Baden-Baden, Part 2 of 2

[Read Baden-Baden, Part 1]

Naked and on my back on the table, he was coming toward me with a brush and bucket of soapy water. Guys who didn't pay extra were walking through the room, dongs flapping shamelessly. Why oh why did I pay extra for the massage?

He dunked the brush in the water and started with the right leg, near the foot, working the brush with his left hand and gliding the right, palm-down, along next to it, and I think: how far up the leg is he going? I decided that, if he gets to the goods, I'd shamelessly pour out my American puritanism and tell him that, whoa buddy, not there thank you. I'd never had a massage before. Is this normal? They use oils, jellies, and other scented goos, right? I didn't know, but as his brush and soapy hand glided farther and farther north the only thing I could think was that this was 100% not the way I swing.

Blessedly, he jumped from the thigh to the belly. As he worked up to the shoulders, I started to imagine myself as a new car -- a candy apple red convertible, being lovingly scrubbed clean of dirt and bugs. The same sort of withdrawal from reality is reported by rape victims.

He gave me a slap on the belly, which I took to mean "roll over." I did, and clenching tightly to eliminate any chance that he could see... things... he did the same on the other side.

The massage ended bizarrely, with a spank on the back of the thigh, and he pointed me in the direction of the steam room. I tried to put my sandals back on, and he said I couldn't -- they were only for the hot air rooms. Trying hard not to think of foot fungus, I pulled open the heavy door and walked through the hot blast of steam that billowed out.

Every surface of the steam room was covered in green tiles. It was lined with hard beds and had a pyramid of benches in the middle, the highest one being about six feet up. A few of the beds had men lying on them, covered in beads of water and sweat, and I realized that taking one of the empty ones would mean putting my bare ass where someone else's bare ass was just a moment ago sweating. The thought made me shudder, and I realized it was probably also not possible to sit on the pyramid without the same problem.

High on one wall was an deep alcove where water poured over a series of very hot, very large metal pipes, hissing away into clouds of steam as it made contact. Another monstrous contraption that probably had the initials "M.T." carved into it somewhere. The very strong fragrance of menthol, or eucalyptus, or some other windpipe-clearing stuff hung in the air.

The sign recommended 15 minutes. I'd been operating under the assumption that whoever put these signs on the wall had bathhouses down to a science, and to disregard them would be unwise and any final judgement I had on the place would be unfair. 15 minutes. If you've ever been in a stream room, you know that they quickly begin to make you feel weak and lethargic. Compounded by the fact that this is also my normal state, I needed to sit down.

I decided to sit at the very top of the pyramid. Nobody was up there, so I figured that's where the ass-sweat factor would be safest. I stepped up the four or five levels to the top and was nearly knocked over by intense heat, heat which I had forgotten rises.

Next was the really hot steam room, where the normal temperature on the floor was about that what I felt at the top of the pyramid. There were no beds, and it had only a set of very large steps against one wall. Nobody was sitting, everyone was standing on a different level, and I almost expected them to start singing because it looked like a choir. A naked, sweaty, old man choir.

At this point, the door opened and in stepped a Japanese girl of indeterminate age. She looked around and started calling someone's name, over and over, still calling long after it was clear that nobody was going to answer. Why is she just standing there? Is she actually looking at the penises? Finally one of the old men told her that this was a men-only room. She laughed and left.

Five minutes in the really hot steam room, and finally it was time for some hot-spring action. I stepped through the door to the first pool and suddenly was overwhelmed because oh my god it's breasts oh holy Jesus naked women naked women everywhere wrong door I'm going to jail. I stepped back into the steam room and double-checked that this was where the sign was directing me. One of the old men told me in German that, yes, from here on out, it's all mixed.

I walked out and got into the pool. OK. Eyes down, make no contact of any sort with anyone. Just like in a big city. Just study that big statue there, the whoa she's good looking no no just look at that lovely Romanesque tile mosaic on the wall, hunker down in the pool and close your eyes, yes, don't think about how many people's hopefully-peripheral vision my privates are appearing in at this very moment.

15 minutes later it was time to move to the warm water pool, with jets. I had to open my eyes to walk there. Getting in, I realized that this was apparently the point where couples who'd come to Friedrichsbad together met up, and apparently sitting naked in the warm water pool, with jets, put them right in the mood, the 20 strangers sitting in there with them be damned. One young couple sat in the corner making out, while the gentleman from an older couple across the pool stared at them shamelessly. (Sometimes you just get the feeling -- usually from middle-aged men -- that someone's just hoping an orgy will break out.) When the old couple's 20 minutes in the pool were over, they got up and moved on, his wife either oblivious to his plainly-visible stiffy, or silently thinking how to murder him later.

Next was the exercise pool. Filled with cold water and big and circular, you were supposed to, I dunno, swim around or something. Some people did leisurely laps around, others just hung around the edge. The young couple from the previous pool was now there, frolicking. They both looked about 16, she clearly in possession of a razor, and again I thought there was no way I should be legally seeing this.

I did a few laps, killed the 15 minutes in the exercise pool, and then followed the signs back toward the locker room. A rinse in the showers was prescribed, and then a full-body dip in the ice-cold water pool. I got in knee-deep before deciding that this was to be fucked, and stepped back out.

A gentleman at the door handed me a towel, and said that the many many varieties of lotion in the locker room were at my disposal. I hate lotion. But I love free stuff, and I lathered myself up but good. I could have, at this point, made use of their tanning beds, but three years in Germany not being long enough to pick up the bizarre national obsession with tanning, I made for the more promising-sounding "nap room."

The nap room was dark, and other than a gentle snoring coming from a few directions, quiet. Soft beds were positioned around the room, and when I entered I was given a large towel the size of a sheet, and told to wrap up. I did so, and was guided into a vacant bed with a big, soft turned-down blanket. The attendant wrapped me up tightly in the blanket, burrito-style, and let me be. Being hung over, as I am in pretty much all of my stories, a nap really did sound good. Just like crashing waves on the seashore, the gentle snoring lulled me to sleep.

I woke up about 45 minutes later and decided it was time to get out of there. It was getting to be evening, and I had to gussy myself up for the casino. I unwrapped the blanket and got dressed.

For my first foray into the popular German pastime of going to the spa, I chose one of the classiest. I had hoped that, afterwards, I'd feel like a new man, totally refreshed. But as I headed back out into the cold, snowy evening, I didn't. But luckily I've found there's little ails a man what gamblin' can't cure, and there's one other thing that Baden-Baden is known for.