Pencils & Polaroids

11: hand massages & hypocrisy

"This was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted my neck massaged," Rainer complained with a smirk that I didn't seem to understand the meaning behind. 

"You planted the idea," I say anyway. 

I feel his Adam's apple roll underneath my palms. After he takes a gulp, I squeeze his neck tighter, enough to make his face tint with a blush of pink. He's skilled at giving massages, hence, he did it like an expert. I'm just doing what I'm good at—it's not my problem that turned out to be strangling him. Ever since he mentioned it two days ago, I cannot get it out of my head. 

Also, today is his last day with the binder. And surprisingly, today is the day he chose to ask me for a neck massage. We cannot let go of such a golden opportunity now, can we? 

The common room table is filled with House Captains, their vices, and the remaining student body who are all sipping evening coffee together, as one united front. Okay, pretending to be one united front. As they sip their hard-earned coffee, I thought they could use a show of entertainment. 

I am not into this whole murder business but criminal documentaries are so entertaining, I swear. Especially when you have a painted picture of the target in your mind. 

When I tighten my hold on his neck furthermore, he groans with a clenched jaw. "Feeling relaxed, sir?" I coo adding slow pressure over the veins on his neck. 

Grayson's uncontrolled chuckling distracts my pressure on self-discovered acupressure points. "Park," he says with his knuckles pinned against his grinning lips. "He's into that shit." 

By the time I understand what his words mean in regard to my chokehold on Rainer's neck, the whole common room table has burst out laughing. I instantly extract my hand from his neck and force it into fists that I never plan on reopening until there's a bottle full of soap and an endless supply of water to wash off the touch from my hands. 

As soon as his neck is free of my hold, he leans over the table with a hand covering his eyes and laughs in muted embarrassment. When I see Grayson matching the fits of his best friend's laughter and patting his back as a way to console him, I realize that the sex joke wasn't just a joke. It was a fact. 

And the more I stand behind his chair watching them laugh, the more I seem to dig into the meaning of it and begin my analysis. So I decided to cut off and disappear to someplace small and less crowded. 

Only, I take two steps before the same electric dazzle lights up around my wrist the exact same way it did two days ago in my car. I find his fingers wrapped around my wrist with his eyes staring the word 'wait' at me but his lips refused to say it out loud. 

I wait for him to pull away his and, given how he has an audience of his believers watching him presiding over the head of the common room desk. But he doesn't. With the naughtiest expression fabricated behind fake innocence, he says, "Hand massage. I didn't say you could go."

Compared to this, a decent "Wait," would've seemed so much nicer. 

Rolling my eyes and affirming my mind to ignore the howling from the others at the table, I glance at all the chairs closest to him to be completely occupied. 

I see Rainer nudging Zach, who was sitting on Grayson's opposite, to free the chair for me. But as he gestured with his eyes, Charlie suggests, "You could sit on his lap and do it." I directly scowl at Brown. "You know, since there are no free chairs." 

"No need," Sam immediately stands up. "She can have mine. I'm anyway tired of sitting." 

My best friend's words don't help me erase the scowl but definitely play a huge part in lessening it. "You know I wouldn't mind but I'm worried for him. Given the kind of things he's into, I don't want to turn him on when he still has duties to hand over."