{"id":24410,"date":"2014-03-02T21:32:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T02:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/?p=24410"},"modified":"2014-03-02T21:32:56","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T02:32:56","slug":"souless-soles-perils-of-an-nyc-foot-masseuse-by-laura-dinnebeil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/?p=24410","title":{"rendered":"Souless Soles: Perils of an NYC Foot Masseuse by Laura Dinnebeil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fetish\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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I\u2019d quit Tylenol PM. I\u2019m nauseous for days, seasick from oxygen- my sweat smells like an eighteenth century poison. A client calls while I\u2019m vomiting. He sounds hung over, but I remember his voice. When I worked for him, he hit on me like an infatuated boy. He talked about politics and secularism and Michael Jackson while smoking weed, his apartment filled with photos and Victorian settees. I asked, \u201cWhere did you grow up?\u201d He said, \u201cLong Island.\u201d\u00a0And<\/i>\u00a0he was Jewish.\u201cWhat school did you go to?\u201d\u00a0\u201cSUNY Albany. So where do you go out? You know, hang out. You seem like my age\u2026\u201d\u00a0I blushed and looked down. \u201cNo, I am not your age.\u201d\u00a0\u201cNo? You look like it.\u201d\u00a0\u201cNo.\u201d And for the next half hour, I massaged his feet.<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s session was different. He opened the door slumping and headed straight for the bedroom with few words. As he lay on his bed and didn\u2019t offer a hanger, I threw my coat on the floor and unpacked my gear. Then I noticed handcuffs and a stethoscope hanging off the bedpost, like ties. I couldn\u2019t take my eyes off them.<\/p>\n

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One thing I\u2019ve learned from giving foot massages: yuppies stink. The handcuffs, the stethoscope, the urgent ten a.m. call (\u201cCan you come over now?\u201d), his ass peeking out of boxers- it all smelled. The perfume of hydro weed choked me, suffocated my lungs. Halfway through, he asked I do his back. I couldn\u2019t refuse the money. Turning over, he pushed his groin into the bed and stroked my thigh, his hard-on empty, as stale as the tallest building in New York. Between puking all morning, a horny SUNY grad and my own corrupted life, I felt seasick again.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t sleep with clients for three reasons:\u00a01) It never works out.\u00a0Clients want a geisha, not a writer who watches\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/i>. I once made out with a regular who was really cute- a Korean with two Harvard degrees and a prescription for Adderall. He hired me once a week for a year. Every session he\u2019d say he regretted cigarettes while puffing one and then ask me to hang out with wistful eyes. When I finally did, he took a month to call.<\/p>\n

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Next was the captain of a luxury yacht. I could tell he was healthy from the plush skin on his soles. I see a lot guys with hard feet and poor circulation: diabetics with missing toes; a Vietnam vet with a bullet wound to the shin (his foot was stiff as death, decaying right off the bone); an ex-basketball player with steel rods in his ankles (he had an accident shooting hoops). Finally, I met a man who didn\u2019t limp.<\/p>\n

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Bo was easy-going, about 55 years old, with a tan in December from sailing the Pacific. He drank magnetized water and practiced yoga. Our sessions went overtime.The energy between us was intoxicating. His vigor spilled into my hands like it was draining from his feet into my palms- a gift. The minutes went by like speeding arrows while with other clients, their legs heavy and veined, their thoughts a source of cancer, the hour dragged like rush hour traffic.<\/p>\n

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We chatted about how difficult it was to meet someone. He was always sailing to Nice, or Italy or South Asia- women wanted someone around. He showed me pictures of himself paragliding in Mexico. I was impressed. Yeah, he was healthy, but he was 55 and jumping off a mountain in bat wings and goggles. Smoking on the cliff was a girl with unwashed hair, bulging in a parka. He said, \u201cI met her on Craigslist, but she irritated me.\u201d Before I left, he offered me a DVD. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty interesting\u2026take it home. Text me what you think.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The video was about a guy in Georgia who saw people\u2019s \u201cauras\u201d. Cashiers, waitresses, gas attendants- all were black silhouettes glowing blue or red light. He tried sunglasses, but still, black cut-outs with halos served him pie at Applebee\u2019s. He went crazy. (Perversely, a corpulent girlfriend drank Big Gulps by his side.) \u00a0He drove across country to meet with experts. They all claimed he was chosen by the \u201cotherworld\u201d to see the \u201cfourth dimension\u201d. I watched the DVD and thought it was really fucking stupid. It was Blair Witch Project without the sarcastic kids and flashlights.<\/p>\n

