Because I want to live my happy ending

TODAY I realized that now I'm single for almost ten months. Ten full months!

It is about 42 weeks of sleep alone, 300 days of 'night date' stay running Netflix alone and 432,000 minutes of being able to wear the most demanding, not sexy underwear that money can buy... not that I'm counting, of course.

It is worth noting that this is not ten months I've spent randomly dating, or having sexy, carefree fling. They are ten months of total solitude: no appointments, no overnight stays, no passionate kiss on the dance floor. I spent ten months growing my hair with wild abandonment, making a furrow appear the size of me in the dead end of my mattress, and keeping up with new developments in sex toy with the insane fervor of an apocalypse prepper that reads their basement bunker for the end of the world.

 It took me some time to admit it, but I think I'm finally ready to say it out loud: I'm looking for my happy ending.

... Not romantic kind, please note. I'm not looking for love professions or a proposal for sunset. No, I'm looking for a happy ending to the most common genre: the one you can get for a few hundred dollars, the one it takes only an hour a day.

The kind of happy ending that men seem to be able to get anywhere, as easily as they buy milk or take the paper.

I want an erotic massage in Barcelona.

While my heart may not be ready enough to return to the game of romance again, my body is safe, but the thought of trying to rustle over a quick connection with a dating app still feels a little scary.

After spending so many nights crying at my pillow after the break up, I really don't want to feel emotionally or intellectually connected to another right human being yet. I am truly terrified that my heart will break again as soon as I open it to someone.

So, for now, I'm keeping it firmly closed, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to wanting intimacy or touching or enjoying it. And as someone who has given a lot of erotic massages in my time, I know that they are a great way to experience that intimate pleasure in an uncomplicated environment: paying a professional for an erotic massage is a great way to do something totally self-indulgent and pampering without worrying about having to call the other side a taxi the next morning.

Of course, I'm not going to storm in the next massage room I see, waving around a drum of hundreds and asking for an orgasm. No, I have to find the right supplier for me - and this is proving much more difficult than I thought.

To begin with, the masseuse I see must be comfortable giving a massage to a woman, and so far my research has shown that this is rarer than I expected. While many friends have told me apocryphal stories about the friend of their friend who works as a masseuse and sees only female clients, the vast majority of independent masseurs seem to satisfy men, while almost every massage salon caters only to female clients if they enter as part of a couple, with a man. While the couple's massage is certainly nothing to sneeze at, this is an adventure I'm embarking on myself.

I am also cautious about exactly where I would go for this massage. I spent years working in the adult industry and I know many other escorts, masseuses and dancers: I would probably have felt a little uncomfortable sitting in the lounge in a massage room, looking at a whole group of my friends walking along their way to start their turn.

While I fully support all my friends in the industry, I wouldn't want to make any of them uncomfortable appearing at their workplace while they're on time - and choosing them as my service provider would likely extend the friendship for both of us.

No, the experience I'm looking for is almost identical to the one I've had with many men in the past: an intimate greeting in the introduction room of a living room, a quick exchange of payments with an efficient receptionist, and then up to a poorly lit room with a hot shower.

A tease, a tickle, a climatic finale; a tip for the masseuse, and then back in the shower before going out into the real world again.

For every man over the age of eighteen who is willing to spend time and money, this is a simple experience to have. There is an endless amount of legal massages across Australia that invest countless amounts of time and money to refine their premises, and services, so that even the most demanding of men leave you feeling royalty-free.