The forty finger massage

An auspicious ambulance on the way to the most violent massage I’ve ever endured.

As a whole, Western society’s idea of appropriate amounts of touch is conservative at best. A firm-never-limp handshake, hips-back hug with three or fewer brisk pats on the back, a feather touch of opposing cheekbones and an air-kiss, a crisp high five, or a wave from around ten metres away if outdoors, germaphobic or socially anxious. Sexually repressed males sometimes prefer to bypass all this nonsense and opt for a single somewhat passive aggressive slap on the back or shoulder. It’s a wonder then that massages took hold in the west, but they did and I for one am thrilled they did – the firmer, the better too.

Massages are sensual by design and often fabricate a strong feeling of intimacy – it’s not the lubricated friction of skin on skin that does it either. When you think of the people in your life who have touched you the way a massage therapist does, you end up in oedipal territories – lovers and or mothers/fathers mostly.

Aside from them it was probably the last time your parents washed you in the bath. You remember the smell of soap on your skin, shampoo in your still-wet hair, the sound of the last of the bathwater slurping down the drain with a horrifying carnivorous screech. And then the feeling of the rough texture of the dry towel running across your skin before you tear off down the hall in a daring nudie run to your room.

On a trip to India at the start of 2020, just fifteen short years ago, my partner suggested we go for an Ayurvedic massage. I thought immediately of my friend Tom’s experience in Sri Lanka. He was pummelled beyond pleasure and, midway through, he was slapped so hard in the face he audibly yelped. ‘Pressure good?’ the masseuse asked. 

So when we arrived at the Ayurvedic massage place on the third storey of a dark wooden building in Pondicherry’s old town, I was a touch nervous and excited. The man at the desk handed us a single menu and as we read through both options, I quickly realised the menu was a waste of time. Although flush with two options, there was really no choice at all. 

Option one was a full body, hot Ayurvedic oil massage for one hour – a fool’s errand. The other was identical with an extra set of hands – a four hand massage. A twenty finger massage is an obvious choice once you read it in a massage menu, but a wayward dream until then. The reason choice was already out of our hands and in their four, was the price. It was only $4AUD more for an extra set of hands – that’s 40¢ a finger.

Our massage host had no time for my questions around the territory arrangement of the masseuses, and my mind ran wild wondering about the choreography – would they top and tail or take a side each? Another man appeared halfway down a hallway and beckoned me to follow him. The room was barely lit and had brooding amethyst-coloured walls. At one end of the small room, philosophical quotes were stuck to the wall with adhesive letters with every fourth or fifth letter missing. At the other end of the room, a large wooden box the size of a 90s top-load washing machine concealed an aluminium vat for discarded massage oil. It took up about one fifth of the room and sat next to a set of drawers below a hyperactive fan vainly trying to create some airflow. In the centre of the room like an ancient mortician's slab stood a dark wooden table with gutters carved around the perimeter. A thin sheet, made from the same material as the disposable hair nets some fast-food kitchen staff must wear, loosely ticked any hygiene regulations there may’ve been. Maybe it was to protect the table.

‘Clothes off, start with the top, then the shorts. I’ll put this on you.’ He conjured what looked to be a large eye-patch but was actually a loincloth. It perfectly mocked the absurdity of my modesty, and the hygiene sheet on the table. ‘This on and then those away,’ he said pointing to my underpants and flicking his hand away. Both men of action and our word, I did as I was told and he did as he said – wrapping the thin string of the eye-patch around my waist so that a long length of cloth hung down below my knees. I dropped my underpants, he reached through my legs, grabbed the cloth, tucked it into the backside of the string waistband. He produced a small wooden stool and told me to sit with the same warmth and authority I use with my dog, and I sat with the same begrudging obedience. I sat in that dark room naked but for a fast-food-hair-net loin cloth, as the man poured a small puddle of hot oil over my new haircut. It quickly trickled down past my ears, down my neck and as I began to lose myself in the sensation he slapped me on the head. The massage had begun. 

