Questions She Never Asks

I don’t remember when the spa stopped being for pampering and started becoming a confessional. Somewhere between the warm towels and the lavender oil, I stopped performing rest and began offering it—like a quiet surrender. They say steam opens the pores, but no one warns it might open memory too. The jade roller moves across my skin in silence, but my thoughts are anything but still. I wonder if my skin glows from collagen or secrets—if the heat pressing into my back is dissolving tension or teasing out want. I wonder if the woman beside me, eyes closed, is whispering her ache into the eucalyptus just as I do. I exhale slower during facials now, not to relax—but to feel more desirable. My fingers brush the silk robe on the hook, and I hesitate. Not because I’m shy. Because I know what that robe will carry. The scent of me. The restraint. The parts I don’t speak. I wonder if the esthetician sees that too. That the balm I ask for isn’t about skin but about closeness. That my silence ...