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Jenny had been on the job for a week when the office got the massage chair, and for another week before she tried it out. It was part of the firm’s new employee health and happiness initiative, along with the new fancy drinks and snacks in the break room, and the inspirational posters going up all over the office that said things like “You deserve to feel good” and “Relax and work right” and “Pleasure is productive.” Still, she held off trying out the fancy-looking massage chair for a bit, out of fear that her new coworkers would think she was slacking. Eventually though, after she saw that the management really was enthusiastic about all of their employees feeling relaxed and well taken care of, and after she saw enough coworkers leaving the massage room with blissful smiles on their faces, she decided to try it for herself.
The massage chair was off in a side room, behind a folding screen, facing a wall. The rest of the room was desks and chairs that were mostly not in use–one man sat tapping away on his computer in the far corner, a serene smile on his face. Feeling a little self-conscious, Jenny slipped behind the screen. After a moment of consideration, she kicked off her shoes, and settled herself into the chair.
Without her even needing to press a button, the chair whirred to life. The footrest adjusted itself incrementally upwards until her bare feet rested perfectly in it, and the seatback adjusted itself similarly. And then the chair started to massage in earnest: the rollers somehow found all the tenderest parts of her back and pressed into her with just enough pressure; the footrest rumbled a massage into her feet, the headrest into her neck, and pneumatic sacs inflated on either side of her arms and her legs, squeezing them deliciously.
She lost track of how long the massage lasted. At first, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how she was here relaxing in this loudly whirring chair while the rest of the office worked, while there was someone working just yards away behind a flimsy folding screen. It became harder and harder to focus on those thoughts, though, and soon she was lost in the sensations, delighting in the feeling of all of the tension in her body being rubbed away.
When the chair clicked back into silence, Jenny drifted back to herself slowly. A blush rose in her cheeks as she remembered her guilt about the rest of her coworkers hard at work while she luxuriated in the massage chair. But she did feel much better, she noticed, much more focused now. Maybe pleasure really was productive, she thought to herself with a smile as she rose on unsteady legs, slipped her shoes back on, and returned to her desk.
