True SPA horror story

I recently went out of my comfort zone to get a massage. My back had been killing me for the past several weeks, and my buddy kept telling me I had to go to this particular spa in town. He hounded me about it every time I complained about my back pain. Not only was he adamant that a massage would do wonders for me physically, but he was also very persuasive with his insistence that a lot of the masseuses were super hot chicks that knew what they were doing. With that in mind, I thought that if I could get one of those nice-looking girls to put their hands on me, I wouldn’t have to be worried about the awkwardness I was usually concerned with when I considered getting a massage. Unfortunately, my friend didn’t let on that I needed to call ahead to book an appointment with a specific masseuse. I walked in during what must have been their busiest time of day. The lobby was full of people waiting. Immediately, the receptionist started crowing at me and making me feel like I’d made a mistake by coming. “We only have one therapist available for walk-ins. The wait time will be at least 45 minutes. If that doesn’t work for you, then you’ll have to make an appointment.” “No, no, that’s okay. I can wait. I just really need some work on my back.” “All right, I’ll put you on the next slot with Josephine. What kind of work do you need? I’ll let her know.” “Um, the pain is really bad, chronic too. I guess I need deep tissue.” “Okay, and your name?” “It’s Gabe.” “Have a seat, and Josephine will call your name when she’s ready for you.” “Thank you.” I took the last available seat, stuck between a sweaty construction worker and an overweight secretary. I was already having my doubts about the experience. I had just gotten yelled at for walking in, but I couldn’t even leave if I wanted to. It didn’t even cross my mind that the name Josephine was a little off for someone who was supposed to be a hot young girl—not until the waiting was up and Josephine revealed herself to me. I tried not to show my disappointment on my face, but my stomach truly sank to the floor when I saw her. “Gabe?” she called. She wasn’t just old, but she wasn’t even looking good for her age. She had this awful hunchback and this drooping, crooked jaw. Her head looked way too big for her body, but the glasses she wore were somehow still disproportionately wide for her face. Even worse were her crusty yellowing teeth that made it obvious she’d never been one to care too much about oral hygiene throughout her many years. But the thing that surprised me most, even more than her baggy, wrinkly skin, were her hands. They were crooked and arthritic from decades of massaging people for a living, and it was honestly a wonder how in the world she was able to still do this job with her hands in such a state. We went through what I imagine is the basic small talk before a massage. It was like talking to my grandmother after avoiding her for a couple of years, except I was half-pilled, then laying face down on a table. But then she began the massage, and immediately I knew that it wasn’t what I had imagined. I hadn’t really had the foresight to understand what deep tissue meant, but I was learning in that moment as this sharp old woman began to dig her jagged elbows into the pressure points all over my back. I groaned and squirmed, but she was unfazed. She even put her weight on me to keep me steady. I bit my tongue and tried to bear through it, hoping that it would eventually feel good if I got through the initial shock of it. That did not work. It only got worse. At some point, it felt like she was straight up just punching me in the back like some bad CPR. Then she did something I didn’t know she had the agility for: she climbed up onto the table and stood on top of me, walking up and down my back and burying the heels of her feet into the notches of my spine. She then did the unthinkable and began jumping on me like I was some kind of trampoline. I could feel so many cracks in my joints, but it honestly felt more like my bones themselves were breaking. “I thought they only did massages like this in Japan,” I groaned. “I learned from the best,” she replied. It was obvious she had no intention of going easy on me, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get used to it, let alone enjoy it. When she started walking on my neck and cutting off my windpipe, I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke free and sprang up from the table. “Okay, geezer, that’s enough! Are you trying to kill me?” “You said deep tissue, so I’m getting the deep tissue. What did you expect?” “I don’t know! I’ve never done this before! Why doesn’t anybody explain this stuff? All I want is something nice and relaxing that’s going to ease the pain in my back, not make it worse! Jeez, how is anybody supposed to enjoy that?” Suddenly, the old lady looked really hurt by what I said. In that moment, I regretted yelling at her. I hadn’t meant to make her feel bad; it was just the whole thing was turning out to be way more stressful than it should have been. “Hey, uh, I’m sorry. I’m just confused. I ordered the wrong thing is all.” “No, no, you’re okay. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding. If you want something relaxing, I also specialize in a mud bathing treatment.” I was skeptical at first, but she was very thorough with her description of how a simple scrub of special mud all over my skin would exfoliate my pores and permeate natural analgesics all throughout my body. It was supposed to be relaxing, pain-relieving, and revitalizing, and well, the way she put it made it sound very much worth getting covered in mud. I went ahead and agreed. She had me laid down on my back, then put two slices of cucumbers over my eyes and told me to breathe deep and relax. She left me alone with the ambient music for a few minutes before beginning the treatment. The first thing I noticed was that the mud felt a lot warmer than expected, like it had been sitting in the sun instead of the cool dark place in which I’d imagined it would be stored. When she started spreading it over my face, however, is when I noticed just how not right it smelled. Mud ought to smell mostly like nothing, and if anything, it should smell like the soil, the earth. But whatever it was, it smelled like a barn. It found its way up my nostrils and burned with its pungency, and then I finally realized it wasn’t mud. It was unmistakably fecal matter. Fresh feces. I was in shock, but then things took a turn for the absolute worst. All of a sudden, there was a huge clump of this lumpy, disgusting crap being shoved in my mouth. This old woman was trying to cram her excrement down my throat and suffocate me, and I couldn’t even open my eyes. I clawed at the cucumbers, but they were super glued on. I’d rip out my eyelets before I could get them off. The fight or flight boiled over, and I burst up from the table, shoving the old hag to the ground and running, stumbling, colliding with every table and corner before finding my way out of the room in my blindness. “Help! Someone help me, please! I can’t see! Help me!” From then on, I have to block out the memories. The embarrassment of all those people surrounding, seeing me in that state, even if they were helping me, was too much to bear. It’s still too much. As for the curmudgeonly old witch that did it to me, it still baffles me to say this, but she was once again surprisingly agile. She made a run for it out the back door of the parlor and is still at large after driving off in a car that’s older than me. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what I would charge her with if they found her.