Rubdown
#104 of Patreon Reward Vignettes
Third vignette for FA: amuzigxi , following the agender cat from Finally Right Sidi (Obsidian) after getting home from a run with their jock friend Sorren.
Contains: Stretching, Discussion of Stress and Gender, Massage Therapy, Sacrum Release, Body Awareness and An English Major Writing About Kineseology Without Doing Any Goddang Research
I checked with a Massage Therapist friend of mine after the fact and he said that I got all the techniques right, but I should have stayed in one spot to do all of them sequentially instead of making my way around the body doing different techniques. Oops. I couldn't think of a way to fix that without messing up the flow so shruug
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Sidi panted, the black cat making their way towards their friend's couch.
"Oh no you don't." The cheetah closing the door said. Her fur was shorter, so the sweat made it stick to her form a lot better than her fluffy friend's did. They had just arrived back at the spotted cat's home after a run together. "Time for cooldown stretches." She demonstrated by planting one running shoe on the floor behind her with a straight leg and lunging until she was leaning against the wall, holding the position.
"Sorren, I'm really flexible, it's okay." Sidi replied with a bit of a whine.
"It's not about flexibility." Sorren replied, before switching legs. "It's about keeping muscles limber before and after exercise... I should have made you stretch before the run too." She muttered.
Sidi sighed and bent over at the hip, dangling their arms to the floor with their knees bent a bit.
The cheetah looked over at her friend and scrunched her muzzle. She stood from her lunge and approached. "You mind if I...?" She asked, holding a paw into a hover over the cat's thigh.
Craning their neck to look, the housecat nodded. "Yeah."
Sorren immediately began to feel at the padded thigh, feeling at the muscles through the layer of plumpness her agender friend had accumulated. "Woah... this kind of tension..." The spotted cat felt down Sidi's calves carefully, before giving one dangling arm a squeeze. "It's not from just forgetting to warm up."
Sidi furrowed their brow, a light stammer covering up the fact that they had no idea how to react to such a statement.
"C'mon. I'll give you a rubdown and help work that away." Sorren smiled, gently coaxing her friend back upright with a press to their collarbone.
The fluffy black cat stood back upright. "Well, if you say so..."
Quick as her kind was known for, Sorren soon had a matt laid across the nearby table and was helping Sidi lay onto it. Once the black cat was situated, she began to press and knead in smooth pulling motions along one calf, then the other.
Despite the faint dampness from the exertion, their fur was soft and silky and gave no resistance to this style of massage. Sidi flexed their toes a bit in their sneakers as the treatment moved up their thighs. "Prrrrrrhr... you really are good at this..."
"Yeah, Kineseology, remember?" The cheetah grunted slightly behind her words as she put her weight into working through the subcutaneous plumpness into the hamstring beneath, working up towards the cat's wide hips gradually. "This kind of tension comes from prolonged stress with very little release... getting to know your body is important for preventing this." She ground her thumbs firmly into the top of each thigh, one after the other, not yet climbing over the running shorts her friend was still wearing.
Sidi flicked their tail a bit. "Well... a cause of stress was making me not want to think about my body much at all until recently." They shifted their hips on the mat as the kneading made its way to their glutes. "Can never thank Cas enough, really..."
Sorren perked, then laughed a bit at herself. "Of course, I've just known you so long I forgot." She used her fist to grind down into the muscle through the heavier layer of plumpness underneath the jersey fabric shorts, then started to repeatedly press inward in short jabs that never broke contact.
"Wish I could that easily." The fluffy cat mrowled lowly as their rump was practically pummeled.
"I'm going to do everything I can to help you get to know your body, Sidi." The cheetah started to rub up along either side of Sidi's spine. "You told me yourself how just a little self-exploration gave you gender euphoria. Let's see if we can make that consistent by acquainting you with every one of your muscles." She grunted, pressing firmly between the black cat's shoulder blades. Extending her fingers, she started to rapidly press and relax much in the same way she'd used her fists on the black cat's glutes in a descending pattern back to their hips.
Sidi groaned, blushing a bit. "Won't make people not misgender me." They muttered.
"Maybe it won't hit you as hard if you're confident in your own fur." Sorren continued, starting to rub back and forth between traps and delts, pressing and grinding their plump pawpads into them. Turning her hands, she used the edge of her palm to start alternating percussive strikes back and forth along the trapezius, careful not to strike the spine at the center. After about thirty seconds of this, she pulled away. "Okay, I'm gonna get a sacrum block so we can release some of that tension in your spine too."
The cat rolled onto their side to look at their friend. "A what block?"
Across the room, the cheetah was digging through a gym bag. "Sacrum. Base of the spine. Sacroiliac." She produced a foam block about the size of two building bricks stacked one on top of the other.
Sidi watched the padded rectangular prism get carried over, brow furrowed. "And what do you do with that?"
"You, my dear, are going to lie on it." Sorren placed it on the mat right next to the base of the cat's tail, before giving a light tug to their shoulder to topple them over onto it, facing up.
The black cat grunted, feeling the block conform a bit to their pelvis but not compress all the way to the matt, leaving the small of their back unsupported. "I better not have a back ache for the rest of the day."
"You'll have the opposite, I assure you." Sorren explained. "Just you relax while I massage your arms, then I'll get to working on the tension in your core."