lurched out of a taxi and hollered, 'Excuse me love, do you know where the health studio is?", I thought I'd teach him a lesson. 'Do you mean the brothel?' I asked, adopting my most haughty demeanour. 'Yeah, that's right,' the bloke replied, without a trace of shame. I pointed the place out and he disappeared up its staircase into realms of, presumably, bliss.
Anyway, Northside Health Studios has long since closed its doors, but lately a new, (and, I had thought, very different), enterprise has begun trading in its old location. I hadn't taken much notice of it until this morning, when I was surprised to see a rather burly man emerge from the entrance and place one of those folding advertising boards out on the pavement. The reason I was surprised is that the new place looks very touchy-feely and I'd imagined somehow it would be staffed by women. But when I looked at the star attraction, topping the list of services available, I had to concede that some things can't be provided without at least a man or two:
The euphemisms the sex industry uses these days are getting scary. Though presumably 'pregnancy' means pretty much what it says. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what's going on up there. I looked at all their signs closely today, wondering if Pregnancy was the condition you had to have in order to qualify for the other services but, on their leaflet it says, "Services: Pregnancy, and Hot Stones, and Lymphatic Drainage, and ...." What is more they claim you can get some of your money back from health insurance. Hot stones?
DeleteI think I've sen pictures of the stones outside suburban spa businesses -- flattish, dark river-stones, usually arranged down the spine of a woman lying on her stomach with her wrists crossed under her chin and her eyes closed. They must be soothing in some way, like firm little hot water bottles.
DeleteMy grandmother used to have stoneware hot water bottles, which is how I know that one of the great virtues a hot water bottle needs to possess is lack of firmness.
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