Page 41 of D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

Sinjin weaved his fingers through mine to lead us over to the recliners. We sat down, surrounded by plants, the sounds of birds chirping piped in and the smell of patchouli wafting around our heads. The patchouli smelled a little strong in my opinion, but it was still relaxing.

For a minute, anyway. Right off the bat, our date took a turn when his phone rang. Sinjin scrambled to silence the little bit of cursed technology, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep me from seeing Vanessa’s name flash across the screen. He silenced the phone, shoving it back in his pocket, then turned to me. “Sorry. I told them not to bother me.”

I shrugged. What could I do? It was how it was.

“Geet,” he said, but whatever he wanted to say got swallowed back up by the appearance of Essence, an exquisite African-American woman with gleaming skin. Her dark hair was pulled back in a slick ponytail and she wore the signature Youthful Beauty stark-white cashmere turtle neck and slim-fitting white pants.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Essence and I’m here to begin your Youthful Beauty experience. You are?” she asked Sinjin first.

“Sinjin,” he answered.

“And you?” she addressed me.

“Brigeeta.” I almost told her to call me ‘Geet,’ but I reserved that name for friends.

“Good to meet you both,” Essence said, motioning us to follow her. “Let’s begin your experience.” She led us to a large room that upon entering couldn’t be anything other than a solarium filled with tropical plants and a pool fashioned out of flat stones to look like a lagoon, filled with tiny fish. The relaxing sounds of insects buzzing and birds chirping came from every corner of the room.

Toward the back of the room, they had screens set up for us to change behind. As we changed, Essence explained, “Your belongings will be safe behind the screen. Your entire Youthful Beauty experience will take place in the Tropical Room today.”

I rounded my screen wearing a fluffy white robe and fluffy slippers, waiting for Sinjin to join me. He pressed his hand to my upper back to move us over to where Essence waited for us.

“If you’ll follow me,” she said. “We’ll get you going. Who wants to lie on the table first?”

“Geet can go.” Sinjin spoke up before I had the chance to offer him up.

“Great. Sinjin, if you have a seat in one of our recliners, I’ll get you set up.”

It truly was funny to see a big, sexy guy like Sinjin getting green kelp schmeared all over his face. She had him close his eyes and she added an ice pack over his eyelids to reduce puffiness, then finished by setting a tall glass of an iced sparkling herbal tea on a table beside him. My mouth watered from the look of that tea, but as I was about to lie down, I wasn’t offered one.

She had me untie my robe to leave it hanging open and lie face down. Once situated, she helped me peel the fluffy garment down my arms, leaving my back exposed and before removing the robe completely, she positioned the sheet up under it to cover my bottom, even though I wore panties. Essence kept her oils warm.

“Do you wish to ease stress or are you in need of relaxation?” she asked.

“Relaxation,” I answered, trying to watch which oils she dipped her fingers in without turning my head. When she put her hands to my back, I jumped, and then laughed at my stupidity. I gave massages every day. Being on this end made for quite the different experience. My muscles tensed up reflexively. It felt weird being on this end of things. Still, I pushed through and let Essence do her job.

What? Who dozed off? Notme. I totally didn’t fall asleep, only to get woken up by a chuckling Sinjin shaking me and calling my name. With a face free of kelp mask, he helped me up off the table and into my robe, kissing me before patting my bottom to get me moving over to the recliner. There, Essence helped me with my mask and ice pack, and I finally got my sparkling iced herbal tea.

Ahh…I officially loved sparkling iced herbal tea.

At the end of his massage, we were directed to walk over to the lagoon, slip off our slippers, and stick our legs in the water. I legit screamed when the first fishies began to nibble at my skin.

“Don’t worry,” Essence cajoled. “The fish eat the dead skin cells off your feet, leaving them soft and smooth.”

Now she tells me. Could’ve warned a girl.This experience brought on the opposite of relaxation. I squeezed my hands into fists, squeezed my eyes shut, and bit my lip. Foot-eating fish happened to be a shade too much for me. On the verge of a mental freak-out, the only thing that stopped it was hearing Sinjin’s phone vibrate from his robe pocket.

“You brought your phone?” I asked.

“It’s nothing, Geet. Look—” He shoved the phone at me. “I didn’t even answer it.”

But it was something because it was Vanessa again. Stinking Vanessa. I hated this chick, even though I’d never met her. Still, he was right. He didn’t answer. I couldn’t fault him if she kept calling.

After the fish sufficiently filled their little fish bellies on our flesh, we walked over to the second smaller pool with the waterfall to wash our feet off. I had to admit, my feet felt smoother than a baby’s bottom. As that ended our experience, we dressed and left the room.

“What did you think?” he asked me.

“Surprisingly, having a stranger rub me down wigged me out at first.”

He burst out laughing. “You do that for a living. How did it wig you out?”

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