Teardrops on my massage
How my relationship with massage parlours changed after knowing about his sex addiction
Massage parlour. Pawn shop. Singapore Pools.
The quintessential trio of shops in every Singaporean neighbourhood. I didn’t notice or think much of them growing up. Now, I find myself counting the number of parlours I see in a single stretch. Does this HDB block really need 4 massage parlours? Why is the line for the Singapore Pools always longer than the line for the doctor’s? How many mothers have walked into this pawn shop to sell their family gold for money?
Despite being in plain slight, I never thought of the impact these shops have on our society. I’m lucky my family sheltered me from the world of addiction, and I wouldn’t have minded if it stayed that way. Now when I walk past a massage parlour, I find myself thinking - how many families have been destroyed by the men who lie to their wives and come here for a release?
The word “massage parlour” was never a dirty word to me. I grew up dancing, and I developed a deep understanding of my own body. I know which muscle is pulled and where I’m storing pain. I used to love massages for this reason, and never felt shyness or discomfort during one. There was one time my sisters and I came out of a massage discussing if all our masseuses also worked on our breasts, to make sure it wasn’t a solitary experience. It wasn’t, and I remember thinking how comfortable I am with my own body that I hardly flinched during that part. It didn’t hold further meaning to me beyond my masseuse working on yet another part of my body. Imagine the amount of trust I placed in a complete stranger to feel this way. I was just a teenager.
Fast forward 10 years to my late twenties. I’m alone in the room with my female masseuse. She starts by washing my feet in warm water. I splurge on an expensive experience in Bali, hoping it’s fancy and far enough not to remind me of every single time he entered a cheap, neighbourhood massage parlour under false aliases to engage a sex worker behind my back. The sex work itself is valid and real, I know those women are doing their jobs. The lies were not. I can’t believe he would come out after and text me that he loves me, or use my car to drive himself home after, or still have the cheek to borrow tens of thousands of dollars from me while lying to me. I realise my vision is blurry. I think she asked me where I’m from but I can’t see my masseuse. I blink away the tears, fuck, now I’m literally crying. What’s wrong with me? I think the room is dark enough, she won’t notice if I wipe my face. I want to reply her but if I do, she will definitely know I’m crying and think I’m crazy. I already think I’m crazy. He keeps saying he never called me that, but that’s because he knows it’s textbook-misogyny. He still invalidates my feelings and makes me think I’m being unreasonable for having boundaries after being cheated on. Blames me for not trusting him, “a relationship can’t be built without trust”. It made me feel crazy without having to use the word. Misogyny disguised under politically correct words is harder to detect. The room is closing in on me. I’ve held my breath for too long. My hands are clenched in fists and my body is frozen. I swallow the lump in my throat that we get when we want to cry. I manage a conversation. I don’t want to be rude.
I felt relieved as we moved from the chair to the bed, face down. I finally let the tears run free, and take deep breaths through that face hole in every massage bed, without the embarrassment of my masseuse seeing me. Every touch from her hand feels like fire on my body. It’s not the way it used to be, pressure melting into my muscles as I drift away to a subconscious state of mind. Somehow, it ended. I didn’t dissociate as much this time as compared to the last body massage. After all, this is only my second body massage since I came to know about the sex addiction and cheating in parlours. Something I used to enjoy so much, taken away from me for no fault of my own. I cough up the $100 at the counter, and laughed at how I paid for what was a horrible experience for me.
I’m an intelligent woman, and I thought I had sufficiently rationalised the 2 years of cheating to myself. Childhood trauma, addiction, shame… it’s got nothing to do with me, right? I don’t need to feel bad about it. My 2 post-”confession” body massages have taught me otherwise. I can’t ignore the visceral reaction from my body, and I have to learn from her, accept that not everything can be explained away with logic. Every time I walk past the massage parlour at Block 57 after buying groceries, I wonder, “this is right where I live, I’m sure they offer extra services too?” I want that voice in my head to get softer every day. There are some things I can live without knowing; I grew up in this neighbourhood, never moved houses.
I haven’t gone for another massage since this last one in Bali. I hope I can enjoy one again, carefree and trusting when a masseuse touches me, just like in my teen years.