Once I’d decided to start from the outside and work my way inside, I grabbed a strip and placed it on. I patted and smoothed it down and then took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. I pulled the skin taut, as taut as I could. I could do this! I was a woman of the world, a brave traveler. I wasShe-who-jumps-out-of-helicoptersandShe-who-runs-from-police. I could do this. And then I ripped . . .
OMG!“Fuck, fuck, fuck it!” The pain. The agony! It exploded through my body and into my brain. I saw stars! I saw fuzzy white spots behind my eyelids, it was so intense I swear I lost conscious momentarily. The pain was blinding. It was disorientating, it was utterly destabilizing and suddenly I found myself falling backwards. I grabbed hold of the counter to stop myself, only to slide off it when one of my hands came down on a strip and slipped across the marble countertop. The other strips all fell to the floor and so did I.
“Ouch!” I winced. There was pain everywhere. My vagina felt like it was on fire, that was a given. My back and head had come into contact with the hard bathroom floor, and on my tumble down, my elbow had collided with the edge of the bath.
I lay there, flat on my back, looking up at the ceiling, catching my breath and coming to terms with what I’d just done to myself. Finally, once I was morecompos mentis, I lifted my hands up and looked at them. In one hand was the wax strip that had caused all the pain. I was at least pleased to see it covered with a layer of hair—at least the pain hadn’t been for nothing. On my other hand, a strip was stuck to my palm. I pulled it off and finally stood up.
I looked at myself in the mirror. “Bloody hell!” I had a neat, clean landing strip running down the left side that didn’t match anything on the right! I couldn’t leave it half undone now,could I?But I certainly didn’t want to wax anymore since the landing strip was a rather alarming shade of red that I was hoping would simmer down before tonight. I turned and was about to reach for the soothing aloe vera cream that had come with the wax kit when I saw my back.
“Nooooo!” I tried to reach behind me, but my arms were not long enough. There, dotted across my back, right in the middle, were three wax strips. I’d seen them fall off the counter and I’d obviously landed on them.
“Shit!” I hissed, trying to bend my arms backwards in yoga-like positions that I had no business even attempting, since I’d never been to yoga in my life. But they remainedjustout of my reach. I took my bra off, hoping that would help. It didn’t.
I looked around the bathroom and saw the detachable shower head. “Yes!” That would do. I climbed into the bath and detached the shower head. And looking over my one shoulder into the mirror, I tried to push the strips off with it, but they were stuck.
“Crapping hell!” They were going nowhere. And now I was left with only one other choice . . .
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Hey, Alex,” I said sweetly into the phone.
“Hey, Val,” he imitated right back.
“So . . . you know how on the first night we met I sort of helped you out with an issue?”
“How can I forget?”
“Well, you know how you said if I ever needed help . . .?”
“Yes?” He sounded tentative. “Are your knees sore again?”
“No, it’s not that body part, per se.”
“What body part do you need help with this time?” His voice had a little lilt to it and for a second I wanted to say something else entirely, but didn’t. “My back,” I said. “I kind of have a waxing emergency.”
“A what?”
“It’s hard to explain, but I need your help,” I said, turning my back to the mirror and looking at the strips again. They had been on there so long, they were making the skin pucker in horrible ripples. “I think you need to hurry. And please bring a razor too, if you have a spare one.” I would need to take a different approach when it came to removing the rest of the hair.
Moments later Alex was knocking on my door. I wrapped a towel around me and waddled to the door. My vajayjay was still stinging and the friction from walking wasn’t helping either. I hoped it would cool down soon, because no one in the club would want me if it looked like I was walking with a bird cage dangling between my legs.
“Hey.” I opened the door and peered at him sheepishly.
“What happened?” he asked, coming in.
“Uh . . .” I turned around and then lowered the towel, exposing my back. “
“Ouch.” I heard him wince and then felt a warm hand come up and touch my back. “Lie down on the bed,” he said.
“Okay,” I said feebly. I walked towards it and climbed on, careful not to let the towel slip too far. I tensed my body and waited.
“Try to relax,” Alex said, sitting down next to me.
“That’s all well and good for you to say,” I mumbled into the bed. “You don’t have strips of sticky devil paper stuck to your body.”
I heard a small chuckle from Alex.
“Hey,” I turned my head, “was I laughing when your face was suffocating under a layer of black muck? No! I don’t think so.”
