RedLeb.com

Photo by François

Imagine a world where your pleasure is of singular importance, where everyone eagerly caters to your every whim and defines the quality of their very existence through your level of comfort.

Damn, I should be writing their brochures.

Welcome to your typical Chinese Spa.

Six Chinese women bowed to me as I walked through the glass doors, greeting me softly in two languages. An attendant took my arm and led me to the front desk; good thing too as my legs weren’t going anywhere.

‘First time sir?’

‘First time for everything I guess.’

The attendant wrapped my wrist with a numbered elastic bracelet, led me to the locker rooms and yelled something in Chinese, presumably: ‘Scared Arab coming through. Be gentle.’

If you don’t know what a Zerg rush is then you really can’t imagine my expression, but after a few minutes of adapting I picked an escort from the swarm of Chinese teens that surrounded me. I named him Bruce.

Bruce took me to my locker, flashed my bracelet to the sensor and set up the seating area. Then pulled my shorts off.

‘Excuse me?’

‘No clothes inside. No clothes.’

‘Shouldn’t we warm up to each other first? Can’t you like buy a drink or something?’

‘No clothes inside. Drink inside. Yes?’

I undressed myself while Bruce neatly hung and folded my clothes in the locker. He led me into a large room with more pools than naked people and gave me the low down.

‘Sauna here, steam here, after pool, and scrub. Then upstairs.’

‘What’s upstairs?’

‘After, after.’

I followed his lead. Ten minutes in the sauna, a bit longer in the steam, a round through the whirlpool, the hot-pool, the jet-pool and the cooling pool, and then I hit the showers before heading to the scrubbing room.

Hell no.

It’s something like a Turkish bath, you see; they rip all your skin off with a hard brush and send you out looking like a Thanksgiving turkey; that I was prepared for, but I was decidedly unprepared to have my dingle-berries lifted by a muscular Chinese man armed with milk and honey.

‘It’s OK, I go upstairs now,’ I pleaded with Bruce.

‘No scrub? Good scrub!’

‘No scrub Bruce. Bruce you understand homophobia? You understand gay?’

‘No.’

‘Thank God. Please take me upstairs.’

He led me to the stairs where I was fitted with a robe and shorts. This was a very interesting experience for them as they hadn’t seen a 250 pound man before.

‘You 100 K G?’

‘More like 120.’

‘Oh my god! Me 50!’

‘My little sister 50.’

Bruce said his goodbyes through fits of oriental laughter and a steaming Chinese dumpling led me through an elevator, to a lounge. Things were looking up already.

‘I am Sheryl, and you can sleep here,’ she said.

‘Marry me?’

The chair had a flat screen on a swivel, a built in sound system and came complete with hot attendant. God I was in heaven.

‘Foot massage sir?’

‘Marry me.’

Within half an hour I had 5 women working on me. Count them: one on the foot massage, one on the pedicure, one on the manicure and on for my hand massage; and one that made my head feel as though it were on a cloud. She also cleaned my ears with tiny feathers.

Yeah, who knew.

Bruce’s considerably hotter replacement kept coming back to check on me; she made sure my coffee remained full and my fruit cold. She also chatted with me in excellent English, something you miss when you’re in the mainland.

Two hours later I opened my eyes to Sheryl’s fantastic smile: ‘Massage?’

‘Didn’t I just get a dozen of them?’

Apparently not, this was just the lounge treatment. Sheryl led me (by the hand) past the arcade room and into the buffet. ‘Let’s eat,’ she said. ‘Massage after; cigarette?’

The chef came to the table twice to recommend dishes, and check on our meals. The food was fantastic, but I was not surprised; perfection was their bread and butter.

‘Now massage. Come.’

Yes ma’am.

She led me to the third floor, to what seemed to be a hotel within the spa.

‘Chess rooms,’ she said. ‘You pick girl, she comes to massage. You want A-class or B-class?’

A-class women were the stunners, the eye-candy. They wore schoolgirl outfits and sported smiles that could melt several parts of you simultaneously. B-classes were the massage experts, wore sailor-girl uniforms and could bend you like a 300 pound wrestler. Do I want eye-candy or a fantastic massage?

‘There is no A-class with great massage?’

‘Both? OK no problem.’

Moments later two women – scratch that, two goddesses – walk into the chess room. I got it then, both indeed.

‘We have Thai massage, Chinese massage, Japanese massage, acupuncture and gentle massage. You want?’

I hadn’t the foggiest idea what any of those meant, but hell yes I want: ‘I try Thai today please.’

‘5 hours?’

Sweet, sweet Lord come and take me now.

I was manhandled; these tiny deities bent me with absolutely no regard to Newtonian physics. They used every single part of their bodies to squeeze, bend, twist and pull every single part of mine; and if I could think of a simile better than two beautiful Chinese women bending you I’d use it here. Time flew.

‘Twenty minutes left, happy?’

‘Very, very happy. Completely happy.’

‘Happy now?’

As opposed to in general? ‘Yes, happy now.’

‘OK.’

My pants flew off, and oil bottles appeared; I froze in sheer terror.

I got it then, happy indeed.

They laughed: ‘No tell Sheryl.’

‘My quivering, girlishly frightened lips are sealed.’

I don’t usually shy away from intimate details, in fact I thrive on them. There are things however that are best left to the imagination, and twenty minutes later I’d experienced one of them. At some point in the afterglow one of the girls threw a blanket on me and tucked me in; both stuck around until I’d fallen asleep, randomly caressing my face.

I woke up a few hours later and walked into the private shower, and eventually made my way back to the locker rooms where my clothes were pressed and waiting (along with a tray for tips); an attendant stood ready to lead me back to the front desk; it was already light outside.

And I paid about $95.

Welcome to your typical Chinese spa.