He began rubbing my head and massaging muscles I didn’t know I had. He drove his thumbs into my skull like it had personally offended every decision he’d ever made in his life. His hands, while relatively small, felt like vices that could split my head like a ripe rockmelon. He rubbed at my temples like he was trying to get red wine out of his parents’ new carpet. Just as I was sure he was going to leave a permanent mark, my mind drifted and I wondered when and where the other set of hands would enter the fray. As if sensing the question, he said, ‘Okay, get up, lie here. Face up.’ I opened my eyes, stood up groggily and turned around, startled. At some stage during the paddy whacking, the extra set of hands had entered the room.

I was hoping they’d top and tail – one massaging my sore legs while the other massaged my tight shoulders, but it wasn’t to be. They each took a side and a copper bowl of hot oil and poured it from my feet up to my chest. They began by thumping the soles of my feet like they were trying to get the last skerick of tomato sauce to come flying out of my head. 

Then, they grabbed each of my toes, squeezing them until their fingers slid off the end. Foot play over, the action really kicked off. What was to follow would be the fastest and most violent massage I’ve ever endured. Starting at my ankles, they drove both hands up my shin, around my knee caps, up my thigh to my hip bone, and back again in about half a second. The table creaked under the pressure of the four hands’ exertion – their force was greater than the sum of their fingers.

Once they’d rearranged my legs, they moved up to my chest. By comparison, the upper body is a much more complex arrangement than the straight lines of the legs, so I expected less turbulence. I was terribly wrong. Not only was it more violent but, because the legs have so much less weight and surface area to anchor and grip the table, I felt like an old map being dragged across a pub floor mopping up beer swill and sick. Each pair of hands started at my lower ribs, and dug trenches across each bony strut up through my chest grazing past the nipple, over the shoulder and tearing down my arm to the hand and ripping back so quickly my skin flapped like wet sails in the wind. 

I lost track of time. Seconds and minutes gave way to deep breaths and rib to hand laps. I wondered how far into the hour long massage we might be and figured close to halfway. Again, seemingly reading my mind through some oil-based conduit, I was told to roll over onto my front. A quick flick of one wrist undid my loincloth, which by this time was so soaked in oil it now resembled greasy cling film.

The two men now had a full view of my fruit basket from the second least flattering angle – behind. Before I had too long to dwell on the worst thing I’d seen at work, they grabbed a foot each and bent my knees to right angles, spilling fruit across the table – not my view, not my problem. They thumped my heels like they were hammering a railroad spike into a sleeper. Then squeezed my calves like they expected orange juice to drip out before gently placing my feet back down and lifting my knees to insert small pillows. Before I had time to wonder why I’d need them, I found out.

They got back to cutting laps up and down my legs. Soon, there was some unspoken command that roughly translated to ‘more, and faster’. My shock at the pace of the start of the massage quickly paled as the two men went coast to coast, feet to hands, apparently trying to break some kind of hand speed record. In rhythmic synchronicity, twenty fingers started at my ankles pushing my flesh so hard into the wooden table they created a skin wake as they ran up my legs, sped past the outskirts of my butt, back in along either side of my spine, up to my neck, over my shoulders, down my arms to my hands and back again. I felt like I was being extruded by a commercial sausage machine. At this point I surrendered to the motion in the same way you see prospective astronauts give in to the G-force machine.

The massage ended the way it began – with some slapping. One set of hands left as silently as they arrived and the other slapped cupped hands from my lower back up my spine stopping just below the neck. ‘Okay, thank you sir.’ I wasn’t sure if I could talk let alone walk. My spirit had long since left my body and it had no right to come back for me. Fortunately, it did. I managed a very polite ‘Thank you, that was great,’ and I was ushered outside into a hallway, blocked in either direction by drawn curtains, straight across into a wet-room. ‘Wait here and I’ll get you a towel and soap.’ I waited looking down at the sagging loincloth now heavy with oil. The hands returned, told me to turn around and as he undid the loincloth he wished me a ‘good shower and good day, sir’. If ever you find yourself with the choice of having a four-hand massage, remember, there is no choice at all.