parts she thought.  There was authentic character development which was a nice change of pace and a rare return to form since the original trilogy, but Madeline knew that the best was yet to come for her crush. The more recent books surpass any of the author’s previous offerings now that they were making a living off of writing these young adult rags.  Oh boy, he was coming directly toward the information counter!

She dabbed her mouth with a hand towel and immediately became flustered blinking quickly and trying to arrange her sandwich and teacup in an aesthetically pleasing way. Unless they leaned over the desk severely, patrons of the library would be hard-pressed to see anything on her desk except for things on the far end of the service section of the counter. This was lost on her and she looked up adjusting her glasses and blowing a wavy lock of hair back into place on the side of her head.

 “Hello there Stan!  How can I help you today?” She said with her usual semi-forced perkiness, but when it was him it was underlined by faint waves of nervousness. Her heart was beating and Stan, for all intents and purposes was a fairly bland gentleman with an average build, dark messy hair, and wore mostly baggy pants with a jacket. He smiled ruffling his hand through the hair on the back of his head and took a nervous glance to the side before looking down at her.

 “Hey, Maddy. How you doing?” His voice was deep, and he spoke in a tangentially interested tone but seemed hurried today.

 “I’m good, you know. Surrounded by books. Paradise, for me. Faring much better than the whelplings when Boris Armand had them held siege in the Wescalo school house.” She said with a beaming smile and stood up leaning forward a bit leaning on the counter. She clicked off one or two slow blinks looking into his eyes. There was a pause, but for how long nobody could say. “And you?”

 “Yeah, that was uh…darn that Boris, right? I’m glad you’re good. I’m good, thanks.” He said while sliding the book from his coat pocket onto the counter and toward her.  She reached for it and there was some incidental contact between fingers.  His were rough and a little dirty and hers were clean and smooth.  She blushed and looked up at him, but she was the only one there for that particular moment.

“I finished this one and am gonna grab the next one.” He said smiling. He closed his eyes and took a whiff. “Something smells good, is that one of your fancy teas? Perfume or something?” he commented. Her blush deepened and she leaned on one hand against the counter and grabbed her teacup with the other and brought it up to her face and jiggled the cup slightly. She looked like a corny advertisement for some teabag company wearing a grey sweater vest over a light pink button-down with the sleeves rolled up just before her elbows.

“It must be my tea. I was just tucking into lunch.” She took a sip, her glasses fogged up and she looked over them at him with what she believed was an expression of seduction. “Coriander and Anise.” The last words left her lips slowly and transitioned naturally into a smile and a wink.

“Nice. Smells good.” He held out his library card toward her and she reacted too quickly and fumbled the cup a little bit reaching over with her leaning hand to check the card. “Do you need this?” He asked. She put down her cup, pulled over the scanner and the book, and checked it back into the library after giving it a once over.

“You’re good to go, Stan.” She handed his card back to him, but there was no incidental contact this time. Darn. “I’ll be here when you get back! Call me if you get lost!” She said practically laughing out loud at how silly that was. What she hoped was a genuine smile crossed his face and reached his eyes and he let out a short ‘heh’.

“I will, don’t you worry about that.” And patted the counter twice while turning away to head toward the fiction section of the library. She allowed herself a single swoon, a small fist pump, and then plopped down in her chair to analyze all the things she did wrong and said incorrectly while finishing her sandwich.  It was delicious and so was the tea. She really liked this blend and made a note to put it in the rotation a bit more frequently.

Stan returned a good five or ten minutes later announcing himself by sliding the book along the counter toward her.

 “Back again.” He said.  She looked up from the article she was reading on her monitor, saw it was him, and jumped bolt upright making her wheely office chair crack loudly forcing her expression to one of full surprise. She blinked a couple of times and reverted to her smile

“Hey there…” Her head went right down to the book on the counter and her face crinkled up like she opened a jar of kombucha. It couldn’t be tea, she felt, probiotics or not. She was so glad that phase in her life was over, but what she wasn’t over was how overtly sexual the cover of book twelve was. She looked up if people had protested it when she first laid eyes on it, and they had.  But the author’s comments were to the effect of her books were intended for young adult readers although the age range started far younger than this cover would suggest.

“Ah, this one. Can you believe this cover?” She grabbed the book shaking her head checking the back cover and then the front again, scanning it. “It’s controversial, you know?” She finished.

“I see what you mean. That Wolfpire lady does have some pretty hefty bazongas, I will admit.” He took the book back from her and studied the cover again smiling and letting out a stifled laugh. “That is what all the boys want, I guess. Sells books though!” He looked up at her face with an upside-down smirk on it.

“Even books are susceptible to the poisons of greater media sometimes it seems like. Despite the more, uh, liberal descriptions of bazongas, as you term them, it is a good story.” She said while holding back a lot of opinions, but she kept her cool and managed to keep it together.

“I am frankly surprised at how into this series you are, Maddy. It is a guilty pleasure for me and generally as close to softcore as a writer can get while still being able to make money off of tweens.” He said with the conviction of someone who did a cursory google search and declared themselves an authority on the subject. But he also called her out.

“Well, uh, you know. I guess I wanted to get in touch with the readers and after checking a few out, started to see some of myself in a few of the characters, I guess.” She said with surprising ease. He smiled and nodded.

“You are the only other person I know that has actually read this stuff and I always imagine you when they describe Ciarra Ylfa, you know, the smart one? She always figures out the mystery right at the end? Like when she connected the dots that Boris Armand needed the whelplings’ fear to power the Ulfenwerfer Machine, right?” He said it smiling like he paid her a compliment and rolled her eyes shaking her head while scoffing while shrugging. She smiled with gritted teeth and grabbed the library card he handed to her scanning it, tapping on a few keyboard keys, then returning it and the book to him.

