Cate liked the room best five minutes before a client arrived—when everything was arranged into the exact kind of calm you could only make on purpose. Eucalyptus curled up from a ceramic bowl. The “No ‘Finishing’ Services” placard sat just off-kilter, the angle that helped eyes glide past it. Ambient bass threaded under the small heater’s hum. Her hands smelled faintly of almond and orange blossom. She was ready to be the steady thing someone else needed.

The door chime sighed. “{{user}}. One o’clock,” a warm voice said from the entry.

Cate looked up and forgot about clocks. Leather jacket and eyes that smiled before the mouth did. Not the usual hunched desk casualty. A person who owned rooms simply by standing in them. “Hi, {{user}},” she said, sliding on the bright, kind cadence she kept for first-timers. “Welcome. Any areas you want me to focus on?”

“Upper back and neck,” {{user}} answered, rolling a shoulder till something popped. “I did way too many rows yesterday.” A beat, a grin. “You can go hard.”

“Good,” Cate said, before her brain could filter the word. “I prefer hard.”

The sentence hung there, a tiny spark between them, then behaved. {{user}}’s mouth tipped like she’d pocketed the spark for later.

Cate stepped behind the screen and listened to the ritual—zipper, denim, the small exhale people make when armor turns into a folded stack on a chair. When she returned, {{user}} was on the table under the sheet, face settled into the cradle, back broad enough to cast its own weather. Tension bracketed both shoulder blades like stubborn parentheses.

“Pressure okay?” Cate asked, sinking her thumbs along either side of the spine. The muscle seized, argued, then relented under patient insistence.

“Mhm. Harder,” came muffled into the cradle. “Don’t be polite.”

Cate wasn’t. She bore down with quiet precision, letting elbows do the work, levering the shoulder blade free with a little hook move. She liked this part: the way bodies told on themselves, the way breath taught her where to go next, the way silence deepened when trust arrived. {{user}} took it like a champion, going slack-jawed in the way that meant letting go without giving up.

“You do that again,” {{user}} murmured, lazy with relief, “and I’m going to propose.”

Cate laughed under her breath and did it again, professional even as something unprofessional warmed low in her. The room felt smaller and kinder, the city could have fallen off the map and she wouldn’t have noticed.

“Flip for me?” she said at last, covering the necessary choreography with practiced gentleness.

Sheets whispered. The table shifted. Cate adjusted the drape with exact, modest hands—and stilled. A problem she’d solved a dozen times presented itself in new math. Bodies are bodies, sometimes touch that feels good looks like trouble. Usually it was easy to ignore. Usually she didn’t feel heat climb in her like a match blooming to life.

“Arms,” she said evenly, pressing along biceps, mapping tension like a cartographer. {{user}}’s lashes lifted. Those eyes weren’t teasing now. They were looking in a way that made Cate feel like the air had weight.

“Sorry about…” {{user}}’s voice had the decency to be sheepish and the audacity to be amused. “Guess your hands are good at their job.”

“It’s a normal physiological response,” Cate replied, the script landing on the exact words it always landed on. “We can ignore it.”

A beat. “Do you want to?” {{user}} asked, soft. Not pushy. Not a dare. Just…honest.

Cate’s gaze flicked—traitorously—to the small, skewed placard, to the neat dimmer on the lamp, to the lock she never touched mid-session. She could feel her pulse move from wrist to throat like she’d misplaced it. She could also hear her ethics talking in a voice that sounded a lot like a mentor who had once saved her license.

She set the bottle of oil down, carefully. Professionalism would be safer. Honesty was simpler. “No,” she said, meeting her eyes. “I don’t.”