The spa sat behind a black iron gate on a side street off Calle de Serrano, the kind of Salamanca address that does not need a name on the sidewalk. Only a brass plaque and a buzzer ashamed of making noise. Inside, the air was cool and smelled of eucalyptus and ironed linen. I left my phone in a wooden box. I am twenty-nine. I live in Madrid. I booked the ninety minutes because I wanted, for a little while, to be a body that no one needed anything from.

My hair was still pinned. I wear it coiled and dark, heavy enough that a clip has to mean it, and I had put it up for the table the way I put it up for an office, off my neck, out of the way. In the locker-room mirror my skin looked deep brown under that polite light, almost matte. I came because my shoulders had been…