A Dolphin Massage

A Dolphin Massage
“The Japanese Village Years”
 Bob Warkenton 

            In the later part of the 20th Century, you got a job by looking in the local newspaper in the want ads section. A college student could always find an interesting part-time job this way.
            While attending California State University, Long Beach, I majored in Marine Biology. What better part time job to have then as a scuba diver. Looking in the Santa Ana Register, I found a want ad for a scuba diver at a local amusement park called The Japanese Village and Deer Park. It was off Interstate 5 in Buena Park about five miles north of Disneyland.
The Japanese Village and Deer Park had no rides. It featured “Sea World-like” dolphin acts, sea lion acts, a Koi fish that played poker, a lonely angry bear that swung on a swing when commanded, a Bengal tiger circus act, and about fifty little tiny deer that the guests could walk with in a half-acre enclosure. It was an odd place with a Japanese village motif. I never could connect the animal acts to the Japanese architecture except for the fact that they performed on stage, a real Japanese tea ceremony.
The Park had a large “Sea Theater” thirty-five feet deep surrounded by seating for a thousand people. The pool was about sixty feet wide and one hundred feet long. Dolphins and sea lions performed daily. The dolphins were trained to jump into the air in unison, walk backwards on their tails, and talk to the trainers. The sea lions were fed fish as they barked answers to funny questions the trainers asked.                     
              The dolphins were young adults identified by their very sharp teeth. Older dolphins had molar-like teeth flattened by years of use.  The show dolphins were youthful and incredibly smart. They had perfect control of their environment. They could take a single bamboo leaf, suck it into their mouth by opening, then expel the leaf making it do two or three loops under water. They’d open their mouth again, sucking it in, then repeat the show. They would do this over and over again until bored then swim away. The dolphins were in perfect harmony and controlled their actions and the reactions of the water to their movements easily at their discretion.
For fun they would swim directly at a diver full speed from thirty feet away. Instantly they would swerve three feet from the diver, never making any turbulence or wash around the terrified diver. They would also swim up to a diver, look at him underwater, and speak to him in short squeaky tones. They also swan very close, sometimes gently brushing the diver as he worked underwater.
            Not only were the dolphins incredibly intelligent, but they were extraordinarily promiscuous. They are highly sensual animals. Intimacy between genders was very common. I once witnessed two male dolphins cavorting together, copulating in one of the big ancillary pools while three females watched. I thought the females looked disgusted.
I was lucky enough to touch the dolphins from time to time. They have very, very soft skin that easily scrapes off under your finger nails. This top layer of soft skin enabled them to be more fluid dynamic swimming under water.
            The divers worked in teams of two. Our duties included sweeping the bottom of all the pools and water ways with a wide nylon pool brush. When the dolphins defecated it would settle to the bottom. Our job was to brush the poo towards and into the bottom drains so it would be filtered out. I think the dolphins understood what we were doing and were appreciative. They would swim around us chattering and watching us without interfering or blowing our sweeping accumulations away.
             On a beautiful warm sunny day, I was on the bottom of the show pool sweeping. One of the dolphins was watching me. She was circling slowly around me getting closer and closer with each pass. Soon she was looking at me with her head inches from my face mask. Our eyes met. She was talking to me in her dolphin voice softly, not the usual “piercing” squeaks.
 I was on my belly, prone on the bottom, sweeping with my right hand. After looking closely at me in my face mask she backed away slowly. She maneuvered herself almost on top of me. Then ever so gently she began to rub my back with her snout in a circular massaging motion. It startled me a little at first, but as I lay there it actually began to feel good. She moved her snout around the tank and regulator to get my shoulders, then she massaged first one side of my body then the other. It relaxed me tremendously. Never before had I had a wonderful massage in weightlessness. The water was warm as I floated inches off the bottom. The dolphin was giving me a great massage.
After rubbing my neck and both sides of my abdomen, she gently put her snout under my right arm pit. She nudged my body upward. First, she got me to my knees, then with gentle persistent nudging, she got me to my feet. I was standing there wondering where this was going when she maneuvered her body in front of mine. She was upside down about a foot away with her snout the same level as my lap and her tail above my head.
She hung there for a moment, then wiggled her entire body to bring herself closer to mine. She was inches away and docked her snout in my crotch. She began massaging me again in a circular motion as she wiggled her private area towards my head.
I suddenly realized what was happening and gently put my hands on both sides of her body lightly trying to push her away. She resisted and wiggled her body to stay close to mine. It was a very unique situation. As I pushed her away for a third time I peeked around her body for the other diver. I saw him at the other end of the Sea Theater. He was watching the entire affair laughing so hard the bubbles were bouncing his mask up and down on his face. I raised my hands up questioning what to do. He just laughed harder.
The dolphin was very persistent. She remained gentle and didn’t force herself upon me. She just kept massaging and wiggling her body to maintain herself upside down in front of me, keeping her private area level with my facemask. She was very adept at doing this while continuing to massage my private area.
Pushing her away was to no avail, so I just collapsed myself and glided to the bottom, sliding down her body in the process.  She maneuvered away trying again to nudge me to a standing position. As I became prone on the bottom, I started swimming towards the other diver. She swam beside me talking to me quietly—bedroom talk I thought. She was trying to seduce me. I just kept slowly swimming away and ignored her. She got the hint, and swam lazily away herself.
I was very flattered by her intentions and have remembered that day as though it happened yesterday. Forty-four years has not clouded that memory.

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With the passage of time, we get many years to think about passed events. Our mind’s idea on how and why certain things happen changes from exposure by knowledge and new experiences gained over the years following an occurrence. In writing my memoirs, I’ve had a chance to think and reevaluate the hows and whys of actual happenings regarding many cases.
As I write from memory and reflect with a new perspective on the words I put down, I see many things in a new light. Past events that at the time I evaluated, sometimes do not match my reassessment today. What I thought and judged years ago, due to my limited knowledge and experience, is not what I thought it was in some instances.
This story is an interesting example of this. At the time, being young and full of myself, I automatically assumed that the promiscuous actions portrayed by this sensual creature were those of a lusting female.  Being a confident young man, filled to the brim with testosterone, the actions would lead me to believe nothing else other than to assume the dolphin was female.
Well, after writing this story, reflecting back and thinking on it, I have had an epiphany. The lustful persistent creature I assumed to be a female was probably in actuality, a very aroused male trying to lure me into an intimate unique act of wonderful inter-species oral copulation!
Dolphins are truly very interesting studies in their pursuit of hedonistic lifestyles . . .

                                                                     The End