The Secret Life of a Happy-Ending Masseur and the Women Who Swear By Him

Everyone from bawdy bachelorettes to married lesbians pay Ray the masseur to get them off. And he gloats that when it comes to female pleasure, he’s the G.O.A.T.

Illustrations by Jasjyot Singh Hans | Edited by Genelle Levy

The scene: a warehouse adjacent to a church in Jonesboro, about 18 miles south of Atlanta. COVID-19 is raging, and a bouncer with a forehead thermometer checks people’s temperatures at the door. But the pandemic precautions are primarily for show. This is a bacchanalia, and the hundred or so women inside the warehouse are mostly unmasked, downing cocktails at their tables. The occasion is a birthday celebration for a male stripper known as “12 Play.” On stage, a naked stripper drips molten wax onto his penis as a group of women screams and cheers. “Somebody rub it in!” the announcer barks. “You better get your money’s worth.”

In the loft above, Ray, a handsome, Black, muscled 45-year-old former stripper turned licensed massage therapist is standing next to a blue vinyl table, a white cloth mask covering his face and a red Lysol spray bottle at the ready to sanitize the table in between customers. As two women stroke the enorm…