To serve man

I had been marinated in oil and spices, the meat in my legs tenderized.

And now, 45 minutes into an alleged massage, two practitioners instruct me to sit on a small stool inside what looked like an armoire. Three black hoses connect the bottom of the armoire to a boiling pot of water on a stove.

The initial parts of this experience had merely been disconcerting. This latest development sent alarm bells ringing. The time had come to ask a hard question: Was I about to be eaten?

After days of hiking in the Periyar Wildlife Reserve in the southern tip of India, a relaxing massage near the sun-drenched beaches of Varkala, a hippie hideaway on the Arabian Sea, sounded like the perfect antidote for weary muscles.

Mrs. VFR booked appointments for ayurvedic massages, rubs that locals believe enhance overall health. In my eagerness to concur with these plans, I concentrated on the "massage" portion and ignored the unknown "ayurvedic" prefix.

This was a mistake.

When we arrived for our appointments, a woman dressed in a sari whisked Mrs. VFR away. I stood in the lobby by myself for a few minutes, before a boggle-eyed gentleman wearing a grubby v-neck t-shirt appeared in the doorway.

He escorted me to a dilapidated office around the corner from the lobby. There, I was introduced to "The Doctor," a shirtless man no older than 25.

It took a moment to sink in, but I realized that I would not have a masseuse, and that The Doctor was, in fact, the masseur.

In the States, I would have walked away. No brainer. But in India, it is taboo for men and women to touch each other. Mrs. VFR and I could not hold hands as we walked down the street. In contrast, it's commonplace to see men holding hands -- a normal sign of friendship.

Like the ayurvedic aspects of the massage, I failed to consider these cultural differences beforehand. So that left me with a decision: My wife was already mid-massage. Our driver had vanished.

I stepped forward and The Doctor closed the door.

The room seemed more like the office of a mad scientist than a serene massage studio. On one side, the pot of water sat atop the hot stove. The black hoses emerged from its base like tangled octopus tentacles. On the other, the armoire was positioned in the corner, a round hole cut from its top. An ornate, wooden table stood in the center of the room.

"Take off your clothes," The Doctor said.

I stripped to my boxers.

"All of them," he said.

I stood naked in the room. The Doctor and boggle-eyed assistant tie a sumo-wrestler's white cotton cloth around my loins. They instructed me to lie down on the table.

Molten-hot oil pours from a funky contraption hanging above my head onto my chest. Standing on either side of me, the masseur and assistant rubbed the oil into my skin with rapid motions and perfect symmetry.

They press hard, as if they were squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from the tube. It is painful. It feels like they are going to rip the hair out of my legs.

Friction developed in spots on my quads not saturated in oil. Days later, a nasty rash, essentially rug burn, appears. It takes weeks to recede.

Rubbing continues. Spices are sprinkled onto my chest and worked into the lather. The Doctor also massages the spices into my hair, in much the same manner a chef would apply a rub to a piece of meat before barbecuing.

Next, the pair dig their fingers into the inner and outer portions of my thighs and gouge downward with such vicious force I fear my kneecaps would pop off.

This, I could not ignore.

"That really hurts," I said, wincing.

"Relax," the doctor said.

I never relax, but eventually, I survive the mauling. I'm so covered in oil that I flail on the table like a slippery fish. The assistant helps me upright and directs me toward the odd-looking armoire. He opens the doors and I see the stool.

Steam from the boiling pot of water flows into the bottom of the armoire via the hoses. The doors are closed. My head pokes through the small hole at the top. It's hot.

As the assistant turns up the flame on the stove, I ponder cannibalization for the first time.

I note the ease in which my head could be severed in this position, the similarities between myself and steamed broccoli. I contemplate the earlier work with the tenderizing, marinating and spicing.

"I'm cooking," I said with a chuckle, hoping to receive friendly assurance from my captors this was not the case.

"Cooking," Boggle-eyes said. "Yes! Yes! Cooking! Ha ha ha."

They thought this was hilarious.

"Who will win the U.S. election?" they ask in a clever attempt to distract me from my predicament.

I answered, and we struck up a conversation about the three candidates.

Throughout India, we encountered people intent on discussing the election, George W. Bush and American politics. Since Varkala is in a Communist state and 20 percent of its citizens are Muslims, we stayed as neutral as possible throughout these conversations.

Sweat and oil fell from my body in sheets. It sounded like giant raindrops plopping onto the floor. I feel like I'm melting. This continued for what seemed like forever. At the point I started to feel dizzy, I knew the time for my escape had come. It was now or never.

"How much longer?" I asked.

"As long as you'd like," The Doctor said.

"I'm done cooking."

The armoire doors opened, and as simple as that, I was free. No last-minute attempt to stuff an apple in my mouth or spear me with a kebab. My fears had been for naught.

The Doctor held spices under my nose and told me to snort them. I did. I stood as the pair dried me off with towels. They left the room as I changed back into my clothes, and I was free.

Mrs. VFR was waiting in the lobby. She greeted me with wide-eyed concern. She feared my response to the whole calamity of the male masseur.

But by that point in the ordeal, that seemed trivial. The true danger in the entire experience, she quickly learned, was that her husband was nearly served for dinner.