Osento

Sharing a laugh with someone is more special than anything. My favorite time with Cindy on the trip was cracking up in bed at night about an incident at Osento, a women's bathhouse that we went to with my great friends, M & C, while in San Francisco. Osento is a lovely bathhouse on Valencia Street. It's not commercial at all and is half-indoors, half-outdoors. There is a hot tub, a cold tub, a deck, an outdoor shower, massage/resting tables, a dry sauna, a hot sauna, and water with lime to drink. We went in the evening after having wonderful Mexican food in the Mission area of San Francisco. After going in the hot tub, Cindy and I went into the wet sauna outside. It's a little wooden hut with two small benches opposite one another. We sat in the dry, dark heat, quiet amongst several other women. Then an older Womon with long grey hair and a confident manner came in to the hut making the small, primitive sauna full. Unfortunately, the tiny sauna door creaked open shortly after and I found myself saying to the lady, "Come on in, there's room," as I wedged myself behind the stove of hot rocks. The older Womon or Crone, as we say in Michigan, took a quick gander into the rough, tin stove and let out a gruff laugh. "No wonder, it's not hot in here," she said, shaking her head at her sweating companions, "You've got yourselves a dry sauna here! No water!" We were all like, "Ohhh" trying to muster some shame in ourselves for having thought we were experiencing a wet sauna. No matter. The Crone picked up a large pitcher from the stone floor of our cabin and stoked the burning coals. "Herrre we go," she said, pouring more and more water, as the place steamed up. She rubbed some Epsom salt on her strong, tan arms and passed it around to the rest of us. "What we need now is some Eucalyptus," the Crone mused outloud, and the girl by the door tentatively handed it over to the Crone who poured it into the pot, creating a crackling and rush of thick steam. It was too much Eucalyptus, and my breathing became shallow. Trapped behind the stove, I imagined I was sure to go into a full panic attack. But along with the other women in the hut, there was an unsaid thought: "We must be cool around this Crone." As if the tiny sauna could not feel more cramped, the Crone suddenly was whipping her towel around over her head, rhythmicly, like a lasso, to spread the Eucalyptus. "Woo hoo!" she cheered, as the rest of us withered like dying flowers. I looked over at Cindy, bent over, with her face screwed up, water pouring down her red face. We were cooking, that's for sure. In the carbon-monoxide posioning-like silence, one woman went mad, taking the only socially acceptable way out of this chamber. She threw open the door and immersed herself in the ice water of the cold tub. An orgasmic-like groan (or was it a death rattle?) escaped her lips, as we listened to it in silence. After a few short minutes, I simply had to excuse myself, and Cindy quickly followed suit. We attempted to go into the cold tub but could only stand to submerge a toe (and Cindy an ankle). Later we looked down at the sauna from the deck above, glad to have survived our time in the tank.