BABY LOVE: Craig Martin is interested in getting to know his clients' extended families-- including their children.   (Photo: Scott Jones)

Architect Christina old was coming off a five-year relationship when she began seeing Williamson for regular massages. It was a rough year, she recalls: “I was going through a breakup. He was easy to talk to; he makes me laugh.”

During and after massage visits, they shared dog stories, both being fond of schnauzers. Lance gave her dating tips and always noticed the things other guys never saw, like her hair-color changes and her moods. After a year of bedside chats, Christina decided to initiate what she refers to as the “professional-social icebreaker.” She invited Lance to her 29th-birthday party at Serena. “He’d heard all my stories,” she explains. “And I was marking the end of a bad year and the beginning of a new year.” That night, Lance spent a lot of time chatting with her ex. He was getting to know her past.

That summer, she decided to up the ante. She took him as a date to a karaoke party in Chinatown. That’s when the relationship took on a new element. They had dinner and drinks, and she got sick. “I was throwing up on the sidewalk,” she says, chuckling. “He took care of me. He began joking: ‘Oh, you ate more than that.’ ”

Christina sounds like she’s sharing one of those “the day we fell in love” stories. Except, in this case, Christina’s connection is with a guy she regularly writes checks to.

An Army brat whose father was a fighter pilot, Williamson comes from a happy family. “My parents are madly in love,” he says. “My brother and sister are my best friends.”

The scents of spearmint and eucalyptus waft through his apartment as he flips through his music collection, sharing CD ideas and making purchasing suggestions: “I try to stay away from Enya.” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t like New Age.”

Williamson, who is gay, left a two-year stint as an interior designer (“too stressful!”) to go out West. He went to Boulder, Colorado, to escape a bad breakup; while there, he realized he could live without the boyfriend—but not without New York City. He came back and enrolled in the Swedish Institute, the Harvard of massage schools.

In his massage room, daisies line the narrow bed and the walls are painted pale green. “The same color,” he notes, “used in the Prada stores.” He talks tulips, pregnancy massages, his propensity to wear all white, and his home-decorating tastes. “Do you see that lamp?” He points to a rectangular light fixture by his couch. “That’s the look.”

How does Williamson feel about all this emotional massaging? “It’s nice to be needed,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to be a housewife. Now I consider myself an overachieving housewife.”

---

On a recent Thursday night at Haru, a trendy Japanese chainlet that also happens to be one of his clients’ favorite gathering spots, Ed Morand is putting out a fire, the kind most boyfriends and husbands get stuck with—and quickly botch.

“Ed, my thighs are getting bigger,” whines a well-dressed (and emaciated) Barneys buyer. Morand raises an eyebrow. “You are like a size 0,” he points out matter-of-factly. Then he goes on to make several sharp physiological points about aging and muscle loss and the importance of toning, and offers the Barneys Thigh Girl the name of a similarly concerned student to chat with. “Ed’s classes are like therapy,” says Joy Sargent, a pregnant real-estate attorney who made Morand the fourth person in her life to know about her pregnancy. “My friends think it’s a cult.” Morand blushes. “That is so flattering to me,” he says.

The girls are nibbling on king-crab dumplings, chatting about wedding bouquets and Comme des Garçons. Morand weaves in and out of the conversations, the lone male presence at a table of six twenty-something women. If he’s like any other straight guy in this city, he’s bored out of his skull. But Morand never seems anything less than fascinated.

“I try to take it to a level that’s different,” he muses later. “I want to know more about the people I work with. I want them to know more about me.”

During a recent class at his Pilates studio, Morand greets a slouching student in soothing tones: “Your energy seems a little muted,” he says.

“I know,” she replies sullenly. “I’ve had a few droopy days.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to say you’ve been drinking for days.”

He laughs affectionately. She laughs, too.

“I’m literally thinking about each student every day,” Morand says at one point.

Besides helping his mostly female students achieve the three A’s—toned arms, abs, and asses—during hour-long group sessions (for which he charges each student around $38 an hour), Morand, the son of a Staten Island church organist, is a part-time songwriter and performer who was once in the traveling companies for West Side Story and A Chorus Line. Last Christmas, he organized a Secret Santa giveaway for the women who attend his studio. He bought feng shui candles and got, in return, a bottle of herbal muscle soak and a Sleep Easy body wash. Sometimes he just gives out hugs.

These added bonuses don’t go unnoticed by the husbands and boyfriends of his happy clients. One of Morand’s students, a pencil-thin design director, tells this story: “My fiancé met Ed at a party, and he was like: ‘Ohhh . . . that’s Ed.’ ” She smiles and shrugs. “I guess they get intimidated.”