“I wonder if she will be able to do it again, surrounded by so many other ‘strong’ female wolfpires?” She did air quotes with her fingers while saying it and leaned forward on the desk. “I always like to imagine myself as more like Tala Adrienne. Although Ciarra isn’t bad either.”

“Tala? I don’t blame you, there. Whew.” He literally had to let off steam mid-sentence remembering her. “Nobody gets the better of her!” They nodded in agreement for a moment and he added one more comment. “I guess outside of when she is in the bedroom, right? Hah!” He laughed and she had to admit he was right.

“She certainly has a weakness for the flesh to be sure. But I think it is more a metaphor for the tragic nature of the wolfpire in that…” She was ready to unleash the manifesto she had written in her head while sifting through 20 books of this, but he looked up to the clock impatiently and cut her off.

“Sorry, Mads. Lunch break is almost over and I want to crack into the first chapter or two before I gotta get back to work. You take care now. Thanks again!” He patted the desk twice and jogged off toward the front door.

“Ok, that’s great. You’re welcome! See you, Stan! See you..” She waved and then plopped down leaning back in her chair with her forearms over her eyes crossing like a big X as she swiveled groaning like she had a knife stabbed in her gut.

The rest of the day flew by like a flash and she felt like a stone statue that birds congregated around in spite of her. She closed the doors, finished her final tasks, and headed home. The walking and bus ride helped a lot.  She popped by the supermarket on the way home and grabbed a few things on the way including an ice cream cone which comforted her enough to last the whole way to her front door. The lock to her apartment door on the third floor clicked shot and she fell back against it sliding down with her grocery bag and putting her head into her palms started to ruffle her head so violently that her bun came undone giving her a wild countenance.

One or two tears of frustration and stress dripped down onto her black stockings and she sniffed hard before it turned into the speech contest all over again. She knew it wasn’t the end of the world, but she did everything right and it wasn’t enough. Every time something didn’t go right for her she ended up having flashbacks to that damn contest.

For the rest of the night while cooking, talking during dinner at the TV between bites, and all the time stomping around her room in between, she was mumbling as if arguing with an imaginary foe.

“Ciarra Ylfa. That waif. She is the most disrespected character in the whole series and that is saying a lot.” While cutting carrots with concerning force. “Her nickname is literally the runt of the litter and they always go out of their way using her for comparisons for how sexy and curvy and desirable Tala is.” She was shaking her head with a scowl screwing her face up like crinkled foil.

“Tala Adrienne. That slut. How could I even say that out loud? Ugh. That’s what all the boys want though, right?” She mimicked Stan while turning on the gas to her stove a little too high for comfort. “Then there is book 15, the start of the new trilogy where an ugliness curse takes her and she is only ‘on par’ with Ciarra then.” She did air quotes with her fingers staring out the window at the stars, with whom she was apparently confessing. She continued, “Luckily for her Ciarra figures it all out, naturally, and everyone else helps to make sure Tala’s beauty returns. It takes two and a half books to do it, but thankfully she is even sexier than before when they finally sort it all out. UGH,” She was ranting with red in her eyes as steam continued up into her face from the rolling waters and fogging up her glasses. A lock of black hair fell in front of her face and she blew it away with exasperation and after taking one calming breath, tossed the pasta in the pot with a splash sending a scalding driplets flying, one of which caught the back of the hand which she grimaced at for a moment then shook to cool it off.

It continued like that and boiled down to the fact that Ciarra is a weak pathetic wolfpire, who had principally been used as the ‘plain girl’ comparison to other more comely wolfpires like the lascivious Tala Adrienne. Tala, who was the buxom wolfpire on the controversial cover of the book that she hated so much. Represented so many things she didn’t care for. And every character in those books, male, female, or otherwise, all drooling over that indecent and salacious bitch. Well, literally, a half-bitch. Who knows, the whole concept of it all was on thin ice from the start in her mind. She was stewing in her thoughts while she warmed up some pasta sauce from the fridge and tossed some garlic bread in the toaster oven. She set up at the tv to enjoy her meal and turned something on.

It was one of the more tame shows that weren’t really a romance thing and the stars must have aligned or something causing her jaw fell open. She shook her head watching and kept eating.

It was a survival comedy show about people camping on an island - lots of good information about actual survival skills, and flora and fauna, believe it or not - and the premise this time was they discovered a tomb that caused a curse to spread around. The curse was literally making girls grow huge boobs and butts and it was non-stop gags of girls ripping out of shirts or guys tripping over themselves to get a look. It all resolved by the end of the episode and everyone was normal again after the final one-liner the laugh track rolled into the ending theme.

She was livid but had also been glued to the screen the whole time scoffing and nay-saying under her breath about all of it.

“Is that all we are anymore?  Just vessels whose worth is determined by the size of our breasts and ass?” She turned off the TV and tossed the remote onto the couch.

“Damn it.” Was the best she could muster stomping off to go get changed and take a shower.

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So how was that?  Despite a few strange sentences here and there, what did you think?  If you finished it this far, good for you.  Does it make you wonder what will happen?  can you already predict how things will go?  I wonder.

Did this story have a different feeling than my normal style of writing? I am sure once you get a taste of the second chapter you will feel a bit more like there is something worth waiting for.

Either way, thanks for reading and have a lovely week and weekend.