My colleagues at our law firm have been known to call me the Ice Princess. I admit I’m your average, driven, overachieving, professional woman, but I do have a sensuous side. But that part of me has no place at work, especially when my job performance depends on me being as hard as nails.

Still, despite my personal hedonistic nature, I’d never had a massage before my memorable autumn vacation at the Jersey Shore, and what a rubdown it was!

My friend Joan had prepared her guest room for me and told me to enjoy the house, including the huge tub in her bathroom with its whirlpool jets. I was just to relax and take it easy during my getaway.

On my first night, soothed by the bubbling water and lulled by the ocean air, I slept like a log. In the morning, though, I was sore and stiff, as though my tense back had unwound just enough for me to realize it hurt.

Joan sympathized, and said she knew an excellent masseur in town, a young man to whom she frequently went. I let her call him and make the arrangements, faintly registering the closing remarks she made on the phone: “I want this to be extra special,” she said. “Celia has never had a massage before.”

Joan all but led me by the hand to a neat frame house that was the sight of a nail salon and body waxing establishment, which also contained the masseur’s office. In the cheerfully decorated reception area she introduced me to Ted, a tall blond young man with an engaging smile and beautiful hands. He was quite a piece of eye candy, and I found myself lusting after him.

Saying she’d see me later, Joan winked knowingly and left me to follow Ted into another room.

The area was dimly lit and very private, with light classical music playing softly in the background. Ted asked me a few questions about my work and what hurt and so forth, and left me to undress and lie facedown on the table under a pastel patterned sheet. When he returned, his strong hands traced the tight muscles of my back, finding the knots and smoothing herbal-scented oil over my skin. His hands felt awfully good, even when his thumbs probed deep into the sore places. Soon I was floating, warmed by the heated table and soothed by Ted’s caresses.

Not just soothed, though — I was definitely responding to the touch of this handsome young man. A spreading heat was building up in my abdomen, and by the time he had me turn over onto my back, I was pretty sure I had figured out exactly what Joan had meant on the telephone. So far Ted hadn’t made any overtly sexual moves. I wondered if he was waiting for me to give him the go-ahead. His fingers stroked my jaw and gently worked their way up to my temples.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

He was attractive even upside down, and I responded with a lazy grin.

“You’ve got great hands,” I told him. “Don’t stop now.”

He got the message, I thought, as his hands slipped down my throat and kneaded their way past my collarbone. Ted worked around each breast, loosening the tightness in my ribs I’d never known was there. Then softly he held each breast, caressing it with circular strokes, rolling my nipples between his fingers. I gave up all pretense of nonchalance and rolled my head back and moaned softly.

Ted moved around to my side, his hands back in professional mode as he stroked my abdomen. Thank heavens for old-fashioned sit-ups — I might have been tense, but I wasn’t flabby. The sexual intent came back into his touch as his thumbs traced my hipbone and his hands parted my thighs. He leaned down and breathed into the curls above my cunt, and I felt a wave of pleasure wash over me. But his mouth did not linger, and his hands worked down the front of my thighs, still loosening my muscles and probing as they went.

Finally, with a feather-light touch, he caressed the insides of my thighs with the backs of his fingers, parting the lips of my cunt delicately with his thumbs. I shivered as the cool air touched the most tender part of me and again as his warm mouth settled between my labia. His tongue was as sure a diagnostician as his hands had been, and he found exactly the right folds around my clitoris to tease. He slowly and carefully built my erotic response. Somehow he managed to focus all the inevitable and delicious tension on that one heated spot, leaving the rest of me limp with the relaxation his hands had imparted.

I usually know when I’m about to come, clutching the sheets and tensing my legs. But during that episode, my orgasm wasn’t like that at all. I was almost delirious with the concentrated pleasure of his roving tongue, completely lost within the moment. When the unexpected tidal wave swept me away, I was completely unprepared and I gasped and sobbed my way through the climax of a lifetime.

I felt exhausted and limp, but also exhilarated, like I could take on the world.

Afterward, I cheekily asked Ted whether he made a habit of giving all of his female customers such extra-special treatment. He told me he and Joan had been lovers for a year or so and she’d thought this scenario up at Christmas when she had invited me to come down for the week. I laughed at that, because Joan had mother-henned me ever since college about my type-A work habits.

Turns out she knew what I needed all along.

Before I left, I kissed Ted’s cheek and said, “Now that we’ve been introduced, I guess I’ll be seeing you around?”

And throughout my stay I did, with Joan’s permission and encouragement. He was a very entertaining young man. My friend has excellent taste.

When I finally returned to the firm, my coworkers commented on how relaxed I looked after my vacation. All I could do was grin from ear to ear. They’d never believe how the Ice Princess was finally melted.