I love physical contact. Whether it be cuddling, kissing, love making, or full on animalistic fucking with copious amounts of slapping, biting, and hair pulling, I love it all, but there are some days when I would readily give it all up in exchange for a long, sensual massage.
Luckily for me, I don’t have to, because not only does the Fella share my love for all things carnal, he also loves to regularly spoil me with lingering rub-downs. When we first got together – all the way back in 1998 – he’d given me half a dozen massages before he even broached the subject of sex. I’d been near enough naked for most of them too, and although I was more than aware that he was rock hard and raring to go, he’d been more interested in making me feel special than getting his rocks off.
I recently got together with the girls for coffee, and as is usually the way, the conversation quickly turned to what we get up to in the bedroom with our significant others. The topic of massage came up, and I was surprised to discover that what some of my friends considered to be massage, I consider to be nothing more than quick, it’s gonna be okay, have a bit of cake shoulder rubs.
I admit, I got a little bit preachy, and I pissed a few people off. I refused to apologise though, opting instead to explain why having a guy give you a few squeezes on the back of the neck before a doggy style fuck doesn’t constitute massage.
For us, the first and foremost purpose of a partner massage is connection.
It’s about shutting everything out and focusing on nothing but each other. Sex is about that too, I suppose, but in a different way. At some stage during any sexual encounter, one or both of us ends up in a world of our own, where the most important thing becomes our own pleasure.
Even during a BDSM session, I often float off into subspace, and once I get there one of two things usually happens; the Fella becomes the meaning of life and I more or less cease to exist, or I become hyper-aware of myself to the point where I could be hit by a bus and not realise, and on those occasions, the Fella becomes physical sensation and nothing more.
No, massage definitely isn’t about sex or bondage play for us, though it does lead to it more often than not.
After explaining why I consider massage and sex to be separate acts, one of the girls lowered her voice as though she was saying something naughty and asked “So how does he do it, then?”
Here’s the longwinded version of what I told her:
No matter what kind of massage he’s giving me, the Fella almost always starts with me lying on my back, working from my ankles to my head – feet touching is a hard limit for me unless he’s caning them or doing tickle torture – then he claws his hands and massages my scalp for a bit, before flipping me over and working from my head back down to my ankles.
Most of the time he just uses his hands. That’s when it feels most intimate, because it’s nothing but skin-on-skin, and we can both feel each other. But other times there’s more, and these are our favourites.
Massage oils and candles
Oils and candles are probably the most inexpensive way to add a little something-something to a sensual massage. They not only change the way the Fella’s hands feel on my skin, but depending on the scent he chooses, he can set pretty much any mood he likes. I can gauge what kind of session I’m in for by scent too.
The commercial oils and candles we have all seem to come in sweet scents: strawberry, cherry, and vanilla being the most widely available. We do use these quite often, and they set a light, playful mood. He chatters on during these massages, and even with the added heat of the hot oil from the candles, they’re never that intense.
We find that more expensive oils and candles often lean more toward floral and musky scents. They’re more ‘grown-up’ and sophisticated, and they come out when the Fella is aiming for an intense atmosphere. We’ve mixed our own floral oils too using a sweet almond oil base, and whenever the lavender comes out I know I’m in for a long night. Lavender is reportedly an aphrodisiac for men, and in the Fella’s case, this is true. When I smell this particular oil I know there will be sex.
Ready-made massage oils can be found for as little as £5 a bottle, and candles weigh in around the same. These are mostly the girly, sugary scents though. The floral, musky, smoky scents cost more, some of them racing toward £30 a pop. You do get more product in the higher priced ones, although more often than not you’re paying for the brand rather than the product itself.
Props
If he’s not in the mood to get his hands dirty, the Fella will often use what he refers to as his props to add variety to a massage. Just like it is with the oils and candles, the lighter the prop, the less intense the massage. He has a range of things he chooses from, and here’s a few examples.
- Ticklers
Feather ticklers are a simple yet effective way to add a different dimension to a massage. Having the soft tickle of the feathers combined with the firmer strokes of strong fingers makes the surface of my skin tingle. The Fella has a box on the bedside table, and there’s a couple of different ticklers in there which offer different sensations. The ostrich feather covers a wide area all at once, while the maribou feathers offer a maddeningly light tickle over concentrated patches of skin.
- Pinwheels
Pinwheels are the next step up for us. They’re available in many sizes, from one row of pins up to ten (they probably go into higher numbers, but the most I’ve come across is ten). We have a single row, a five row, and a seven. The single row pinwheel gives a very concentrated sensation, and can often be more intense than the multi-rowed ones. This is because the multi-rowed pinwheels spread out the sensation over a wider area, making it feel more like a touch than a prickle.
The Fella either traces the pinwheel around my skin, following it with his fingers and nails, or he’ll use it in one place while he nips and kneads another. The different sensations keep me on my toes, making me stay completely focused on what he’s doing. He gets into more intimate areas with pinwheels too, and this usually leads to me raising my hips off the bed and peering over my shoulder wearing my ‘please, sir’ pout.
- Vampire gloves
Vampire gloves are our shared favourite massage tool. The Fella has a job which consists of a lot of repetitive manual labour, and because of this he sometimes suffers with pain in his wrists. Whenever that pain flares up, he gets annoyed that he can’t keep up his massaging for very long.
This is when the vamp gloves come out. It’s pretty much an effortless way of getting maximum sensation out of the lightest of touches. In fact, I mostly massage myself, because I’m usually sitting when we use the gloves, and he lets me move against him so that I have control of how much pain I feel – and the gloves are definitely painful! They start off feeling like a mild prickling, and in the end my skin is on fire, and even the gentlest of breaths blowing over it feels powerful.
- Metal scratchers and claws
These give the most intense of sensations. They’re essentially BDSM tools, but the Fella enjoys using them during massage every now and again. He combines the scratches with hard nips, pummels, and scrapes, and I’m always too exhausted to even consider sex once he’s done. My skin is left blazing red, and sometimes bleeding, but my body is so relaxed I’m asleep within seconds of him calling time.
The girls think it’s weird that I like massages that hurt, but I’ve always found pain relaxing. They found it weird that I’ve nearly dozed off while having tattoos done too, but that’s just the way I roll.
- Wands
Massage wands. The clue’s in the title. Wands like the Doxy were originally intended to be sports massagers, and they work like a charm. Shoulder, back, and calf tension doesn’t stand a chance against a vibrating wand, it just melts away under the relentless vibrations.
As good as it feels though, I’m not hugely delighted by wand massages, and I only ever feel really relaxed if they’re used to give me an orgasm or two once all the muscle buzzing is over. It’s not the sensation, but rather the noise that keeps me on edge. Nine times out of ten I get plugged into my iPod when the Fella uses the wand for massage, but if I have the music on too loud I can’t concentrate on what he’s doing to me, and if I have it any quieter than full blast I can still hear the wand. It’s funny how the racket doesn’t stop me from coming though.