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Clients often think I\u2019m an occultist, but I\u2019m more an earthy, hands-on type; I learned reflexology from a book. I\u2019m half Irish, so I believe in the virtue of manual labor, while complaining about it the whole time. I don\u2019t analyze \u201cchakras\u201d or \u201cQi\u201d. I don\u2019t quote cheesy spiritual axioms. The only form of transcendentalism I practice is reading Genet. In truth, feet do tell me things about a man: if he stretches enough, if he\u2019s happy, if he drinks too much- I can tell all this by his soles. But I don\u2019t reveal my insights. No one tips after you tell him he\u2019s alcoholic, plus chitchat disrupts the session. Massage should be an escape from buses, sirens and idiots on cell phones, not add to the pandemonium. Because I\u2019m silent, some men think I channel the dead.<\/p>\n

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I texted the captain and said the DVD was \u201cAwesome!\u201d, to seem like a chick who owned a\u00a0Ouija Board<\/i>. I was producing a web series and wanted a relationship with no demands, a fling. He replied that he was sailing to Corsica, but would call when he returned. He texted two weeks later. I worked on his feet and afterwards, we kissed, groped and licked passionately. He asked about my life. I said, \u201cI\u2019m an artist!\u201d and talked about my work. That morning, he drank a glass of magnetized water, buttoned his shirt, and said, \u201cI hate when women sleep over.\u201d I was now codependent on a man who tried to impress me with a paranormal reality show.<\/p>\n

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2) It\u2019s too much work.\u00a0Foot massage is grueling on your fingers. Try doing it for an hour and see if you feel like giving a blowjob.<\/p>\n

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3) You never know when a person is going to secretly videotape you.\u00a0All I need is one creep to make a jittery sex tape of me with his iPhone. I\u2019m older. I need good lighting. Clients know I\u2019m not a sex service, but for some reason,\u00a0always<\/i>\u00a0forget. The downfalls of Eliot Spitzer, Suzy Hamilton, and Anthony Weiner made it clear that notables who subscribe to prostitution (it\u2019s unlawful for me to have sexual contact with a client) seek ruin. All were defamed by a combination of brothel riff raff, law enforcement, and a bizarre lack of professional discretion. Yes, America embraced Ashley Dupres, Spitzer\u2019s courtesan- a saccharine, busty woman primarily interested in marketing herself- but those chicks do very well in this country. I\u2019m an intellectual who hates Grey\u2019s Anatomy. I should probably move to France.<\/p>\n

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The internet brings a peep show to our homes 24\/7- we look at computers way more than the sun. Images of porn blink at us daily, filling our brains with neon signs to fuck and fuck and fuck and sleep a dream we never wake from. Sex addiction-a surreal, plastic lust- is ironically the most harmless drug we use to disconnect from the world. It gives the blood rock-n-roll without a prescription; we feel alive simply by loving skin too much. Clients can afford this vice, but if I fall for sex\u2019s virtual opium, I end up dead; a john strangles me either with his hands or indifference. My mirror reflects a zombie who kills romance nightly.<\/p>\n

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In truth, I can\u2019t complain. I get asked out every week. Last Monday, a tall, affable surgeon hired me after his ski trip. For an hour and a half, I pushed a chop stick into his foot as he discussed Thomas Mann\u2019s \u201cMagic Mountain\u201d and snorted coke. After a bump, he laid down, gave me his foot and said, \u201cYou don\u2019t give back massages, do you? Why not? You\u2019d be amazing!\u201d I said, \u201cIf I gave all my good-looking clients back massages, I\u2019d have herpes.\u201d He broke out laughing. \u201cI\u2019ll get you to open up someday.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Laura Dinnebeil<\/a>, notorious for witty one-liners and\u00a0quixotic prose, has \u00a0produced and emceed the hippest shows in NYC, starring \u00a0acts like Louis C.K, Jeanine Garofalo, Dave Chappelle, Daryl Hammond and Marc Maron. She then went on to produce and\u00a0emcee \u201cThe Blue Angel Erotic Cabaret\u201d which inspired\u00a0the current burlesque movement\u00a0 across America.\u00a0Since, Laura\u00a0<\/strong>has appeared on Comedy Central\u2019s\u00a0Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u00a0MTV<\/em>. \u00a0NY Press<\/em>,\u00a0Timeout NY<\/em>\u00a0and several\u00a0poetry journals have published her writing.\u00a0 She\u00a0now\u00a0performs comedy all over town and is producing her own web series, \u201cMr. Lick: Occupy The Wrong Street\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0Click HERE<\/a> for more!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\nI\u2019d quit Tylenol PM. I\u2019m nauseous for days, seasick from oxygen- my sweat smells like an eighteenth century poison. A client calls while I\u2019m vomiting. He sounds hung over, but I remember his voice. When I worked for him, he hit on me like an infatuated boy. He talked about politics and secularism and Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[3725,3726,945],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24438,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24410\/revisions\/24438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}