Page 3 of Untouchable

Fucking unbelievable.Harp knew he should've asked when he made the stupid appointment, just one second to see if he’d actually be getting a massage on the first appointment, but the longer he stayed on the phone with that woman, the more he felt like his brain was going to implode.

Harp hasn't put in the mental energy to prep himself to be touched by a stranger today. It’s not easy to keep his anxiety from spiraling. The nicer Parker is to him, the worse Harp abruptly feels about it. Apparently it doesn’t matter if Harp is wielding an ax or offering an apology—the massage therapist’s default seems to be a smile that looks like it belongs on a dental pamphlet.

Introducing Parker to the dogs only buys him a moment of reprieve before Parker is back on his task.

“Er, okay—so, uh—we usually ask that any pets are kept out of the, uh, treatment area,” Parker stutters, almost apologetically. “And just show me where, uh—where you want the table set up.”

"Oh Christ I shouldn't have woken them up," Harp says helplessly. "Gunny, Bo, meet... Parker, yeah?"

"Yes, Parker." The two dogs swarm around his legs, tails wagging violently. "Which is which?"

"Gunny is the one that looks like she's on steroids. Bo is the wiener, and Petunia," he says, raising his voice and sounding annoyed at the third name, "is the lazy mastiff who can't be assed to get off the bed."

Two familiar hollow thumps echo from the back of the house and Petunia lopes out a moment later, issuing a single annoyed "woof" at Parker and sitting at the doorway.

"Is there anywhere they're, like, not allowed?" Parker asks.

"My bedroom," Harp says, heading to the stairs that lead to the lofted suite. "The dogs are old like me. Don't do stairs. Follow me."

* * *

Parker would loveto stop and pet the dogs—well, maybe not the mastiff, who looks about as welcoming as his owner—but he reminds himself he has work to do. He follows the client up the stairs, and sure enough, the issues are visible. His gait is stiff and awkward—it’s clear that Parker’s help is much needed.

Thankfully, there’s a clear space in the room that is large enough for his table, which spares them another awkward conversation.

“So while I set up, go ahead and fill out this form—Mindy got some basics but this will give me a little bit more information about what’s going on,” Parker says, smiling blandly.

The client takes the clipboard and begins to fill it out, the pen scratching loudly against the paper in the silence. Parker sets up his table and, as he pull sheets on and smooths them, he feels himself calming down. The familiar actions are centering, steadying.

You can do this, Parker. You’ve done this for four years now. You’ve had way weirder clients. Don’t get stuck in your head again.

* * *

As Parker setsup his table and Harp works on the forms, Harp can feel himself tensing up.

It's okay. This is a stranger you are paying—just like a doctor. Be chill. Like taking the dogs to the vet, right? Just... relax.

This is terrible. Why did he take them to the bedroom instead of the goddamn basement? He hadn't even rushed up to make sure there wasn't something utterly incriminating just lying on the bed—a bad choice considering how sloppy he tended to be.

No one had been in his bedroom since...

Fuck. No human but me has ever been in this bedroom. That's so sad.

His own brother Gil hadn’t even come upstairs when he came to visit. And since Harp built the place largely on his own, no one had ever had occasion to come up.

“All done?” Parker asks. Harp frowns and passes over the clipboard.

It feels odd to have to boil down everything that had happened to him—the car accident, the surgeries, hospital stays—to a clinical level, without mentioning any of the stress of the weeks after the accident, the drawn-out lawsuit that had followed and the painstaking settlement process.

But yes: he supposes he is all done.

“Okay, so, car accident,” Parker says, still examining the sheet. “Can you tell me a little more about that?”

"That's about it," Harp says. He'd circled the areas on the weird dummy illustration with his bald head—what else is he supposed to say? Harp is abruptly annoyed to have to revisit that time in his mind with a stranger, on top of the stress of the massage, the intrusion on his day.

Parker starts to ask something else and Harp interrupts him.

"Everything's all fucked up from my car accident and it's not getting better. Legs, back, whatever." He hates the way that sounds—like someone who is crippled—so he scrambles to add, "It's not the end of the world. That's the long and short of it."

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