By Ernie Koy

While working a story in the Bronx I met Maria, a lovely young Colombian woman. Her English and my Spanish were simpático, and she helped me on a story I was doing on a young man who was murdered near her house.

"You must have mucho dinero being a writer," Maria said as I was leaving. I told her what writers make, and she looked at me in disbelief.

I asked what she did for a living. She smiled and grabbed my hand and started to massage it. It felt great. Loosened up my whole body.

"Te gusta?" she asked. Her face was brown and round, and she looked like a nice farm girl sent to the Bronx because of family problems.

"Si," I said, as my body felt 20 pounds lighter from her smooth touch.

She then told me she charged $40 an hour for a full body massage.ÊBut, she said, as I was muy alto, it would take two hours.

I was as tense as piano wire and had the time and money. We went to her studio apartment.

Maria lit a few Our Lady of Guadalupe candles and put on some classical music. I was only down for a straight-up massage, and that is what she seemed all about. She told me to take my clothes off but to leave my boxers on.

Her hands slid over my back and neck and worked out all the kinks. She really was good. After an hour on my back, she turned me over and worked on my chest. I got aroused watching her work. My boxers looked like a tent.

After some time, she stopped and put more oil on her hands. Then she pulled down my boxers and exquisitely pulled on my hard-on. My breath got deep, and I exploded. She smiled at me as she wiped me off with a warm cloth.

I was stunned. Maria smiled as I handed her the $80. She told me that my pene was also part of my body, and that she had released all tension from my body. I was now a whole man.

I left feeling like I was floating. As I walked to the subway, the dirty Bronx neighborhood looked like a small slice of heaven.