Otter's Retreat

Some people call her a ninja. Some people call her Otter. But Cristy Childers calls herself a massage therapist, and a licensed one at that, able to find and knead buried points of tension with precision. As for the nickname, it was given her by her friends and family, and it’s the reason she named her business Otter’s Retreat.

Childers consults with her clients before every massage to pinpoint their areas of tension and permanent body armor. “Massage is a dance,” she writes, and “it takes two people to make it awesome.” Her Western and Eastern massage treatments are all performed in a pristine room with no aromatherapy—Childers deliberately keeps the space scent-free and does not perform massages on smokers to accommodate clients with allergies.