Last modified: Sunday, May 11, 2008 1:21 AM EDT ZUCK: Magdalena and my first massage Up a flight of creaky wooden stairs, at the end of a poorly-lit hallway I open the last door on the left and step into a small but comfortably furnished waiting room. Soothing music plays softly in the background; a neatly organized table offers magazines about organic gardening, alternative healing, and vegetarian recipes; a friendly receptionist smiles at me from behind her desk. I step forward and carefully place my gift certificate, creased in many directions after spending nearly five months in my wallet, timidly on her desk. "Step right this way," says the receptionist, indicating a door behind her. "Magdalena is waiting for you." With a nervous intake of breath I step through the door, into the unknown. For the next 60 minutes, thanks to my gift certificate, Magdalena is to be my personal masseuse. I've never had a professional massage before, and I'm a little bit nervous. Magdalena is a stout Hispanic woman who smiles a lot but says little. She shows me into a small room, well-heated and bare except for a massage table. The sudden intimacy of being in an enclosed place with a woman I don't know who I'm paying to touch me is a little unnerving. From the pervasive sense of quiet throughout the office I get the feeling that we're the only two people there besides the receptionist. "I could strangle her and leave her for dead," is the irrational thought that runs through my mind. "Or," I think as I look at her small, powerful hands, "She could strangle me instead." As I wrack my brain to think of who knows where I am and who might miss me if I were not to return for many hours, Magdalena indicates that I should get on the table, and then she leaves. She comes back a few minutes later, snorting at my fully-clothed body. "You take off clothes," she says and disappears again. Whoops. Sheepishly I disrobe and get under the sheet. I ponder the fact that if Magdalena were to strangle me, it would be a naked Bill that the police would find. But I guess I wouldn't mind much at that point. Magdalena returns and begins to work her magic. She unlocks the tension from my neck and upper back, kneading my muscles into a state of bliss. She massages my shoulders until they feel like jelly. But as she works her way down my back, I begin to get worried. She senses the tension in my back and works harder - which only makes things worse. But Magdalena isn't doing anything wrong; the problem is that I'm extremely, incredibly ticklish, especially (for some odd reason) on my lower back. Before I can explain, my body twitches on the table and I roll over, clutching my stomach as I convulse with laughter. Poor Magdalena steps back as I catch my breath and lay back down. As she continues the massage - tentatively at first - I tell her exactly where to touch and where not to touch. It's an unusual experience for me, facing the possibility of death either by strangulation or by lower-back tickling, all within a 60-minute massage session. But judging by how wonderfully relaxed I feel as I leave the office, it's all worthwhile, and I'd risk my death to do it again. BILL ZUCK now has an irrational fear of (and attraction to) enclosed places with massage tables in them. You can reach him at wcz78@yahoo.com