Pleasurable pain or painful pleasure?

When I left my previous job, my colleagues gave me a gift which consisted of a cake, collage (of me pulling wonderfully stupid faces with a number of different colleagues at work do's over the years) and a voucher for a massage. 

This morning, five months later, I'm in the local spa spending my voucher.  I always find massages really surreal, firstly because you are paying someone to touch your body and secondly because you are pretty much lying naked on the table in front of a stranger.  Its always weird when they ask that you take your top, bra and trousers off while they are out of the room and they come back to you waiting for them with just your panties on.  Its like a disturbing sex game where you know it would be entirely inappropriate to ask for sex.  Moreover, when they peel your panties back to reveal your bum (which they will later kneed into oblivion) your mind screams out "my arse is out in front of a stranger, IN FRONT OF A STRANGER!!"

What I also find bizarre is that they flirt with you (OK maybe they are just being nice and its part of their job) and they are usually pretty hot.

So basically you are going into a candlelit room with a hot flirtatious woman, getting naked and they are going to touch you.  Well...

The woman today gave me the best massage I've ever had.  Not because it was a relaxing pleasurable massage but because it was incredibly painful.  So painful in fact I was pretty much crying throughout the whole massage and probably made some rather interesting noises.  It was like she was ripping through my body, trying to destroy me.  The massage ended and somewhat relieved I told her it was the best massage I'd ever had.  She thanked me and commented that I'd probably be in a lot of pain for the next few days. I already am. Ouch.

As I was lying there on the table (whilst trying to block out the pain) I was thinking about pleasurable pain and painful pleasure.

Recently a friend and I went for a drink and were reminiscing about our friendship.  I reminded her of a time she had come into work and been unable to walk for about three days.  At the time, I had asked her if she was OK, fearing she was unwell but alas, the rigorousness of the sex she had recently had with a girl she was dating had rendered her unable to walk.  She went home "feeling unwell."  Her painful pleasure had become pure pain.

Likewise pleasure and pain are interwoven in relationships, something once pleasurable becomes pain when you break up with someone. Sometimes you also know the pleasure will become pain as soon as you meet someone.  You know they arnt right for you, you know it wont last yet you hope and pray the relationship will survive against all odds.  Then went it ends you curse that you are letting yourself feel this pain.

In short, pleasure and pain go hand in hand.  Sometimes one results in the other.  They often run side by side. Sometimes you dont even know whats pleasure and whats pain.  I like to call this painful pleasure or pleasurable pain.